Venser, The Human Superball

Commander / EDH Bracket 4 Control Mono-Blue

IQuarent

Instant (21)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Blue Sun's Zenith
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cryptic Command
• 1x Cyclonic RiftGC
• 1x Evacuation
• 1x Forbid
• 1x Force of WillGC
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Long-Term Plans
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical TutorGC
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Pull from Tomorrow
• 1x Scour for Scrap
• 1x Sink into Stupor  ^Flip
• 1x Snap
• 1x Stroke of Genius
• 1x Turnabout

Land (37)

• 1x Academy Ruins
• 1x Maze of Ith
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Reliquary Tower
• 1x Riptide Laboratory
• 1x Sanctum of Eternity
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 29x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Terrain Generator

Creature (20)

• 1x Aether Channeler
• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Azami, Lady of Scrolls
• 1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
• 1x Burnished Hart
• 1x Consecrated SphinxGC
• 1x Deadeye Navigator
• 1x Displacer Kitten
• 1x Dour Port-Mage
• 1x Dreamscape Artist
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Mulldrifter
• 1x Naban, Dean of Iteration
• 1x Palinchron
• 1x Peregrine Drake
• 1x Snapcaster Mage
• 1x Solemn Simulacrum
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Trinket Mage
• 1x Wan Shi Tong, Librarian

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Devastation Tide
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Flood of Tears
• 1x Lorien Revealed
• 1x Plea for Power
• 1x Solve the Equation

Commander (1)

Artifact (10)

• 1x Crystal Shard
• 1x Expedition Map
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Gauntlet of Power
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Waterbending Scroll
• 1x Wayfarer's Bauble

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Propaganda
• 1x Rhystic StudyGC

Planeswalker (2)

• 1x Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

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Sideboard

Instant (10)

• 1x An Offer You Can't Refuse
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Capsize
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Familiar's Ruse
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Ghostly Flicker
• 1x Mission Briefing
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Swan Song

Land (1)

• 1x Scrying Sheets

Creature (9)

• 1x Barrin, Tolarian Archmage
• 1x Harbinger of the Seas
• 1x Hullbreaker Horror
• 1x Jace's Archivist
• 1x Malevolent Hermit  ^Flip
• 1x Phantasmal Image
• 1x Sower of Temptation
• 1x Starfield Vocalist
• 1x Stonybrook Banneret

Sorcery (5)

• 1x Boomerang Basics
• 1x Concentrate
• 1x Finale of Revelation
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip

Artifact (2)

• 1x Brainstone
• 1x Caged Sun

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Narset, Parter of VeilsGC

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Maybeboard

Instant (10)

• 1x Disappearing Act
• 1x Dissipate
• 1x Essence Flux
• 1x Mystic Confluence
• 1x Pongify
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Rewind
• 1x Sublime Epiphany
• 1x Unsubstantiate
• 1x Unwind

Sorcery (6)

• 1x Bribery
• 1x Crush of Tentacles
• 1x Mind Spring
• 1x Recurring Insight
• 1x Retraced Image
• 1x Wash Out

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Confounding Conundrum
• 1x Equilibrium

Land (1)

• 1x High Market

Creature (4)

• 1x Fog Bank
• 1x Glen Elendra Archmage
• 1x Patron of the Moon
• 1x Spellskite

Artifact (3)

• 1x Diviner's Wand
• 1x Endless Atlas
• 1x Meekstone

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I accidentally deleted the original version of this deck, which means all of the updates and the original description have been yeeted into the void. While I am sad about that, I finally got around to rewriting the description, so here we go.

This is a mono-blue EDH control deck. While it's gone through many changes over the years, I would say Venser has consistently been one of my best performing decks. Now that I have a real Force of Will, the only thing this deck is really missing is some more efficiency. This deck is not meant to be cEDH, but it could be with no budget and a handful of changes. Currently it is simply high power, easily a high 4.

So what is our gameplan with this deck? Throughout it's many changes the win condition has always been the same: Go Infinite with Palinchron. We have a few ways of going infinite with Palinchron, namely one of our three mana doublers, but there are also ways without them, and even without Palinchron, such as Deadeye Navigator/Displacer Kitten and Peregrine Drake, or Archaeomancer, Turnabout, Riptide Laboratory (or Deadeye) and enough mana to continue a loop. The typical way it uses infinite mana is to use a draw X spell to draw my entire library and then deck everyone else, but bouncing everyone's permanents, including their lands, usually provokes concessions. This can be done with Riptide Laboratory of Sanctum of Eternity with Venser and infinite land untaps, Venser with Deadeye Navigator and infinite mana, or Venser and Naban with infinite mana.

Until then, we play evasive. The deck runs quite a few ways of bouncing all nonland permanents, not only to make use of our many etb creatures, but primarily to slow down our opponents because there are very few strategies that are not hosed by bouncing their entire board repeatedly. While this deck is strong, and it has quite a few good card draw spells, it's usually not good enough to control three players by itself, so often politics are required to keep people from ganging up on it. Propaganda and Maze of Ith are also good for this. Counterspells are used to prevent people from getting their game winning plays, but typically it's not a permanent solution and only good to stall for time, because this is a combo deck at it's heart.

In order to get to Palinchron infinite quicker, which requires seven lands, the deck has everything that's decent or better in blue that puts lands into play, but not it's enough ramp to get out of the gate fast consistently, which I'd say it probably the deck's biggest weakness. It does have quite a bit of synergy though, and can do a lot of tricks with Venser as the commander. With two lands that can return Venser to hand, Crystal Shard and Naban, if we ever run out of cards, Venser is a pretty reliable way to keep people off us long enough to get card draw or a way to win the game. Overusing Venser is not the primary gameplan and is only really viable when the right support pieces are drawn, because overusing the commander can mean we are appraised as a higher threat. Generally though, the deck tries to lay low and counter the right spells and bounce permanents long enough to go infinite.

Date added	3 years
Last updated	17 hours
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 2 Mythic Rares 30 - 15 Rares 21 - 7 Uncommons 14 - 4 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.06
Tokens	Bird 1/1 W, Bird 2/2 U, Manifest 2/2 C, Treasure
Folders	8-Deck Built-From-Scratch 3's and 4's, All Commander Deck I Actually Own IRL