I dig your explanation on the update yesterday. I saw Treasure Map  ^Flip on a Command Zone game knights episode and it just did so much work.....WITH Smothering Tithe too! Ima be picking up one of them.

With the cut of Emeria Shepherd do you plan to cut Fall of the Thran ??? I got an emeria shepherd because of your list and it's seemingly great synergy, but I never added Fall of the thran because to me it was just an "oh that's cute, you're gonna stall out the game now cuz you have no way to win?" kinda card. Land destruction makes you the prime target in my playgroup.

I would know...I've used Crucible of worlds + stripmine in my omnath 'drop 4 lands a turn' deck and people come after me nonstop after that lmao

Btw, how do you add an Update section to your decklists?

There should be an "Updates" section just above the comments with a green "Add" button to the right.

Treasure Map  ^Flip was on my short list for a while before the Command Zone episode but it never clicked in my head that it could be a swap over Read the Bones . RtB has the benefit of giving immediate value (making it a great top deck later on) while TM is more of a long term value engine. I'm still looking for a card that provides some immediate value, Skeletal Scrying is high on my list for that.

Fall of the Thran was never included because of Emeria Shepherd but just had some additional synergy. The way you describe it, you're using FotT wrong. It's (almost) never used to stall the game. You use it to seal the deal. Once you've done your big play, you follow it up with FotT so it's highly unlikely that someone can respond in the next few turns outside of the stuff that is on the board. It's also usable to cripple a ramp player. Someone plays Boundless Realms , you play FotT, gg. The only time when I would use FotT to stall is when i'm stuck on mana and I need to equalize it. Say you finally get your fourth mana to cast Academy Rector while the rest is on 7-8 lands, in that case FotT is a very real option if I don't suspect graveyard removal.

FotT is at its best with Academy Rector. If you have Rector in play and someone plays a sweeper, you can float mana, exile Rector to find FotT and use your mana to cast Thrilling Encore . If you have a Cathars' Crusade in play and cast a big token producer ( Army of the Damned , Grave Titan ), sac your Rector and protect your board from responses. You now have 1-2 turns to take out the biggest threat to your board.

So to conclude, Shepherd is not required to play FotT. Academy Rector more or less is though.

OOoo, awesome ok got it thank you :D

Good point. Do you think Treasure Map will survive the next cut? Do you think it needs other treasure support in the deck to be good enough for a slot or it's good enough on its own?

I probably would be using it wrong, I actually checked, I do own a Fall of the thran, but never put it in the deck. And honestly I just finished the deck yesterday. I haven't ever played with sagas so i'd need some getting used to it to analyze its worth in the deck.

That's a good way of looking at it, It completely slipped my mind to use Rector with Fall of the thran...mainly because I haven't splurged and gotten another academy rector. I remember years ago when I first had Teysa, it was like a 25$ card...and Now it's about 65$. But it's definitely going to go in at some point, in which case I'll analyze the Thran for a slot in the deck.

How has the new Teysa Karlov been working for you? Seems absolutely busted with this kind of deck, specifically Skullclamp

Rector is probably one of the most powerful cards in the deck so if you have the luxury of getting one, it's one of the highest priority. The sheer versatility it brings is insane and will give your opponent a headache when your targets vary from Parallax Wave to Fall of the Thran to Animate Dead or just an innocent Phyrexian Arena . It's also one of the more fun cards to play since it gives you so many impactful choices.

I don't know if Treasure Map will survive the next cut. That all depends on new cards being released. For now it feels like a solid inclusion. It scries, it draws, it turns into a land meaning the deck runs a theoretical 39 lands. Time will tell if it survives the next cut. Sometimes I just cut cards to change it up or to try new cards. However this and Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip feel like solid (albeit somewhat boring) inclusions.

I've not had the luxury of having Teysa Karlov in play yet. The joys of being light on tutors, sometimes you just won't see a card for months. That being said, I don't need to see it in practice to know it will be completely busted. There's a reason Massacre Wurm is back in the deck ;)

Great points man. I remember the busted things I was able to do with Rector. One day, one day I'll drop some money on that lol

I keep seeing Parallax Wave in a lot of lists. And I can see why it's a powerful card, but I've never really played it/against it, so I fail to see why it's touted as SUCH a broken card.

Haha yeah I hear ya, I cut cards too just to keep it interesting and refreshing.

Massacre Wurm + Teysa Karlov --- Omg.....I just realized Teysa says "a creature" and not Your creature mind..blown

Wave is not a broken card in a vacuum, however it's -always- useful.

• Play it to remove a problematic creature from the game for a 4-5 turns (which is eternity in EDH)
• Cripple a player for 1-2 turns by removing a substantial amount of creatures temporarily from the game
• Remove tokens from the game indefinitely
• Remove a creature from the game that is about to be enchanted, equipped, etc
• Protect your own creature from removal
• Hide your army when you cast Tragic Arrogance . Exile 5 of your creatures, Cast TA, choose a different enchantment than PW. PW dies, your army comes back (triggers EtB effects) while the opponents are crippled
• Alpha strike into an opponent, wave the creatures that would die on your side out of play. Useful when the opponent has scary blockers with powerful EtB effects that you don't want to trigger by waving them away

You can also do some timing tricks if you have something that can remove PW at instant speed ( Anguished Unmaking or Return to Dust ). Exile creature A, respond to that by exiling creature B, respond to that by exiling creature C, respond to that by exiling creature D, respond to that by casting Anguished Unmaking on PW, respond to that by exiling your own EtB creature (solemn for example). Once you let the stack resolve, this is what happens:

1. Solemn is removed
2. Wave is removed, triggering its "When Parallax Wave leaves the battlefield, each player returns to the battlefield all cards they own exiled with Parallax Wave" clause which goes on the stack and will return Solemn into play (since it's the only creature removed at that point)
3. creature D is removed
4. creature C is removed
5. creature B is removed
6. creature A is removed
7. Solemn enters play and fetches a land

Creature A, B, C and D are removed indefinitely, since the clause that would return them to play happened before they got removed.

It won't come up often but it's always something to keep in mind. Which is why it's such a good/fun card. It's like a swiss army knife that just sits there and lets you be creative. Even if nothing happens, its fine to just put it there as insurance. Noone will try and target any of your creatures with an active wave in play.

All great points that I haven't thought of with PW..

"Alpha strike into an opponent, wave the creatures that would die on your side out of play. Useful when the opponent has scary blockers with powerful EtB effects that you don't want to trigger by waving them away"

^^^ That's really good too. Have you ever considered Reconnaissance ?? I saw it do so much work on Game Knights (yes--one of my main resources for magic gameplay vids) and it seems really good. To my knowledge it also doesn't get rid of tokens because it removes from combat and not the game. So. It's basically like vigilance for everything..

Ooooo oh wow! So it kinda works like the old 'wotc mistake' wording on Fiend Hunter then! That's awesome. That's also some really good politics if an opponent has instant speed enchantment removal.

Or maybe, also.....you could do some boardwipe tricks to save 4 creatures and get more ETB effects - in response to a boardwipe that hits creatures and enchantments, just exile 4 of your creatures (to leave 1 counter on PW) then they all return after the boardwipe resolves and destroys the PW.

Or similarly - in response to a creature wipe - cast Anguished unmaking on PW, Exile 4 (or 5?) of your creatures, then those 4-5 creatures come back, get Etbs, and die from the boardwipe (AND possibly Death triggers!)

It does indeed follow the same template as Fiend Hunter which means it's abusable.

Reconnaissance is really good, but it's at its best in a deck that always wants to attack (like Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist ). Here it's occassionally useful but not enough to warrant a card slot. It's hard enough to find room for cards as it is :D

Anyway, I think you get the idea with wave. There's always a situation where it's useful even when it sits there doing seemingly nothing. Hell, like you already said you could throw it in play even without a board but just as a political tool. Creating deals where you generate value for an opponent in exchange for not being attacked. Possibilities are endless.

Oh i forgot the most fun way of using Parallax Wave:

Hahah i hear ya, so many cards to add, so little room.

Oh yeah. Oh..yeah. I get the idea. I would abuse the crap out of Fiend hunter back in the day xD!

Kill the phage player. Hahahaha that.is.great!

How well do you think this deck would run if you just put Karlov in the seat and Orzhov scion in the 99 for a little while?

No other changes.

You could try it but it won't work as well I think. If you want Karlov in the seat you need more synergy in the maindeck with her imo, more graveyard triggers etc. This maindeck is built to run independently if needed but Orzhov Scion just makes everything you do better: have a white creature in play? Great, 1/3 of an exile effect right there. Got a black creature in play? Great, spirit tokens! Have a sac outlet in play? Perfect, every black creature provides double value. Additionally it supports the token/go wide theme of the deck. Army of the Damned with Orzhov Scion in play requires 2 sweepers to fully clear (and then you have to deal with the flashback) for example.

Karlov has a higher ceiling in what it can provide but Orzhov Scion is a better glue for the (read: this) deck. Feel free to try it out on your version though and let me know how it went!

Teysa and her Orzhov Syndicate got some upgrades ^_^

Krav, the Unredeemed and Regna, the Redeemer are sooooo good and also super theme.

Priest of Forgotten Gods has put in some for real work for me.

Man I forgot how much I love this deck ^_^

I would love Krac and Regna in the deck but it’s hard to fit 2 cards in (especially casting cost 5 and 6 ones) The only card that I can see that could make room is swap Regna for Geist Honored Monk since they fulfill much of the same role. Maybe Krav for Ghoulcaller Gisa? Mmh might be worth a try.

Priest of Forgotten Gods is nice. Haven’t thought of that one yet.

Great suggestions!

Alright, Krav and Regna are in transit (yes I’m impulsive). Will find some room for them. I thought of them before but I always dismissed them because making room for 1 card is hard enough as it is, let alone 2.

However since Battlebond came out the deck received some more midrange champions that I can swap out for better equivalents. On the chopping block: Grave Titan and Geist-Honored Monk.

Hmmm, yeah that's a great point. I had considered that. And realized she would need more maindeck synergy to be run as the commander. For now I'm keeping Scion.

Whatever link you tried to privide didn't show up. It just says (read: this)

Hahahah I know the impulsive feeling!

But...other than Krav, does the deck have enough lifegain to justify Regna?

I always think Krav can go in black decks lol draw, lifegain, and +1 counters...I've been contemplating putting Krav in Marchesa.

Keep in mind, Krav always draws Regna and vica versa. Other than that, I got High Market, Diamond Valley, Sword of Light and Shadow and lifelink creatures to trigger Regna. So even if Krav isn’t there she’s not completely dead in the water. If it wasn’t for Krav though, she wouldn’t be in the deck

Let us know how they play out!

Will try on friday, however Regna has not been dispatched yet and I refuse to let Krav play on his own so we'll see.

I have been using them for a few play weekends. I love them.

Awesome man :) I'm thinking of trying them out too

My playgroup has been running combo heavy decks and taking long ass turns if they don't combo. I need to calm the waters a bit with a wave. So that then we can turn down our decks and actually play fun magic.

How can I make this deck degenerate without adding back all the combos I used to play with teysa? lol

Lot's of removal?

Yeah I feel like I already have a decent amount. But never seem to draw enough. Last night i have to burn 3 removal in a row to get rid of 1 permanent..

Pretty easy, add:

• more tutors

• bit more mana rocks

• Crucible of Worlds

• Armageddon

• Smokestack

• Contamination

You get the idea. Shave down on the top end. Make the deck faster en hit their mana. You won’t make friends though, however cant complain about MLD in a competitive environment