Arcane Laboratory

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Arcane Laboratory

Enchantment

Each player can't cast more than one spell each turn.

scottbaker91 on Zur the Enchanter Stax

6 months ago

Some of my favorite Zur Combos are: Teferi, Hero of Dominaria + Stasis // Solitary Confinement + Necropotence // Rest in Peace + Energy Field // Stasis + Azor's Elocutors // Basalt Monolith + Power Artifact // Winter Orb + Mind Over Matter

Sunder, Armageddon, Death Cloud will send your opponents back to the stone age while you fish out more enchants and punch them to death with Zur

Mana Breach, Mana Vortex, Oppression, Overburden are must have stax cards for Zur. The enchantments / creatures that keep your opponents from drawing or casting more than 1 spell per turn are really solid for stax ex: Arcane Laboratory, Spirit of the Labyrinth. Notion Thief + wheels will leave your opponent with 0 cards

Spellskite, Vanishing, Diplomatic Immunity, Steel of the Godhead, Mind Over Matter are all S tier for Zur

Approach of the Second Sun for another easy win con

Have fun crushing your opponents soul

legendofa on Cast And You Shall Reap

6 months ago

As I understand the Commander banlist (and as a very casual Commander player), it's kind of the "default" rule 0 discussion, intended for people who may not play with the same groups regularly. Personally, I'd rather have a default banlist and play a match than spend an hour debating whether or not Fastbond is fair in a deck that's "about a 7" whenever someone new shows up.

Once you have a dedicated and reliable group, it's perfectly acceptable to make your own banlist. If your group's okay with a proxied Ancestral Recall into Erayo's Essence  Flip + Arcane Laboratory lock in an otherwise mid-power deck, go for it! Your group, your rules. But two groups' definition of what's reasonable and fair can be completely different (which means a whole new rule 0 discussion from scratch), there has to be some level of compatibility between groups (otherwise it's not a meaningful format), and organized Commander tournament settings shouldn't be purely pay-to-win. The ban list is there to give a little bit of standardization for a format that's notoriously hard to standardize.

DreadKhan on Zurza's Saga

1 year ago

I love Urza's Saga in my Zur deck, but I don't really max out it's value, it's just another good card and a way for Zur to ramp me. It's nice to see someone take the time to lean into this! I have a few ideas for you, but most of them don't really use sagas, but I am a big fan of Zur decks and studied up on them a bit, most of the ideas are to increase the power level/offer backup plans that I think are thematically similar. If you're totally happy with this as is feel free to ignore, it's easy to make a Zur deck too strong and end up the archenemey

If you're going to be running Sensei's Divining Top, you might like Counterbalance, which Zur can find. Similarly, I feel like if you use Out Of Time you should consider Vanishing, this lets Zur wipe the board of creatures with safety, it also gives him useful protection. If you don't need Zur to keep swinging you can use some copy enchantments to lock creatures off the board, I think if you used Mirrormade (which I'm pretty sure you should run either way) and Estrid's Invocation, have Estrid's copy Out Of Time, then use Vanishing to protect Zur so you can swing next turn and get Mirrormade, copying the Estrid's Out Of Time, now you can just lock creatures off the board indefinitely, not sure if this is worth it or not, but I think all of the cards are good includes. I think since you can always choose to not return the Out Of Time creatures and then advance your board state with Zur it's probably worth a look vs pretty aggressive metas. There is also Copy Enchantment, I found in my competitive Zur list that having all 3 wasn't a problem very often, they're great to draw if someone has a Rhystic Study/Tithe, there are lots of splashy enchantments out there that are worth grabbing. If you do run a bunch of copy enchantment effects they are really good with All That Glitters as a fall back plan, ATG and a copy is sometimes enough to 1 shot people with Commander damage, I liked it because I already wanted the copy effects and I gained access to impressively large voltron at the cost of including only 1 card.

If Urza's Saga gets exiled somehow (or vs Proliferate maybe?), Luminarch Ascension can generate a ton of bodies, and while they'll be smaller they have flying, be 1 mana cheaper, and dodge Vandalblast. The Ascension is pretty easy to make work if you get it out early, and once it's online it's often the best thing you can do with your mana. If your meta is pretty harsh, you might toss in Solitary Confinement as a way to delay your demise, and if you're worried about sustaining Confinement all you need to add is Court of Cunning, this will pay for Confinement until you deck yourself, meaning you can use spare mana to make tokens while your opponent's can't do anything to you, they get swarmed by super cheap 4/4 Flyers.

Do you need to target your artifacts themselves for any of your interactions? I ask because I'm not sure if Hanna's Custody would be useful, it also protects your opponent's stuff, but when I play Zur I loved facing an artifact deck because you can just dig out Energy Flux and they either remove it or pretty much scoop. Flux can be a dead card, but when you run into a busted artifact deck this will punish them quite effectively, and Zur can dig it out whenever it's going to be relevant.

It's a pretty spicy card, but have you considered Hall of the Bandit Lord for Haste? Zur really wants Haste in my experience, but I built for cEDH and needed to move fast.

It's potentially pretty unfun, but if your Zur deck isn't often casting multiple spells you should consider Rule of Law/Arcane Laboratory if your opponents won't revolt, Zur already cheats out an enchantment and you can make tokens with mana, how many spells do you really end up casting compared to people playing more traditional decks? Lots of people like to run really low curve decks these days, Rule of Law effects (I'd also consider Archon of Emeria maybe, since those decks also love untapped lands) really make life hard for those decks. If your area has players that like small draw spells then Rule of Law is going to feel pretty good.

Azoth2099 on Sen Triplets - Esper Control (Seeking Help)

1 year ago

Iraeus

Okay, so if you're specifically trying to outdo Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait, you're going to have to make sure that you're not being outdone by it's immense card draw & Ramp. Deep Gnome Terramancer, Archivist of Oghma, Esper Sentinel, Alms Collector, Monologue Tax, Smuggler's Share, Consecrated Sphinx, Faerie Mastermind & Ledger Shredder will help accomplish this. Black Market Connections, Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top, Dark Confidant, Dark Tutelage & of course Necropotence are also great card draw options, but won't scale with whatever your opponents are doing. Tithe, Gift of Estates & Land Tax are generically great, but extra great in this context.

Consider Rule of Law, Arcane Laboratory & Archon of Emeria as well. Sanctum Prelate, Void Winnower & Chalice of the Void will also hit 'em with a big ole "NOPE" when adequately applied. Decree of Silence + Solemnity will do so as well.

Weird stuff like Deathgrip will also probably help you lock the game down, but it might not translate very well outside of trying to take down Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait lol. Depends on how heavy your group is, really.

Speaking of that, you really might just need more Counterspells or something! Stuff like Tale's End seems pretty good for your goal here. More Mana Rocks seems like a great idea here too. I'm sure you're buddy is running a bunch of traditional Ramp & Dorks, right? You absolutely must keep up, or you're gonna lose.

More Tutors will help you grease the wheels, too. They can get pretty expensive dollar-wise, but options like Diabolic Tutor, Diabolic Intent & Wishclaw Talisman are very affordable right now.

Let me know how you feel about these suggestions! Cheers!

DreadKhan on Utopian Prosperity

2 years ago

Luminarch Ascension definitely can attract attention when you play it, you either need to be in a pillowfort or have a wide board already. It makes lots of sense in a White deck that doesn't play a lot of other flyers, and would love to have access to some mid/late game, and expects to be able to block/be a bad player to swing at for whatever reason. In a deck where you already have a flyer on board usually (and possibly others as well), Ascension looks a little worse, but it also means you are more likely to be able to stop flying attackers to help get counters on Ascension. My solution is to run it in a deck where you have lots of support for it, I run it in Zur, where I put it in because he could fetch it, but found I liked drawing into it (especially early) a great deal. I'll list some stuff that can help it out below, first some 'fun' stuff, and second a bit of 'deeply unfun Stax' stuff, I'm not sure what you play against/people will tolerate.

Stuff like Archon of Emeria or Eidolon of Rhetoric (or even Rule of Law or Arcane Laboratory, or Deafening Silence or Ethersworn Canonist) can slow down players' ability to progress their board states, but your Commander comes with a mana sink attached that you can dump mana into. Rule of Law is a funny card, because it's really good in cEDH and against fairly competitive decks that hope to storm off, but vs decks with lots of big spells it can feel pointless, so it's not an especially salty stax piece in Casual play, even if it can be at the highest levels. Anyways, Ascension also likes stuff like this, it provides you with a potentially much stronger outlet for your extra mana, while possibly causing your opponents to waste some every turn due to Rule. Note, if you have Rule out, destroying Ascension will probably use up someone's spell for the turn, which probably will feel pretty bad for them. You could try Sterling Grove, which can find Asension or protect it, depending on the order you draw them. Greater Auramancy also exists, but it's pricey and does only one thing that may or may not matter, great to have both out though.

There are also stronger (and nastier obviously) things you can run like Crackdown, which will seriously hinder combat for anyone not running White creatures, which you (and your angel tokens) could ignore, but I'm not sure if this is appropriate for your power level, just mentioning that nastier stuff exists that make cards like Luminarch Ascension feel much better.

mlequesne on Neon Gitaxias Evangelion

2 years ago

I LOVE your deck it is as bastard as it can get :) I was thinking though that Arcane Laboratory doesnt allow you to win by either of your combos.

drummerjosh91 on Jin-Gitaxias helps break friendships

2 years ago

Arcane Laboratory if you wanna be really mean.

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