What are your thoughts of a similar build but tuned to be slower with more control elements? Basically eschewing the fast mana engines (high tide in particular) for more counters, removal, and card draw. I ask here because you seem to be quite the expert on this deck.

I think it's a losing proposition.

Trying to play traditional control is very difficult in multiplayer due to the mana and card quantity limitations in doing so.

Beyond that, high tide is easily the most powerful ritual package in the format.

I think Zur fetching up Necropotence would help with the quantity issue, but focusing on that aspect probably makes the deck worse overall since you add haste enablers and such. Hmm.

Yeah my only issue is that I am missing all non-khans fetches and the blue duals (got a scrubland). Got every other card basically minus Candelabra though.

So you were right, the faster build is far better. I just have a few questions while I'm finalizing my build.

I've seen the power artifact/monolith combo suggested a few times. Is it safe to assume that Doomsday is just faster? At a glance, it seems more fragile than the monolith plan.

I have also seen some builds run more infinite hand size enablers to make Necropotence an even more viable backup plan. Thoughts? A Spellbook would fit in the Tormod's Crypt or Nihil Spellbomb slot nicely.

My mana base is nowhere near as secure as yours, missing the blue duals and non-khans fetches. Should I even bother with high tide? I'm also looking for any excuse to cut Time Spiral; that 6 hurts with ad nauseam. I considered putting Day's Undoing in that slot since doing it at the end of turn is just as brutal as a Timetwister, although it loses the utility of doing it mid-turn.

How is the land count working out for you with the Vancouver?

Doomsday is indeed just faster than monolith combo. I tried to make monoliths work, but they were always averaging about a turn slower than DD.

I don't like the infinite hand size cards. Reliquary tower first of all is not an island and does not tap for colored mana. Spellbook on the other hand is just a dead draw more often than not. The only time you really want them is post Necro, when you can't play them any way. And cutting gravehate for them is a risk not worth taking.

High tide is a little harder without the optimal manabase but probably still worth playing. On the other hand time spiral is straight amazing. While it hurts off ad nauseam, the card just does so many things and it does them all well. Day's undoing on the other hand, does very little well and has only one advantage which is a low cmc. Being forced to end your turn post DU is a huge pain point which cannot be solved.

I'm liking 29 lands quite a bit, but I've only played about 10 games since the mulligan change.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm assuming that the speed makes up for the apparent "fragility" of the combo? Although I can already think of several piles that would work fine with protection.

The lack of infinite hand size cards makes sense when you put it that way. From my couple of tests so far, the deck seems to desperately want colored mana. Especially with this new mulligan.

I'll continue to test and see if high tide is worth it in a less optimal mana base. Same for time spiral.

The combo is actually quite resilient. The deck plays numerous counterspells and generally is looking to resolve a big necropotence activation or ad nauseam before actually trying to win the game. While these two are not necessarily easy to do, if they do resolve the game ends the vast majority of the time.

Ad nauseam simply put is an amazingly powerful card, and the deck is built to take full advantage of it.

You are right that colored mana is incredibly important. The big colorless producers are generally used to fuel our colored producers post AN.

High tide will likely be quite difficult without optimal mana, however time spiral will not be affected by this and will remain quite strong.

Hey, we run a lot of the same cards Nicol Bolas' Machinations. Why not running a Mind's Desire since I am sure you get a crazy storm count. The card is broken, being able to return the original to your hand and recast it with Remand is game shattering. Speaking of protecting your combo, I have found that Venser, Shaper Savant gets around the pesky 'uncounterable' cards. Anyway, +1 from me.

I have found Mind's Desire to be on the win more side of the spectrum, but I have considered testing it again.

As for remand, I think its far too narrow to warrant inclusion.

My meta favors low cmc counter magic, and sees next to no uncounterable spells aside from the seldom split second card or flusterstorm.