Was reading your really good primer. I'm new to storm decks and i couldn't figured out this statement: "If that win condition is exiled we can win via Timetwister loops with Windfall/Wheel of Fortune and Tormod's Crypt." Surely tormod offers a free storm count/untap (paradox), but could you explain me how do it generate a loop for the win? Also I can't realize this other win condition: "We also have some new tech (courtesy of Neunviertel). If we lose reserviour, we can win now with infinite swans by either timetwister looping Swan Song or imprinting it on scepter".

• how does it generate... Sorry for my poor english :)

FrateIndovino: Its a little convoluted so bear with me.

1) Produce infinite mana

2) Draw with Thrasios/Tutor until you get windfall/wheel of fortune, tormods crypt in hand. If you draw into timetwister make sure you have brainstorm to topdeck it.

3) play tormods crypt

4) cast windfall/wheel of fortune to make opponents discard hands

5) Nuke someone's graveyard with crypt

6) play timetwister to reset all libraries

7) draw into regrowth/noxious revival and bring twister back to hand or topdeck

8) Repeat steps 3-7 until each opponent has a sufficiently small library that a big windfall will kill them.

Most of the time though people will concede once you go infinite or demonstrate the loop once

Lilbrudder Beautiful combo! Thanks for your explanation. I think I got the other two process. 1) Swan Song: counter one of my spell before reshuffle effect--> create a flyer, and 2) Deathrite Shaman: eat a creature in opponenet's gy between a wheel and a reshuffle. Does a switch between Timetwister and Time Spiral bring to the same combo? (With benefit for my wallet too). Although convoluted is better ;) Maybe the deck can run Walking Ballista and save some cards for more interactions or Ballista is a dead card out of the combo?+1 for me.

FrateIndovino: You got the other lines correct. Time spiral does not work, but Memory's Journey does. You would need something like Lightning Bolt and Regrowth to loop it. Walking Ballista is actually decent. Some versions of Dramatic scepter decks use ballista instead of reservoir.

Lilbrudder Yes... Time Spiral exiles itself. The Memory's Journey's line seems a litte fragile. 1) Produce infinite mana

2) Draw with Thrasios/Tutor until you get windfall/wheel of fortune, tormods crypt in hand. If you draw into timetwister make sure you have brainstorm to topdeck it.

3) play tormods crypt

4) cast windfall/wheel of fortune to make opponents discard hands

5) Nuke someone's graveyard with crypt

6) play Memory's Journey and put in your library A) a wheel effect a Crypt and another card or B) Bolt, regrowth and another card. Line A is impracticable, because you don't gain a reset, losing to draw. So Line B sounds like:

B1) bolt, regrowth, (an additional bolt for the first time)

B2) then Memory those two cards and another one.

B3) Draw and then regrowth for Memory's

B4) Repeat B1 and B2

This line seems so easy to disrupt. You have a limit number of counters in your hand, even with one recursion due to Memory's Journey. I don't think three opponents would be manageable.

Nah bud. Memory's Journey works different.

1) Draw deck

2) Bolt opponent

3) memory's Journey bolt

4) Regrowth Journey

5) bolt opponent

6) Memory's journey bolt and regrowth

7) repeat until all are dead

Its actually less flimsy than timetwister loops as you keep a full grip throughout and your opponents don't draw any cards.

Yes, sorry for my vagueness. I didn't mean that 6 as a consecutive step of the other route involving Twister/crypt/wheels, but as a new route. Two different lines and different card choices. A or B. Question to keep in mind, choosing route B, is the value of the single cards.Memory's journey is anti gy. Regrowth combos with Noxious Revival with Paradox on board. Lightning bolt is more a french card out of the combo.

Yo Lilbrudder, wanted to stop by and say, after I saw your change, I started playing Dark Petition in my (white) build and it'd been great. I dropped merchant scroll for it. I was resisting the change because lower total CMC is the best, right? But the yawgwill lines are just too good with another Demonic Tutor in the deck.

mmcgeach Yeah this is the perfect deck for petition tbh. I have a few changes in mind after my third article comes out. Merchant scroll, grim tutor are among my possible cuts

How come no Past in Flames?

You might cover it somewhere in the descriptions of the deck, but I missed it.

It sucks that it's on top of the mana curve, but it seems too good to not include.

Some more potentially useful information now that I have a few hundred games completed with this deck across varying metas.

1. I feel that Toxic Deluge is more or less a mandatory addition. Stax is on the rise in the cEDH meta (or at least everywhere that I play this deck it keeps showing up) and the inclusion of this single card more than tripled my success against creature based stax decks. This card has saved me so many times from Yisan, Tana/Tymna, Brago, and various other decks that I have even contemplated the addition of Rolling Earthquake as a second copy (despite not being cast-able through a Gaddock Teeg).

2. I also added back in Natural State for the same reason as Toxic Deluge. Given how often I see Sphere of Resistances, Trinispheres, Null Rods, Back to Basics, Blood Moons, etc. in my meta, this was not difficult to justify.

3. I have said it before, but I will mention it again. I hate Winds of Change. When evaluating cards for inclusion in a deck, especially if I am not convinced of their value, I note times that they were bad/average/good in game. I had 45 times that it was bad compared to 6 that it was good and 15 that it was average. Although it is an easy win with Notion Thief and as you described, a spice inclusion, I cannot justify the inclusion myself. I am well aware that it is intended to be cast either with a Notion Thief in play or post Ad Nauseam to guarantee the win, but I had many times that my Notion Thief would be killed while it was on the stack and it would do little to nothing considering I would usually be low on cards in hand by the time I attempted the win. There are also just times where my hand was dead and I needed to use it to hopefully draw into a better one which seemed to without fail give an opponent a winning hand before it got back to my turn. This could be said of any Wheel of Fortune effect, but at least the other wheels in the deck are usually card advantage on their own, whereas Winds of Change is always card disadvantage without a Notion Thief in play. Also, it is incredibly rare that an Ad Nauseam resolving is not enough to win the game and feels almost entirely unnecessary to be casting this after Ad Nauseam.

4. Having run both Tormod's Crypt and Nihil Spellbomb for a significant amount of time in this deck, there is absolutely no question in my mind that Nihil Spellbomb is far superior for the deck. The ability to cycle it if it is not relevant or to use it to draw the card that was tutored for with an Imperial Seal effect greatly surpasses the incremental value gained from it costing one less mana.

5. Lastly, now that I also followed the path of removing Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip to see if I ended up missing the card, I agree that it really isn't necessary in the deck.

Oh, and a funny story, I actually found a backup backup win con for this deck. I somehow survived a Sadistic Sacrament stealing all of my win-cons by already having Paradox Engine, Isochron Scepter and Timetwister in hand when they cast it. (Swan Song and Nihil Spellbomb were exiled by a Rest in Peace earlier that game).

Despite knowing that I had no win cons left, I proceeded to make infinite mana with Paradox Engine/Isochron Scepter/Pyroblast/. I drew my library with Thrasios and with nothing better to do, overloaded Cyclonic Rift, followed with Notion Thief and Timetwister to Mind Twist my opponents hands away. From here I cast Chain of Vapor to return my Isochron Scepter to hand and recast it imprinting a Mana Drain. I cast Vial Smasher and all of the mana dorks in my library and in the most janky possible manner slowly killed all of my opponents with small creature beats while Mana Draining anything they cast.

Decrepit_Angel: Thank You for the awesome update man! I pretty much agree completely on everything you said, especially on toxic deluge. In my paper list I was using deluge and it has been great. I will likely update the list soon to reflect your insights as well as the finding of others.

Hey, I'm enjoying this list a lot. I was wondering about your thoughts on Copy Artifact combos other than Swan Song and playing an infinite mana wincon such as Walking Ballista or Exsanguinate or are Timetwister loops good enough as a backup for you?

Also, can someone explain to me how you can draw your deck with Paradox Engine + Sensei's Divining Top + Voltaic Key ? Someone said that you could but I cant figure it out lol.

Kross33 I am not the creator of the deck but I have quite a bit of experience with it so hopefully I can be helpful.

I would say that Copy Artifact / Walking Ballista are fine if you want an extra win condition or you don't own a Timetwister but ever since I actually picked up a Timetwister, extra win conditions really aren't necessary when you can loop any card in your library as many times as you want. I actually mentioned a few comments ago a random backup backup win condition I found and after hundreds of games with the deck, I only had that issue of running out of win conditions a single time so I wouldn't worry about it. And if you absolutely want another win condition I would go with Lightning Bolt (imprint on an Isochron Scepter with Paradox Engine and at least 2 mana from nonland sources) because it at least works as removal if you aren't using it to win the game.

And Paradox Engine + Sensei's Divining Top combo works as follows:

With Thrasios, Triton Hero: (no Voltaic Key Needed)

5 mana from nonland sources.

Activate Sensei's Divining Top to draw a card and put Sensei's Divining Top on top of library.

Activate Thrasios, Triton Hero to draw Sensei's Divining Top.

Cast Sensei's Divining Top, untap everything with Paradox Engine

Repeat to draw library.

Without Thrasios, Triton Hero:

2 mana from nonland sources, also Voltaic Key

Activate Sensei's Divining Top to draw a card and put Sensei's Divining Top on top of library, maintain priority

Activate Voltaic Key to untap Sensei's Divining Top

Activate Sensei's Divining Top again

Result is you will draw a card, place Sensei's Divining Top on top and then draw the Sensei's Divining Top.

Cast Sensei's Divining Top to unatp with Paradox Engine.

Repeat to draw library.

Hope this was helpful.

Thanks for the clarity, also how has Dark Petition been working for you? Has it ever bricked or caused too much damage from Ad Naus?

Kross33: I guess tappedout didn't want to accept when I responded the first time so sorry for the late response.

Dark Petition has been great for me in testing. The extra 2 damage of of an Ad Nauseam compared to Fabricate doesn't normally matter. Also, as mentioned previously, now isn't a great time to be a dedicated Ad Nauseam deck due to the amount of stax floating around (especially decks like Tana/Tymna that pressure your life total while taxing you) so I wouldn't worry about it. Pretty much the only combo line I don't like Dark Petition for is a Notion Thief + Wheel effect because Notion Thief is better at instant speed, especially if you can use it in response to an opponent's wheel effect but the BBB from Dark Petition either requires you to main phase it or waste 3 mana. As for it brickhanding, if I am having trouble casting a 5 drop and can't just wheel my hand away into a better one, I have likely already been disrupted enough that I have lost so again I wouldn't worry about it.