Turbo Mastery: Queza Augur of Agonies [[cEDH]] W/P (Commander / EDH MTG Deck)

Turbo Mastery: Queza Augur of Agonies [[cEDH]] W/P

Commander / EDH Combo Competitive Midrange WUB (Esper)

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Instant (29)

Sorcery (8)

Land (28)

Enchantment (5)

Commander (1)

Creature (16)

Artifact (13)

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Creature (7)

Instant (5)

Planeswalker (2)

Sorcery (2)

Enchantment (2)

Artifact (1)

1x Mox Opal

===center Introduction ===endcenter

From the streets of New Capenna, Queza, Augur of Agonies demonstrates her mastery over the obscure in this Esper Control build, centered around Thassa's Oracle, Ad Nauseam, and Lich's Mastery. Living up to the Obscura Syndicate's name this cEDH deck takes on a fresh approach to the meta drawing from the arcane and obscure to finish games with its own unique infinite draw combo with Lich's Mastery as well as some familiar faces. If you want to learn how to play this deck below we have detailed instructions on the combos, card selection, stax pieces, strategies, and more. Please drop us a like and comment below to help us improve this deck list.

Before we discuss this deck any further special thanks to kilondi and my play group in Milwaukee we could never have built this deck without your guys suggestions, support, and tolerance on all our spicy plays. If you want to check out kilondi's build here are a couple of his decks. user:https://www.moxfield.com/users/kilondi

Why Queza, Augur of Agonies?

Queza has a unique effect for Esper. "Whenever we draw a card, we gain 1 life and target opponent loses 1 life." Because of this, we are able to string along a chain of events through continuous cantrips to either weaken, or kill our opponents. Due to the sublty of this commander however, some of her cards in this deck are meta reliant. Coming from a strong Turbo Naus meta, being able to drain the turbo naus player the moment she hits the field is very important in dropping their strategy to next to nothing. While 1 life lost may just be an irritant, as we all know, that life loss adds up fast in a game of EDH. This is why I've decided to pair her with Lich's Mastery which will generate a non-stop loop to kill our opponents. A very important feature of this deck is that we never want to be actively casting Lich's Mastery. For this reason we run Academy Rector to cheat Mastery into play. While this card has been out of the competitive circuit for awhile, I find that running this may be the best option to guarenteeing that Lich's hits the field.
While we can cast it fairly quickly in this deck, the resource toll that it will take is too heavy. (Opposed to Peer into the Abyss which will usually on the spot kill someone if it resolves.)

Turbo Mastery

To start off, like many other turbo decks that want to power out either Ad Nauseam or Underworld Breach, our first goal is in fact to turbo out Lich's Mastery. This will begin phase 1 of our loop to win also setting our opponents on a time clock that they can't deal with as Queza is a 4 toughness creature, she survives Lighting Bolt. With Lich's Mastery being Hexproof, we avoid the Chain of Vapor or Feed the Swarm removal kits to include the very rare Aura Shards or Aura of Silence removal. For this same reason, as you will see later on in this primer, we do not run very many "Exile" effects in this deck, as they tend to hinder what we want to do. Instead you'll find plenty of single target removal and only 2 pieces of our own that can hit our Lich's Mastery, One of which we'd need to put 7 mana into, which we shouldn't be.

Card Selection

There are a number of cards that are borrowed from many other decks built into this. Familiar faces like Oblivion Crown that are from Gitfrog being primarily important to this deck. Just to go through a brief overview of why I've selected these cards.

Oblivion Crown: This card is just fantastic. There are two very important aspects of this card. #1, it has Flash. #2: Discard a card Generally speaking, we are discarding Nexus of Fate to Oblivion Crown to put it back on top of our deck so we draw it again with Queza, Augur of Agonies. This will continue the loop of pinging our opponents to death.

Angel's Grace: It's become more of an abundance that we will see this in white decks now a days. Angels grace being ripped from most non-blue decks, to be able to stave off a Thassa's Oracle combo for the turn and effectively kill a player as they extend into it.

Village Rites, Altar's Reap, Costly Plunder, Deadly Dispute: Okay so lets talk about why these cards are cared about in this deck. They all have one very specific effect to them. "As an additional cost to cast this spell". Effectively we are using these for Academy Rector sac outlets. Because we are sacrificing Academy Rector to the "Cost to Cast this Spell" Rector's trigger will go on the stack above the spell, so we can then resolve Academy Rector's ability to find Lich's Mastery then resolve one of these 4 cards. These cards then cause us to draw cards, which effectively causes us to combo off because we resolved a draw spell. (See ruling 603.3 for how the stack works in this scenario.)

Ad Nauseam : There are upsides, and downsides to playing Ad Nauseam in this deck. Primarily from what I've gathered if we have bad luck on a Naus we can hit a total of 18 life lost to 3 cards. Nexus of Fate Force of Will and Lich's Mastery. A further 8 life lost can be attributed to 2 cards if we had bad luck as well. Academy Rector Notion Thief

However, the chances of that happening is very minimal and we will most likely draw some of these cards throughout the game. With this said, we take up the Peer into the Abyss slot with Ad Nauseam.

The benefits of Ad Nauseam in this deck is pretty simple. If you look at our commanders ability, we gain life for each card we draw. This life can then be transferred into fuel for an Ad Naus so we can stretch out an Ad Nauseam and punish our opponents further to get closer to solidifying success in game. This also has the added benefit of pairing up really well with our Angel's Grace to get the desired results for a potential Thassa's Oracle win if we decide we need to go that route as well.

Peer into the Abyss: This card was once on this list. There was much discussion among not just my own playgroup, but among the community that there is a BIG difference between 7 mana and 5 mana (Ad Nauseam). That difference also differs us off of Peer while being an Ad Nauseam deck as hitting a 7 drop does not feel good in Ad Naus. As the meta of cEDH shifts, I feel that we will all eventually pick a side. Either Peer or Ad Nauseam as we won't want to run both. While Peer essentially removes 1 player from the game. Resolving a Peer is strictly harder, and is much easier to intercept as Deflecting Swat can redirect the Peer to an opponent, where Ad Nauseam can not be redirected. Only copied. Most of cEDH is centered around our own gameplan and not advancing our opponents gameplans, cards such as Peer into the Abyss will slowly be phased out I feel. While Ad Nauseam will still be a driving force in the meta. Every card has its moment in the sun and currently Peer is experiencing that time.
Peer however, will fall out of favor much quicker as the playerbase comes to realize the difference between a 7 drop Sorcery and a 5 drop instant grows every so wider. 3 black pips vs 2 black pips becomes more demanding and shifts the game too much towards focusing on powering out 1 card.

Stax Piece Choices

Because of the cards that were added into the deck, I had to be very selective of what cards were slotted in for stax. However, what did make the cut has clear reasons to be in the deck. I'll give a brief overview of each ones reasoning.

Drannith Magistrate: Too many times have I seen a commander come into play and it just changes the aspect of the game. A Kraum or Gitfrog, even a Winota hitting the field. The biggest benefit to Drannith is that it doesn't care about us. It doesn't harm our strategy and gameplan, so it focuses to punish our opponents with giving us the added benefit of being able to cast or 3 color commander still. On top of that, The Reality Chip is an important card now a days in many metas. Being able to force someone to draw the card instead of cast off the top of their library is a huge advantage for us, rendering Reality Chip to just being Future Sight without the benefit of playing the top card.

Notion Thief: Who doesn't like extra cards in their hand? Being able to take cards from our opponents at instant speed has always been a thing with Notion Thief, however it is found to be especially effective in this set up where we get additional value for each card drawn because of our commander. This increases our chances of extending out the game, or even closing out the game with every card that we draw.

Opposition Agent: I'd like to say that this card shouldn't come as a surprise in this list. I mentioned Shadow of Doubt above. For those times our opponents can get through a SoD, we have Opposition Agent to tutor the cards from there deck, and even cast the wincons that they are trying to grab. Being able to tutor for someone elses Thoracle combo is well worth it so we don't have to burn our combo from our deck first. Or even if our combo was stopped, this is just another way to get that combo back online.

Dauthi Voidwalker: Outside of this being a very heavily meta dependant choice, this card is great. Much like Opposition Agent but for graveyard, being able to rip someones BrainFreeze from them or even their Underworld Breach because it was countered or removed is a huge advantage. Having access to a Demonic Consultation that was stopped is another added bonus for us. I've had plenty of games where a Dauthi has had 15-30 cards piled with void counters and that was what changed the game in the end.

Grafdigger's Cage: A card that doesn't get much love anymore. However, Grafdiggers cage is one of those very important cards that is a hard counter to Underworld Breach, Protean Hulk and reanimator centric decks/storm decks.

Angel's Grace: This is typically not used as a Stax piece, however, It's effective as one. Holding the 1 mana to be able to run use this has caught many people in my meta off to where in white we all are running this card against the abundance of Thoracle decks in the meta. It's slowly becoming a staple card that doesn't just see modern, but also EDH as it should be.

Gilded Drake: Considered a staple in all decks that have blue in them in cEDH, Gilded Drake does everything we want to do for early game interaction. It steals a Tymna if we need to draw cards, it takes Kraum if we want to draw cards. It takes a Serra Ascendant if we need to just have a big 6/6 beater on the field. It does things that we want it to do for early game interaction.

Skyclave Appartion: This is an interesting one that is starting to see play in 2 color decks right now. Appartion basically says we remove target commander/target stax piece/target cmc 4 or less bad thing for us in play. The fact it hits a Narset or Notion Thief is just an added bonus

Cursed Totem: This is a very odd stax piece to have in this deck given that Pilferer, Dauthi and Oblivion Crown are shut down by this card. In a million scenarios that we need a way out, if we are dropping Totem, then we are probably going Thoracle to win, or using it as a soft lockdown piece. I'll just sit and wave to all you Codie players

Rest in Peace: I tend to talk a lot of RIP Combos. This deck is no exception. While turning off Breach lines, this deck also uses RIP to protect our combo line. We can still abuse Nexus of Fate with Oblivion Crown if RIP is in play and elect to shuffle Nexus into our deck. This is important as it furthers our game plans and slows our opponents game plan. Also, having one more piece of graveyard hate in this deck has become crucially ever more important for my meta.

Strategies

We have a few different routes that we really want to be going with this deck. Because our commander does this Draw a card, Drain an Opponent feature, we can play out the long game as soon as she is in play. Generally speaking, we want Queza, Augur of Agonies in play as fast as possible. Due to her being 3 colors we are not running Jeweled Lotus so we have to find ways to approach getting her into play faster.

Our opening hand should at least have 2 dual colored lands, a fetch, maybe a mana rock or 2 and a cantrip. The 7th card can be a counterspell, however the one card we do not want to have in our hand is Lich's Mastery. This is because we don't want to have to cast it.
The general direction of where we want to go with this is having our commander in play, and using Recruiter of the Guard to find Academy Rector. Sacrificing Academy Rector to Sudden Edict targeting Rector to find Lich's Mastery use a cantrip like Gitaxian Probe or Brainstorm to set off the chain of draining our opponents to death, that they can only stop by removing Queza, Augur of Agonies from play as anything else will not be able to stop the loop we create.

As mentioned above, Oblivion Crown and Nexus of Fate are crucial to us being able to win on the spot. This is why our general plan with removing Academy Rector should be Culling the Weak We keep the 4 black in pool to be able to Oblivion Crown.

However, we do have an alternate route. While it is the fairly obvious way to win the game, cards like Muddle the Mixture can transmute to find us Thassa's Oracle and we can tutor our Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact to win on the spot.

Because both of these setups require an ETB or dies trigger to pop we are not running Hushbringer in this deck. However, there is a select removal kit for Hushbringer effects set up in this deck.

Effectively, until we can reach a state where we can get one of our few combos into play, we are able to sit down and play control, while advancing our board state as well.

A few important things to note though. We would like to have Lavinia, Azorius Renegade in play before we attempt to combo. This is because we effectively force our opponents to pay for Force of Will or other counter magic.

Other Synergies

Much like other control shell decks, we have a slew of synergistical cards at our disposal that work in tandem with one another.

Opposition Agent = Maralen of the Mornsong: This is a fairly straightforward combo. Lock our opponents out of anything but cards in there hands.

Queza, Augur of Agonies + Peer into the Abyss: While this will not generate a win for us, being able to resolve Peer will usually eliminate a player off of Queza's trigger.

Narset's Reversal + Timetwister: This is an infamous synergy which returns Timetwister and Narset's Reversal to our library while we draw a fresh 7. We can pair this much like any of our other Everyone draws 7 spells with Notion Thief to ensure to lock our opponents out of resources and sow up a grindy game.

Considerations

Ashiok, Dream Render: Ashiok is in that kind of weird position in this deck. She stops our opponents from searching, but she is also a planeswalker that removes graveyards. I like that part about her. What I dont like is she 3 cmc, and effectively will probably die after the first use. (Although that 1st use is all we need to be able to slug it out with our opponents for a longer period of time.) This one may find its way in over Nihil Spellbomb in the near future, however testing may need to be done to see where Ashiok will stand.

Solemnity: So we discussed this card and its effects on the current meta that I play in. As it stands, the card really doesn't do a whole lot for Queza. It only cares about the Ishai that is in the meta. The only other thing it does is HEAVILY benefit the player that drops Mystic Remora. For this reason, the card honestly probably is not going to make the cut into the deck.

Lich: The original Lich card started becoming an option in this list until one clause came up "If Lich enters the graveyard... you lose the game." Because of Bosejiu, who Endures we do not run this card in our deck. The chances of a Bosejiu hitting us at the end step will most certainly cause us to lose the game outright.

Drogskol Reaver: I see a lot of hype about this card. There are some things that I dislike about it however. It costs 7 mana. It doesn't interact with us until we draw a single card or gain 1 life (Which ever comes first). Our opponents can easily respond to the trigger and remove either of our win pieces Most likely Drogskol and disrupt our game closer.

Cephalid Illusionist: This is a fascinating card that is being examined for this deck in conjunction with Nomad En-Kor and Dread Return. I feel that for certain metas, this combo can replace Opposition Agent/Maralen combo. For my meta however, this isn't something that I can see being viable.

Decree of Silence: how interesting this card is with Academy Rector. This is in high consideration right now for a card to be ran in this deck with Solemnity. Unfortunately, thats all this card really is good for outside of stall locking the game into a Bosejiu, Who Endures.

Narset, Parter of Veils: This is an incredible card. In any other blue deck, I would honestly be running this. It finds me Lich's Mastery but thats all it really finds me of relevance unless its Silence or counter magic/tutor.

Containment Priest: Okay so, this is definitely a meta consideration for me. I do see a Gitfrog and Winota in my meta. So Priest and Mistcaller may be finding room in this deck at some point to balance games out for us.

Doomsday: The more times change, the more they stay the same. Being in Esper with the combos we need for this deck, allows us to be able to run Doomsday and combo off effectively and efficently on a moments notice.

Stratus Dancer: Many of us would like to imagine this as a very very bad card. Lets be clear though. Stratus Dancer is very underplayed and under valued as a cEDH card. It's effectively Dispel on a body when it morphs. This is a crucial thing, as Stifle, Trickbind and Disallow are not prevelant in my meta. The morph effect is a special action and thus gets through Grand Abolisher and Silence effects. Because those cards are prevelant in my meta, along with many other cEDH metas, I find that Stratus Dancer does have a home in cEDH not just in a fringe role for control shells either. But as a body that we can use for multiple things.

Meta Call Cards

Lets talk about meta cards and what we can do to turn change the deck up against your meta.

Winota, Joiner of Forces: We have some solutions to her as a commander already listed above, However we can remove Imp's Mischief to add in Containment Priest. Skyclave Apparation is also in the deck to be able to help facilitate removal. Our deck is primarily a heavy removal deck already, we can focus some of our removal towards Winota player to push them back while still being able to activate our combos.

The Gitfrog Monster: This is one of those that we really have to watch out for as he can pop off. However we can really side in more graveyard removal. The consideration might be to also add in Leyline of the Void to your deck so they have to focus on removing that as well. While we are not a stax deck, adding pieces that force them to play more aggressively may be the play. Throughout our updates, we have also added into our decks arsenal Rest in Peace to be able to handle a Gitfrog among many breach decks. However, adding Leyline would not effect our deck.

Urza, Lord High Artificer: I will mention this is a race against the clock. As a control/stax deck, Urza will want to remove our pieces or keep us out of the game entirely. Racing to Academy Rector and removal is probably the right play. We also want to try and keep Urza off the board while not trying to burn all of our control magic on just him.

Food Chain: We can usually slot something like Heliod's Intervention into the deck to remove it as well as focusing on getting our Drannith Magistrate into play earlier than normal.

Turbo Naus/Turbo Breach: Typically we can add Leyline of the Void for these match ups. We're able to also pair either one with Helm of Obedience to be able to create a combo that exile/mills our opponents entire deck before they can naus. (Should we be able to assemble the combo fast enough.) A RIP or Leyline will also disrupt the breach plan and ensure that we force our opponents to deal with Leyline or RIP prior to trying to go off with Breach.

This Decks Faults

To be frank, there are very few ways that this deck can fall apart. We aren't effected by boardwipes (Unless a rift connects while Mastery is in play. For this reason, we play Angel's Grace) But there are cards that can really contain this deck to doing very little, as stax does not deeply impact the deck either.

Narset, Parter of Veils: An opponent having a Narset on the field does change how we have to play the game, and effectively find a way to remove her to get our strategy online.

Notion Thief: See a pattern yet? Our opponents having access to card advantage that we are suppose to gain is a hinderance to us, and deters our ultimate strategy from taking place.

Praetor's Grasp: This card may actually do some damage to us if our opponent knows what to take. Removing Nexus of Fate or Lich's Mastery takes us off of Queza's line. Removing Thassa's Oracle takes us off of that line, and removing Opposition Agent or Maralen of the Mornsong removes us from that line. So it depends on how our opponent wants to go. However, for this reason, we run multiple combos to end the game.

Any Damage When we Draw Effect: Because of the kind of deck that we are, Queza will gain us life, that is no problem. However, when we are effectively going to net zero on life (Since we don't run Aetherflux Reservoir this really isn't a problem) this does impact our Lich's Mastery line. Forcing us to go and either remove the problem, or go to one of our other combos.

Combo Line

===endcenter

Queza, Augur of Agonies + Lich's Mastery

All permanents on the battlefield.

Draw a card
Queza, Augur of Agonies triggers, causing target opponent to lose one life and you to gain one life.
Lich's Mastery's first ability triggers, causing you to draw a card.
Repeat from step 2.
Draw with empty library and win the game.

Results Infinite draw triggers. Near-infinite life gain. Near-infinite life gain triggers. Near-infinite life loss.

Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact

Cast and resolve Thassa's Oracle
Hold priority on Oracle Trigger.
Cast Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact
Resolve either card till your library is exiled.
resolve Thassa trigger
Win.

Results Win the game.

Oblivion Crown + Nexus of Fate + Queza, Augur of Agonies + Lich's Mastery

Lich's Mastery and Queza, Augur of Agonies on the battlefield.

Draw a card
Queza, Augur of Agonies triggers, causing your opponent to lose one life, and you to gain one life.
Lich's Mastery's first ability triggers, causing you to draw a card.
Repeat from step 2 until you reach Oblivion Crown.
Flash Oblivion Crown into play on Queza, Augur of Agonies
Continue repeating steps 1-3 till your deck is empty and have a draw trigger on the stack.
Discard Nexus of Fate to Oblivion Crown's ability.
Nexus of Fate will trigger, shuffling back into your library.
Resolve Queza, Augur of Agonies Trigger.
Repeat steps 7-9 until all opponents life has been lost.

Results: Infinite Draw triggers Infinite Life Gain Infinite Life Gain Triggers Infinite Life Loss. Win.

Queza, Augur of Agonies + Lich's Mastery + Nexus of Fate

Draw a card
Queza, Augur of Agonies triggers, causing your opponent to lose one life, and you to gain one life.
Lich's Mastery's first ability triggers, causing you to draw a card.
Continue repeating steps 1-3 till your deck is empty and have a draw trigger on the stack.
Cast Nexus of Fate to take an extra turn.
Trigger Nexus of Fate to return it to the library.
Repeat steps 5 and 6.

Results: Infinite Turns Near-Infinite Draw triggers Near-Infinite Life Gain Near-Infinite Life Gain Triggers Near-Infinite Life Loss. Win.

Special Thanks

Once again, I would like to thank Kilondi for his help on building the primer, and working on making the best adjustments possible to this deck. I would also like to thank the Sad Naus crew in Milwaukee.

You can join the Sad Naus discord at: (https://discord.gg/RjEUGNptbQ) and follow the Sad Naus podcast at (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEj3F71Tx4qsIDYc8FO0Qgg)

Thanks for taking the time to read the primer and have a great one!

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Casual

100% Competitive

Revision 2 See all

(1 year ago)

-1	Aether Spellbomb	maybe
+1	Altar's Reap	maybe
+1	Archivist of Oghma	main
-1	Azorius Signet	main
+1	Cephalid Coliseum	main
+1	Cephalid Illusionist	maybe
+1	Containment Priest	maybe
+1	Costly Plunder	maybe
-1	Counterbalance	main
+1	Cyclonic Rift	main
+1	Dark Confidant	main
+1	Deadly Dispute	maybe
+1	Decree of Silence	maybe
-1	Diabolic Intent	maybe
+1	Doomsday	maybe
-1	Dovin's Veto	main
+1	Dread Return	maybe
-1	Fabricate	maybe
+1	Ghostly Pilferer	maybe
+1	Gilded Drake	main

and 67 other change(s)

Date added	1 year
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	14 - 0 Mythic Rares 55 - 0 Rares 12 - 0 Uncommons 14 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.94
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Construct 0/0 C, Illusion / U
Folders	cEDH
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