Azorius Timewalker

Standard Combo Control Infinite Combo WU (Azorius)

MontaukMonster

Land (24)

• 2x Azorius Guildgate
• 1x Azorius Guildgate
• 4x Glacial Fortress
• 4x Hallowed Fountain
• 9x Island
• 1x Island
• 3x Plains

Planeswalker (2)

• 2x Teferi, Hero of Dominaria

Instant (21)

• 4x Absorb
• 3x Anticipate
• 4x Nexus of Fate
• 4x Opt
• 3x Revitalize
• 3x Settle the Wreckage

Creature (8)

• 2x Angel of Grace
• 4x Daring Saboteur
• 2x God-Eternal Kefnet

Enchantment (5)

• 4x Detention Sphere
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip

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Sideboard

Instant (11)

• 2x Chemister's Insight
• 3x Depose / Deploy
• 4x Dovin's Veto
• 2x Lazotep Plating

Creature (4)

• 4x Juggernaut

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The goal of this deck is to take an infinite turn with Nexus of Fate . To do this, we want to control incoming threats while whittling our library down to where drawing a Nexus every turn approaches certainty. Once we achieve an infinite turn loop, a single Daring Saboteur is sufficient to take down any opponent.

Design Philosophy

When I saw Nexus of Fate , I immediately remembered my old Beacon of Tomorrows deck which was an absolute killer back then. Here, we have a card does the same job for one less, so naturally I sought to build upon the same concept. The only problem is that it doesn't work.

Beacon of Tomorrows worked because I employed cards like Wayfarer's Bauble , Sky Diamond and card:mindstone as accelerants; and Azami, Lady of Scrolls , Remand , and Accumulated Knowledge for draw power. Looking at the Standard card pool, the draw power is significantly less capable, and efficient mana acceleration is non-existent. Because of this, I decided that a dedicated combo deck is not feasible. To make Nexus of Fate work, I built a hybrid deck: a primary control engine with a combo finisher.

The power of this hybridization is that Nexus of Fate addresses two traditional weaknesses of control decks: limited damage capacity and library exhaustion. Unlike the old card:Upheval + Psychatog decks which couldn't deal with an opponent once they reached about 40-50, Nexus allows us to take down an opponent even if they gain a mole of life (I actually saw that number being named once). Also, extended duels work to our advantage since exhausting the library is exactly what the deck wants to do.

One important point needs emphasis: unless it's the only card remaining, there has to be some kind of engine. Without one, casting Nexus every turn does nothing. Search for Azcanta  , Teferi, Hero of Dominaria , and Daring Saboteur all achieve this. This way, casting Nexus without creating an infinite loop should yield significant card advantage such that allowing our opponent one more turn won't matter.

Any time you build a deck, it's good to imagine this scenario: you're on the draw and your opponent opens up with Mox Jet , Dark Ritual , Cranial Extraction , and names your Queen. What do you do? Granted these cards don't exist in Standard but Syncopate does, along with other means of taking out our primary win condition; the question remains. For this occasion, the deck needs to be capable of dominating the table without Nexus of Fate and killing the opponent in the process.

Based on testing results, I appear to have achieved these goals.

Tactics

I ran into a situation the other day against a mono-red burn deck. He'd managed to roast his way through Absorb and Revitalize to where I sat with only two life. His final act was to tap out and hurl a Lightning Strike at me. Luckily I had Angel of Grace available to flash. By this point I'd already accumulated two Nexus of Fate in hand and was able to Opt into a third; just like that, I hit him for a cool twenty.

I can't say enough about Daring Saboteur . Play him as a two-drop and watch the magic happen. Trade him if you like; he's good for that, too. The nice synergy between unblockable and card drawing makes him perfect early, great mid-game, and perfect late. Early game, use him to pitch Nexus since we can't cast it yet and it gets shuffled back anyway. Once we're in the loop, use him to throw away Settle the Wreckage , Absorb , and Detention Sphere since our opponent won't be playing anything for us to use these on.

Even if the thief gets killed via Shock , Cast Down , or Play of the Game , that's resources our opponent is using to deal with a creature rather than trying to kill us, which still works to our advantage. That, BTW, is another reason for Juggernaut to come in from the SB.

As a last-ditch win condition, there's Teferi, Hero of Dominaria . If our opponent manages to take out every single creature we have, simply make a few emblems and erase their side of the table. Then, accumulate seven cards and stop casting Nexus but discard it every turn instead. You'll never deck out, and your opponent won't be able to keep anything on the table long enough to matter. If it comes to that.

Sideboarding

One of my favorite decks of all time is Tom Van de Logt's Machine Head deck from the 2001 World Championships, here: Tom van de Logt's "Machine Head" - 2001 WC. One thing I've always loved about that deck is how intuitive the sideboard is. I've played it against numerous opponents across the years and every time the thought process for sideboarding is negligible; there's an exact number of cards to pull out and an exact number to bring in.

Due to the complexity of this deck, anything I can do to reduce the strain on the player is welcome. So, I sought to recreate this effect.

Possible candidates for out-sideboarding are Settle the Wreckage and Revitalize , and possibly Detention Sphere , meaning there needs to be 6 or 10 SB slots for dealing with control. 4x Dovin's Veto is a given. The other two are either Chemister's Insight which I'd found too slow against aggro but essential against control decks, or Lazotep Plating against certain combo strategies. The remaining 4 would be Juggernaut , as there are times when the best strategy is to punch our opponent in the face. Alternatively, we can switch up the entire flavor of the deck by keeping card:detention shpere and taking out Nexus of Fate .

To be honest, I'm not completely sold on Jug-o-Snot for this role; he just seems to work.

Against aggressive creature decks, I can think of a dozen cards I'd like to use, none of which seem to exist in this format. The natural drop would be Anticipate since paying mana to draw cards on turn 2 seems poor, given the meta appears to be able to put a great deal of damage on the table very quickly. This is what Cast Down is for, apparently. I'm going to try card:depose/deploy as it seems able to steal a little tempo and allow the control elements to come online.

Earlier variants used Spell Pierce , but I think the raw power of Dovin's Veto is too much to ignore. Also I've used Invoke the Divine but I don't care about the life gain so much I wish it were just plain Disenchant .

Testing

vs. Esper Control

Game 1: Early Thought Erasure takes out Absorb . I follow with Search for Azcanta   and he follows with his own but between Opt and Revitalize I flip mine first, then I catch his Teferi with another Absorb . The game goes to counterspells and removal until he finally resolves a Teferi. About a zillion turns later, he's got Liliana, Dreadhorde General , Teferi, Hero of Dominaria , and a pair of zombies. He counters about four Nexus of Fate in a row until he has exhausted every single Absorb and Dovin's Veto he has, when I find Nexus again and loop ftw.
Game 2: I'm excited; my mainboard is tuned for aggro so to take game 1 from such an opponent gives me a rare opportunity to take some risks. Anticipating Unmoored Ego , I SB out Nexus of Fate in favor of Juggernaut in addition to the usual anti-control configuration. On the draw with 2 beasties in my hand, I drop a Daring Saboteur turn 2 hoping to rip Cast Down from his hand. Turns out he misses land drop #3; he's also missing black so the thief filters my hand, Jug-o-snot hits, swing twice and h scoops, showing three Dovin's Veto he’d been waiting fo me to cast something to throw them at.

vs. Abzan Swarm

Game 1: I don't know what he's playing but he stalls out at three mana while Daring Saboteur eats him up before getting popped by Assassin's Trophy . Another trophy kills card:got-eternal kefnet temporarily and a third one kills Teferi, Hero of Dominaria but I have a second and Kefnet comes back. Settle the Wreckage protects Teferi from his numbers, I'm able to flip Search for Azcanta   and Nexus to finish him off.
Game 2: I see early 1/1s on his end, then Kefnet hits the table. Absolutely broken: I draw opt on my turn, copy it and get a land. He ramps into Zetalpa, Primal Dawn , in response I cast Opt , find Absorb , and copy that. Next turn, Kefnet copies Nexus of Fate , then I hard cast to take three turns in a row for 12 damage and sit behind two Absorb ftw.

vs. Bolas's Citadel Combo

Game 1: I make a critical play error and tap out for Teferi, Hero of Dominaria with Absorb in hand. He drops Bolas's Citadel and goes off, gaining up into the 30s. I come back with Angel of Grace and a series of Nexii but run out of steam after inflicting 25 damage. He comes back ftw.Game 2: Initial beats get eaten up with Settle the Wreckage , then he loses one Citadel to Absorb , a second to Invoke the Divine . Another Settle eats a card:pelaka wurm and Teferi fuels a Nexus loop ftw.Game 3: Kefnet is O-muther-clucking-P. Turn 4 disgusting God-Eternal Kefnet + Search for Azcanta   synergy copies Opt , Revitalize , and Anticipate , which digs for Absorb before then copying Nexus of Fate , hard cast it, copy another one, hard cast that one, copy yet another and bash ftw.

vs. Academy

Game 1: I get stuck on two mana and watch as Tolarian Academy goes apeshiite in ways only Academy can do.
Game 2: I drop a Daring Saboteur while he hits himself several times with a pair of Ancient Tomb and knock him down to two life when he goes off. I cast Lazotep Plating in response to Windfall and he poops his pants because his kill card Stroke of Genius needs a target and he's dead next turn. I spend the next half hour watching him try to eat my deck with Memory Jar , he burns all four Time Spiral and gets me down to five cards to try and kill me with Windfall but he's got only six so we both die.Game 3: I'm on the play again. Spell Pierce takes out a turn-1 Windfall and Absorb stops a Time Spiral , he's stuck without any card drawing while a pair of Juggernaut run out his clock ftw.Since game 2 was a draw, we opted to finish the match with a win.Game 4: Spell Pierce shuts down a Voltaic Key and another kills a Scroll Rack , two Daring Saboteur get to work on his life points while he lays out three Grim Monolith . He has to play an island to have Intuition mana and gets Tolarian Academy but he'd already dropped a land this turn. Detention Sphere takes out all three monoliths, turning Academy into mush. God-Eternal Kefnet joins the beatings and Absorb locks it down ftw.

Still open for suggestions. All greatly appreciated.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	10 - 0 Mythic Rares 24 - 0 Rares 0 - 15 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	3.28
Tokens	Emblem Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, Thopter 1/1 C, Zombie Army 0/0 B