Urza Tyrant

Commander / EDH Competitive Mono-Blue

ShadowMizzix_cEDH

Artifact (25)

• 1x Arcum's Astrolabe
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Jeweled Amulet
• 1x Jeweled Lotus
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Memory Jar
• 1x Mishra's Bauble
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Proteus Staff
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Scroll Rack
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Static Orb
• 1x Tormod's Crypt
• 1x Urza's Bauble
• 1x Winter Orb

Enchantment (7)

• 1x Back to Basics
• 1x Counterbalance
• 1x Future Sight
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Power Artifact
• 1x Rhystic Study
• 1x Trail of Evidence

Instant (23)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Misdirection
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Pulse of the Grid
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Whir of Invention

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Personal Tutor
• 1x Polymorph
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Recurring Insight
• 1x Reshape
• 1x Time Spiral
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Transmute Artifact
• 1x Windfall

Commander (1)

Land (28)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Blast Zone
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 15x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils
• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

Creature (1)

• 1x Tidespout Tyrant

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Maybeboard

Instant (5)

• 1x Delay
• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Mission Briefing
• 1x Opt

Land (3)

• 1x Boseiju, Who Shelters All
• 1x Saprazzan Skerry
• 1x Svyelunite Temple

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Displacement Wave
• 1x Retraced Image
• 1x Sleight of Hand

Artifact (3)

• 1x Aether Spellbomb
• 1x Astral Cornucopia
• 1x Expedition Map

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Copy Artifact
• 1x Legacy's Allure
• 1x Verity Circle

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Welcome to Urza Tyrant!

How is this deck different than all other (Urza) decks?

Urza + Polymorph = Tidespout Tyrant.

Urza + Proteus Staff = Tidespout Tyrant.

Thus the title, Urza Tyrant.

POLYMORPH AND PROTEUS STAFF?!

Yes.

Polymorph and Proteus Staff are tutorable with relative ease in blue.

Just use Personal Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Merchant Scroll (for Mystical Tutor), or Intution (multiple piles available) for Polymorph. Or any artifact tutor for Proteus Staff.

Urza's Karn-struct token is even the perfect sacrifice.

This makes Tidespout Tyrant a virtual one-card combo and kill condition.

More on this later.

TIDESPOUT = INFINITE

In most other decks, there are serious restrictions on how you can produce infinite mana with Tidespout Tyrant, especially colored mana.

So it's hard to win with.

You see, you'll typically need at least one mana positive rock like Sol Ring, and a free artifact such as Tormod's Crypt that you can use to bounce one another back to your hand, netting mana with each cycle as follows:

(Tidespout Tyrant and untapped Sol Ring in play)

1. Tap Sol Ring for {2}
2. Cast Tormod's Crypt, target Sol Ring with the Tidespout Tyrant trigger and {2} in pool
3. Cast Sol Ring, target Tormod's Crypt with Tidespout Tyrant trigger {1} in pool
4. You just netted {1}, rinse and repeat for infinite colorless mana.

But most decks are unhappy playing lots of cards like Tormod's Crypt, Everflowing Chalice, and Jeweled Amulet.

You even need another artifact to filter that colorless mana into useful colors, like a signet.

That's typically a tall order and has significant costs to deck-building.

But not in Urza.

Because the same cheap 0 and 1 cost artifacts (aka hockey pucks*) that Tidespout Tyrant needs to go infinite are all supercharged by Urza's mana ability, making it nearly trivial to produce infinite (colored) mana and a win.

*I refer to them as pucks because they are cheap and tap for mana with Urza.

Speaking of winning...

BOUNCING INTO A WIN

Tidespout Tyrant can mill opponents out with Codex Shredder and any mana positive rock (or any zero cost artifact with Urza in play).

Let's say you've got a Codex Shredder with Tidespout and Urza in play, and Tormod's Crypt in hand.

1. Tap Codex Shredder to mill an opponent's top card.
2. Cast Tormod's Crypt, targeting Codex Shredder with Tidespout Tyrant's ability.
3. Tap Tormod's Crypt for {U}
4. Cast Codex Shredder, Targeting Tormod's Crypt with Tidespout Tyrant's ability.
5. Rinse and repeat.

Alternatively, you can:

1. Produce infinite mana via hockey pucks (0 and 1 cmc artifacts), such as Jeweled Amulet and Sensei's Divining Top by tapping them for mana with Urza's ability
2. Exile your deck with Urza
3. Bounce all your opponents' permanents by casting exiled spells with Tidespout Tyrant in play
4. Cast Narset
5. Cast Timetwister

You can use the infinite mana to bounce and recast Urza, producing infinite Karn-struct tokens to attack opponents with.

If need be, you can even recur Timetwister every turn with Codex Shredder, making sure opponents never have more than one card in hand and in play combined.

In the event you need to end the game on your turn, you can loop your deck with Timetwister and Codex Shredder or Narset's Reversal. Without Timetwister, Narset's Reversal and Time Spiral will do it too.

Each loop, you can cast the cards in your hand and use Memory Jar to exile each opponent's hand. Then, bounce a bunch of non-land permanents back to your hand, cast Timetwister and repeat until they have no more cards in deck and lose.

MOAR COMBOS

Just in case, here is a list of other combos:

1. Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal = Infinite Mana
2. Proteus Staff + Tidespout in hand/graveyard/exile = Tuck and flip Urza, then stack your library. Similar to Doomsday, you can stack draw (e.g. Brainstorm) plus a combo (e.g. Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal) to win with.

WHAT'S THE CATCH?

A quick recap of upsides:

• Tidespout is a one card kill
• It is conveniently tutorable by practically all the deck's tutors (Merchant Scroll, Mystical, Personal, Polymorph, Tezzeret, Transmute Artifact, Reshape, Whir of Invention, Fabricate, Proteus Staff, and/or Intuition)
• Tidespout Tyrant takes care of problematic cards for him combo (e.g. Cursed Totem, Null Rod, Trinisphere, etc.)... just cast any spell and bounce it!
• Easy ways to win
• Can work around Cursed Totem which Urza decks struggle with.

Costs to paying Polymorph and Tidespout:

• Grafdigger's Cage stops Polymorph
• Can't play any other creatures (bye Sai)
• Tidespout is expensive to hardcast

NOTABLE CARD CHOICES

Inclusions:

• Counterbalance: A powerful but unreliable stax piece, it becomes much more reliable with topdeck manipulation in the form of Sensei's Divining Top, Scroll Rack, Brainstorm, Codex Shredder and topdeck tutors along with card draw engines like Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, etc.
• Astral Cornucopia (and Everflowing Chalice): While most decks dislike the expense of casting these mana rocks, they are ideal here. In hands that make great use of the mana, they can be cast as rocks. Otherwise, we can hold them for the Urza or Tidespout turn and go infinite. The flexibility is useful.

Exclusions:

• Copy Artifact: Often run as a mana rock and a secondary way to win with Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal by copying Isochron Scepter and imprinting a spell that can be recast repeatedly to win. With Tidespout Tyrant we do not need the extra facilitator, and prefer mana rocks that synergize with Urza and Tidespout Tyrant.

BUDGET CONSIDERATIONS

Urza's core plan is mana, draw, interaction, and compact wins. I consider them in that order of importance, and budget replacements try to maintain those goals at the lowest CMC point.

Rather than trying to replace expensive cards with much higher CMC cards of similar function, look at the cards in testing and maybeboard for either (a) a similar effect at the same cost or (b) a cheap cantrip or draw spell.

Easily the two most expensive cards to cut are Timetwister and Tabernacle. Consider a mix of Training Grounds, Negate, Delay, Dig Through Time, Fact or Fiction, or Blue Sun's Zenith to replace them.

For cards like Mana Drain, try to replace them with a similar cost card like Delay that has the same primary function (i.e. a 2 mana counterspell).

You may also cut all five fetches for Snow-covered Islands and replace Mox Diamond with Retraced Image. With 23 Islands it will often be nearly as effective as Mox Diamond for early ramp.

If you need to cut several more cards, you may want another combo enabler like Cloud Key (or Mirrodin Besieged with Urza in play) to go with Top and Future Sight. Three card combos tend to be more difficult to assemble and are fine as incidental options when the individual cards have significant utility on their own.

Fortunately, Tidespout Tyrant, Polymorph, and Proteus Staff are all quite budget friendly so the core of the deck can stay even in budget versions. I would recommend keeping as many instant, sorcery, and artifact tutors as you can to maintain that plan as consistently as possible.

Unfortunately, the one caveat is the fast mana, which is very difficult to replace and make up for effectively with other ramp or cantrips. Additionally, Tidespout Tyrant needs at least one mana positive and one mana neutral rock. With Urza, any 0-CMC and 1-CMC will do. But you'll need to keep a density of 0 and 1 cost artifacts.

That may mean some compromising, e.g. using Urza's Bauble and Mishra's Bauble instead of cantrips to keep the density of hockey pucks high for Tidespout Tyrant and Urza.

A final note: Cantrips are most useful when there is a big difference between the most powerful cards in your deck and the Nth best (aka least powerful) card of a category (e.g. 14th best ramp or interaction spell).

Budget constraints tend to lower that difference so fewer cards are much higher in power level.

This can lead to a real diminishing return on adding more cantrips over more expensive (often more powerful) cards.

For example, playing a cantrip and finding a Mana Crypt is much better than finding a Thought Vessel.

Keep that in mind when making budget-friendly swaps.

Sample Budget Swap

OUT: - Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale - Timetwister - 5 Fetches - Mox Diamond - Force of Will - Mana Drain - Grim Monolith - Transmute Artifact - Scroll Rack - Counterbalance

IN: + Dig Through Time + Fact or Fiction + 5 Snow-covered Island + Retraced Image + Delay + Negate + Urza's Bauble + Mishra's Bauble + Mission Briefing (for Intuition lines) + Legacy's Allure

In total, that slashes ~6k+ from the price of the deck.

TESTING

A short list of cards in testing:

• Impulse over Dig Through Time as a cheap way to dig early.
• Urza's and Mishra's Bauble as cantrips in the early game that ramp mana with Urza and win with Tidespout Tyrant.

Top Ranked	Achieved #25 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #21 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Mono-Blue 4 years ago
Date added	4 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	11 - 0 Mythic Rares 42 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.07
Tokens	Ape 3/3 G, Bird 2/2 U, Clue, Construct 0/0 C
Folders	Primers, Competitivos mono U, Must Build / Inspiration, EDH ideas, Competitive edh, Ideas, Competitive Decks, Ispirazioni, Cool