MTG Salvation

When Naru Meha was initially spoiled, I figured that she would find a slot in my Azami list since she is a wizard and seemed to work well with a few cards in there. I hadn’t played with the deck in some time now and as I looked for what to cut, I felt that she would become another random combo piece to draw into among the other ones. In fact, there was perhaps a bit too much going on in the deck and that inconsistency played part into why I haven’t used the deck for some time. So instead of finding a slot for Naru Meha I decided that I wanted to retool the deck, using some aspects of the old deck while building around her being the Commander instead.

The result is the list posted below, which has a more clear strategy of what it wants to do, while having a very minor wizard subtheme as a small tribute to it’s previous incarnation.

The main strategy for the deck is to use either Ghostly Flicker or Displace along with Naru Meha to generate loops that can be used in combination with a variety of win conditions. Alternatively, Illusionist's Stratagem or Saheeli's Artistry could be used fort his as well, though they are slightly more expensive to cast. With the deck mainly looking to win through dealing infinite damage and infinite mill.

As it’s back up plan the deck also features Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter combos, as well as tries to gain some additional value through Paradox Engine. Or go for the bonus achievement of resolving Enter the Infinite or the flavor win of killing everyone with Tim.


Some Notes :
This deck is maintained somewhat on a budget so fast mana rocks, Candelabra and Rings of Brightheart combos are not being included for that reason. Original Counterspell isn’t included simply because I don’t like the double blue in the casting cost, as it doesn’t work with our cost reduction effects. Also, no Brainstorm as I don’t have enough shuffle effects to take advantage of it.

Cuts I would make:
seat of the synod - I think dying to artifact wipes and not producing extra mana with high tide makes this worse than a basic island
prodigal sorcerer - I think the tap effect is almost irrelevant when you could be running something like sea gate oracle instead at the same cmc.
flood of recollection - I think there are stronger sorcery speed effects you could run, notably missing rhystic study, but also you are missing three of blues strongest removals of pongify, rapid hybridization and reality shift

island - inventors' fair I think is good enough to warrant an inclusion over a basic island
island - scavenger grounds is also probably better than a basic island

Seat of the Synod will be an easy cut, so have taken that one out. I don't have any spare copies at the moment of Fair and Grounds, but will look into getting some more. Not having any real fast mana rocks might hurt Inventors' Fair, but will give it a try once I get a copy of it. I currently don't have a copy of Rhystic Study either, which is why I'm not running it and haven't really gotten one mostly because of budget considerations.

Flood of Recollection might likely get cut. Initially added it as a way to recur the flicker effect cards, but probably can just do with the tutors and counterspells in the deck.

I know Prodigal Sorcerer is a bad card, but I'm also running it as a bit of a pet card. Might take it out down the road though.

As far as the creature removal spells, I have been contemplating them in the deck and opted to try and rely on having counters in the deck instead. But am willing to give it some more consideration and for now I did add Reality Shift to the deck, since it feels the more potent one of the three to me.

Got my first few games in with the deck yesterday, aside from some of the suggested tweaks, I added in Prophetic Prism for the last game and it acted surprisingly well as a card draw engine and minor color fixing for when Paradox Engine is on the field. Which brought me to another issue and that is that the deck could do with one or two more mana rocks to make said Engine better. As of right now, the mana gain off of it just feels a tad too slow. So I'm considering going down one island to add in probably Thran Dynamo or maybe Everflowing Chalice for that reason. Gilded Lotus would be nice since it produces blue, but for this deck the 5 cmc might just be a bit too much.

Additionally, I want to tweak the amount of sorceries in the deck, as when the deck kicks into gear it relies a lot on doing things at instant speed. So right now I'm looking to replace Sleight of Hand with an instant cantrip, with currently Quicken looking like a good replacement for it.

If you want the deck to be stronger, fetchlands + brainstorm would be the better option over quicken, and even without fetches I would still probably run brainstorm over quicken.

I have my fetches pretty much tied up in other decks and currently not looking to invest in another set of them. I could see some advantages of having Brainstorm over Quicken, though have been looking around for other options myself as well and found a different cantrip that I want to try instead. Whispers of the Muse is a quite basic draw one, but with the infinite mana potential in the deck the buyback might actually become interesting. So I'll be trying that first once I get my copy of it.

Got my copy of Spellseeker in today and I think it will be a good fit for this deck. Decided to replace Dizzy Spell for it, since Spellseeker can just hit more targets and fits into the minor wizard subtheme of the deck.

Also, have been considering adding either Leyline of Anticipation or Vedalken Orrery to the deck, to aid the fact that we want to do a lot at instant speed once we get our loop going.

spellseeker definitely seems like a 100% include in this deck

With spellseeker added, I would find room for pull from tomorrow. It's an infinite mana outlet searchable by spellseeker, and honestly not too bad by itself as an instant speed draw spell when you need more cards.

I don't think leyline is particularly good in this deck, it's a dead draw a lot of the time. You don't want to spend 4 mana on your turn for a card that isn't doing something really strong, when you could have cast something like glen elendra archmage or rhystic study, which I think will both have more raw game impact.

I might give Pull from Tomorrow a try in the deck, just need to see if I can decide where to slot it in. Currently, Enter the Infinite is looking like a potential cut, as it's been either at the point of sitting in my head waiting for the mana or the deck already does it's thing and makes it just a win more.

As far as Leyline and Orrery go, I do think they can be a good fit as the deck initially needs to ramp up a lot to get to where it can go off. So it plays out a lot like a draw-go deck during initial turns and Shimmer Myr/Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir have been quite important to the deck switching from going off to a win con. Leyline/Orrery let the deck play slightly more control while giving still the chance to do it's own thing, so having some redundancy in my flash enablers feels actually quite worthwhile.

Vedalken Orrery to me should be a staple for just about any, if not all, EDH decks that play a lot of creatures.
Can never go wrong with it.


As suggested by Carthage, Glen Elendra Archmage is a great addition but I understand you want to stay within a budget and she's $20 a pop.
Rhystic Study is great but you are running a Mystic Remora already for card draw ramp. I think in the later game Mystic Remora is pointless as is Rhystic Study since opponents would have the one mana to pay for you to not draw.

Pull From Tomorrow is great with that infinite mana idea mentioned as well. I think I might run that in my Inalla, Archmage Ritualist deck.

You should probably add Reliquary Tower to your land base just in case you want to draw an obscene amount of cards to hand.
I'm still relatively knew to the deck building so the suggestions already thrown out there might make more sense than what I am saying but I play a lot of Wizards and control and have seen some of these options work.