MTG Salvation

I've heavily played combo Ghave for about 3-4 years now, and I tend to fall back on fair Ghave when my plans are stopped, so I have some pretty solid card advice for you.

Seedborn Muse is probably one of the best cards you can run for fair Ghave. A source of counters, like Champion of Lambholt or something, leads to ridiculous board states after your opponent's turns. It's kind of expensive, but definitely among the best cards you could run as it currently outperforms your entire 6cmc grouping of cards.

Triskelion is really weak without Mikaeus. Maybe replace it with Walking Ballista or just eliminate it entirely?

Devoted Druid > Druids' Repository. Repository is meh anyway, but Devoted Druid enables third turn Ghave assuming you hit all 3 land drops that turn. The -1/-1 counters are removed by +1/+1 counters, so you never really have to worry about it dying (it's simply a Gyre Sage that can tap more than once per turn). Also... there is the ability for it to produce infinite mana with Cathars' Crusade, but that's not the primary reason to run it.

Karmic Guide and Reveillark are the best options for graveyard recursion. I've played them for years over Twilight Shepherd and Champion of Stray Souls. I also run Saffi Eriksdotter. They enable some of the most degenerate board states the deck can provide and it's always great to be able to look your opponents in the eyes and tell them that their sweepers or removal don't matter at all because everything you had is coming right back.

Perilous Forays is a card that I strongly feel doesn't belong here. If you've already got 5 mana then you're already pretty well off. Something like Eldrazi Monument would be a much better fit here and would help your end game a lot more.

Heartbeat of Spring is rough. Wouldn't you rather run something like Solemn Simulacrum, Wood Elves, Farhaven Elf, Sakura-Tribe Elder, etc.? These cards at least don't give your opponents a significant boost in mana production as well. Like, I get that Ghave is a mana hungry deck, especially when played fairly, but giving your opponents free gas is really, really rough, especially when fair Ghave creates a board state that is harder and harder to protect the more mana your opponents have.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. I've got some more ideas but it's better to see whether you even like these suggestions or not.

You mean like with Curse of the Swine or something?

Really anything with multikicker (Comet Storm, maybe?) or an X cost that can target multiple creatures (Fireball) could work. Curse and Comet Storm basically get to target all the things they want without increasing the cost, but you have to remember you can only target a creature/player once. So, for example, targeting 8 creatures with Comet Storm for 6 damage would result in you paying 6RR to target all 8 of them, because the cost would be reduced by 8, right? Curse exiles all the creatures you want for UU if Thaumaturge is out, as well.

Thaumaturge isn't exactly the greatest card in the world, but it's applications are pretty cut and dry.

It a lot less valuable to talk about tier positions than it is to talk about viability. In Commander, it's pretty clear that Doomsday/Ad Nauseam decks, storm decks that use either of the aforementioned, and Food Chain decks reign supreme. I don't find Arcum to be expressly viable in a meta game where every other deck is tuned to abuse those cards, with the exception of maybe Food Chain. You *can* win, but it'll probably say more about your play skills and your ability to slip things in during counter wars than it will anything about the deck.

Beyond the tippy-top most decks abusing the above cards, though?

Arcum is a freaking beast. You'll at least be on par with tuned Breya (and yes, this is speaking of the Doomsday/Ad Nauseam versions- she's simply not better at that than Zur's "I can draw 20 cards from the command zone during a bad game" or Leovold's built in LabMan protection), Yisan, Karador, Teferi (Arcum gives no s*** about stax), Azami, Grand Arbiter Augustin, etc., and you can hang around with Zur, Yidris, Thrasios, etc., if you have the proper responses or they don't have a god hand.

So, there are clearly decks that outperform Arcum. However, there are plenty of which now Arcum outperforms and can easily pack silver bullets for any in the same relative level of strength. If you're talking about that tier list on Tapped Out (lol), then the 1.5 placement they've given Arcum is perfectly fair. You can win against what are essentially the most powerful decks in the format, and you can consistently t4 now which puts you at the same turn as Karador, et al. Our t1-3s are extremely inconsistent, however, and occur more rarely than, say, Zur, which is why I'd put Arcum beneath those in viability but above most other decks.

Viability is key, not sheer tier placement. And, mind you, viability changes by meta. If every white deck in your meta packs Idyllic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, and Stony Silence or Null Rod, then Arcum and Sharuum are going to be loads worse than many other Commanders. It's kind of like how people considered Yisan to be tier 1 because in extremely fast meta games removal was hardly run or undervalued- allowing Yisan to thrive. If you've got a meta where every deck packs 10+ removal, then Yisan becomes one of the fairest decks in the format, bordering on unviable.

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I don't run City of Traitors simply because I don't have one (same for Flusterstorm and Mana Drain). If I get the extra cash, I will be picking one up, but I have Mana Drain on my list first. Well, and a Nintendo Switch lol.

That's fair. I figured it was a budgetary thing. I do a lot of playing on cockatrice--even when I'm playing with friends, most of us are sort of scattered across the country right now so we play on Cockatrice to link up long-distance. And on top of that, even when I'm playing tabletop, most of my paper playgroups allow proxies anyway, so budget is never something I've had to worry about (nor, technically speaking, should it be a relevant consideration when writing the primer on a deck).

Well, I just moved to a new meta game about two states away from where I used to play; my group before wouldn't have cared, but the place I play now is at a card shop, because I don't really have anywhere else to go nor do I know anyone else in the area in which I moved (we moved for my wife's job, and while I work at the same place, I have jack in common with any of them since I'm a 29 year old gamer and avid MTG player). No Legacy events at the shop, but everyone there has a Legacy deck, oddly enough, lol. Anyway, most people at this shop are pretty anti-proxy if they're expensive cards: Meaning, if I want to use a Mana Drain, I better go out and buy one. It's why my Zur and Breya lists don't have Scrubland, Badlands, etc.: I have 4 Underground Sea, 4 Tundra, 4 Volcanic Island, etc., but 0 Scrubland/Badlands because I never wanted to play a Legacy deck in those colors (aaaaaand I also bought them when they were cheap. My Seas cost me $30 a pop back in 2008 or so). So I'm at a weird place, budget-wise. Mishra's Workshop is probably just never going to happen for me; while I see it's excellent in the deck I at least have to be reasonable with my aspirations, lol. It is for this same reason I will never play a Grand Arbiter or Teferi list with Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. So don't mind me if my lists aren't 100% optimal; I'm working on it, slowly, as time goes on and I do acknowledge that an optimal list will perform better than what I'm able to play right now. I'm thinking about nabbing one of those nice Judge foil Mana Drains this check- or an Imperial Seal. Honestly, I can't decide and I have (at least) 3 decks that want Drains, and (at least) 2 that want Seals. -_-;

I dunno what you'd cut for it; you'd have to figure out what's not performing as well as you'd like. How's Mox Opal doing for you? As the flip-side of expanding your MUC package in order to enable color-centric effects like FoW and Chrome Mox, you've also significantly reduced your artifact count which makes it harder to hit metalcraft (meanwhile, in my artifact-heavy deck, I'm hitting metalcraft so consistently that once in a while I've even considered adding Stoic Rebuttal, though I never did commit to that yet). I dunno if you'll run into any problems with that or if you have already.

Mox Opal still taps pretty reliably for a colored mana when I need it: I still run 43 artifacts in the deck among my creature and noncreature artifacts, so I have roughly the same chance of it being useful as I do of Mox Diamond, so that's really not that bad. For anecdotal evidence's sake, though, I don't recall any times after turn 1 that I've had difficulty tapping it for mana, though that could change. I probably won't go below 40 artifacts overall, though, just because artifact creatures are so integral to the plan, and all of those little silver bullet artifacts come in handy a large number of times so I don't see myself removing too many of them further.

Rhystic Study in my list is probably just going to become Windfall. Study is valuable if landed on turn 1/2 or if Arcum gets removed, while Windfall boasts all of that + if I grab Paradox Engine, but have no second artifact creature, it would be a "Break in case of emergency for creature" card in a strictly vs Study sense, and let me draw 3-4 more to win immediately. Also, I'm thinking about exchanging Dramatic Reversal (a little less useful now that it can be repeated with one tap) for Chalice or another random mana rock. Last couple times I've drawn Reversal, I've just used it to reset my Monoliths/Vault at EoT so I untap with all available mana the turn before. While that's not bad, Voltaic Key would basically serve the same purpose for that end and wouldn't require blue mana.

Back to Basics is still testing out extremely well since it works fairly well against most decks that are good against Arcum, and with 19 or so Islands, my mana ramp, and my mana dorks, I feel pretty comfortable when that gets slammed on the second or third turn that I'll be the one ahead after it the most (I always try to lay it out after the deck I believe will cause me most trouble taps out, or mostly taps out). Usually one or so of my lands won't untap, while other players wind up with 3~ lands being stuck tapped and them needing to scramble to readjust their gameplan. I adore laying it out after someone taps their lands to cast a tutor, lol. Honestly, though, it probably plays very close to how you would utilize Trinisphere in the same slot, as it is absurdly good at maintaining a mana denial effect. Decks with very low land counts but with high numbers of mana rocks can be hurt very badly by an early BtB, so you wind up with powerful decks just sitting around with their deck in the hands, unable to do anything due to an earlier counter war, tutor, or something, and all they have is a Mox Diamond or something. BtB doesn't hurt multi-rock godhands or anything (then again, neither does Trini), but Trini and BtB punish the same kinds of decks and create equivalent outcomes (being taxed 3-6 mana on one or two spells is similar to only being able to cast one of the spells due to only having a mana rock/dork available). Chalice at 1 + BtB sounds absolutely delightful given the greedy mana bases played around me, lol.

I don't run City of Traitors simply because I don't have one (same for Flusterstorm and Mana Drain). If I get the extra cash, I will be picking one up, but I have Mana Drain on my list first. Well, and a Nintendo Switch lol.

I removed a lot of my nonbasics over time, when I began running Back to Basics on and off to combat things in my new meta from where I moved in November. I actually dropped Svyelunite Temple back when I added in Mox Diamond, because it ETB tapped and kept causing me issues during what would have otherwise been solid starts. Buried Ruin was the last one I dropped.

Rhystic Study was added in for this Wednesday's play and it performed exemplary. I landed it t2 when I cast it, and due to the sheer volume of cards everyone casts I was rolling in cards at all stages of the game (one guy taxed himself out of the game, which was amusing. Drawing cards or taxing is fine with me lol). Thirst may be better, but it performed great this week so I'm thinking about keeping it for a while. It's either a good source of cards or it slows people down enough that you can slide past them and win, and honestly, I'm fine with both.

I've only cast Back to Basics twice and it was backbreaking both times to the most dangerous decks at the table. I really liked seeing Zur not able to win the following turn with his pass the turn pile (and he was obviously hurting for mana if he passed when he cast Doomsday), and seeing Tazri and Jeleva flail and do nothing for two turns was great.

The Tazri deck here runs 0 basics, and the Zur deck only runs Islands (for Gush) and a singular Swamp, etc., if that tells you how greedy the mana bases are here. Jeleva, I think, runs 1 of each basic, but fetches Volcanic Island and Sea before anything else, etc.. The four color Commanders, like Thrasios (okay, he is only UG but he's always run with some black partner), Yidris, Breya are just as greedy, so Back to Basics can work wonders if cast at the right time. I like it a lot more than Winter Orb right now, for whatever that's worth.

Also, yes, Chrome Mox is definitely worth a shot. I've had two sitting in my binder for a while and will try it out come Monday (I have one in my own Breya and one in Zur); I think that'll be a great idea and I'm not sure why I overlooked it even after opting to add a Force. I'll plop it in Guardian Idol's place, I think? I dunno, it's kind of a pain to check my list as I'm passing time on my phone while at my in-law's place right now lol.

I think I'll try chalice as well, though I'll have to check what I want to remove for it. Shutting off 1 mana tutors, Rituals, etc., is super handy.

Okay, my current list is:



Still running two 0 drops, Tangle Wire got dropped for Thorn of Amethyst since an optimized Yisan is already an easy deck to win against anyway even if it may potentially be more consistent (and that was the largest reason I ran it, so... yeah). Thorn curves nicely, Tangle didn't, really, and since Arcum doesn't need 2 turns anymore I find the need to slow down Karador, Selvala, etc., to be less useful. Sidisi Food Chain can be a bit of a problem, though I don't know Tangle Wire would really even help that sometimes.

Thorn and Lodestone = best in show against Leovold, Breya, Zur, and Jeleva/Yidris. The difference between 5 and 6 mana for a Jeleva deck to draw 20+ cards is pretty tremendous, and Thorn has the convenient upside of not hurting this deck as badly as most others in tier 1.5+ Commander. Yisan, Selvala, and to an extent, Edric don't care about it for the most part, but Arcum can combo with Engine before Selvala can (unless she has a god hand and you an average or worse hand), can reliably combo out before Yisan can murder the table unless he gets a god hand, and Edric really has to focus you down with counters. At least, this is my experience anyway. The Yisan list I play against weekly was built almost directly from Land Destruction's site (which, um, I can't get to anymore. He added Null Rod after last week though, which is kind of amusing to me).

Actually, more hate cards cropped up this week than last. I saw several Stony Silence and Null Rod, but I still managed to take 3/5 games. A Leovold deck planned to Ad Nauseam after Mind Twisting everyone on the third turn, but a Thorn of Amethyst (off of a topdecked Reshape, IIRC) kept him from doing it at all because I stripped one of his lands while I was at it. Next turn, Arcum came down, nobody had anything in hand, and my land creatures + Millikin won it for me.

There were a few more games, but they were less eventful really. Zur didn't show up this week, but Jeleva did, and that was one of the losses. I took the following game from it, but it wasn't really spectacular: I got first turn Metalworker (Island + Mana Crypt), which was second turn hasted Arcum into a win since everyone was tapped out and I was willing to risk a Force since I had Pact in hand. It was the goddiest godhand I have had since I started tinkering with this deck again.

Why are they casting instants after Paradox is already on the field? Why aren't they slaying Arcum in response to the tap to fetch Paradox in the first place, so you don't even get the guaranteed 1 untap?

It was an example because the artifact you fetch isn't going to be Paradox Engine in the scenario you mentioned, right? You'd go get Basalt Monolith or Rings of Brighthearth if someone cast removal with Arcum's activation on the stack, because it's not like you have to announce what you're tutoring when you activate the ability, so you don't have to devote to a combo line. That statement was for *after* you had devoted to the Paradox combo line. Still, though, it makes sense that leaving you partway into one combo line without two of your important pieces (Engine by itself, with no Arcum and Flute) is a pretty big deal compared to getting half of the infinite mana combo after removal resolves, which also lets you get your Commander back more easily- maybe even the same turn.

and that's precisely why I'm having a little trouble wrapping my head, at least conceptually, around your approach to the deck: how does loading up on more than the bare minimum of 1 zero-drop and Moonvessel required for the combo (in your most recent list you've got Memnite, Ornithopter, and Shield Sphere) help stick Arcum or protect him?

Are you asking me to defend my first deck list? I realized I had jumped the gun with the 0 drops and dropped down to two of them, but apparently I posted the wrong list a couple posts ago. My list has been in flux every single night I've played it (I played that Wednesday night, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, at least 5 games each night. Didn't get to play last night due to work). I've dropped Phyrexian Walker and Shield Sphere, kept Ornithopter and Memnite, but replaced the other two with Lodestone Golem and Hope of Ghirapur. My list last posted must've been one from the day before, because Walker had been out of the deck for at least a day before that point (but that's the problem: My list has changed at least 5-6 times, once or twice per night, as I notice what works and what does not. Apparently I forgot to update my deck list before copying and pasting). Some changes are as small as swapping Grafdigger's Cage for Relic of Progenitus, though the largest issue is that the deck needs artifact creatures, and running about 20 seems right to me (I have roughly 25 creatures or cards that turn into creatures I can sacrifice, making the chance of hitting two high enough that I am comfortable running without Myr Turbine, which I wouldn't want to waste a turn tutoring, now). Some have been switched to cards like Phyrexian Revoker, etc., over the last few days, but I explained my reasoning in another post above (I know it's easy to get lost, and I did apparently post the wrong list).

Getting Portal down before Ad Nauseam or Doomsday is basically an impossibility at this point: If I have the speed to do it, it means they have a bad hand or aren't drawing what they need in order to cast it early. Ad Nauseam only costs one mana more than Arcum, but can happen at any time, load up their hand, and let them pitch whatever they want to Portal after they've drawn absurd numbers of cards (and I don't find shutting off 1cmc tutors to be that valuable when they're common t1-3 occurrences, when Portal is t4 without a god hand). Compare this to a 4 drop creature that has to survive a whole turn in order to even interact with Ad Nauseam, and you have roughly the same speed when factoring in acceleration, except theirs completely blanks ours. Rather than focusing on working an 8 mana card in for the purpose of stopping those decks when they're not running optimally, I'd prefer to use a different approach entirely. I've been running Lodestone Golem since maybe Saturday, and that blanks Ad Nauseam/Doomsday harder, though it still suffers the same problem (all it takes is a Chain of Vapor and it's gone, and both Ad Naus and Doomsday give them their Chain). I can at least ramp into Golem on turn 2/3, versus landing t2/3 Arcum and spending fodder to grab Portal for t3/4, when 4 is sometimes too late for the rare instances they're ballsy and go for the early win.

The worst I can do is try it out again. My list on Tapped Out hasn't been updated since Friday, I think, which is where I got the last list from too. I'm meeting players again tomorrow night to play for a while, so I'll post a more up to date list after that. What cards do you think I should be running that I am not, just to get that out of the way? I know Portal is one of them, and it will be played tomorrow night over Jester's Cap temporarily, which was taking Winter Orb's place, lol.

Well, the largest reason I don't worry about my non-Engine game is because even the more... unknowledgeable players (the types who play super powerful decks but make really questionable plays) figured out that Arcum is the lynchpin, not Engine. Really, the largest weakness of the deck hasn't changed: We need to resolve our Commander and get him tapped ASAP in order to stand a chance much of the time, but Engine made the deck a lot easier in that you no longer need 2~ turns of tapping Arcum, you can simply do it once. Everyone basically learned the first night of me playing post-changes that hitting Paradox Engine isn't a great idea since I get at least one untap (one guy cast Grip expecting me to not get my untap, so I had to explain priority and how triggers don't care about Split Second even though that didn't matter in this instance), so casting another creature lets me go grab something else, which would typically be Rings anyway. Hitting Arcum puts a stumbling block up- they don't seem to go after Engine unless artifact removal is all they have, which, that's more rare. Krosan Grip is sideboarded while Swords to Plowshares in maindeck in each deck of those colors around here, and a card/effect that I used to fear, Revoke Existence, is now worthless since I combo out the turn I pull Engine.

More general removal, like Anguished Unmaking is in several decks here and they always hit Arcum which seems to delay me more than hitting Engine. It's not very hard to assemble Rings+Monolith when you can tap Arcum to grab one of the pieces with removal on the stack. What I mean is: Hitting Arcum after pulling Engine when you cast a spell = you untap but have no Arcum any longer to tutor (because they cast removal with the first Paradox trigger on the stack. In order to do anything with Arcum here, you need an instant in hand *and* an artifact creature on board). Hitting Engine when you cast a spell = After it resolves, you untap Arcum and get to sac a new creature, including one that was just cast, to go get Rings which puts you 1/2 or 1/3rd of the way toward another game-winning combo. Exiling/Destroying Engine is the strictly inferior method of play, or at least that's what players around me have convinced themselves. Might be something they're missing, though, so I'm sure your experience may differ. They may destroy/exile Engine after Arcum has already been removed, however, just to keep me out of the game longer, but I don't see what a lot of the older cards like either Clock, Portal, etc., would do in this situation to help (but I'm also not very imaginative so you probably already have ideas, I just am unaware of them lol).

From what I've seen, I'm not sure how Portal is a good way to stop Doomsday. Unless you leave Arcum open for several turns at the possibility of them casting Doomsday, which means more time for Arcum to get removed and cuts off an Engine play until you hit your own turn unless you have a bunch of instants and creatures on board. Actually... I may look into this. Running more low-cost instants (Chain of Vapor and the like) and maybe Shimmer Myr to go off at instant speed may be a decent plan against Doomsday decks since I can have the potential to grab Portal to stop them from drawing *after* they set up their pile (if I do it before they're just going to bounce my Portal with one of their flex cards, usually Chain of Vapor, then draw and win anyway), or pull Engine, Flute, and then cast through whatever I need with a kill spell on the stack. The real problem with Doomsday I'm having is... they can cast Doomsday before or at the same speed I cast Arcum- I generally require a god hand to beat a 2nd or 3rd turn Doomsday if they have protection. Really, unless I can land Static Orb, Tangle Wire, or Back to Basics, I feel pretty unconfident against the average Doomsday deck.

For Ad Nauseam... I'm not sure I see how Portal does anything to stop it? It's not draw, so they just sac one thing when they untap and then cast Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Sol Ring, Mox Opal, Mox Diamond, Lotus Petal, and any number of signets to filter colorless into colored mana, and then cast the Chain of Vapor every single one of them run, then Lab Man with all the protection, and then an ungodly number of draw spells. Ad Nauseam is simply a must-counter, which is why I ramped up the number of counters significantly. I probably shouldn't be playing Arcum in a meta where 2 out of 10 decks runs Ad Nauseam, but I just find it fun to counter spells and then combo out of nowhere (I don't do the barenaked combo very often- my counter spells are often used offensively, to counter Food Chains and Ad Nauseams, than they are used to defend my Commander. Last night I let Arcum die because the player before him Mystical Tutored for Ad Nauseam and didn't cast it yet. He figured, "Well, you let Arcum die so there's no way you have a counter." Well, surprise, motherf***er, you get a 2/2 bird. Arcum came down two turns later with haste and won me the game, because everyone spent their counters early trying to stop straight up win attempts). Is there maybe something I'm missing with Portal that'd make them better against these cards (Ad Nauseam/Doomsday)? I have yet to try Portal out against any of them, so I don't exactly have any experience with it, I'm just theorycrafting at the moment based off of what I see them do and play.

Also, yeah, the Zur list here does not really attack. If Zur swings, it is at most to get Necropotence and get the ball rolling on that Ad Nauseam nonsense. His power is also low enough that Bridge, by itself, wouldn't stop him anyway, so I just brace myself and deal with whatever spells he's going to cast. Though, I have to say, against basically anything that isn't Doomsday, I think Arcum does a fantastic job against. I have had basically 0 trouble with Karador Boonweaver lists as a quick Transmute Artifact into Grafdigger's Cage or Torpor Orb basically shuts that deck down until he draws his one removal card, and now I tend to win before he can do so. Arcum can straight up race turn 1 Yisan without a god hand, which is nice. Pretty much if the Commander doesn't have black in it or is Stax, Arcum can run straight through its nonsense so long as you play smart.

On the subject of being smart:Jester's Cap is in my sideboard but I basically forgot about it as I haven't been boarding at all for the last week. Cap to remove Lab Man, Ad Naus, Doomsday (both decks here with one run the other too), or... well, whatever else I don't like... seems good. Seems solid- especially given what I play against right now. It's not unreasonable for me to hit 4 mana to drop it, though I'm unsure I can both drop and activate it the same turn before someone can DD though I'd gladly exchange an Arcum tap to force a player into the long game if I had to do so. Thirst is a fine idea as well, I'm going to cram that back in too.

The whole reason I left Scepter in, still, was because Engine is Dramatic Reversal except we can tutor it. That's pretty much it, lol. Everyone kills Arcum rather than removing my artifacts, generally speaking, so Scepter is a quick-and-dirty way to continue the Engine plan without Arcum (since Flute only works at sorcery speed in my deck- I'm basically talking myself into running Shimmer Myr- removal on Arcum stops the combo even if you get to pull Engine), so long as I have mana rocks. Though, I definitely need stuff like Impulse, Anticipate, etc., to actually make that worthwhile, so I'll make the switch to Cap, for now. Lol, it's funny, while you're building to win without Engine, I'm building to win without Arcum because everyone kills the Commander before the things the Commander tutors, here. I know the right way to build it is going to probably be somewhere in the middle.

Yeah, sorry, long post again. I've been typing on this on and off while at work, too, so some of the sentences may not make much sense. The excitement still hasn't worn off, if you can't tell.

Memnite > Ornithopter is perfectly reasonable, though I don't run 'clamp, myself. Could be a good idea, though- I could try that out over Winter Orb, which is increasingly less relevant and the hardest decks for this to win against (Doomsday builds) don't care about it at all.

Also, more games to report that I updated on elsewhere last night:

We had a game that went very long yesterday: The whole table had to fight through a resolved Stasis lock and we just kind of sat there while he dug for stuff to kill us (Derevi tutored into Stasis to stop myself and FC Tazri from comboing off). My Engine was removed, so I had to go for Rings-Monolith-Staff I basically just sat back until the Stasis player countered another player's spell. I used Arcum to get Basalt Monolith on that player's end step, Dramatic reversal'd on my turn tapping down my last U source, got my Rings, then generated a few million using the floating mana. Then I tutored into Staff and drew my whole library, finishing the table with Ballista. Several players had counters in hand to stop me with no way to cast them thanks to Derevi's Stasis.

Krosan Grip on Paradox Engine was no fun (three players moved them from board to main due to me testing Arcum lol), but I did get to untap as I was the active player at the time (priority is fun), so I got to leave most of my permanents untapped while waiting to draw into a tutor or Staff. I did have to cast a counter to stop Tazri from going off with Ad Nauseam a couple turns before, though, which is largely why I was biding my time.

I won a big chunk of the games even through disruption thanks to casting Arcum on the second/third turn with protection while everyone else was trying to resolve big spells (even though I've moved, I cannot escape people trying to cast Land Equilibrium on the second turn off of 1-2 land. A couple players tried for early Doomsdays only for them to get countered, etc.). Though, since these were decks like FC Tazri, Yisan, Leovold, etc., all I really have to fight through are 1-2 removal spells in each deck, total (several of them were cursing having Abrupt Decay in hand, for example, since removing my artifact creature is not enough since I've upped the count- it's like removing one of Yisan's Llanowar Elves, now). Watching Brago spend his Mystical Tutor to grab Swords to Plowshares just to stop me from untapping with my Commander was very entertaining- and usually made me thankful I didn't have to protect Arcum multiple turns anymore.

This deck still needs some work to tangle with Doomsday builds- even the pass piles are hard to get around since they can be turn 1-2, and this deck isn't quite that fast (so my only answer is counter magic, hence why I've upped the numbers). Any non-Doomsday deck, though, I feel fairly confident when sitting across, now. Especially Yisan, now that I've had a few more games against it. Karador is pretty fun, as well, since a lot of the early wins with that deck involve binning Boonweaver which is something this deck can easily tutor to stop. Arcum plays significantly well through Stax now, though, so that's been pretty valuable against Brago, Derevi, Teferi, etc..

So far I haven't run into an issue using Ballista and Hangarback as my win conditions. I'm expecting this to change, though, because I'm winning a fair amount due to people not quite knowing how to deal with this Arcum build- that's obviously going to change and my record of wins will normalize a bit once people get used to dealing with Arcum again, but I have been greatly enjoying this. Most games end around turn 4-6; maybe an occasional one on turn 3 or later than 6 if the Stax decks are involved. There's enough disruption that most players delay their wins until the fourth or fifth turn, myself included (even if I can gun straight for the 3rd turn win, I slow my roll a bit because I may get screwed).

Hey there,

I did remove 2 of the 0 drops for Myr Moonvessel and Hope of Ghirapur on Thursday. I find it more necessary to run *more* artifact creatures now that we'll be wanting two of them faster than we ever did before, so I'm up to 20 creatures. I've been able to consistently get two creatures on the board and Arcum tapped on turn 4.

I used Disk-Forge-Lattice to win most of my games on Wednesday, though come Thursday I had already removed the three cards in favor of using Walking Ballista and Hangarback Walker as my win conditions since they're just easier and to-the-point, not to mention less of dead draws if I get them from turns 1-3. Ballista has the same weakness as Disk against activation-stoppers (Pithing Needle for example), basically, except you can cast it and put millions of damage on the stack with opponents having no real way of stopping it (just activate it multiple times in a row without passing priority). In the event of hexproof or shroud you can simply generate millions of tokens using Hangarback Walker and win the following turn, just like I'd do with Myr Turbine, Clock of Omens, Basalt Monolith, and Rings of Brighthearth in the event of someone having indestructible permanents or an indestructible Commander with Plate and other nonsense.

Basically, now with Engine, t3 and t4 Arcum with protection is easier than ever because you only need him for one turn- no more do you have to protect him over the course of 2-3 turns, depending on if Rings of Brighthearth got removed.

I still run two 0 drops in the event of having to cast Arcum on the fourth turn with haste, etc.. I may replace another of them with something simple, though, since the one to get either Monolith or Mana Vault is what's most important.

I've left in Rings of Brighthearth-Monolith-Staff combo. Actually, to save time, here's my current list:



I'm not settled on the numbers of anything, really, yet. You can leave in Disk-Forge-Lattice if you want the old win conditions. I no longer think that Possessed Portal is necessary- if you get that single tap of Arcum, then you can make the attempt to win rather than attempt to stall, ergo I don't see Portal being necessary any longer at all (and anything that'd remove Engine removes Portal). The downside to Portal is: You grab it, you're done for the turn. You grab Engine and then you can untap Arcum and try again for another win con after they remove it (as the active player, you get priority to cast another spell- it doesn't have to be an instant, and you get the untap from it being cast, not resolving). You can then directly go into Rings-Monolith-Staff if you really need a backup win, and both primary wins in my build do their thing with infinite mana. Oh, and I guess I'm running Isochron Scepter, still, as well. I haven't found anything worth taking out for it, yet.

I probably am running too many counters and not enough draw. Maybe swapping Delay for Scroll Rack- to put Flute/Engine back into the library, would be valuable.

My weakest card is probably Isochron Scepter. I just haven't found what additional cards I want to run in my current meta (the decks equally as fast as mine don't care about attacking or are Yisan, so I dropped Ensnaring Bridge). I'm still one turn behind Doomsday castings unless I get a good hand rather than an average one (average being mana dork + lands). I haven't really tried optimizing my list, yet; I've just trimmed a *lot* of the fat. I'd be tempted to re-add some of my old cards, though, I just can't think of too many cases where some of them are valuable any longer, like in the case of Possessed Portal.

I like it! I *just* removed Moonvessel back when Dramatic Reversal so adding it back in would be a fine thing to do, too. Honestly, there's going to be a *lot* of flexibility in card slots. Cards that were paramount to the strategy won't even be necessary any longer- Myr Turbine, Possessed Portal, Disk-Forge-Lattice, Kuldotha Forgemaster, etc., could be viable protection spells for our gameplan rather than situational pieces.

I'm really loving all the room that Engine will allow us to explore. I will be so sad if it gets banned, lol.

On another note, I just won against a Yisan deck that managed turn 1 Yisan thanks to Mana Crypt, and his play was Sakura-Tribe Scout t2 > Scryb Ranger t3 > Opponent's end step Rec Sage to deny my Silver Myr, which I untapped controlling Arcum for my fourth turn and dropped an Ornithopter and Blinkmoth Nexus and went off anyway. No need to pull pieces to slow people down, destroy things, or scramble to keep in the game. Just went off and killed him. There were 5 of us total and I was right after the guy that played first, which I think is the only reason I managed to have an impact, but still, I didn't have Mana Crypt, I literally just had a mana dork and none of my fancy acceleration cards. Kind of nice to still be able to pull a win when normally t1 Yisans were death sentences unless you could pull Spine (if they didn't go get the sac-a-land-to-shroud guy) or Tangle Wire before they pulled enough to win.


I'm going to keep tinkering with my list until we meet again on Saturday, but I think more low-cost creatures the better, and I'll probably be dropping some major cards for counters and protection and try that out too. It seems all in, but it'll be 1-2 turns faster than this deck has ever been able to do for me, even with a godhand.

You're right; I can make do with only 2-3 of them, very good point. I guess I kind of flew off the handle at the concept of them no longer being useless that I went a bit too far.

Yes, I'll stick to adding Ornithopter, Shield Sphere, and Memnite, and go from there. 3 options of 0 cost artifacts is certainly enough to 'combo' with, right? Hell, I could even fetch Mana Vault after the first 0 drop sacrifice to generate infinite mana by grabbing Myr Retriever and Junk Diver, as I'd have infinite colorless mana, untaps, and noncreature tutors at that point. Maybe only do 2 of them, then.

I actually think the sheer number of artifact spells could probably drop, so we run only the most valuable of cards. I do believe I'll put Back to Basics in, and I'll lurk around this thread again like I've done for the last three years while everyone settles on what the best artifact spells to run actually are. A *lot* more flexibility is available now in building Arcum, thanks to Paradox Engine.

So, I've been tinkering with Arcum very heavily the last week and yesterday I read something that gave me an epiphany:

Paradox Engine is the enabler this deck has been waiting for. You can go straight for Engine, cast any spell from hand to untap, go get Citanul Flute, and then you can pull the series of Ornithopter, Shield Sphere, Memnite, and Phyrexian Walker from your library for 4 Arcum untaps in serial that allows you to win the game the same turn as when you untap with Arcum.

Engine is the card that finally makes playing the 0-drop "do nothing" artifact fodder like Ornithopter and Memnite worth running. I'll be dropping Isochron Scepter, Unwinding Clock or Kuldotha Forgemaster, Mystical Tutor, Sculpting Steel, Elixir of Immortality, one of the stax cards (I run Static and Winter Orb, Tangle wire. I feel I could easily drop at least 1 of them), and another card- most likely leaning toward Possessed Portal since it'll be less necessary as I will only need 1 Arcum untap, not 2, meaning my need to drag the game on will be significantly lessened. This'll let me fit in 4 0-cmc creatures, Citanul Flute, and Paradox Engine. With the boost in speed, I may finally remove Null Brooch (because why pull Brooch when I could go straight for the win?), but I'm unsure if I can do without the utility.

In testing with Engine, Flute, and the 0 drops last night at the card shop, I played 5 games including decks like Surrak Dragonclaw, Animar, Sharuum, Yisan, Omnath, Azami, Mimeoplasm Hermit Druid, Food Chain Tazri, and a few others (they let me use a proxy for Engine). I won three of the games on the fourth turn with minimal acceleration (one of the games was literally just Silver Myr into third turn Arcum. Fourth turn, sacrificed the Myr to get Engine, tapped 2 and cast Millikin, sacrificed it to get Flute, pulled the whole Forge-Lattice-Disk combo and everyone scooped), and then the third turn in one game thanks to having double acceleration (something that would've forced me to go to turn four without Engine and Flute). I lost the fifth game due to Sharuum exiling my second turn Arcum with Boots equip on the stack, which Tazri untapped and went off the turn right after mine and no one could stop it since the removal was spent on my Commander, lol.

I think Engine is real. There's no question in my mind, anymore. While it may require a shift of some mainboard cards, it speeds us up an entire turn and turns us into one of the most consistent decks in the format (and unlike Yisan, we don't have to tap multiple times over multiple turns anymore). The Flute is the worst of the cards to have stuck in hand, but it's really no different than drawing Lattice, Forge, or Possessed Portal. Hell, Scrap Trawler may be more worthwhile now since a spell in hand is worth two in a bush with Engine out.

Edit: Apparently, on Reddit, there's a guy running Walking Ballista and just killing people by pinging them to death. Really cutting down on the overhead of the expensive artifacts, and getting right to the heart of winning. I really, really like this approach to Arcum, and we can literally win in any way we want, now.

Arcum truly is the best user of Paradox Engine. Aether Revolt is being great to us!

So I just want to make it clear: I have Null Brooch in my Arcum deck, I defend it, and while it may or may not be a useful card depending on the matchup or board state, it has saved me countless times. My comparisons of select cards to Null Brooch is simply because it is one of the more situational cards listed in your, and my, lists, so when doing a comparison, it's most easily done with cards of similar value at certain points of the game.

As for what I'd remove for Hope of Ghirapur- in my own list, I'd be dropping Elixir of Immortality which I really don't have any reason to run in my new meta (I dropped Dross Scorpion already, so I had 15 creatures to your 16). In the list in the OP, I'd remove Dross Scorpion. Unwinding Clock is just more useful much of the time (though I don't even like it quite as much anymore; my board state has to be a very particular way before I'll pull it over practically anything else, and even then, it usually involves Rings being exiled and Clock of Omens being the stronger card to pull at that moment). I know Scorpion works in the Possessed Portal lock, but unless you topdeck it and pull Mycosynth Lattice first, which in three years' time I still have never assembled (similar reason as to why I dropped Karn, actually), it's just a generally worse Clock of Omens. I originally dropped Scorpion for Dramatic Reversal and never looked back though- one untap of the board, unconditional, is just much better with this kind of deck for me than multiple untaps if you pull your end-game cards out of order or to support Possessed Portal, which can already be done by two other cards in the deck (either Clock, though especially Unwinding).

So, here's my current list:



I think I'm dropping Elixir for Hope of Ghirapur, and maybe Sculpting Steel for Paradox Engine. I may keep Isochron Scepter just to try it out since its reliance on Dramatic Reversal will be significantly lowered with a Reversal I can pull directly from my library whenever I want. Unsure about still having Mystical Tutor- I really want Whir of Innovation in here. I think Hope of Ghirapur will actually be very helpful in ensuring we get our Commanders down early- yes, it's fodder you may not want to sac to Arcum, it instead may help you get Arcum down, unabated, early in the game against that one player who has mana open on turns 2-4. Topdeck it after Arcum's down? No problem, it's half of Myr Sire for half the cost with the exact same use at this point of the game. Well, that's how I'm looking at it, anyway.

I'll be dropping Command Beacon and Reliquary Tower for more U producing lands, so I can more easily accommodate the UUU cost of Whir. Not sure that'll be enough though, so I may drop Buried Ruin and Tolaria West for general Islands as well (I'm half tempted to put Back to Basics in my build due to the sheer number of greedy mana bases around me right now).

Off the topic of new cards: I'm having a little trouble upkeeping the Possessed Portal lock right now, too. It's being used a lot less of a lock and more of a, "Let's just discard my hand over the course of the next 3-4 player's turns because you all need to slow the hell down." Fully powered Yisan, Sharuum (less of a threat, honestly), Food Chain Tazri, Animar, and then mounds of mediocre stuff that is only hard to deal with because everyone decides to mess with the Arcum player while letting Sharuum and Yisan combo out (not even kidding- 3 other players at a table tried to kill Arcum in one turn, with the third succeeding, when Sharuum had t1 Sword of the Meek, t2 Thopter Foundry on board, and had Fabricated for Ashnod's Altar on his third turn with full intent to cast on his fourth, right before the third player killed my Commander. The last spell that finally hit Arcum? Anguished Unmaking. Turn Aside and Swan Song stopped both prior spells. My second turn was Grim Monolith into third turn Arcum and a Lotus Petal on the side (topdecked it that turn); I hadn't gotten my fourth turn yet, but I figured two counters would surely be enough protection. Not salty at all, nope, lol). So, generally speaking, I've just been pulling Portal as it completely ruins Animar and Yisan's days and gives me an extra turn or two to ready myself-- until Yisan puts Tajuru Preserver in his deck, but I'll cross that ensnaring bridge when I get there. Portal has been doing some work as a great, "Break in case of douchebaggery" card- I haven't gone for Unwinding Clock in over a month because I simply haven't had the availability to do so. This meta is in a weird position where certain Commanders get hated on by the whole card shop, collectively (Roon and Arcum being two, for some reason), but it's not quite good enough for me to play Zur. It's weird when my favorite deck, Arcum, has a harder time winning than my Ghave Rube-Goldberg list.



Long post, I know. I just like talking about this deck. My bad if that's annoying. Also, if any of my potential choices seem bad, let me know, as I'm super indecisive and will probably change my mind (you'll notice that Gilded Lotus and Null Brooch are still there- mainly because of good arguments made for their inclusion).

I think Paradox Engine will make the cut in my list. In moderate testing, pulling Engine with Arcum when you have 4-5 mana is a better call than trying to cast it from hand as 5 is a lot to put down for an artifact (I have a hard time justifying Forgemaster, at times, lol). My last game I landed turn 3 Arcum with mana open for a counter, then untapped for my fourth turn. I tapped my Plague Myr + Ancient Tomb for mana and then sacrificed Plague Myr to Arcum to pull Engine, then cast Hedron Crawler, untapped and pulled Myr Turbine from the library and made a token, then cast Torpor Orb from hand just to do so, untapped again. Passed the turn with U open to counter. Opponent cast a spell, I countered it, untapped again, and sat with Arcum open until my turn, in which I pulled Rings, then the following turn I went off. I would have been able to make much stronger use out of the Engine that game if I kept a better hand-- I was limited on blue mana pretty badly (was chit-chatting and when I looked at my hand, I saw a U symbol on one of my lands when I said keep. It was Academy Ruins), which I'll admit doesn't happen too often.

Another game the Engine went absolutely nuts, with me grabbing it with Arcum and then dropping Myr Sire and Junk Driver from hand thanks to controlling Mana Vault, and the Junk Diver allowed me to return the first creature back to my hand to cast it again to gain another untap. I grabbed Rings, Staff, and Monolith in the same turn thanks to Engine. Engine is just a card you can randomly grab with Arcum and perform a clean blowout with if you have 2-3 spells in your hand that you can cast that turn. Otherwise, don't pull Engine. Engine makes pulling Turbine feel like less of a stumbling block, which sometimes you have to grab Turbine because you just don't have more than one artifact dudes in hand. I've had good experience with Turbine > Engine > Cast 3 spells and win that same turn. Something simple like topdecked Lightning Greaves + Voltaic Key + counter spell just leads you straight into a victorious position when you would have needed one more turn to assemble the Rings-Staff combo. Still incredibly situational, though, but I'm excited for the potential (I am the dumbass that added Isochron Scepter after all. However, this seems more reasonable of a card to add to a Commander whose greatest power lies in turning sideways repeatedly, and we need more ways of utilizing that). I'm basically pulling Scepter straight out and slapping Engine in its place.

There's a noticeable lack of synergy with Paradox Engine and Null Brooch, however. I strongly feel like Paradox Engine is an incredibly strong card that Arcum uses better than any other Commander, though, so I'm going to toy around with things and see how best I can accommodate everything in my build. Or I may finally go without Null Brooch in my deck- countering a spell might be easier if I have artifact mana up to assist in casting the spells should I pull Engine in those cases. In any event, going a turn faster in specific situations might prevent me from having to discard my hand to keep them from casting Ad Nauseams anyway (I hardly ever have to stop Storm spells in my new meta- the Storm decks here have pretty consistently won through Aetherflux Reservoir and the like instead of Grapeshots, and a lot of the times, tossing my hand to stop one guy's Ad Nauseam just left me vulnerable for another guy to take both of us out rather than me still being in position to defend myself).

Hope of Ghirapur seems worthwhile to include. It's one mana, has an extremely relevant ability, and can be fodder for Arcum. There's literally no reason I can think of not to include it when generally less useful cards are played for situational benefit in this deck.

Inspiring Statuary is... a card. An Etherium Sculptor that Arcum can tutor but it requires you tap down your artifacts. Not sure it's worthwhile, but I don't see anyone else mentioning it so I thought I'd bring it up.