dknight27

I positively love the theme in here, especially for a budget, but I see a couple big problems.

You are going to be miles behind on tempo because of the land situation. 12 of your lands come in tapped no matter what, and 4 that come in conditionally untapped (with semi- hard conditions to fulfill in this build), so in most games you will be a turn behind in development which is absolute death for control.

There are also some, in my opinion, weak slots going to things you either don't need or have better alternatives.
Farseek isn't necessary, as you're running 25 lands, 4 opts, and 4 growth spirals. If you don't have the white or blue mana you need while having 2 lands out to play farseek, its your destiny to lose that game. On top of that, you can't count on it as there are only 2 copies, and 1 extra land won't speed you into ulamog quickly enough to justify the spot or trigger tracker enough to justify the spot.
I like mainboarded negates over mana leak. You have 7 mainboarded direct critter hate (including 3 nukes), 5 flexible critter or non-critter hate, and only 5 conditional counters for non-critters, so negate would go a long way to keeping the balance.
Kiora looks weak in here to me, as the win condition is fantastic once activated, but takes a decent amount of time to get to, and she is weak on loyalty anyway so any interference means the win condition won't connect. Plus, you don't want to field it turn 4 as you can't protect it or respond during the next turn, so you will be better off running something more proactive.

Just my thoughts, not trying to put the deck down.

I like remand, as it retains tempo, give you a solid turn 2 after you field your delver or 1-drop tactic sorceries, feeds the delve, and retains material. It also works fantastically with the discard you are using, as you can retain tempo and material, then make them discard it if its threat enough.

You can get away with running a lot fewer creatures in here. You only need 1 on the field (as they are all buff), and you need a lot of material to protect them, so I would advise trimming the critter count and upping the control instants.

The more I look at and play this deck, the less I like it. I think it's built on a flawed concept, as it takes a considerable amount of mana to field talrand and support him simultaneously, and the normal way you would do this is with counter spells/effects, which work poorly in EDH in terms of general card advantage. They stop specific threats, and buy you time to build up drakes, but as you are playing against 2-3 opponents your 1 for 1 counterspells make you run out of material much more quickly than opponents. Granted, this is a general problem of mono-blue in EDH, but I think there are much better mono-blue commanders that have less temperamental conditions.

Its around 3 bucks a pop today, but I get ya.

I guess what I'm getting at is that if you're going to play casual, your best move is to take advantage of as much of the ridiculous tempo boosts non-tournament legal cards give you, the biggest of which is the ability to accelerate mana development and ramp into heavy hitting spells much more quickly than possible in a regular format.

If we are going casual I would suggest going 4X sol ring, cutting back on the lands to 21, and working in effects like plow under

ive been playing around with the idea in my head, and will continue to do so, and I think you can actually build the entire win condition out of cycled cards recycled by sarcophagus and man-lands, which is fascinating as you move through your deck like lightning by cycling off excess stuff, find the sarcophagus, then reuse everything for the win. I'm building 2 versions now, RBU and WBU

This is very interesting. I'll take a closer look a little later

Oh, and add entreat the angels to the list of staples

I see a couple big areas that could use some tweaking, some at the structural level.

The biggest area of possible improvement, from my perspective, is that you can basically trim the deck down to just control elements and use the leftovers as your actual win conditions. So, you can cut a bunch of the critters meant to deal combat damage and the excess support like glorious anthem, which frees up spots for ways to lock them down while you grind our your win.

The azor prison is a fantastic lock, and you have some good ways to keep it moving, but you could do quite a lot with the rest of the build to keep the control machine running. Azor is unique, as he is a control mechanic, a partial win condition, an anti-agro, and a material farm mechanic all wrapped into a 6 drop for 6. So, you can get away with lots of stuff you couldn't otherwise do because Azor picks up the slack.

On top of this, the azor prison will slow most decks down to a crawl, but deny opponents any other mechanics and you can shut them out completely. Azor prison plus authority of the consuls/kismet means opponent eats 2 turns before he can respond to basically anything, etc. Get 3 prison effects going at once and its over.

Also, blue/white is a hell of a color combo in EDH, and you are missing some of the staple badass cards/combos.

Aven mindscenson
Baird, steward of argive
Consecrated sphinx
Fatespinner
Solemn Silmilcrum
Spellseeker
Spelltithe enforcer
Sunblast angel
Trinket mage
Trophy mage
Windborn muse
Ponder
Saheeli's artistry
Aetherspouts
Brainstorm
Return to dust
Erratic Portal
Lightning grieves
Mind stone
Swiftfoot boots
Thran dynamo
Aura of silence
Authority of the consuls
Control magic
Ghostly prison
Kismet
Propaganda
Reliquary tower

Then there are the blue/white only staples like:

Godhead of awe
Isperia, supreme judge





Lastly, Azor is always STARVING for mana, as you want to consistently be able to field him, protect him, and tap out for 4 or 5 to refill the hand each turn as well as be able to play the stuff you draw. A good way to do this is to max out the 2-drop mana producers like mind stone, coldsteel heart, marble diamond, sky diamond, etc.

If you want help tearing it down to build it back up, I'd be happy to help.


Also, not trying to tear down you or your build, just sharing my thoughts.

what sort of budget are we looking at here?

This is very interesting. I've never seen an anti-meta build mixed into a zoo format.

I see a few conflicting themes though. Goyf doesn't have enough food. You have no sorceries, and no artifacts that are easily graved (relic exiles itself), so you are looking at a land/critter grave with an eventual instant. I would run 1 temple garden to ensure that your turn 2 nacatal is maxed out and you have all 3 bases covered. I don't like dryad arbor at all, as this deck is pretty sleek, can get by on 1 land for quite a while before it needs the second (if you have to), can function almost completely on 2 lands, and has no need for any more than 3 whatsoever. With the arbor, you are running 21, when this deck can easily get away with running 19. Plus the arbor comes in sick, so you can't drop your turn 1 beater, your turn 2 goyf, or your turn 3 magus. It combos decently with the copter, but as there are 2 copters and 1 arbor, I don't think its worth the consideration. Reckless rage isn't the best option for the 1-drop removal slot, as you have path to exile, flame slash (goyf food), pyrite spellbomb (goyf food), seal of fire (goyf food). I like mainboarded dromoka's command, as it gives you lots of decent options and ups the instant count, but I don't like 4 of them when atarka's command is this deck's bread and butter. I've personally never liked running 4 lavamancers, as you don't want to drop it early at all, and it works extremely well as a top deck, so in general I keep it to 2 or 3 so it hits the field with fuel ready to go. Plus, if you drop it turn 1 or 2, activating it neuters goyf.

That being said, I see PLENTY of incredible synergy in here. The more I look at naram renegade, the more I like it in here. You will almost certainly be able to chuck a land to it, and if you can't its still a 1/2 deathtouch. By the time magus of the moon hits, you are fielded and already cruising, and this deck can function on mostly mountains anyway. Plus, if you have one in the opening you can fetch basics before you drop it and be all set.

Nice work, I'm going to be thinking about this type of build for a while

Defense grid for sure will be in the side, and I would pull out the howling mines for it. Metal worker is extremely powerful for fast combos and general artifact ramp, but because it doesn't have haste it doesn't do precisely what I want 3-drops to do in this deck. If it had haste, absolutely as you could dump your whole hand if you could field it turn 1. It also fits perfectly with ballista, walker, and wurmcoil, so in a build that focuses on directly ramping into ridiculous critters it is an absolute must.

Actually, trinisphere is basically the best card in this deck for taxing, as it turns all the fantastic 0 and 1-drops opponent is going to run (should be like 30-35 cards) into non-playable 3 drops. Vintage basically runs off of turn 1 acceleration via mox-like effects, and trinisphere turns mox-like cards into dead cards. And, best of all, as most vintage decks run fewer actual lands because they supplement them with mox-like cards, you are going to basically pull out 5-7 lands in their deck without removing the card slots. Turn 1 trinisphere is devastating, and its SOOOO easy to get out in this build. Mishra's workshop does it on its own, ancient den + any mox-esk, mana crypt + any land/or other mox, black lotus on its own, sol rong + any land +any mox.

Also, it ups the tax card numbers (1 thorn, 4 sphere, 4 orb, 1 trinisphere, 1 chalice (this deck only has a single 1-drop, so turn 1 chalice on 1-drops is a winner) for a total of 10 that you want to play turn 1. If you get any of them out, it should be enough to get you through to the middle game at least. So there is a pretty good argument for including trinisphere just to up this number from 9 to 10.

Topdecking a trinisphere with any of the other tax effects in play is definitely going to dilute the effect, you're absolutely right about that, but this deck's only real goal is to drop a tax turn 1 and grind them out after that, so its really a good bet to risk the top deck redundancy.

The grid is a fantastic card for this deck, and the build could easily be rearranged to have that as its win condition. I chose to keep the build colorless so I could max out the big colorless producer lands and never have to worry about dead draws based on lack of color. But, it wouldn't be a big deal to swap in 4 great furnaces and rely on the ruby mox, mox opal, black lotus, and perhaps a little other red-producing effects to get it done. Food for thought for sure.

Well, if we want to work the rebuild, its worth noting that the traditional version of this deck just uses instants and goes for the card reset, which you can only do during opponent's turn. Its ok to not go for that build, as it lets you use some fantastic sorceries and artifacts, but worth mentioning. Want to go for a reset build, or keep it sorcery?

Stuff like preordain and careful study fix this deck's central problem, which is the topdecked islands that KILL you.

Another consideration that would help tremendously is lotus petal, as it ups the storm count, removes islands from the build, and is a fantastic topdeck for the deck-sleigh. It goes for 10-15 bucks a pop though

gitaxian probe is an absolute must, as are many more 1-drop draw cards, which are the bread and butter of decks like this

Im not a fan of remand in here, as you desperately want to have a turn 2 drop and don't want to pass turn 2 to keep the mana open to use remand. Inquisition of kozilek and the like would fit better in my opinion. I also like maxing out dark confidant, as its essentially a win condition on its own and your curve is very low.

Even with the 23 lands and sol ring, this build is a bit top heavy. Lots of 3-drop equipments are gunna slow you down drastically. Also, you're missing some equipment staples like skullclamp, umezawa's jitte, sword of fire and ice, sword of feast and famine, etc. I would also consider dropping the lands to 21, maxing the sol rings, and maybe even bonesplitter (fast on the field, fast equipped, agro ramp)

If this is a budget build, ignore the jitte and the swords and go for skullclamp, sol ring, and bonesplitter

In general, I like spellseeker for this deck quite a bit, as it fetches power cards like demonic tutor and cyclonic rift. And trinket mage, as it fetches the moxes, sol ring, and the rack.