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Shimmer Zur Storm

Commander / EDH* Combo Competitive Storm WUB (Esper)

Suasion

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Instant (32)

Enchantment (4)

Land (29)

Sorcery (11)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Zur the Enchanter

Artifact (19)

Creature (4)

Sideboard

Creature (3)

Sorcery (1)

Instant (3)

Artifact (1)

This is an Ad Nauseam / Doomsday storm combo deck. The deck can win as early as turn 1, and averages a goldfished T3-T4 win or a T4-T5 win with moderate disruption.

It's heavily based on Skuloth's Ad Nauseam Doomsday Zur as the starting point but has a storm focus rather than going all in on Doomsday -> Laboratory Maniac to win.

See the comprehensive google doc version here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rNK2kebMRsRlAfbahELVlw_hx2obCXsfF93mKpl3yPE

See the new and improved version here: Tainted Shimmer Zur

- The primary wincon is to resolve an Ad Nauseam with Angel's Grace to not lose the game for negative life and draw the deck. This typically happens off a large draw, possibly Ad Naus -> Yawgs -> AG + Ad Naus. On a main phase we play Lab Maniac + a draw spell with an empty library to win. At instant speed we storm off with Shimmer Myr + Aetherflux Reservoir . This is a great way to sneak a win after a counterspell war between two opponents is over.

The deck plays similarly to the standard DD Zur in that we are greedily racing to your combo finish with some control elements. We do not run cards to slow down others and must rely on counterspells to stop other decks while protecting your combo. There are several avenues to get ahead, some exaples of ideal starts are:

  • Dump fast mana and refill your hand with a wheel

  • Race to an Ad Nauseam as fast as we can

  • Slam Zur with protection to fetch Necropotence with mana to storm off on end step

Along the way we may encounter stax pieces that require removal. If we are confident Zur will resolve and swing, allow the stax pieces to hold back your opponents. A tutored Grasp of Fate hits each opponent's best permanent and can turn the game around. Otherwise problematic stax pieces need to be bounced or countered.

Shimmer Myr seems like a cute way to not lose cards to an greedy EOT Necropotence draw, right?

You're not wrong. It's fairly common to keep a fast but otherwise crappy hand, T2 Zur, T3 attack (if opponents let you get this far), get 30+ cards off Necropotence , find and flash in Shimmer Myr then flash in mana positive rocks/ rituals to gain huge acceleration and probably even win that turn.

With Shimmer Myr out, if you resolve Aetherflux Reservoir you can respond to any instant speed removal (outside of Krosan Grip which very few play anyway) by flashing in artifacts for more life/storm before it's destroyed.

If you think that's all it's good for however, you are missing out on some super spicy Aetherflux Reservoir tech. Behold, the ruling on gatherer:

The number of spells you’ve cast is counted only as Aetherflux Reservoir’s triggered ability resolves. For example, if you cast a spell, then respond to the triggered ability with a second spell, you’ll gain 4 life total.

The implications are pretty interesting. Rather than blindly casting and resolving spells at sorcery speed, you cast spells at instant speed in response to the current Aetherflux trigger. When the triggers resolve they each see the full total number of spells cast that turn which end up counting for MUCH more life.

This was covered by an article here: http://landdestruction.com/aetherflux-reservoir-in-edh/

but the article says this stack manipulation is not useful "because who has 7 instants and the mana to cast them all in a row?"

Well, we do: Every artifact in the deck can be flashed in at instant speed virtually for free with Helm of Awakening and Shimmer Myr on the table.

In a 1v1 with 20 life each Tendrils of Agony is clearly a better card. It requires a stifle effect (rarer than counters) to truly stop, and fast mana acceleration means you tend to grow your available mana into the tendrils so you can pay for counterspells easier.

In multiplayer EDH with 3 players of 40 life each, playing Tendrils of Agony becomes much more challenging in a deck that doesn't go infinite. Tendrils needs a very high storm count to actually win the game.

Assuming a worst case scenario where all 3 opponents have 40 life (unlikely but possible), you would need:

This becomes easier as opponents lose life during the game, but it's pretty clear that you want to either get infinite storm to use Tendrils of Agony or go with a different approach to storm. Even when bouncing all your cheap mana rocks with Hurkyl's Recall it's difficult and impractical to go over 40 storm with the current deck plan.

Compare this to Aetherflux Reservoir , which can easily gain you life back from high negative life totals into such high positives that you can afford to draw your library several times over AND kill 3 full health opponents, with the added utility of killing hatebears that may be stopping you from targeting them first, such as True Believer . It's a permanent so it can sit around, accruing incremental advantage through life gain off your normal spells, although smart opponents will know to remove it ASAP.

Let's compare the tendrils storm requirement to the largest storm requirement with Aetherflux Reservoir , you drew into a god hand of Ad Nauseam , Angel's Grace and some cheap mana to cast them on turn 1 and draw the library.

You start at -118 life (125 is the total CMC of this deck), you have just cast Aetherflux Reservoir and are sitting at storm 10. Cards cast were (let's say):Land, Dark Ritual , Mana Crypt , Lotus Petal , Angel's Grace , Ad Nauseam , Chrome Mox , Mana Vault , Helm of Awakening , Sol Ring , Aetherflux Reservoir .

According to the formula in the # of spells to win accordion:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=L%2B((W%2F2)(2(S%2B1)%2B(W-1)))%3E(50*T),T%3D3,S%3D10,L%3D-118,W%3E0,W%3Dinteger

you need 16 or more spells to win, with 26 total storm. This absolute worst case possible for Aetherflux Reservoir storm is 3 storm more than the minimum number of spells possible for a very convoluted Tendrils of Agony storm line. Those 16 spells gain you a whopping 296 life, putting you from -118 to 178 life. Casting any 16 spells is easier than casting Tendrils of Agony three times since you tend to net mana or be mana neutral by casting all artifacts in the deck, free due to Helm of Awakening .

The Shimmer Myr Shenanigans example:

With the Shimmer Myr line, holding priority and responding to the first Aetherflux trigger (see the accordion panel for details) this gets easier. Let's say you played your Ad Nauseam sequence with different cards, cast Mana Vault and Shimmer Myr after Aetherflux Reservoir , gained +11 + 12 life, going to -95 life and storm = 12.

The link to the equation is:

https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=L%2B(W)(W%2BS)%3E(50T),T%3D3,S%3D12,L%3D-95,W%3E0,W%3Dinteger

Which means you only need 11 more spells to win, ending at only 23 total storm. The highest possible storm requirement for Aetherflux Reservoir is equal to the minimum possible storm line for Tendrils of Agony , except this can all happen at instant speed and requires little to no mana while the Tendrils line requires a very heavy mana investment.

The above storm count was counted using an optimized play to conserve mana, it's actually possible to get Shimmer Myr out with 10 storm count rather than 12. In that case you only need 12 spells cast to win, ending at 22 total storm count, beating out the minimum possible storm line for Tendrils of Agony

Keep in mind for a more optimal situation, only 12 spells are needed to gain 144 life with trigger stacking with storm = 0. If you have 7+ Life, the game is now over. Compare this to Tendrils, which needs at MINIMUM 23 storm.

YOLO pile: Gush , Gitaxian Probe , Lion's Eye Diamond , Yawgmoth's Will , Laboratory Maniac

Protected pile: Frantic Search , Silence , Gush , Laboratory Maniac , Gitaxian Probe

  • When storming with Necropotence on the field, cards discarded to Frantic Search or other discard effects aren't exiled immediately. An exile trigger goes on the stack for each card. You should respond to these triggers instead of allowing the cards to be exiled in order to use them for Cabal Ritual threshold, Snapcaster Mage flashback or Quicken + Yawgmoth's Will .

  • Chain of Vapor is an amazing removal spell, ritual and storm enabler. If there is a must remove permanent you can bounce a different opponent's permanent and force them to sacrifice a land to remove the threat. You can bounce your own mana positive rocks and sacrifice all your lands to make enough mana/storm on storm turns or mana tight Doomsday piles. You can even remove a problem permanent at the end of your chain!

  • If you have enough life with Aetherflux Reservoir to kill at least 1 opponent but not everyone, feel free to pass. You can respond to threats by killing the caster to make their threatening spell fizzle. Just be cautious if you suspect someone plays Krosan Grip . On your next turn you can use the life to Necropotence or Ad Nauseam for the cards needed to win.

  • When using Hurkyl's Recall / Dramatic Reversal / Chain of Vapor effects with a Sensei's Divining Top in play you can get a free draw if the bounce/untap spell is cast in response to the draw trigger. The Sensei's + a card will end up in your hand.

  • Scroll Rack -> tutor -> untap/bounce Scroll Rack lets you see an unfair amount of cards on storm turns

  • If you have a remaining land drop for the turn and a fetchland in hand, you can put a land into your DD pile to reduce the number of cards to draw to 4

  • If you have a low enough number of cards in hand post Doomsday, you can use Timetwister or Windfall to draw your pile. Make sure opponents can't exile your graveyard for Timetwister or play card draw spells for Windfall so you won't deck yourself.

  • With Necropotence on the field you can exile cards from your pile to empty your library faster

  • If mana is tight and rituals are in hand pre- DD you can cast them, put them into your DD pile, recast them and even cast them a third time in the same turn with a Yawgmoth's Will

There is a lot of math involved in storming with this deck. You can use the following formulae to speed up the process for your playgroup if you pull them up on your phone. Unfortunately tappedout will not allow direct links to non- tappedout/imgur pages so they will need to be copied manually.

The total CMC cost of the deck not counting Zur is 125. For Ad Nauseam life tracking purposes it's much easier to calculate [Current Life] - (125 - [CMC of cards not in library])

Wolfram alpha link below. Replace sample values with your actual values and use the substitution result as your new life total.

Variables:

L = current life

C = CMC of all cards not in the library before the AN (cards in hand, GY, exile, battlefield)

Life total after drawing the library with Ad Nauseam

  • L-(125-C),L=35,C=15

  • Defaults set to 35 starting life, 15 total CMC of cards not in library

  • http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=L-(125-C),+L%3D35,+C%3D15

  • Calculates to -79 life in the default vars

Variables:

S= Starting storm count with Aetherflux Reservoir on the field

N= Ending storm count

L= Life total before the Aetherflux Reservoir lifegain begins

W= Number of spells you need to cast to deal 50 damage to T targets

T=Number of targets you want to deal 50 damage to (assumed to be 3 players in default formula)

Life total after playing spells

  • L+(((N-S)/2)(2(S+1)+N-S-1)),L=30,S=3,N=15

  • Defaults set to 30 starting life, starting storm count 3, ending storm count 15

  • https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=L%2B(((N-S)%2F2)(2(S%2B1)%2BN-S-1)),L%3D30,S%3D3,N%3D15

  • Calculates 30 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8 + 9 + 10 + 11 + 12 + 13 + 14 + 15 = 144

Number of spells to win

  • L+((W/2)(2(S+1)+(W-1)))>(50*T),T=3,S=5,L=-67,W>0,W=integer

  • Defaults set to -67 starting life, 3 targets (3 players to kill), starting storm count 5

  • https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=L%2B((W%2F2)(2(S%2B1)%2B(W-1)))%3E(50*T),T%3D3,S%3D5,L%3D-67,W%3E0,W%3Dinteger

  • Solves for W where W would be the required number of spells to cast, in this case 17, to gain 238 life, going to 171 life, enough to kill 3 players.

Variables:

S= Starting storm count with Aetherflux Reservoir and Shimmer Myr on the field

N= Ending storm count

L= Life total before the Aetherflux Reservoir lifegain begins

W= Number of spells you need to cast to deal 50 damage to T targets

T=Number of targets you want to deal 50 damage to (assumed to be 3 players in default formula)

Life total after playing spells

  • L+(N-S)*N,L=30,S=3,N=10

  • Defaults set to 30 starting life, starting storm count 3, ending storm count 15

  • https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=L%2B(N-S)*N,L%3D30,S%3D3,N%3D15

  • Calculates 30 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 = 210

  • This gains you 66 more life than the normal trigger resolution for those 12 spells!

Number of spells to win

  • L+(W)(W+S)>(50T),T=3,S=5,L=-67,W>0,W=integer

  • Defaults set to -67 starting life, 3 targets (3 players to kill), starting storm count 5

  • https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=L%2B(W)(W%2BS)%3E(50T),T%3D3,S%3D5,L%3D-67,W%3E0,W%3Dinteger

  • Solves for W where W would be the required number of spells to cast, in this case 13, to gain 18*13 = 234 life, going to 167 life, enough to kill 3 players.

  • This requires 4 fewer spells to kill the table than the normal trigger resolution!

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Revision 72 See all

(5 years ago)

+1 Arcane Signet main
-1 Talisman of Hierarchy main