Nice rewrite too mmcgeach!.

I have a question related to your deck (actually about mine, but your experiences might help), I notice that you play relying only on empyrial armor and RIP combo, how's that working out for you? Sometimes do you feel the game is controled but you still can't win fast enough? Because I had this problem before I added my Altar combos.

I ask this mainly because I'm thinking of removing those combos because they are just way too convoluted to assemble under pressure and against enemy interaction when needed, I'm even considering the doomsday shell you suggested early.

Do you have any other ideas of fast-ish win conditions for me (and you?)? Not doomsday ones?

@VelvetVendetta The two combos I run, while they look slow, are actually terrific. I just added a section on "win conditions" to address this.

Basically, the two win conditions I have really overperformed. I thought they'd be weak, and I spent time looking for other wincons, but I now think you don't need them. Having less dead cards (like redundant or tertiary wincons) also makes the whole deck better, by increasing the amount of interaction and business the deck packs. I mean, what are we at here, 3 total dead cards? That's insane.

But, I think the fastest wincons I've seen are Demonic Consultation + Laboratory Maniac, at 2 cards and 4 total mana is pretty good, and it's pretty hard to disrupt. That also has overlap and synergy with Doomsday. I also like Ad Nauseam + Phyrexian Unlife / Angel's Grace, although there again you probably want to use Lab Man for the actual win (although people have suggested Sickening Dreams and even Repay in Kind, but that seems horrible.) I don't think you want to go with infinite mana combos like Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter or Lion's Eye Diamond and Auriok Salvagers. I'm not sure. The other interesting wincon in Zur is the artifact-storm one with Hurkyl's Recall, Helm of Awakening, and Aetherflux Reservoir. But, that's pretty hard to assemble.

Not sure what's best.

I know I've said it a bunch of times by now but Stasis would be really awesome to ensure your voltron plan will work despite how much time is needed, I won so many games with it that I can't really figure out why would you run Daybreak Coronate without it, the vigilance to couple with stasis is what makes that card really strong, with the lifelink being a bonus on top of it.

@VelvetVendetta re: Stasis.

I just have never wanted this. I don't think I've ever lost by the time I have Zur enchanted with both Empyrial Armor and Daybreak Coronet, which is the only time Stasis would be useful. Just seems too much like a "win-more" card. I'll try to consider over the next few games if it would help, but I'm not super optimistic on it.

Very nice, Cartouche of Ambition is way better than Daybreak if you are not planning to run Stasis anyways, still, are you sure you absolutely need a lifelink enchantment? I mean with Zur already hitting for 7+ why not just rely on Solitary Confinement to keep you alive?

I anticipate you would answer "but I want to draw more cards with Necro", my answer to that is "are you sure that's really necessary?" Seems like the epitome of a win-more case, you should be able to win with the first 20 cards (I win most games that I'm able to fetch Necro early, almost all of them tbh)

I missed my lifelink when I decided to drop it but over time I adjusted to this new reality so if needed I will fetch for confinement before things go really south, that is, if I cannot just draw 20 and kill people before they have their chance to kill me.

Perhaps you have a lot of blood pod on your LGS with Ruric Thars and Mirror Entities trying to chop your head off but even in that case I would go for more removals/wipe instead of a lifelink answer.

The key for dropping the lifelink is acknowledging that the cases you most need life, desperately for a "round two necro" are also the cases things are going south and you are most likely not able to hit with (or even cast) Zur at all, or perhaps locked in some combination of aven mindcensor/blood moon/stony silence, meaning you cannot benefit or fetch the lifelink anyways to get you out of this situation.

Whilist the most of the cases you're able to hit with Zur multiple times and use the extra life to draw even more cards with necro are usually games you would most likely already win just by hiting with Empyrial Armor and holding off with Solitary Confinement if things get a too scary.

I would also probably go for Rule of Law instead of Arcane Laboratory because of REB (and variant), the decks that run it are exacly the decks that would be most interested in destroying the lab effect.

but I suppose that's a completely meta thing.

If you want to increase your clock Copy Enchantment is a very versatile enchantment that can double your Empyrial Armor.

I also testing Dimir Charm as a way to cheat my counterspells count and removal in the same slot, it kills Aven Mindcensor and Containment Priest and in some cases Scavenging Ooze should work well enough for me for those reasons, idk about your particular list tho.

NOTE: Counterbalance worked so damn well in my meta.

@VelvetVendetta: Glad Counterbalance has worked out for you!

Re: Cartouche of Ambition

Yes! This card has been pretty strong. It's way less dead if you draw it than Daybreak Coronet which is almost literally uncastable. It's rare that the -1/-1 does anything important, but it's not unimaginable. I was winning a game against Gitrog where I stole The Gitrog Monster with Gilded Drake and then cast cartouche on the Gitrog, killing off his Dark Confidant. Turned Gitrog into a 3-turn clock with general damage, and drew me more cards off Necro. Was a pretty huge blowout.

Re: life gain.

I agree that 40 starting life is usually enough to engineer a win out of a black combo deck, but this is not that deck. I don't have a quick combo that I'm trying to draw into to win before anyone else can disrupt me. I'm trying to slow down other people until they run out of resources and then win. I think this is a major difference with your list, which has certain Buried Alive-fueled reanimation combos that can immediately end the game. My wincon is to get Zur enchanted with empyrial armor and win over a few turns - but it's critical to be able to keep drawing answers over those turns. I have to draw more counterspells every turn to deal with the threats and interaction my opponents deploy at me and at Zur. The lifegain-into-card-draw isn't winmore for me, it actually is the win. It's how the lock works.

There's also a lot of games where I'm low on life and need to refill. Sometimes I'm literally Necropotence locked where I don't have enough life to draw more cards, and I'm not drawing them naturally since I'm skipping my drawstep. Othertimes I just need more life to survive Mana Crypt or a few attacks. People always attack me and I don't have a creature presence, so the life total, it dwindles.

(Also Solitary Confinement + Empyrial Armor is less of a combo and more of a nonbo. You skip your draw step, discard a card, and every turn you're hitting for less with the empyrial armor. There's no way you'll have enough resources to protect your Zur or your Solitary Confinement. You need the Necropotence + lifegain to make it work.)

Re: Rule of Law vs. Arcane Laboratory

Fair points, all around. For now I don't actually want Arcane Laboratory in play that often (metagame matchups), and I'm happy to just pitch it to Force of Will, Misdirection, and Chrome Mox.

Re: Copy Enchantment

I don't know... it seems dead frequently. I don't think I need it to speed up the voltron win; I'd rather just have another counterspell (or, protection like Diplomatic Immunity or Vanishing) to help seal the deal, while still being useful at other times. Most other people don't play enchantments I'd want to copy, outside of Carpet of Flowers or Sylvan Library... if I'm in a position to copy someone's Animate Dead probably most of the damage is already done.

Testing Induced Amnesia.

It's pretty inconsistent. It's good in basically two scenarios:

1) you have a large hand of medium stuff, particularly no combo pieces, and want to draw a new hand.

2) you have Chains of Mephistopheles or Notion Thief in play and have an opponent with enough cards that you want to mind twist them.

For the most part, drawing it is kind of brick. But fetching it out in either of these situations is pretty strong, except that these situations are kind of rare, and probably win-more.

Lifelink or Not to Lifelink Issue:

I think we both (or at least you) misjudged one another lists in terms of speed, my deck only rarely will combo off quickly, the only times I combo off on T4 is when I make turn 1 Mana, Mana Crypt > Intuition or Buried Alive, which are not that often.

That being said the way I most usually win is by the exact same fashion you described, grinding out resources, but admittedly using Jin-Gitaxias or Sun Titan (instead of multiple necro waves) to do that.

My deck does "decide the game" very quickly tho, with an early Jin doing his thing or even Cataclysm/Geddon with any of my targets or Zur in game winning becomes just a matter of bureaucracy at that point. One of my most common fast gameplans its the very known to you "Zur T2, tutors for reliquary tower, draw into 25 cards and hit lethal one opponent at a time" tactic, but again, I do not find necessary to have lifelink to perform this play, the 25 first cards have always been enough to control the game until it ends (3 turns later).

Idk, I just find it hard to believe you think its impossible to control 3 players with Necro+Confinement alone (the confinement, although as you pointed out, makes us discard (exile) a card, it still works to make sure you can safely go very low on health), since I do that play all the time, almost everyday I play it will be a game when I do that xD.

Ofc sometimes I ended up necro stucked, sometimes I felt I would like to have more life to be able to fetch necro istead of a Rhystic Study or Mystic Remora because I was too low on the midgame, with Lifelink on the deck I wouldn't need to do that ofc, but those are not very common game states.

The most common is, Necro+Reliquary for 25 = Win, or Necro for 9, then with that nine new cards very usually find the reliquary or thought vessel, next turn necro for 15 more = Win.

So, while I do acknowledge the benefits of having such a luxury of multiple necro waves I stand unconvinced they are actually paramount to win, even on a pure control stance (and we are even disregarding the fact that you'd also have yourself a way to end the game "quickly" in RIP combo,a 1 card combo with Zur in the game)

PS: If you have WAY MORE aggros on your meta, perhaps you do actually NEED the lifelink, but then again, I'd probably use more removal instead

Rule vc Arcane: Fair enough, but keep that in mind if your meta gets swarmed by grixis like mine.

Copy Enchantment: it will usually copy Grasp of Fate, most people cannot proceed their game after the second grasp, and yeah, it COULD make your voltron plan quicker. Thing is, if you ever think that you need more removal OR more damage for Zur to fetch you can fit copy enchantment as both of them, improving slot efficiency (I usually used to copy reanimates but ended up cutting it due to the fact it cannot combo with sun titan in the way the other reanimates do), even then sometimes I miss the double grasp play.

Induced Amnesia: I wouldn't use it in a million years, if the cards were to the graveyard I would likely include it, but exiling everything without any way to control it (aside from wasting my aura of silence or removal spell on it) before even knowing the cards I will get from it its a obvious no from me, I would run Scroll Rack on that slot instead, especially with Counterbalance on the list.

OFF TOPIC: I will test mystic remora's dad, just noticed the Thought Vessel effect on it, that opens a new Empyrial Armor win without necro, and replaces the need to find Reliquary Tower if I have him on game for drawing 25 with necro.

I still would always choose Jin for entomb, but if it comes in my hand I will be glad to discard and reanimate him as gameplay (he can be useful to setup my next plays by being a discard outlet too)

as a game plan*

@VelvetVendetta, I can't usually draw 25. Everyone in my meta plays tymna or stax bears or elves at the least; and there's two guys that play just actual midrange. I'm usually at about 30 life by the time I get Necro in play; when I attack with Zur I don't have other blockers and I'm going to take 8-12 before my next turn. It's as if people have learned to attack the black players who are trying to tutor for necro or ad naus since the early damage significantly impacts their ability to trade life for cards.

I actually was thinking about Scroll Rack - they play it in other Zur builds (artifact storm combo). Might be good with the high number of shuffle effects; but also just seems like it's mostly good only if you already have a lot of cards. But also with Counterbalance of course... I wonder if Land Tax would be worth it then? IDK. I might test it.

In that case I would run a shitload more of wipes and removals, re-adding massacre for instance, I usually play Zur T2 but it gets removed, then I recast it a couple turns later with something like 35 life and ways to fight for it to stay alive no matter what, then I necro for 21-25 and get beat down to 3-7 (I actually count how many damage everyone is able to deal to me and assume a bit more + crypt damage if I have it. Next turn I try to get both solitary confinement and empyrial armor, one from the hand tutoring for the other one.

Is can be said to be risky but I seem to pull off with consistently enough, I only lose when someone suddenly can deal like 7 damage with haste or a burn spell (which is unexpected as fk).

I thought about that too adding Scroll Rack and Land Tax + Terminus and Temporal Mastery making a Zur Miracle shell, since we are already running counterbalance top I figured it would work nicely, but since I already run a reanimator and reanimator combo package I cannot afford that many slots that will not contribute to the reanimator strategy directly, I need too many loot effects to make the strategy work nicely even without Zur

But perhaps you do manage to fit all the package in your list, you can replace a counter with Scroll Rack since IT WILL find you another counter if you need it while playing with necro.

if you do, let me know the results ofc

"It's as if people have learned to attack the black players who are trying to tutor for necro or ad naus since the early damage significantly impacts their ability to trade life for cards."

I feel you bro.

mmcgeach hey man, you touched a couple times on the subject of your meta having lots of bear decks, are you having trouble regarding Aven Mindcensor? My opponents are actually tutoring for it asap, so I'm thinking about adding more removal, quite unsure what to go for tho, I'm considering Dismember because it can be played with coloress mana, meaning it can be used to kill Magus of the Moon as well...

The Magus of the Moon is also the main reason I'm not considering Massacre in the slot.

Also thinking about using Cabal Pit since I run Expedition Map already (still doesn't kill magus tho)

Thoughts?

Actually I really like the Dismember idea. I think its a great removal spell. Cheap, instant, kills pretty much everything (even Jin Gitaxias!). What more could you want?

Ran into some problems last week where another control deck just stopped everything I did. Then the combo deck won. Was frustrating, but probably something to fix via politics rather than deck changes. :/

Cartouche of Ambition has been super good so far. Its amazing the deck is now down to 2 total dead cards for the winconditions. It's just all interaction, all the time.

I decided for Collective Brutality, it kill most of what I want to kill, almost anything tbh, while still working as a discard outlet AND adding something my deck doesn't usually have any way to do, hand disruption.

Lots of times I knew my opponent had his combo ready on his hand and had to work a lot to prevent him from casting it, having a discard spell to tutor if I need could be very useful, all that on a discard outlet slot which is the best part.

The control vs control then combo wins matchup is something that happens basically everyday on my meta, yeah you will need some good politics to work around that scenario, sometimes I asked the control "how about you let me hit with Zur?, and get Grasp/ Remora or perhaps Rhystic Study instead of Necropotence?"

And sometimes I said "despite my reanimate hitting play or graveyard in the end, we are still both going to fight over it and be completely tapped while our Sididi's friend is holding his Ad Nauseam, is this what we really want to happen?"

How about using Dispel instead of Spell Snare? The thought process is that the most vulnerable point in making your strategy work is to make sure Zur never gets to hit not even once, which will, almost all the times, be done using instant speed creature removal.

So don't you think that a counter that can almost always be used to protect Zur AND can always counter on a counterspell war is less narrow than a Spell Snare?

Not related, any tips on how to deal with Thrassios/Tymna (combo/control) decks reliably outside of having a Chains?

@VelvetVendetta Yeah, taht's a fine trade. The Spell Snare, Repeal, Imprisoned in the Moon are the weakest cards. I cycle them out to make room for stuff I want to try. I'll prob start slotting in Dispel since we have a second Ad Nauseam player now.

Not sure how to fight against T+T control... there's a bunch of good cards, tho: board wipes, cursed totem, notion thief, tabernacle, etc.

I'm new to the whole control zur archetype, what would a good replacement for chains be?

Wurmlover perhaps Spirit of the Labyrinth, will work great with Windfall and Timetwister as you can later refil via Necropotence while your opponents get stuck in topdeck mode.

@Wurmlover Yeah, like VelvetVendetta mentioned, Spirit of the Labyrinth is pretty similar. I like it a little less as a tool for windfall/twister interactions (since your opponents each get 1 card and you get zero) than I do Chains of Mephistopheles. But on the other hand it's probably slightly better against The Gitrog Monster and a lot better against reanimator decks. One downside is being a 3/1 creature makes it easier to remove; and another is you can't fetch it out with Zur through a Grafdigger's Cage.

ok, so if I were to upgrade my brago stax build to this, what could I play instead of some of the really expesnive shit, like Dark Confidant and Timetwister

also why no Bitterblossom/Contamination?