Zur Slide Sphinx Combo

Commander / EDH Combo Control WUB (Esper)

Reverie42

Creature (23)

• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Archfiend of Ifnir
• 1x Architects of Will
• 1x Auramancer
• 1x Brago, King Eternal
• 1x Cloud of Faeries
• 1x Cloudblazer
• 1x Curator of Mysteries
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Fiend Hunter
• 1x Hostage Taker
• 1x Karmic Guide
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Noxious Gearhulk
• 1x Palace Jailer
• 1x Reflector Mage
• 1x Reveillark
• 1x Rune-Scarred Demon
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Thassa, God of the Sea
• 1x Venser, Shaper Savant
• 1x Whirlpool Rider

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Astral Slide
• 1x Cast Out
• 1x Copy Enchantment
• 1x Decree of Silence
• 1x Detention Sphere
• 1x Faith of the Devoted
• 1x Island Sanctuary
• 1x New Perspectives
• 1x Sphinx's Tutelage

Land (34)

• 1x Arcane Sanctum
• 1x Ash Barrens
• 1x Azorius Chancery
• 1x Barren Moor
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Desert of the Glorified
• 1x Desert of the Mindful
• 1x Desert of the True
• 1x Dimir Aqueduct
• 1x Drifting Meadow
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 5x Island
• 1x Lonely Sandbar
• 1x Orzhov Basilica
• 6x Plains
• 1x Polluted Mire
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Remote Isle
• 1x Secluded Steppe
• 5x Swamp
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse

Artifact (12)

• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fluctuator
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Orzhov Signet
• 1x Panharmonicon
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sundial of the Infinite
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Thought Vessel

Commander (1)

Instant (14)

• 1x Ancient Excavation
• 1x Angelsong
• 1x Complicate
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Countervailing Winds
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Expunge
• 1x Forsake the Worldly
• 1x Hieroglyphic Illumination
• 1x Miscalculation
• 1x Radiant's Judgment
• 1x Renewed Faith
• 1x Shadow of the Grave
• 1x Traumatic Visions

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Akroma's Vengeance
• 1x Day of Judgment
• 1x Decree of Justice
• 1x Decree of Pain
• 1x Razaketh's Rite
• 1x Treasure Cruise
• 1x Windfall

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Maybeboard

Creature (7)

• 1x Agent of Treachery
• 1x Clever Impersonator
• 1x Eldrazi Displacer
• 1x Felidar Guardian
• 1x Flickerwisp
• 1x Ravenous Chupacabra
• 1x Soulherder

Artifact (3)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Talisman of Progress

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Astral Drift
• 1x Estrid's Invocation
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Lay Claim
• 1x Oblivion Ring
• 1x Ominous Seas

Instant (5)

• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Neutralize
• 1x Rebuild

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In-Progress Astral Slide deck. Feedback welcome.

In most typical Astral Slide decks I've found, the focus is heavily on adding synergies for the discard/cycle action. While I do that here, I feel like that plan isn't quite enough for a couple reasons:

• You're -really- dependent on Astral Slide to do anything. Pretty much your entire deck becomes lackluster if you can't blink your creatures. Slide getting exiled can be backbreaking.
• If you run out of cyclers, the deck is basically dead in the water. It's too easy to fizzle unless you run a lot of pretty bad cyclers.

To mitigate that, I'm running win cons for both the draw and discard halves of cycling. On the discard side, we still run Faith of the Devoted in case we can't win with the mill plan. Our primary win con is Sphinx's Tutelage. Other possible options are Hoofprints of the Stag or Laboratory Maniac if you have to deal with old school Eldrazi titans or just need want more consistency.

Zur Targets

Obviously, the main fetch for Zur is Astral Slide. However, you can also fetch several payoff cards:

• Thassa, God of the Sea filters the top of your deck and can allow Zur or Brago to get through
• Sphinx's Tutelage can mill out your opponents
• Island Sanctuary can protect you from most attackers if you have another source of card draw
• Faith of the Devoted can drain out your opponents
• Detention Sphere is obviously a general answer card. Also allows you to exile things forever if you can bounce it in response to its ETB with something like Venser.
• Copy Enchantment gives you redundant copies of whatever you need
• Hoofprints of the Stag (if included) can generate a lot of tokens

Cycle Support Breakdown

The numbers may shift, but as of now the deck contains:

• 17 cycle spells
• 13 lands that either cycle or can bounce a cycle land
• 2 mana rocks that can redraw
• 8 spells/creatures that draw cards in some fashion
• 4 sources of graveyard recursion

That gives us a little under half of the deck that either cycles or can draw cyclers. Not sure if that's exactly the right ratio or not yet, but it seems like a safe start.

Deadeye Navigator Combo

While it's certainly possible to just value out the board with various cycling payoffs and win, the deck runs a janky combo to close out the game immediately if it goes long.

1. Generate Infinite Mana: For this you need Deadeye Navigator + Cloud of Faeries along with a bounce land or Panharmonicon.
2. Draw win cons: You can find any piece you need with Cloudblazer, Mulldrifter, Rune-Scarred Demon, Whirlpool Rider or Sphinx's Tutelage
3. Winning:
• Hoofprints of the Stag / Sphinx's Tutelage + Whirlpool Rider can generate infinite mill or stag tokens. Make sure to hold counters if you need to pass the turn.
• Faith of the Devoted + Archaeomancer gives infinite drain by using Archaeomancer to keep bringing back a cycler. You can speed up the process with Shadow of the Grave.

I like this plan since the opportunity cost is pretty low. All of the relevant cards synergize with the rest of the deck without the infinite. If you don't intend to combo, you can just cycle away Cloud of Faeries.

Dealing with Eldrazi Titans

If there are Eldrazi Titans or Progenitus in your meta, the mill plan won't work. So there are a couple options to replace Sphinx's Tutelage:

• Blue Sun's Zenith can deck every opponent as long as you can keep drawing your library
• Hoofprints of the Stag can generate tokens to win with combat damage
• Laboratory Maniac will win if deck yourself instead
• Leave in Tutelage and add Rest in Peace.

Other Tricks

Some other tricks:

• Sundial of the Infinite while the return-from-exile trigger is on the stack will exile creatures forever
• Blinking a creature with Deadeye Navigator or Astral Slide before the Evoke trigger resolves will prevent it from dying. For Deadeye, make sure to stack Soulbond above Evoke.
• Use Venser, Shaper Savant to protect your key enchantments by bouncing them if needed. You can also slide Venser out and use his ETB trigger to bring him back to hand for more uses.

Under Consideration

Cards that I'm considering:

• Flickerwisp and/or Felidar Guardian to be able to bounce/protect artifacts/enchantments or get more use from Decree of Silence and New Perspectives. Flickerwisp can also exile things forever with Sundial of the Infinite.
• Oblivion Ring and/or Detention Sphere both play well with Sundial, but without Flickerwisp or Felidar Guardian, they may not be worth it? Not sure. They have the advantage of being fetchable with Zur, which Cast Out does not.
• Ghostly Prison might be necessary to stave off early game aggression. Would provide redundancy with Island Sanctuary.
• Eldrazi Displacer can be a backup Deadeye Navigator. Lack the mana base to support it today, though.

Date added	6 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 25 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 36 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.68
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Soldier 1/1 W, The Monarch
Folders	EDH, EDH, Deck Inspo, 100 Budget EDH, I REALLY like these