The main goal of this deck is to combo off. Along the way, we will be protecting ourselves and our combo with some prison and pillow-fort type effects. Mairsil naturally protects himself by keeping all his combo safe in exile. We also protect Mairsil with supporting spells and abilities that can flicker him to slap away targeted effects. Just in case of blowout, we run a small suite of really shitty counterspells just because shitty counterspells are more fun to me. There is also a lot of fun ways to turn cards that use discarding as a cost or downside (Cephalid Inkshrouder, Demonic Collusion) into ways to play out of our graveyard. Mairsil is probably going to be the only creature we play all game almost out of necessity and consistency. Since that's true, we run a good amount of wraths, ways to save Mairsil, and ways to make ourselves an unappealing target, even if opponents know the combos. Mairsil is also a deep, deep toolbox. Maybe more of a Swiss Army Knife. We can play fun political threats and let opponents know they are ok to do what they're doing, but if they come your way, they're losing a lot of lands with Demonic Hordes, Quicksilver Elemental, and Torchling. It tends to make opponents give us a wide berth, especially when they've got two other targets. That lets us play these odd and hard to assemble combos and get to a point where we can go off with relative security and safety. This list has a few jank choices. Some cards are just fun in this deck. Mana base seems shaky, but works out pretty well for me. Most red costs in this deck are one or two colored mana symbols in creature's activated abilities exiled on Mairsil. In a pretty good turn you'll probably just need 4 or 5 colored mana since we are just generating ability value. We are also able to play very powerful effects pretty cheaply and without drawbacks like that of Infernal Denizen and Chainer, Dementia Master. All of the downsides are triggered abilities. Mairisl does not copy those and instead we get reanimation targets that stick around when Mairsil doesn't, we get to nuke lands, we get to exile creatures and so on. This also is not a final list. Every week or so I make one or two changes. I'm pretty happy with my mana base at this point. There are some cards that are shittier versions of better cards that I don't want to dish out the money for since I've not had a huge problem with the mana base for like 20 games aside from typical mana screw/flood.
Primary Combos:
Exile Gilded Lotus with Mairsil. With an Anger in the graveyard or a Fervor on the battlefield, tap Mairsil for UUU. Flicker with Deadeye Navigator for UU to untap him. Net U and repeat. Can make any color.
This one is a bit ridiculous, but worth including imo since I would be running three of the four cards anyway. The combo only takes up one spot effectively, running Pili-Pala just for this. Exile Quicksilver Elemental, Gilded Lotus or Basalt Monolith, and Pili-Pala with Mairsil. With a Training Grounds on the battlefield, tap Gilded Lotus or Basalt Monolith for 3 colorless mana or UUU. Pay U or 1 colorless to untap with Pili-Pala and end up with either 1U or UU. Pay U with Quicksilver Elemental's ability targeting Mairsil to give him another instance of each of his abilities and allowing him to repeat the same cycle. With Basalt Monolith, you get infinite colorless. With Gilded Lotus you end up with infinite mana of any color. Finish with Exsanguinate. Banefire gets you style points.
Very old combo. Simply cast Basalt Monolith (you only want to cast it instead of exiling with Mairsil if you're in a real pinch and this is your only choice in my experience) and Rings of Brighthearth and have 2 mana left over. Tap Basalt Monolith, then use the 3 colorless to pay to untap it. Pay to copy that ability with Rings. You now have two untap triggers. Tap after the first one but before the second to end up with a tapped Monolith and 6 colorless floating. Pay 3 to untap and 2 to copy and net one colorless and repeat.
Pretty simple. Probably the strongest combo in the deck. Exile Sage of Hours and Anthroplasm with Mairsil. Activate Anthroplasm's ability, where X equals at least 5. Remove those counters with Sage of Hours and just repeat every turn until you assemble another combo or commander damage your opponents to the pit. Reasonable playgroups will scoop to this unless they have an insane out or lock. Be careful how you stack your Anthroplasm and Sage activations if you are using Rings of Brighthearth or Illusionist's Bracers, as Anthroplasm does remove all +1/+1 counters with its own ability.
Another straightforward one. Simply exile the two, make an opponent's life total 4, then untap for 2R to deal 4 damage to them.
This one is a bit convoluted but just an example of how you can move pieces around and find weird combos. Exile Torchling, Gilded Lotus, and Quicksilver Elemental with Mairsil and have one spare blue mana. Tap Gilded Lotus for RRR. Pay R to untap with Torchling's ability. Pay one blue to Quicksilver Elemental to be able to gain another instance of Mairsil's abilities. Tap for UUU, leaving us at RRUUU. Untap for R with Torchling, leaving us at RUUU. Activate Quicksilver Elemental, tap to float RRRRUU, so on and so forth. Makes infinite mana of all colors.
