I'll be updating and editing this thread on this forums, not to claim credit for this list, but mainly to track my own thought process as I tune this list to my meta, and to gather feedback. The credit for this list goes to Skuloth from the competitiveEDH subreddit and tappedout, although I have made a few personal tweaks, the bulk of the deck was built by him. For reference, his list can be found here:
The reason why I'm leaving this on the forums is for two reasons:
1) I'm not the best deck builder out there, and I appreciate any feedback I can get.
2) My thought process behind card choices may be flawed, and putting this on a forums allows other people to point out these flaws that I wouldn't notice myself.
These are the mana positive rocks in the deck, i.e they generate more mana than they cost. They are crucial to the operation of the deck as they not only ramp you into Ad Nauseam, they help to generate mana post Ad Nauseam for you to continue casting spells. Some of these rocks such as the moxes, and the Lotus Petal generate card disadvantage for you, which necessitates the inclusion of wheel effects to balance the card disadvantage in the deck.
These are the mana negative rocks, i.e they cost more mana than they produce. They are mainly to ramp you into Ad Nauseam, but post Ad Nauseam or wheel, they also, with the exception of Mind Stone, filter colorless mana into colored mana. These are important, but not as important as the mana positive rocks. In order of importance:
Dimir Signet This filters 3 into UB, the 2 most important colors in the deck.
Azorius Signet, Orzhov Signet These filters 3 into UW and BW respectively. While white is not as important, filtering for 2 colors still puts them above the other options.
Mind Stone While this doesn't filter for mana, it cycles, meaning it's rarely a dead draw. The draw has multiple advantages: it can trigger Laboratory Maniac at instant speed and is very hard to counter, and can be done in response to removal as well. It also can help to kick start Doomsday piles
Fellwar StoneWhile this filters for mana, it is unreliable to rely on this for colored mana, making it the weakest of the lot. At least it enters the battlefield untapped.
Helm of Awakening This deserves special mention, because it is either the best or worst mana rock in the deck, depending on how many spells you cast per turn compared to each opponent. Usually, you cast this on the turn you want to combo, making it more often than not the former over the latter. It also turns all your mana negative rocks into mana neutral rocks.
High Tide Another card that deserves special mention, This scales according to the number of untap effects you have, and the number of islands you have. Potentially the most busted ramp spell in the deck.
Mystical Tutor can find most of our action cards, and is obviously the best of this lot. Personal Tutor helps find Toxic Deluge, but more importantly our wheels, which help to offset the card disadvantage that our ramp gives us. Merchant Scroll is probably the weakest card in the entire deck, and acts as High Tide number two, or occasionally helping find additional disruption/protection.
The only sweepers in the deck, their scalability and modularity is unparalleled. They help to protect against early swarms, set up huge tempo swings later on in the game, and gets rid of problem permanents. Both also happen to go under Gaddock Teeg. The life used for Toxic Deluge makes Ad Nauseam weaker, but we can't have everything for 3 mana.
Helps remove problem permanents temporarily, most often before we combo. Can also help save our nonland permanents in a pinch. This can also generate mana by bouncing our Mana Crypt or Mana Vault, essentially filtering U into 2. With both out, this can also mean "Sacrifice a land: add 2 to your mana pool". It's relative weakness is made up for by its amazing versatility.
We are minimizing interaction to focus on the combo. Whatever interaction we play will have to be the best available. Swords to Plowshares is the best removal spell in our colors.
These are answers that can be fetched by Zur. Detention Sphere is a catch-all answer, while Darksteel Mutation mainly serves to answer problematic commanders. Zur's ability allows it to bypass hexproof and shroud, making it an easy answer to commanders such as Narset, Enlightened Master and Geist of Saint Traft, as well as commanders such as Yisan, the Wanderer Bard that can easily recast their commanders from the commander zone if dealt with traditionally.
The unconditional counters that can protect our combo, or disrupt opponents. I'm not sure which is weaker between Arcane Denial and Counterspell, but within this lot I'm more inclined to cut the Counterspell since it is slightly weaker in a multiplayer context.
The conditional counterspells, used mainly to protect our combo. These are basically the cheapest counterspells that fulfil this function. While there are other options available, such as Flusterstorm and Mental Misstep, the former is expensive and a card I don't yet own, and the latter is far too narrow for my liking.
These are basically metagame calls. Shadow of Doubt either counters a tutor, or sometimes just becomes a Sinkhole that draws a card. Stifle helps disrupts opponents, and can either stall combos, or negate them entirely.
This is the best card in this category. It becomes even better given that this deck has a lot of ways to shuffle the library. The card draw also helps trigger Laboratory Maniac and kick start Doomsday piles, but for the latter, some additional thought has to go into setting up the pile.
In terms of card advantage, these are usually +1. They are basically the beast options available in these colors, and the cheapest as well, with Gush often costing no mana.
The single card that this deck is built to abuse. With an average CMC of 1.93, we can draw an average of 15-20 cards off this alone, which is often enough to win the game. There's a reason why this deck tries to find and cast this ASAP.
Another card that generates insane amount of card advantage, it does so over a period of time. Hence, it serves as a viable backup plan if the Ad Nauseam plan falls through. This is almost always the first Zur target.
This deck empties it's hand rather quickly, meaning that these wheels often draw you more cards than it does your opponents. With Notion Thief out, these basically win you the game on their own, leaving opponents with no hand and you with 28 cards in hand.
This remains in the deck to enable the most efficient Doomsday pile. Since Doomsday searches through your graveyard too, it can just cycle pre Doomsday.
This can give you information the turn you go off. More importantly, this enables efficient Doomsday pile allowing you to draw a card for no mana. As with above, you can easily just cycle this pre Doomsday.
This card scales in accordance to the size of your graveyard, it's value ranging from insane, to broken. It enables some of the most mana efficient Doomsday piles, enables you to retry failed Ad Nauseams, and basically does almost everything.
A Doomsday enabler, cycling makes it barely good enough to deserve a slot, again by enabling efficient Doomsday piles while not being entirely useless outside of it.
Our core strategy relies so much on Laboratory Maniac that we want a way to be able to get it back if an opponents removes it from our deck, hand, or graveyard. As I diversify our win conditions, such as including Helm of Obedience/Rest in Peace, this will get the cut, especially if the meta falls on mill/exile from library effect, i.e Jeleva.
Enables a two card combo with Ad Nauseam, which we want to cast anyway. While Phyrexian Unlife and Soul Echo can be fetched by Zur, they leave us open to blowouts by enchantment removal, especially Krosan Grip.
I want to pull the deck focus away from a all in fast combo deck, to a midrange deck with the potential for fast combo.
Rip Helm is a step towards this direction.
I want to try adding a Solitary Confinement. While it doesn't contribute to the combo plan, against aggressive tables, it preserves your life total for Necropotence and Ad Nauseam.
Power Artifact is promising as an infinite mana combo, but we don't have anything to do with that mana. Exsanguinate might make the cut as a way to pad our life total to enable stronger Ad Nauseams, and also as a way to channel this infinite mana. I'm not sure if there are alternatively to this as an outlet for infinite mana. If those 2 cards go through, I could foresee cutting pull from eternity and tormod's crypt.
Cards that are on the chopping board for now:
Pull from Eternity
Merchant Scroll
Tormod's Crypt
Fellwar Stone
As much as I want to change the deck, I still want to maintain its average CMC below 2 at all times. This means any changes can only increase the total CMC of the deck by 7.
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Link to deck @ TappedOut.net
The reason why I'm leaving this on the forums is for two reasons:
1) I'm not the best deck builder out there, and I appreciate any feedback I can get.
2) My thought process behind card choices may be flawed, and putting this on a forums allows other people to point out these flaws that I wouldn't notice myself.
Without further ado, this is the list.
1x Ad Nauseam
1x Angel's Grace
1x Arcane Denial
1x Brainstorm
1x Cabal Ritual
1x Counterspell
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Dark Ritual
1x Dispel
1x Force of Will
1x Frantic Search
1x Gush
1x High Tide
1x Impulse
1x Stifle
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Negate
1x Pact of Negation
1x Predict
1x Pull from Eternity
1x Shadow of Doubt
1x Silence
1x Spell Pierce
1x Swan Song
1x Swords to Plowshares
1x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Turnabout
1x Vampiric Tutor
1x Dark Petition
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Doomsday
1x Gitaxian Probe
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Personal tutor
1x Night's Whisper
1x Ponder
1x Preordain
1x Time Spiral
1x Timetwister
1x Toxic Deluge
1x Unearth
1x Void Snare
1x Windfall
1x Yawgmoth's Will
Creatures
1x Laboratory Maniac
1x Notion Thief
1x Snapcaster Mage
Artifacts
1x Azorius Signet
1x Chrome Mox
1x Dimir Signet
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Helm of Awakening
1x Lion's Eye Diamond
1x Helm of Obedience
1x Lotus Petal
1x Mana Crypt
1x Mana Vault
1x Mind Stone
1x Mox Diamond
1x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Grim Monolith
1x Orzhov Signet
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Sol Ring
1x Talisman of Dominance
1x Talisman of Progress
1x Tormod's Crypt
1x Bloodstained Mire
1x Command Tower
1x Flooded Strand
1x Godless Shrine
1x Hallowed Fountain
15x Island
1x Polluted Delta
1x Prairie Stream
1x Sunken Hollow
2x Swamp
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Watery Grave
1x Windswept Heath
Enchantments
1x Darksteel Mutation
1x Detention Sphere
1x Rest in Peace
1x Necropotence
Link to deck @ TappedOut.net
Average CMC: 1.93
This deck has a few routes to victory. The primary route is to resolve Ad Nauseam, drawing a bunch of cards and facilitating a Doomsday win.
Alternative routes include:
Notion Thief + Wheel effect to effectively draw 7 for each player in the game and empty everyone else's hand.
Ad Nauseam + Angel's Grace to draw your deck and set up Laboratory Maniac
Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience to exile a player's library.
I want to pull the deck focus away from a all in fast combo deck, to a midrange deck with the potential for fast combo.
Rip Helm is a step towards this direction.
I want to try adding a Solitary Confinement. While it doesn't contribute to the combo plan, against aggressive tables, it preserves your life total for Necropotence and Ad Nauseam.
Power Artifact is promising as an infinite mana combo, but we don't have anything to do with that mana. Exsanguinate might make the cut as a way to pad our life total to enable stronger Ad Nauseams, and also as a way to channel this infinite mana. I'm not sure if there are alternatively to this as an outlet for infinite mana. If those 2 cards go through, I could foresee cutting pull from eternity and tormod's crypt.
Cards that are on the chopping board for now:
Pull from Eternity
Merchant Scroll
Tormod's Crypt
Fellwar Stone
As much as I want to change the deck, I still want to maintain its average CMC below 2 at all times. This means any changes can only increase the total CMC of the deck by 7.