MTG Salvation

About Me and About the Deck:
When I first heard about EDH, I knew that I wanted my commander to be Melek, Izzet Paragon. I wanted to build around my commander, I wanted to play my favorite colors (UR), and most importantly, he was weird. The only thing I had left to decide was, "how do I want to build my deck?"

I play Storm in modern, but only because they banned out eggs. If I played legacy, I would play High Tide. That's the kind of player I am, and that's the kind of deck I wanted my Melek EDH deck to be. At first I jammed a bunch of Time Warp effects in the deck and would go off by putting extra turn effects on top of my library with melek in play, casting them, and then drawing more extra turn effects during my extra turns. This was fun, and it was actually pretty low-cost as far as the number of slots it took in the deck, so it left a lot of room for me to play fun EDH cards (bribery, knowledge exploitation) and control effects so I could stay alive. It also let me do cute things like run Runechanter's Pike and Inkmoth Nexus.

However, everyone I played with unsurprisingly hated playing against my deck. Going off and taking 25 min to kill the table is surprisingly well-tolerated as long as it is in the space of one turn. Something about the words "take my next turn," and "put three copies of time stretch on the stack," really pissed people off though. Additionally, taking extra turns actually didn't feel very fun. Don't get me wrong, going off by chaining some large countable number of turns was awesome, but you also had games where you would just take a bunch of extra turns for value. Sometimes you were going to die so you would start taking extra turns to draw cards, make land drops, and find answers (meanwhile your opponent seethed across the table waiting to get the untap step that might never come so they could kill you). Because I could fit so many cards in my deck and still be able to go off, I had hands where it was actually better for me to play a "fair" game and take value extra turns to put the game out of reach for my opponents instead of combo-ing the table. I actually had other combos in the deck that were instant-win because they slotted into the existing shell elegantly. This was not the deck I had wanted to build. I wanted a deck that could combo and do little else.

So I turned to the internet to see what other people had done with Melek. I found a lot of Proteus Staff decks, but those were so one-dimensional and made going off feel too certain. I saw a lot of control decks using Melek for value, which was obviously not what I wanted. I found very few engine combo decks, which is what I wanted. Over a reasonable period of time, I have developed a pretty good list and I thought I would share it with the community here so that other engine combo enthusiasts could find an EDH deck that suited their stylings.

Without further ado, here's the list:


Explaining the Deck:
So what the hell does this deck do? For people that haven't played in a format with engine combo before, it can be difficult to figure out what's going on. If you've read this far, you undoubtedly know that the deck is trying to make a lot of mana and/or cast a lot of spells, and then using that to somehow kill the opponent. But how is this achieved?

Honestly, it varies from game to game and there's no "one way" to achieve a kill. But there are some things you always want to do. The first thing you need to do is make your lands produce more than one mana. High Tide is one of the best ways to do this, since you can copy it off Melek's ability, making your Islands tap for 3 mana. Mana Flare and Extraplanar Lens do in a pinch though, and they can be played pre-combo to accelerate your game (although be careful about what it does to everyone else's!). Once your lands are tapping for 2-4 mana each, you want to untap them a bunch to get your floating mana into the double-digits! Then you start digging for a some kind of "payoff" spell. Maybe you just cast Past in Flames and keep going off, making it through your entire deck. Maybe you load all of your mana into an Epic Experiment on top of your library, casting it for a large enough number that you likely hit Ignite Memories. Maybe you Blue Sun's Zenith your opponent, making them draw their entire library. Which way you end the game depends on each situation!

About Dragonstorm:
I wanted this deck to be powerful. You can't do much except combo so you want to be able to do it in the first 6 turns of the game. Dragonstorm is a backup plan that doesn't require very many resources and is something you can go for that's a little bit lower in power level so your friends' weaker decks don't feel totally helpless. Generally playing 3 dragons early in the game is pretty good, and it's easier to manage against control and prison decks. I used to play Scourge of Valkas to supplement the package, but drawing it feels awful, whereas Dracogenius is a win-con, and the Firemind draws you cards. Hypersonic Dragon even lets you play Sorceries in between copies of Time Spiral resolving (which happens more than you think).

Substitutions:
I get that a lot of cards in the deck are expensive, but combo decks are strong because they play strong cards. Some cards cannot be substituted. These cards are pretty obvious (Time Spiral, High Tide, Turnabout, etc.). You can get by without tutors but the deck is probably terrible without them. A common line of play is to put Mystical Tutor on top of your library with Melek in play. When you cast it, you can fetch High Tide, cast it with the original Tutor still on the stack, and then fetch Time Spiral. This is just an example of the type of consistency the tutors give you. They are so strong, that casting them off the top is essentially a one-card combo. That said, there are some cards in this list that I don't own. This is partially because I am updating the list all the time and partly because I am poor/lazy. Volcanic Island is a card I don't own, for example. The other ones are Intuition and Read the Runes. These are basically just card draw spells and can be substituted for other strong options (Jace's Ingenuity, Concentrate, etc.). A small note on Dissipate; I own a Judge Promo Dissipate so I just have it in the list because I love it too much not to play it. You can cut it for whatever you want.

About Eye of the Storm:
In Modern UR Storm,, Pyromancer's Ascension is an enabler which makes it very hard to fizzle. Eye of the Storm is similar. Can you imagine fizzling when every time you cast a cantrip you get a copy of High Tide, Turnabout, and Treasure Cruise? Neither can I. You can also do fun things like play Pact of Negation and lock non-blue opponents out of casting instants and sorceries.



So that's about all I have to say for now, I'll try and update this to make it cleaner and more informative as much as I can. Feel free to ask questions!

I think you need some more bounce to deal with threats that hit the board when you can't counter them. wipe away, wash out, and into the roil are really useful. I'd drop izzet charm for at least one of them.

On a more personal preference note, cards that help set up your top card are very useful, and i'd put in dream cache for dig through time and telling time for peer through depths for this reason. Additionally, not that I have one to suggest specifically, but you might benefit from replacing dragonstorm with a lower costing win con.

Anywho, I've got a fairly similar melek structure up on here too if you wann check it out. I'm a big fan of high tiding and recurring turnabout and mana geyser repeatdely to pseudo time stretch. I'm always on the fence about tossing in more rituals and past in flames for just that reason.

Quote from Brainsickhater »

About Eye of the Storm:
In Modern UR Storm,, Pyromancer's Ascension is an enabler which makes it very hard to fizzle. Eye of the Storm is similar. Can you imagine fizzling when every time you cast a cantrip you get a copy of High Tide, Turnabout, and Treasure Cruise? Neither can I. You can also do fun things like play Pact of Negation and lock non-blue opponents out of casting instants and sorceries.

Cannot lock someone out with Pact

10/1/2005: When the ability resolves, the player copies all cards exiled with Eye of the Storm, not just the cards he or she owns. That player then chooses which of those copies to cast, if any. All chosen copies are cast in the order the player chooses.

I think Dragonstorm, the Dragons, and some of the cards are too expensive/slow for a consistent combo shell.

Here's something a few of us were brewing a year ago:


General features:
-When played off the topdeck, each "Net Positive Mana Spell" effectively cantrips plus leaves you with extra mana. Ends up being much stronger than the weaker cantrips.

-This is why no Gitaxian Probe. At best copied Probe cycles and draws 1 unknown card, but it doesn't help you keep going off by generating mana or controlling your topdeck. I'd rather run Desperate Ritual or Twiddle first. Cantrips I included are those that efficiently control your top cards and/or filter chaff off your library.

-Manabase is basically 16 "Islands" (for High Tide) & 10 fetches (for free shuffle) & 4 double lands (to exploit land untapping effects).

-Cost reducers are better than mana rocks, since you're casting multiple spells in one turn.

-LED is basically Black Lotus when casting spells from the top, command zone or graveyard. I hear Lotus is good in combo.

-Sensei's Top + spare mana + shuffle effects give you a ton of control over your top card.

-If your "draw" spells put useful spells in your hand, you can stack them on top of your library in a preferred order using Scroll Rack and then cast them doubled off your library.

-Prescient Chimera is new tech! Creature is very bad, but Scry 1 per spell is no joke!


"Combos":
-With 8 mana, EOT Firemind's Foresight into Reiterate+Reset+Brainstorm/Quicken/Thought Scour= win. Probably your easiest way to assemble a win out of nowhere. Copy Reset repeatedly to generate infinite colored mana, copy Brainstorm repeatedly to draw your deck, then Comet Storm FTW with counter back-up. If permanents are blocking Comet Storm, feel free to Wipe Away the whole board first.

-Reiterate+Turnabout=infinite mana and infinite storm. Reiterate also works with spells that untap a fixed number of lands (e.g. Hidden Strings) combined with cost reducers and/or High Tides.

-Palinchron + 7 lands that make 12+ mana = infinite mana and infinite storm. Most easily assembled with High Tide+5 Islands. Can also work with a combination of Karoos and cost reducers or High Tiding more than once.

-Sensei's Divining Top+Helm of Obedience+Future Sight = draw your deck and high storm count.

-You can also just try to storm the non-linear way, playing copied cantrips and rituals off your topdeck and hoping to chain into lethal via Ignite Memories or Guttersnipe.

NOTE: Mind's Desire and Epic Experiment are flashy, but they're really inconsistent in their interaction with Melek. They're in the deck so you have "fun" ways to durdle with spells and be creative and MAYBE pull off lethal storm. But if you want to just win, the top few combos without Melek are actually better IMO.