To add:

Aetherflux Reservoir Show

Nix Aetherflux Reservoir, meant to say Metallurgic Summonings

Harnessed Lightning Show

You get energy from targeting your guys, but don't have to spend it on them, so one-sided board wipe!

Kari Zev's Expertise

Heroic Intervention?

Baral's Expertise,

Remove: Fiery Gambit, Shelter,

Remove: Champion's Helm, Skullclamp, Strength of Arms

Add: Aura Shards, Boros Charm, Heroic Intervention

Hey, I just found this on /r/EDH and I love this commander and this list. I'd like to know your thoughts on Mirrorwing Dragon and Zada, Hedron Grinder for this deck

I'm not a fan for this build. Their effects don't stack with Ink-Treader, as you only cast the first spell and thus it can only target one thing (the copies are not cast, so they don't chain). Since they don't stack, they're just redundant but inferior copies of your commander. The build also tends to rely on your opponents having creatures to get going, but Zada and Mirror-Wing don't feed off those while Ink-Treader does.

Commander redundancy is not a bad thing, but the way this build works I'd rather use those slots to play ramp/protection to be able to keep Ink-Treader out as he's so much stronger instead of playing inferior versions.

And what was your aversion to token doublers again? I read your primer many moons ago but have forgotten by now.

Without having an immediate impact, they spend a non-trivial amount of resources (mana) when the deck tries to play as cheap as possible so you can do more things, put a big target on your head of "Hey, I'm about to go off", are win-more when you're already going off, don't help you recover from a dead board state (you'd rather just have a standalone token spell), and don't do anything tricky for the fun plays. I would rather see a targeted token spell at every point in the game, and the triggered token generators like Young Pyromancer are better because they let you rebuild with a majority of the cards in your deck while the doublers need specifically other token generators to help.

As with a lot of suggestions, they're fine cards in different builds, but I don't like them for this one. Anything above 3cmc I want to have a big immediate impact by itself or have better recovery potential.

Thank you!

Ixalan cards worth considering: Depths of Desire, Verdant Rebirth, Sheltering Light. (at the time of writing, tappedout doesn't have them in its card link database)

Notes:

• Depths of Desire looks like Snap, but is actually much worse; you need to hit SEVEN creatures just to replay Ink-Treader and break even on mana, and then you'll still need to make more creatures. Snap is WAY better, both costing less and providing more mana. The only time you'd want a over Snap is if you need to play it defensively/as a board wipe, as the mana will stick around until your next turn. I don't think that case is enough to justify dropping something else for it, though.

• Verdant Rebirth is a cantripping wrath protection spell, which is something we are lacking, and is nice over something like Debt of Loyalty because it still cantrips even if you don't need the protection. Probably worth dropping a generic cantrip for it. (Debt is great in that it keeps dudes on the board and lets you steal stuff, but it's significantly harder to cast and pushes for support in the form of your own destroy-based effects to make it not dead, which you don't really want)

• Sheltering Light is a comparison to Gods Willing. It's better against generic boardwipes or black removal, but "destroy"/damage-based wipes and removal are growing less and less common in EDH in favor of exile and such (Cyclonic Rift, etc.). You also can't play nearly as many stack tricks with it, and scry 1 5-8 times is okay, but not great. Overall, protection/hexproof-based defensive spells are much better (especially since Verdant Rebirth is passable wrath protection that isn't otherwise useless).

Commander 2017 cards worth considering: basically just Teferi's Protection. It's the best protection spell ever printed, and with the recent rules changes it even keeps your tokens around. It doesn't have any other utility, but it keeps you from outright losing to any kind of boardwipe at all. Gonna find space. Nothing else from the set goes in, as we're not tribal, there weren't any efficient token producers, and no new targeted effects that are good enough.

Fractured Identity looks hilarious, and I would play in versions that are less hyper-synergy focused or are aiming for chaos, but it's definitely not good in a version that's trying to win. When used on Ink-Treader, as you do with things in this deck, it creates a lot of things on board (literally multiplying the entire creature count by the number of enemies you have), but it turns off your creature-based token producers (nearly all of them), and if you don't have a protection-from-color spell to use before the Ink-Treader copy resolves, it removes your Ink-Treader from the board, so you'd also need to have enough mana to recast Ink-Treader. Using the other, new Ink-Treaders won't work, as their controllers will control the spell copies and they'll get the benefits instead of you. Also, there's the fact that it costs five mana, which is a LOT for a spell you would only ever use the turn you're trying to win when you also need to cast a number of other things the same turn. So, hilarious, but not actually good here, and not worth including for its intended usage either (it's better to just go searching for Beast Within).

Any updates?

How's the deck been?

Working on cutting the last seven cards on a new version of the list, though the budget has gone up (mainly the landbase, as always). I'll put a link from here when it's done.

Hi. Not to bug ya.

SalmonShennanigans: Updated list here. So far from WAR the only card I'm planning on is Emergence Zone over Alchemist's Refuge .

I haven't fleshed out the description for the new list yet, but the general gist is it takes the ideas from this list and trims down the CMC (TappedOut doesn't do CMC for split cards correctly, so the number it reports is wrong), adds protection effects, efficient standalone token producers, efficient targeted clone spells, and tries to go instant speed where it can, and it removes the slow, narrow, and situational cards. In general, it's faster and more resilient with fewer dead cards and more potential to win out of nowhere.

Notable removals from this deck:

• Mentor effects: Talrand, Sky Summoner , Docent of Perfection  ^Flip, Metallurgic Summonings : Mentor effects are slow, removal magnets, and generally not as good as efficient standalone token producers (the same four mana for Talrand gets you five creatures immediately off Hunted Troll ) or clone spells. These three were cut because they're the most expensive, plus Talrand and Summonings don't have the same synergy with the added clone effects.
• Targeted token makers: Adverse Conditions , AEther Mutation , Supplant Form : Expensive, replaced by cheaper clones like Quasiduplicate . Clones have additional synergy with Hunted creatures and the few ETB utility dudes ( Eternal Witness , Imperial Recruiter , Spellseeker ).
• Wincons: Berserk , Confront the Unknown , Fiery Gambit , Willbreaker : Berserk and Confront have been replaced by Appeal / Authority , though Confront might still be better. Gambit is a 3-mana wincon that's annoying to resolve and still doesn't win through infinite life like LabMan does. It's been replaced by Kari Zev's Expertise , which is a wincon, untap/haste effect for Earthcraft, Cryptolith Rite, and Natural Affinity, and also has the insane ability to cast a spell from your hand for free for each creature, and each of those spells then gets copied as well. Willbreaker is painfully slow, requires you to cast another spell to actually do anything, and doesn't even give the haste/untap from red threaten effects. If the deck needs to pass the turn after it tries to go off, Willbreaker's likely going to get removed anyway.
• Synergy: Isochron Scepter and Unsubstantiate : Too slow, and your cheap instants are redundant enough that you don't really need to be able to repeat a specific one. Plus, most of the time you'd want to put a cantrip on it, and Scepter actually increases the cost of those. These are slow win-more cards that look clever but don't actually end up doing much in practice because the deck is already plenty redundant.
• Hexproof equipment: Swiftfoot Boots and Champion's Helm : Cut for Lightning Greaves . Shroud looks anti-synergistic, but the zero equip cost means you can move it over to a token on your turn when you're ready to do things and it can be used to give a mana army haste for Cryptolith Rite or Natural Affinity. If you need to protect Ink-Treader while actually going off, shroud is worse than hexproof, but generally you'll just wait to go off until you have a protection spell ready.
• Cantrip: Shadow Rift : This was actually the hardest cut. Instant-speed targeted cantrips are what makes the deck tick, and for a while I had Refocus in. I eventually decided that the difference between 10 and 11 1-mana cantrips was negligible, and Shadow Rift is the worst one (it does literally nothing; everything having shadow is the same as nothing having shadow). All of the others have at least some utility or synergy.

There's actually an infinite combo in the deck with Spellseeker + Earthcraft/Cryptolith Rite: With one of the rampchantments and Inktreader in play plus some mana to start, cast Spellseeker into Twinflame . Twinflame (radiated) copies Spellseeker and gets more hasty dudes to tap for mana. New Seeker gets Regrowth , which gets Twinflame back. Twinflame again gets you even more dudes, plus two new Spellseekers. One of those seekers gets Eladamri's Call into Eternal Witness , which gets Twinflame back, the other seeker getting a cantrip. The next Twinflame not only gets you four more seeker-tutors, it also gives you another Witness, which can get back Twinflame again, and further Twinning makes multiple Witnesses so you can get back your graveyard, all while drawing your deck through the cantrips you've seeker'd up and getting an infinite army of hasty dudes for attacking and mana (you're tapping two for Twinflame mana every iteration, but each cast doubles your army size).

The most exciting single new card by far is Electrodominance . For a long time I had Savage Summoning in the list because instant speed is so important for combo decks, and this just replaced it. Dominance has the downside of not being able to cast Ink-Treader from the command zone, but it works on all spell types instead of just creatures, can be used as removal in a pinch, AND it's targeted, which means it has the Kari Zev's Expertise effect of casting a free spell for each creature on the field that then also get radiated. We play targeted indestructible effects for protection and Pongify anyways, so you're likely to not even reduce the creature count from the Dominance damage. EOT radiated Electrodominance for X=3 is generally game.

Oh, and Electrodominance , unlike Kari Zev's Expertise , can be fetched by Spellseeker ...