The Grandfather Paradox

Commander / EDH* Artifact Competitive Infinite Combo Stax

Mataogetrekt

Artifact (28)

• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Citanul Flute
• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Jester's Cap
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Myr Turbine
• 1x Paradox Engine
• 1x Pithing Needle
• 1x Possessed Portal
• 1x Rings of Brighthearth
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Spine of Ish Sah
• 1x Staff of Domination
• 1x Swiftfoot Boots
• 1x Thorn of Amethyst
• 1x Thousand-Year Elixir
• 1x Torpor Orb
• 1x Trinisphere
• 1x Voltaic Key

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Transmute Artifact

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Power Artifact

Creature (19)

• 1x Etherium Sculptor
• 1x Hangarback Walker
• 1x Hedron Crawler
• 1x Laboratory Maniac
• 1x Manakin
• 1x Memnite
• 1x Metalworker
• 1x Millikin
• 1x Myr Moonvessel
• 1x Myr Retriever
• 1x Myr Sire
• 1x Ornithopter
• 1x Phyrexian Revoker
• 1x Plague Myr
• 1x Shield Sphere
• 1x Silver Myr
• 1x Spellskite
• 1x Trophy Mage
• 1x Walking Ballista

Instant (18)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Hurkyl's Recall
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Misdirection
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Spell Pierce
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Whir of Invention

Commander (1)

Land (29)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Blinkmoth Nexus
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x City of Traitors
• 1x Crystal Vein
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1x Inkmoth Nexus
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Mishra's Factory
• 1x Mishra's Workshop
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 11x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Strip Mine

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Maybeboard

Artifact (1)

• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond

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My personal take on Arcum. A deck with a multitude of combo engines , stax elements, and permission allowing for consistent turn 2 to turn 4 wins with permission backup. Arcum has been hands down my favorite and go-to commander for quite some time.

Let me break down the combos and the deck as a whole and how we win. First up, the combos.

1. Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith = Infinite colorless mana. Sink that into Staff of Domination and you're golden. From there we win off casting Laboratory Maniac to win.
2. Power Artifact + Grim Monolith / Basalt Monolith = The same above.
3. This Combo is the newest addition to the deck, which I found the second it came out: Paradox Engine + Citanul Flute = Essentially any number of activations of Arcum in a single turn. This works by tutoring 0 mana dorks to sac to arcum to grab a combo piece , and when you play said dork ( Memnite ) , for example, you untap the flute. Rinse and repeat until you assemble your combo of choice.
4. The classic Darksteel Forge + Mycosynth Lattice + Nevinyrral's Disk = Your opponents have no permanents for the rest of the game. Win at your leaser.
5. Mycosynth Lattice + Hurkyl's Recall = 2 mana targeted Upheaval. Cute, not something totally relevent in Multiplayer much.
6. Wait but what if staff is gone for some reason?.. Paradox Engine + Citanul Flute + Infinite Mana by any means = Infinitely large Walking Ballista , proceed to ping all your opponents to death.
7. What if Baillista and the staff get gone? Now what? Basalt Monolith + Rings of Brighthearth or Power Artifact + Grim Monolith / Basalt Monolith + Sensei's Divining Top = Infinite draw and mana. Cast the top or tutor it , copy the draw trigger with rings with your infinite mana to draw a card, putting top on top, then the second trigger resolves and you draw your top. Cast top, repeat. not optimal as it requires us to cast spells to draw, but it can clutch games.
8. Metalworker + Staff of Domination + 3 Artfiacts in hand = Infinite mana. Proceed to draw your deck and win.
9. Possessed Portal + Myr Turbine + Preferably an un-tapper like Voltaic Key = Infinite Sac fodder to portal. Your opponents will sac down to nothing while you Tinker for your win con. Be careful though with this combo, if your opponents have sac fodder each turn, then it's recommended to Tinker for another way to slow the game down or win. We don't care about not drawing cards in the slightest at this point.

Card Choices / Meta Calls. Show

1. Pithing Needle. This is a meta call, however I recommend running it as it's Tinkerable , and shuts off several tier 1 decks.

1. Jester's Cap. Again a meta call , but I seriously recommend running the cap. I can't tell you how many times I've Tinkered for this turn 2 or 3 and have completely shut down decks such as Food Chain , Doomsday , ect. A great silver bullet that not many people expect. Plus it's a flavor win.

2. Trinisphere. My meta is rampant with storm this and Ad Nauseam that, as well as this pesky little shit known as Zur the Enchanter and his signature card Doomsday. Dark Ritual , Lion's Eye Diamond and Gush are alot less exciting for our opponents when they all cost atleast 3 mana.

3. Thorn of Amethyst. Winter Orb used to be in this spot; however, I found the slow un-tapping of lands to be largely mediocre in many scenarios due the turn we usually win. I like Thorn instead of Sphere of Resistance due to the fact that we like to cast dorks in the early game. The great thing about Arcum Dagsson is his ability to be similar to Teferi, Temporal Archmage in the sense that we can also switch very fluently, arguably as if not more fluently than Teferi between Stax and Combo , allowing us to hose a deck here, and combo off there. Another perk of the old geezer is his ability to function without ever casting a spell other than Arcum and a dork. If we need to, we can win the game with out casting a single spell past this point. I've won games while only casting 2 or 3 spells, so taxing effects are majorly irrelevant. That's why i personally like Arcum Dagsson so much is simply his ability to ignore so much interaction while interacting so well on the board-state himself.
   

Strenghts / Good Match-ups Show

As with any EDH deck, it has its share of strenghts and weaknesses. Let's talk about strength first.

1. Combo ( Storm , Doomsday , Food Chain , Ad Nauseam , Hermit Druid ect. ) - We're fairly kitted to deal with combo, as many of these combo decks are major glass cannons, and a early Jester's Cap activation can lead to many of these decks to scoop. I would recommend to play a slightly more conservative rout to storm players and fetch up your Spheres, and then proceed to combo off.

2. Control ( Tasigur, the Golden Fang ect. ) - Again , the deck is fairly kitted against control decks. We largely don't care about the counters as we run our own compact yet pungent suite. That being said, a good control deck is something to not play lazily against. Try and run out arcum via Cavern of Souls , Hall of the Bandit Lord , Force of Will ect to ensure you don't have to pay 6 mana for Arcum Dagsson. Remember , Misdirection can also counter counters for free.

3. Aggro (( Yisan, the Wanderer Bard <- Aggro to an extent ) , Bruna, Light of Alabaster , Rafiq of the Many ect. ) - We usually can ignore what our opponents are doing as they will never be able to hit us for lethal before we can win, unless we kept a horrid hand. Be weary of Swords to Plowshares , keep your Mental Misstep for that instead of your opponents Sol Ring.

Weaknesses Show

Stax. ( Nath of the Gilt-Leaf , Grand Arbiter Augustin IV , Derevi, Empyrial Tactician ect. ) Plain and simple. Our worst nightmare is our opponet slamming turn 1 Sphere of Resistance , Null Rod , or Stony Silence effects. Cursed Totem , and Pithing Needle on Arcum also annoying and can slow us down considerabley. Counter these when you can. This isn't to say that we can't win against stax , we most certainly can and do, but turn 1 sphere effets, artifact hosers or cards that shut Arcum Dagsson off are hard for us to deal with. While we dpn't care about casting many spells. We do care MASSIVLEY about casting Arcum. If we are faced with a turn 1 sphere , we have a exponentially greater shot to lose because stax has a tendancy to stack ( pun ) alot of tax effects on top of eachother. Our biggest advantage is speed , so losing speed is tragic. I recommend ramping as hard as possible and ignore interaction with the stax opponent as they don't run too many counters usually.

  Please critique and suggest anything for my deck. I'm definitely not  super amazing at the game so I may have some questionable card choices. Suggestions are always welcome. :)

Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	17 - 0 Mythic Rares 38 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.04
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Myr 1/1 C, Phyrexian Myr 1/1 C, Thopter 1/1 C
Folders	Daggson
Based on	Arcum's Dilema Mataogetrekt EDH