A lot of hype surrounding Mairsil has included caging multiple effects via blink, granting haste, and then comboing off. While possible, this line of play requires an intense amount of setup and mana. For example, a popular combo circulating is:
This combo allows Mairsil to generate infinite turns. In the worst case scenario, a player would cast Mairsil twice to cage both Sage and Anthroplasm. After caging twice, Mairsil would need an additional 5 colorless and a haste enabler.
Casting Mairsil to cage the last combo piece, then proceeding to go off seems like the safest route. Therefore, the entire combo would cost 8UBR and a haste enabler. This combo also requires Sage and Anthroplasm taking up two spots. Until caged, Sage and Anthroplasm do not synergize and will do nothing to advance the board state or facilitate alternative play lines.
In the best case scenario, a blink effect or Panharmonicon would allow Mairsil to cage both Sage and Anthroplasm. With a haste effect, Mairsil could potentially kill in a single turn. While better, this situation requires the use of more pieces on board or in hand. For the blink effect, players would need something like Essence Flux, Deadeye Navigator, or Panharmonicon. Similar to the first combo situation, Essence Flux and Deadeye alone don't easily synergize with the other 99. Panharmonicon does support Mairsil, but may not necessarily support the 99.
This decklist takes Mairsil in a different direction: run combos where individual pieces have impact and treat Mairsil as a flexible combo piece. Rather than depend on Mairsil caging multiple things for complex lines, the deck utilizes accessible and simple combo lines.
NOTE: These combos will also work if Mairsil cages either Memnarch or Walking Ballista as part of their respective combo lines. If Mairsil cages Quicksilver Elemental, then we can infinite activate these abilities. This allows Mairsil to act as a customizable combo piece in the Command Zone---a repeatable and always accessible line to victory.
Imprinted on Mairsil: Staff of Domination + any mana rock that generates 2+ mana.
For the aforementioned colorless combos, adding Staff of Domination to all methods allow us to draw our deck. Adding Sensei's Divining Top to method 2 also allows us to draw our deck.
Unlike most combos theorized for Mairsil, these combos can exist by themselves and synergize with one another. In addition, Grixis colors provide an easy way to tutor and recur artifacts. Blue grants us access to cards like Fabricate, and Transmute Artifact. Red brings Trash for Treasure, Goblin Welder, Daretti, Scrap Savant, and Scrap Mastery for additional artifact support.
Why These Combos?
A majority of the other proposed combo pieces (ie: Knacksaw Clique, Pili-Pala, Horseshoe Crab, Anthroplasm, etc.) don't stand alone. With a limited number of deck slots, combo pieces need to bring value and synergy without Mairsil. When initially designing the deck, I picked combos easily tutored in Grixis and could present a threat when not caged.
As such, our decklist doesn't lean heavily on Mairsil as a necessary win condition. In the event a part of the combo gets removed, Mairsil can permanently recur it via a cage counter. Some pieces, such as Mycosynth Lattice, do not apply here. However, the deck runs a number of other recursion methods in the event we lose a critical piece.
Cage Priority Targets
In any game of EDH, Mairsil will want to cage Quicksilver Elemental. Without this ability, Mairsil becomes less potent as a combo piece in the Command Zone. If Quicksilver appears in the opening hand, players may want to keep the hand (permitting enough lands and playability).
If Quicksilver doesn't appear right away, players will want to keep an eye out for the following cards:
If caged, any of these 7 cards allow us to move towards a winning strategy. Also, please assume that if a card is caged and can go infinite as a Mairsil ability, we have already caged Quicksilver Elemental as well.
Cavern Harpy - Provides a bounce effect that doesn't require mana.
Basalt Monolith - Infinite colorless with Rings of Brighthearth
Staff of Domination - Can draw entire deck with infinite colorless. Can generate infinite colorless if Mairsil has something like Sol Ring caged and Staff of Domination caged. By itself, Staff gives Mairsil some additional utility.
Goblin Welder - Mairsil now becomes a repeatable effect in the Command Zone.
Metalworker - Infinite colorless with Staff of Domination.
Memnarch - Win condition. Memnarch's first ability also can turn Mairsil into an artifact. This allows Mairsil to synergize with Power Artifact (if Mairsil has Basalt/Grim Monolith caged), Trash for Treasure, Daretti's minus ability, and Goblin Welder.
This leaves everything else as lesser priority for caging.
Interesting Cage Combinations
Apart from the already listed cage targets, the deck has some additional interesting interactions.
Quicksilver Elemental + Cavern Harpy - For a single blue, we can now try to bounce Mairsil back to our hand (remaining life permitting).
Sensei's Divining Top - If Mairsil has haste, he can protect himself via Top's activation.
Playstyle
The deck wants to start working towards a combo line immediately. The "infinite colorless + Walking Ballista" requires the least amount of pieces to combo off. Of the infinite colorless combo lines, the "Power Artifact + any monolith" line only requires two pieces. Therefore, any hands containing of the aforementioned pieces may qualify as playable hands.
However, infinite colorless alone will not win. Infinite colorless only grants a win condition in the event we can draw our entire deck or find Walking Ballista. Once infinite colorless becomes viable, players should look at either digging directly for a combo piece or discarding a combo piece. Playing a combo piece allows us to combo off without needing Mairsil and Quicksilver Elemental. Conversely, caging a combo finisher right away means we will always have the finisher available. Players will need to assess when to directly the combo piece vs. caging it for later use.
This might sound weird, but have you considered dropping the counter spells? Statistically speaking, having only eight in the deck, you have less than a 50% chance to have ONE in your starting hand. 60% to see another by turn four, and so on (I believe the math is correct? Relying on Google). I understand wanting a few in the arsenal, but if you're trying the combo you mentioned in your intro that requires eleven mana... you might not have any free to counter anyone trying to stop you. Assuming you've drawn one at all.
I would suggest playtesting with no counters, but filling those spots with more draw or top deck manipulation to speed you to combo faster. Then if something is exiled, you still have the tools to dig for another piece.
The idea isn't to use all 11 mana in one go. That's if we're going to cage all necessary pieces in a single turn. From goldfishing the deck, the path to combo is more like a slow crawl. Usual cage targets are Cavern Harpy and Quicksilver. From there, Mairsil will always cost 1UUBR and whatever life we have to pay out. The only time we'll ever have Mairsil cost more than that is if he gets countered.
I contemplated taking out counters, but there isn't actually enough good top deck manipulation or draw to really go there. I'd actually want to include more control elements or maybe some midrange threats.
For any infinite combo involving Mairsil, assume Mairsil has already activated Quicksilver's ability.
Mindslaver sacrifices itself as part of the cost. It's not a good cage target. Even then, Mindslaver is not great in multiplayer pods. For it's cost, it's inefficient. Recycling it each turn is also Mana intensive.
With Quicksilver Elemental's ability caged by Mairsil, the combos work. Assume that any infinite combo with Mairsil has this condition fulfilled.
Crystal Shard provides little utility outside of protection for Mairsil. For a 3 drop artifact, it's not worth an entire card slot. Cavern Harpy is an exception because it's a self bounce option we can use in the event we tap out.
Caging Baby Jace will not get us the Planeswalker side abilities. This changed with Shadow over Innistrad and how transformed cards work.
That isn't true, the Shadows over Innistrad rules changed how a card with no backside responds to being transformed because Necrotic Ooze and FlipJace was a thing then, it was changed so a card trying to transform that can not would just be exiled instead.
Jace doesn't transform, he exiles himself and comes back transformed. What I'm saying is the the commander could effectively blink infinitely using the tap ability. It just depends on what happens when it asks a single sided card to transform.
What I'm getting at is:
Mairsil enters, exiling jace with a cage counter
Tap mairsil with 5 card in the graveyard: mairsil exiles, can't transform, re-enters the battlefield, caging the next card
Tap jace's ability, repeat
My bad. I thought you were trying to ask if it would get the Planeswalker abilities.
As Taleran explained, Baby Jace would not be a great cage target (unless we desperately needed a looter). It would've been nice though to have a repeatable form of exile. I prefer Cavern Harpy over Aetherling here. With Quicksilver Elemental, we get to save Mairsil as much as our life permits us to do so. With Aetherling, we're restricted by how much blue is available. Since I'm running counterspells and plenty of blue instants, the restriction on blue seems a bit much.
I like the Cavern Harpy direction a lot and it will def be in whatever version of this guy I cobble together putting Marisil back to hand brings up an interesting possibility in Sneak Attack which provides haste and then we already have multiple ways to either flicker, exile or put him back to hand (to potentially sneak right back out) depending on gamestate and what is available / is caged.
So first off, Tawnos's Coffin is a non-bo with Mairsil. If you target Mairsil with the exile ability on the Coffin, Mairsil gets exiled before the ability finishes resolving with the 'return this to the battlefield' delayed trigger. This means that Mairsil will just stay exiled permanently.
Secondly, I like the idea of wanting to set up the deck in a fashion that makes it so you don't need Mairsil. However, I believe not having certain cards in just because they don't go well on their own, it kind of not building a deck to it's full potential. An example of this is the exclusion of Pili-Pala. Just by having Pili-Pala, Quicksilver Elemental, and either Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith exiled, you have access to infinite mana of any colour. This means any of your other comboes just go insane. As is, there is no good way to untap Mairsil to make good use of his abilities outside of Staff of Domination. And even with the staff, you have to jump through a lot more hoops to generate that blue mana for the Quicksilver Elemental's ability.
I think the goal should be to build a deck that abuses the ***** out of Mairsil, but has ways to win without has as a backup plan. As opposed to the other way around
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
So I was a little bored at work today, so I compiled a list of all the playable (in my opinion) artifacts and creatures that you would want to exile with Mairsil, the Pretender. I've gone and split them up into categories, so you may see some cards repeated a few times. I'm posting this in hopes of opening discussion as to what the best cards to use for the deck would be. Without further ado...enjoy
Technically speaking, Disciple of the Ring and Umezawa's Jitte each have 1 ability, but because that ability can do multiple things, I have them listed here. Though it is important to note, that while the ability can do 3 or more different things, it can still only be used once.
3 is the magic number here with concerns to mana production. Most activated abilities you can use to untap Mairsil cost 2 mana, so by tapping for 3 or more, you are able to net mana once you become able to cycle through abilities. What's really fun is what you can do with Mairsil if you decide to abuse Charge Counters. Which brings us to the next list...
Gemstone Array and Jinxed Choker are the two best cards to use to put charge counters on Mairsil since it only costs mana, and doesn't require you to tap or do anything fancy. But once those counters are there, oh boy do you get to go wild with the things you can do. Just between Everflowing Chalice and Astral Cornucopia you get a hell of a lot of mana. Magistrate's Scepter essentially lets you get infinite turns, Lux Cannon destroys anything that is a problem for you.....this looks like fun.
Let's face it, a lot of Activated abilities have tapping as part of their cost. So the best way to get a lot of ability uses out of Marsil is to give him a way to untap himself. Hell, give him a lot of ways to untap himself.
People are going to target Mairsil with removal. You can basically guarantee it. As such having a way for him to keep himself alive is wonderful. Whether that be him blinking himself, giving himself shroud, or changing the spell's target, as long as Mairsil is alive in the end that is all that matters.
And here we have listed everything else that wasn't listed above. Basically I just looked at creatures and thought if it would be fun for their ability to be stapled to Mairsil. Some creatures like Minion of Leshrac honestly have abilities that should be on an expensive creature, so being able to essentially cheat them onto our general is pretty powerful.
Hope you all get some amusement and thought from this list and such. I look forward to seeing people's decks, and am looking forward to building my own.
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Modern Decks: UBG Lantern Control GBU BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
* Soul of New Phyrexia (protection with indestructible)
* Argent Sphinx (cheap protection by exiling until end of turn if you have enough artifacts in play)
* Hateflayer (untaps and deals damage)
* Knacksaw Clique (another cheap untap ability with an interesting ability)
Sorry to burst your bubbles, but when the quicksilver elemental triggers it copies the once per turn clause. You would need to produce a blue mana every time you copy the abilities. That isn't exactly difficult, but it is another hurdle to overcome.
Sorry to burst your bubbles, but when the quicksilver elemental triggers it copies the once per turn clause. You would need to produce a blue mana every time you copy the abilities. That isn't exactly difficult, but it is another hurdle to overcome.
Yeah that is annoying. You may need to add pila pala back as means to get blue mana access, so between pila pala and gilded lotus, you would have infinit3 colored mana to do whatever.
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To the people that say that a card needs to be a higher rarity because of Limited... I hate you guys so much. I present to you with this.
What do you have that I cannot obtain?
A lot of hype surrounding Mairsil has included caging multiple effects via blink, granting haste, and then comboing off. While possible, this line of play requires an intense amount of setup and mana. For example, a popular combo circulating is:
Sage of Hours + Anthroplasm
This combo allows Mairsil to generate infinite turns. In the worst case scenario, a player would cast Mairsil twice to cage both Sage and Anthroplasm. After caging twice, Mairsil would need an additional 5 colorless and a haste enabler.
Casting Mairsil to cage the last combo piece, then proceeding to go off seems like the safest route. Therefore, the entire combo would cost 8UBR and a haste enabler. This combo also requires Sage and Anthroplasm taking up two spots. Until caged, Sage and Anthroplasm do not synergize and will do nothing to advance the board state or facilitate alternative play lines.
In the best case scenario, a blink effect or Panharmonicon would allow Mairsil to cage both Sage and Anthroplasm. With a haste effect, Mairsil could potentially kill in a single turn. While better, this situation requires the use of more pieces on board or in hand. For the blink effect, players would need something like Essence Flux, Deadeye Navigator, or Panharmonicon. Similar to the first combo situation, Essence Flux and Deadeye alone don't easily synergize with the other 99. Panharmonicon does support Mairsil, but may not necessarily support the 99.
This decklist takes Mairsil in a different direction: run combos where individual pieces have impact and treat Mairsil as a flexible combo piece. Rather than depend on Mairsil caging multiple things for complex lines, the deck utilizes accessible and simple combo lines.
0 Walking Ballista
2 Power Artifact
3 Basalt Monolith
3 Rings of Brighthearth
3 Staff of Domination
5 Quicksilver Elemental
7 Memnarch
7 Mycosynth Lattice
Ramp (12)
0 Mana Crypt
0 Mox Diamond
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
2 Dimir Signet
2 Fellwar Stone
2 Grim Monolith
2 Izzet Signet
2 Rakdos Signet
2 Talisman of Indulgence
2 Talisman of Dominance
3 Metalworker
Draw (7)
1 Faithless Looting
1 Mystic Remora
2 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Necropotence
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Windfall
Tutor (12)
1 Entomb
1 Gamble
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
2 Demonic Tutor
2 Muddle the Mixture
2 Transmute Artifact
3 Buried Alive
3 Fabricate
3 Intuition
5 Kuldotha Forgemaster
5 Tezzeret the Seeker
0 Pact of Negation
1 Pyroblast
1 Red Elemental Blast
1 Swan Song
2 Arcane Denial
2 Counterspell
2 Negate
5 Force of Will
Removal (6)
1 Vandalblast
2 Cyclonic Rift
3 Chaos Warp
3 Toxic Deluge
4 Damnation
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
Utility (11)
1 Goblin Welder
1 Sensei's Divining Top
2 Cavern Harpy
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Snapcaster Mage
3 Dack Fayden
3 Trash for Treasure
4 Daretti, Scrap Savant
4 Leyline of Anticipation
4 Vedalken Orrery
5 Scrap Mastery
Lands (35)
1 Academy Ruins
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Arid Mesa
1 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 City of Brass
1 Command Beacon
1 Command Tower
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Flooded Strand
1 Forbidden Orchard
4 Island
1 Mana Confluence
1 Marsh Flats
3 Mountain
1 Polluted Delta
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Shivan Reef
1 Steam Vents
1 Sulfurous Springs
3 Swamp
1 Underground River
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
1 Wooded Foothills
Mairsil's combo potential should follow 3 criteria:
The deck can generate infinite colorless by:
Unlike most combos theorized for Mairsil, these combos can exist by themselves and synergize with one another. In addition, Grixis colors provide an easy way to tutor and recur artifacts. Blue grants us access to cards like Fabricate, and Transmute Artifact. Red brings Trash for Treasure, Goblin Welder, Daretti, Scrap Savant, and Scrap Mastery for additional artifact support.
Why These Combos?
A majority of the other proposed combo pieces (ie: Knacksaw Clique, Pili-Pala, Horseshoe Crab, Anthroplasm, etc.) don't stand alone. With a limited number of deck slots, combo pieces need to bring value and synergy without Mairsil. When initially designing the deck, I picked combos easily tutored in Grixis and could present a threat when not caged.
As such, our decklist doesn't lean heavily on Mairsil as a necessary win condition. In the event a part of the combo gets removed, Mairsil can permanently recur it via a cage counter. Some pieces, such as Mycosynth Lattice, do not apply here. However, the deck runs a number of other recursion methods in the event we lose a critical piece.
In any game of EDH, Mairsil will want to cage Quicksilver Elemental. Without this ability, Mairsil becomes less potent as a combo piece in the Command Zone. If Quicksilver appears in the opening hand, players may want to keep the hand (permitting enough lands and playability).
If Quicksilver doesn't appear right away, players will want to keep an eye out for the following cards:
Apart from the already listed cage targets, the deck has some additional interesting interactions.
The deck wants to start working towards a combo line immediately. The "infinite colorless + Walking Ballista" requires the least amount of pieces to combo off. Of the infinite colorless combo lines, the "Power Artifact + any monolith" line only requires two pieces. Therefore, any hands containing of the aforementioned pieces may qualify as playable hands.
However, infinite colorless alone will not win. Infinite colorless only grants a win condition in the event we can draw our entire deck or find Walking Ballista. Once infinite colorless becomes viable, players should look at either digging directly for a combo piece or discarding a combo piece. Playing a combo piece allows us to combo off without needing Mairsil and Quicksilver Elemental. Conversely, caging a combo finisher right away means we will always have the finisher available. Players will need to assess when to directly the combo piece vs. caging it for later use.
This might sound weird, but have you considered dropping the counter spells? Statistically speaking, having only eight in the deck, you have less than a 50% chance to have ONE in your starting hand. 60% to see another by turn four, and so on (I believe the math is correct? Relying on Google). I understand wanting a few in the arsenal, but if you're trying the combo you mentioned in your intro that requires eleven mana... you might not have any free to counter anyone trying to stop you. Assuming you've drawn one at all.
I would suggest playtesting with no counters, but filling those spots with more draw or top deck manipulation to speed you to combo faster. Then if something is exiled, you still have the tools to dig for another piece.
Food for thought!
I contemplated taking out counters, but there isn't actually enough good top deck manipulation or draw to really go there. I'd actually want to include more control elements or maybe some midrange threats.
I'm not sure this works because Mairsil can't activate the same ability over and over again. How come no Mindslaver?
Mindslaver sacrifices itself as part of the cost. It's not a good cage target. Even then, Mindslaver is not great in multiplayer pods. For it's cost, it's inefficient. Recycling it each turn is also Mana intensive.
Crystal Shard provides little utility outside of protection for Mairsil. For a 3 drop artifact, it's not worth an entire card slot. Cavern Harpy is an exception because it's a self bounce option we can use in the event we tap out.
Caging Baby Jace will not get us the Planeswalker side abilities. This changed with Shadow over Innistrad and how transformed cards work.
My bad. I thought you were trying to ask if it would get the Planeswalker abilities.
As Taleran explained, Baby Jace would not be a great cage target (unless we desperately needed a looter). It would've been nice though to have a repeatable form of exile. I prefer Cavern Harpy over Aetherling here. With Quicksilver Elemental, we get to save Mairsil as much as our life permits us to do so. With Aetherling, we're restricted by how much blue is available. Since I'm running counterspells and plenty of blue instants, the restriction on blue seems a bit much.
Secondly, I like the idea of wanting to set up the deck in a fashion that makes it so you don't need Mairsil. However, I believe not having certain cards in just because they don't go well on their own, it kind of not building a deck to it's full potential. An example of this is the exclusion of Pili-Pala. Just by having Pili-Pala, Quicksilver Elemental, and either Grim Monolith or Basalt Monolith exiled, you have access to infinite mana of any colour. This means any of your other comboes just go insane. As is, there is no good way to untap Mairsil to make good use of his abilities outside of Staff of Domination. And even with the staff, you have to jump through a lot more hoops to generate that blue mana for the Quicksilver Elemental's ability.
I think the goal should be to build a deck that abuses the ***** out of Mairsil, but has ways to win without has as a backup plan. As opposed to the other way around
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
5 Disciple of the Ring
6 Endbringer
6 Mist Dragon
5 Morphling
3 Staff of Domination
5 Torchling
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Basalt Monolith
3 Coalition Relic
6 Dreamstone Hedron
0 Everflowing Chalice
4 Gemstone Array
5 Gilded Lotus
2 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Vault
3 Metalworker
2 Pili-Pala
4 Thran Dynamo
4 Arcane Spyglass
0 Astral Cornucopia
0 Chimeric Mass
3 Coalition Relic
0 Everflowing Chalice
4 Gemstone Array
3 Golem Foundry
2 Grindclock
3 Jinxed Choker
4 Lux Cannon
3 Magistrate's Scepter
2 Umezawa's Jitte
5 Disciple of the Ring
5 Eater of the Dead
2 Grim Monolith
5 Grimgrin, Corpse-born
3 Horseshoe Crab
7 Mage-Ring Responder
4 Merrow Grimeblotter
5 Merrow Wavebreakers
5 Morphling
7 Phyrexian Colossus
2 Pili-Pala
5 Soliton
3 Staff of Domination
5 Torchling
5 Vigilant Drake
4 Voltaic Construct
6 Arcanis the Omnipotent
2 Cavern Harpy
4 Darkling Stalker
3 Deepwood Ghoul
5 Disciple of the Ring
3 Ertai, Wizard Adept
6 Mist Dragon
2 Mistfolk
5 Morphling
5 Prognostic Sphinx
6 Quicksilver Dragon
5 Silver Wyvern
3 Stronghold Biologist
3 Stronghold Machinist
5 Torchling
3 Urborg Phantom
6 Arcanis the Omnipotent
8 Avatar of Woe
3 Blighted Bat
5 Chainer, Dementia Master
3 Dark Imposter
6 Demonic Hordes
5 Dralnu, Lich Lord
5 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
5 Empress Galina
5 Epitaph Golem
6 Geth, Lord of the Vault
8 Infernal Denizen
7 Memnarch
7 Minion of Leshrac
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
4 Power Matrix
5 Quicksilver Elemental
6 Steel Hellkite
4 Tree of Perdition
0 Walking Ballista
2 Withered Wretch
Hope you all get some amusement and thought from this list and such. I look forward to seeing people's decks, and am looking forward to building my own.
Modern Decks:
UBG Lantern Control GBU
BRG Bridge-Vine GRB
Commander Decks
UBG Muldrotha, Value Elemental GBU
BRG Windgrace Real-Estate Ltd. GRB
#PayThePros
* Shauku, Endbringer (exiles a creature)
* Soul of New Phyrexia (protection with indestructible)
* Argent Sphinx (cheap protection by exiling until end of turn if you have enough artifacts in play)
* Hateflayer (untaps and deals damage)
* Knacksaw Clique (another cheap untap ability with an interesting ability)
* Magus of the Bazaar (card draw)
* Jace's Archivist (card draw)
* Havengul Lich (let's you get creatures from a graveyard)
* The Scarab God (let's you get creatures from a graveyard)
* Sakashima the Impostor (gives you another copy of Mairsil, the Pretender)
With all of the possible tap abilities floating around, I think Thousand-Year Elixir and Minamo, School at Water's Edge should have a place as well.
Yeah that is annoying. You may need to add pila pala back as means to get blue mana access, so between pila pala and gilded lotus, you would have infinit3 colored mana to do whatever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY8h2vp5Xis