Elsha's Divining Top

Commander / EDH Artifact Combo Multiplayer RUW (Jeskai, America)

Metakazel

Instant (30)

• 1x Abrade
• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Argivian Find
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dig Through Time
• 1x Dizzy Spell
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Exclude
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Into the Roil
• 1x Leadership Vacuum
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Negate
• 1x Ojutai's Command
• 1x Opt
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Silence
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Wear / Tear
• 1x Whir of Invention

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Drawn from Dreams
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Supreme Verdict
• 1x Treasure Cruise

Land (33)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Azorius Chancery
• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Boros Garrison
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Deserted Beach
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 7x Island
• 1x Izzet Boilerworks
• 2x Mountain
• 3x Plains
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Steam Vents
• 1x Temple of Epiphany
• 1x Temple of Triumph
• 1x Training Center

Creature (7)

• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Dockside Extortionist
• 1x Etherium Sculptor
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Thassa's Oracle
• 1x Tribute Mage
• 1x Trinket Mage

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Smothering Tithe

Commander (1)

Artifact (20)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Cursed Totem
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Helm of Awakening
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Pentad Prism
• 1x Scrabbling Claws
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sentinel Totem
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

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Maybeboard

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Rhystic Study

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Elsha's Divining Top

Mildly competitive turbo-combo deck based on Elsha of the Infinite and Sensei's Divining Top. The goal of this deck is to hold our opponents at bay while we tutor for Sensei's Divining Top, which we then use to draw our entire deck and win the game.

Our basic gameplan is to ramp up quickly with our mana rocks, tutor for our key combo pieces, then cast Elsha and win the game. This deck is specifically designed for my play group, so YMMV with some of the utility cards.

Win Conditions

Elsha of the Infinite + Sensei's Divining Top

Elsha of the Infinite's Future Sight-on-a-stick is key to one of our winning combos. By using Sensei's Divining Top's {T} ability with Elsha's static, we can draw a card and then recast Top from our deck, which essentially turns Top into "{1}: Draw a card". This is useful at any point in the game, as it lets us trade excess mana for cards on our opponents' end steps.

With a cost-reducer like Etherium Sculptor or Helm of Awakening, we can do this as many times as we want, allowing us to draw our entire deck.

Finally, with Thassa's Oracle, we can turn this draw-engine into a win condition by just drawing our whole deck and then casting the Oracle.

Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter

By imprinting Dramatic Reversal onto Isochron Scepter with at least 2 non-land mana sources on the field, we can enable a few combos:

• Dramatic Scepter + 2 non-land mana + Scrabbling Claws: Exile all cards in opponents' graveyards.
• Dramatic Scepter + 2 non-land mana + Sensei's Divining Top: Draw as many cards from our deck as we wish (tap Top to draw a card, activate Scepter in response, let the Scepter activation resolve, then repeat. We will draw a card and put Top on our library, then draw Top, then keep drawing cards until we run out of Top activations on the stack. i.e. We will draw Top + N-1 cards from our library, where N is the number of times we activated Top.)
• Dramatic Scepter + 2 non-land mana + Codex Shredder: Mill all our opponents' libraries. We can also use this to mill ourselves and win via Thassa's Oracle if we have it in our hand already.
• Dramatic Scepter + 3 non-land mana: Produce infinite mana. Since Dramatic Scepter only costs 2 to activate, we can float 1 mana per activation with this method.

Card Descriptions

Mana

Mana Rocks

• Azorius Signet, Boros Signet, Commander's Sphere, Fellwar Stone, Izzet Signet, Sol Ring, Talisman of Conviction, Talisman of Creativity, Talisman of Progress, Arcane Signet: These are all good mana rocks that interact nicely with our Dramatic Scepter combo. Note that the guild Signets require another non-signet mana rock to function properly with the Dramatic Scepter combo.

Other Mana Sources

• Wayfarer's Bauble, Burnished Hart: Good ramp that can really help us get into the mid-game.
• Dockside Extortionist, Smothering Tithe: Treasure tokens are great for us. We can use them to ramp into Elsha, convert them into cards once we have Elsha + Top, or just keep them in reserve in order to cast Thassa's Oracle after drawing our entire deck.
• Lotus Petal: This card helps us go mana-positive while we draw our entire deck with Elsha + Top. The important factor here is that Petal produces colored mana, so if we're missing out on a single colored mana while we try to combo off (i.e. to cast Thassa's Oracle) then we can get it from Petal.

Card Manipulation

Tutors

• Trinket Mage, Dizzy Spell: Tutor for Sensei's Divining Top or Codex Shredder, or maybe Sol Ring if we need it to go off with Dramatic Scepter.
• Tribute Mage, Muddle the Mixture: Tutor for Etherium Sculptor, Helm of Awakening, or Isochron Scepter, as well as any of our 2-cost mana rocks.
• Enlightened Tutor, Fabricate, Whir of Invention: Tutor for any of our artifacts that we are missing for our combo.
• Mystical Tutor, Spellseeker: Tutor for an instant or sorcery, most likely Dramatic Reversal to combo with Isochron Scepter, but we could also grab counterspells, other tutors, etc. if necessary.
• Argivian Find, Buried Ruin: Grab a key artifact that ended up in our graveyard (either because it was destroyed, or because we milled it there).
• Inventors' Fair: I don't actually know how often this ability will be available, but if we end up with three artifacts on the field, it's a good (albeit relatively slow) way to grab a combo piece.

Generic Card Draw

• Narset, Parter of Veils: If we use Narset's ability twice, we're net positive by one card, and her static ability is very good disruption against other decks that want to draw lots of cards.
• Mystic Remora: Good card draw engine in the early-mid game. Forces our opponents to make hard decisions about their game plan.
• Dig Through Time, Drawn from Dreams, Fact or Fiction, Treasure Cruise: Convert mana (and cards in our graveyard) into new cards.

Card Filtering

• Brainstorm: If we want to cast a non-Instant card at instant speed, we can Brainstorm to put it back on top of our library then cast it with Elsha. This can turn cards like Supreme Verdict, Drawn from Dreams or Treasure Cruise into instant-speed utilities.
• Opt, Ponder: Just good cantrips that give us options.

Defense

Permission

• Arcane Denial: Cheap counter that we can use to prevent anyone interrupting us during our combo. We generally want to save this one until we're about to win, because letting them draw two cards is not ideal.
• Counterspell, Dovin's Veto, Negate: Solid counterspell options to deal with big threats.
• Exclude: Good denial against enemy commanders.
• Ojutai's Command: Nice versatile spell, default mode will be Counter + Draw but we could also use this to get back a Dockside Extortionist or Etherium Sculptor.
• Muddle the Mixture: We would rather transmute this for Isochron Scepter, but we can use it as a counter if necessary.
• Narset's Reversal: Keep in mind this doesn't actually remove the spell, but we're probably only using it in a scenario where we get an advantage out of it.
• Swan Song: The fact that this is only one blue makes it very valuable to protect Elsha the turn we cast her, or when we're trying to combo off.

Protection

• Lightning Greaves: Equip to Elsha after casting her.
• Into the Roil: This can bounce Elsha in response to targeted removal, or act as temporary creature removal, while being able to replace itself.
• Silence: We can cast this before we combo off, or on someone's upkeep to try and prevent them from comboing this turn.
• Teferi's Protection

Disruption

• Cursed Totem: My playgroup has a lot of creatures with activated abilities, so I run this card as a way to mess with them. YMMV.

Removal

Spot Removal

• Abrade
• Generous Gift
• Leadership Vacuum
• Rapid Hybridization
• Swords to Plowshares

Board Wipes

• Supreme Verdict
• Cyclonic Rift
• Blasphemous Act

Artifact/Enchantment Removal

• Abrade
• Wear / Tear

Edit History

07/09/2023

I've swapped a few cards over the past two years, so this update is just bringing the tappedout list in line with what I'm actually playing now.

• Glacial Fortress -> Prairie Stream
• Clifftop Retreat -> Arid Mesa

• Sulfur Falls -> Training Center

  • I struggled with the basic land requirement of these lands

• Skycloud Expanse -> Deserted Beach

  • I've never liked the filter lands, mostly because I keep tapping my lands wrong and then ending up with just a single filter land

• Mystic Monastery -> Temple of Epiphany

• Mountain -> Temple of Triumph

  • Wanted to get the temples in for some extra land value

• Foundry Inspector -> Burnished Hart

• Trophy Mage -> Dizzy Spell

  • With two other cost reducers already in the deck, Foundry Inspector seems like overkill. We swap these two out for some better ramp and another way to tutor for Top.

• Snap -> Into the Roil

  • I found that I often valued the card draw over the mana savings from Snap.

• Pull from Tomorrow -> Mystic Remora

  • I struggled to assemble enough mana for Pull from Tomorrow to be worthwhile, and Mystic Remora just generates so much value.

• Abeyance -> Silence

  • Missing out on the card draw from Abeyance isn't enough to ruin the upside of Silencing all of our opponents, instead of just one.

• Dispel -> Rapid Hybridization

  • Wanted another source of removal rather than another niche counter.

• Jace, Wielder of Mysteries -> Thassa's Oracle

  • Oracle is just a much easier card to win with after drawing our entire deck.

• Izzet Charm -> Ojutai's Command

  • I just never managed to get the value I wanted out of Izzet Charm, and Ojutai's is a nice way to counter a commander and draw a card.

• Kykar, Wind's Fury -> Teferi's Protection

  • Still not sure about this one, since Kykar is good mana value over time, but I usually ended up needing another source of protection and Kykar was just asking a little too much.

• Worn Powerstone -> Wayfarer's Bauble

  • Bauble is much nicer to have early game.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	9 months
Key combos	Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter Elsha of the Infinite + Sensei's Divining Top
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	2 - 0 Mythic Rares 35 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 28 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.39
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Elephant 3-3 G, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Treasure
Folders	Yarok inspiration, I may try commander