Introduction
Hello brewer, I am glad that you stick around! Since a long time Urza, Lord High Artificer has taken a strong seat as commander in the cEDH community and this deck list is my version of it. As there are already many primers available online I will forgo on a detailed explanation of gameplan and card choices. I will, however, briefly outline the main strategy of this deck and how the combo works.
Main Strategy
This deck is, as almost all other versions of Urza, Lord High Artificer, a combo centered deck. Almost all of those decks out there utilize Urza, Lord High Artificer's second ability in combination with an infinite mana outlet to exile your whole library and win the game. Most of those other decks you can currently find out there use a two card combo to achieve infinite mana. Most of them either make use of:
-
Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal or
-
Power Artifact/Rings of Brighthearth and Grim Monolith/Basalt Monolith
as the infinite mana outlet. Needless to say your deck results in a higher power level when the number of pieces you have to assamble is low. Two cards to win the game is already quite neat, but why stick with a two card combo when there is the option for a one card combo? Many brewers realized that and came up with a leaner version of Urza, Lord High Artificer which only needs either Polymorph or Proteus Staff to assemble the combo. So the main goal of this deck is control the board with blue counter magic and tutor for either of those cards. How can we win with either of those cards?
The combo
We will need one spell in hand which we can cast after we cast Polymorph or Proteus Staff and two artifacts on the battlefield (or one artifact in hand and the other on the battlefield):
-
You cast Polymorph or Proteus Staff to destroy / shuffle in your deck the construct token we created with Urza, Lord High Artificer. As we only run two creatues in the whole deck (namely Tidespout Tyrant and Hullbreaker Horror) we will find one of these and put them on the battlefield.
-
You cast a spell from your hand to bounce an artifact you control to your hand with the passive ability of Tidespout Tyrant or Hullbreaker Horror. As you can tap any artifact for mana with the ability from Urza, Lord High Artificer the only requirement for those two artifacts is that they net one positive mana after bouncing and recasting. Examples include: Tormod's Crypt and Chrome Mox, Jeweled Amulet and Mana Vault, Grim Monolith and Lotus Petal. Most of the artifacts we play in this deck will allow you to combo off.
-
Once you created infinite mana, you will exile your whole deck with Urza, Lord High Artificer's third ability. As we can't run Thassa's Oracle as it is a creature, which we could find with Polymorph or Proteus Staff we have to use another combo to win the game. In this deck I use Timetwister loops, Codex Shredder and the bouncing mechanic of Tidespout Tyrant / Hullbreaker Horror to win the game. How does this work?
-
Timetwister - You cast any spell you exiled with Urza, Lord High Artificer and counter that spell with Swan Song. You create a 2/2 bird token. Now Swan Song and one more spell is in your graveyard. You cast at least 5 more spells so that your graveyard contains at least 7 cards. Then you cast Timetwister to draw those seven cards which were put into your graveyard. Then you cast Codex Shredder and sacrifice it to get Timetwister back to your hand and loop through that process to generate infinite 2/2 bird tokens.
-
Codex Shredder - With this card and Tidespout Tyrant or Hullbreaker Horror on the battlefield you can bounce codexshredder infinite times to mill your opponents. From here you could also go in a Timetwister loop to exile all opponensts' graveyards with Tormod's Crypt and then let everybody draw a card with Timetwister.
-
Tidespout Tyrant / Hullbreaker Horror - With both of these giants on the battlefield you can bounce every permanent (yes, every permanent not non-land permanent) of your opponents to their hands. From here you can cast all spells in your deck (even your counter spells so that they are put into your graveyard) and get all of those into your library with either Timetwister, Day's Undoing or Time Spiral.
Further notes
I run a lot wheels such as Windfall, Timetwister, Day's Undoing, Diminishing Returns and Time Spiral. Why? Urza, Lord High Artificer has no inherent card draw mechanic unlike other commanders (you could consider his third ability as card draw but as you can only cast it until end of turn, this is by no means as good as the ability of Tymna the Weaver or Thrasios, Triton Hero). Moreover, you can utilize the artifacts you draw and tap them for mana through Urza, Lord High Artificer's second ability.
If you have any further ideas, I am happy to hear from you! Happy brewing!
