MTG Salvation

Because I hate you all, here is my embodiment of the 'Spirit of EDH'



I'll probably be running 37 lands. Only things I'm sure will be in is a couple manlands. With running back to basics I'm not sure what my non-basic count should be.

Anyways, any help is greatly appreciated.

Liking it.

I like to run Night of Souls' Betrayal alongside Humility so I don't end up getting beaten to death by 1/1 creatures. I also choose to run a handful of counterspells so that people can't bust up the aforementioned lock or any other dominant board positions I manage to assemble as easily.

Here's my Zur stax list, if you're interested in comparing the two. Looking over your list got me wondering why I'm running both Humility + Night of Soul's Betrayal AND Lethal Vapors + Pithing Needle. Seems a little redundant.


EDIT: I don't like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben here. You're running so few creatures that she's going to hurt you more than help you. Lodestone Golem would be a better choice since you'll be casting so many more artifacts than your opponents, but he's not really necessary.

Quote from sH0opdAwoOp

Liking it.

I like to run Night of Souls' Betrayal alongside Humility so I don't end up getting beaten to death by 1/1 creatures. I also choose to run a handful of counterspells so that people can't bust up the aforementioned lock or any other dominant board positions I manage to assemble as easily.

Here's my Zur stax list, if you're interested in comparing the two. Looking over your list got me wondering why I'm running both Humility + Night of Soul's Betrayal AND Lethal Vapors + Pithing Needle. Seems a little redundant.


EDIT: I don't like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben here. You're running so few creatures that she's going to hurt you more than help you. Lodestone Golem would be a better choice since you'll be casting so many more artifacts than your opponents, but he's not really necessary.

Chances are that the only creature I'll end up playing will be Sun Titan. Possibly Grand Arbiter.

If there was a Norin deck around I'd probably run Night of Soul's betrayal. It already go eliminated because it needlessly dragged the game on. Humility is generally enough since most decks around here don't run a high density of creatures. With my token production and swords I should be doing more damage.

I need to cut cards but I keep thinking of more stuff.

Is bad moon good here? Or Honor of the Pure?

What about Necromancy, Animate Dead or Angelic Renewal.
The first two get me stuff from my opponent and the last protects Zur.

Too many cards >_>

I'll check out your list whenever I get off work.

I cut the list down. If my count is correct I have one slot.

Feel free to suggest anything for me to add or take out.

I'll figure out what I want my land base to be soon.

Since you're running alot of enchantments, would ethereal armor be good here? Also, propaganda might be fun, but that's just me. Other than that, it looks good.

I'm not sure how I feel about pillowfort effects. I know others really like them but I have very little experience with them. Most of the decks around here run just a few really big creatures rather than lots of small ones (such as voltron or kaalia). Effect still worth it?

What about Jitte as my last slot?

So I have 1 slot open atm. I have a lot of potential cards for the spots. Need help deciding.

• Umezawa's Jitte
  
• Enlightened Tutor
  
• Fabricate
  
• Angelic Renewal
  
• Animate Dead
  
• Oblation
  
• Stasis
  
• Overburden

Removed:
Militia's Pride

Added:

• Umezawa's Jitte
  
• Overburden

I still want to add Oblation.

Well first, Vanishing should be your go-to protection option for Zur, not Pemmin's Aura. Phasing out answers everything every time, even Apocalypse, even Phyrexian Metamorph. I mean you can't touch that.

Second, exactly how much of a "killer of fun" deck do you want this to be? You seem to really enjoy keeping your opponents' stuff tapped. I don't know if that's like a theme or something that you want to keep with, but there's waaaaay faster ways to win the game and piss people off in the fun-tyme spirit of EDH.

I mean in reality to play Zur you only ever need to pull three enchantments...if none of your opponents are playing black, those are Vanishing, Contamination, Bitterblossom. Good game. Otherwise it's Vanishing, Necropotence, and Solitary Confinement, and then you use Necropotence to draw into your removal, only using Zur pulls for removal/control if you badly need them (normally you should be pulling Daybreak Coronet, Steel of the Godhead, etc. to start eliminating players). Why play Back to Basics when you can just drop Armageddon? Why play Crackdown when you can play Winds of Rath? Not to mention all the super-fun black things you're missing out on, like Mind Twist.

It's like there's a broad spectrum between happy-go-lucky Phelddagrif and hardcore boring Hermit Druid, and it's up to you how far to one end or the other you want to be. I'm just letting you know that you're not nearly as fun-killing as you can be at the moment--whether that's good or bad, your call.

A lot of your post is really hard things for you to make because you don't know my meta.
Vanishing requires me to have two mana ready at all times. Which isn't always possible.
Vanishing doesn't make Zur another win condition.
Black is the most common played color in my group and we run a lot of rocks. I run Contamination in two other decks and it's hardly "I win".
We run a lot of spot removal in my meta, which includes enchantment removal. I can't always count on a lock like Necro+Solitary Confinement to win me the game every time.
I can't always count on Zur to tutor for me. He may get condemned on my first attack.
I have no interest in dead cards like Steel of the Godhead and the Coronet in this deck. They are useless and bad cards without Zur.
This isn't traditional Zur.
I run Armageddon already.

I don't mean this in a bad way or anything but I'm curious if you've ever played/seen a stax list before?

This deck isn't meant to be fast and I'm not trying to build a fast deck.

If your interested in learning more about Esper Stax, BaconoftheArk, Phil and StyxofTolaria all have some nice lists.

Quote from Dracilic

I don't mean this in a bad way or anything but I'm curious if you've ever played/seen a stax list before?

I've never seen Zur played as a stax commander in my meta, nope. That would explain why your choices seemed odd to me at first.

Sorry about that.

I chose him as my commander because he tutors for a lot of my stax pieces so he adds a lot of consistency to the deck and allows me to tutor for answers. And because we have a lot of degenerate commanders floating around so playing him in my group doesn't automatically make me target #1.

amazing control deck, but i still cannot see the win condition, is it all right if you show me how the deck would win? because a back to nature may screw your entire plan over... especially against an aggro deck who runs that on sideboard... either way, i have yet to know how a stax deck wins. maybe run animate lands in the deck?

Don't know if anyone else noticed but you have Chromatic Lantern listed twice. Maybe add in Static Orb?

@Soul Banana: It can win different ways. The ideal way is to just lock everyone else out while you beat with tokens/zur. Animate lands are in the deck. The deck is slow and grindy. It may take a while to win but often if people don't see an out they'll scoop.

@Jaklova: Didn't catch that thanks. Let me make sure I didn't miss something first.

It's supposed to be Coalition Relic.

cool thanks now ik how the deck pilots.
but just in case you want to go 1v1 competitive, i can give you the ban list, ik some people who had trouble finding it
----->http://duelcommander.com/rules/
either way, animate lands are a good idea, maybe a bit more counters if anyone has answers to your enchantments. or kill spells/ sweep if creatures have hexproof/shroud.
btw, 10 card sideboard, all singleton if you want to go competitive.
always run bojuka bog, it's a staple that can screw reanimator and dredge, also the most efficient GY hate out there...
halimar depths is also good, then run as many rare duals as possible(because you run 3 colors)

Take out the Keyrunes and Dynamo for 2 CC rampers (like Fellwar, Mind Stone)...you want to hit 4 ASAP. You dont have high costing stuff for Dynamo to be necessary.

I need to add my mana base on here but it's still a little wonky. I do run manlands and they are great. Bojuka bog is in. Halimar Depths isn't but I might add. My list of non basics is light especially ones that ETB tapped because I need to stay ahead of my opponents and Back To Basics.

@FLY MOLO My goal is not to cast Zur asap. The keyrunes provide me bodies and mana after Armegddon or while all my enchantment LD is out.

Just realized I have 100 cards in my deck (bad about this), I forgot to put Bitterblossom in the OP. So now I need to cut a card, preferably two as I want to run Mana Breach as well.

-Nihil Spellbomb
-Swiftfoot Boots

+Mana Breach
+Bitterblossom

Yes?

Updated the OP with my newest alter.