SIBBBBHTSFHFTDOI

Commander / EDH Combo Mill Primer Reanimator Suicide Black WUB (Esper)

temeref

Land (32)

• 2x Island
• 4x Plains
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Godless Shrine
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Mistveil Plains
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x Saprazzan Skerry
• 1x Scrubland
• 1x Tarnished Citadel
• 1x Terrain Generator
• 1x Tundra
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Hall of the Bandit Lord
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
• 1x Tolaria
• 1x Urborg

Mill (4)

• 1x Cephalid Illusionist
• 1x Doom Whisperer
• 1x Mirror-Mad Phantasm
• 1x Traumatize

Protection toolbox (3)

• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Medicine Bag
• 1x Benevolent Bodyguard

Purely removal (2)

• 1x Font of Agonies
• 1x Out of Time

Ramp (14)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Lotus Bloom
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble
• 1x Aphetto Alchemist
• 1x Scholar of New Horizons
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Chromatic Orrery

Toolbox (10)

• 1x Scheming Fence
• 1x Grasp of Fate
• 1x Mirrormade
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Energy Arc
• 1x Forbid
• 1x Turnabout
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Unctus, Grand Metatect
• 1x Buried Alive

Primarilycombopieces (7)

• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Repository Skaab
• 1x Near-Death Experience
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor
• 1x Teferi, Time Raveler
• 1x Temporal Manipulation

Target (3)

• 1x Jolting Merfolk
• 1x Topplegeist
• 1x Spatial Binding

Commander (1)

Reanimation (10)

• 1x Emeria Shepherd
• 1x Harnessed Snubhorn
• 1x Sun Titan
• 1x Animate Dead
• 1x Dance of the Dead
• 1x Necromancy
• 1x Dread Return
• 1x Incarnation Technique
• 1x Living Death
• 1x Sevinne's Reclamation

Draw (7)

• 1x Attunement
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x Scroll of Isildur
• 1x Treacherous Blessing
• 1x Verity Circle
• 1x Tithe
• 1x Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip

Reanimation value (4)

• 1x Resolute Archangel
• 1x Scholar of the Lost Trove
• 1x Kuro, Pitlord
• 1x Vilis, Broker of Blood

Target: reactive control (3)

• 1x Willbreaker
• 1x Cowardice
• 1x Horobi, Death's Wail

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Maybeboard

Other (10)

• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Hex Parasite
• 1x Mirror-Mad Phantasm
• 1x Narcomoeba
• 1x Dawn Charm
• 1x March of Swirling Mist
• 1x Misdirection
• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Farewell
• 1x Time Warp

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A.K.A. "Stupid Idiot Bitch Baby Brain Blasts Himself To Summon Forgotten Horrors From The Depths Of Insanity"

Ayo, welcome to my pet project! This is a deck featuring targeting shenanigans, tap synergies, life loss, and piggybacking off of all of that, a good bit of graveyard play. Much effort has been put in to ensuring individual card quality is high, despite much of the list being focused on interactions between two or three pieces. The deck as a whole is not reliant on it's commander, Zur the Enchanter, though he is still immensely powerful when he sticks.

Pictured above: Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor and Zur the Enchanter shaking on a dastardly, diabolical deal!! With their only kinship being an endless desire for power, what sort of awful things could they have in store? With their moral compasses long dismissed, no amount of sacrifice is too great, no monstrosity too volatile for summoning...

Technical Overview & General Gameplan Explanation

This is a list that's focused on a few things. Firstly, it is very heavy on the keyword "target". Targeting is what spearheads the absurd turns this deck can pull out -- with a card as unassuming as Spatial Binding, (Horobi, Death's Wail and Cowardice) become instant-speed, asymmetrical & repeatable boardwipes. You may have noticed a lack of the usual boardwipe staples like Farewell or Cyclonic Rift; simply put, the aforementioned combos are the boardwipes (along with the always hilarious Out of Time). There's also Kuro, Pitlord and his galpal Resolute Archangel. But how do you get those out? Well...

Self-mill! The second focus of the list, and arguably the more important one. You know about the deck label "breakfast", yeah? Well, historically, it's a type of deck centered around Nomads en-Kor and anything that likes to be spam targeted like Daru Spiritualist, generally resulting in an infinite or instant win. This deck is technically a breakfast list because one of it's strongest cards is Cephalid Illusionist. Remember how Spatial Binding can target anything for 1 life? Well, it's the primary breakfast enabler along-side Lightning Greaves. Milling as many cards as you like is pretty good when you're running a commander that can find Animate Dead! Mill most of your deck, attack with Zur the Enchanter, tutor whichever reanimation enchantment is left, get Sun Titan who gets another reanimation enchantment back, get Resolute Archangel or some other huge threat. This is essentially the core gameplan; create a massive, threatening boardstate that can infinitely recur pieces of itself; the dead, reviving the dead, on, and on, down the years... forever.

The third focus (and primary way of winning) is last: life loss, a bargain for power -- paid in blood! Spend life to tether fools with Spatial Binding, spend life to feed Doom Whisperer, life for knowledge with Vilis, Broker of Blood, life for destruction with Kuro, Pitlord... then cheat death with Resolute Archangel or Near-Death Experience. Life for power, power for life... anyways, Near-Death Experience, or NDE shorthanded, is usually how I win outside of combat damage. It is INCREDIBLY important to have protection against interaction when going for a NDE win. My preferred method is playing it with Teferi, Time Raveler, but Forbid on a Lightning Bolt will do just as well, since instant-speed burn spells aren't very common these days. Even with that layer of protection, it's best to wait until the beginning of the upkeep when NDE triggers to drain yourself to 1 life if you can. Once the stack clears, NDE will win the game.

So yeah! Spatial Binding is the primary cog in the weird machine that is this list. It is the backbone, the meat, the very foundation the deck was built upon. The list can work without it, but you'll have to work a bit harder; after all, the closest card to it is Unspeakable Symbol which costs 3x the life per activation.

And lastly -- what of the commander, the whacky wizard, the paragon of power, the bargaining bastard who won't stop reanimating treachous demons and forgotten emperors oh god please calm down Zur the Enchanter? Well, thematically, he is an old & probably stinky floating wizard with knowledge of forgotten spells, enchantments and Artifacts. In his endless quest for perfection, he has repurposed many of these things to have unexpected and devastating results when paired with his "allies". Functionally, he acts as a fill-in piece to many combos, with the primary targets being Animate Dead, Verity Circle, Attunement and Spatial Binding. He's not directly a part of any of the list's win-conditions, but rather there to aid in setting them up by fetching pieces like Spatial Binding and Attunement to get the ball rolling. Getting off a single swing is usually enough -- this is intentional as to avoid the usual (and warranted) hate coming his way from shutting the list out of playing entirely.

Combos; for value generation, interaction, and closing out the game

Here's a concise, non-exhaustive list of some of the interactions this list features. Many individual cards in this list increase exponentially in potency when paired with synergistic pieces, though there are so many little interactions that it's futile to try and list them all. So here's just the major ones that come up a lot... and some fun corner cases.

• Cephalid Illusionist + Spatial Binding // Mills as much as desired at the rate of 1 life for 3 cards. Instant speed and nearly impossible to interact with, also doesn't nonbo too hard with Horobi, Death's Wail or similar cards. Generally followed up with Resolute Archangel or Scholar of the Lost Trove depending on the state of the board and your graveyard. Living Death is pretty funny with the latter - let your imagination do the rest.

• Spatial Binding + any of the following: Horobi, Death's Wail, Cowardice, Willbreaker // for those who didn't read the blabby gameplan above (I don't blame you) this is your primary "bullshit", your instant-speed destruction, bounce or mind control for 1 life per activation that swings the game in your favor. Pretty much impossible to Stifle these effects since you can activate them again in response. Energy Arc is a nice surprise variant for when Spatial isn't in play.

• Spatial Binding + Out of Time // More asymmetrical bullshit. A disgusting setup is Sun Titan bringing Out of Time back while Spatial Binding is already in play, then using spatial to prevent Sun Titan from phasing out. If at any point Out of Time is destroyed, Sun Titan can bring it back with a simple swing -- a swing that is 100% guaranteed to connect since everything else will be phased out.

• Verity Circle + any of the following: Cryptic Command, Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor, Turnabout or Topplegeist // A draw engine that flexes and contorts based on the current boardstate. There's been an influx in token spam with recent sets so drawing 5+ for 4 happens a lot. In cases like these, a strong move is to discard Repository Skaab to hand size, reanimate it, and have it bring back the card used to draw it. With some luck it's possible to continue drawing more reanimation and just keep putting creatures to sleep while drawing more cards. A fantastic defensive option for when you're wanting to pay a lot of life!

• Aphetto Alchemist + Chromatic Orrery // Orrery is the go-to untap target for the Alchemist. Highly flexible lad outside of that though -- plenty of corner cases come up where you might want to untap Zur the Enchanter to block, maybe you Mirrormade'd a Sol Ring and want more mana, or maybe you just want to proc Cowardice at instant speed.

• Aphetto Alchemist + Unctus, Grand Metatect // Infinite looting! Funny story; when Unctus, Grand Metatect was first revealed I saw the looting, targeting and life loss effects and really wanted to add him since he checked off every box. Then I started toying with Chromatic Orrery and the more I tested Aphetto Alchemist the more I appreciated his versatility as both an early game source of mana and a late game source of targeting. A couple of days later I saw an Unctus, Grand Metatect deck focused on this interaction and I felt really dumb for not connecting the dots sooner. Now it serves as another option to sculpt the hand and graveyard, though both cards are quite good on their own.

• Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter // The classic. This list's infinite mana outlets are as follows: Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor (infinite permanent taps), Chromatic Orrery (infinite mana & card draw), Cephalid Illusionist and Mirror-Mad Phantasm (infinite self-mill), Vilis, Broker of Blood (infinite card draw as long as there are creatures to -1/-1), and Verity Circle (infinite non-flyer taps and card draw equal to the number of those creatures).

• Isochron Scepter + Vampiric Tutor + Temporal Manipulation + Mistveil Plains // Infinite turns for as long as you can pay 2 life

• Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal + rocks that produce mana lol + Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor + Teferi, Time Raveler // Hard lock on everything that isn't an instant-speed activated ability during upkeep. This is arguably the most safe way to win with the deck since it doesn't require any other pieces; just go to combat and swing with Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor.

• Emeria Shepherd + Isochron Scepter + Tithe // Always hit your plains, always reanimate, on and on, forever...

• Mistveil Plains + Temporal Manipulation with an empty deck & 2 white permanents // Infinite turns. Easy to clean up shop after the fact with Out of Time.

• Sun Titan + Animate Dead + Repository Skaab + Temporal Manipulation // Infinite turns. Also works (albeit less consistently) with Harnessed Snubhorn and Emeria Shepherd. Very easy to incidentally set up by just milling a lot -- be careful not to cast Temporal Manipulation with Jace, Telepath Unbound   or Scholar of the Lost Trove since they exile upon resolution... unless you don't plan on closing the game out with this combo, in which case, go ham, dude.

• Emeria Shepherd + Oboro, Palace in the Clouds + Animate Dead + an opponent has Archaeomancer in graveyard + Horobi, Death's Wail + Lightning Greaves or Spatial Binding + Temporal Manipulation // The ultimate meme win to flex the deck's versatility and high potential for bullshit.

• Terrain Generator + Emeria Shepherd // Instant-speed reanimation of any nonland permanent, so long as there are plains to be played

• Cowardice + Jolting Merfolk // Use three of Jolting Merfolk's counters on other creatures, then the last one on itself to return it to hand. This allows you to replay it and repeat the process as long as you have mana. Removing the last counter does not immediately kill the merfolk since fading only checks for remaining counters during the upkeep step.

• Cowardice + Lightning Greaves // Free sorcery speed bounce for your own creatures. In the extremely niche situation where you have this set up with Verity Circle and Topplegeist out, you can draw one card for {W}. Who says 4 card combos aren't viable?

• Incarnation Technique + Doom Whisperer // If you bring back Doom Whisperer with the first Incarnation Technique, you can hold priority and mill with Doom Whisperer before the second resolves to get a much wider selection. If you hit Scholar of the Lost Trove here you can cast Living Death or Temporal Manipulation to get even more value, though the usual Sun Titan > Animate Dead is also good.

• Forbid + someone else's Rule of Law + Vilis, Broker of Blood + Spatial Binding + Teferi, Time Raveler // nice one spell each turn here's my one spell each turn lol discards 2 for the buyback cost with malicious intent >:) with a setup like this, Zur the Enchanter can continue to further your gamestate without foregoing the "lock" since he doesn't cast but still gets stuff into play.

• Treacherous Blessing + Spatial Binding // Spatial can pop blessing with a single activation, allowing it to then be further abused by Sun Titan, Harnessed Snubhorn or Emeria Shepherd.

• Attunement + Sun Titan // A weaker but still viable form of hand/graveyard sculpting. Just be weary of Smothering Tithe.

• Zur the Enchanter + Buried Alive // send whatever you need, then attack and reanimate with Animate Dead; Doom Whisperer to sculpt the grave, Resolute Archangel to heal, Kuro, Pitlord for removal, Vilis, Broker of Blood for draw, Sun Titan or Emeria Shepherd for extension/security...

• Chromatic Orrery + Minamo, School at Water's Edge // mana

• Chromatic Orrery > tap for mana > Scheming Fence + Lightning Greaves > tap fence for mana > equip Lightning Greaves to another creature > Energy Arc > tap fence for mana // ...what do you mean I'm reaching? You get three activations in one turn! This will DEFINITELY come up in a game. (lie)

• Isochron Scepter + Energy Arc + Verity Circle + Aboshan, Cephalid Emperor // Makes the board dance and draws some cards.

• Isochron Scepter + Energy Arc + Aphetto Alchemist + a copied Palladium Myr // Infinite fog and creature untaps... for what that's worth, haha.

Explanation for absent staples and what not

Here I'll explain my reasoning for why some cards which would make sense to include aren't present.

Warning: profanity and excessive bitching ahead

• Second Chance // So this is probably the first card that comes to mind whenever I think of swapping stuff in/out. It makes complete sense to include since thematically it plays off of what the deck wants to do -- spending a controlled amount of life, 3cmc enchantments and recurring permanents over and over. Buuuuut tabling it always just felt kinda bad -- not in the sense that I couldn't get a turn with it, but that it paints a MASSIVE target on my head. A full turn cycle of people making you out to be a huge threat since you telegraphed an extra turn is an easy way to lose. Also the timing for it is pretty strict since while the deck does want to pay life, it wants to do it as a trade-off for some kind of advantage. The only reason to ever be dropping that low is for Near-Death Experience or to min/max value before resetting with Resolute Archangel. So yeah, on paper it should work, in theory it should work, but there's a lot more going on that stop it from being good, or really even playable. Anyways, with Repository Skaab existing and how good generic 5 mana extra turn spells are Second Chance just pales in comparison, even with how easily it goes infinite.

• Necropotence // Few reasons on this one. Primary one is that discarding large threats to be further reanimated plays such a large role in this list, as the card selection it brings in comparison to mill is infinitely more important than just large sums of mill. Cards like Attunement play a massive role in keeping this list afloat, and Necropotence, despite being another way to set yourself to 1 life for Near-Death Experience, is just too good in all of the situations this deck doesn't want to be in. Also, people really hate seeing Zur the Enchanter and it's fun to subvert expectations of those expecting "necro" by tutoring Necromancy instead...

• Mana Crypt // it's too good. very similar effect to a Pot of Greed in which the fella who draws it is just ahead without much effort. sol ring is enough and doesn't cost $100. additionally, the conscious decision to exclude most fast mana was made to help keep the deck's strength in check.

• Thassa's Oracle (or labman/jace) // Oracle is incredible. With Narcomoeba and Dread Return it's easy to win even without Demonic Consultation. That said, it's extremely easy to win with her. That isn't the goal of the deck! I've been building this list to be bizarre yet synergistic, obtuse yet devastating -- a truly unorthodox deck that plays spells and summons creatures forgotten by time to awesome results. Spatial Binding and Cephalid Illusionist grant surgical precision over your graveyard, so why not take full advantage of it? The deck can play around graveyard hate by only milling so much at a time, play around burn through life reset shenanigans and outdraw even the most degenerate Simic decks! With Oracle in the deck, everything ends with Oracle, works towards Oracle, and is warped around Oracle -- a notion that invalidates going for any combo or boardstate that doesn't eventually lead into Oracle.

• Fierce Guardianship and Deadly Rollick // Not building for cEDH, not including these.

• Teferi's Protection // Zero synergy with the list outside of... stalling for Near-Death Experience, I suppose? Not the worst interaction, but I'd much rather have Forbid or another way to stop Farewell from exiling my graveyard, which Teferi's does not do.

• Cyclonic Rift // I've been of the opinion for a long while now that this card should be banned. I don't want to rant about this since my rants always spiral off and ruin my mood, but the gist of it is that there aren't any other cards even remotely close to Cyclonic Rift. Nothing. 7 mana, instant speed asymmetrical board bounce. Difficult boardstate? Nothing to worry about since this shit ignores hexproof, shroud, indestructible, deathrattle effects and god knows what else -- without touching you whatsoever!! Heinous design that wasn't meant for commander and shouldn't be in commander. I could abuse it and probably have it as a wincon thanks to Repository Skaab, but, like... no. Fuck cyc rift.

• Rhystic Study // Goodstuff, it draws stuff, woah! Nahh sorry, I don't like being an obnoxious little bitch who forgets half their triggers then asks 3 minutes later if they can still draw after finally closing reddit on their phone. I would be happy if it was banned -- not just because it's a braindead, zero input top tier staple, but because it gives the whole table the hiccups in a way. I'm gonna cast this.... find this... 30 seconds later, "oh, did you pay the 1 for that?" Shut up and stop playing obnoxious shit, and if you "apologize" to me again about forgetting your may triggers and still asking to draw I'm gonna unsleeve your damn cheeto covered rhystic and eat it before handing you its market value in cash. Stay on top of your shit or don't play that shit. Assholes.

• Smothering Tithe // Same as above, but arguably worse for the game since drawing happens so much, and generally as a byproduct of other effects. Gets one guy insanely ahead while also just pissing everyone off with constant reminders or lack there-of. Fuck cards like these!

• Kederekt Leviathan // This list ran the leviathan for a very long time. Over time, though, as this list has consistently been able to compete at higher power tables, the ability to repeatedly bounce the table became less and less useful. Lower CMC's and cards like Mana Crypt being acceptable mean that the bounce more often than not hurt me more than anyone else, since I'd frequently be bouncing other high CMC permanents of my own. That... ended up being really bad, actually; consider that my best options for discard right now are two creatures which have to tap and Attunement. It sucked lol! Also, much of the time... I just didn't need a board wipe. It's always better to try and play to get ahead than recover from behind, tbh, and this guy was a goddamn tempo-killing brick in the hand.

• Angel of the Ruins // Just not enough impact, really. Seems ideal on paper, but usually hits the board proceeds to change very little.

• Bazaar of Baghdad // I've playtested with this one a few times and it taking up a land drop is the main backbreaker. It messes with the deck's tempo and usually doesn't provide enough when activated to be worth that. It's also an inherent -2, and in those early stages of the game the deck doesn't have access to engines powerful enough to offset that. The deck only begins to snowball after a bit of setup and ~5 mana. Lack of goodstuff will do that to ya, but it does raise the ceiling for how much bullshit can be done.

• Mother of Runes // She's good if you can get 2+ activations off, but tbh having to tap makes her a horrible draw anywhere outside of very niche situations. Benevolent Bodyguard tends to be much better and helps both Zur and large reanimation targets stick around so they can get the value they need to. Stave Off is also included, and lemme tell ya, being able to target anyone's creature is OP. It's unique for a protection effect to be able to target creatures other than your own like that and the instant you play against enchantments or any sort of combat trick list it's easy to see why.

More soon once I think of them..

Why Zur?

Zur the Enchanter isn't liked by the average joe. Main reason for that being the stereotype that he's a stax or voltron commander with a lame gameplan. A commander as malleable and unique as Zur is molded around the players that play him, and I think that says more about the community than it says about Zur. After all, he gives you command zone access to somewhere around 1700 cards, including a myriad of old janky pieces that have come into existence in the last 20+ years. This was my reasoning after finding Spatial Binding; I wanted a commander that let me play it, and Zur the Enchanter was the best one to do it.

Zur doesn't force you to build around Necropotence, Vanishing, Diplomatic Immunity, Propaganda and copies -- that's entirely up to the discretion of the player. There is literally not a single rule in existence which says "you have to put X and Y into your deck". While it's a shame that that's what most folks tend to shoot for, a few lame builds shouldn't take away from his beautiful evergreen design. Any past, present, or future enchantments are up for consideration with this build, all thanks to Zur, and that makes the future all that much more exciting for Zur lists.

I'll stand by Zur the Enchanter as one of the most fun and flexible commanders 'til the day I die. Fun players will make fun decks, obnoxious players will make obnoxious decks.

Fuckin' love this stinky, floating wizard.

Thanks again to u/Syndelfeniks for producing the featured alters of Zur the Enchanter and Spatial Binding!

Top Ranked	Achieved #16 position overall 2 years ago Achieved #8 position in Commander / EDH 2 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Mill 3 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Primer 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	2 months
Key combos	Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter Cephalid Illusionist + Spatial Binding Aphetto Alchemist + Unctus, Grand Metatect Emeria Shepherd + Isochron Scepter + Tithe Mistveil Plains + Temporal Manipulation
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 49 - 0 Rares 26 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.37
Tokens	Emblem Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Morph 2/2 C
Folders	Mill Deck, Interesting decks, interesting, Found on Tapped Out, fun decks, Cool Decks that Inspire Me, EDH, Uncategorized, builds