Pretty sure they just wanted a creature in the deck so they could organize the deck with Proteus Staff, and Hellcarver Demon was the best choice bc it gives the combo a little more redundancy.

ctenochaetus - So here's the story: I started building the deck without toothlessthedragon, and my plan was to use Epic Experiment to cast the epics. Once toothless got back to me with some ideas, he suggested Hellcarver Demon as a backup plan. Since the Proteus Staff combo was a key (and fun) part of the deck, the demon worked out perfectly.

As we playtested however, it became clear that the demon was actually a far quicker way to cast the epics, and we began to shift to a more demon central plan. The main cost is that we have to make sure we don't have any important cards in the hand when we plan to go off, so we added cards to put our hand back into our library (eg. Scroll Rack, etc.).

SOOOOO you might be right. I don't really know. It could be possible that an Epic Experiment cental deck might be faster. I think that kind of deck (with no creatures) would be more fragile. I don't currently know a good back-up plan for this deck if it can't have creatures. It would also require more pieces to get the mana. Hellcarver Demon does most of it by itself so thats what we went with. These are two different paths to the same goal, with advantages to each.

I might experiment with toothless to see if there's a faster way to do it. In the meantime I thank you for your thoughtful comment. If you have a deck you'd like me to take a look at I'd be happy to give you my input! Best of luck in your brewing and don't forget to have fun!

Why only 5 lands that turn into creatures? Seems very effective to me. Really cool deck that I might build if my group allows me to create t=a second Tazri deck.

Wiggyman the man-lands are actually very effective and I'm glad you noticed... the reason why there's only 5 is because we wanted to use the ones that only cost 3 mana or less to activate in order to keep it more consistent. Money was also a factor and we weren't very enthusiastic about needing to spend $30+ on things like creeping tar pit and the other lands which are staples in other formats. The deck could definitely run more man lands if you have the budget.

Yeah, I might add a Wandering Fumarole or a Lumbering Falls or something. If/when I get around to making the deck.

Also, Day of the Dragons, Price of Knowledge, Spawning Grounds, Baneful Omen, and maybe Cruel Reality are great cards once you establish the 'counter every spell your opponents cast' combo. They all are very beneficial, cheap, and easy to cheat onto the battlefield with Enduring Ideal.

demon has to do combat damage to do its trick. if its blocked or destroyed you have to rely on drawing the cards. a quick counter on your cast of x spells and its all over for your deck. the staff only lets you reveal from the top of your library to the first creature. being there is only one creature, yes you might go through alot of the deck but also could mean you go through a short amount of it, IE not hitting all the epic spells. What is your answer to that? Demon gets killed by being blocked, countered or exiled and staff blown up.

I think what is supposed to happen is that once his deck has no creatures, he uses the Staff again and reveals his entire library (the creature he returned is at the very bottom). He then reorganizes his whole library, not just part of it (which would go on bottom anyway).

robngraves just like any "combo" deck if all our pieces get exiled we're just gonna sit there and cry... but it's unrealistic for any deck to have a plan for after all the pieces get exiled.

As for combat damage, you need to consider that the demon has flying and there are 3 other players to attack, we've never had a problem with getting damage through cause there is always at least one player with no flying creatures. Also the point of Proteus Staff is to activate it twice across two turns... activating it once and somehow hitting all the epic spells will just put them on the bottom anyways. The first time puts General Tazri back into the command zone and finds us our demon (the other cards revealed this way are completely irrelevant.) The second time puts the demon on the bottom and since its the only creature in the deck we would put "all cards revealed this way" (which is our whole library) on the "bottom" in any order (the bottom is also the top in this case.)

If our demon gets removed, we have Corpse Dance and Nature's Spiral to bring it back and there's also a few counterspells to prevent removal. Even Temporal Cascade and Feldon's Cane can shuffle our demon and our staff back into our library just so we can find them again. Proteus staff can also be recurred with Nature's Spiral. Also think about how we will rarely ever cast our demon so it can't actually be countered if it enters via Proteus Staff

In the scenario where our demon is taken somewhere we can't get it back, our second option is to use Proteus Staff on tazri or a man-land such as Mishra's Factory and reorganize our library in such a way that sets us up to cast Epic Experiment for X = 10 or more while the Epics are near the top. And we once again run counterspells to protect this.

We've put a lot of thought into this and there is no realistic avenue we haven't thought to build precautions against.

Ramos as a commander maybe?

I think Im missing something here... what are those "epic spells"? I only find one spela with Epic in the name, Epic Experiment...

gyoper357 we opted for tazri because she's 5 mana instead of 6 and we never have problems casting her but I'm sure playing her a turn earlier has definitely made a dofference

saluma epic isn't in the name. It's actually a keyword ability that's only been printed on 5 cards. One of them being Enduring Ideal

Ooooh how did I miss that?... ty toothlessthedragon

When Dominaria comes out, will you guys be using Jodah, Archmage Eternal as your commander instead since she's a mana cheaper, or is paying easier than paying ?

mmlgamer I think tazri will be easier to cast but we will probably test it with jodah and see how it goes

Thank you for finding an excellent use for Hellcarver Demon. I was hoping someone would do crazy things with him!

+1

TheGeneralAdvisor glad you like it! The best part is... when we play the deck against someone that hasn't seen it before they just leave us alone cause they're like "oh that's probably the worst creature in all of magic why should I even bother" and then their fate is sealed >:)

So I brewed up something inspired by what you guys have done. It's a lot splashier and I did go with Epic Experiment. Also decided to put that Dark Depths I have sitting around to use, and tutor that out as soon as Enduring Ideal brings out Solemnity.

Anyway, it's at The Most Epic Experiment Of All, thanks to you both for the inspiration!

Check it out!

well, what i do with mine is a Library of Leng with a Insidious Dreams, so if i have any of the epics in hand i can return them to the deck. When you rearrange your deck and hellcarver demon, consider Praetor's Counsel to be one of the 6, since you can return all the permanents and cards in hand now in graveyard due to the demon, add em up in your hand for the green and black epic effects, plus no hand size helps when you cant play play spells.

Library of Leng does not actually combo with Insidious Dreams, because discarding via costs and discarding via effects are two different things.

All I needed to hear was epic spell and I was sold

So, the release of Battlebond has given us an even cheaper 5-color commander that even has its own gameplan. Are you thinking of making the switch?

Najeela, the Blade-Blossom comes out even earlier than Tazri, might be a better general for this deck's combo plan.