I'm building an Esper control deck with Zur the Enchanter as my commander, and I need help.
1 - I've searched for hours each night for the past three nights, and I still don't have a good concept of what ratio of draw, counter, removal, discard, or commander-specific tricks I should be aiming for.
2 - Would it be wise if I wanted to go with a tribal theme such as Zombies, Wizards, or Humans? My gut says no.
3 - I imagine this deck is going to be heavier in enchantments than the average deck, or should I just aim for fewer but more powerful enchantments?
If anyone can assist me, I'd greatly appreciate it. Feel free to advise me on points I may be missing.
1 - Ultimately, the best way to figure this out is to play a deck a lot and see what works. But as a starting point, for a U/(BW) based control deck, I'd go for something like 6-8 counterspells, 3-4 creature removal, 2-3 non-creature removal (ideally some cards would do both) and 4-6 mass removal spells, plus a couple of tutors that can get these (Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor). I wouldn't go for any discard unless it had particular synergy with your commander - which in this case it doesn't - while card draw would also depend on your commander.
If you've a commander that draw cards (which I would recommend for most control decks, as it helps with the drawback of that strategy), you can run less - and you do, given Zur's ability to tutor up some good draw engines, in particular Necropotence, but also Phyrexian Arena and possibly Rystic Study depending on meta (you always want it, it just depends how much you'll draw off of it). As such, I wouldn't run that many if any of the non-enchantment "big" card draw spells (Tidings, Blue Sun's Zenith, Ancient Craving etc.). Maybe 1 of the instant speed draw X (probably Pull from Tomorrow unless you need BSZ as a wincon). The two delve ones (Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise) are very good though, the former in particular.
I do however like running a "Xerox" strategy in blue control EDH decks, where you run a low land count (32-33) and a lot (6-8) of cheap (1-2 mana) cantrips. It smooths out your decks performance very well and many of them are instant which synergises with the whole control theme.
2 - While you can do some tribal stuff with Zur (Arcane Adaptation is an amusing thing), for a control deck, I'd not recommend it. You have other priorities. Especially as an Esper control deck will typically run a decent amount of board wipes which are anti-synergystic with the cretaure heavy strategies tribal tends to put you in.
3 - I'd run more than a non-Zur Esper control deck certianly, but I wouldn't go crazy on it. My instinct would be around 10-15 targets for him to get, including some card draw as previously mentioned, some removal (Oblivion Ring, although I wouldn't make all your removal enchantments), maybe some stax (Rule of Law) and some "silver bullet" cards which are great in some situations but not necessarily something you want all the time (Rest in Peace, Stony Silence etc). Depending on how you plan to win, you might push this up a bit with some auras if you expect to be going voltron (Empyrial Armor is a good one, especially with Necropotence and something that removes max hand size)
1 - Depends on meta and what you're trying to do. You have to think about what you're most worried about. Are you worried about specific combos? Are you worried about removal that you'd need a counter to stop? Etc. If you're more likely to be "the threat" then I'd focus on counterspells. If you're less likely, then focus more on board wipes. Targeted removal is best if you're playing a political game, or you're relying on your enemies to kill each other, or if you need to be able to break combos in lieu of counterspell.
2 - Do you want to be super competitive? Odds are, you don't, because competitive zur decks as miserable cancer. In which case, do what you want. If tribal sounds fun, go nuts. Although if you want zombies, probably go with varina, lich queen.
3 - You really only need a few good targets in most competitive zur decks to my knowledge - necropotence, vanishing, some unpleasant stax crap. But if you want a bigger toolbox, that could be fun.
The biggest problem is that Zur is a well known powerful commander. In a casual group a fair version might be fun to play, but experienced players will kill him on sight. If your goal is to make a nasty competitive deck then zur is a fine choice, but if you want to make something for an average playgroup, personally I'd look at someone else. You'll either have to intentionally make a really bad zur deck that's fun to play against, or you'll have a good one and be really unfun to play against - unless your group is cEDH. in which case, you do you.
1) There's no real equation. It's something you play by ear.
2) In Zur? If you play tribal with a Commander who can tutor Necropotence and circumvent the mana cost and counterspells when doing so, you're gonna have a bad time. (Seriously, Zur gets a lot of hate.)
3) The main thing you're doing with Zur's ability is tutoring Necro, Vanishing, some Stax cards and magic bullets, maybe a few seals and the like for added utility.
Private Mod Note
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
The thing is that there are a lot of ways to play a control Zur. It could be with enchantment removal (Oblivion Ring, etc), stax, reanimation, general hate cards (Rest in Peace, Stony Silence, etc).
You might also be looking at mass creature removal (Toxic Deluge, Wrath of God, etc), so Vanishing becomes necessary to mitigate these.
Also budget might decide a direction for you. Building a 3 color land base when it's true competitive, needs to done properly.
If you don't have duel lands then maybe Land Tax and Back to Basics are some first ports of call for Zur.
Give us a little bit more information about your needs and we can help more
Give us a little bit more information about your needs and we can help more
Honestly, I don't really have much more information, as I don't really know what direction to go. I'm literally starting from scratch. I have Zur. I like control. Blue is my primary color of choice. I like to run Mill decks frequently, but doubt this is the commander for that sort of deck. Other than control, I don't really know what other "themes" I could/should play with, or what win conditions I really want to work with.
Give us a little bit more information about your needs and we can help more
Honestly, I don't really have much more information, as I don't really know what direction to go. I'm literally starting from scratch. I have Zur. I like control. Blue is my primary color of choice. I like to run Mill decks frequently, but doubt this is the commander for that sort of deck. Other than control, I don't really know what other "themes" I could/should play with, or what win conditions I really want to work with.
Do you have an unlimited or limited budget? Or is this for some online software, so budget is not a problem?
Do you already have a large collection of cards? If you do, then I'll reply to the post with a list of cards which are strong in Zur decks in general. This may help steer a direction.
OK, well first of all, Zur can only get one enchantment a turn. So there is no point going over the top with what he can fetch as you can't expect games to go that long.
One of the most powerful things about Zur is that he can fetch up your draw cards like; Necropotence, Rhystic Study, Phyrexian Arena.
So in this respect you can lean off playing too much draw in a Zur deck in my opinion.
Esper doesn't really have access to producing massive amounts of mana, so there is a limit to how much draw to what you are actually able to cast anyway.
As far as counterspell, you are a three color deck, so straight away you counter-suite should be limited to particular ones that most only need one blue mana. Between 9-12 is a good number. Anymore that this and you run into problems of not being proactive enough during early turns and sitting on trying to hold up mana, which can put you behind too much.
This is a premium selection; Pact of Negation Swan Song Spell Pierce Arcane Denial Negate Disdainful Stroke Delay Mana Drain Counterspell Force of Will
But trust me once you start getting heavier on counters, then your early game can suffer, as you reaally only want to start holding up mana for counters once the game is getting on a bit.
Removal is tricky, because if you're trying to use Zur to control the board with enchantment removal, then in general you only get one-for-ones, which isn't really good enough for multiplayer. Grasp of Fate and Detention Sphere can be the exceptions, but the others are like; Darksteel Mutation, Nevermore, Banishing Light, Oblivion Ring, are good, but not a complete plan for removal.
So this leads to the question, "how do you actually want to control the game?".
There are a lot of different options available to Zur. Probably the most versatile commander period. Hence why you've needed to ask for help in the first place. Which direction to go?
There is, and all of these are control decks;
1) Stax
2) Hate
3) Stax / Hate - you might find decks have a mixture of both.
4) Reanimation
5) Pillow fort
There are others, you can even check out my Arcane Adaptation Zur deck in my signature, but that deck is more for fun, rather than truly competitive. But I do run a reanimation Zur deck, that I would take to a competition. It's ability to lock out opponents is pretty consistent.
I can go into detail about Reanimation decks if you're wanting to know more about this strategy, but might as well leave that until you might actually want to build one.
Pillow fort uses some defenses to set you up with then controlling the game with breathing room. You will find cards like this; (Solemnity + Phyrexian Unlife = this is a combo), Ghostly Prison, Propaganda, Solitary Confinement.
You might back this up with some board sweepers to try and control the game over the long term; Winds of Rath, Austere Command
It's a little bit more of a traditional causal build approach.
So it's not inconceivable that you mix and match a few of these cards and strategies, but like all of Magic, the more focused your deck is, the more you'll consistently pull off what you're trying to achieve.
Finally win-conditions can vary, but you can play a bare-minimum voltron enchantments to kill people with Zur attacking. Often Stax will use this once they have a complete lock down on mana.
So you can use Steel of the Godhead, Empyrial Armor, Phyresis, can get the job done in this combination normally.
There are tons more auras that can do it, but just depends on how much of the deck you want to put aside for this type of thing?
Alright so the next step is let us know if there is a particular strategy that you'd want to try the most?
As this is not intended for competition, it doesn't need to be as focused as that. This will be used for more casual games than that. So, I've looked at stax and hate, and that feels too competitive and mean than what I'd like to accomplish. Reanimator or Pillow Fort looks like it'll be more my speed.
As this is not intended for competition, it doesn't need to be as focused as that. This will be used for more casual games than that. So, I've looked at stax and hate, and that feels too competitive and mean than what I'd like to accomplish. Reanimator or Pillow Fort looks like it'll be more my speed.
Right, so a more causal build.
Going for a pillow fort style you can go very creature light.
Vanishing in my opinion is the first enchantment you should search up Zur in a game. Once you get this going it's almost impossible for your opponents to remove him. So you just get to continuously get value from him each turn.
Obviously you need to be holding up UU for the rest of the game, to be able to phase him out. So with this in mind you need to play patient, which is perfect for control anyway. This will also allow you play mass removal cards like, Supreme Verdict, Toxic Deluge, Austere Command, and be able to phase out Zur (and the enchantments on him) and cast these cards to just effect opponents.
Now there are other protection auras you can play like; Curator's Ward and Gift of Immortality, but these expose him to different types of removal, so Vanishing is just the best if you play well.
So you can search up Necropotence and just use it for minimal draw each turn. You don't need to be drawing a massive amount of cards each time. It might be that you are just drawing enough to get to 7 cards in hand at end of turn. Your ability to cast that many spells is limited in Esper anyway. Plus you really want to hold up mana for Vanishing or counterspells.
You can look at Steel of the Godhead as a means of gaining life to counteract the Necropotence.
It must be noted that once you put Greater Auramancy into play then Zur will get Shroud if you have an Aura on him, like Vanishing. So Greater Auramancy is also a nice one to get out early to protect what you're doing.
At this stage you have two amazing options, but it forces you to make a decision on the rest of your deck. Rest in Peace and Stony Silence.
Obviously if you run either of these then you need to play a light graveyard strategy or very few artifacts.
I personally run Stony Silence in my reanimation deck, because I can cheat big creatures into play, so don't need to additional artifact mana.
But I think for a pillow fort deck, that will be looking at Necropotence to fill your hand up each game that you're going to be wanting to play quite a lot of artifact mana. You need to be deploying cards, while also having mana available to counter or use Vanishing.
As Foretold can help with casting cards, great with helping to cast counterspells as well in opponents turns.
As far as graveyard strategies in pillow fort, there are a few available, like Replenish, Open the Vaults, and Starfield of Nyx. But you're not really that incentivized in my opinion, so I think Rest in Peace is a great card to add.
With Solitary Confinement you need to discard a card, so you could look to Land Tax as a means to pay for it. But this means that you need to play a number of basics. What I've found with Zur, is that you really want to have all your colors by Turn 4, so you can not afford to run too many basic lands as you really need lands that provide multiple colors.
Control decks can struggle against storm decks. Deck that look to play a lot of spells in a single turn. It becomes a case of you don't know what to counterspell, and often it doesn't matter anyway as they have redundancy with being able to generate lots of mana and draw.
So I personally like to have access to some of Rule of Law, Arcane Laboratory, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Eidolon of Rhetoric type effects for a control deck.
I know you mentioned you not that keen on "hate", but I think having access to at least of these is important for a control deck.
I would play Rule of Law and Spirit of the Labyrinth. Spirit of the Labyrinth is great with Necropotence as it doesn't effect your card draw. Rule of Law is less prone to removal over say Arcane Laboratory or Eidolon of Rhetoric, as people run more "blue" specific targeting removal, and Eidolon of Rhetoric is a creature so your own creature board wipes will get it.
Alright so we already have a potential 23 converted-mana-cost 3 or less enchantments. Games rarely go more than 12 Turns, altough you will be looking to stretch games out as long as possible with pillow fort, but you're always going to have more targets than you do Zur attacks.
One final question. With a pillow fort deck, I'm noticing there's not much in the way of big finishers, so how do I win? Keep hitting with Zur till they die?
One final question. With a pillow fort deck, I'm noticing there's not much in the way of big finishers, so how do I win? Keep hitting with Zur till they die?
Yeah you could do that.
Steel of the Godhead + Empyrial Armor is probably going to be hitting for 8-10 a turn. But you wouldn't even bother trying to kill opponents until you got things locked up and answering what opponents are doing. What I mean is don't make a race out of it. Steel of the Godhead and Empyrial Armor can be searched out much, much later in the game.
Too be honest I haven't really thought about win conditions for you.
You can match up Helm of Obedience with Rest in Peace. That will end up milling an opponents library each time you activate it.
I should point out that Solemnity and Phyrexian Unlife combo together to make it so that you don't die due to damage. What happens is that the Phyrexian Unlife tries to give you poison counters, but the Solemnity will prevent that from happening.
So you will get games where if you protect that combo, it's just impossible to kill you, and people just scoop anyway.
Then I personally love Sacred Mesa, and it takes a while, but you'll get enough of them to start killing opponents, once you've locked things down pretty well. But it's also a really good defensive card as well.
But if you get a Moat or Sphere of Safety going and have the means to control flying creatures, with maybe select removal, even a Sacred Mesa going, then you can look to ultimate one over the course of 4-5 turns on average.
I will point out that you probably want more mass removal, I was just listing premium stuff. Once you fill your deck out you'll probably find that you want some more combination of Wrath of God, Damnation, Terminus. Remember you can phase out Zur with Vanishing, and I just wanted to make it clear about the rulings with phasing, that any Auras or Equipment attached to a creature that is 'phased out' will also phase out the Auras and Equipment. That's why it's so potent.
You can run Teferi's Protection, and this will allow you to cast other potential board wipes like say Hour of Revelation and phase out all your stuff so that you're not effected.
But this is not necessary, you can aim for just controlling the creatures with mass removal, and then use your one-for-one enchantment removal on the artifacts and enchantments that you find are taking over the game. So you use the Grasp of Fate, Detention Sphere, Oblivion Ring, Banishing Light, Imprisoned in the Moon, Aura of Silence only for really game winning artifacts and enchantments for opponents.
Note that Zur with Steel of the Godhead should be able to pressure opponents potential planeswalkers, being able to attack them and unblockable, so you shouldn't have to worry of these too much.
I have to say that control decks in multiplayer is actually really complex and skilled. Knowing how to be super patient with what you counter and control actually takes a lot of repetitions and knowledge of how opponents decks work.
Sometimes you have to gamble. You might have a one-for-one answer for a big spell that's being cast, but you're better off risking not removing it for a few turns, hoping to draw into mass creature removal, dealing with everything instead.
You might takes some massive hits or whatever, but control players have to learn to use their life total as a resource. You are always behind at the start of games, trying to stay a float. Then once it goes on for longer, you start controlling the entire game. But not spending all your resources at the start is key to victory.
You really want to stay away from all colorless lands in this sort of deck, there is no room for not having colored mana. Fetch lands are by far the best way of fixing your color for how your hand looks. Lotus Vale is too risky, you just will attract attention for removal on it.
Good catch on the Commander's Sphere! The Cycling lands look okay too, and Cavern of Souls looks cool, but I'm not too keen on those other lands. I notice you include in the "remove" list some lands like Arcane Sanctum, Dromar's Cavern, Nykthos, and Vesuva, which do (or can) give me colored mana. Why was that?
Good catch on the Commander's Sphere! The Cycling lands look okay too, and Cavern of Souls looks cool, but I'm not too keen on those other lands. I notice you include in the "remove" list some lands like Arcane Sanctum, Dromar's Cavern, Nykthos, and Vesuva, which do (or can) give me colored mana. Why was that?
Arcane Sanctum is a tapped land, which is a bit slow unless it does something else for you. The reason the Fetid Pools and Irrigated Farmland are warranted as tapped lands, is that you have a lot better chance to "time" the ability of them coming into play tapped with the fetchlands. So you can time them better on a turn that doesn't matter for them to come into play tapped.
Also once you've got Necropotence then you'll always have more options than needed for land drops, so there is the opportunity to cycle them as you're bound to flood out.
Dromar's Cavern sets you back a land drop, which isn't great. This card is purely for budget decks.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is a little bit of a trap. It's not terrible but you are a three color deck, meaning that your colored mana symbols are going to be spread, so not as effective as you might assume. Maybe it's OK, you can use Zur to fetch an enchantment of a color that you want, to then fix your colors potentially, so it does have that. You could leave this in the deck, and work with it.
Vesuva is another tapped land, which you can avoid in a budgetless build,.
You can consider Arid Mesa and the like to be just as good as the "on color" fetch lands in my opinion, which are the best lands for fixing your mana around casting your spells for what you need at the time.
I can't really emphasize how important this is, especially in opening hands.
If you have ANY fetch land in your opening hand, then you can always make use of early plays. For example you'll be able to cast Enlightened Tutor or Vampiric Tutor turn one, which is always the best way to get a Sol Ring, etc to put you where you want to be.
If you're running too many two color only and tapped lands, then these important early plays are lost on tempo.
Admittedly I tend to play them in conjunction with Sensei's Divining Top as a way of sculpting your draw better.
If you only play the Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Marsh Flats, then you really lower your chance for early fixing in my opinion.
Thank you for your insight, Darrin! So, fetchlands are super important. Good to know. I assume that includes cards like Terramorphic Expanse or Evolving Wilds?
Thank you for your insight, Darrin! So, fetchlands are super important. Good to know. I assume that includes cards like Terramorphic Expanse or Evolving Wilds?
Umm, I personally don't play them, just because they are limited by basics and into play tapped. You might play them in a budgeted landfall deck, or a budgeted top of library matters, but otherwise they are not very good.
1 - I've searched for hours each night for the past three nights, and I still don't have a good concept of what ratio of draw, counter, removal, discard, or commander-specific tricks I should be aiming for.
2 - Would it be wise if I wanted to go with a tribal theme such as Zombies, Wizards, or Humans? My gut says no.
3 - I imagine this deck is going to be heavier in enchantments than the average deck, or should I just aim for fewer but more powerful enchantments?
If anyone can assist me, I'd greatly appreciate it. Feel free to advise me on points I may be missing.
If you've a commander that draw cards (which I would recommend for most control decks, as it helps with the drawback of that strategy), you can run less - and you do, given Zur's ability to tutor up some good draw engines, in particular Necropotence, but also Phyrexian Arena and possibly Rystic Study depending on meta (you always want it, it just depends how much you'll draw off of it). As such, I wouldn't run that many if any of the non-enchantment "big" card draw spells (Tidings, Blue Sun's Zenith, Ancient Craving etc.). Maybe 1 of the instant speed draw X (probably Pull from Tomorrow unless you need BSZ as a wincon). The two delve ones (Dig Through Time and Treasure Cruise) are very good though, the former in particular.
I do however like running a "Xerox" strategy in blue control EDH decks, where you run a low land count (32-33) and a lot (6-8) of cheap (1-2 mana) cantrips. It smooths out your decks performance very well and many of them are instant which synergises with the whole control theme.
2 - While you can do some tribal stuff with Zur (Arcane Adaptation is an amusing thing), for a control deck, I'd not recommend it. You have other priorities. Especially as an Esper control deck will typically run a decent amount of board wipes which are anti-synergystic with the cretaure heavy strategies tribal tends to put you in.
3 - I'd run more than a non-Zur Esper control deck certianly, but I wouldn't go crazy on it. My instinct would be around 10-15 targets for him to get, including some card draw as previously mentioned, some removal (Oblivion Ring, although I wouldn't make all your removal enchantments), maybe some stax (Rule of Law) and some "silver bullet" cards which are great in some situations but not necessarily something you want all the time (Rest in Peace, Stony Silence etc). Depending on how you plan to win, you might push this up a bit with some auras if you expect to be going voltron (Empyrial Armor is a good one, especially with Necropotence and something that removes max hand size)
2 - Do you want to be super competitive? Odds are, you don't, because competitive zur decks as miserable cancer. In which case, do what you want. If tribal sounds fun, go nuts. Although if you want zombies, probably go with varina, lich queen.
3 - You really only need a few good targets in most competitive zur decks to my knowledge - necropotence, vanishing, some unpleasant stax crap. But if you want a bigger toolbox, that could be fun.
The biggest problem is that Zur is a well known powerful commander. In a casual group a fair version might be fun to play, but experienced players will kill him on sight. If your goal is to make a nasty competitive deck then zur is a fine choice, but if you want to make something for an average playgroup, personally I'd look at someone else. You'll either have to intentionally make a really bad zur deck that's fun to play against, or you'll have a good one and be really unfun to play against - unless your group is cEDH. in which case, you do you.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
1) There's no real equation. It's something you play by ear.
2) In Zur? If you play tribal with a Commander who can tutor Necropotence and circumvent the mana cost and counterspells when doing so, you're gonna have a bad time. (Seriously, Zur gets a lot of hate.)
3) The main thing you're doing with Zur's ability is tutoring Necro, Vanishing, some Stax cards and magic bullets, maybe a few seals and the like for added utility.
On phasing:
I use a Zur reanimation deck that locks people out with Iona, Shield of Emeria, Void Winnower, Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur and a bevvy of other control fatties. Zur can get Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Necromancy, so is appealing.
You might also be looking at mass creature removal (Toxic Deluge, Wrath of God, etc), so Vanishing becomes necessary to mitigate these.
Also budget might decide a direction for you. Building a 3 color land base when it's true competitive, needs to done properly.
If you don't have duel lands then maybe Land Tax and Back to Basics are some first ports of call for Zur.
Give us a little bit more information about your needs and we can help 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
Honestly, I don't really have much more information, as I don't really know what direction to go. I'm literally starting from scratch. I have Zur. I like control. Blue is my primary color of choice. I like to run Mill decks frequently, but doubt this is the commander for that sort of deck. Other than control, I don't really know what other "themes" I could/should play with, or what win conditions I really want to work with.
Do you already have a large collection of cards? If you do, then I'll reply to the post with a list of cards which are strong in Zur decks in general. This may help steer a direction.
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
One of the most powerful things about Zur is that he can fetch up your draw cards like; Necropotence, Rhystic Study, Phyrexian Arena.
So in this respect you can lean off playing too much draw in a Zur deck in my opinion.
Esper doesn't really have access to producing massive amounts of mana, so there is a limit to how much draw to what you are actually able to cast anyway.
As far as counterspell, you are a three color deck, so straight away you counter-suite should be limited to particular ones that most only need one blue mana. Between 9-12 is a good number. Anymore that this and you run into problems of not being proactive enough during early turns and sitting on trying to hold up mana, which can put you behind too much.
This is a premium selection;
Pact of Negation
Swan Song
Spell Pierce
Arcane Denial
Negate
Disdainful Stroke
Delay
Mana Drain
Counterspell
Force of Will
Then if you wanted to go even heaver;
Forbid
Disallow
But trust me once you start getting heavier on counters, then your early game can suffer, as you reaally only want to start holding up mana for counters once the game is getting on a bit.
Removal is tricky, because if you're trying to use Zur to control the board with enchantment removal, then in general you only get one-for-ones, which isn't really good enough for multiplayer.
Grasp of Fate and Detention Sphere can be the exceptions, but the others are like; Darksteel Mutation, Nevermore, Banishing Light, Oblivion Ring, are good, but not a complete plan for removal.
So this leads to the question, "how do you actually want to control the game?".
There are a lot of different options available to Zur. Probably the most versatile commander period. Hence why you've needed to ask for help in the first place. Which direction to go?
There is, and all of these are control decks;
1) Stax
2) Hate
3) Stax / Hate - you might find decks have a mixture of both.
4) Reanimation
5) Pillow fort
There are others, you can even check out my Arcane Adaptation Zur deck in my signature, but that deck is more for fun, rather than truly competitive. But I do run a reanimation Zur deck, that I would take to a competition. It's ability to lock out opponents is pretty consistent.
Stax builds which try to use basically a mana denial strategy include cards like; Stasis, Aura of Silence, Overburden, Stony Silence, Back to Basics, Mana Vortex, Vile Consumption, In the Eye of Chaos.
But then it also can run further cards like; Sphere of Resistance, Winter Orb, Static Orb, Trinisphere, Armageddon, Ravages of War.
So you can see that the bulk of the deck is really only with one plan in mind.
Hate is more like denial of resources, so cards like; Rest in Peace, Rule of Law, Arcane Laboratory, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Eidolon of Rhetoric, Mana Maze.
I can go into detail about Reanimation decks if you're wanting to know more about this strategy, but might as well leave that until you might actually want to build one.
Pillow fort uses some defenses to set you up with then controlling the game with breathing room. You will find cards like this; (Solemnity + Phyrexian Unlife = this is a combo), Ghostly Prison, Propaganda, Solitary Confinement.
You might back this up with some board sweepers to try and control the game over the long term; Winds of Rath, Austere Command
It's a little bit more of a traditional causal build approach.
So it's not inconceivable that you mix and match a few of these cards and strategies, but like all of Magic, the more focused your deck is, the more you'll consistently pull off what you're trying to achieve.
Finally win-conditions can vary, but you can play a bare-minimum voltron enchantments to kill people with Zur attacking. Often Stax will use this once they have a complete lock down on mana.
So you can use Steel of the Godhead, Empyrial Armor, Phyresis, can get the job done in this combination normally.
There are tons more auras that can do it, but just depends on how much of the deck you want to put aside for this type of thing?
Alright so the next step is let us know if there is a particular strategy that you'd want to try the most?
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
Going for a pillow fort style you can go very creature light.
Vanishing in my opinion is the first enchantment you should search up Zur in a game. Once you get this going it's almost impossible for your opponents to remove him. So you just get to continuously get value from him each turn.
Obviously you need to be holding up UU for the rest of the game, to be able to phase him out. So with this in mind you need to play patient, which is perfect for control anyway. This will also allow you play mass removal cards like, Supreme Verdict, Toxic Deluge, Austere Command, and be able to phase out Zur (and the enchantments on him) and cast these cards to just effect opponents.
Now there are other protection auras you can play like; Curator's Ward and Gift of Immortality, but these expose him to different types of removal, so Vanishing is just the best if you play well.
I'm going to list some core enchantments at 3 or less cmc that you should probably be playing;
Vanishing
Necropotence
Rhystic Study
Grasp of Fate
Detention Sphere
Greater Auramancy
So you can search up Necropotence and just use it for minimal draw each turn. You don't need to be drawing a massive amount of cards each time. It might be that you are just drawing enough to get to 7 cards in hand at end of turn. Your ability to cast that many spells is limited in Esper anyway. Plus you really want to hold up mana for Vanishing or counterspells.
You can look at Steel of the Godhead as a means of gaining life to counteract the Necropotence.
It must be noted that once you put Greater Auramancy into play then Zur will get Shroud if you have an Aura on him, like Vanishing. So Greater Auramancy is also a nice one to get out early to protect what you're doing.
Now second tier enchantments include;
Phyrexian Arena
Oblivion Ring
Banishing Light
Imprisoned in the Moon
Aura of Silence
Estrid's Invocation
Nevermore
Darksteel Mutation
Steel of the Godhead
At this stage you have two amazing options, but it forces you to make a decision on the rest of your deck.
Rest in Peace and Stony Silence.
Obviously if you run either of these then you need to play a light graveyard strategy or very few artifacts.
I personally run Stony Silence in my reanimation deck, because I can cheat big creatures into play, so don't need to additional artifact mana.
But I think for a pillow fort deck, that will be looking at Necropotence to fill your hand up each game that you're going to be wanting to play quite a lot of artifact mana. You need to be deploying cards, while also having mana available to counter or use Vanishing.
As Foretold can help with casting cards, great with helping to cast counterspells as well in opponents turns.
As far as graveyard strategies in pillow fort, there are a few available, like Replenish, Open the Vaults, and Starfield of Nyx. But you're not really that incentivized in my opinion, so I think Rest in Peace is a great card to add.
As far as the pillow fort cards Zur can fetch;
Solemnity
Phyrexian Unlife
Ghostly Prison
Propaganda
Karmic Justice
Solitary Confinement
With Solitary Confinement you need to discard a card, so you could look to Land Tax as a means to pay for it. But this means that you need to play a number of basics. What I've found with Zur, is that you really want to have all your colors by Turn 4, so you can not afford to run too many basic lands as you really need lands that provide multiple colors.
Control decks can struggle against storm decks. Deck that look to play a lot of spells in a single turn. It becomes a case of you don't know what to counterspell, and often it doesn't matter anyway as they have redundancy with being able to generate lots of mana and draw.
So I personally like to have access to some of Rule of Law, Arcane Laboratory, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Eidolon of Rhetoric type effects for a control deck.
I know you mentioned you not that keen on "hate", but I think having access to at least of these is important for a control deck.
I would play Rule of Law and Spirit of the Labyrinth.
Spirit of the Labyrinth is great with Necropotence as it doesn't effect your card draw.
Rule of Law is less prone to removal over say Arcane Laboratory or Eidolon of Rhetoric, as people run more "blue" specific targeting removal, and Eidolon of Rhetoric is a creature so your own creature board wipes will get it.
Alright so we already have a potential 23 converted-mana-cost 3 or less enchantments. Games rarely go more than 12 Turns, altough you will be looking to stretch games out as long as possible with pillow fort, but you're always going to have more targets than you do Zur attacks.
Other core cards in my opinion outside of the 3 or less enchantments for a pillow fort deck are;
Lightning Greaves
Winds of Rath
Supreme Verdict
Toxic Deluge
Austere Command
Moat
Sphere of Safety
I would play quite a lot of artifact mana. These allow you to effectively use Necropotence in an efficient manner, deploying cards and gaining extra mana;
Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Azorius Signet
Dimir Signet
Orzhov Signet
Mox Diamond
Chrome Mox
Talisman of Progress
Talisman of Dominance
Gilded Lotus
Thought Vessel
Fellwar Stone
Chromatic Lantern
Coalition Relic
I already mentioned a counterspell suite (mostly having spells that cost 1 blue portion is important in 3 color deck);
Pact of Negation
Swan Song
Spell Pierce
Arcane Denial
Negate
Disdainful Stroke
Delay
Mana Drain
Counterspell
Forbid
Disallow
Force of Will
If you wanted to play a few more then these would be my other choices;
Muddle the Mixture
Render Silent
There are literally the staples for Esper;
Enlightened Tutor
Mystical Tutor
Vampiric Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Swords to Plowshares
Cyclonic Rift
Other than these cards certainly on my radar would be;
Sensei's Divining Top
Strionic Resonator
Empyrial Armor
Swiftfoot Boots
Snapcaster Mage
Merciless Eviction
Profane Procession//Tomb of the Dusk Rose
Prison Term
Sacred Mesa
Hope this all helps. Good luck.
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
Steel of the Godhead + Empyrial Armor is probably going to be hitting for 8-10 a turn. But you wouldn't even bother trying to kill opponents until you got things locked up and answering what opponents are doing. What I mean is don't make a race out of it.
Steel of the Godhead and Empyrial Armor can be searched out much, much later in the game.
Too be honest I haven't really thought about win conditions for you.
You can match up Helm of Obedience with Rest in Peace. That will end up milling an opponents library each time you activate it.
I should point out that Solemnity and Phyrexian Unlife combo together to make it so that you don't die due to damage. What happens is that the Phyrexian Unlife tries to give you poison counters, but the Solemnity will prevent that from happening.
So you will get games where if you protect that combo, it's just impossible to kill you, and people just scoop anyway.
Then I personally love Sacred Mesa, and it takes a while, but you'll get enough of them to start killing opponents, once you've locked things down pretty well. But it's also a really good defensive card as well.
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 must be noted that a lot of the pillow fort cards do not protect planeswalker, only really you.
Phyrexian Unlife, Ghostly Prison, Propaganda, Solitary Confinement, will not protect planeswalkers.
But if you get a Moat or Sphere of Safety going and have the means to control flying creatures, with maybe select removal, even a Sacred Mesa going, then you can look to ultimate one over the course of 4-5 turns on average.
I think the best for that job would be;
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
Sorin Markov
Narset Transcendent
Sorin, Grim Nemesis
Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Venser, the Sojourner
I will point out that you probably want more mass removal, I was just listing premium stuff. Once you fill your deck out you'll probably find that you want some more combination of Wrath of God, Damnation, Terminus. Remember you can phase out Zur with Vanishing, and I just wanted to make it clear about the rulings with phasing, that any Auras or Equipment attached to a creature that is 'phased out' will also phase out the Auras and Equipment. That's why it's so potent.
You can run Teferi's Protection, and this will allow you to cast other potential board wipes like say Hour of Revelation and phase out all your stuff so that you're not effected.
But this is not necessary, you can aim for just controlling the creatures with mass removal, and then use your one-for-one enchantment removal on the artifacts and enchantments that you find are taking over the game. So you use the Grasp of Fate, Detention Sphere, Oblivion Ring, Banishing Light, Imprisoned in the Moon, Aura of Silence only for really game winning artifacts and enchantments for opponents.
Note that Zur with Steel of the Godhead should be able to pressure opponents potential planeswalkers, being able to attack them and unblockable, so you shouldn't have to worry of these too much.
I have to say that control decks in multiplayer is actually really complex and skilled. Knowing how to be super patient with what you counter and control actually takes a lot of repetitions and knowledge of how opponents decks work.
Sometimes you have to gamble. You might have a one-for-one answer for a big spell that's being cast, but you're better off risking not removing it for a few turns, hoping to draw into mass creature removal, dealing with everything instead.
You might takes some massive hits or whatever, but control players have to learn to use their life total as a resource. You are always behind at the start of games, trying to stay a float. Then once it goes on for longer, you start controlling the entire game. But not spending all your resources at the start is key to victory.
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
Add
Arid Mesa
Misty Rainforest
Windsweapt Heath
Verdent Catacombs
Bloodstained Mire
Scalding Tarn
Fetid Pool
Irrigated Farmland
Cavern of Souls
Remove
Dunes of the Dead
Arcane Sanctum
Cradle of the Accursed
Dromar's Cavern
Lotus Vale
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Unholy Grotto
Vesuva
Wasteland
You really want to stay away from all colorless lands in this sort of deck, there is no room for not having colored mana. Fetch lands are by far the best way of fixing your color for how your hand looks.
Lotus Vale is too risky, you just will attract attention for removal on it.
Also just swap;
Obelisk of Esper => Commander's Sphere
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
Arcane Sanctum is a tapped land, which is a bit slow unless it does something else for you. The reason the Fetid Pools and Irrigated Farmland are warranted as tapped lands, is that you have a lot better chance to "time" the ability of them coming into play tapped with the fetchlands. So you can time them better on a turn that doesn't matter for them to come into play tapped.
Also once you've got Necropotence then you'll always have more options than needed for land drops, so there is the opportunity to cycle them as you're bound to flood out.
Dromar's Cavern sets you back a land drop, which isn't great. This card is purely for budget decks.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is a little bit of a trap. It's not terrible but you are a three color deck, meaning that your colored mana symbols are going to be spread, so not as effective as you might assume. Maybe it's OK, you can use Zur to fetch an enchantment of a color that you want, to then fix your colors potentially, so it does have that. You could leave this in the deck, and work with it.
Vesuva is another tapped land, which you can avoid in a budgetless build,.
You can consider Arid Mesa and the like to be just as good as the "on color" fetch lands in my opinion, which are the best lands for fixing your mana around casting your spells for what you need at the time.
I can't really emphasize how important this is, especially in opening hands.
If you have ANY fetch land in your opening hand, then you can always make use of early plays. For example you'll be able to cast Enlightened Tutor or Vampiric Tutor turn one, which is always the best way to get a Sol Ring, etc to put you where you want to be.
If you're running too many two color only and tapped lands, then these important early plays are lost on tempo.
Admittedly I tend to play them in conjunction with Sensei's Divining Top as a way of sculpting your draw better.
If you only play the Flooded Strand, Polluted Delta, Marsh Flats, then you really lower your chance for early fixing in my opinion.
Some alternative lands you can play are; Morphic Pool, Sea of Clouds, Drowned Catacomb, Glacial Fortress.
I would play these over any of the ones I suggested to remove.
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
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