Welcome to my Zur Saga deck. I wanted to share this as I think it is a very cool deck idea that not many people seem to have built (Only deck currently on tappedout with Zur the Enchanter as commander, Urza's Saga and Power Conduit- all essential cards to the gameplan). So anyway this deck is a mix between an artifact and enchantment theme, with tokens. The main gameplan of the deck is to keep Urza's Saga alive as long as possible to keep making constructs, mainly with Urza's Saga as these will get very big, very quickly. Now before we get further into the deck we need to have a discussion about exactly how Sagas work with a card like Power Conduit. Sagas trigger whenever they enter the battlefield or after your draw step at the beginning of your main phase. The next very important thing to know is that Sagas only sacrifice themeselves when they move to their last lore counter and there are no abilities on the stack. What this means, is that in response to the last lore counter you can remove the Saga counter in response. By the time the third lore counter finishes resolving the Saga checks how many lore counters it has and does not sacrifice as it does not have its maximum lore counter. For example with Urza's Saga and Power Conduit you can continuously remove the third lore counter in response to the trigger and continuously search out a 0 or 1 CMC artifact. This works both ways, if you want to continuously trigger the second lore counter of a saga you can remove the saga counter anytime before the trigger after your draw step. (Looking at you, Phyrexian Scriptures and your (kind of one-sided) infinite wraths).
So lets get down to the deck and all the pieces that make it work. I like to divide my decks into a couple of sections that help really put the most important pieces in spotlight. First lets look at the Sagas:
Sagas (10): Elspeth's Nightmare | Estrid's Invocation | The Fall of Lord Konda
| The Restoration of Eiganjo
| Phyrexian Scriptures | Time of Ice | Elspeth Conquers Death | The Eldest Reborn | Kiora Bests the Sea God | Urza's Saga
Look them over, mostly they are key interaction pieces.. very strong if continuously triggering some abilities. Estrid's Invocation is not a normal Saga, but it usually becomes a saga. What is amazing about it is that it is tutorable by Zur and can continuously blink itself, thus removing its lore counters and continuously triggering Saga abilities and not sacrificing ever. Obviously it can be other enchantments as well which can be very strong.
Next we have ways to make Sagas continuously trigger and not sacrifice.
Saga Goes On (8): Hex Parasite | Thrull Parasite | Soul Diviner | Tameshi, Reality Architect| Brago, King Eternal | Clockspinning | Power Conduit | Nesting Grounds
Something to note is that Hex Parasite can be tutored with Urza's Saga, Soul Diviner can only take a trigger off of Urza's Saga as it cannot take counters off of enchantments (has some synergy with Power Conduit though). Nesting grounds is a tutor-able land through Expedition Map from Urza's Saga (note, it can only remove counters at sorcery speed). Something not listed is Trade Routes which may usually be my second tutor with Zur as it can pick up Urza's Saga in response to the trigger to stop it from going to the graveyard. Also The Restoration of Eiganjo can reanimate Urza's Saga.
Next we have ramp and mana support. Ramp are cards that are just that simple, they help create additional mana very effectively. While mana support may not help create additional mana but maybe they help us create temporary mana or find mana.
Ramp (17): Scholar of New Horizons | Kelpie Guide | Vizier of Tumbling Sands | Grim Hireling | Everflowing Chalice | Sol Ring | Arcane Signet | Azorius Signet | Dimir Signet | Fellwar Stone | Orzhov Signet | Talisman of Dominance | Talisman of Hierarchy | Talisman of Progress | Inspiring Statuary | Unbender Tine | Smothering Tithe
Smothering Tithe is (obviously) OP with construct tokens BTW.
Mana Support (9): Weathered Wayfarer | Thada Adel, Acquisitor | Tribute Mage | Grim Hireling | Urza, Lord High Artificer | Expedition Map | Crucible of Worlds | Unwinding Clock | The Restoration of Eiganjo
Obviously since we are a non-green deck we run many of the 2 cmc artifacts to ramp us, but we like artifact ramp anyway because of our Constructs. Some of the lesser known ramp cards are Kelpie Guide / Vizier of Tumbling Sands / Unbender Tine. These are basically non-green cards that can untap lands, but any other permanents as well. The main reason they are chosen in this deck is not just for ramp, but to untap Urza's Saga to pump out more Constructs. Let me add a note that sometimes we may not even crack our treasure tokens as they can quickly grow our Constructs to become out of control. Urza, Lord High Artificer and Inspiring Statuary are key cards to take advantage of treasure tokens without needing to sacrifice them.
Before we talk about card draw here is what is tutor-able with our key card, Urza's Saga.
Tutorable with Urza's Saga (7): Hex Parasite | Everflowing Chalice | Expedition Map | Glaring Spotlight | Grafdigger's Cage | Sensei's Divining Top | Sol Ring
Lets go over these pieces slowly. Hex Parasite is a good, instant-speed way to remove counters from Sagas. Everflowing Chalice is a semi-normal ramp piece, but can become exceptional when there is a Power Conduit putting charge counters on it (otherwise don't tutor it with Urza's Saga). Expedition map tutors for one of our many useful utility lands. Glaring spotlight can make our huge constructs unblockable and hexproof, while also taking hexproof away from out opponent's creatures in the meantime. Grafdiggers cage is an amazing hate card against many decks. Sol ring is a good ramp card. Last but not least we have Sensei's Divining Top. A good card all around, no doubt. But what makes it exceptional in this deck is if we are continuously triggering Urza's Saga, we can put Top back into our deck, draw our top card then immediately tutor Top back onto the field, effectively drawing us cards and allowing us to not run out of Urza's Saga triggers as long as Top does not get removed somehow.
Next we have card draw. Now usually I build my decks with 10+ pieces of card draw. But this deck is very mana intensive, we use a lot of our mana on activated abilities especially with our lands, so usually it should be difficult to run out of cards as we spend a hefty amount of mana creating constructs. Nevertheless we have good card draw and some are tutorable by Zur.
Draw (8): Esper Sentinel | Soul Diviner | Tameshi, Reality Architect | Karn, Scion of Urza | Sensei's Divining Top | Mystic Remora | Rhystic Study | Bident of Thassa
A key thing to note is we can remove counters off of Mystic Remora to keep its upkeep cost down (or no cost on upkeep), which is a nice synergy in our deck.
Last lets talk a bit more about the gameplan. We have many utility lands:
Utility Lands (5): Deserted Temple | Hall of Heliod's Generosity | Nesting Grounds | Urza's Saga | Vesuva
The best being Deserted Temple to help make more constructs. Nesting grounds is also a great, sneaky way to remove Lore counters/ even speed up lore counters on other sagas!
Last but not least, we have a couple of ways to make more constructs:
More Constructs (3): Digsite Engineer | Urza, Lord High Artificer | Karn, Scion of Urza
Anyway thats it! You can take a look at the deck to see the pieces I did not go over. Its a bit of a complicated deck but I think its a bit too cool to be the only owner of a deck like this.
Side Note: The deck actually started as a Golos, Tireless Pilgrim deck and I completed it about a week before Golos was banned :(. But I was kind of lucky that Zur existed as there is no other commander that can tutor an Urza's Saga onto the battlefield (or hand for that matter). I had to make a few cuts but luckily nothing of dire importance was lost! And I didn't lose a since piece of making sagas continue.
Side Note 2: I wouldn't recommend playing this deck when there is a proliferate deck going on in your meta, they will force your sagas to go up in counters and sacrifice them when it is undesirable. (Looking at you Atraxa, Praetors' Voice)
