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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 |
| Planechase | Legal |
| Premodern | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Tiny Leaders | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Tidal Control
Enchantment
Cumulative upkeep (2) (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it.)
(2): Counter target red or green spell. Any player may play this ability.
Pay 2 life: Counter target red or green spell. Any player may play this ability.
Drakonas on
Zur the Enchanter: Lessons Learned
1 year ago
I came across a recent fact about how cumulative upkeep works that makes Zur even nastier... almost too nasty.
Cumulative upkeep states "At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then sacrifice it unless you pay its upkeep cost for each age counter on it."
Enter Solemnity, which is Zur pullable. If you stop the age counter from being placed, you never have to pay the upkeep cost...
Thus, Tidal Control and Inner Sanctum become super mean. Also, Energy Storm is an option, and you can use Reconnaissance to deal with untapping as well.
SideBae on
Aminatou in Progress
4 years ago
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So Preordain is awesome for the same reasons your Brainstorm and Ponder are... I suggest running it.
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Narset, Parter of Veils is a great way to limit your competitive opponents. Especially if you pair her with a well-timed Windfall . Ashiok, Dream Render happens to be another way to punish people for playing tutor-tribal kinds of strategies.
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Another hallmark of competitive decks is their ramp, especially zero and two-mana. In your description, you say you want to stay budget -- unfortunately, that rules out about all of the good zero mana ramp. ( Mox Tantalite is bad, and Mox Amber is hardly better most of the time.) So I suggest increasing your two-mana ramp, and maybe including Ancient Tomb if at all possible to speed up their presence on the board. Some to consider: Talisman of Progress , Talisman of Hierarchy , Talisman of Dominance , Coldsteel Heart , Fellwar Stone , Mind Stone , Everflowing Chalice , Prismatic Lens , etc. None of these should be more than a few bucks.
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Concerning your lands: I think you're running too many, especially if you add some of the ramp mentioned in (3). I'd cut four-ish, maybe five. Generally, once you have a few (3 - 4) lands, you'd rather have a rock and a land in hand than just two lands, since you can cast the rock without using your land-drop. I'm not sure HOW budget you want to keep this deck, but Mana Confluence and City of Brass are each around $10, and they're great in any three or more color deck. Pain lands ( Caves of Koilos , Adarkar Wastes and Underground River ) are better than your tapped lands like Sejiri Refuge , as far as I can tell.
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I think a reanimation package is probably better than running Show and Tell . Show and Tell is symmetrical, and is often actively dangerous to resolve in EDH, when everyone is trying to do busted stuff. I'm much more a fan of Buried Alive and Entomb to get your fatties in the bin, and then using Animate Dead , Dance of the Dead , Reanimate and/or Necromancy (which is $$$ for some reason) to get them back.
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Tutors like your Demonic Tutor are good, but like zero mana rocks they tend to be pricy (see Vampiric Tutor and Enlightened Tutor ). One I do suggest is Lim-Dul's Vault , which is only a couple dollars these days. It also happens to be instant speed, which is kinda dumb-powerful, if you ask me.
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Cumulative upkeep was designed to make powerful effects transient; however, Aminatou, the Fateshifter sorta changes that equation with her -1. Consider cards like Mystic Remora , which you can blink to keep around relatively indefinitely. Similar cards to consider are: Musician , Phyrexian Etchings , Tidal Control and Infernal Darkness (if you're particularly mean).
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Divining Witch is interesting -- I'd actually never seen that card before. If you're trying to exile your deck and win with your Jace, Wielder of Mysteries , I think Demonic Consultation is probably a better way... though you might want to keep both. Another method (that I think is worse) is to use the card Doomsday , which is only a few dollars. The problem is that if you run Doomsday , you'd likely want to run a Doomsday -package, so you could win by just casting it and drawing into your top card... For that, I'd suggest talking to someone smarter than me, as I've never been able to get the hang of what the hell is going on with that strategy. All I know is that the package usually has something like Gitaxian Probe and Lotus Petal and ends with me being dead.
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You may have good luck with card draw spells. Repeatable effects, like Phyrexian Arena and/or Dark Confidant , tend to be expensive; luckily, the spell versions are often decidedly less so. I suggest running a few or more of the following: Painful Truths , Night's Whisper , Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time (running both can be tough since delve can get in its own way), Fact or Fiction , Thirst for Knowledge , Concentrate , Chemister's Insight , Oona's Grace (questionable, due to the high mana requirement), Ancient Excavation (good with the reanimation mentioned in (5)), Archmage's Charm , Chart a Course , Syphon Mind , Deep Analysis and/or Words of Wisdom -- pay extra attention to the instants you can cast on an opponents end step. Another way to do this is simply to steal your opponents' card draw with Notion Thief or Plagiarize .
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Lastly, I know its around $11 these days, but I think Counterbalance would be dumb in this deck. Using your general's +1 will let you stack whatever you want on top, which can be especially devastating if you can keep an opponent's general off the board that way.
Good luck man! Love this deck.
SideBae on
BragoSTAX
4 years ago
Hey man! I got a few suggestions:
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Vintage Xerox-style cards are very powerful in EDH. Ponder and Preordain belong in pretty much any blue deck, and Brainstorm is good if you put in three or four more fetch lands to prevent yourself from getting Brainstorm -locked. Between them, these three will make sure you get to what you need and past what you don't; they may not look good, but they're busted. Some fetches (outside the Zendikar/Onslaught cycles) to consider: Grasslands , Flood Plain , Bad River (which will all grab your Hallowed Fountain and Prairie Stream ), Evolving Wilds , Prismatic Vista , etc.
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Swords to Plowshares is the best spot-removal in the game... I suggest running it, even though I'm generally against one-for-ones in EDH as usually they're simply not efficient enough; however, Swords to Plowshares is one mana, does not ramp your opponent like Path to Exile , and a single one-for-one is alright.
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Narset, Parter of Veils is an EXCELLENT card I see you're running. Consider universal mass-draw to accompany her: Timetwister is the best, but as it costs the same as a used car, Windfall is a much more common option.
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You've got a good amount of artifact ramp, but there're some other rocks you should consider. Talisman of Progress is a really good two-mana mana-rock you should consider, and Voltaic Key / Manifold Key pair well with your Mana Vault and Basalt Monolith . Even if your general is flickering the vault so it enters untaps, the keys will make two additional mana.
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Whir of Invention is an artifact-tutor to consider. If you have access, Transmute Artifact and Reshape are also great. These will get whatever Stax piece you need, or, more likely, find your Isochron Scepter if you have Dramatic Reversal in hand.
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Silence is a good form of combo-protection. On the turn you want to go off, it can be difficult to ensure that you're not facing any counter magic. Silence is a must-counter that you can use to blank an opponent's turn if necessary.
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There are some other flicker-able cards in your colors you should consider. Watcher for Tomorrow is a good way to Impulse every time you trigger your general. Rishadan Cutpurse is similar to your Rishadan Footpad , though being less mana to cast is significant; since Rishadan Footpad is four mana, it'll be competing with your general to be cast. I'm not sure if it's quite good enough for a final list, but I've seen Ichor Wellspring in a lot of Brago lists. If you choose to run snow-covered basics, Arcum's Astrolabe seems straight better than the wellspring. Finally, Snapcaster Mage can be BUSTED if you have the funds to get ahold of it.
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I see you have the Archaeomancer + Temporal Manipulation loop. Have you considered Savor the Moment instead of Temporal Manipulation ? If you flicker your general and three mana in rocks, you can pull off the loop with less mana (your general untaps the mana and himself).
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Depending on your meta, Devout Lightcaster seems like a pretty busted flicker target. Similarly, consider Chill , Sphere of Law and Tidal Control .
Good luck! Hope this helps.
KaraZorEl on
Chisei, Heart of Oceans Extreme Budget EDH
7 years ago
I didn't realize that Chisei would be good for removing age counters from stuff.
SomeDipshit on
Commanders by Power Level [EDH Tier List]
7 years ago
I might argue that Blind Seer could be moved up. There are a lot of really shitty color change or color specific cards that suddenly become playable if put in a Blind Seer deck.
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Yeah Idk, he can be built around and still provides access to mono blue control regardless. You can also troll people to death with any kind of color protection in play, so that's fun.