@AzoriusAgent
I have considered using Psychosis Crawler as an additional win condition. He has strong synergy with the idea of what I want my deck to do. The hard thing, however, is of course the ultimate question in EDH: what to cut. Every card in here has been useful in one game or another. The only card that I haven't been too impressed with has been Sphinx of Magosi. It draws cards at instant speed, turns into a beater, and is only really good in the late game when ideally removal spells have been expended, but it's usually not very impactful and the cost is expensive. I'll try out the Crawler once I find a copy of it in my stack of cards. I also just took out Treachery from another deck and I want to test that here. Moar removal! is never a bad thing and having a free spell is advantageous as well.
I played a few games this weekend. They were 1v1 against Damia and Nicol Bolas, respectively. I'll include the game descriptions and the notable plays that occurred in each game.
Memnarch vs. Damia game
This was a control-lover's dream. Incremental advantage accumulated and well-timed plays on my part allowed me to syphon out his hand of answers. There were some great plays on his part where he tutored for answers for whenever I did something that would have pulled me ahead, like Sensei's Divining Top and Future Sight. Krosan Grip is a really good card, by the way, blanking the Force of Will that I had in hand as I watched my card advantage die away. It was an interesting game because I knew that he played not as many draw spells as I do because he uses Damia as a draw spell. Also, he didn't get as much explosive ramp as he normally does which helped a lot in this game. After I expended his resources, I played Memnarch with the abundance of mana that I had accumulated (I had a Crucible of Worlds and Terramorphic Expanse engine going). And eventually Memnarch stole his board and he scooped. It was a great game of back and forth plays with only one counter war over my first casting of Memnarch. MVP of the game was Memnarch, because he won me the game, but an honorable mention goes to Crucible of Worlds being able to consistently hit land drops each turn and out-mana my opponent was crucial in the game and is what allowed me to cast spells to purposely expend his resources so that I could land Memnarch. A great game.
Memnarch vs. Nicol Bolas
Whew, this was a long game. Of all the decks that my friend has, this is probably the one that is the most controlling. It has some great interactions that got this game for him and he simply drew better than I did. The game was tense and there were several notable plays that went down. There was a time when he was down to three cards and I had four. He only had three mana available and I decided to risk playing Memnarch and try to begin to steal his board. Hindered... That hurt. About mid-game, there was an O-Stone on his side of the field and I had just played Caged Sun. That was awkward and a great play on his part. I played a land and then I began to use Academy Ruins to recur Wayfarer's Bauble and just build a mana base. His Top was doing work and ensuring that he was hitting his land drops too. After enough time where he put fate counters on the permanents that he wanted, he blew up the world at the end of my turn. Oh, I also only drew three counters this whole game, which made a difference too. After he blew up the world, his surviving Nin, the Pain Artist blew herself up netting him a fresh seven cards. I think this is the point where I lost the game because he got stuck on mana drops after a while, and I was able to play Karn Liberated and start chipping away at his mana base. It was back and forth for a while with him trying to do something to kill/handle my Karn and me trying to just stay in the game with his overwhelming card advantage. He tutored for Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker which we had an awesome counter war over. He played Nicol Bolas, I countered with Negate, he draws a card with Sensei's Divining Top in response, plays Spell Crumple, I Top in response and Spell Crumple his Spell Crumple. Whew. But, the bad thing was is after this counter war I was out of counters and down to two cards in hand. He untaps, looks at his hand, and plays Archaeomancer to pick up Demonic Tutor, tutors for another thing, passes the turn. I draw nothing, exile a card from his hand with Karn, then pass the turn. He untaps, plays a land, then casts Time Stretch. F-Word. It resolves, and his 'Mancer pings Karn for one. He takes his first of two extra turns, plays Snapcaster Mage and Time Stretches again. 3 turns on the stack. I lose, by the way. But the gory details were actually really cool. On his next turn, he played Warstorm Surge and Deadeye Navigator, killed my Karn, then took his next turn. He then cast Nicol Bolas, his general, burns my hand away with Warstorm Surge with Nicol Bolas, and then soulbonds Deadeye Navigator to Nicol Bolas. Damn, that's a really, really good lock. But instead of doing combat damage, he alternately blinks Nicol Bolas and Deadeye Navigator until Warstorm Surge killed me. Wow. That was a great card combo and I wasn't too upset at losing. It was like Nicol Bolas had a lightning tantrum and crisped me to death.
After this game, I think I'm doing to try and find some ways to streamline the deck and add in cheap card draw, because that's what it felt like I was missing that particular game. I'll be looking at Brainstorm, Ponder, and perhaps Impulse. All in all, great games, and useful in determining what I can look to improve in the deck.
Haha, thanks for the shout out. Counterbalance has yet to be thoroughly tested in my list but I think it has the potentially be quite good, especially if you are running the full complement of topdeck manipulation cards. Scroll Rack is the big one that you are missing.
One problem I'm seeing is that your average cmc is quite high, while you have the control and ramp to support it, your list would still benefit from a trimming in that regard.
[/b]Power Artifact seems to make a lot of sense in this deck since it has less chance of being dead than in other lists (can enchant your commander). It makes infinite mana with Grim Monolith and Basalt Monolith.
Etherium Sculptor can reduce the cost of your commander and is a piece of a three card combo involving Future Sight and Sensei's Divining Top. I would also up the artifact count of the deck to further make use of this card.
Riptide Laboratory seems like a no brainer here. Not only is your commander a wizard, but you've got a pretty solid supporting cast.
I'll pop back in later with a few more suggestions. Right now my computer is being retarded.
@ Rowan
No problem for the shout out. Your Firemind Primer was a great read. Well-constructed and very intelligent. I'm thinking about perhaps beginning to look for some of those cards and building your decklist. Your discussion with 3drinks on one of these Kaalia threads is also very insightful and entertaining.
Power Artifact is a great suggestion. I totally forgot about this card. You're right, it has incredible synergy with my general and indeed produces lots o' mana with Basalt Monoloith. If I can find a Grim Monolith somewhere in a trade binder or at a good deal online I will acquire it. I think I would include it strictly for my general though. Being able to steal something for 4 mana instead of 7 mana actually makes a big difference. Great suggestion.
Etherium Sculptor would definitely need a few more artifacts to play with in order to increase his usefulness. It's tempting to include him simply because he adds another infinite combo to the deck and has decent synergy with the deck. Reduces the mana cost of Memnarch, is a wizard for Azami to have some draw power there, but outside of that it doesn't have much. I would seriously want to evaluate it.
The list of draw spells you suggested I've looked at also. Of those, I think I like Preordain and Brainstorm. I don't know why Brainstorm isn't in here already because in each game I've played there has been a ton of shuffling effects. The virtual card advantage of Brainstorm with fetch-lands is something I'm familiar with when I'm play-testing Legacy with my friend.
Thanks for the suggestions. I also played Kaalia yesterday twice. Descriptions are as follows:
Game 1 Memnarch vs. Kaalia
This game was way in my favor because he got mana-screwed after T3. I had Counterspell for when he first tapped out for Kaalia and the rest was history. He was never really in the game and just kinda watched as Deadeye Navigator and Archaeomancer picked up Time Warp enough times to kill him with combat damage. Having Gauntlet of Power was very useful here, as it allowed me to combo out with 5 Islands and Academy Ruins. Turn 7 was when I started chaining turns. He insisted we play again since his deck kinda didn't show up to play. I agreed.
Game 2 Memnarch vs. Kaalia
This game was much better. Both are decks did their thing and it was very back and forth with some ridiculous plays happening. My friend opened up with Weathered Wayfarer and that's a good card. He was able to tutor for Hall of the Bandit Lord T3 which would guarantee a T4 attacking Kaalia. Pretty good. I couldn't find removal for it, though I had a counter in hand for when Kaalia decided to come out so I wasn't worried. But, alas, I tapped out on my T2 to play Everflowing Chalice so I could catch up with him on mana (he went first). He untapped, drew and grinned to himself. He tapped his mana and seemed to casually toss Price of Glory after playing a Sol Ring. Damn. My Arcane Denial looked pretty stupid and I inwardly cringed. I decided then that basically I needed to either race him to combo out or burn through my deck as fast as possible to try and find removal for that cursed enchantment. By the way, racing Kaalia is really, really hard. I untapped, drew a land, and played Rhystic Study. He tutored for the Hall and passed the turn. I played Solemn Simulacrum and had Duplicant and Deadeye Navigator in hand, ready to go. Machine gun exile effect for 2 mana. Sounds good. He untaps, draws a card, turns Kaalia sideways and puts Rakdos the Defiler into play tapped, Annihilating me for half my board. Force of Will would have been so nice here... And in case you're wondering, yes, I die. Horribly. I untapped, played a land and my own Sol Ring, which I just drew. He untapped, didn't play a land and chose to attack with Rakdos, sac'ing half his board to cripple me and close out the game in his favor. Kaalia put Harvester of Souls into play tapped and attacking, just to seal the deal I guess. With two Islands in play I decide that he wins and scooped up my cards. If Price of Glory hadn't come down on T2, I think I would have had the game again. Dumb red cards... Haha.
Price of Glory shouldn't have stopped you from countering. I would have just lost the lands if it meant keeping Kaalia in the command zone for another couple turns. But with his sol ring out that would have put you pretty far behind anyway.
Etherium Sculptor won't be dead because it allows you to cast Memnarch on turn 6. He also helps you lay down all your artifact ramp a lot faster. Another option if you want that infinite draw combo is Helm of Awakening. I'm running it in Niv-Mizzet and I love it. But it's good because my curve is so low. I'm saving a lot more mana than any one opponent.
The beauty of cards like Thirst for Knowledge and Frantic Search is that they let you pitch cards you don't need for cards that you do. You've got a lot of cards that cost more mana than you have to work with early game. You DON'T want those cards in your hand. Instead you want cheap ramp and counters and tutors. The draw/discard spells allow you to dig efficiently. And if you have some way of recurring the discarded cards later (Academy Ruins, Call to Mind), the card advantage here is hard to beat.
Yup, I agree with you on the value of those filtering cards. Now comes the hardest part of EDH: making cuts. Ugh. This is gonna hurt. Well, here we go!
Magus of the Future -> Brainstorm
This is a hard one. Magus of the Future ensures a bit of redundancy for Top to be a super card advantage engine. But I think the redundancy of the cheap draw will outweigh the cut of this redundancy by allowing me to dig deeper to find a combo piece.
Worn Powerstone -> Etherium Sculptor
Alright Rowan. You convinced me to try it. Mana ramp for specific mana reduction. Plus the addition of an infinite combo! Yay! This actually seems a lot better the more I think about it.
Mind Stone -> Basalt Monolith
Replace a mana stone with a new one. Add in another combo with a mana stone that actually produces more mana, normally, and allows for infinite-ness with the thoughtfully suggested Power Artifact. Oh, infinite mana. How I love you.
Buried Ruin -> Island
I think my Island count seems a little low. Academy Ruins does a really good job of recurring my artifacts and I'm meh when I draw Buried Ruin, so it's an easy switch.
Everflowing Chalice -> Mana Vault
Sigh. My FNM foil Chalice needs a home now. But it makes sense. Mana Vault is better and provides a better push of mana that I need in the early game to get ahead.
Ghost Quarter -> Riptide Laboratory
This is a really easy switch. It prolly should have happened a long time ago. I feel pretty ok about this one.
The last card I want to find room for is Impulse. I don't know what else to cut. I know that I will probably cut Negate for Power Artifact when I acquire the enchantment. Other than these cuts, I will test this list out when I can.
Karn Liberated planeswalkers just aren't that great in commander unless your deck is specifically built to support them. Paying 7 for what amounts to a Vindicate isn't efficient.
Actually, here, I'm going to link you to HERO'S primer on Teferi which is a very similar deck. I think you might get some inspiration. I find Teferi to be a bit more competitive than Memnarch as a mono blue commander, but you might not want to go that route.
EDIT:
Updated the first post to make it a little bit more of Primer. Added Personal History, Why you should play Memnarch, Why you shouldn't play Memnarch, List of other mono-Blue Generals, and Strategy section.
Thanks for the pointer to the Teferi Thread, Rowan. Again, I will take a look at those suggested cuts and take a look at my list, perhaps later today. Work calls my name, but thankfully I'm down to eight hour shifts instead of the awful 12 hour we were pulling for a while.
EDIT: Updated the decklist after looking at a very useful Primer on Teferi.Shout out to HERO for making the Primer and Rowan for directing my attention to it.
Karn Liberated -> Recurring Insight
I lose a bit of control for the explosive draw power needed to find a combo piece and win. The CMC is one less and ultimately I have more power with the Insight than I do with Karn Liberated. Now that Karn is liberated from my decklist, he either needs a new home or get traded for profit.
Spin into Myth -> Trickbind
I forgot about this little utility card. Nearly every infinite combo that I can think of that exists within my play group requires an activated or triggered ability. This gently says, "No, no. No untapping of your lands with Palinchron. Or soul-bonding of Deadeye Navigator." I like it and I know I have one sitting in my pile somewhere.
Brittle Effigy -> Evacuation
Switching out one-time exile removal for easily recurred, instant speed mass removal. I also get to add a creature lock with Archaeomancer and Evacuation. It will be great to play this little gem in response to Animar's declare attack step. Ha! The flavor text on Evacuation will be so true at that point.
I'm going to keep Ertai, Wizard Adept for now because he has in fact won me some important counter wars in the past and is incredible in 1v1 games. Which I play relatively frequently. So I'll keep him in for a little while longer and see how he plays out. Otherwise he'll get switched out for a cheaper counterspell. Probably Mana Leak or Swan Song.
Since I have a massive migraine and am home today, I'll be able to spend a bit more time in the forums here. I'll prolly do some games against my decks to see how the new changes are.
EDIT 2: Made some major changes to the Original Post because it's a goal of mine to have a Primer and I have lots of time.
This change is mostly for the Primer, and will be reflected in my paper deck once I get this specific card. I also drastically updated the OP to set the stage for a legit Primer.
Trickbind -> Grim Monolith
Trade a utility answer for a mana rock with combo potential. This is a pretty straightforward switch, and if I can find a card that I can replace for Trickbind, I will. Trickbind has some very useful applications in competitive EDH for sure.
@Rowan
I will be testing Muddle the Mixture in place of Ertai, Wizard Adept. It transmutes to find a ton of useful and relevant things in my deck. And it can be a counter when it has to be. I like it, and we'll see how it tests. Ertai, Wizard Adept still has a special place in my heart though. Ertai, Wizard Adept wants to be in my less-competitive, much more flavor-ful/fun Lazav Dimir-themed mill deck anyways.
EDIT 2: The OP will be continued to be updated as I design it closer and closer to what I want the Primer to look like. It will change pretty frequently and hopefully become more refined, more grammatically correct, and hopefully more engaging.
I'm going to ramble here for a bit I've never actually built a Memnarch deck, so mostly this is going to be theorycrafting so take everything with a grain of salt.
So, you've chosen Memnarch. He's theft in the command zone. Theft would be situational, except that he's got the ability to steal lands so that's powerful. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is control in the command zone, Azami, Lady of Scrolls is card draw in the command zone, and Arcum Dagsson is a repeatable tutor in the command zone. All of these mono blue commanders are competitive because they have those effects and the deck needs to play to those strengths as much as possible without being dependent.
Arcum Dagsson is undoubtedly the best mono blue artifact deck commander for the simple reason that he can get Memnarch into play as early as turn 2-3 with ramp and haste which just can't be done if he's in the command zone :/ Dagsson should at least be considered as one of your 99 since he can really engineer your board position if you decide to run more artifacts which I certainly would. He's also a great answer if Memnarch gets tucked.
Memnarch is the slowest and most mana hungry of all of these commanders and that is his greatest weakness. Without ramp you'll be casting him on turn 7 and by then you'll likely be dead in a competitive game, especially if it's 1v1. So you absolutely need ramp, or ways to reduce his cost. You also need A LOT of control and the card draw to fuel that control which you are certainly well on your way to having, but it could be further optimized.
Vedalken Engineer is some solid ramp. Because cards like this exist and your commander is an artifact, it's only going to benefit you more and more to increase your artifact count.
There's an infinite mana combo that you should be aware of that's expected in Memnarch builds. And it's Grand Architect + Pili-Pala. Obviously you can use the infinite mana to steal everyone's board. I might recommend swapping out both Caged Sun and Guantlet of Power for this combo. It will help lower your average cmc and give you a halfway tutorable win condition. Grand Architect is awesome by himself, giving the ability ramp like a mofo if you run a lot of small blue creatures.
I highly recommend trying out Darksteel Forge. Memarch dying repeatedly to artifact removal (especially stuff like Creeping Corrosion and Vandalblast that get past shroud) would be one of my biggest concerns. Darksteel Plate is a more efficient option but doesn't have the combo potential.
If you run Forge, you could also add Mycosynth Lattice which makes Memnarch's first ability redundant. You can steal anything for just 4 mana and this combo makes your whole board indestructible (which is rather relevant). Add Power Artifact or Training Grounds and it's just 2 mana to steal something.
Artifact recursion is needed here in some form. Some of your options are Argivian Restoration, Reconstruction, and Drafna's Restoration. Argivian Restoration is nice with the draw discard effects such as Thirst for Knowledge and can turn enemy mill strategies into an advantage for you. Wheel of Fortune is pretty commonly run as well. I can see Argivian Restoration being an awesome response to these kinds of effects.
And while we're discussing ways to cheat artifacts into play, Master Transmuter exists, as does Transmute Artifact. Both of these can help you get Memnarch back onto the battlefield if he gets bounced or tucked.
Now, I'm going to pick out some cards in your list that might not be serving you optimally.
Rapid Hybridization - this looks good on the surface but it's no Path to Exile. Simply destroying a single creature is often a waste of a card slot in muliplayer I've found. I think that Memnarch really wants to lean hard on counterspells, so I'd recommend increasing your redundancy there even more. Setting up a Counterbalance package here could be advisable. But if you choose to go that route, you need every supporting card you can find. Counterbalance is not to be played lightly since a lot of players will try to hate you out just for using it. I would run every free counter that you can. You're missing Foil, Misdirection, and Commandeer.
Capsize - consider that it costs 4UU to use this card effectively. While you might have the ramp to do that, how useful is it really? Compared to Cyclonic Rift it's almost laughable.
Oblivion Stone - again we've got less mana intensive options. This is something that can easily get Vandalblasted before you have a chance to use it.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - you don't want to be topdecking this, and I don't really see it fitting into your game plan. It's dead weight. Yes, it helps save you from mill but that's about it. I would recommend Timetwister or Time Spiral for that effect.
Jushi Apprentice - This is a card that I ran in my Niv-Mizzet build for a couple of games but quickly cut it. It's just too clunky. I'd recommend Careful Consideration instead.
Temple Bell - This isn't good enough in a vacuum to be worth running just for the Mind Over Matter combo. I'd cut it completely.
Crucible of Worlds - I don't really see what this is accomplishing. I'd cut it.
Finally, I'd reccomend sifting through all the Memnarch lists here on mtgsalvation and on other websites I'll save you the trouble of messing with the search function and just give you this link. That's every Memnarch list that's been posted in this forum.
OK, guess that's it for now. Hope you've got some food for thought.
Great thought stream of suggestions and strategies, Rowan. Very valuable. The artifact recursion and several of the suggestions you mentioned I will take into consideration and at some point test. I'm still doing testing on the previous replacements suggested several posts up.
I also think that it's important to note that I have tried a super-fast combo version of Memnarch. And you're totally right; if I were looking for a deck to combo hard and fast every single time I played a game, I would choose Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir without any hesitation. Memnarch is a very mana hungry dude, is expensive, and an artifact who dies to creature AND utility removal spells all day. Teferi beats the control mirror all by himself, has flash, and is a one card combo with Knowledge Pool. Memnarch is not these things and I very fully understand this. This is personal preference for me about how I enjoy the game and what brings me to playing Magic over and over again. And this is where we might agree to disagree.
I have played super-fast combo decks before in the past and I don't like them. My play style is more control the game, and then have a combo finish to wrap it up after a good game of back and forth Magic. My definition of a good game is kind of arbitrary, I know, but this is what I enjoy in a game. I think in part that's why I don't have as many hard and fast combo elements in the deck as others. I had a Dralnu deck that was super fast and cleaned up almost every game it played because of how fast it was; I didn't really enjoy playing him after a while because he just got boring. Flood the board with mana rocks, tutor for win, cast win, counter spells over win, proceed to win was the same strategy over and over and over. When I scrapped Dralnu and built mono-Blue I was looking to build a deck that had a lot of resiliency (multiple different ways to combo throughout its deck), a cleaner mana base, and more dedicated control elements. This version of building Memnarch appealed a lot to me when I first built it, and still does. The suggestions that I'm personally implementing are the ones that help to streamline the deck, add more resiliency, but not lose the overall ideal that keeps me coming back to play this format. However, I do think that it's a appropriate to prolly include a list that's dedicated to hard and fast and effective combo. I'll get to working on that, as it should probably be included in this Primer. The deck that I want to present is primarily a control deck with a combo finish. Does that make sense?
Great suggestions and, sincerely, I appreciate the thoughts and the time spent in expressing them. It helps to expand my thinking and ensure that I'm always having to re-evaluate my perspective and improve.
Mycosynth Lattice is a card that has given me problems many times when I've played it without having infinite mana. Fixing everyone else's mana problems and allowing their utility removal to become Vindicate was not good in the games where I played it. Yes, it makes Memnarch's first ability redundant, but I find that it provides too much symmetry for my opponents and opens up new avenues of weakness that I really don't want my opponents to have access to. Its strengths are just that, too. It turns every thing into artifacts so that I can steal them faster and turns infinite colorless mana into mana that I can effectively do something with. When I had it, in one of the very first iterations of this deck, I would cast it and then regretted the turn cycle that happened afterwards consistently enough for me to realize that I didn't want to play it without infinite mana. My playgroup, back when I first built Memnarch, was overloaded with Krosan Grips, Acidic Slime, and other such artifact specific removal. It hasn't really changed very much, either.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre can definitely come out for Timetwister or Time Spiral. He's sat enough times in my hand, not being cast, to make me wonder why I was playing him in the first place. I'm going to finish the current testing of cards that I added in first and then I'll do another battery of tests with some more cuts and inclusions.
EDIT: The OP is updated with an explanation of the Instants.
Game Report from yesterday. Two great games with three and four players, respectively
Memnarch, Animar, Nekusar
What an interesting game. Animar, who everyone expected to be ridiculous and win, had a T2 Animar and then basically did nothing for the rest of the game. Unusual, to say the least. So, after handling Animar's attempt at card draw, it was just me and Nekusar. Nekusar had been able to get down and activate a Bloodchief Ascension. Did you know that casting spells puts them in the graveyard? I lost quite a bit of life to that card as well as Nekusar's ability in order to try and answer the board state and try and win. Add Boseiju and a tapped Mana Vault that I couldn't afford to untap, and I lost more life to my own cards than what anyone else did yo me. I eventually was able to stabilize after he tried to cast Nekusar for the third time with a Jace's Archivist in play and enough mana to activate it. I was at 1 life. Boseiju did so much work for me that game, turning counter wars into counter coughs. *cough, cough* "Oh, I'll counter that with Hinder that has Boseiju mana. Cough". What was really cool is that the Nekusar player Time Stretched and still didn't win. Thanks mono-Blue for controlling the game. After he cast his Nekusar the third time, he wheeled everyone with the Archivist that was in play and then cast Molten Psyche with metalcraft. I laughed, because I had no cards in hand, 1 life, and only Boseiju untapped. I died. Animar, who was given card advantage, finally, then proceeded to win by turning things sideways, notably a Nylea of the Hunt and Animar. Animar, after doing basically nothing the entire game, won. Haha.
Memnarch, Grimgrin, Oloro, Prossh
This game was pretty in my favor, but very drawn out because I could only draw one card draw spell the entire game. Which was Brainstorm, definitely not the card I want in a vaccuum. Anyways, this game was pretty awesome, with me being the Archenemy. This was the more memorable of the games I played yesterday because I was pretty focused on Prossh. There are some great combo lists I've seen floating here and I was pretty prepared to have to do some tight playing. But it turns out the pilot didn't justify the deck. Oh well. Grimgrin wasn't doing much and after I exiled Prossh's Avenger of Zendikar for free (after he had cast Ashnod's Altar and Autumn's Veil earlier during his turn), Oloro reanimator tried to win. He Fof'ed and targeted the Grimgrin player because she is lest experienced player at the table. And she gave him the best piles I've seen in a very long time. I had Memnarch and Caged Sun on the table and I was clearly the most threatening person. He revealed: Gilded Drake, Intuition, two lands, and Ghostly Flicker. Her piles were Gilded Drake+Land and then Intuition+land+Ghostly Flicker. Well done, I say. Instead of choosing to grab the Drake, and then trade it for my Memnarch, he chose to try and win. He had a Stoneforge Mystic that was suited up with a Sword of Feast and Famine, and so he kept the Intuition to try and find the catch-22 situation that would get him there. He untapped, didn't draw, and then cast Intuition and found Reveillark, Archaeomancer, and Time Warp. He choose the Grimgrin player and she let him keep the Time Warp, which put him at four mana remaining. He went to try and attack. And then he looked at my board. I had 3U up, and there was no way I could let him untap his lands. He and I both knew that I would steal his Sword of Feast and Famine in response to him doing anything with a combat step. He tried to persuade me to let an attack go through, and I couldn't allow it, because I had no counterspells in hand. We wheeled and dealed and still I wouldn't let him do it. So he scooped in frustration. One down, two to go. I untapped and did some things, and passed the turn to Prossh. He went balls out and cast Prossh with a Doubling Season and Fecundity in play. And he drew many cards, I think like 8 or something. And then he cast Final Fortune. I let it go, and then proceeded to steal his Prossh with the mana available to me. I knew that this was the correct play because after talking to him over the course of the game it sounded like his deck depended in Prossh. Oops. He Tooth and Nailed, and did something not relevant on his turn and then lost to his Final Fortune. Leaving only the Grimgrin player. He played lots of mana stones on his turn and drew lots of cards with Skullclamp and Nether Traitor and some other creatures who died. He killed my Deadeye Navigator + Solemn Simulacrum engine I had going on when I was tapped out with Reckless Spite. Ouch. And then he shipped the turn back to me. I untapped, drew a land, and played Duplicant to exile his rather large Grimgrin, Corpse-Born. He then did a cyclonic rift at the end of my turn after I stole most of his board, mainly mana rocks, and that was kind of annoying. He replayed his hand again, as did I, and it was back to basically the same board state. He drew some cards and drew into a Phyrexian Metamorph and cast it to make a copy of my Memnarch to try and begin to steal my board. Sensei's Divining Top found me a Trickbind in the top three cards of my library and I countered his triggered ability that would have stole my Memnarch. After that, he then scooped. My big misplay of the game was stealing Grimgrin's Tezzeret the Seeker and searching for Solemn Simulacrum instead of Phyrexian Metamorph to copy my Caged Sun. Very not good playing. But I won, mostly on the back of Memnarch and being able to recast him from my command zone. Having access to removal at all times was very useful and for sure solidified my reasons for playing Memnarch as my general.
I will try and update the OP tomorrow to include other lists that are more flavorful and more combo oriented, as well as finish card explanations and hopefully any typos that are uncovered. I'll also want to expand on my personal philosophy for the deck so that future readers can understand my personal decklist a little better. The last thing I'll want is images and then I will have finished my goal of making a Primer. Man, it's a lot of work.
Wow it has certainly been a long time since I've been able to update this thread. I made some changes to the decklist based on a shift of deck philosophy that kind of appeared during playing. The deck has shifted from being more combo-oriented to becoming more controlling. Hence, the OP list has changed quite a bit. I will still need to create a stupid fast efficient combo list to post up, but overall I'm very happy with where the deck is. Out of the most recent 6 games I can remember playing, I was able to go infinite with Power Artifact and one of the associated mana stones that are broken with it, but I had nothing to do with the mana. So frustrating. So, I switched to a more controlling build so that I can play Magic and not feel dumb for being able to go infinite with nothing to do afterwards.
It's probably also important to note that I use Lorthos, the Tidemaker a fair bit as my commander with this current iteration. The deck feels like it's settled into a good blend of combo-control with an emphasis on the control. Carry on, mono-Blue!
I appreciate the compliment. I have thought about this build and tinkered with it for some time now, and of course it will continue to change.
Thanks for the suggestions. I particularly like the Liquimetal Coating suggestion. It's cheap enough to cast early, innocuous enough to avoid most removal, but can stick around and help cut off half of Memnarch's stealing ability. I liked Power Artifact a lot, but I could only use it once it seemed before someone killed Memnarch and the enchantment went to the graveyard. It's been my observation that I find myself casting Memnarch at least twice a game, so an enchantment aura isn't the best thing for the playgroup that I have.
I have considered Rings. And I haven't found something to cut for it as of yet. I'm still testing a few cards to see how they work, but it might go in place of Steel Hellkite.
As for the Bracers, hmmm. I'll have to think about that one for a bit. It's pretty awesome with Memnarch and is decidedly good with Azami.
I was able to play a game this weekend with 4 other players. It was a good game and my friend who won the game got super lucky with his mono-Blue deck. Top deck for the win! Anyways, the report follows.
5 Player Game: Memnarch, Krenko, Azami, Animar, Mimeoplasm
This was a great game, all in all. I lost but that's ok because sometimes an opponent just topdecks the exact card he needs to get there. Ok, so we all start the game and Azami puts down a Mystic Remora and draws some cards, Animar plays a T1 mana dork, Krenko has a Chancellor of the Forge trigger, Mimeoplasm does something to help his reanimator plan get off the ground, and I play a Mystic Remora too. The game kinda progresses along the normal path of things (Animar turning sideways and attacking people, of course being the biggest threat). Then the Mimeoplasm starts doing some crazy things with Reanimator. I think he looked at Dies_to_Doom_Blade's list or something because he tried and was successful in making his Mimeoplasm a Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur on T5 or T6 I think. Azami, seeing me tapped out because I had played Thought Reflection on my T5 (thanks Sol Ring), tried to do her storm combo and drew 5 lands off of the cards she had in hand. Sometimes you just don't get there when you play combo decks without hard tutors. Jin-Gitaxias killed Azami's hand, and was about to kill Animar's hand but she played Voidwielder to return Mimeoplasm to his hand. However, her hand was empty. I wasn't too worried because I had Duplicant or a Snapcaster Mage option. I had played Thought Reflection the turn right before Mimeoplasm tried doing crazy things so I was going to be in card advantage city here shortly. Azami had played a Gauntlet of Power and so my Islands were doing me some extra awesomeness. I decided to play Memnarch on my T6 so I could begin to steal lots of things and lock up the game.I absolutely start by stealing Azami's basic Islands and then everything else. Krenko was starting to build critical mass in goblin tokens and had a Moggcatcher that was going to start doing some crazy things. But Mimeoplasm was doing more crazier things. He cast Reanimate with a Vorniclex in his 'yard. I tapped two Islands to float 4 mana in response (I had Snapcaster Mage in hand and a Rapid Hybridization in the 'yard) to him casting it and then Animar Force of Willed it anyways. Mimeoplasm then played a Prophet of Kruphix after that. With my mana floating I totally turned it into an artifact and anticipated putting this game away on my turn. I had only one Island untapped and it goes to Azami's turn. He has no cards in hand and no real way to generate card advantage from what I saw on field. So I thought I would totally get there. He topdecks a freaking Time Spiral. I don't have enough mana to flash in my Snapcaster and flashback the counterspell I had in my 'yard so it happens. I draw 14 cards...and didn't draw a single counterspell. Not one. I draw 10 artifacts, a Glen Elendra Archmage, Future Sight, Terrain Generator, and Trinket Mage. Sigh. Azami drew a fresh 7 and so did everyone else, but then Azami started to go off. Mimeoplasm countered some things but the Azami forced his play to happen (I don't remember what was being countered about) by having more counterspells. I try and get in on the idea of stopping Azami by tapping Top to draw 2 cards. I don't get there. Eventually Azami finds Eye of the Storm and Mind's Desire and he wins the game with storm and Laboratory Maniac. Sigh. Sometimes luck just happens to people. All in all a good game where a topdeck won the game for the Azami player.
Mmhm. Where can I get one of those cards? Hahaha. That was a pretty good game though, wasn't it? What was your perspective on that game? It would be cool to have some different perspectives on teh game reports that we have in our playgroup so other readers can get an idea of what different opponents were thinking.
Any suggestions based on the list that you see? I took out Steel Hellkite and added Fact or Fiction in again. I've played a few times with my brother and in goldfishing and I just wasn't impressed with the Hellkite. So that's a change that I need to make to the list.
I just remember seeing you tapped out, my other opponent having a Jin-Gitaxus and thinking "I gotta go as far as possible right now". I started with high tide of the mox daimond, into gauntlet of power naming blue, into frantic search hitting 2 lands, then played trinket Mage for candelabra of Tawnos, played it and I tropes all my lands with mana floating, tapped azami and trinket Mage and hit 2 lands and had to pass and pitch my hand full of land.
Honestly my only suggestions are to cut Treasure Mage as it only finds caged sun and arcanis as it's too slow and add Retraced Image as a 1 drop early ramp spell and add Jace, tMS for more brainstorming. I have a lot more suggestions of cuts but that's just cause I hate things that are slow.
Another game played this weekend. And wow, what a mind trip this one was. It was an hour and a half long game, maybe two hours and three different people tried to go off and didn't. That's an Epikkk game of Magic in our group. The report follows below.
Memnarch, Azami, Planeswalker Ob, Norin
This game was a mind twist for everyone except me, because Confusion in the Ranks did exactly what it was supposed to do: throw the game into a level of chaotic hell that took about a half hour to figure out between Planeswalker Ob, Norin, and Azami (Dan was the rules guru on this one). But I'll get to that point. We all start off by doing cool things and it was business as usual of countering scary plays and watching Norin create a horde of Myr tokens with Genesis Chamber. Azami and I were drawing some cards off of our early Mystic Remoras, with Azami drawing a few more cards than I because he went first. Norin was basically just running around with tokens and doing random things because he could. An opening Leyline of the Void made his Goblin Welder pretty useless and so we settled into our respective roles with Azami and I playing for blue supremacy. Enter Vedalken Shackles. Wow. I just added it in and damn it slows a game down to a crawl. Especially when I had an original, a Phyrexian Metamorph, and Azami had one too. No creatures were ever safe and creature theft was all over the place. I stole Azami's Azami, Lady of Scrolls and didn't play a lot of other things. Norin played a Goblin Assassin and the coin flips were good for me, for the first two times that a Goblin came into play. Ob Nixilis wasn't doing anything at all for the first five turns or so, playing a Gray Merchant of Asphodel with a Necropotence in play. Azami and I were playing the counterspell/bluffing counterspell game and Norin was having free reign to do what he wanted. Eventually he plays Mindclaw Shaman targeting me. He has a massive token horde at this point and he isn't really attacking anyone consistently enough to kill anyone, although he could have. In my hand I have Spell Crumple, Evacuation, Force of Will, All is Dust, and another counterspell. Well, poor Mindclaw Shaman HAS to cast a card from my hand that has a legal target and so he board wipes himself with Evacuation. And I didn't even have to tap lands to do what I wanted to do! Azami went back to Azam's hand and the board was clean. It's at this point that I get mana-screwed for the next 6 turns. Brutal. With only three Islands, Shackles can't take a lot of high-powered threats but has enough to steal almost all of Azami's creatures. Azami tries to cast Azami again. I Crumple it, he Forces it, I Force it back, goodbye Azami. With Azami's card advantage gone, I feel pretty comfortable with the board state. The game goes around for a bit and Norin begins to rebuild his token army and Ob begins to do things after spending most of the game doing nothing particularly constructive. After a few turns, I draw into Palinchron and Phantasmal Image with Deadeye Navigator. This is the first time I've ever played a Cavern of Souls calling Illusion, haha. All I needed was just another Island and I would have 7 lands total to go infinite with the Image and Palinchron. And I never draw it... So I play Deadeye Navigator because Azami has three cards in hand and just spent her Force trying to counter my Force one turn earlier. I try for it because Azami's Shackles is tapped. Ob Nixilis plays Slaughter with the Souldbond trigger on the stack. Deadeye Navigator is relegated to oblivion thanks to Leyline of the Void and Azami untaps, targets my Phant Image that I played to untap my lands and bluff coutnerspells. Azami had drawn tons of lands and also had an Extraplanar Lens on Snow-Covered Islands. Huh. Maybe I should start playing those so I can take advantage of his mana doublers... Anyways. Azami plays Time Spiral with after playing an Omniscience. And draws into nothing of relevance besides some mana doublers. Haha, sigh. Sometimes you get there, sometimes you don't. Passes the turn to Norin. Who is playing at instant speed due to Vedalken Orrery. Ob then goes to play Mike and Trike. With the undying trigger on the stack, Norin plays Mindclaw Shaman targeting me. Boom! goes All is Dust and Mikaeus the Unhallowed dies with the undying trigger on the stack. Combo broken. I draw still no land and pass the turn with nothing of relevance; I do, however, play a Tezzeret the Seeker to find Phyrexian Metamorph so that at ever a point I draw more Islands I can just steal the board and try and control the board. Azami does something not particularly relevant and it goes around the table again with Norin still pinging away at people's life totals. Ob Nixilis tutors for a reanimation spell to try again next turn to Mike and Trike to win. I play Memnarch on my turn and steal Azami's tapped Shackles (don't remember why they were tapped, and I have enough artifact mana to do so but only six lands). Azami does something and Norin does the most awful thing in the whole world: plays Confusion in the Ranks. Ob Nixilis reanimates Mike and Trike and with the Genesis Chamber triggers and Confusion in the Ranks, the game goes straight to chaotic hell. The stack gets disgusting and I stop caring because in every outcome I can think of I lose; Azami will either steal my Memnarch after the mess of triggers resolves with a metric ton of ramp (he Time Spiraled into Gauntlet of Power and Caged Sun with a Candelabra of Tawnos) or we all just lost to Mike and Trike. Yeah. Norin, controlling the triggers of Genesis Chamber and Confusion in the Ranks ends up giving my Memnarch to Azami. We lose to Azami stealing the board with my Memnarch. It was a highly enjoyable game but man my head hurt after the awful mess of Confusion in the Ranks and rising tempers. I put away control for a while and played some good ol' fashioned Kaalia for the remainder of the night to ease my troubled my mind.
The OP list will also be changed to include a few card changes that I'm testing out to see how they go with my deck.
Cut Steel Hellkite for Sigil Tracer. This is a test card to see if there's enough Wizard density in my deck to make it work. Copying spells is pretty awesome and would win counter wars and stop most of the infinite combos in our group.
Cut Memory Lapse for Patron Wizard. Again, this is a testing card to see if I want to up the Wizard density in my deck and turn Wizards into Force Spikes. We'll see how it goes.
Ah. School is completed and my trip to California to be the best man at my best friend's wedding is all finished. Man, life can sometimes get busy. Well, I played quite a few games last night. The game reports will follow as well as new testing cards.
3 man game
Memnarch, Animar, Sharruum
So this game was a testing game for my friend's Sharuum the Hegemon deck. He's trying to find an Esper build that he likes and performs well and he decided to focus very strongly on Isochron Scepter with the relevant cards. So, Animar opens up the game by doing the same thing it always does, T1 dork or mana accelerant so a T2 Animar happens. I play some Islands, and Sharuum does the same thing. Except on his T2, he casts Isochron Scepter. I have a Boomerang in my hand so I'm okay with it resolving since I can bounce it back to his hand and cause him to lose card advantage. But Animar is not having it resolve. She Forces it and it happens. Sad day for Sharuum. I play a land and this is where we all get very lucky: Animar draws lands for 3/4 turns in a row. Out of 31 lands in the deck, she draws land for at least 3 turns? Man, sometimes your deck just gets spiteful. With this reprieve in the aggro-combo deck, this allows me to build my mana base and counter the relevant things. Sharuum doesn't draw any card advantage and so I'm feeling pretty good about this. I draw a Cavern of Souls and name Wizard and proceed to cast Memnarch. Every player has about 2 or less cards in hand and so I figure that in this kind of card advantage vaccuum by playing Memnarch I can totally begin to steal the game away. Eventually, that's what happens. I play lands and leave mana open so that I can Cryptic Command if I need to or steal a permanent if I don't. It's a great feeling as a control player to have that option. I proceed to steal the big creatures, namely Animar and Sharuum (Sharuum was cast right after I cast Memnarch). And the rest of the game is kind of stagnant because I turn my stolen dudes sideways at the Sharuum player, kill him, and then turn my stolen dudes sideways at Animar. They both die to their own generals. Drawing Islands and eventually Gauntlet of Power on Islands helped me overtake the game very quickly. I noticed that I drew Haunted Fengraf for the 4th time and wished it was an Island. It eventually gets cut, but I decide to try it for a few more games to see if it can prove its value.
Same players
Memnarch, Animar, Sharuum
This is the game where I remember why Bribery is a really good card. I had a T1 Sol Ring into a T3 Bribery and I stole Animar's Ulamog. Ewww. But, this is the ridiculousness of Animar: I swung into her with Ulamog and she still had enough dorks to sac for the Annihilator trigger. It's crazy when a deck can spew out enough permanents to actually keep up with something that should totally break a player. So Animar continues to do her thing of playing dorks and other incremental creatures and Sharuum again tries for the dream: Isochron Scepter + Mana Drain. He tries it and on the turn that he resolves it. Animar does something to destroy it and things get crazy. Eventually Sharuum plays a Phantasmal Image as a copy of my stolen Ulamog and Animar does some crazy stuff with Peregrine Drake and Shrieking Drake. Who knew that Shrieking Drake was so good? Animar becomes large, a 16/16 and swings at me. I send a Trinket Mage to get crushed into oblivion and it goes to Sharuum's turn. I have a sneaking suspicion that he's going to swing into me with his Ulamog and so when he moves to declare attackers step, I play High Tide into Cryptic Command to tap all dudes and draw a card with Counterspell backup in case he tries to counter it. He doesn't have the counter and so I do what I want. On his 2nd main phase, however, he casts Toxic Deluge for 16 and wipes the field. Wow. We all reset and on my turn I play everyone's favorite general, Memnarch. Animar replays Animar, and Sharuum plays a land. Animar eventually dies again and I begin to steal mana rocks from Sharuum. On the next turn, Animar plays a Bane of Progress. Super lame! I had played a Gauntlet of Power just on my turn, so it was gonna be destroyed. With the mana that I have, I turn Animar's Gaea's Cradle, Bane of Progress and another land into artifacts and two of Sharuum's blue producing lands into artifacts too. Lots of things die. We're all looking low on cards in hand and so Sharuum decides to cast Timetwister. Animar had replayed Animar and Sharrum had missed a land drop. With the freshly drawn Cyclonic Rift, Animar gets shuffled into her deck and life is looking good with my new set of seven cards. I drew Bribery again and cast it targeting Animar. This time I'm going to go and find me a Prophet because I have enough mana to play Memnarch at instant speed. Sharuum is tapped out, Animar has no responses, and they scoop to that. So, Memnarch threatening to steal the board again wins the game here because they don't want to fight through their own stolen cards. I again drew Haunted Fengraf and wished it was something useful. Strike 2.
I played another game with Memnarch with Animar and Damia and it was an epic game. I won it after some really cool interactions and lines of play. Currently, I have to go so I will be back later with that game report. I never drew into Sigil Tracer or Patron Wizard all night and never had a way to find them, so I'm still on the fence about their testing. I will be testing Liquimetal Coating here shortly as per Arkhaic's suggestion.
The final game report of the last 3 man game I played two nights ago. The details are a little fuzzy in some parts but the good lines of play are there.
Memnarch, Animar, Damia
This was a game of top-tier generals playing at the table, so I was kind of excited. Dan's Damia deck is a highly tuned deck and is mostly foiled out. A very pretty deck to be playing against. Anyways, things go as they normally do, with Animar playing a T2 Animar and doing the normal tempo plays it does. I rolled to go last and Damia does something to ramp quickly. I open with a T1 Sol Ring into a T2 Solemn Simulacrum, so I'm keeping up with the ramp action and also have a blocker to throw underneath Animar in case she decides to swing at me. Ah. Damia played Crucible of Worlds and Azusa, Lost but Seeking with a Polluted Delta to start going crazy with the land generation. Since I'm keeping up with the ramp, I play Cavern of Souls on Wizards and cast Memnarch on T4 after playing Vedalken Shackles on my T3 and stealing some creature. The table gets kinda ridiculous with Animar eventually dumping her hand as per normal and Damia being a little conservative in casting Damia because he fears my counters and control package. On my T5 I play Azami, Lady of Scrolls. Damia had cast Damia on his turn because I had stolen something else with the Shackles that Animar had played. Animar plays out her hand and draws into Phyrexian Metamorph. She casts it to copy Damia's Damia, Sage of Stone. I steal it at the end of turn. But then Damia plays a Consecrated Sphinx on his turn. Aw yeah. I untap my Shackles and very quickly steal Damia's Consecrated Sphinx. I leave some mana open and my wizards untapped so that I have answers to what Animar draws into. C. Sphinx draws me 14 cards after Animar's Metamorph-as-Damia trigger goes off. And I draw into the control that I need to ensure that Animar doesn't do silly things. Animar draws a bunch of mana dorks and a Peregrine Drake and turns sideways at me. I take a lot of damage. It goes to Damia's turn and he draws 2 cards (4 for me!) and decides that you only live once (YOLO, for those who might be confused if they hear that phrase), casts some random spell and then casts Time Stretch. My Misdirection is so beautiful here that I almost cry. I had the Mindbreak Trap for his third spell if he tried to counter my Misdirection. He is just one mana short, and so he resolves a Time Stretch targeting me. I spend my first of three total turns dumping as much artifact mana as possible into play, and sculpt my hand to ensure that I win with no hitches. On my 2nd of three turns I play Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir to see if Animar has any responses. She doesn't. I then play Deadeye Navigator and a Phantasmal Image copying Animar's Peregrine Drake. I steal all the things and they scoop. MVP of this game was Vedalken Shackles, which stole the more important creatures over the course of the game.
I also changed the deck philosophy so that readers of this Primer (YAY!) will understand that this is essentially a mono-Blue control deck and should be evaluated in that light. With the abundance of time available to me now, I will eventually post up a combo focused list as well as an artifact-themed list. There are a few cuts that I made so that the OP is up to date:
Yeah, Islands are much cooler than this land, which I've now drawn 7 times and wished it was an Island every single time. With that much testing (which I consider normal) it gets the permanent cut and won't be coming back to my list.
Being able to cut off half of Memnarch's activation should help free up a little more mana, as there are enough times when I have 3-4 mana untapped before it comes to my turn. There is also the added benefit of interacting with a few artifact hate cards, like Vandalblast and Bane of Progress. I drew Martyr of Frost twice and was unimpressed with it. In the mid/late game, it becomes less relevant and requires me to do something that is unbecoming of any control player: reveal information about my hand. I don't think it will come back because revealing sucks more than being able to make a tempo play.
7x Memnarch
Mana Sources (17)
0x Mana Crypt
0x Mox Opal
0x Mox Diamond
0x Chrome Mox
0x Everflowing Chalice
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Voltaic Key
2x Grim Monolith
2x Sky Diamond
2x Coldsteel Heart
2x Fellwar Stone
3x Basalt Monolith
3x Grand Architect
4x Thran Dynamo
5x Gilded Lotus
6x Coveted Jewel
Combo Pieces (4)
2x Isochron Scepter
2x Dramatic Reversal
2x Pili-Pala
5x Paradox Engine
Win Conditions (3)
2x Pull from Tomorrow
3x Blue Sun’s Zenith
4x Aetherflux Reservoir
Utility (3)
1x Grafdigger’s Cage
3x Back to Basics
3x Narset, Parter of Veils
1x Mystical Tutor
2x Reshape
2x Transmute Artifact
2x Merchant Scroll
3x Whir of Invention
3x Fabricate
3x Intuition
3x Trinket Mage
3x Spellseeker
5x Tezzeret the Seeker
Counterspells (12)
0x Pact of Negation
1x Swan Song
1x Flusterstorm
1x Spell Pierce
2x Mana Drain
2x Counterspell
2x Delay
2x Trickbind
2x Muddle the Mixture
3x Disallow
5x Force of Will
5x Mystic Confluence
Removal (9)
1x Chain of Vapor
1x Rapid Hybridization
2x Cyclonic Rift
2x Blink of an Eye
2x Reality Shift
2x Gilded Drake
3x Capsize
3x Vedalken Shackles
8x Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1x Sensei’s Divining Top
1x Brainstorm
1x Preordain
1x Mystic Remora
2x Impulse
3x Windfall
3x Timetwister
3x Rhystic Study
4x One with the Machine
4x Fact or Fiction
5x Future Sight
6x Recurring Insight
Lands (30)
1x Ancient Tomb
1x Academy Ruins
1x Buried Ruin
1x Inventors’ Fair
1x Seat of the Synod
1x Cavern of Souls
1x Scalding Tarn
1x Polluted Delta
1x Flooded Strand
1x Misty Rainforest
21x Island
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
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
I have considered using Psychosis Crawler as an additional win condition. He has strong synergy with the idea of what I want my deck to do. The hard thing, however, is of course the ultimate question in EDH: what to cut. Every card in here has been useful in one game or another. The only card that I haven't been too impressed with has been Sphinx of Magosi. It draws cards at instant speed, turns into a beater, and is only really good in the late game when ideally removal spells have been expended, but it's usually not very impactful and the cost is expensive. I'll try out the Crawler once I find a copy of it in my stack of cards. I also just took out Treachery from another deck and I want to test that here. Moar removal! is never a bad thing and having a free spell is advantageous as well.
I played a few games this weekend. They were 1v1 against Damia and Nicol Bolas, respectively. I'll include the game descriptions and the notable plays that occurred in each game.
Memnarch vs. Damia game
This was a control-lover's dream. Incremental advantage accumulated and well-timed plays on my part allowed me to syphon out his hand of answers. There were some great plays on his part where he tutored for answers for whenever I did something that would have pulled me ahead, like Sensei's Divining Top and Future Sight. Krosan Grip is a really good card, by the way, blanking the Force of Will that I had in hand as I watched my card advantage die away. It was an interesting game because I knew that he played not as many draw spells as I do because he uses Damia as a draw spell. Also, he didn't get as much explosive ramp as he normally does which helped a lot in this game. After I expended his resources, I played Memnarch with the abundance of mana that I had accumulated (I had a Crucible of Worlds and Terramorphic Expanse engine going). And eventually Memnarch stole his board and he scooped. It was a great game of back and forth plays with only one counter war over my first casting of Memnarch. MVP of the game was Memnarch, because he won me the game, but an honorable mention goes to Crucible of Worlds being able to consistently hit land drops each turn and out-mana my opponent was crucial in the game and is what allowed me to cast spells to purposely expend his resources so that I could land Memnarch. A great game.
Memnarch vs. Nicol Bolas
Whew, this was a long game. Of all the decks that my friend has, this is probably the one that is the most controlling. It has some great interactions that got this game for him and he simply drew better than I did. The game was tense and there were several notable plays that went down. There was a time when he was down to three cards and I had four. He only had three mana available and I decided to risk playing Memnarch and try to begin to steal his board. Hindered... That hurt. About mid-game, there was an O-Stone on his side of the field and I had just played Caged Sun. That was awkward and a great play on his part. I played a land and then I began to use Academy Ruins to recur Wayfarer's Bauble and just build a mana base. His Top was doing work and ensuring that he was hitting his land drops too. After enough time where he put fate counters on the permanents that he wanted, he blew up the world at the end of my turn. Oh, I also only drew three counters this whole game, which made a difference too. After he blew up the world, his surviving Nin, the Pain Artist blew herself up netting him a fresh seven cards. I think this is the point where I lost the game because he got stuck on mana drops after a while, and I was able to play Karn Liberated and start chipping away at his mana base. It was back and forth for a while with him trying to do something to kill/handle my Karn and me trying to just stay in the game with his overwhelming card advantage. He tutored for Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker which we had an awesome counter war over. He played Nicol Bolas, I countered with Negate, he draws a card with Sensei's Divining Top in response, plays Spell Crumple, I Top in response and Spell Crumple his Spell Crumple. Whew. But, the bad thing was is after this counter war I was out of counters and down to two cards in hand. He untaps, looks at his hand, and plays Archaeomancer to pick up Demonic Tutor, tutors for another thing, passes the turn. I draw nothing, exile a card from his hand with Karn, then pass the turn. He untaps, plays a land, then casts Time Stretch. F-Word. It resolves, and his 'Mancer pings Karn for one. He takes his first of two extra turns, plays Snapcaster Mage and Time Stretches again. 3 turns on the stack. I lose, by the way. But the gory details were actually really cool. On his next turn, he played Warstorm Surge and Deadeye Navigator, killed my Karn, then took his next turn. He then cast Nicol Bolas, his general, burns my hand away with Warstorm Surge with Nicol Bolas, and then soulbonds Deadeye Navigator to Nicol Bolas. Damn, that's a really, really good lock. But instead of doing combat damage, he alternately blinks Nicol Bolas and Deadeye Navigator until Warstorm Surge killed me. Wow. That was a great card combo and I wasn't too upset at losing. It was like Nicol Bolas had a lightning tantrum and crisped me to death.
After this game, I think I'm doing to try and find some ways to streamline the deck and add in cheap card draw, because that's what it felt like I was missing that particular game. I'll be looking at Brainstorm, Ponder, and perhaps Impulse. All in all, great games, and useful in determining what I can look to improve in the deck.
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
One problem I'm seeing is that your average cmc is quite high, while you have the control and ramp to support it, your list would still benefit from a trimming in that regard.
Yes, I'd highly recommend using some of the cheap blue draw cards. They go a long way in streamlining a combo deck and provide you with something relevant to do in the first few turns. I think about 5 would be sufficient. Thirst for Knowledge, Frantic Search, Careful Consideration, Careful Study, Impulse, Brainstorm, Ponder, Preordain, and Compulsive Research are the best ones.
[/b]Power Artifact seems to make a lot of sense in this deck since it has less chance of being dead than in other lists (can enchant your commander). It makes infinite mana with Grim Monolith and Basalt Monolith.
Etherium Sculptor can reduce the cost of your commander and is a piece of a three card combo involving Future Sight and Sensei's Divining Top. I would also up the artifact count of the deck to further make use of this card.
Riptide Laboratory seems like a no brainer here. Not only is your commander a wizard, but you've got a pretty solid supporting cast.
I'll pop back in later with a few more suggestions. Right now my computer is being retarded.
MY PRIMER ON NIV-MIZZET, THE FIREMIND, MY CUSTOM CARDS ON DEVIANTART
My other decks:
Kaalia of the Vast: Certified Air Raid Material
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: NOM NOM NOM!
Aurelia, the Warleader: Warclamp
No problem for the shout out. Your Firemind Primer was a great read. Well-constructed and very intelligent. I'm thinking about perhaps beginning to look for some of those cards and building your decklist. Your discussion with 3drinks on one of these Kaalia threads is also very insightful and entertaining.
Power Artifact is a great suggestion. I totally forgot about this card. You're right, it has incredible synergy with my general and indeed produces lots o' mana with Basalt Monoloith. If I can find a Grim Monolith somewhere in a trade binder or at a good deal online I will acquire it. I think I would include it strictly for my general though. Being able to steal something for 4 mana instead of 7 mana actually makes a big difference. Great suggestion.
Etherium Sculptor would definitely need a few more artifacts to play with in order to increase his usefulness. It's tempting to include him simply because he adds another infinite combo to the deck and has decent synergy with the deck. Reduces the mana cost of Memnarch, is a wizard for Azami to have some draw power there, but outside of that it doesn't have much. I would seriously want to evaluate it.
The list of draw spells you suggested I've looked at also. Of those, I think I like Preordain and Brainstorm. I don't know why Brainstorm isn't in here already because in each game I've played there has been a ton of shuffling effects. The virtual card advantage of Brainstorm with fetch-lands is something I'm familiar with when I'm play-testing Legacy with my friend.
Thanks for the suggestions. I also played Kaalia yesterday twice. Descriptions are as follows:
Game 1 Memnarch vs. Kaalia
This game was way in my favor because he got mana-screwed after T3. I had Counterspell for when he first tapped out for Kaalia and the rest was history. He was never really in the game and just kinda watched as Deadeye Navigator and Archaeomancer picked up Time Warp enough times to kill him with combat damage. Having Gauntlet of Power was very useful here, as it allowed me to combo out with 5 Islands and Academy Ruins. Turn 7 was when I started chaining turns. He insisted we play again since his deck kinda didn't show up to play. I agreed.
Game 2 Memnarch vs. Kaalia
This game was much better. Both are decks did their thing and it was very back and forth with some ridiculous plays happening. My friend opened up with Weathered Wayfarer and that's a good card. He was able to tutor for Hall of the Bandit Lord T3 which would guarantee a T4 attacking Kaalia. Pretty good. I couldn't find removal for it, though I had a counter in hand for when Kaalia decided to come out so I wasn't worried. But, alas, I tapped out on my T2 to play Everflowing Chalice so I could catch up with him on mana (he went first). He untapped, drew and grinned to himself. He tapped his mana and seemed to casually toss Price of Glory after playing a Sol Ring. Damn. My Arcane Denial looked pretty stupid and I inwardly cringed. I decided then that basically I needed to either race him to combo out or burn through my deck as fast as possible to try and find removal for that cursed enchantment. By the way, racing Kaalia is really, really hard. I untapped, drew a land, and played Rhystic Study. He tutored for the Hall and passed the turn. I played Solemn Simulacrum and had Duplicant and Deadeye Navigator in hand, ready to go. Machine gun exile effect for 2 mana. Sounds good. He untaps, draws a card, turns Kaalia sideways and puts Rakdos the Defiler into play tapped, Annihilating me for half my board. Force of Will would have been so nice here... And in case you're wondering, yes, I die. Horribly. I untapped, played a land and my own Sol Ring, which I just drew. He untapped, didn't play a land and chose to attack with Rakdos, sac'ing half his board to cripple me and close out the game in his favor. Kaalia put Harvester of Souls into play tapped and attacking, just to seal the deal I guess. With two Islands in play I decide that he wins and scooped up my cards. If Price of Glory hadn't come down on T2, I think I would have had the game again. Dumb red cards... Haha.
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
Etherium Sculptor won't be dead because it allows you to cast Memnarch on turn 6. He also helps you lay down all your artifact ramp a lot faster. Another option if you want that infinite draw combo is Helm of Awakening. I'm running it in Niv-Mizzet and I love it. But it's good because my curve is so low. I'm saving a lot more mana than any one opponent.
The beauty of cards like Thirst for Knowledge and Frantic Search is that they let you pitch cards you don't need for cards that you do. You've got a lot of cards that cost more mana than you have to work with early game. You DON'T want those cards in your hand. Instead you want cheap ramp and counters and tutors. The draw/discard spells allow you to dig efficiently. And if you have some way of recurring the discarded cards later (Academy Ruins, Call to Mind), the card advantage here is hard to beat.
Again, I'm running out of time. I'll be back tho
MY PRIMER ON NIV-MIZZET, THE FIREMIND, MY CUSTOM CARDS ON DEVIANTART
My other decks:
Kaalia of the Vast: Certified Air Raid Material
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: NOM NOM NOM!
Aurelia, the Warleader: Warclamp
Sphinx of Magosi -> Thirst for Knowledge
I think Sphinx of Magosi absolutely will have to go and be replaced by Thirst for Knowledge. Essentially replacing card draw for cheaper card draw. It's also instant speed which helps my control game a little more.
Magus of the Future -> Brainstorm
This is a hard one. Magus of the Future ensures a bit of redundancy for Top to be a super card advantage engine. But I think the redundancy of the cheap draw will outweigh the cut of this redundancy by allowing me to dig deeper to find a combo piece.
Worn Powerstone -> Etherium Sculptor
Alright Rowan. You convinced me to try it. Mana ramp for specific mana reduction. Plus the addition of an infinite combo! Yay! This actually seems a lot better the more I think about it.
Mind Stone -> Basalt Monolith
Replace a mana stone with a new one. Add in another combo with a mana stone that actually produces more mana, normally, and allows for infinite-ness with the thoughtfully suggested Power Artifact. Oh, infinite mana. How I love you.
Buried Ruin -> Island
I think my Island count seems a little low. Academy Ruins does a really good job of recurring my artifacts and I'm meh when I draw Buried Ruin, so it's an easy switch.
Everflowing Chalice -> Mana Vault
Sigh. My FNM foil Chalice needs a home now. But it makes sense. Mana Vault is better and provides a better push of mana that I need in the early game to get ahead.
Ghost Quarter -> Riptide Laboratory
This is a really easy switch. It prolly should have happened a long time ago. I feel pretty ok about this one.
The last card I want to find room for is Impulse. I don't know what else to cut. I know that I will probably cut Negate for Power Artifact when I acquire the enchantment. Other than these cuts, I will test this list out when I can.
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
I'll list some other cards that I think are weak in your list
Ertai, Wizard Adept is pretty mana intensive. Let me recommend Muddle the Mixture here instead. Transmute is a really useful ability. You can get Power Artifact, Cyclonic Rift, and Etherium Sculptor among others.
Brittle Effigy I just don't like it. 5 is too much. I would maybe try out Merchant Scroll which can get you any counterspell, Cyclonic Rift, Blue Sun's Zenith and Mystical Tutor.
Spin into Myth again, too costly. I would just go with a Boomerang or another counterspell
Karn Liberated planeswalkers just aren't that great in commander unless your deck is specifically built to support them. Paying 7 for what amounts to a Vindicate isn't efficient.
Actually, here, I'm going to link you to HERO'S primer on Teferi which is a very similar deck. I think you might get some inspiration. I find Teferi to be a bit more competitive than Memnarch as a mono blue commander, but you might not want to go that route.
MY PRIMER ON NIV-MIZZET, THE FIREMIND, MY CUSTOM CARDS ON DEVIANTART
My other decks:
Kaalia of the Vast: Certified Air Raid Material
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: NOM NOM NOM!
Aurelia, the Warleader: Warclamp
Updated the first post to make it a little bit more of Primer. Added Personal History, Why you should play Memnarch, Why you shouldn't play Memnarch, List of other mono-Blue Generals, and Strategy section.
Thanks for the pointer to the Teferi Thread, Rowan. Again, I will take a look at those suggested cuts and take a look at my list, perhaps later today. Work calls my name, but thankfully I'm down to eight hour shifts instead of the awful 12 hour we were pulling for a while.
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
Karn Liberated -> Recurring Insight
I lose a bit of control for the explosive draw power needed to find a combo piece and win. The CMC is one less and ultimately I have more power with the Insight than I do with Karn Liberated. Now that Karn is liberated from my decklist, he either needs a new home or get traded for profit.
Spin into Myth -> Trickbind
I forgot about this little utility card. Nearly every infinite combo that I can think of that exists within my play group requires an activated or triggered ability. This gently says, "No, no. No untapping of your lands with Palinchron. Or soul-bonding of Deadeye Navigator." I like it and I know I have one sitting in my pile somewhere.
Brittle Effigy -> Evacuation
Switching out one-time exile removal for easily recurred, instant speed mass removal. I also get to add a creature lock with Archaeomancer and Evacuation. It will be great to play this little gem in response to Animar's declare attack step. Ha! The flavor text on Evacuation will be so true at that point.
I'm going to keep Ertai, Wizard Adept for now because he has in fact won me some important counter wars in the past and is incredible in 1v1 games. Which I play relatively frequently. So I'll keep him in for a little while longer and see how he plays out. Otherwise he'll get switched out for a cheaper counterspell. Probably Mana Leak or Swan Song.
Since I have a massive migraine and am home today, I'll be able to spend a bit more time in the forums here. I'll prolly do some games against my decks to see how the new changes are.
EDIT 2: Made some major changes to the Original Post because it's a goal of mine to have a Primer and I have lots of time.
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
Trickbind -> Grim Monolith
Trade a utility answer for a mana rock with combo potential. This is a pretty straightforward switch, and if I can find a card that I can replace for Trickbind, I will. Trickbind has some very useful applications in competitive EDH for sure.
@Rowan
I will be testing Muddle the Mixture in place of Ertai, Wizard Adept. It transmutes to find a ton of useful and relevant things in my deck. And it can be a counter when it has to be. I like it, and we'll see how it tests. Ertai, Wizard Adept still has a special place in my heart though. Ertai, Wizard Adept wants to be in my less-competitive, much more flavor-ful/fun Lazav Dimir-themed mill deck anyways.
EDIT 2: The OP will be continued to be updated as I design it closer and closer to what I want the Primer to look like. It will change pretty frequently and hopefully become more refined, more grammatically correct, and hopefully more engaging.
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
So, you've chosen Memnarch. He's theft in the command zone. Theft would be situational, except that he's got the ability to steal lands so that's powerful. Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir is control in the command zone, Azami, Lady of Scrolls is card draw in the command zone, and Arcum Dagsson is a repeatable tutor in the command zone. All of these mono blue commanders are competitive because they have those effects and the deck needs to play to those strengths as much as possible without being dependent.
Arcum Dagsson is undoubtedly the best mono blue artifact deck commander for the simple reason that he can get Memnarch into play as early as turn 2-3 with ramp and haste which just can't be done if he's in the command zone :/ Dagsson should at least be considered as one of your 99 since he can really engineer your board position if you decide to run more artifacts which I certainly would. He's also a great answer if Memnarch gets tucked.
Memnarch is the slowest and most mana hungry of all of these commanders and that is his greatest weakness. Without ramp you'll be casting him on turn 7 and by then you'll likely be dead in a competitive game, especially if it's 1v1. So you absolutely need ramp, or ways to reduce his cost. You also need A LOT of control and the card draw to fuel that control which you are certainly well on your way to having, but it could be further optimized.
Vedalken Engineer is some solid ramp. Because cards like this exist and your commander is an artifact, it's only going to benefit you more and more to increase your artifact count.
There's an infinite mana combo that you should be aware of that's expected in Memnarch builds. And it's Grand Architect + Pili-Pala. Obviously you can use the infinite mana to steal everyone's board. I might recommend swapping out both Caged Sun and Guantlet of Power for this combo. It will help lower your average cmc and give you a halfway tutorable win condition. Grand Architect is awesome by himself, giving the ability ramp like a mofo if you run a lot of small blue creatures.
I highly recommend trying out Darksteel Forge. Memarch dying repeatedly to artifact removal (especially stuff like Creeping Corrosion and Vandalblast that get past shroud) would be one of my biggest concerns. Darksteel Plate is a more efficient option but doesn't have the combo potential.
If you run Forge, you could also add Mycosynth Lattice which makes Memnarch's first ability redundant. You can steal anything for just 4 mana and this combo makes your whole board indestructible (which is rather relevant). Add Power Artifact or Training Grounds and it's just 2 mana to steal something.
Because this is a combo deck, I would recommend running all the tutors that can be run in mono blue. You're missing Long-Term Plans, Merchant Scroll, and Personal Tutor. The other transmute cards are worth considering, depending on what your fetch options are. They are Dizzy Spell, Drift of Phantasms, and Ethereal Usher.
Treasure Mage can be used to tutor for Lattice or Forge.
Vedalken Æthermage should also be an auto-include since it can fetch Memnarch after a tuck and grab any wizard. The silver bounce can be very lolzy.
Vedalken Mastermind, Stonybrook Banneret, Magus of the Future, Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, Patron Wizard and Disruptive Student are all pretty solid wizards. Including more wizards will give you more mileage with Azami. However it also entirely likely that you should cut out the wizards almsot completely! why? because we're making a Memnarch deck, not an Azami deck. Azami isn't always in your command zone.
Artifact recursion is needed here in some form. Some of your options are Argivian Restoration, Reconstruction, and Drafna's Restoration. Argivian Restoration is nice with the draw discard effects such as Thirst for Knowledge and can turn enemy mill strategies into an advantage for you. Wheel of Fortune is pretty commonly run as well. I can see Argivian Restoration being an awesome response to these kinds of effects.
And while we're discussing ways to cheat artifacts into play, Master Transmuter exists, as does Transmute Artifact. Both of these can help you get Memnarch back onto the battlefield if he gets bounced or tucked.
Now, I'm going to pick out some cards in your list that might not be serving you optimally.
Rapid Hybridization - this looks good on the surface but it's no Path to Exile. Simply destroying a single creature is often a waste of a card slot in muliplayer I've found. I think that Memnarch really wants to lean hard on counterspells, so I'd recommend increasing your redundancy there even more. Setting up a Counterbalance package here could be advisable. But if you choose to go that route, you need every supporting card you can find. Counterbalance is not to be played lightly since a lot of players will try to hate you out just for using it. I would run every free counter that you can. You're missing Foil, Misdirection, and Commandeer.
Capsize - consider that it costs 4UU to use this card effectively. While you might have the ramp to do that, how useful is it really? Compared to Cyclonic Rift it's almost laughable.
Oblivion Stone - again we've got less mana intensive options. This is something that can easily get Vandalblasted before you have a chance to use it.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - you don't want to be topdecking this, and I don't really see it fitting into your game plan. It's dead weight. Yes, it helps save you from mill but that's about it. I would recommend Timetwister or Time Spiral for that effect.
Jushi Apprentice - This is a card that I ran in my Niv-Mizzet build for a couple of games but quickly cut it. It's just too clunky. I'd recommend Careful Consideration instead.
Temple Bell - This isn't good enough in a vacuum to be worth running just for the Mind Over Matter combo. I'd cut it completely.
Fact or Fiction - I've just never really liked it. I'd use Frantic Search
Crucible of Worlds - I don't really see what this is accomplishing. I'd cut it.
Finally, I'd reccomend sifting through all the Memnarch lists here on mtgsalvation and on other websites I'll save you the trouble of messing with the search function and just give you this link. That's every Memnarch list that's been posted in this forum.
OK, guess that's it for now. Hope you've got some food for thought.
MY PRIMER ON NIV-MIZZET, THE FIREMIND, MY CUSTOM CARDS ON DEVIANTART
My other decks:
Kaalia of the Vast: Certified Air Raid Material
Prossh, Skyraider of Kher: NOM NOM NOM!
Aurelia, the Warleader: Warclamp
I also think that it's important to note that I have tried a super-fast combo version of Memnarch. And you're totally right; if I were looking for a deck to combo hard and fast every single time I played a game, I would choose Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir without any hesitation. Memnarch is a very mana hungry dude, is expensive, and an artifact who dies to creature AND utility removal spells all day. Teferi beats the control mirror all by himself, has flash, and is a one card combo with Knowledge Pool. Memnarch is not these things and I very fully understand this. This is personal preference for me about how I enjoy the game and what brings me to playing Magic over and over again. And this is where we might agree to disagree.
I have played super-fast combo decks before in the past and I don't like them. My play style is more control the game, and then have a combo finish to wrap it up after a good game of back and forth Magic. My definition of a good game is kind of arbitrary, I know, but this is what I enjoy in a game. I think in part that's why I don't have as many hard and fast combo elements in the deck as others. I had a Dralnu deck that was super fast and cleaned up almost every game it played because of how fast it was; I didn't really enjoy playing him after a while because he just got boring. Flood the board with mana rocks, tutor for win, cast win, counter spells over win, proceed to win was the same strategy over and over and over. When I scrapped Dralnu and built mono-Blue I was looking to build a deck that had a lot of resiliency (multiple different ways to combo throughout its deck), a cleaner mana base, and more dedicated control elements. This version of building Memnarch appealed a lot to me when I first built it, and still does. The suggestions that I'm personally implementing are the ones that help to streamline the deck, add more resiliency, but not lose the overall ideal that keeps me coming back to play this format. However, I do think that it's a appropriate to prolly include a list that's dedicated to hard and fast and effective combo. I'll get to working on that, as it should probably be included in this Primer. The deck that I want to present is primarily a control deck with a combo finish. Does that make sense?
Great suggestions and, sincerely, I appreciate the thoughts and the time spent in expressing them. It helps to expand my thinking and ensure that I'm always having to re-evaluate my perspective and improve.
Mycosynth Lattice is a card that has given me problems many times when I've played it without having infinite mana. Fixing everyone else's mana problems and allowing their utility removal to become Vindicate was not good in the games where I played it. Yes, it makes Memnarch's first ability redundant, but I find that it provides too much symmetry for my opponents and opens up new avenues of weakness that I really don't want my opponents to have access to. Its strengths are just that, too. It turns every thing into artifacts so that I can steal them faster and turns infinite colorless mana into mana that I can effectively do something with. When I had it, in one of the very first iterations of this deck, I would cast it and then regretted the turn cycle that happened afterwards consistently enough for me to realize that I didn't want to play it without infinite mana. My playgroup, back when I first built Memnarch, was overloaded with Krosan Grips, Acidic Slime, and other such artifact specific removal. It hasn't really changed very much, either.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre can definitely come out for Timetwister or Time Spiral. He's sat enough times in my hand, not being cast, to make me wonder why I was playing him in the first place. I'm going to finish the current testing of cards that I added in first and then I'll do another battery of tests with some more cuts and inclusions.
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
Game Report from yesterday. Two great games with three and four players, respectively
Memnarch, Animar, Nekusar
What an interesting game. Animar, who everyone expected to be ridiculous and win, had a T2 Animar and then basically did nothing for the rest of the game. Unusual, to say the least. So, after handling Animar's attempt at card draw, it was just me and Nekusar. Nekusar had been able to get down and activate a Bloodchief Ascension. Did you know that casting spells puts them in the graveyard? I lost quite a bit of life to that card as well as Nekusar's ability in order to try and answer the board state and try and win. Add Boseiju and a tapped Mana Vault that I couldn't afford to untap, and I lost more life to my own cards than what anyone else did yo me. I eventually was able to stabilize after he tried to cast Nekusar for the third time with a Jace's Archivist in play and enough mana to activate it. I was at 1 life. Boseiju did so much work for me that game, turning counter wars into counter coughs. *cough, cough* "Oh, I'll counter that with Hinder that has Boseiju mana. Cough". What was really cool is that the Nekusar player Time Stretched and still didn't win. Thanks mono-Blue for controlling the game. After he cast his Nekusar the third time, he wheeled everyone with the Archivist that was in play and then cast Molten Psyche with metalcraft. I laughed, because I had no cards in hand, 1 life, and only Boseiju untapped. I died. Animar, who was given card advantage, finally, then proceeded to win by turning things sideways, notably a Nylea of the Hunt and Animar. Animar, after doing basically nothing the entire game, won. Haha.
Memnarch, Grimgrin, Oloro, Prossh
This game was pretty in my favor, but very drawn out because I could only draw one card draw spell the entire game. Which was Brainstorm, definitely not the card I want in a vaccuum. Anyways, this game was pretty awesome, with me being the Archenemy. This was the more memorable of the games I played yesterday because I was pretty focused on Prossh. There are some great combo lists I've seen floating here and I was pretty prepared to have to do some tight playing. But it turns out the pilot didn't justify the deck. Oh well. Grimgrin wasn't doing much and after I exiled Prossh's Avenger of Zendikar for free (after he had cast Ashnod's Altar and Autumn's Veil earlier during his turn), Oloro reanimator tried to win. He Fof'ed and targeted the Grimgrin player because she is lest experienced player at the table. And she gave him the best piles I've seen in a very long time. I had Memnarch and Caged Sun on the table and I was clearly the most threatening person. He revealed: Gilded Drake, Intuition, two lands, and Ghostly Flicker. Her piles were Gilded Drake+Land and then Intuition+land+Ghostly Flicker. Well done, I say. Instead of choosing to grab the Drake, and then trade it for my Memnarch, he chose to try and win. He had a Stoneforge Mystic that was suited up with a Sword of Feast and Famine, and so he kept the Intuition to try and find the catch-22 situation that would get him there. He untapped, didn't draw, and then cast Intuition and found Reveillark, Archaeomancer, and Time Warp. He choose the Grimgrin player and she let him keep the Time Warp, which put him at four mana remaining. He went to try and attack. And then he looked at my board. I had 3U up, and there was no way I could let him untap his lands. He and I both knew that I would steal his Sword of Feast and Famine in response to him doing anything with a combat step. He tried to persuade me to let an attack go through, and I couldn't allow it, because I had no counterspells in hand. We wheeled and dealed and still I wouldn't let him do it. So he scooped in frustration. One down, two to go. I untapped and did some things, and passed the turn to Prossh. He went balls out and cast Prossh with a Doubling Season and Fecundity in play. And he drew many cards, I think like 8 or something. And then he cast Final Fortune. I let it go, and then proceeded to steal his Prossh with the mana available to me. I knew that this was the correct play because after talking to him over the course of the game it sounded like his deck depended in Prossh. Oops. He Tooth and Nailed, and did something not relevant on his turn and then lost to his Final Fortune. Leaving only the Grimgrin player. He played lots of mana stones on his turn and drew lots of cards with Skullclamp and Nether Traitor and some other creatures who died. He killed my Deadeye Navigator + Solemn Simulacrum engine I had going on when I was tapped out with Reckless Spite. Ouch. And then he shipped the turn back to me. I untapped, drew a land, and played Duplicant to exile his rather large Grimgrin, Corpse-Born. He then did a cyclonic rift at the end of my turn after I stole most of his board, mainly mana rocks, and that was kind of annoying. He replayed his hand again, as did I, and it was back to basically the same board state. He drew some cards and drew into a Phyrexian Metamorph and cast it to make a copy of my Memnarch to try and begin to steal my board. Sensei's Divining Top found me a Trickbind in the top three cards of my library and I countered his triggered ability that would have stole my Memnarch. After that, he then scooped. My big misplay of the game was stealing Grimgrin's Tezzeret the Seeker and searching for Solemn Simulacrum instead of Phyrexian Metamorph to copy my Caged Sun. Very not good playing. But I won, mostly on the back of Memnarch and being able to recast him from my command zone. Having access to removal at all times was very useful and for sure solidified my reasons for playing Memnarch as my general.
I will try and update the OP tomorrow to include other lists that are more flavorful and more combo oriented, as well as finish card explanations and hopefully any typos that are uncovered. I'll also want to expand on my personal philosophy for the deck so that future readers can understand my personal decklist a little better. The last thing I'll want is images and then I will have finished my goal of making a Primer. Man, it's a lot of work.
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
It's probably also important to note that I use Lorthos, the Tidemaker a fair bit as my commander with this current iteration. The deck feels like it's settled into a good blend of combo-control with an emphasis on the control. Carry on, mono-Blue!
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
My #1 recommendation would be Liquimetal Coating, for those times when you need a cheaper Memnarch activation.
#2 would be Rings of Brighthearth. Another infinite mana combo with the monoliths, and double Memnarch steals.
#3 is Illusionist's Bracers.
Thanks for the suggestions. I particularly like the Liquimetal Coating suggestion. It's cheap enough to cast early, innocuous enough to avoid most removal, but can stick around and help cut off half of Memnarch's stealing ability. I liked Power Artifact a lot, but I could only use it once it seemed before someone killed Memnarch and the enchantment went to the graveyard. It's been my observation that I find myself casting Memnarch at least twice a game, so an enchantment aura isn't the best thing for the playgroup that I have.
I have considered Rings. And I haven't found something to cut for it as of yet. I'm still testing a few cards to see how they work, but it might go in place of Steel Hellkite.
As for the Bracers, hmmm. I'll have to think about that one for a bit. It's pretty awesome with Memnarch and is decidedly good with Azami.
Thanks for the suggestions comrade!
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
5 Player Game: Memnarch, Krenko, Azami, Animar, Mimeoplasm
This was a great game, all in all. I lost but that's ok because sometimes an opponent just topdecks the exact card he needs to get there. Ok, so we all start the game and Azami puts down a Mystic Remora and draws some cards, Animar plays a T1 mana dork, Krenko has a Chancellor of the Forge trigger, Mimeoplasm does something to help his reanimator plan get off the ground, and I play a Mystic Remora too. The game kinda progresses along the normal path of things (Animar turning sideways and attacking people, of course being the biggest threat). Then the Mimeoplasm starts doing some crazy things with Reanimator. I think he looked at Dies_to_Doom_Blade's list or something because he tried and was successful in making his Mimeoplasm a Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur on T5 or T6 I think. Azami, seeing me tapped out because I had played Thought Reflection on my T5 (thanks Sol Ring), tried to do her storm combo and drew 5 lands off of the cards she had in hand. Sometimes you just don't get there when you play combo decks without hard tutors. Jin-Gitaxias killed Azami's hand, and was about to kill Animar's hand but she played Voidwielder to return Mimeoplasm to his hand. However, her hand was empty. I wasn't too worried because I had Duplicant or a Snapcaster Mage option. I had played Thought Reflection the turn right before Mimeoplasm tried doing crazy things so I was going to be in card advantage city here shortly. Azami had played a Gauntlet of Power and so my Islands were doing me some extra awesomeness. I decided to play Memnarch on my T6 so I could begin to steal lots of things and lock up the game.I absolutely start by stealing Azami's basic Islands and then everything else. Krenko was starting to build critical mass in goblin tokens and had a Moggcatcher that was going to start doing some crazy things. But Mimeoplasm was doing more crazier things. He cast Reanimate with a Vorniclex in his 'yard. I tapped two Islands to float 4 mana in response (I had Snapcaster Mage in hand and a Rapid Hybridization in the 'yard) to him casting it and then Animar Force of Willed it anyways. Mimeoplasm then played a Prophet of Kruphix after that. With my mana floating I totally turned it into an artifact and anticipated putting this game away on my turn. I had only one Island untapped and it goes to Azami's turn. He has no cards in hand and no real way to generate card advantage from what I saw on field. So I thought I would totally get there. He topdecks a freaking Time Spiral. I don't have enough mana to flash in my Snapcaster and flashback the counterspell I had in my 'yard so it happens. I draw 14 cards...and didn't draw a single counterspell. Not one. I draw 10 artifacts, a Glen Elendra Archmage, Future Sight, Terrain Generator, and Trinket Mage. Sigh. Azami drew a fresh 7 and so did everyone else, but then Azami started to go off. Mimeoplasm countered some things but the Azami forced his play to happen (I don't remember what was being countered about) by having more counterspells. I try and get in on the idea of stopping Azami by tapping Top to draw 2 cards. I don't get there. Eventually Azami finds Eye of the Storm and Mind's Desire and he wins the game with storm and Laboratory Maniac. Sigh. Sometimes luck just happens to people. All in all a good game where a topdeck won the game for the Azami player.
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
Damia, Sage of Stone
Ertai, the Corrupted
Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Omnath, Locus of Mana
Any suggestions based on the list that you see? I took out Steel Hellkite and added Fact or Fiction in again. I've played a few times with my brother and in goldfishing and I just wasn't impressed with the Hellkite. So that's a change that I need to make to the list.
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
Honestly my only suggestions are to cut Treasure Mage as it only finds caged sun and arcanis as it's too slow and add Retraced Image as a 1 drop early ramp spell and add Jace, tMS for more brainstorming. I have a lot more suggestions of cuts but that's just cause I hate things that are slow.
Damia, Sage of Stone
Ertai, the Corrupted
Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Omnath, Locus of Mana
Memnarch, Azami, Planeswalker Ob, Norin
This game was a mind twist for everyone except me, because Confusion in the Ranks did exactly what it was supposed to do: throw the game into a level of chaotic hell that took about a half hour to figure out between Planeswalker Ob, Norin, and Azami (Dan was the rules guru on this one). But I'll get to that point. We all start off by doing cool things and it was business as usual of countering scary plays and watching Norin create a horde of Myr tokens with Genesis Chamber. Azami and I were drawing some cards off of our early Mystic Remoras, with Azami drawing a few more cards than I because he went first. Norin was basically just running around with tokens and doing random things because he could. An opening Leyline of the Void made his Goblin Welder pretty useless and so we settled into our respective roles with Azami and I playing for blue supremacy. Enter Vedalken Shackles. Wow. I just added it in and damn it slows a game down to a crawl. Especially when I had an original, a Phyrexian Metamorph, and Azami had one too. No creatures were ever safe and creature theft was all over the place. I stole Azami's Azami, Lady of Scrolls and didn't play a lot of other things. Norin played a Goblin Assassin and the coin flips were good for me, for the first two times that a Goblin came into play. Ob Nixilis wasn't doing anything at all for the first five turns or so, playing a Gray Merchant of Asphodel with a Necropotence in play. Azami and I were playing the counterspell/bluffing counterspell game and Norin was having free reign to do what he wanted. Eventually he plays Mindclaw Shaman targeting me. He has a massive token horde at this point and he isn't really attacking anyone consistently enough to kill anyone, although he could have. In my hand I have Spell Crumple, Evacuation, Force of Will, All is Dust, and another counterspell. Well, poor Mindclaw Shaman HAS to cast a card from my hand that has a legal target and so he board wipes himself with Evacuation. And I didn't even have to tap lands to do what I wanted to do! Azami went back to Azam's hand and the board was clean. It's at this point that I get mana-screwed for the next 6 turns. Brutal. With only three Islands, Shackles can't take a lot of high-powered threats but has enough to steal almost all of Azami's creatures. Azami tries to cast Azami again. I Crumple it, he Forces it, I Force it back, goodbye Azami. With Azami's card advantage gone, I feel pretty comfortable with the board state. The game goes around for a bit and Norin begins to rebuild his token army and Ob begins to do things after spending most of the game doing nothing particularly constructive. After a few turns, I draw into Palinchron and Phantasmal Image with Deadeye Navigator. This is the first time I've ever played a Cavern of Souls calling Illusion, haha. All I needed was just another Island and I would have 7 lands total to go infinite with the Image and Palinchron. And I never draw it... So I play Deadeye Navigator because Azami has three cards in hand and just spent her Force trying to counter my Force one turn earlier. I try for it because Azami's Shackles is tapped. Ob Nixilis plays Slaughter with the Souldbond trigger on the stack. Deadeye Navigator is relegated to oblivion thanks to Leyline of the Void and Azami untaps, targets my Phant Image that I played to untap my lands and bluff coutnerspells. Azami had drawn tons of lands and also had an Extraplanar Lens on Snow-Covered Islands. Huh. Maybe I should start playing those so I can take advantage of his mana doublers... Anyways. Azami plays Time Spiral with after playing an Omniscience. And draws into nothing of relevance besides some mana doublers. Haha, sigh. Sometimes you get there, sometimes you don't. Passes the turn to Norin. Who is playing at instant speed due to Vedalken Orrery. Ob then goes to play Mike and Trike. With the undying trigger on the stack, Norin plays Mindclaw Shaman targeting me. Boom! goes All is Dust and Mikaeus the Unhallowed dies with the undying trigger on the stack. Combo broken. I draw still no land and pass the turn with nothing of relevance; I do, however, play a Tezzeret the Seeker to find Phyrexian Metamorph so that at ever a point I draw more Islands I can just steal the board and try and control the board. Azami does something not particularly relevant and it goes around the table again with Norin still pinging away at people's life totals. Ob Nixilis tutors for a reanimation spell to try again next turn to Mike and Trike to win. I play Memnarch on my turn and steal Azami's tapped Shackles (don't remember why they were tapped, and I have enough artifact mana to do so but only six lands). Azami does something and Norin does the most awful thing in the whole world: plays Confusion in the Ranks. Ob Nixilis reanimates Mike and Trike and with the Genesis Chamber triggers and Confusion in the Ranks, the game goes straight to chaotic hell. The stack gets disgusting and I stop caring because in every outcome I can think of I lose; Azami will either steal my Memnarch after the mess of triggers resolves with a metric ton of ramp (he Time Spiraled into Gauntlet of Power and Caged Sun with a Candelabra of Tawnos) or we all just lost to Mike and Trike. Yeah. Norin, controlling the triggers of Genesis Chamber and Confusion in the Ranks ends up giving my Memnarch to Azami. We lose to Azami stealing the board with my Memnarch. It was a highly enjoyable game but man my head hurt after the awful mess of Confusion in the Ranks and rising tempers. I put away control for a while and played some good ol' fashioned Kaalia for the remainder of the night to ease my troubled my mind.
The OP list will also be changed to include a few card changes that I'm testing out to see how they go with my deck.
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
3 man game
Memnarch, Animar, Sharruum
So this game was a testing game for my friend's Sharuum the Hegemon deck. He's trying to find an Esper build that he likes and performs well and he decided to focus very strongly on Isochron Scepter with the relevant cards. So, Animar opens up the game by doing the same thing it always does, T1 dork or mana accelerant so a T2 Animar happens. I play some Islands, and Sharuum does the same thing. Except on his T2, he casts Isochron Scepter. I have a Boomerang in my hand so I'm okay with it resolving since I can bounce it back to his hand and cause him to lose card advantage. But Animar is not having it resolve. She Forces it and it happens. Sad day for Sharuum. I play a land and this is where we all get very lucky: Animar draws lands for 3/4 turns in a row. Out of 31 lands in the deck, she draws land for at least 3 turns? Man, sometimes your deck just gets spiteful. With this reprieve in the aggro-combo deck, this allows me to build my mana base and counter the relevant things. Sharuum doesn't draw any card advantage and so I'm feeling pretty good about this. I draw a Cavern of Souls and name Wizard and proceed to cast Memnarch. Every player has about 2 or less cards in hand and so I figure that in this kind of card advantage vaccuum by playing Memnarch I can totally begin to steal the game away. Eventually, that's what happens. I play lands and leave mana open so that I can Cryptic Command if I need to or steal a permanent if I don't. It's a great feeling as a control player to have that option. I proceed to steal the big creatures, namely Animar and Sharuum (Sharuum was cast right after I cast Memnarch). And the rest of the game is kind of stagnant because I turn my stolen dudes sideways at the Sharuum player, kill him, and then turn my stolen dudes sideways at Animar. They both die to their own generals. Drawing Islands and eventually Gauntlet of Power on Islands helped me overtake the game very quickly. I noticed that I drew Haunted Fengraf for the 4th time and wished it was an Island. It eventually gets cut, but I decide to try it for a few more games to see if it can prove its value.
Same players
Memnarch, Animar, Sharuum
This is the game where I remember why Bribery is a really good card. I had a T1 Sol Ring into a T3 Bribery and I stole Animar's Ulamog. Ewww. But, this is the ridiculousness of Animar: I swung into her with Ulamog and she still had enough dorks to sac for the Annihilator trigger. It's crazy when a deck can spew out enough permanents to actually keep up with something that should totally break a player. So Animar continues to do her thing of playing dorks and other incremental creatures and Sharuum again tries for the dream: Isochron Scepter + Mana Drain. He tries it and on the turn that he resolves it. Animar does something to destroy it and things get crazy. Eventually Sharuum plays a Phantasmal Image as a copy of my stolen Ulamog and Animar does some crazy stuff with Peregrine Drake and Shrieking Drake. Who knew that Shrieking Drake was so good? Animar becomes large, a 16/16 and swings at me. I send a Trinket Mage to get crushed into oblivion and it goes to Sharuum's turn. I have a sneaking suspicion that he's going to swing into me with his Ulamog and so when he moves to declare attackers step, I play High Tide into Cryptic Command to tap all dudes and draw a card with Counterspell backup in case he tries to counter it. He doesn't have the counter and so I do what I want. On his 2nd main phase, however, he casts Toxic Deluge for 16 and wipes the field. Wow. We all reset and on my turn I play everyone's favorite general, Memnarch. Animar replays Animar, and Sharuum plays a land. Animar eventually dies again and I begin to steal mana rocks from Sharuum. On the next turn, Animar plays a Bane of Progress. Super lame! I had played a Gauntlet of Power just on my turn, so it was gonna be destroyed. With the mana that I have, I turn Animar's Gaea's Cradle, Bane of Progress and another land into artifacts and two of Sharuum's blue producing lands into artifacts too. Lots of things die. We're all looking low on cards in hand and so Sharuum decides to cast Timetwister. Animar had replayed Animar and Sharrum had missed a land drop. With the freshly drawn Cyclonic Rift, Animar gets shuffled into her deck and life is looking good with my new set of seven cards. I drew Bribery again and cast it targeting Animar. This time I'm going to go and find me a Prophet because I have enough mana to play Memnarch at instant speed. Sharuum is tapped out, Animar has no responses, and they scoop to that. So, Memnarch threatening to steal the board again wins the game here because they don't want to fight through their own stolen cards. I again drew Haunted Fengraf and wished it was something useful. Strike 2.
I played another game with Memnarch with Animar and Damia and it was an epic game. I won it after some really cool interactions and lines of play. Currently, I have to go so I will be back later with that game report. I never drew into Sigil Tracer or Patron Wizard all night and never had a way to find them, so I'm still on the fence about their testing. I will be testing Liquimetal Coating here shortly as per Arkhaic's suggestion.
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
Memnarch, Animar, Damia
This was a game of top-tier generals playing at the table, so I was kind of excited. Dan's Damia deck is a highly tuned deck and is mostly foiled out. A very pretty deck to be playing against. Anyways, things go as they normally do, with Animar playing a T2 Animar and doing the normal tempo plays it does. I rolled to go last and Damia does something to ramp quickly. I open with a T1 Sol Ring into a T2 Solemn Simulacrum, so I'm keeping up with the ramp action and also have a blocker to throw underneath Animar in case she decides to swing at me. Ah. Damia played Crucible of Worlds and Azusa, Lost but Seeking with a Polluted Delta to start going crazy with the land generation. Since I'm keeping up with the ramp, I play Cavern of Souls on Wizards and cast Memnarch on T4 after playing Vedalken Shackles on my T3 and stealing some creature. The table gets kinda ridiculous with Animar eventually dumping her hand as per normal and Damia being a little conservative in casting Damia because he fears my counters and control package. On my T5 I play Azami, Lady of Scrolls. Damia had cast Damia on his turn because I had stolen something else with the Shackles that Animar had played. Animar plays out her hand and draws into Phyrexian Metamorph. She casts it to copy Damia's Damia, Sage of Stone. I steal it at the end of turn. But then Damia plays a Consecrated Sphinx on his turn. Aw yeah. I untap my Shackles and very quickly steal Damia's Consecrated Sphinx. I leave some mana open and my wizards untapped so that I have answers to what Animar draws into. C. Sphinx draws me 14 cards after Animar's Metamorph-as-Damia trigger goes off. And I draw into the control that I need to ensure that Animar doesn't do silly things. Animar draws a bunch of mana dorks and a Peregrine Drake and turns sideways at me. I take a lot of damage. It goes to Damia's turn and he draws 2 cards (4 for me!) and decides that you only live once (YOLO, for those who might be confused if they hear that phrase), casts some random spell and then casts Time Stretch. My Misdirection is so beautiful here that I almost cry. I had the Mindbreak Trap for his third spell if he tried to counter my Misdirection. He is just one mana short, and so he resolves a Time Stretch targeting me. I spend my first of three total turns dumping as much artifact mana as possible into play, and sculpt my hand to ensure that I win with no hitches. On my 2nd of three turns I play Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir to see if Animar has any responses. She doesn't. I then play Deadeye Navigator and a Phantasmal Image copying Animar's Peregrine Drake. I steal all the things and they scoop. MVP of this game was Vedalken Shackles, which stole the more important creatures over the course of the game.
I also changed the deck philosophy so that readers of this Primer (YAY!) will understand that this is essentially a mono-Blue control deck and should be evaluated in that light. With the abundance of time available to me now, I will eventually post up a combo focused list as well as an artifact-themed list. There are a few cuts that I made so that the OP is up to date:
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