Laboratory Maniac

Creature — Human Wizard

If you would draw a card while your library has no cards in it, you win the game instead.

Discussion (47)

Dodd1979 on Fixed T7 Win! [[Kaho, Minamo Historian]] *Primer*

4 weeks ago

Firstly I will immediately say this, I know this isn't in any way shape or form a cEDH deck, this is a pure s**ts and giggles deck, so don't worry about running more counters and such, it's a deck that if it works, it works if it don't, better luck next time.

Secondly with the way the London Mulligan operates, you can now potentially go really aggressive and Mulligan for either Thassa's Oracle or Mana Severance into your starting hand and have a great opportunity to kick your combo into full gear quite regularly on turn 6.

Keep playing the Jank

Dodd1979

multimedia on Spellweaver: The Deck

4 weeks ago

Hey, I'll first comment here then at a later time at your Zombie deck.

The theme you have here is called Spellslinger and with Spellslinger you want less creatures than normal, more instants as well as sorceries. Spellslinger is essentially control in Commander therefore the cards you tap out for need to be impactful. If you're new to the Spellslinger idea then overall with less than $200 budget you've done well so far, but you forgot Command Tower. You have several really nice cards, but also some stinkers that could be upgraded on a budget.

Consider more lands and ramp? To keep mana open at all times when you cast noninstant spells. 31 lands is low, not really enough land when you want to be making your land drops each turn. My advice is try 36 lands and 12 or more ramp sources. If you don't want to add more lands than instead add more low 1-2 CMC draw or best a combination of both.

• Command Tower
• Storm-Kiln Artist
• Brainstorm
• Fellwar Stone
• Unexpected Windfall
• High Tide
• Impulse
• Thrill of Possibility
• Star Compass
• Lonely Sandbar: one mana draw to trigger Niv.
• Forgotten Cave
• Reliquary Tower: no max hand size.
• Mystic Sanctuary: recur instant or sorcery.
• Volatile Fjord: gives Scalding Tarn a Izzet dual land to search for.
• Shivan Reef
• Grixis Panorama

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If your primary win condition is Niv enchanted by Curiosity then you're going to want ways to shuffle all the cards in your hand back into your library. You'll want this effect to be able to keep drawing and doing damage with Niv since Niv only does damage to one target for each trigger. Ophidian Eye is another Curiosity. Each opponent will have 40 or more life thus you won't consistently have enough cards in your library to end all your opponents with Niv's damage without having more draw. Psychosis Crawler can help since it makes each opponent lose 1 life each time you draw a card.

Curiosity/Ophidian Eye is a may, you don't have to draw when you do damage with Niv. Because you can stop the combo then you can stop drawing so you don't draw from an empty library and lose the game. Stopping the combo also lets you cast a creature or sorcery to shuttle all cards from your hand back into your library to keep drawing and continue the combo. Whirlpool Warrior has this effect at least twice and Whirlpool Rider is only two mana.

The better cards for this effect are not budget options: Valakut Awakening  ^Flip, Winds of Change and Echo of Eons flashback. Awakening is an instant and Winds is only one mana.

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Consider streamline/cut the creature base down to the 10-15 best creatures, less creatures the better and use the other spots for more instants?

A streamlined example of the current creature base (sorted by CMC):

• Goblin Electromancer
• Birgi, God of Storytelling
• Guttersnipe
• Veyran, Voice of Duality
• Palladium Myr
• Archmage Emeritus
• Galazeth Prismari
• Talrand, Sky Summoner

I'm also suggesting some creatures upgrades who most have better interaction with Niv:

• Whirlpool Warrior --> Academy Drake
• Whirlpool Rider --> Fae of Wishes
• Psychosis Crawler --> Radiant Performer
• Tandem Lookout --> Skyclave Sentinel
• Storm-Kiln Artist --> Orvar, the All-Form
• Dualcaster Mage --> Relic Robber

Tandem Lookout soulbond to Guttersnipe/Electrostatic Field can draw a lot of cards because Lookout cares about any damage that the paired creature does and Guttersnipe does 2 damage to each opponent. You draw a number of cards equal to the number of opponents you have each time Guttersnipe triggers. Lookout is Curiosity, but the draw is not a may, you have to draw and Lookout can change who it's soulbond unlike auras.

Tandem Lookout can be soulbond to Niv, but it's risky because you can't stop the combo because you can't stop the draw without help. You'll need an instant way to shuffle all cards from your hand back into your library or an instant way to kill/bounce Lookout before you draw the rest of your library. If you don't do this you will lose the game from trying to draw from an empty library since you'll draw your entire library. Drawing your entire library can enable a win condition of Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and Jace has the advantage that he can draw card/cards to trigger Niv.

I've suggested a lot of card upgrades and hopefully given you advice to think about. Let me know your thoughts and if you would like me to continue in another comment including more cuts to consider. Good luck with your deck.

nbarry223 on No Land Challenge It Definitely Has To Be Affinity

4 weeks ago

I'd say that evoke cards where you exile a card to pay the cost, like Fury and its cycle, the Force of Vigor cycle, the Nourishing Shoal cycle are all some solid options here.

Paradise Mantle would definitely be a solid option as a free card that could potentially do something for you, but I'm struggling to think up a way to get that one mana without lands to equip, since Mox Opal and Simian Spirit Guide are both banned. Leyline of Abundance might be worth considering as well, but it's probably not that amazing, since you'd only have the mantle to enable it.

Ah - Chancellor of the Tangle

Ok, now that you can produce some mana, you could potentially do some really stupid stuff, not sure how far down the rabbit hole you want to go though.

I'd say a solid enabler as well would be Wild Cantor since it is two colors for your free cards if you decide to go that route, and it could store your mana from Chancellor of the Tangle

You could also now play Aether Vial to cheat stuff in.

There's lots of convoke cards begging to be broken as well, and you can get black creatures out in the form of Salvage Titan, so that's just something to think about.

If you were willing to play some of the flip lands that are technically not lands, I'm sure you could do some crazy convoluted stuff and win with Laboratory Maniac without lands, but it would no longer be an affinity deck, and you could argue it did technically have lands. I'm thinking convoke Endless Obedience into Angel of Glory's Rise after basically dumping your deck into the graveyard.

That's a far cry from the current build of the deck, so I'm just mentioning it instead of suggesting it.

Mana_Mythic_Legendary on Pursuing Perfection, Part 11: Simic …

1 month ago

All hail our magical gene-splicing overlords, having taken all elections by storm via a platform of ignoring the ever-loving Sharktocrab out of Ian Malcolm. Much as I love this color combo, I’m first to admit it’s a bit much: combining the draw and control of Blue with the ramp and board presence of Green is taking things to excess. Glorious, opponent-crushing excess. Play your cards right (haha) and you will neither have an empty hand nor an empty board. Maybe an empty social calendar, but that’s a problem for another color pairing.

All hyperbolic joking aside, there is considerable promise under Simic’s hood. Kruphix, God of Horizons supports the tendencies both colors to a nearly unbearable extreme. Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy doesn’t just break mana dorks, he shatters them, and don’t get any veteran started on the ruinous politics of Edric, Spymaster of Trest. And it’s not just the commanders: Prophet of Kruphix, banned though it may be, is a testament to the potency here. Mystic Snake is a constant presence for a reason, as is the Trygon Predator. There’s even a pair of worthwhile upkeep wins: Biovisionary, with the profligacy of cloning effects, is actually plausible in EDH (and hilarious), while Simic Ascendancy is downright heinous.

Blue and Green together encourage a beautiful game, a dance constantly wavering across the line between strength and subtlety that I, personally, find incredibly appealing. But we’re not here to talk only about the things I like: we’re here to talk about theme, and today we have three: Card Advantage, Counters Matter, and Tokens Matter. As always, please bear in mind that our focus here is not necessarily competitive but rather on thematic, archetypical commanders.

Card Advantage

In most games, you will have a solution to any given problem. Trouble is, that solution is somewhere in your deck and not in your hand. Where Green is equipped to solve the broadest spectrum of challenges, Blue is inclined to sidestep those problems, and fill up on those sidesteps with draw, until a solution to the game itself appears. Filling up Blue-style on Green’s kit? Wondrous. Whether tutoring or going full beast mode and drawing half your deck, Simic is singularly positioned to solve any problem by readying an overwhelming suite of answers and then slamming down enough mana to use all of them at once.

The original vintage of true bullshit, circa 2006. The sheer quantity of quality in Green’s menagerie of ETB effects is staggering. With hot garbage like the Snapcaster Mage and Gilded Drake shoring up those already beastly reserves, if you need it and it comes on a creature-shaped stick, you got it. I just hope you can tutor fast.

What is it about Innistrad and terrifying frogs?! This was the first new legend to impress me in a while. Milling yourself isn’t hard when you have blue on hand, and Grolnok’s presence means that instead of filling your graveyard you’re creating a permanent hand that’s safe from any interference that isn't a Riftsweeper. That’s incredibly appealing to me. It’s a little like a sugar-free, exile version of Enter the Infinite. Obligatory mention of the Hermit Druid goes here, but my first thought was actually Dreamborn Muse.

Every deck reaches a point where drawing land is no longer desirable. Every deck eventually draws lands once too often and suffers a crippling, disappointing crash-and-burn. Aesi is unimpressed. Combining a self-only Horn of Greed and Exploration on a 5/5 body, a little flooding is nothing to worry about. Drop a few things like Reshape the Earth, draw nine cards profit, play the additional lands you drew, draw more cards, and so on. You’ll catch a bit of a stink-eye off your opponents, but that’ll wash out. In mana.

Counters Matter

White hands out +1/+1 counters like candy, but doesn’t do much with them. In justice, any lifelink card with a pile of +1/+1 counters doesn’t need to do much. Just swing. Simic, though, seems to think that getting bigger should get you access to cool new things. Cards, for instance, via Fathom Mage, or creatures via Cytoplast Manipulator. And then, once you’ve done all that cool stuff… well, just swing.

To be honest, I don’t like this section, and our first commander is a perfect illustration why. Fair warning: salt incoming.

Ok, now THIS is a little much. I don’t even remember playing against this guy: I just didn’t like it from the first. It’s very easy to build, very powerful, VERY unsubtle. The reliability that comes of experience counters is undeniably potent and, in my opinion, boring. I like to think my own style is a bit more elegant than simply hosing down midgets, then turning a Blighted Agent loose. But then this is all just my opinion AND I own an Omnath, Locus of Rage deck, so what do I know?

This is both goofy and highly contextual. If you’ve got a Kenrith, the Returned King fanboy running around the local meta, you’re probably going to wreck face. There is a respectable pile of activated abilities in every color, let alone Blue-Green, that would let you build a deck with adequate support. It’s not the most optimal choice, but running the original legendary goo would certainly be the odd bit of fun.

I DO remember playing against this guy, though it was a while ago. If I recall rightly, the pilot refused to add Darksteel Reactor, instead relying on the Elusive Krasis and little else. Dude needed Freed from the Real, too. Things have changed. Now you can do silly stuff with Liquimetal Coating and any number of planeswalkers, ruin lives with Magistrate's Scepter, or whatever other hateful things come to your devious little mind. Options. Vorel has them.

Tokens Matter

This is more my speed. There are several contestants for best in token quantity, though Selesnya is probably the best in blending quality and quantity. Simic watched this contest, watched the parades of copy-paste legions, and decided there was a market for going hard in quality. Progenitor Mimic, Spitting Image, and Repudiate / Replicate are all examples of this trend: token copies. I’m not sure cloning someone’s field is more polite than actually stealing their stuff, but kicking Rite of Replication into the face of some smarmy bastard gloating over his Blightsteel Colossus would be a highlight for anybody.

Very direct, and nothing wrong with a little hexproof lite. Having Parallel Lives for your general, if we’re honest, has got to be a dream come true for a LOT of people. Just don’t cast rite of replication on the sphinx (you know the one) unless you have your Laboratory Maniac ready.

Oooooooooo. I like. Not quite enough to build, but I like! Drop Fable of Wolf and Owl, a card I’ve always wanted but never needed, and drop a clone every turn. And… on second read, this says choose, not target, so shroud does jack-all to prevent this… maybe I do want to build this…

Not bad! It’s not too hard to keep your creature base diverse, and a free copy of anything is nice. As said earlier, there’s a wealth of ETB effects to chose from, and doubling those effects is a great start to a plan. Just stay away from changelings.

And, for my personal favorite:

There is a pervading, understandable trend in commander toward tutoring needful things. My wife, however, hates tutoring: she’s not a patient creature, so asking her to wait while I dig for that one, particular solution is not conducive to a fun game, let alone suggesting she go digging herself. Rashmi was built for her with the intent of drawing so much that tutoring was pointless. Her effect was more a perk than anything. At worst, you draw an extra card every turn. At best, you get a freebie! The deck turned out to be so competitive that I… well, I kind of stole it back. I even splurged and got a Sensei's Divining Top, which with Rashmi is exceedingly rude, and added Counterbalance, a pairing which let me successfully counter Krosan Grip at a tournament. The raw card advantage and efficiency that Rashmi lends a deck, it turns out, can win games by itself.

That's it for this round. Thoughts and questions are welcome. I hope you enjoyed it, and will come back soon for Orzhov!

Selesnya

Gruul

Rakdos

Dimir

Azorius

Green, with links to the other mono-colors

garruk3 on Library: File Not Found

1 month ago

Just a thought, but Laboratory Maniac would be extremely fun in this deck.

henrypan321 on Vega's Watching the Value

1 month ago

Thanks for the suggestion, Reynan! Drogskol Reaver + Shabraz, the Skyshark draws the whole deck right? Since it's a mandatory effect, I'd have to run Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries to really use it though.

jacobpmesser on The Forbidden Forest

1 month ago

You know what's better than exiling your own stuff? Bringing it back. Not budget but add a few fetches, Renegade Rallier and Lurrus of the Dream-Den. Maybe some Unearth. Then, Archfiend's Vessel because a 5/5 flier on t2 is awesome. You could Persist Vessel and still get the 5/5. I play blue w/ Satyr Wayfinder (prob your best self-mill after Stitcher w/o going into blue for Hedron Crab) There's also Shriekhorn. No Fiend Artisan? And then, if you self-mill, Laboratory Maniac and (I play blue) Lazav, the Multifarious in case it gets milled. Sidisi, Brood Tyrant, Splinterfright, Nighthowler. Collector Ouphe for art gy hate. I think Desecrated Tomb is kind of useless without a good recur-engine.

Lowenstein on Treasure Hunt should be banned!!! (now w/ discord)

1 month ago

RatTail a few ways. We’ve got Laboratory Maniac in the sb, and also with Reliquary Tower we can draw tons of lands to keep the opponent off creatures while doing our own beats. I’ve won many games by Justina swinging with Swans, Fumarole, Bugbear, even Lab Maniac himself.