There is literally too many things to do with this commander, too many choices, too many creatures, I am crippled by the amount of choices. Let me describe my meta and maybe you can help.
1 guy playing mill, hand destruction, land destruction, etc. (anything DBag)
1 crazy critter rush guy, plays many decks same theme, smash face by turn 5, I have to wipe him every game or he mows through people.
1 Me, I play combo/control most of the time
others, mostly creature based decks,
So i have to tune this for light removal and heavy creature beats. Ideas ?
..
I mean depends on how much creature removal you encounter from opponents? Because you can build the deck to just win with activating Prime Speaker Vannifar, meaning she'll beat out the decks you mentioned most times, as a mana creature will mean you'll win Turn 4 most games. That's assuming casting her on Turn 3. Turn 4 is faster than Turn 5 creature beats.
The other thing is that you shouldn't care too much about hand disruption either, and you'll be faster than land destruction most games.
About the only thing that is a little unpleasant is milling cards that you'd ordinarily want to search up with Prime Speaker Vannifar.
But even then you can adjust your deck to have cards to make sure that you're OK with some creatures in your graveyard, like Loaming Shaman, Nantuko Tracer, Eternal Witness, to name a few.
There is always a way to get around situations, when you can essentially search for any creature in your deck.
Are you happy to play a one turn win combo deck? If so then there are a number of ways to do this. Please check out the 'Combo Chain' section for how you might want to setup your wins.
Took the original idea and played several test games before making tweaks. Some things I noticed were that mox diamond was where I wanted to be over mana vault. This is a personal opinion but I found the early acceleration more useful than a 1 drop accelerator simply because the one drop slot already has many accelerant options. The next thing I noticed was the clunky aspect of joraga treespeaker. This card came out in my changeup and in went wirewood symboite for more synergy. As you can also see I added a reclamation sage, a manglehorn, and a kraul harpooner. the sage and manglehorn let me deal with problem artifacts while the harpooner gives me an out to things like aven mind censor, flip bolas, etc.
Some things i felt like the deck was still missing and will address at a later date is wrath protection. So cards like wrap in vigor, heroic intervention, etc will be tested. Also, I feel like the at least personally I will be taking out tooth and nail as it feels like a win more card and in its place probably natural order or chord not sure yet its on my to test list.
Overall though list felt good from the front page and will continue to work with it and hopefully this group can work towards an optimized list for each step of the budget spectrum so that way everyone can feel the pod love.
I don't think that there are enough Lands in the Deck to get rid of 1 to Mox Diamond.. You'd just end up missing a Land drop as a result. But I'm not a fan of Mana Vault, either, so I'll probably cut it. (Sadly I had to cut LED, too; it felt too all in.)
Out of 30 plus games ive had no problem with diamond but that sample size is small. Like I said I think its fine but that's me I prefer to err on the lower side of lands but it is pleasant to see we have some mutual understanding as to vault shouldn't be in the list ^.^
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
merfolk-playing
rug cantripshift-back in the binder
ad nauseum-meh
rg ponza/12 moon- trolling
esper death shadow- built and learning
All hail the mighty luck sack walking ballista may he reign supreme- So declares Harambe
Out of 30 plus games ive had no problem with diamond but that sample size is small. Like I said I think its fine but that's me I prefer to err on the lower side of lands but it is pleasant to see we have some mutual understanding as to vault shouldn't be in the list ^.^
Well it's good that you've had a good experience with Mox Diamond. It's been an enigma in general with needing 3 lands in play for the combo, you know it's not trivial that you draw 4 lands during an early game if looking to exploded off the mark, which is what you'd be doing with a Mox Diamond play.
But I'd never cut Mana Vault, as it's both early play and good late game if Prime Speaker Vannifar has been removed and you're looking to pay for commander tax.
Being able to cast Prime Speaker Vannifar with it, and giving you the ability to hold up colored mana for protection and disruption is a great advantage.
Even it's ability to pay for casting Thousand-Year Elixir, allowing you to hold up protection mana is good as well.
I don't know, it would take a lot to take me off Mana Vault personally.
I'm going to give Mox Diamond a go, just mentally tick off how many games it was good and if it caused awkward plays with missing land drops for the greater combo.
So, I went to play cards tonight, and crushed my first two games with my Inalla deck, and was told by the guy who runs commander at my LGS that infinite combos are not "spirit of edh" and that my decks were too competitive. (since he does not run answers just creatures), even though the guy telling me this runs a landfall deck that can swing for lethal in 5 turns on average if you don't board wipe. So all this being said, I am wondering if there might be a way to make this deck into something with no combo, just toolbox and big stompy? Ideas?
Today's card(s) focus is on.. Galvanic AlchemistVigean Graftmage
These are some creatures that can untap other creatures, but also have the ability to do it multiple times (unlimited) at the cost of mana.
They are both Three Drop and blue creatures. This means that you can't use Green Sun's Zenith, Summoner's Pact or Woodland Bellower to search for them. Vigean Graftmage specifically needs a creature to have a +1/+1 counter on it. Even though it has graft, this means that you can only put the counters from it as the creature enters play. In this regard, using Prime Speaker Vannifar to put it into play, means that you can't specifically use the graft to give Prime Speaker Vannifar a counter. Meaning you need some other way of putting counters on her. I will discuss this further on.
If you wanted to play these cards then it leads into wanting the play other creatures that have activation's probably as well.
Now Deadeye Navigator already has an activation cost of 1U and so with these cards you can then use Cloud of Faeries as another way to get infinite mana.
Temur Sabertooth is another creature that can benefit from a reduced activation cost. Possibly opening up infinite's that you are looking to combine with it.
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard would only cost G which would open up some doors for particular builds.
Alright so can we sequence into Galvanic Alchemist or Vigean Graftmage in a way that's going to allow us to win with Prime Speaker Vannifar?
Well the answer depends on how much mana you have and if you have another creature to sacrifice to Prime Speaker Vannifar?
You can obviously sacrifice a Two Drop to get Galvanic Alchemist, but then you'll need 2U and another creature to even just get the party started.
But what is your winning combination of creatures?
If you're going to try a get infinite mana with a mana creature then you'll need haste. You get into this odd position of needing to get a haste enabler if you don't have access to one already.
Please check out the section 'Haste' in the primer for details on various ways you can get this.
This method requires 7GGUU, which as you can see if pretty mana intensive. Using Galvanic Alchemist ability adds up real fast if needing to use it multiple times, and having to spend extra on Green Sun's Zenith is harder if needing to get further creatures into play.
Note that this isn't the only way. Maybe you have Scryb Ranger in your graveyard, so instead of Spellseeker you could get Eternal Witness, and then it'll cost 5GGUU all up.
Please check out the section 'Multiple creatures' in the primer for details on various ways you can look to get more creatures into play.
Is there a way to get Biomancer's Familiar and Galvanic Alchemist into play with Prime Speaker Vannifar?
Once again we are trying to get two creatures into play permanently, so would even need a third creature to chain to "do something" once you have them in play.
So if you have 3 creatures in play already then it's much easier. It's once you start having to get multiple creatures into play that it's more mana intensive, etc.
This method requires 2UU as long as you have 3 lands that can provide U each, as Cloud of Faeries and Peregrine Drake untap them along the way allowing you to free up mana for the Galvanic Alchemist activation's.
But you literally need 2 x One Drop and a Two Drop creature at the start. This does happen during some games, you draw your mana creatures, and in the right build having a Two Drop is the norm during games.
Note that you could use Glen Elendra Archmage instead of Fatestitcher, and it'll actually cost you U less.
In conclusion
There are going to be hundreds, if not thousands of ways to combine all the cards I mentioned in this post to sequence ways to win. But it's all going to come down to efficiency.
If you already have a cost reduction card like Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds, then your options are much better.
You could then use Galvanic Alchemist for untapping creatures for just U. This opens the door for any amount of sequencing you want really.
If you have a haste enabler already then you can just aim for mana creature that allows you to go infinite with Vigean Graftmage or Galvanic Alchemist if you also have the means to meet the other requirements of getting the mana creatures to produce more than the activation cost.
If you were to play Biomancer's Familiar, then as I've already mentioned this might lead you on to play other cards that also would benefit from cost reduction.
I think if you were to truly look to leverage Galvanic Alchemist and Vigean Graftmage then your build would probably want most of the proactive cards I've mentioned in this post as they all work together.
The honest truth is that I could spend days coming up with a deck build melding synergy into these creatures.
Trying to come up with sequences is also too numerous for the amount of time I can spend on these posts
However that does not mean that I will not endeavour to document as ideas come to mind. So this section will be added to the primer under 'Card Discussions' and I will add to it as things unfold in the future.
It is always important to point out that Galvanic Alchemist and Vigean Graftmage are creatures, and as such are often better in your deck that say Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff, as they allow you to plan for getting into play with Prime Speaker Vannifar, as opposed to hoping to randomly draw them.
So if you have a deck that looks to do multiple things with creatures, like disruption, value, etc, then a well setup untapper will allow you to do these things.
There are more efficient combo lines in general, so as far as looking to make Galvanic Alchemist and Vigean Graftmage one turn win combos, they are not the most mana efficient due to literally costing mana each time you use them.
Building my own Vannifar deck I noticed something and am surprised nobody else seems to have noticed the obvious wincon: Triskelion
It chains just perfectly into your compact thousand year elixir combo:
0. If able/necessary start with one drop and Scryb Ranger
1. Trophy Mage to get Thousand-year elixir, play Elixir and untap Vannifar
2. Sacrifice Trophy Mage into Fatestitcher, untap vannifar
3. Sacrifice Fatestitcher into Peregrine Drake, untap 5 lands
4. Unearth Fatestitcher, untap Vannifar
5. Sacrifice Peregrine Drake into Deadeye Navigator, bond with Vannifar, flicker Vannifar with Navigator to untap her
6. Sacrifice Fatestitcher into Body Double copying Peregrine Drake, untap 5 lands, bond Drake with Navigator
7. Flicker Drake infinitely for infinite mana, flicker Navigator to bond with Vannifar to untap her
8. Sacrifice Body Double (aka Peregrine Drake) into Triskelion, bond with Navigator, shoot 3 damage at face, flicker, 3 damage, flicker,... infinite damage
Building my own Vannifar deck I noticed something and am surprised nobody else seems to have noticed the obvious wincon: Triskelion
It chains just perfectly into your compact thousand year elixir combo:
0. If able/necessary start with one drop and Scryb Ranger
1. Trophy Mage to get Thousand-year elixir, play Elixir and untap Vannifar
2. Sacrifice Trophy Mage into Fatestitcher, untap vannifar
3. Sacrifice Fatestitcher into Peregrine Drake, untap 5 lands
4. Unearth Fatestitcher, untap Vannifar
5. Sacrifice Peregrine Drake into Deadeye Navigator, bond with Vannifar, flicker Vannifar with Navigator to untap her
6. Sacrifice Fatestitcher into Body Double copying Peregrine Drake, untap 5 lands, bond Drake with Navigator
7. Flicker Drake infinitely for infinite mana, flicker Navigator to bond with Vannifar to untap her
8. Sacrifice Body Double (aka Peregrine Drake) into Triskelion, bond with Navigator, shoot 3 damage at face, flicker, 3 damage, flicker,... infinite damage
Hey. This does indeed give you a win condition. But most of the time you can aim for more versatile ways to win that don't necessarily take up slots.
As you'll have a Two Drop in the graveyard assuming that you chained into Trophy Mage, this will mean Body Double can become that Two Drop. Then you can chain into Spellseeker getting for example Green Sun's Zenith. Then you can get Eternal Witness.
You can keep exiling both the Spellseeker and Eternal Witness, so could just go for Brainstorm to draw as much of your deck as you want.
You could just keep Beast Within all opponents permanents, and indefinitely keep bouncing any those tokens with Cyclonic Rift. Remember Eternal Witness will just keep getting your spells back.
The deterministic method used in cEDH is to use Reality Shift to exile your opponents libraries, as you keep exiling the newly manifested creature.
Spellseeker and Eternal Witness would have to be exiled in order for you to get stuck this way, as Body Double can just copy them in graveyard if they have gone there early in the game.
So it's a pretty solid game plan in general without really needing to add any extra cards to the deck.
The cEDH deck has fewer options, but you can use Nantuko Tracer to put a card back into your library, to search them out again, which results in the same thing.
Spellseeker is more unique effect, but you can go for Selvala, Heart of the Wilds to combine with Deadeye Navigator if the 5 power is the highest on board to draw as many cards as you want. Whirlpool Rider is used in the cEDH as an alternative to Spellseeker in this instance to keep cycling your hand until you get the card(s) you want.
They are both Two Drop creatures, so you'll need to setup a One Drop to chain into.
In my primer deck list I have Woodland Bellower and Protean Hulk to down chain into smaller creatures, meaning you could get a One Drop after chaining up.
The cEDH deck does not have this versatility of down chaining, but there are a lot of One Drop creatures in the deck.
So as you can see it's incredible resilient win conditions, without really needing to add cards that you wouldn't already be playing as part of the bigger game plan.
Now you could add Triskelion if you were really wanting the removal itself during value plays. Being able to snipe some mana creatures, etc, is an ability that Simic doesn't have a lot of access to.
I've heard these card works well with Prime Speaker Vannifar? On a serious note, you'll notice that these don't feature in any of the decks in the primer, not even as a fail safe to what the decks are already doing.
This is because the decks are heavily focused on being self contained win conditions with many paths to victory with untapping through creature chains.
It is a little hard to get away from the temptation of the combo element of Prime Speaker Vannifar, and not just want to win on the spot.
There are two things I want to talk about, one is what sort of deck would you make if Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff was a necessary or at least good card for your build?
The other is actually if you were to run Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff as a backup for your combo chain build, what does this even look like in terms of triggers, etc.
If you're sacrificing creatures to get more creatures, then you're going to run out of creatures in your deck to search at each converted mana cost at a certain stage.
This is where Loaming Shaman and Body Double can be looped to give yourself infinite reshuffles of your graveyard.
You can just keep shuffling the other back into you library as long as you can keep both chaining up and start chains at two or lower converted mana cost.
Let's pick a "win condition" creature as well to show the sort of chaining you can infinite loop. In this case I'll use Reef Worm to show how making creature tokens means that you can chain again from Zero Drop into Loaming Shaman again.
You can just keep repeating making infinite 9/9 blue Kraken creature tokens.
If you wanted to add other win conditions then you can do stuff like make your Two Drop Cloud of Faeries or One Drop Blisterpod for infinite mana.
Then you can draw your deck by finally putting a draw creature into play like River Hoopoe or Thrasios, Triton Hero.
You could combine life gain creature with finally using Squallmonger to kill opponents once you are ready.
Alternatively playing Tukatongue Thallid and Vitaspore Thallid to give all your 9/9 Kraken's haste. Merrow Witsniper will mill opponents libraries.
It's important to remember that you are sacrificing one creature to get to the next with Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff and Prime Speaker Vannifar.
So I can't stress the importance of having creatures that can "create" other creatures.
There is Woodland Bellower and Protean Hulk of course. As long as you have a lot of creatures in your deck at each converted mana cost, you could split up Protean Hulk into 6 One Drops if you had them, to then proceed to chain up to they were all Ten Drops..if your deck was built that way
You could also use cards that make lots of tokens like Avenger of Zendikar or Hornet Queen.
This gives you flexibility not to just have 'enter the battlefield' or 'dies' triggers, as you'll actually be able to leave a number of creatures in play.
The question is what do you want to leave in play and how high to you want to keep chaining up creatures?
If you're going up to say a Ten Drop or more, then what is your Nine Drop doing for you, if it just gets sacrificed immediately?
There are actually only 22 creatures to choose from in all of Magic in Simic at Nine Drop, and the truth is that they really don't do anything (if sacrificed immediately) except being part of the chain. Void Winnower and Nullstone Gargoyle are nice control creatures but require to stay in play to get value. Grozoth is the only one that gives you an enter battlefield trigger, so this could be worked in?
Now in much the same way that we were using Loaming Shaman and Body Double to create an infinite creature cycle loop, you can do the same thing with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre.
If you were to chain through them you can shuffle your graveyard into your library.
The difference between Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff is that Intruder Alarm needs a creature to 'enter the battlefield', where as Thornbite Staff just needs anything to die. Thornbite Staff is different in that it's going to trigger no matter what, if you use Prime Speaker Vannifar, even if you fail to search for a creature.
If you have Intruder Alarm it's going to depend on how many other creatures you have greater than those Eldrazi? If it's Thornbite Staff then you don't have to worry about that, and can do it an infinite amount of times, as long as you have another creature to chain, i.e. creature token or something similar at a lower cost to get a value train going again.
If you have a creature sacrifice outlet at some stage, then you can sacrifice the Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to put it back into your library, so that you can infinitely loop searches.
For example if you were to use Profaner of the Dead as part of the chain each time, then you can keep the loop going.
Merrow Witsniper will mill opponents libraries, then you can use Chancellor of the Spires to cast their instants and sorceries.
You can destroy all the non-creature permanents, making them 3/3 green Elephant creature tokens, which you can then proceed to exile with Duplicant.
For added spice you can play Clone Legion in your deck and search it with Grozoth, cast it potentially infinite times, as you get infinite mana with Peregrine Drake and remember all your spells get shuffled back in with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, so all the instant and sorcery you get with Augur of Bolas you'll be able to keep recasting as well.
OK, this is complete overkill, but represents a fun chain (for you). You could just have Triskelion as a way to kill opponents, and then all the other converted mana costs would be arbitrary.
The realms of possibilities are endless with creature bases and using Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff, so it's just up to you what you might concoct.
The problem with doing this is when you literally don't have a creature to search with Prime Speaker Vannifar at a certain mana cost. You can try and make sure your build has an even spread of converted mana cost creatures to make sure you don't draw too many of a particular cost, but it's always random what you might draw, milled, etc.
Primer decks
Let's look at Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff as potential redundancy in the primer builds. It's worth asking the question "Are they better than other work around for redundancy?".
Most of the problems you have, is not having these not in your library. But even then, there are contingency plans, that can be worked around in some manner.
The literally worst is if Body Double is in your graveyard.
You still need a Five Drop to sacrifice into Deadeye Navigator so even with Intruder Alarm, your sort of stuck on the same problems. Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff could be used as a substitute for needing to cast Thousand-Year Elixir if you do draw it and play it however.
This method doesn't really require mana on the combo turn if you've already cast, rather than the 4 you need for Thousand-Year Elixir.
Now in my primer deck list, I have a lot more chains I could use with Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff, but the reality is that I've built the deck to have multiple ways to chain in the first place so the redundancy is just not necessary.
Combo cards without Prime Speaker Vannifar Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff have been around for a while, and are certainly used as combo cards on their own right.
If you have some means of producing creatures with an on-board ability and have the mana to pay for it, then you can look to do it infinite times.
You can also use cards that bounce creatures to also get loops going. Cloudstone Curio, Equilibrium can bounce creatures and if you have the mana sources to keep paying for recasting creatures you bounce you can get infinite loops going. You'd want some sort of payoff, maybe 'enter the battlefield' trigger, etc.
Thornbite Staff is a bit more tricky to build combos around as it specifically requires creatures to die and it only untaps the creature that it's equipped too. Perfect for Prime Speaker Vannifar as she both taps and sacrifices for activation. Arcum Dagsson and Jalira, Master Polymorphist can be used in a similar manner.
You could setup sacrifice outlets like Phyrexian Altar in conjunction with something that generates token creatures, like Kazandu Tuskcaller to get infinite mana.
In conclusion
If you're playing a self contained combo deck, then make sure you really look at how beneficial it is to have cards like Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff even as purely backup cards, because you might find they don't help you as much as you think.
It seems counter intuitive because Intruder Alarm is a signature card, literally in 62% of decks being analysed by EDHREC. Thornbite Staff is in a lot less at about a quarter of decks.
But I want it to be clear that it can be an easy trap for some people thinking that they will be automatically be great in their decks.
But in decks that are specifically designed around them they will be all-stars, and possibly actually necessary as a win condition.
It is possible to just play Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff for pure value however, and the results can still be so over-whelming that it's a game winning play.
In this respect your creature base might just be a solid mid-range deck, that can work without Prime Speaker Vannifar in play in general. Gaining enough value just through casting solid creatures that can interact enough with opponents to slow them down, or gain you some additional resources.
Intruder Alarm is a combo card in it's own right, so it is possible to setup alternative win conditions without Prime Speaker Vannifar as a back up plan. There is a wealth of combinations, so it comes down to if you feel like the cards fit into your build in a synergistic way.
For the Primer deck, I decided to take out the Flash + Protean Hulk package in favor of having another potential combo chain, while still maintaining a way to win with sacrificing Protean Hulk.
So into Protean Hulk chains are still in there, it's an important part of the deck, but the method of winning is different.
Now you actually need to use Prime Speaker Vannifar to sacrifice the Protean Hulk to get Tidespout Tyrant.
Where as before you could just use Flash + Protean Hulk without Prime Speaker Vannifar in play.
The reason for the change up is that it's just more fun to have a creature to actually search when you do sacrifice the Protean Hulk with Prime Speaker Vannifar. My earlier deck list used to run Woodfall Primus, but since moving away from that win condition, it's not be as fun chaining up into..well nothing after Hulk.
I also wanted to include the Chakram Retriever combo chain. The primer deck is as much about teaching people combinations is it is about winning.
So Flash + Hulk just seemed a bit too try hard, given that I wasn't running any tutors like Mystical Tutor, Merchant Scroll, Summoner's Pact, Worldly Tutor, to make it more consistent.
This is awesome! I'm loving this thread! Great job compiling all this info.
I've been thinking about contingencies if key combo pieces get sent to the graveyard. What are our thoughts on some of these? noxious revival is my favorite as it's the cheapest, Dwell on the past and piper's melody get more cards shuffled back into our library so they can be used again and can be searched up with spellseeker
Creatures that have those effects are nantuko tracer, Loaming shaman, and rooting kavu, or elvish soultiller at 2, 3, 4, and 5 drop slots respectively.
Another interesting idea that I haven't seen in this thread so far is Tel-jilad stylus In response to someone removing a combo piece we can tuck the creature back to our library so Vannifar can search it out again. Nantuko tracer and Loaming shaman having the added bonus that they can affect a graveyard strategy if need be.
The creatures are obviously preferred since they can be tutored up but the spells are nice since we don't have to spend a Vannifar activation. I've been trying to figure out how many slots I want to devote to contingency plans like this vs just running more counter magic to fight removal. Thoughts?
This is awesome! I'm loving this thread! Great job compiling all this info.
I've been thinking about contingencies if key combo pieces get sent to the graveyard. What are our thoughts on some of these? noxious revival is my favorite as it's the cheapest, Dwell on the past and piper's melody get more cards shuffled back into our library so they can be used again and can be searched up with spellseeker
Creatures that have those effects are nantuko tracer, Loaming shaman, and rooting kavu, or elvish soultiller at 2, 3, 4, and 5 drop slots respectively.
Another interesting idea that I haven't seen in this thread so far is Tel-jilad stylus In response to someone removing a combo piece we can tuck the creature back to our library so Vannifar can search it out again. Nantuko tracer and Loaming shaman having the added bonus that they can affect a graveyard strategy if need be.
The creatures are obviously preferred since they can be tutored up but the spells are nice since we don't have to spend a Vannifar activation. I've been trying to figure out how many slots I want to devote to contingency plans like this vs just running more counter magic to fight removal. Thoughts?
There are two decks list in the thread. The first one has a 5 different ways to combo, so it naturally just has a lot of ways you can get around drawing cards, losing cards, etc.
The cEDH deck just has "one" way of winning. But I do talk about how to navigate around when combo pieces are not available. If you look at the cEDH section, which you can check out here, then you'll see that it does have Noxious Revival and Nantuko Tracer in the deck.
Tel-Jilad Stylus is interesting. I don't know if it's possible to get some sort of loop going by proactively putting a creature you've already searched? I need to think on this a bit more.
Okay, so...I haven't read every post in this thread, so this one might have already been mentioned, but if it has I haven't seen it. After playtesting a bit, I have found that the best/easiest way to win with a Protean Hulk chain is to search up Grand Architect, Pili-Pala, Quirion Ranger, and Dryad Arbor. Use Quirion Ranger, bouncing Dryad Arbor, to untap Vannifar. Sac the ranger to Vannifar to pull Thrasios, Triton Hero. Pay one blue mana to have Grand Architect turn Pili-Pala blue. Tap Pili for two colorless, untap him and pay those two for one of any color. Boom--infinite mana with Thrasios in play. And since Grand Architect taps an untapped blue creature as a cost, you don't need any kind of haste enabler. This very cleanly sets up any win-con you want. Want to loop Reality Shift all day long? Have at it. Want to drop a Lab Man and draw out? Easiest thing ever.
Plus...this is a simic-colored competitive list, right? Do the Magic Gods even let you do that without having Thrasios in there somewhere?
Okay, so...I haven't read every post in this thread, so this one might have already been mentioned, but if it has I haven't seen it. After playtesting a bit, I have found that the best/easiest way to win with a Protean Hulk chain is to search up Grand Architect, Pili-Pala, Quirion Ranger, and Dryad Arbor. Use Quirion Ranger, bouncing Dryad Arbor, to untap Vannifar. Sac the ranger to Vannifar to pull Thrasios, Triton Hero. Pay one blue mana to have Grand Architect turn Pili-Pala blue. Tap Pili for two colorless, untap him and pay those two for one of any color. Boom--infinite mana with Thrasios in play. And since Grand Architect taps an untapped blue creature as a cost, you don't need any kind of haste enabler. This very cleanly sets up any win-con you want. Want to loop Reality Shift all day long? Have at it. Want to drop a Lab Man and draw out? Easiest thing ever.
Plus...this is a simic-colored competitive list, right? Do the Magic Gods even let you do that without having Thrasios in there somewhere?
The problem is that Pili-Pala will not have haste, so you can't get infinite mana as you would need to pass the turn unfortunately.
So the method I had figured out was this, but I've removed Grand Architect and Pili-Pala from my deck recently actually. I explain the reasons in a few posts above, you can click here for the details. It's not that it wasn't good, it's just that I put in different win conditions.
But I use (and most people who are communicating on Discord channel) use Spellseeker and Eternal Witness combined with infinite Deadeye Navigator activation's as the win condition.
Because you have infinite mana and infinite Deadeye Navigator soulbond with any creature, you can just draw your deck this way. The Green Sun's Zenith can get the rest of your green creatures, and you can just keep reusing the Spellseeker to get all your spells basically.
Then I use Eternal Witness with Reality Shift to mill opponents libraries. Spellseeker can just get something like Brainstorm and use infinite Eternal Witness activation's to draw your deck if you wanted to go this way.
Now you might be like Step 10.) to 17.) seems elaborate when you could just get Thrasios, but the thing is that the deck is playing these cards anyway as part of other combos, so I'm just showing that in theory you don't actually need to add anything extra if you already run these cards.
Okay, so...I haven't read every post in this thread, so this one might have already been mentioned, but if it has I haven't seen it. After playtesting a bit, I have found that the best/easiest way to win with a Protean Hulk chain is to search up Grand Architect, Pili-Pala, Quirion Ranger, and Dryad Arbor. Use Quirion Ranger, bouncing Dryad Arbor, to untap Vannifar. Sac the ranger to Vannifar to pull Thrasios, Triton Hero. Pay one blue mana to have Grand Architect turn Pili-Pala blue. Tap Pili for two colorless, untap him and pay those two for one of any color. Boom--infinite mana with Thrasios in play. And since Grand Architect taps an untapped blue creature as a cost, you don't need any kind of haste enabler. This very cleanly sets up any win-con you want. Want to loop Reality Shift all day long? Have at it. Want to drop a Lab Man and draw out? Easiest thing ever.
Plus...this is a simic-colored competitive list, right? Do the Magic Gods even let you do that without having Thrasios in there somewhere?
The problem is that Pili-Pala will not have haste, so you can't get infinite mana as you would need to pass the turn unfortunately.
So the method I had figured out was this, but I've removed Grand Architect and Pili-Pala from my deck recently actually. I explain the reasons in a few posts above, you can click here for the details. It's not that it wasn't good, it's just that I put in different win conditions.
But I use (and most people who are communicating on Discord channel) use Spellseeker and Eternal Witness combined with infinite Deadeye Navigator activation's as the win condition.
Because you have infinite mana and infinite Deadeye Navigator soulbond with any creature, you can just draw your deck this way. The Green Sun's Zenith can get the rest of your creatures, and you can just keep reusing the Spellseeker to get all your spells basically.
Then I use Eternal Witness with Reality Shift to mill opponents libraries.
Now you might be like Step 10.) to 17.) seems elaborate when you could just get Thrasios, but the thing is that the deck is playing these cards anyway as part of other combos, so I'm just showing that in theory you don't actually need to add anything extra if you already run these cards.
You missed a bit of my post. Untap-based abilities don't get affected by haste, so once you have the two mana from tapping Pili-Pala using his in-built ability is fine. As for tapping him for the two mana? Grand Architect taps a blue creature as a cost. That's the important part. Even if a creature is summoning sick, you can tap it to pay costs. Heritage Druid works the same way. In fact, here, the official ruling on this as found on the Gatherer:
"Since Grand Architect’s last ability doesn’t have a tap symbol in its cost, you can tap a blue creature (including Grand Architect itself) that hasn’t been under your control since your most recent turn began to pay the cost."
So the combo I talked about does work the way I described. Still, your point about how to win from pulling the combo off does seem pretty valid--getting to a win-con from infinite mana + deadeye would be easy as sin. Still, I do like the self-contained nature of the trasios version.
You missed a bit of my post. Untap-based abilities don't get affected by haste, so once you have the two mana from tapping Pili-Pala using his in-built ability is fine. As for tapping him for the two mana? Grand Architect taps a blue creature as a cost. That's the important part. Even if a creature is summoning sick, you can tap it to pay costs. Heritage Druid works the same way. In fact, here, the official ruling on this as found on the Gatherer:
"Since Grand Architect’s last ability doesn’t have a tap symbol in its cost, you can tap a blue creature (including Grand Architect itself) that hasn’t been under your control since your most recent turn began to pay the cost."
So the combo I talked about does work the way I described. Still, your point about how to win from pulling the combo off does seem pretty valid--getting to a win-con from infinite mana + deadeye would be easy as sin. Still, I do like the self-contained nature of the trasios version.
Unfortunately if you look up the Oracle text of Pili-Pala it even explains how you can't use an q ability unless it has haste.
Just click the link above and you'll be able to read the line:
If a creature with an q ability hasn’t been under your control since your most recent turn began, you can’t activate that ability, unless the creature has haste.
You're totally correct about Grand Architect being able to tap immediately for getting 2 without needing haste.
But tap t and untap q are treated the same for purposes of summoning sickness.
If you have Vitalize or Dramatic Reversal in hand at the time Elite Arcanist comes into play then you can look to setup to go infinite with other non-land mana sources, like artifact mana and mana creatures (Vitalize only).
It works in very much the same way as Isochron Scepter.
The difference, besides cost, between Isochron Scepter and Elite Arcanist is that as a creature it also has summoning sickness, meaning you can't use it the turn it comes into play.
This method requires 6GU and 2 x Two Drop creatures. Realistically you want some forms of non-land mana sources, as this will actually allow you to get infinite mana, if you can get more than the cost of what you exile with Elite Arcanist.
But compare this with the 4 you need for Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator combo, and you can see that this would only be purely used as a backup.
What if Prime Speaker Vannifar is not in play? Elite Arcanist exiling Dramatic Reversal also enables you to use Birthing Pod in the same manner as Prime Speaker Vannifar.
In this respect you can look for it to be a way to win when Prime Speaker Vannifar has been hated out of a game. However without haste, it is a slower process as you have to wait several turns.
As you can see without haste you have to wait a full turn to activate Elite Arcanist. And without burning the Dramatic Reversal before you get Arcanist into play, you have to wait a full turn to get the Birthing Pod untapped.
You can see that if you have this creature base then this is more appealing as in theory you can sequence for the same turn win, as long as you have the non-land mana sources to keep paying for the Dramatic Reversal.
In conclusion
On the surface Elite Arcanist looks like it could be a decent backup plan to a variety of ways to combo. But you do need to have support cards already to make it work in a timely manner.
It may seem like a good alternative to even Isochron Scepter as you can search it with Prime Speaker Vannifar. But as I've shown without a haste element, you end up waiting additional turns.
There are deck configurations where it can be good for your build. But it will require specific cards in my opinion and probably the absence of some other cards as well (like the graveyard retrieval creatures).
Decks that are already playing Illusionist's Bracers and Rings of Brighthearth will certainly make Elite Arcanist more appealing.
Probably one of the most overlooked cards in commander for what it could actually offer your deck as far as versatility of trading up.
It's ability to potentially get you any creature in certain builds will go unaware for many peoples long standing decks.
The complexity of even considering a card like this is that you have to evaluate every creature in your deck to know exactly how it performs. Adding and removing creatures as you tweak a deck, when playing Riptide Shapeshifter means that you have to think about how those creature types might effect your ability to get particular cards.
But what people wouldn't even factor in is that often this card can be turned into any creature in your deck. Finding out that frequently your more powerful creatures can be searched with one-off creature types.
With Riptide Shapeshifter not only does it allow you to potentially sequence into another untapper, but it also allows you up upgrade, or even downgrade your creature. Exactly the sort of thing we are always looking to do with Prime Speaker Vannifar in the first place.
For 2UU you can choose Praetor and chain straight into Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur!!
Choose Eldrazi and get yourself an Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or maybe Golem and get Blightsteel Colossus.
There are certainly a range of creatures you can select from and guarantee it's success.
OK, so what can it do for your deck?
Well this is where you've got really break down your creatures, and exactly what choosing a creature type will do for you.
The only Eight Drop creature in all of Simic that offers chaining up is Patron of the Orochi and this requires haste if wanting to use straight away.
There are no Nine or more converted mana cost creatures that actually are able to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar in Simic. So chaining creatures past Eight or more, is dependent on additional untappers you might have access to or it can't be done.
With Riptide Shapeshifter you can plan for this much higher chaining now.
In conclusion
I implore you to see how Riptide Shapeshifter can fit into your Prime Speaker Vannifar build.
It's a real way of chaining and a solution to the often awkward Five Drop creature 'untapping' slot.
There is a pretty solid core of cards that are being used for cEDH Prime Speaker Vannifar builds currently from my experience.
I might not be aware of some unique builds out there but on the whole many of the submitted lists are showing up around the same, but for a few choices.
Most list are going to have less than 10 cards differences, if not more like 5.
So I'm just going to talk about those few choices and the potential benefits and mistakes of some of them. Most of them are all fine solid choices, and just come down to personal preference.
But I'm also going to talk about some cards that are in most lists, but I feel are overrated in context to the rest of the deck. And why I personally choose to play different cards, that do not show up in other lists.
Please note that my cEDH build is in the second post of this primer, you can check it out by clicking here.
So if you can imagine the core of deck are established, but you might be looking for example around fitting around 5 of the above cards as your final slots.
Discount the lands for that count.
From the fluctuating list I'm personally playing Beast Within, Timetwister, Misdirection.
Now honestly I think a lot of people are just not playing Timetwister due to price, and actually this is not even necessarily a mistake not playing it. It has potential benefits, but it is nowhere near required like it is for storm builds. Like I might even cut it from my list to better the deck as it does have situational downsides as well. If you don't want to splash the cash, do not feel like the deck suffers.
Now these cards show up in most deck list, but I am not personally playing; Utopia Sprawl, Wild Growth.
So why not play Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth?
Well my personal preference is to play Voyaging Satyr and Devoted Druid as mana accelerates instead. I like to play creatures that can start a chain over many other type of additional mana sources.
The difference between one mana and two mana, is a factor. So I'm not going to say one is absolutely better than the other, but that's my stance on it at the moment. I'd prefer to potentially be a bit slower at the rate of more success with creature thresholds. It's not always about starting with one creature, you can ease the burden of awkward situations with additional creatures to sacrifice to Prime Speaker Vannifar.
I think the correct amount of lands to play is 31, mainly due to the combo needing 3 lands in play. Skimping on this can only be justified I think if you playing land ramp, like Nature's Lore or Three Visits. I could see the trade in of these cards for a land slot.
This also leads into what is happening with card choices due to needing 3 lands in play. Some cards are being left out, specifically Sylvan Safekeeper and Mox Diamond.
Not playing Sylvan Safekeeper is a mistake. I cannot stress the importance of having an ability available to you, versus actually needing to use it. I think the misconception comes from the fact that people think that people will just fire off their removal spells into the Sylvan Safekeeper ability. This is not the case. People are reluctant to use a removal spell even if it does mean being down a land. Unless the opponents are talking among themselves, giving away that several removal spells can be targeted at your creatures, then often the removal is left stranded in their hands.
The other thing is that you'd prefer to be a land down anyway, even if it puts you on two lands, then have to find the additional 2 commander tax and spend an entire turn re-casting Prime Speaker Vannifar.
The math and psychology works in Sylvan Safekeeper favor.
I can see that Siren Stormtamer is a potentially good protection creature as well, but needing to hold up the U is a big difference and you can only use it once. But I certainly see it's potential benefits.
This card looks much better in theory, than it actually is at making your deck stronger. Of course it's nice to have some infallible way of covering every angle of your combo, but if you read my primer for cEDH you'll see that you have many different ways to navigate around specific cards being exiled. Sure it might require conditional extra resources, or needing a couple of turns to setup instead, but the reality is that Riftsweeper itself is going to require a turn to use (if via Prime Speaker Vannifar). So in that one game in twenty you might use it, you have other options anyway. It's just that you have to think about it more in depth than you normally would.
I feel like this is pretty much a dead card in the majority of your games, where it could easily be something that is useful 100% of your games.
It's just about playing the statistics. Having the one win from it actually being useful in maybe forty games, could have just been a protection card that would win you far more games over the course of your decks lifespan.
Most lists have this gem of a card, because so much of the games come down to a protected Prime Speaker Vannifar. 31 blue cards (or 30 not including the Misdirection) is what my decks runs, and this has always served me well with having the required additional blue card to pitch.
Being able to tap out to cast Prime Speaker Vannifar really is one of your stronger plays you can make, so their are only a few silly souls who fail to see the gain you get. Plus it can be used to counter a counterspell.
Right so if you're going infinite with Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator won't pain lands kill you?
Actually it's pretty unlikely. You only need to generate so much mana, before you can look at alternative lines, getting Selvala, Heart of the Wilds to take over the roles of infinite mana once you have done what you need to get past the first steps.
Chances are you are getting Spellseeker as a first port of call for winning, so you just Green Sun's Zenith for Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. Or even Crop Rotation to swap out the pain land(s).
It's really going to be very few times the actual damage prevents you from comboing off, and color fixing is super important in this deck. More important than you first think. Ancient Tomb is another interesting card for these reasons, but personally I feel the color fixing makes Ancient Tomb far less appealing as a land in the build. But that's not to say that it isn't actually really good.
I want to make it clear that Dryad Arbor is an absolute all-star in my primer build, because of the Vitalize combos, and because I can get combo lines going that don't require 3 lands in play.
However in cEDH builds that only play the Trophy Mage/Thousand-Year Elixir into Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator, the advantages of playing Dryad Arbor are completely lost.
It ends up more or less a tapped land for the purposes of speed of the deck.
You are really unlikely to use it to start your Prime Speaker Vannifar chain, as you would be looking to sequence into Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger. This would put you 3 lands down, and let's be realistic that's not a winning line when you need 3 lands in play.
About the only advantage you might gain is a Green Sun's Zenith for zero. But I feel like for the win percentages, you are going to be slowed down more often, than gain speed because of one spell in the deck.
The reason for this card is that if you have one of your haste cards like Concordant Crossroads, Lightning Greaves or Thousand-Year Elixir already in play, then you can look to cast Prime Speaker Vannifar and win without needing additional untapped mana.
You can chain through your combo, but you need a Three Drop creature to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar. Without Vizier of Tumbling Sands, your alternative at Three converted mana cost is Spellseeker getting Green Sun's Zenith, and getting something like Quirion Ranger. But that is 1G and returning a Forest which is not optimal, when you're really hoping to go off by just casting your general. Chances are this two mana difference will mean having to pass the turn, which defeats the purpose of casting Prime Speaker Vannifar in the first place.
Using the cycle ability to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar is certainly an option during times when you've not had a clear path of combing due to cards not being available (in hand, graveyard or exiled).
Out of the other fluctuating cards I feel like they are all perfectly reasonable choices, but I'll explain why I prefer to play other cards over them.
Of the other tutors Merchant Scroll and Intuition are very strong, and honestly I think I need to evaluate Intuition specifically for the cEDH build. I literally think I'll make it my next in depth card focus, so I can get a clearer picture for myself and for you.
I personally play Intuition in a lot of decks, but mainly when graveyard synergies are involved, but I need to lay out the specifics for my own personal check list for this deck to decipher what can be done.
Some of the lands that allow you to cast creatures at instant speed are being tested, with Winding Canyons, Alchemist's Refuge. To me I think they will be too slow. Needing the additional 3 mana (they taps themselves) sounds like it's just easier to cast Prime Speaker Vannifar on your own turn and hold up the additional mana for protection/disruption anyway. But I'm happy to be proven otherwise.
If that makes sense you'd only be able to use it with Prime Speaker Vannifar when you have 7 mana at your disposal, in which case I'd prefer color fixing land in general most games, and just cast her for the 4 mana while holding up 3 mana for potential disruption or protection.
It's not quite that simple, holding up 7 mana, means that you can potentially interact even more (cast more spells in response to what opponents are doing), avoid sorcery speed removal. But once again I stress the importance of color fixing to ensuring explosive starts to your game, which is the most likely source of victories.
When I start these card discussions I never actually know what the outcomes are, I do them for my own personal thought experiments so that I further my understanding of how they could be worked into a Prime Speaker Vannifar build.
Obviously you can't search for Momir Vig with Prime Speaker Vannifar if these hate cards are in play, but what if I had Momir Vig as a card I could draw to circumnavigate these types of cards?
The basic plan to tutor up Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel, which means that for every two 1cmc Green Creature Elves we cast, we net a G. As this gets more mana than you spend, it means we can chain tutors to generate more and more mana, and eventually assemble a combo. This is called a "tutor chain" or a "dork chain". Notably, it's hard to disrupt, because we get the tutors whether or not our creature resolves. Assuming you have a creature that taps for mana or a land drop, as well as a Forest, the combo needs only G to combo off post-tutor:
Tutor and play Quirion Ranger for G, and tutor up Heritage Druid, and either untap your dork or return a Forest and replay it, so that you go net-even on mana.
Tutor chaining is a powerful tool that allows us to generate mana and gives us the ability to adapt extremely well to hostile board states. In general, after starting the tutor chain, you should fetch Birchlore Rangers to get access to blue mana (you may also use Quirion Ranger to bounce and replay a blue dual to achieve the same), then use it to cast Phantasmal Image as a copy of Nettle Sentinel. With two "copies" of Nettle Sentinel, every green creature will make GGG, which makes it much easier to assemble the Infinite Mana Loop.
This loop generates GGGGGGG for every 1GGGG you spend, which allows you to go infinite. Afterwards, you can generate infinite U by using Birchlore Rangers and Temur Sabertooth. This means that you have infinite mana of any color, as well as infinite tutors thanks to Temur Sabertooth.
But alternatively because you are more into an elf tribal deck, you can potentially not go for any infinite's and simply get all your green creatures out onto the board.
You can always finish up with at least one blue creature as well, but this won't allow you to search for another creature, as Momir Vig only allows searching when it's "green".
But for example you could get all your green creatures out making sure to get Craterhoof Behemoth, then on your last search get Treasure Mage to get Akroma's Memorial, which will be more than lethal damage for all opponents.
Let's just do a little math check. Remember that each of our 1 mana creatures produces GG (net). If our deck had this type of creature base with mana creatures;
In conclusion
There will be hundreds of ways to combo with Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and Vizier of the Menagerie in play, but I think that it best suites a build that has a lot of mana creatures already and you're willing to play some of the "elves matter" cards in Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, Birchlore Rangers.
These can strengthen the speed of your deck for the right build, very explosive starts, and ups your creature count potentially in a positive way.
Then you can take out/don't run a lot of other creature combos that you might have been thinking about.
For example in my primer decks they have Peregrine Drake + Deadeye Navigator but instead you can run Temur Sabertooth + Wirewood Symbiote as a source of infinite mana.
Then you really have a powerful creature in your 99 with Momir Vig that can act as an alternative to Prime Speaker Vannifar if she has been hated out of the game.
Plus Vizier of the Menagerie is a great card on it's own, Prime Speaker Vannifar ability does allow you to shuffle your library for additional looks at the top of your deck.
Why not just play Momir Vig, Simic Visionary as your commander if you want to run these combos? Well I've actually written a section within the primer on reasons why you might want to play Prime Speaker Vannifar as your commander even when you are looking to use other legendary creatures as key cards. For more details click here to read up on it.
But in general you're still looking to combo in other ways, and for a relatively small combo package it provides methods of playing around being hated out by cards that specifically shut downs Prime Speaker Vannifar abilities.
It still won't save you from Aven Mindcensor or Stranglehold, but you can probably get around almost all the other cards that shut down Prime Speaker Vannifar activation's.
Congratulations on achieving the Primer tag for your thread! It was given with great pride by the Committee and I applaud the dedication you put into building your thread into Primer status!
My YouTube Channel: The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
The other thing is that you shouldn't care too much about hand disruption either, and you'll be faster than land destruction most games.
If that makes sense, you'll not have to adjust anything as you'll be quicker than those decks most games, putting them to the test instead.
But if you're up against a lot of removal for Prime Speaker Vannifar, then that's a different story.
But you can always adjust your deck for a spot removal heavy meta as well, packing cards like Blossoming Defense, Vines of Vastwood, Dive Down, Hapatra's Mark, Mizzium Skin, Ranger's Guile, Autumn's Veil.
About the only thing that is a little unpleasant is milling cards that you'd ordinarily want to search up with Prime Speaker Vannifar.
But even then you can adjust your deck to have cards to make sure that you're OK with some creatures in your graveyard, like Loaming Shaman, Nantuko Tracer, Eternal Witness, to name a few.
There is always a way to get around situations, when you can essentially search for any creature in your deck.
Are you happy to play a one turn win combo deck? If so then there are a number of ways to do this. Please check out the 'Combo Chain' section for how you might want to setup your wins.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Took the original idea and played several test games before making tweaks. Some things I noticed were that mox diamond was where I wanted to be over mana vault. This is a personal opinion but I found the early acceleration more useful than a 1 drop accelerator simply because the one drop slot already has many accelerant options. The next thing I noticed was the clunky aspect of joraga treespeaker. This card came out in my changeup and in went wirewood symboite for more synergy. As you can also see I added a reclamation sage, a manglehorn, and a kraul harpooner. the sage and manglehorn let me deal with problem artifacts while the harpooner gives me an out to things like aven mind censor, flip bolas, etc.
Some things i felt like the deck was still missing and will address at a later date is wrath protection. So cards like wrap in vigor, heroic intervention, etc will be tested. Also, I feel like the at least personally I will be taking out tooth and nail as it feels like a win more card and in its place probably natural order or chord not sure yet its on my to test list.
Overall though list felt good from the front page and will continue to work with it and hopefully this group can work towards an optimized list for each step of the budget spectrum so that way everyone can feel the pod love.
rug cantripshift-back in the binder
ad nauseum-meh
rg ponza/12 moon- trolling
esper death shadow- built and learning
All hail the mighty luck sack walking ballista may he reign supreme- So declares Harambe
URG Riku: - (Deck List) (Retired, but should probably bring it back.. I need a more casual deck)
BGU Muldrotha: - (Deck List)
UB Yuriko: - (Deck List)
UR Zndrsplt/Okaun - (Deck List)
G Seton: - (Deck List)
RGW Uril: - (Deck List)
GU Vannifar: - (Deck List) (My main)
WUBRG Alara: - (Deck List)
UBR Tresserhorn: - (Deck List)
RW Feather: - (Deck List)
rug cantripshift-back in the binder
ad nauseum-meh
rg ponza/12 moon- trolling
esper death shadow- built and learning
All hail the mighty luck sack walking ballista may he reign supreme- So declares Harambe
But I'd never cut Mana Vault, as it's both early play and good late game if Prime Speaker Vannifar has been removed and you're looking to pay for commander tax.
Being able to cast Prime Speaker Vannifar with it, and giving you the ability to hold up colored mana for protection and disruption is a great advantage.
Even it's ability to pay for casting Thousand-Year Elixir, allowing you to hold up protection mana is good as well.
I don't know, it would take a lot to take me off Mana Vault personally.
I'm going to give Mox Diamond a go, just mentally tick off how many games it was good and if it caused awkward plays with missing land drops for the greater combo.
On that note I'll probably cut Tooth and Nail. I feel like there are enough ways to draw into Peregrine Drake/Selvala, Heart of the Wilds and Deadeye Navigator during hated out games. Sure the bad part is casting Deadeye Navigator, but with Tooth and Nail you still tapping out for it, so while the untap lands triggers are on the stack, opponents can actually remove Deadeye Navigator.
Plus with Elvish Piper, you can plan for dropping Deadeye Navigator into play off it.
Green Sun's Zenith can get Selvala, Heart of the Wilds or Elvish Piper, while Spellseeker can get Green Sun's Zenith itself.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
...
Azusa - Derevi - Glissa - Mizzix - Sharuum - Wanderer - Wort
Galvanic Alchemist Vigean Graftmage
These are some creatures that can untap other creatures, but also have the ability to do it multiple times (unlimited) at the cost of mana.
They are both Three Drop and blue creatures. This means that you can't use Green Sun's Zenith, Summoner's Pact or Woodland Bellower to search for them.
Vigean Graftmage specifically needs a creature to have a +1/+1 counter on it. Even though it has graft, this means that you can only put the counters from it as the creature enters play. In this regard, using Prime Speaker Vannifar to put it into play, means that you can't specifically use the graft to give Prime Speaker Vannifar a counter. Meaning you need some other way of putting counters on her. I will discuss this further on.
You can look to untap mana creatures that can produce more than the required activation to actually get infinite mana.
But the other stipulation is that it must be able to provide at least U as well, so that cuts out a lot of the creatures that only produce green like Priest of Titania, Elvish Archdruid, Karametra's Acolyte, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix.
You could use Selvala, Heart of the Wilds if you have a creature with power 5 or greater.
Wirewood Channeler with at least 3 other elves for Galvanic Alchemist, or 2 other elves for Vigean Graftmage, will give you infinite mana. Prime Speaker Vannifar is an elf, so that means just in theory needing 2 other elves (Galvanic Alchemist) or 1 other elf (Vigean Graftmage).
There are more creatures like Axebane Guardian and Harabaz Druid, but they are tribal dependent, so highly unlikely to help.
You can use untapper creatures that can untap sources like Gilded Lotus and Converted Jewel.
Kiora's Follower, Aphetto Alchemist, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Fatestitcher are some of the creatures that can untap Gilded Lotus or Converted Jewel, which will provide infinite mana with Vigean Graftmage.
Unfortunately you'd also need Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds to use Galvanic Alchemist the same way.
Needing 2U for Galvanic Alchemist and 1U for Vigean Graftmage can be reduced with either Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds.
If you wanted to play these cards then it leads into wanting the play other creatures that have activation's probably as well.
Now Deadeye Navigator already has an activation cost of 1U and so with these cards you can then use Cloud of Faeries as another way to get infinite mana.
Temur Sabertooth is another creature that can benefit from a reduced activation cost. Possibly opening up infinite's that you are looking to combine with it.
Yisan, the Wanderer Bard would only cost G which would open up some doors for particular builds.
If you do have a cost reduction card with Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds then you can look to use creatures that only provide at least 1U to get infinite mana; Bloom Tender, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. Plus any of the previously mentioned mana creatures, can be done with less stipulations. For example Vigean Graftmage or Galvanic Alchemist untapping Wirewood Channeler can go infinite only with Prime Speaker Vannifar as well.
Creatures that can untap lands can also be used to match up with lands that will produce multiple mana. Argothian Elder,
Hope Tender, Krosan Restorer, Ley Weaver, Magus of the Candelabra could be combined with a number of cards, as long as you can gain mana when you activate Vigean Graftmage or Galvanic Alchemist to untap the creatures and untap the lands that can produce more.
So realistically you'll need Gaea's Cradle to tap for GGG.
If you had Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds then you could do it with any two lands essentially.
Vigean Graftmage specifically needs the creatures to have +1/+1 counters. There are a lot of cards in Simic that can do this, but it's going to come down to if they are also synergistic or at a low cost of resources to your deck already.
Some examples are Master Biomancer, Zameck Guildmage, Forgotten Ancient, Ezuri, Claw of Progress.
There are some lands; Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, Llanowar Reborn, Novijen, Heart of Progress, Forge of Heroes.
If you were to play to a +1/+1 matters then you could look at Incubation Druid as another means to get infinite mana combined with Vigean Graftmage.
Unfortunately you'd also need Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds to use Galvanic Alchemist the same way.
Alright so can we sequence into Galvanic Alchemist or Vigean Graftmage in a way that's going to allow us to win with Prime Speaker Vannifar?
Well the answer depends on how much mana you have and if you have another creature to sacrifice to Prime Speaker Vannifar?
You can obviously sacrifice a Two Drop to get Galvanic Alchemist, but then you'll need 2U and another creature to even just get the party started.
But what is your winning combination of creatures?
If you're going to try a get infinite mana with a mana creature then you'll need haste. You get into this odd position of needing to get a haste enabler if you don't have access to one already.
Please check out the section 'Haste' in the primer for details on various ways you can get this.
Let's aim for Galvanic Alchemist, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Surrak, the Hunt Caller in play all at the same time.
Getting 3 creatures into play off Prime Speaker Vannifar is exponentially harder depending on if you need to get multiple creatures off a single creature.
If you have 3 creatures in play, then you can just chain into Galvanic Alchemist using 2U to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar each time, to chain the other two creatures into Selvala, Heart of the Wilds and Surrak, the Hunt Caller.
But if you only have two creatures, then your job is much harder because you have to sequence to get a couple of creatures;
1.) Sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Galvanic Alchemist soulbond to Prime Speaker Vannifar.
2.) Untap Prime Speaker Vannifar for 2U.
3.) Sacrifice another Two Drop creature into Spellseeker getting Green Sun's Zenith.
4.) Untap Prime Speaker Vannifar for 2U.
5.) Sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Surrak, the Hunt Caller.
6.) Cast Green Sun's Zenith for 3G getting Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, soulbond to Galvanic Alchemist.
7.) At combat step Surrak, the Hunt Caller give's Selvala, Heart of the Wilds haste.
8.) Tap Selvala, Heart of the Wilds for G to get 5 mana, enabling you to get infinite mana with Galvanic Alchemist.
This method requires 7GGUU, which as you can see if pretty mana intensive. Using Galvanic Alchemist ability adds up real fast if needing to use it multiple times, and having to spend extra on Green Sun's Zenith is harder if needing to get further creatures into play.
Note that this isn't the only way. Maybe you have Scryb Ranger in your graveyard, so instead of Spellseeker you could get Eternal Witness, and then it'll cost 5GGUU all up.
Please check out the section 'Multiple creatures' in the primer for details on various ways you can look to get more creatures into play.
Is there a way to get Biomancer's Familiar and Galvanic Alchemist into play with Prime Speaker Vannifar?
Once again we are trying to get two creatures into play permanently, so would even need a third creature to chain to "do something" once you have them in play.
So if you have 3 creatures in play already then it's much easier. It's once you start having to get multiple creatures into play that it's more mana intensive, etc.
Lets look at a best case scenario;
1.) Sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Galvanic Alchemist soulbond to Prime Speaker Vannifar.
2.) Untap Prime Speaker Vannifar for 2U.
3.) Sacrifice another One Drop creature into -> Biomancer's Familiar.
4.) Untap Prime Speaker Vannifar for U.
5.) Sacrifice another One Drop creature into Cloud of Faeries to untap 2 lands.
6.) Untap Prime Speaker Vannifar for U.
7.) Sacrifice Cloud of Faeries into -> Bounding Krasis to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
8.) Sacrifice Bounding Krasis into -> Fatestitcher (no haste).
9.) Untap Prime Speaker Vannifar for U.
10.) Sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Peregrine Drake to untap 5 lands.
11.) Untap Prime Speaker Vannifar for U.
12.) Sacrifice Peregrine Drake into -> Deadeye Navigator.
11.) Untap Prime Speaker Vannifar for U.
13.) Unearth Fatestitcher for U (no haste).
14.) Sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Body Double copying Peregrine Drake.
This method requires 2UU as long as you have 3 lands that can provide U each, as Cloud of Faeries and Peregrine Drake untap them along the way allowing you to free up mana for the Galvanic Alchemist activation's.
But you literally need 2 x One Drop and a Two Drop creature at the start. This does happen during some games, you draw your mana creatures, and in the right build having a Two Drop is the norm during games.
Note that you could use Glen Elendra Archmage instead of Fatestitcher, and it'll actually cost you U less.
In conclusion
There are going to be hundreds, if not thousands of ways to combine all the cards I mentioned in this post to sequence ways to win. But it's all going to come down to efficiency.
If you already have a cost reduction card like Biomancer's Familiar or Training Grounds, then your options are much better.
You could then use Galvanic Alchemist for untapping creatures for just U. This opens the door for any amount of sequencing you want really.
If you have a haste enabler already then you can just aim for mana creature that allows you to go infinite with Vigean Graftmage or Galvanic Alchemist if you also have the means to meet the other requirements of getting the mana creatures to produce more than the activation cost.
If you were to look at using Vigean Graftmage then you're going to need to play some number of +1/+1 counter enablers.
For example maybe you're playing Flash + Protean Hulk with Ezuri, Claw of Progress + Sage of Hours as a win condition. You could easily look to also add Incubation Druid, Oran-Rief, the Vastwood, Llanowar Reborn, Novijen, Heart of Progress, Forge of Heroes, as bare-bones to potentially getting it to work with Prime Speaker Vannifar and some premium mana creatures.
If you were to play Biomancer's Familiar, then as I've already mentioned this might lead you on to play other cards that also would benefit from cost reduction.
I think if you were to truly look to leverage Galvanic Alchemist and Vigean Graftmage then your build would probably want most of the proactive cards I've mentioned in this post as they all work together.
The honest truth is that I could spend days coming up with a deck build melding synergy into these creatures.
Trying to come up with sequences is also too numerous for the amount of time I can spend on these posts
However that does not mean that I will not endeavour to document as ideas come to mind. So this section will be added to the primer under 'Card Discussions' and I will add to it as things unfold in the future.
It is always important to point out that Galvanic Alchemist and Vigean Graftmage are creatures, and as such are often better in your deck that say Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff, as they allow you to plan for getting into play with Prime Speaker Vannifar, as opposed to hoping to randomly draw them.
So if you have a deck that looks to do multiple things with creatures, like disruption, value, etc, then a well setup untapper will allow you to do these things.
There are more efficient combo lines in general, so as far as looking to make Galvanic Alchemist and Vigean Graftmage one turn win combos, they are not the most mana efficient due to literally costing mana each time you use them.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Building my own Vannifar deck I noticed something and am surprised nobody else seems to have noticed the obvious wincon:
Triskelion
It chains just perfectly into your compact thousand year elixir combo:
0. If able/necessary start with one drop and Scryb Ranger
1. Trophy Mage to get Thousand-year elixir, play Elixir and untap Vannifar
2. Sacrifice Trophy Mage into Fatestitcher, untap vannifar
3. Sacrifice Fatestitcher into Peregrine Drake, untap 5 lands
4. Unearth Fatestitcher, untap Vannifar
5. Sacrifice Peregrine Drake into Deadeye Navigator, bond with Vannifar, flicker Vannifar with Navigator to untap her
6. Sacrifice Fatestitcher into Body Double copying Peregrine Drake, untap 5 lands, bond Drake with Navigator
7. Flicker Drake infinitely for infinite mana, flicker Navigator to bond with Vannifar to untap her
8. Sacrifice Body Double (aka Peregrine Drake) into Triskelion, bond with Navigator, shoot 3 damage at face, flicker, 3 damage, flicker,... infinite damage
As you'll have a Two Drop in the graveyard assuming that you chained into Trophy Mage, this will mean Body Double can become that Two Drop. Then you can chain into Spellseeker getting for example Green Sun's Zenith. Then you can get Eternal Witness.
You can keep exiling both the Spellseeker and Eternal Witness, so could just go for Brainstorm to draw as much of your deck as you want.
You could just keep Beast Within all opponents permanents, and indefinitely keep bouncing any those tokens with Cyclonic Rift. Remember Eternal Witness will just keep getting your spells back.
The deterministic method used in cEDH is to use Reality Shift to exile your opponents libraries, as you keep exiling the newly manifested creature.
Spellseeker and Eternal Witness would have to be exiled in order for you to get stuck this way, as Body Double can just copy them in graveyard if they have gone there early in the game.
So it's a pretty solid game plan in general without really needing to add any extra cards to the deck.
The backup to Eternal Witness being exiled, depend on the build, but my primer deck list has Greenwarden of Murasa, Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall to get cards back as well.
The cEDH deck has fewer options, but you can use Nantuko Tracer to put a card back into your library, to search them out again, which results in the same thing.
Spellseeker is more unique effect, but you can go for Selvala, Heart of the Wilds to combine with Deadeye Navigator if the 5 power is the highest on board to draw as many cards as you want.
Whirlpool Rider is used in the cEDH as an alternative to Spellseeker in this instance to keep cycling your hand until you get the card(s) you want.
They are both Two Drop creatures, so you'll need to setup a One Drop to chain into.
In my primer deck list I have Woodland Bellower and Protean Hulk to down chain into smaller creatures, meaning you could get a One Drop after chaining up.
The cEDH deck does not have this versatility of down chaining, but there are a lot of One Drop creatures in the deck.
So as you can see it's incredible resilient win conditions, without really needing to add cards that you wouldn't already be playing as part of the bigger game plan.
Now you could add Triskelion if you were really wanting the removal itself during value plays. Being able to snipe some mana creatures, etc, is an ability that Simic doesn't have a lot of access to.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Intruder Alarm Thornbite Staff
I've heard these card works well with Prime Speaker Vannifar? On a serious note, you'll notice that these don't feature in any of the decks in the primer, not even as a fail safe to what the decks are already doing.
This is because the decks are heavily focused on being self contained win conditions with many paths to victory with untapping through creature chains.
It is a little hard to get away from the temptation of the combo element of Prime Speaker Vannifar, and not just want to win on the spot.
There are two things I want to talk about, one is what sort of deck would you make if Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff was a necessary or at least good card for your build?
The other is actually if you were to run Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff as a backup for your combo chain build, what does this even look like in terms of triggers, etc.
If you're sacrificing creatures to get more creatures, then you're going to run out of creatures in your deck to search at each converted mana cost at a certain stage.
This is where Loaming Shaman and Body Double can be looped to give yourself infinite reshuffles of your graveyard.
You can just keep shuffling the other back into you library as long as you can keep both chaining up and start chains at two or lower converted mana cost.
An example of creating more creatures is Woodland Bellower and Protean Hulk. They can just keep getting the Loaming Shaman and you chain up to Body Double to shuffle the Loaming Shaman and Woodland Bellower/Protean Hulk.
You can also use creature token makers to do keep chains going.
Let's pick a "win condition" creature as well to show the sort of chaining you can infinite loop. In this case I'll use Reef Worm to show how making creature tokens means that you can chain again from Zero Drop into Loaming Shaman again.
With Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff in play.
1.) Sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Loaming Shaman.
2.) Sacrifice Loaming Shaman into -> Reef Worm.
3.) Sacrifice Reef Worm into -> Body Double copying Loaming Shaman.
4.) Shuffle at least Loaming Shaman, Reef Worm back into library.
5.) Sacrifice Body Double as Loaming Shaman into -> Reef Worm.
6.) Sacrifice Reef Worm into -> Any Five Drop you want or even nothing.
7.) Sacrifice 3/3 blue Fish creature token (from Reef Worm) into -> One Drop.
8.) Sacrifice One Drop into -> Two Drop.
*Start again at Step 1.) to loop infinitely. With Loaming Shaman just makes sure to shuffle back all the creatures you previously sacrificed including Body Double, Reef Worm, and the One and Two Drops into your library.
You can just keep repeating making infinite 9/9 blue Kraken creature tokens.
If you wanted to add other win conditions then you can do stuff like make your Two Drop Cloud of Faeries or One Drop Blisterpod for infinite mana.
Then you can draw your deck by finally putting a draw creature into play like River Hoopoe or Thrasios, Triton Hero.
You could combine life gain creature with finally using Squallmonger to kill opponents once you are ready.
Alternatively playing Tukatongue Thallid and Vitaspore Thallid to give all your 9/9 Kraken's haste.
Merrow Witsniper will mill opponents libraries.
It's important to remember that you are sacrificing one creature to get to the next with Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff and Prime Speaker Vannifar.
So I can't stress the importance of having creatures that can "create" other creatures.
There is Woodland Bellower and Protean Hulk of course. As long as you have a lot of creatures in your deck at each converted mana cost, you could split up Protean Hulk into 6 One Drops if you had them, to then proceed to chain up to they were all Ten Drops..if your deck was built that way
You could also use cards that make lots of tokens like Avenger of Zendikar or Hornet Queen.
This gives you flexibility not to just have 'enter the battlefield' or 'dies' triggers, as you'll actually be able to leave a number of creatures in play.
The question is what do you want to leave in play and how high to you want to keep chaining up creatures?
If you're going up to say a Ten Drop or more, then what is your Nine Drop doing for you, if it just gets sacrificed immediately?
There are actually only 22 creatures to choose from in all of Magic in Simic at Nine Drop, and the truth is that they really don't do anything (if sacrificed immediately) except being part of the chain. Void Winnower and Nullstone Gargoyle are nice control creatures but require to stay in play to get value.
Grozoth is the only one that gives you an enter battlefield trigger, so this could be worked in?
Now in much the same way that we were using Loaming Shaman and Body Double to create an infinite creature cycle loop, you can do the same thing with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre.
If you were to chain through them you can shuffle your graveyard into your library.
The difference between Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff is that Intruder Alarm needs a creature to 'enter the battlefield', where as Thornbite Staff just needs anything to die.
Thornbite Staff is different in that it's going to trigger no matter what, if you use Prime Speaker Vannifar, even if you fail to search for a creature.
If you have Intruder Alarm it's going to depend on how many other creatures you have greater than those Eldrazi? If it's Thornbite Staff then you don't have to worry about that, and can do it an infinite amount of times, as long as you have another creature to chain, i.e. creature token or something similar at a lower cost to get a value train going again.
If you have a creature sacrifice outlet at some stage, then you can sacrifice the Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to put it back into your library, so that you can infinitely loop searches.
For example if you were to use Profaner of the Dead as part of the chain each time, then you can keep the loop going.
Also you could use Worldspine Wurm instead of Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre as it creates creature tokens on dies, and also shuffles back into you library. So you can sacrifice the Worldspine Wurm and you get to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar, even if you fail to find a creature.
There are any amount of chains that you could do, but I'll give you an example of a God sequence..
Token creature -> Merrow Witsniper -> Augur of Bolas -> Wood Elves -> Venser, Shaper Savant -> Peregrine Drake -> Duplicant -> Chancellor of the Spires -> Terastodon -> Grozoth -> Kozilek, Butcher of Truth -> Worldspine Wurm.
Merrow Witsniper will mill opponents libraries, then you can use Chancellor of the Spires to cast their instants and sorceries.
You can destroy all the non-creature permanents, making them 3/3 green Elephant creature tokens, which you can then proceed to exile with Duplicant.
For added spice you can play Clone Legion in your deck and search it with Grozoth, cast it potentially infinite times, as you get infinite mana with Peregrine Drake and remember all your spells get shuffled back in with Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, so all the instant and sorcery you get with Augur of Bolas you'll be able to keep recasting as well.
OK, this is complete overkill, but represents a fun chain (for you). You could just have Triskelion as a way to kill opponents, and then all the other converted mana costs would be arbitrary.
The realms of possibilities are endless with creature bases and using Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff, so it's just up to you what you might concoct.
You could look to not have indefinite chains like I've showed with Loaming Shaman and Body Double or Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre/Worldspine Wurm.
It's going to depend on how many quality cards you have and if you have enough of every converted mana cost creature still in the deck?
Rather you'd be happy with enough chaining to disrupt your opponents with several cycles.
Reclamation Sage -> Venser, Shaper Savant -> Acidic Slime -> Duplicant -> Phyrexian Ingester -> Terastodon.
You can target one of your own permanents to make 3/3 token creature, so you can start another chain.
3/3 token creature -> Caustic Caterpillar -> Stern Proctor -> Vendilion Clique -> Thought-Knot Seer -> Somberwald Stag -> Destructor Dragon -> Avenger of Zendikar.
Once again you can chain through whatever you might have left in the deck, starting with a 0/1 Plant token again.
The problem with doing this is when you literally don't have a creature to search with Prime Speaker Vannifar at a certain mana cost. You can try and make sure your build has an even spread of converted mana cost creatures to make sure you don't draw too many of a particular cost, but it's always random what you might draw, milled, etc.
Another thing you can look to do with Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff is make use of creatures that can copy other creatures.
Let's say we will aim for copying Terastodon multiple times.
We could go Avenger of Zendikar into -> Terastodon just to make sure we have a bunch of token creatures to start chaining up again.
As long as you have enough One, Two and Three Drop creatures in the deck you can go for Phantasmal Image, Renegade Doppelganger, Mirror Image. With tons of Four Drops to choose from as well, Altered Ego, Clone, Gigantoplasm, Phyrexian Metamorph, Sakashima the Impostor, Sakashima's Student, Stunt Double, Vizier of Many Faces, Clever Impersonator.
So you can turn as many of your 0/1 Plants into Terastodon given enough creatures in your deck to chain through. You can destroy all your opponents lands, artifact, enchantments, planeswalkers and then chain into something like Profaner of the Dead to remove all the 3/3 tokens.
Primer decks
Let's look at Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff as potential redundancy in the primer builds. It's worth asking the question "Are they better than other work around for redundancy?".
The cEDH deck only has a few creatures at the Four and Five converted mana costs, so the game plan is always the same.
We only have Elvish Piper, Fatestitcher, Body Double, Peregrine Drake.
Most of the problems you have, is not having these not in your library. But even then, there are contingency plans, that can be worked around in some manner.
The literally worst is if Body Double is in your graveyard.
You still need a Five Drop to sacrifice into Deadeye Navigator so even with Intruder Alarm, your sort of stuck on the same problems.
Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff could be used as a substitute for needing to cast Thousand-Year Elixir if you do draw it and play it however.
With Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff in play.
1.) Sacrifice Three Drop into -> Fatestitcher, Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff untaps Prime Speaker Vannifar.
2.) Sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Peregrine Drake, Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff untaps Prime Speaker Vannifar.
3.) Sacrifice Peregrine Drake into -> Deadeye Navigator, Intruder Alarm/Thornbite Staff untaps Prime Speaker Vannifar.
4.) Unearth Fatestitcher for U, Intruder Alarm untaps Prime Speaker Vannifar.
5.) Fatestitcher can untap Prime Speaker Vannifar if Thornbite Staff is used.
6.) Sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Body Double copying Peregrine Drake, Intruder Alarm//Thornbite Staff untaps Prime Speaker Vannifar.
This method doesn't really require mana on the combo turn if you've already cast, rather than the 4 you need for Thousand-Year Elixir.
Now in my primer deck list, I have a lot more chains I could use with Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff, but the reality is that I've built the deck to have multiple ways to chain in the first place so the redundancy is just not necessary.
But the overall thing is that Intruder Alarm is an enchantment and you really don't have any good ways to search for it in Simic, which means mostly relying on drawing it.
You can use Drift of Phantasms to transmute for it.
Long-Term Plans can be used to get it, which a Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, can help to draw it straight away.
Intuition can be combined with graveyard retrieval cards like Eternal Witness and Regrowth.
Then further proxing tutoring, with Worldy Tutor getting Drift of Phantasms, or Mystical Tutor or Merchant Scroll for Long-Term Plans or Intuition.
Thornbite Staff is an artifact so there are a few more ways to search for it;
Deadeye Quartermaster, Fabricate, Arcum Dagsson, Inventors' Fair, Reshape, Skyship Weatherlight, Tezzeret the Seeker, Transmute Artifact, Whir of Invention.
Deadeye Quartermaster can be chained into with Prime Speaker Vannifar to get it.
Spellseeker can get Reshape, Transmute Artifact, Whir of Invention.
Trinket Mage can get Expedition Map, allowing you to get Inventors' Fair.
Combo cards without Prime Speaker Vannifar
Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff have been around for a while, and are certainly used as combo cards on their own right.
If you have some means of producing creatures with an on-board ability and have the mana to pay for it, then you can look to do it infinite times.
Another more convoluted way is to be able to make artifact mana sources into creatures as well.
For example say if you have Gilded Lotus in play, you can use cards like; Karn, Silver Golem, Toymaker, Tezzeret the Seeker, Tezzeret, Cruel Machinist, The Antiquities War, March of the Machines, to make it a creature.
Here is a list of Simic cards that can produce creature tokens, so as long as you have enough mana sources that will untap to keep paying you can loop.
Ant Queen, Biogenic Ooze, Centaur Glade, Budoka Gardener, Imperious Perfect, Inspired Sphinx, Jade Mage, Kazandu Tuskcaller, Master of the Hunt, Myr Matrix, Nemata, Grove Guardian, Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter, Retrofitter Foundry, Soul of Zendikar, Spawnsire of Ulamog, Splintering Wind, Splitting Slime, Stitcher's Apprentice, Thundering Spineback, Wall of Kelp, Wren's Run Packmaster.
These are not guaranteed infinite, but can be looped;
Arcane Artisan, Stitcher Geralf, Yisan, the Wanderer Bard, Arcum Dagsson, Jalira, Master Polymorphist.
Tribal stipulations;
Voice of the Woods with enough Elves in play. Seahunter, Skyshroud Poacher
There are some enchant lands, so if you put them on a land that is able to become a creature then you can look to get infinite;
Leafdrake Roost, Presence of Gond, Spawning Grounds, Squirrel Nest.
Lands that can become creatures; Dryad Arbor, Treetop Village, Faerie Conclave, Lumbering Falls, Inkmoth Nexus, Blinkmoth Nexus, Mutavault, Mishra's Factory.
There are a number of artifacts that tap to create token creatures, but you'd need to make them creatures to also untap. Again you'd have to use cards like Karn, Silver Golem, etc to also make these work.
Hornet Cannon, Metrognome, Mimic Vat, Myr Turbine, Nuisance Engine, Orochi Hatchery, Phyrexian Processor, Riptide Replicator, Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII, Serpent Generator, Soul Foundry, Summoning Station, The Hive, Throne of Empires, Volrath's Laboratory, Whirlermaker.
You can also use cards that bounce creatures to also get loops going. Cloudstone Curio, Equilibrium can bounce creatures and if you have the mana sources to keep paying for recasting creatures you bounce you can get infinite loops going. You'd want some sort of payoff, maybe 'enter the battlefield' trigger, etc.
Creature that can return creatures to hand or play;
Deadeye Navigator, Tradewind Rider, Heidar, Rimewind Master, Linessa, Zephyr Mage, Master Transmuter, Nephalia Smuggler, Palinchron, Shorecrasher Elemental, Temporal Adept, Temur Sabertooth, Tidespout Tyrant, Time Elemental, Vedalken Mastermind.
Arcum Dagsson and Jalira, Master Polymorphist can be used in a similar manner.
You could setup sacrifice outlets like Phyrexian Altar in conjunction with something that generates token creatures, like Kazandu Tuskcaller to get infinite mana.
In conclusion
If you're playing a self contained combo deck, then make sure you really look at how beneficial it is to have cards like Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff even as purely backup cards, because you might find they don't help you as much as you think.
It seems counter intuitive because Intruder Alarm is a signature card, literally in 62% of decks being analysed by EDHREC. Thornbite Staff is in a lot less at about a quarter of decks.
But I want it to be clear that it can be an easy trap for some people thinking that they will be automatically be great in their decks.
But in decks that are specifically designed around them they will be all-stars, and possibly actually necessary as a win condition.
You can look to have indefinite chains with Loaming Shaman and Body Double or Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre/Worldspine Wurm, as these are attractive loops for wins.
It is possible to just play Intruder Alarm or Thornbite Staff for pure value however, and the results can still be so over-whelming that it's a game winning play.
In this respect your creature base might just be a solid mid-range deck, that can work without Prime Speaker Vannifar in play in general. Gaining enough value just through casting solid creatures that can interact enough with opponents to slow them down, or gain you some additional resources.
Intruder Alarm is a combo card in it's own right, so it is possible to setup alternative win conditions without Prime Speaker Vannifar as a back up plan. There is a wealth of combinations, so it comes down to if you feel like the cards fit into your build in a synergistic way.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
So into Protean Hulk chains are still in there, it's an important part of the deck, but the method of winning is different.
Now you actually need to use Prime Speaker Vannifar to sacrifice the Protean Hulk to get Tidespout Tyrant.
Where as before you could just use Flash + Protean Hulk without Prime Speaker Vannifar in play.
The reason for the change up is that it's just more fun to have a creature to actually search when you do sacrifice the Protean Hulk with Prime Speaker Vannifar. My earlier deck list used to run Woodfall Primus, but since moving away from that win condition, it's not be as fun chaining up into..well nothing after Hulk.
I also wanted to include the Chakram Retriever combo chain. The primer deck is as much about teaching people combinations is it is about winning.
So Flash + Hulk just seemed a bit too try hard, given that I wasn't running any tutors like Mystical Tutor, Merchant Scroll, Summoner's Pact, Worldly Tutor, to make it more consistent.
Protean Hulk into Tidespout Tyrant combo chain
1.) Sacrifice Protean Hulk into -> Tidespout Tyrant.
2.) Protean Hulk gets Trinket Mage + Quirion Ranger + Dryad Arbor + Any Two Drop creature
3.) Trinket Mage gets Mana Crypt.
4.) Return Forest to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar with Quirion Ranger.
5.) Sacrifice Trinket Mage into Breaching Hippocamp to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
6.) Sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Body Double copying Trinket Mage.
7.) Trinket Mage gets Mox Amber.
Now you can get infinite casting of spells with Tidespout Tyrant bouncing between Mox Amber and Mana Crypt, getting infinite mana.
8.) Tidespout Tyrant returns Quirion Ranger.
9.) Cast Quirion Ranger for G and return a Forest to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
10.) Sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker.
With infinite mana you can keep bouncing the Spellseeker to get all your two or less instant and sorcery.
You can get Eternal Witness with Green Sun's Zenith and also keep bouncing the Eternal Witness with Tidespout Tyrant to get back cards from graveyard.
Chakram Retriever combo chain
1.) Sacrifice Three Drop creature into -> Breaching Hippocamp to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
2.) Sacrifice Breaching Hippocamp into -> Chakram Retriever.
3.) Cast a spell to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
4.) Sacrifice One Drop creature into -> Scryb Ranger returning a Forest to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
5.) Sacrifice Scryb Ranger into -> Spellseeker getting Gitaxian Probe.
6.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
7.) Sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Gitaxian Probe.
8.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
9.) Sacrifice Archaeomancer into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Gitaxian Probe.
10.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
11.) Sacrifice Mnemonic Wall into -> Greenwarden of Murasa returning Gitaxian Probe.
12.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
13.) Sacrifice Greenwarden of Murasa into Protean Hulk.
14.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa from graveyard to return Gitaxian Probe.
15.) Cast Gitaxian Probe for (U/P) to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar with Chakram Retriever.
16.) Sacrifice Protean Hulk into Tidespout Tyrant.
Please see the sequencing I mentioned above 'Protean Hulk into Tidespout Tyrant combo chain' for the rest of the combo.
Primer Deck
Added
+ Chakram Retriever
+ Tidespout Tyrant
+ Trinket Mage
+ Gitaxian Probe
+ Preordain
+ Mox Amber
Removed
- Flash
- Volrath's Shapeshifter
- Snapcaster Mage
- Sidisi's Faithful
- Grand Architect
- Pili-Pala
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
I've been thinking about contingencies if key combo pieces get sent to the graveyard. What are our thoughts on some of these?
noxious revival is my favorite as it's the cheapest, Dwell on the past and piper's melody get more cards shuffled back into our library so they can be used again and can be searched up with spellseeker
Creatures that have those effects are nantuko tracer, Loaming shaman, and rooting kavu, or elvish soultiller at 2, 3, 4, and 5 drop slots respectively.
Another interesting idea that I haven't seen in this thread so far is Tel-jilad stylus In response to someone removing a combo piece we can tuck the creature back to our library so Vannifar can search it out again. Nantuko tracer and Loaming shaman having the added bonus that they can affect a graveyard strategy if need be.
The creatures are obviously preferred since they can be tutored up but the spells are nice since we don't have to spend a Vannifar activation. I've been trying to figure out how many slots I want to devote to contingency plans like this vs just running more counter magic to fight removal. Thoughts?
The cEDH deck just has "one" way of winning. But I do talk about how to navigate around when combo pieces are not available. If you look at the cEDH section, which you can check out here, then you'll see that it does have Noxious Revival and Nantuko Tracer in the deck.
The reason for playing Nantuko Tracer over Loaming Shaman is purely that you can start the combo chain into Trophy Mage with Nantuko Tracer being 2 cmc, rather the 3 cmc.
The reason I don't play these in the other deck, is simply because I have a lot more ways to win, so has built in backup plans anyway.
If you read the post I did about Intruder Alarm and Thornbite Staff I did yesterday, I integrate Loaming Shaman into a loop you can do. You can check out the post here.
Tel-Jilad Stylus is interesting. I don't know if it's possible to get some sort of loop going by proactively putting a creature you've already searched? I need to think on this a bit more.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
it would be a win by laboratory maniac or psychosis crawler, though
Plus...this is a simic-colored competitive list, right? Do the Magic Gods even let you do that without having Thrasios in there somewhere?
So the method I had figured out was this, but I've removed Grand Architect and Pili-Pala from my deck recently actually. I explain the reasons in a few posts above, you can click here for the details. It's not that it wasn't good, it's just that I put in different win conditions.
Here is how to give Pili-Pala haste;
1.) Sacrifice Protean Hulk into..
2.) Getting Volrath's Shapeshifter + Pili-Pala + Quirion Ranger + Dryad Arbor.
3.) Return a Forest with Quirion Ranger to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
4.) Sacrifice Volrath's Shapeshifter as Protean Hulk into ..
5.) Getting Grand Architect + Trophy Mage.
6.) Trophy Mage getting Thousand-Year Elixir.
7.) Tap Trophy Mage, Grand Architect to get 4 with Grand Architect ability.
8.) Cast Thousand-Year Elixir for 3.
9.) Activate Grand Architect for U to make the Pili-Pala blue.
You can get infinite mana now because Thousand-Year Elixir allows you to use Pili-Pala straight away.
But I use (and most people who are communicating on Discord channel) use Spellseeker and Eternal Witness combined with infinite Deadeye Navigator activation's as the win condition.
So for example this is what the full sequence would look like;
10.) Sacrifice Trophy Mage into -> Fatestitcher to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
11.) Sacrifice Fatestitcher into -> Any Five Drop creature.
12.) Unearth Fatestitcher U to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
13.) Sacrifice Any Five Drop creature into -> Deadeye Navigator soulbond it to Fatestitcher.
14.) Exile Fatestitcher for 1U to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
15.) Sacrifice Quirion Ranger into -> Any Two Drop creature.
16.) Exile Fatestitcher for 1U to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
17.) Sacrifice Any Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Green Sun's Zenith.
Because you have infinite mana and infinite Deadeye Navigator soulbond with any creature, you can just draw your deck this way. The Green Sun's Zenith can get the rest of your green creatures, and you can just keep reusing the Spellseeker to get all your spells basically.
Then I use Eternal Witness with Reality Shift to mill opponents libraries.
Spellseeker can just get something like Brainstorm and use infinite Eternal Witness activation's to draw your deck if you wanted to go this way.
Now you might be like Step 10.) to 17.) seems elaborate when you could just get Thrasios, but the thing is that the deck is playing these cards anyway as part of other combos, so I'm just showing that in theory you don't actually need to add anything extra if you already run these cards.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
You missed a bit of my post. Untap-based abilities don't get affected by haste, so once you have the two mana from tapping Pili-Pala using his in-built ability is fine. As for tapping him for the two mana? Grand Architect taps a blue creature as a cost. That's the important part. Even if a creature is summoning sick, you can tap it to pay costs. Heritage Druid works the same way. In fact, here, the official ruling on this as found on the Gatherer:
"Since Grand Architect’s last ability doesn’t have a tap symbol in its cost, you can tap a blue creature (including Grand Architect itself) that hasn’t been under your control since your most recent turn began to pay the cost."
So the combo I talked about does work the way I described. Still, your point about how to win from pulling the combo off does seem pretty valid--getting to a win-con from infinite mana + deadeye would be easy as sin. Still, I do like the self-contained nature of the trasios version.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=pili-pala
Just click the link above and you'll be able to read the line:
You're totally correct about Grand Architect being able to tap immediately for getting 2 without needing haste.
But tap t and untap q are treated the same for purposes of summoning sickness.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Elite Arcanist
If you have Vitalize or Dramatic Reversal in hand at the time Elite Arcanist comes into play then you can look to setup to go infinite with other non-land mana sources, like artifact mana and mana creatures (Vitalize only).
It works in very much the same way as Isochron Scepter.
The difference, besides cost, between Isochron Scepter and Elite Arcanist is that as a creature it also has summoning sickness, meaning you can't use it the turn it comes into play.
The most obvious way is to chain into Spellseeker to get Vitalize or Dramatic Reversal. But there is no obvious way to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar and give Elite Arcanist haste in the same turn, for some sort of one turn win, like we've setup with a lot of other combo chains.
How about if Prime Speaker Vannifar is in play?
Unfortunately there is no easy way to chain a combo. This is the best method I could come up with when you have limited support cards;
1.) Sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Trophy Mage getting Thousand-Year Elixir.
2.) Cast Thousand-Year Elixir for 3 and untap Prime Speaker Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir for t1.
3.) Sacrifice another Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Vitalize.
4.) Cast Vitalize to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
5.) Sacrifice Spellseeker into -> Fatestitcher (with haste now) to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
6.) Sacrifice Fatestitcher into Body Double copying Spellseeker getting Dramatic Reversal.
7.) Unearth Fatestitcher U to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar.
8.) Sacrifice Trophy Mage into -> Elite Arcanist exiling Dramatic Reversal.
Now you can get infinite activation's of Elite Arcanist if you have at least 2 in non-land mana sources.
Note that at Step 4.) You could get Dramatic Reversal instead and exile Vitalize instead at Step 9.) if you wanted to only spend 1 each time. It's just going to come down to artifact mana versus mana creatures, which you'd prefer.
This method requires 6GU and 2 x Two Drop creatures. Realistically you want some forms of non-land mana sources, as this will actually allow you to get infinite mana, if you can get more than the cost of what you exile with Elite Arcanist.
But compare this with the 4 you need for Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator combo, and you can see that this would only be purely used as a backup.
If you have Concordant Crossroads, Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots, then you can look to use Elite Arcanist straight away. But it's still not that simple. You need a way to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar without using the Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal, as you need it in hand at the time Elite Arcanist comes into play.
So really you need to naturally have another untapper as well as haste, to be able to combo easily.
Naban, Dean of Iteration or Panharmonicon are cards that you can look to combine with Spellseeker to get you both a graveyard retrieval card and untapper spells.
You could get Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal and Regrowth, so that you could chain into Elite Arcanist and get back the Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal in timely manner.
Illusionist's Bracers or Rings of Brighthearth are cards you can use to get double creatures for the purposes of combing.
You can sacrifice Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal and also Trophy Mage getting Thousand-Year Elixir.
Now you can untap Prime Speaker Vannifar with Thousand-Year Elixir, and also chain into Elite Arcanist exiling Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal. You'll have haste as well, so you can look to combo straight away with Elite Arcanist.
You could also go at Three Drop, Spellseeker for Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal and Bounding Krasis. Then at Four Drop go Elite Arcanist and Surrak, the Hunt Caller for haste. Or Deadeye Quartermaster getting Lightning Greaves for example.
What if Prime Speaker Vannifar is not in play?
Elite Arcanist exiling Dramatic Reversal also enables you to use Birthing Pod in the same manner as Prime Speaker Vannifar.
In this respect you can look for it to be a way to win when Prime Speaker Vannifar has been hated out of a game. However without haste, it is a slower process as you have to wait several turns.
1.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Two Drop creature into -> Spellseeker getting Dramatic Reversal.
2.) Pass the turn.
3.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Spellseeker into -> Elite Arcanist exiling Dramatic Reversal.
4.) Pass the turn.
On your next turn you can tap Elite Arcanist to keep untapping itself and Birthing Pod.
As you can see without haste you have to wait a full turn to activate Elite Arcanist. And without burning the Dramatic Reversal before you get Arcanist into play, you have to wait a full turn to get the Birthing Pod untapped.
I have already shown in the primer how to use Dramatic Reversal with graveyard retrieval creatures Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Greenwarden of Murasa to curve into Protean Hulk with Birthing Pod as well.
2.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
3.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Spellseeker into -> Archaeomancer returning Dramatic Reversal.
4.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
5.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Archaeomancer into -> Mnemonic Wall returning Dramatic Reversal.
5.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
7.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Mnemonic Wall into -> Greenwarden of Murasa returning Dramatic Reversal.
8.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
9.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Greenwarden of Murasa into -> Protean Hulk.
10.) Exile Greenwarden of Murasa from your graveyard to return Dramatic Reversal.
11.) Cast Dramatic Reversal for 1U to untap Birthing Pod and hopefully mana creature(s) and/or artifact mana.
12.) Birthing Pod for t1(G/P) Protean Hulk into ..
In conclusion
On the surface Elite Arcanist looks like it could be a decent backup plan to a variety of ways to combo. But you do need to have support cards already to make it work in a timely manner.
It may seem like a good alternative to even Isochron Scepter as you can search it with Prime Speaker Vannifar. But as I've shown without a haste element, you end up waiting additional turns.
Even in the instance where you can use it in conjunction with Birthing Pod and Dramatic Reversal, the better option is to use Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Greenwarden of Murasa, Protean Hulk as an automatic way of winning, rather than needing delayed turns.
If you were wanting an alternative way to win without Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator, then you can look to use a similar line with Trophy Mage/Thousand-Year Elixir and using Elite Arcanist with Vitalize and Dramatic Reversal.
But once again there is already a combo line you can look for with Vitalize that is far more mana efficient with Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Greenwarden of Murasa, Protean Hulk.
There are deck configurations where it can be good for your build. But it will require specific cards in my opinion and probably the absence of some other cards as well (like the graveyard retrieval creatures).
Decks that are already playing Illusionist's Bracers and Rings of Brighthearth will certainly make Elite Arcanist more appealing.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Riptide Shapeshifter
Probably one of the most overlooked cards in commander for what it could actually offer your deck as far as versatility of trading up.
It's ability to potentially get you any creature in certain builds will go unaware for many peoples long standing decks.
The complexity of even considering a card like this is that you have to evaluate every creature in your deck to know exactly how it performs. Adding and removing creatures as you tweak a deck, when playing Riptide Shapeshifter means that you have to think about how those creature types might effect your ability to get particular cards.
But what people wouldn't even factor in is that often this card can be turned into any creature in your deck. Finding out that frequently your more powerful creatures can be searched with one-off creature types.
Now in a Primer Speaker Vannifar build it serves as an excellent means to fill in the often awkward Five Drop creature, that are quite conditional on ability to untap Primer Speaker Vannifar.
If we look at our other Five Drop creatures that we look to chain with, they all have stipulations;
Chakram Retriever needs spell to cast.
Disciple of the Ring needs instant or sorcery to exile from graveyard.
Mnemonic Wall, Salvager of Secrets, Scrivener can use Vitalize/Dramatic Reversal/etc.
Tidewater Minion needs haste or waiting a turn.
With Riptide Shapeshifter not only does it allow you to potentially sequence into another untapper, but it also allows you up upgrade, or even downgrade your creature. Exactly the sort of thing we are always looking to do with Prime Speaker Vannifar in the first place.
For 2UU you can choose Praetor and chain straight into Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur!!
Choose Eldrazi and get yourself an Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre or maybe Golem and get Blightsteel Colossus.
There are certainly a range of creatures you can select from and guarantee it's success.
The magic of it all is that Prime Speaker Vannifar of course can chain into them from any converted mana cost.
Quirion Ranger -> Scryb Ranger -> Bounding Krasis -> Breaching Hippocamp -> Riptide Shapeshifter.
OK, so what can it do for your deck?
Well this is where you've got really break down your creatures, and exactly what choosing a creature type will do for you.
So for example let's look at the primer deck. We will break down the creatures into types.
Bird; Birds of Paradise.
Elf; Quirion Ranger, Fyndhorn Elves.
Elf, Druid; Arbor Elf, Elvish Mystic, Llanowar Elves, Joraga Treespeaker, Devoted Druid, Priest of Titania.
Faerie; Scryb Ranger.
Merfolk; Kiora's Follower.
Satyr; Voyaging Satyr.
Human, Wizard; Spellseeker, Trinket Mage, Trophy Mage, Archaeomancer.
Lizard; Bounding Krasis.
Shaman; Eternal Witness, Elvish Piper.
Scout; Selvala, Heart of the Wilds.
Horse; Breaching Hippocamp.
Zombie; Fatestitcher.
Wall; Mnemonic Wall.
Hound; Chakram Retriever.
Shapeshifter; Body Double.
Drake; Peregrine Drake.
Spirit; Deadeye Navigator.
Beast; Woodland Bellower, Protean Hulk.
Elemental; Greenwarden of Murasa, Chakram Retriever.
Illusion; Palinchron.
Djinn; Tidespout Tyrant.
There are quite a few unique creatures types. I can guarantee upgrading into Deadeye Navigator, Palinchron, Tidespout Tyrant.
Choosing 'Beast' can get Woodland Bellower or Protean Hulk. If I wanted Protean Hulk as the final creature, then Woodland Bellower can get Bounding Krasis/Quirion Ranger/Scryb Ranger as a way to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar to chain into it.
It would be fairly simple to take out Chakram Retriever for guaranteeing Greenwarden of Murasa for the 'Elemental' type.
The only Eight Drop creature in all of Simic that offers chaining up is Patron of the Orochi and this requires haste if wanting to use straight away.
There are no Nine or more converted mana cost creatures that actually are able to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar in Simic. So chaining creatures past Eight or more, is dependent on additional untappers you might have access to or it can't be done.
With Riptide Shapeshifter you can plan for this much higher chaining now.
An example of how I might use Riptide Shapeshifter in my deck, is to chain into Palinchron with either Wirewood Lodge or Minamo, School at Water's Edge in play.
I could chain into Palinchron untapping all the lands, and then untap Prime Speaker Vannifar with one of the lands.
With another creature in play can look to chain into Deadeye Navigator.
In conclusion
I implore you to see how Riptide Shapeshifter can fit into your Prime Speaker Vannifar build.
It's a real way of chaining and a solution to the often awkward Five Drop creature 'untapping' slot.
If you're playing more of a control build, then you can easily chain into creatures like Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger, Nullstone Gargoyle, Void Winnower, Kozilek, the Great Distortion.
Or you might just find yourself happy with putting pressure on your opponents to having answers for creatures like Blightsteel Colossus, Inkwell Leviathan, It That Betrays, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Worldspine Wurm.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
There is a pretty solid core of cards that are being used for cEDH Prime Speaker Vannifar builds currently from my experience.
I might not be aware of some unique builds out there but on the whole many of the submitted lists are showing up around the same, but for a few choices.
Most list are going to have less than 10 cards differences, if not more like 5.
So I'm just going to talk about those few choices and the potential benefits and mistakes of some of them. Most of them are all fine solid choices, and just come down to personal preference.
But I'm also going to talk about some cards that are in most lists, but I feel are overrated in context to the rest of the deck. And why I personally choose to play different cards, that do not show up in other lists.
Please note that my cEDH build is in the second post of this primer, you can check it out by clicking here.
Here is a list of cards that are some of the more fluctuating cards among builds.
Creatures: Siren Stormtamer, Riftsweeper, Manglehorn, Reclamation Sage.
Tutors: Merchant Scroll, Intuition.
Removal: Natural State, Winds of Rebuke, Pongify/Rapid Hybridization, Beast Within.
Protection: Misdirection.
Land ramp: Nature's Lore, Three Visits.
Draw: Ponder, Preordain, Rhystic Study, Timetwister.
Stax: Winter Orb, Back to Basics.
Lands: Dryad Arbor, Gemstone Caverns, Winding Canyons, Alchemist's Refuge, Ancient Tomb.
So if you can imagine the core of deck are established, but you might be looking for example around fitting around 5 of the above cards as your final slots.
Discount the lands for that count.
Cards that I am personally playing that might not show up in most lists;
Voyaging Satyr, Devoted Druid, Phyrexian Revoker, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Vines of Vastwood, Mana Confluence, City of Brass.
From the fluctuating list I'm personally playing Beast Within, Timetwister, Misdirection.
Now honestly I think a lot of people are just not playing Timetwister due to price, and actually this is not even necessarily a mistake not playing it. It has potential benefits, but it is nowhere near required like it is for storm builds. Like I might even cut it from my list to better the deck as it does have situational downsides as well. If you don't want to splash the cash, do not feel like the deck suffers.
Now these cards show up in most deck list, but I am not personally playing; Utopia Sprawl, Wild Growth.
So why not play Utopia Sprawl and Wild Growth?
Well my personal preference is to play Voyaging Satyr and Devoted Druid as mana accelerates instead. I like to play creatures that can start a chain over many other type of additional mana sources.
The difference between one mana and two mana, is a factor. So I'm not going to say one is absolutely better than the other, but that's my stance on it at the moment. I'd prefer to potentially be a bit slower at the rate of more success with creature thresholds. It's not always about starting with one creature, you can ease the burden of awkward situations with additional creatures to sacrifice to Prime Speaker Vannifar.
I think the correct amount of lands to play is 31, mainly due to the combo needing 3 lands in play. Skimping on this can only be justified I think if you playing land ramp, like Nature's Lore or Three Visits. I could see the trade in of these cards for a land slot.
This also leads into what is happening with card choices due to needing 3 lands in play. Some cards are being left out, specifically Sylvan Safekeeper and Mox Diamond.
Not playing Sylvan Safekeeper is a mistake. I cannot stress the importance of having an ability available to you, versus actually needing to use it. I think the misconception comes from the fact that people think that people will just fire off their removal spells into the Sylvan Safekeeper ability. This is not the case. People are reluctant to use a removal spell even if it does mean being down a land. Unless the opponents are talking among themselves, giving away that several removal spells can be targeted at your creatures, then often the removal is left stranded in their hands.
The other thing is that you'd prefer to be a land down anyway, even if it puts you on two lands, then have to find the additional 2 commander tax and spend an entire turn re-casting Prime Speaker Vannifar.
The math and psychology works in Sylvan Safekeeper favor.
I can see that Siren Stormtamer is a potentially good protection creature as well, but needing to hold up the U is a big difference and you can only use it once. But I certainly see it's potential benefits.
This card looks much better in theory, than it actually is at making your deck stronger. Of course it's nice to have some infallible way of covering every angle of your combo, but if you read my primer for cEDH you'll see that you have many different ways to navigate around specific cards being exiled. Sure it might require conditional extra resources, or needing a couple of turns to setup instead, but the reality is that Riftsweeper itself is going to require a turn to use (if via Prime Speaker Vannifar). So in that one game in twenty you might use it, you have other options anyway. It's just that you have to think about it more in depth than you normally would.
I feel like this is pretty much a dead card in the majority of your games, where it could easily be something that is useful 100% of your games.
It's just about playing the statistics. Having the one win from it actually being useful in maybe forty games, could have just been a protection card that would win you far more games over the course of your decks lifespan.
Most lists have this gem of a card, because so much of the games come down to a protected Prime Speaker Vannifar. 31 blue cards (or 30 not including the Misdirection) is what my decks runs, and this has always served me well with having the required additional blue card to pitch.
Being able to tap out to cast Prime Speaker Vannifar really is one of your stronger plays you can make, so their are only a few silly souls who fail to see the gain you get. Plus it can be used to counter a counterspell.
Right so if you're going infinite with Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator won't pain lands kill you?
Actually it's pretty unlikely. You only need to generate so much mana, before you can look at alternative lines, getting Selvala, Heart of the Wilds to take over the roles of infinite mana once you have done what you need to get past the first steps.
Chances are you are getting Spellseeker as a first port of call for winning, so you just Green Sun's Zenith for Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. Or even Crop Rotation to swap out the pain land(s).
It's really going to be very few times the actual damage prevents you from comboing off, and color fixing is super important in this deck. More important than you first think.
Ancient Tomb is another interesting card for these reasons, but personally I feel the color fixing makes Ancient Tomb far less appealing as a land in the build. But that's not to say that it isn't actually really good.
I want to make it clear that Dryad Arbor is an absolute all-star in my primer build, because of the Vitalize combos, and because I can get combo lines going that don't require 3 lands in play.
However in cEDH builds that only play the Trophy Mage/Thousand-Year Elixir into Peregrine Drake and Deadeye Navigator, the advantages of playing Dryad Arbor are completely lost.
It ends up more or less a tapped land for the purposes of speed of the deck.
You are really unlikely to use it to start your Prime Speaker Vannifar chain, as you would be looking to sequence into Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger. This would put you 3 lands down, and let's be realistic that's not a winning line when you need 3 lands in play.
About the only advantage you might gain is a Green Sun's Zenith for zero. But I feel like for the win percentages, you are going to be slowed down more often, than gain speed because of one spell in the deck.
The reason for this card is that if you have one of your haste cards like Concordant Crossroads, Lightning Greaves or Thousand-Year Elixir already in play, then you can look to cast Prime Speaker Vannifar and win without needing additional untapped mana.
You can chain through your combo, but you need a Three Drop creature to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar. Without Vizier of Tumbling Sands, your alternative at Three converted mana cost is Spellseeker getting Green Sun's Zenith, and getting something like Quirion Ranger. But that is 1G and returning a Forest which is not optimal, when you're really hoping to go off by just casting your general. Chances are this two mana difference will mean having to pass the turn, which defeats the purpose of casting Prime Speaker Vannifar in the first place.
Using the cycle ability to untap Prime Speaker Vannifar is certainly an option during times when you've not had a clear path of combing due to cards not being available (in hand, graveyard or exiled).
Out of the other fluctuating cards I feel like they are all perfectly reasonable choices, but I'll explain why I prefer to play other cards over them.
The reason that I don't play Manglehorn or Reclamation Sage is that they don't serve as creatures for the purposes of starting chains with Prime Speaker Vannifar.
I feel like if you need to spend a turn using Prime Speaker Vannifar as removal, then you can just get Spellseeker instead for Nature's Claim.
So then to me they are expensive removal at 3 mana.
Now they can be tutored up with Worldly Tutor and Green Sun's Zenith as well, but you do have Mystical Tutor as well if you simply made them instant removal instead, which do not get hosed by Torpor Orb, Hushwing Gryff.
Of the other tutors Merchant Scroll and Intuition are very strong, and honestly I think I need to evaluate Intuition specifically for the cEDH build. I literally think I'll make it my next in depth card focus, so I can get a clearer picture for myself and for you.
I personally play Intuition in a lot of decks, but mainly when graveyard synergies are involved, but I need to lay out the specifics for my own personal check list for this deck to decipher what can be done.
Some people play Natural State, Winds of Rebuke, Pongify/Rapid Hybridization, where I have been using Beast Within as a catch all. Spellseeker can get the former cards, but I already have Nature's Claim, Cyclonic Rift, Reality Shift that I can search up, so feel like I don't miss out on anything there.
Winds of Rebuke is being used as a potential backup line to Reality Shift for milling out opponents libraries (used in conjunction with Scavenging Ooze), but once I've gone infinite, I have never had to look for alternative lines of winning, that is just not where the game is being decided.
Some of the lands that allow you to cast creatures at instant speed are being tested, with Winding Canyons, Alchemist's Refuge. To me I think they will be too slow. Needing the additional 3 mana (they taps themselves) sounds like it's just easier to cast Prime Speaker Vannifar on your own turn and hold up the additional mana for protection/disruption anyway. But I'm happy to be proven otherwise.
If that makes sense you'd only be able to use it with Prime Speaker Vannifar when you have 7 mana at your disposal, in which case I'd prefer color fixing land in general most games, and just cast her for the 4 mana while holding up 3 mana for potential disruption or protection.
It's not quite that simple, holding up 7 mana, means that you can potentially interact even more (cast more spells in response to what opponents are doing), avoid sorcery speed removal. But once again I stress the importance of color fixing to ensuring explosive starts to your game, which is the most likely source of victories.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary Vizier of the Menagerie
When I start these card discussions I never actually know what the outcomes are, I do them for my own personal thought experiments so that I further my understanding of how they could be worked into a Prime Speaker Vannifar build.
The reason I started looking at Momir Vig, Simic Visionary in the first place was to think about a backup plan in the face of some card hate like Grafdigger's Cage, Containment Priest, Cursed Totem, Linvala, Keeper of Silence.
Obviously you can't search for Momir Vig with Prime Speaker Vannifar if these hate cards are in play, but what if I had Momir Vig as a card I could draw to circumnavigate these types of cards?
One thing that I've been thinking about is how to potentially have a build that utilized Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and Vizier of the Menagerie as a way to combo.
It is possible to cast Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and cast a green creature spell and tutor for Vizier of the Menagerie to put it on top of your library and draw it next turn.
As a bonus you could also look to get them into play off Prime Speaker Vannifar, but this is no easy feat in itself.
If you were to use a Protean Hulk line then you could go for Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and Quirion Ranger and sequence the Quirion Ranger into Vizier of the Menagerie.
-OR-
You could look to use a natural untapper with two creatures in play if this was available to you.
For example;
1.) Two Drop creature -> Bounding Krasis -> Breaching Hippocamp -> Momir Vig, Simic Visionary.
2.) Use an untapper for Prime Speaker Vannifar, that you might already have like Wirewood Lodge, Wirewood Symbiote, Kiora's Follower, etc
3.) Two Drop creature -> Deceiver Exarch -> Vizier of the Menagerie.
How do we win from here?
Let's say we get both Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and Vizier of the Menagerie into play.
The below interactions are taken from a Momir Vig primer https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/primer-momir-vig-hackball/
All credit goes to AverageDragon and Sickrobot for the interactions.
The basic plan to tutor up Heritage Druid and Nettle Sentinel, which means that for every two 1cmc Green Creature Elves we cast, we net a G. As this gets more mana than you spend, it means we can chain tutors to generate more and more mana, and eventually assemble a combo. This is called a "tutor chain" or a "dork chain". Notably, it's hard to disrupt, because we get the tutors whether or not our creature resolves. Assuming you have a creature that taps for mana or a land drop, as well as a Forest, the combo needs only G to combo off post-tutor:
To summarise all this, if we add the following creatures we can generate lots of mana.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Vizier of the Menagerie
Heritage Druid
Nettle Sentinel
Birchlore Rangers
Phantasmal Image
Then there are a number of ways to branch off to use that mana.
You could go for Temur Sabertooth + Wirewood Symbiote for infinite mana;
But alternatively because you are more into an elf tribal deck, you can potentially not go for any infinite's and simply get all your green creatures out onto the board.
You can always finish up with at least one blue creature as well, but this won't allow you to search for another creature, as Momir Vig only allows searching when it's "green".
But for example you could get all your green creatures out making sure to get Craterhoof Behemoth, then on your last search get Treasure Mage to get Akroma's Memorial, which will be more than lethal damage for all opponents.
Let's just do a little math check. Remember that each of our 1 mana creatures produces GG (net). If our deck had this type of creature base with mana creatures;
- Sylvan Safekeeper
- Birds of Paradise
- Arbor Elf
- Boreal Druid
- Elvish Mystic
- Fyndhorn Elves
- Llanowar Elves
- Joraga Treespeaker
- Kiora's Follower
- Devoted Druid
- Priest of Titania
Then that's 19 mana. Which is enough to cast Craterhoof Behemoth + Treasure Mage + Akroma's Memorial at 18 mana.That is also going to be at a minimum of 19 creatures as well (remember we also have the combo assemblers in play, Momir Vig, Simic Visionary , Vizier of the Menagerie, Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, Birchlore Rangers, Phantasmal Image) so that's +19/+19 to 19 creatures, it's going to be around 380 plus damage.
As an alternative to Craterhoof Behemoth, you could run Ezuri, Renegade Leader instead.
I calculate that you'd need to run one more elf (for example Bloom Tender), so your 13 elves will be able to get +10/+10 off two Ezuri, Renegade Leader activation's. That's about 140 plus damage.
In conclusion
There will be hundreds of ways to combo with Momir Vig, Simic Visionary and Vizier of the Menagerie in play, but I think that it best suites a build that has a lot of mana creatures already and you're willing to play some of the "elves matter" cards in Heritage Druid, Nettle Sentinel, Birchlore Rangers.
These can strengthen the speed of your deck for the right build, very explosive starts, and ups your creature count potentially in a positive way.
Then you can take out/don't run a lot of other creature combos that you might have been thinking about.
For example in my primer decks they have Peregrine Drake + Deadeye Navigator but instead you can run Temur Sabertooth + Wirewood Symbiote as a source of infinite mana.
Then you really have a powerful creature in your 99 with Momir Vig that can act as an alternative to Prime Speaker Vannifar if she has been hated out of the game.
Plus Vizier of the Menagerie is a great card on it's own, Prime Speaker Vannifar ability does allow you to shuffle your library for additional looks at the top of your deck.
Why not just play Momir Vig, Simic Visionary as your commander if you want to run these combos? Well I've actually written a section within the primer on reasons why you might want to play Prime Speaker Vannifar as your commander even when you are looking to use other legendary creatures as key cards. For more details click here to read up on it.
But in general you're still looking to combo in other ways, and for a relatively small combo package it provides methods of playing around being hated out by cards that specifically shut downs Prime Speaker Vannifar abilities.
It still won't save you from Aven Mindcensor or Stranglehold, but you can probably get around almost all the other cards that shut down Prime Speaker Vannifar activation's.
Niv-Mizzet Reborn
Feather, the Redeemed
Estrid, the Masked
Teshar
Tymna/Ravos
Najeela, Blade-Blossom
Firesong & Sunspeaker
Zur the Enchanter
Lazav, the Multifarious
Ishai+Reyhan
Click images for decks->
-Prime Speaker Vannifar
---------------------Will & Rowan Kenrith
UB Dralnu, Lich Lord
RBW [Primer]-Kaalia of the Vast
BUG [Primer]-Tasigur, the Golden Fang
GWU [Primer]-Arcades, the Strategist
WUB Primer-Aminatou, the Fateshifter
UBR Nicol Bolas, the Ravager
BGU [Primer] Sidisi, Brood Tyrant BGU | BG [Primer] Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest BG | G [Primer] Polukranos, World Eater G
My YouTube Channel:
The Commander Tavern - a channel I just started where I'll post deck techs and gameplays. Please support by checking it out. Maybe you'll like its content and subscribe! Thanks!
old thread
old thread
old thread
R Zada Arcane Storm
RBU Marchesa
GWU Estrid
GWR Samut?
URB Kess
(R/W)(U/B) Akiri & Silas
BWR Alesha
R Neheb Dragons
G Nylea Wurms
W Darien
U Tetsuko