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Consult Scepter Thrasios

Commander / EDH BUG (Sultai) Combo Competitive GWUB Infinite Combo Multiplayer

AlwaysSleepy ShaperSavant

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Commander: foil Thrasios, Triton Hero
Commander: foil Tymna the Weaver

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Consult Scepter Thrasios [CST]

Consult Scepter Thrasios [CST] is a powerful and resilient combo deck aimed at maximizing deck speed, individual card strength, and value-scaling as the game progresses. CST shares similarity with traditional cEDH storm lists, but uses efficient two-card combos in place of card- and resource-intensive storm outlets. It seeks to utilize Tymna and Thrasios as scaling consistency engines and with some clever optimizations, Thrasios enables extremely slot-efficient wincons on the back of slim infinite mana combos.

The objective of the deck is to generate infinite mana, draw, and spell-casting through a series of combos with Isochron Scepter infinite mana, or to win with Laboratory Maniac effects + Demonic Consultation. Thrasios enables use of Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal as a clean and slot-efficient 2-card combo to win on the spot. The win condition of choice uses Copy Artifact/Scepter or a Timetwister/Memory’s Journey loop, which lets us minimize the number of dead draws to a remarkably low count; most every card is live in some way outside of their respective roles in being part of the combo.

One of the most important parts of the deck worth sharing is that it is modular. It can be equipped with different win conditions depending on what you expect to see to maximize the chances of winning. The ramp and draw options can be optimized for how your meta interacts with mana sources and styles of card advantage. Interaction can be customized to combat the metagame you need to adapt to (but counterspells and efficient 1-mana removal typically remain the most versatile!). Fully customizing to your meta context will take time, trials, errors, and intuition, but this ‘stock’ fast-and-lean focused shell will provide a formidable starting point in the blind.

Hi! I’m AlwaysSleepy. I’m writing this with ShaperSavant. You can call us Shaper and Sleepy.

This primer speaks to a more general idea of how to play with infinite mana, and what makes this archetype powerful. Both of us have been on the infinite mana train for a while, Shaper having spent extended time tuning infinite mana Tasigur (long live Damia!) and myself still being an emissary of Oona and the Fae. We both have tinkered with the infinite mana archetype for a long time, and wanted to extend our experience to this new frontier.

So, why CST? With the emergence of Thrasios, Triton Hero much of the space for commander choice in infinite mana strategies collapsed to a singularity, with mermaidman eschewing many of the reasons for playing other commanders. Thanks to the partner mechanic, each of these new commanders brought to the table a new strength to the deck and a new dimension to explore: Thrasios offers a powerful combo outlet and the ability to convert acquired mana into compounding resource advantage and card selection; Tymna as a commander accrues card advantage with our ramp creatures we otherwise utilize in our combo, allowing a split between creature and artifact mana that offers a resilience to varied hate.

Ultimately, since Thrasios’ release, we’ve gone back and forth over what to play in the list, and we have converged on this list in its respective components and have included discussion on what we included and what we excluded. It’s really exciting for us to share this with the community, since we feel we have arrived on a list which actively utilizes all resources at hand consistently and efficiently. Life, mana, and creatures are all tools the deck consistently uses to draw cards, progress the game plan, and (hopefully!) win!

It’s with this motivation and scope that we’re proud to present what is really more a labor of love than a decklist on its own.

Here is CST.

(We dedicate the list to Damia and Oona; really, two quality girls.)

Post-Paradox Engine banning, we've updated the primer a bit and moved a few things around. Ultimately, the list is very much the same and nearly unaffected by the loss, and the compact and extremely resilient Consult + LabMan lines have now taken a place as mainboard.

Raw Scepter / Reversal

This is one of the more obvious patterns -- you have half the puzzle and some mana and just need to tutor the rest. Be careful not to get trapped into over-tunneling on these types of hands; they're often fast but risky and leave you scrambling to recover if you're disrupted. But if life gives you the nuts, don't be afraid to make peanut butter.

Ad Nauseam Rush

This is an attractive plan in scenarios where you've got fast mana rituals, a tutor, and are looking to rush out a win or slip between a light amount of stack-based disruption at instant speed. It also is a very attractive game plan against non-blue decks that levy permanent-removal in lieu of counterspells, as once Naus resolves, your combo will be very well-protected. The deck is quite capable of a main-phase Naus, but end-of-turn will always be more secure.

Necropotence Slam

Going for Necro in the early-mid is a strong strategy if you need to take a cycle or two to exhaust interaction and ramp a bit. All-in on Necro also has the ability to win games that are worn on interaction, but remember that your 7 cards needs to both survive the pass and combo. Typically in the early game, an initial Necro of ~15 is prudent for initial selection, with subsequent Necros being tailored to the tempo necessary to strongarm the rest of the players into submission and execute the combo. Later-game Necros will normally plan to only pass the turn cycle once, so dig deep.

Notion Thief & Windfall

When the game gets wonky with too much stax or you've reached a complicated late-game, this is a clean way to steal the victory while interacting with Thief and circumnavigating most stax pieces. It's a little mana-intensive to easily rush, but Notion Thief is quite strong in the interactive Tymna/Thrasios mirror.

Midrange Value / Control

Keeping hands that lean on incremental draw like Mystic Remora, Sylvan Library, Dark Confidant, etc. are strong when you're planning on going into the long game against control/stax decks. These pieces are innocuous enough to not draw countermagic early while setting you up to sculpt into a winning hand when an opportunity opens up -- or in the hyper-lategame when you've sufficiently ramped into a window you create with Cyclonic Rift.

Ramp to Tymna & Thrasios

If you've mulled to 6 or so and didn't get strong gas or are playing against a lot of mana-denial stax -- if you don't expect a lightning-fast pod -- playing out dorks/ramp into Tymna draw and later Thrasios draw can be a strong value plan.

Laboratory Maniac Effects & Consultation Effects

In games where there are standstills, or if there are some difficult stax effects to maneuver around, this win condition is extremely potent and 100% deterministic. It's compact and space efficient and addresses weaknesses and blind spots present in some of the other lines of play. Overall, this potent combo is an efficient way to steal games with minimal set up or telegraphing.

Before talking about how to win the game specifically, let’s talk about how this deck actually goes infinite. Note that not all inclusions here are necessarily in the main deck (Scroll Rack / Voltaic Key), but we have included each potential infinite combo here for completeness. There are a number of avenues which will get you to a game-winning position.

Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal + 3 Untappable Mana = Infinite Mana

Casting Reversal with Scepter untaps Scepter and the mana to cast it again.

Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal + Sensei's Divining Top + 2 Untappable Mana = Infinite Draw

Reversal can also continuously untap Top, which can be used to draw the library without Thrasios or infinite mana.

This is left for completeness, but please note Paradox Engine is no longer legal and not in the list.

Paradox Engine can also be utilized in several ways to generate infinite mana and/or draw.

Paradox Engine + Sensei's Divining Top + Thrasios + 5 Untappable Mana = Infinite Draw

With Engine in play, casting Top to generate 5 mana allows us to flip Top, activate Thrasios for 4 drawing Top, and recast Top for 1. Each time we do this, we draw 1 card with the Top flip. With 6 generated mana, we would net 1 mana per loop and can generate infinite mana using Timetwister to prevent decking out.

Paradox Engine + Isochron Scepter + 3 Untappable Mana = Infinite Mana

Each Isochron cast untaps your mana and Scepter, so any infinitely castable imprint spell generates infinite mana.

Paradox Engine + Sensei's Divining Top + Voltaic Key + 2 Untappable Mana = Infinite Draw

With the three artifacts in play, flip Top + Key untap Top + flip Top again. This will resolve with you drawing Top and a card beneath; recast Top and loop for infinite draw.

Paradox Engine + Sensei's Divining Top + Scroll Rack + 3 Untappable Mana = Infinite Mana

With the three artifacts in play, flip Top, then activate Rack to put Top back in hand. Recast Top and loop for infinite mana.

Note that with the inclusion of LabMan + Consult lines, this combo is no longer main board. However, this combo is still highly viable.

Angel's Grace allows you to enter negative life to put your library in hand with Ad Nauseam.

The crux of this win-condition lies in Copy Artifact which lets you put a copy onto the battlefield of any artifact. Since I didn’t actually plan this out I spoiled the surprise in the title and our target artifact is Isochron Scepter. This lets us put into play another Isochron Scepter and trigger the imprint ability to tuck another instant with 2 CMC or less underneath it. There are many different cards which can win under this second Isochron Scepter, which contributes to its power as a combo finish since most decks will not have to run different cards or cards which are far outside the overall game plan. This translates to overall a very high density of live draws over the course of the game which can be recycled later to win the game with. Awesome right? We think so here at Thras Corp.

Here’s a run-down of how the combo works, it’s fairly quick so we’ll go over it in a few steps then spend most of the time talking about corner cases, card choices, and other tricks.

  1. Play out Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal to make infinite mana. Infinite colored mana is not required. But since Thrasios draws the deck off this combo making colored is more or less trivial.
  2. Play out Copy Artifact + your win-condition of choice. Thanks to Scepter untapping all your artifacts and the infinite mana, you can repeatedly cast the tucked card, letting you win the game.

Simple right? Right. That’s all there is to it. In just two steps you get be a real Jedi with dueling Scepters. Your win is even: fated. (That was awful, sorry.)

Now that we have touched on the core of this combo, there are some points worth noting. You can play out Copy Artifact or other combo cards like any other card in game. When time comes to win, you bounce or destroy the copy and Regrowth or Noxious Revival it back to your hand. This also works for win condition cards, and let’s us use them as needed and pull them back to win when needed. This, of course, doesn’t work with exile unless you are specifically running exile interaction, but generally avoid having those cards exiled.

Similarly to Copy Scepter, given unbounded mana and draw, Timetwister in conjunction with a graveyard recursion spell can generate unlimited casts of the spells in your library.

To execute a Timetwister loop:

  1. Generate infinite mana, cast Thrasios, Triton Hero, and draw your library.
  2. Cast spells to loop, such as Swan Song on a Nature's Claim, generating a token.
  3. Cast Timetwister, resetting your library.
  4. Draw your library.
  5. Regrowth Timetwister.
  6. Repeat steps 2 - 5 to infinitely cast any spells in library.

If Timetwister isn’t in budget, you can perform similar loops with Memory's Journey:

  1. Generate infinite mana, cast Thrasios, Triton Hero, and draw your library.
  2. Cast spells to loop, such as Swan Song on a Nature's Claim, generating a token.
  3. Cast Memory's Journey, returning looped spells and your Regrowth.
  4. Draw those cards.
  5. Regrowth Memory's Journey.
  6. Repeat steps 2 - 5 to infinitely cast any spells in library.

Once you’ve successfully assembled infinite mana and have drawn your library, the next step is to loop your available spells in a way that results in winning the game. This involves the utilization of some number of outlet cards -- in the interest of slot efficiency, we prioritize cards that are already strong, useful, and appropriately costed (see ya, Praetor's Grasp) that can double as a way to win the game.

At a high level, the goal post-infinite is to wipe away all enemy resources, generate an infinitely large token board, and lock your opponents out of the game by holding up a library of countermagic and Silence. Some of these steps may be extraneous, but better safe than sorry. :thmile:

  1. Clear enemy boards with Cyclonic Rift or Assassin's Trophy.
  2. Clear enemy hands with Notion Thief + Timetwister
  3. Gain infinite life with Nature's Claim or Plunge into Darkness (post-infinite birds).
  4. Play all of your nonland permanents.
  5. Generate a board of infinite Swan Song tokens.
  6. Reset your library with Timetwister.
  7. Pass the turn.
  8. Draw most of your library on opponents’ upkeeps.
  9. Allow nothing to resolve, Silence as necessary.
  10. Swing for lethal or use Scepter + Deathrite Shaman to drain opponents.

Let’s take a closer look at possible outlet cards:

Reality Shift

This was the original card which started the whole dual scepter idea. The idea is repeatedly shifting your opponents’ creatures (and the resultant manifest) will exile their entire libraries, leading to losses on their draw steps. This card is also playable outside of the combo as 2 CMC removal which exiles is overall adequate individually bearing in mind it’s also one of the combo finishes. You can give you opponents targets using Forbidden Orchard in case they do not have any.

Noxious Revival

This card is a unique way of playing around the 2 CMC/instant constraint of the Copy/Scepter combo by letting you cast any card and place back on top of the library to redraw with Thrasios and recast. This is best thought of as the primary Copy Artifact imprint target: you can recast cards in your library any number of times in the order needed to win and recycle them as needed with Thrasios’ draw capability.

Winds of Rebuke

This card already sees play in specific storm lists. The idea here is you can imprint/loop and repeatedly mill opponents and win the game in this way. Granted, this does not work into The Gitrog Monster since she has an Eldrazi titan, which helps protect the pilot if it gets repeatedly sent to the graveyard without being exiled (like with Death Rite Shaman). Beyond that, you need a target to bounce. Considering we have infinite mana at this point, any permanent will do the job. You can simply repeatedly play out and bounce that permanent. Thrasios and Tymna work fine fine provided infinite colored mana.

Pongify

In a similar fashion as the win from Winds of Rebuke, Pongify lets you repeatedly kill your commander and replay it off infinite colored mana to form an infinite army of 3/3 Apes for a next turn win. This cycle is one of the weaker synergies with the Copy/Scepter combo, as you must pass the turn to win on your next turn. One benefit is that in Thrasios lists, you have infinite mana and access to every piece of interaction in your deck at this point, and losing is improbable.

Swan Song

This card also works but in a more convoluted fashion in relation to the other imprint targets. Making infinite mana with Scepter also involves creating an arbitrarily large high storm count. This lets you cast any instant or sorcery of your choosing and countering it with Flusterstorm. After the storm ability on Flusterstorm resolves, you place an (again) arbitrarily large number of copies on the stack, which you can then counter repeatedly with Swan Song. This puts you in a similar situation as with Pongify, but now they are 2/2 flying vessels of terror. Eat your heart out Storm Crow. It is worth mentioning you can Swan Song the copy from the Scepter with Dramatic Reversal under it, but make sure you can untap all your permanents in some other way. Paradox Engine, for example, lets you do this.

As before, this combo is no longer mainboard, however the information is very useful and the combo is still highly viable should you choose to include it!

Taken directly from Zur decks, If you are unable to execute an infinite-cast loop, an alternate wincon can be constructed:

  1. Draw your library (most commonly with Angel's Grace + Ad Nauseam).
  2. Silence your opponents.
  3. Cast Angel’s Grace.
  4. Brainstorm putting Yawgmoth's Will back on your library.
  5. Cast Windfall, causing your opponents to draw cards equal to your library-hand size.
  6. Cast Will and recast Windfall to draw out any survivors.

One of the core ideas in building this deck is modularity. The deck has a number of easily swappable parts which lets it easily adapt to the metagame you are playing in and how you want to be approaching it. It’s analogous to a sideboard in constructed; it lets you adjust the cards that your metagame is prepared to interact with.

Making a decision between dork- and rock-heavy builds is largely a function of your metagame. In nearly every case, you will want to play a mix of mana sources; the best of each of the dorks and rocks are strong enough to warrant near auto-inclusion in your CST. Additionally, it's important in the blind to mix mana sources so as to avoid vulnerability to any one form of mana-ramp denial (Cursed Totem / Null Rod). Splitting the mana architecture allows us to maintain our mana integrity and operate under those effects to search for answers before winning; this fairly non-trivial property of the deck which certainly helps it deal with hate.

The rocks that net mana without significant use barriers have near auto-inclusion status, not only in CST but universally across cEDH builds. Likewise, it's hard to imagine any build of CST that would forgo the best of the mana dorks; they're too efficient to ignore.

Rocks

Dorks

In order to begin customizing the remaining ramp package, it's important to understand the advantages provided by each style of ramp. Here is a list of the top picks in both categories in rough order of desirability, along with pros & cons of each package.

Dorks:

Other Dorks:

Pros:

  • Accelerate very quickly

  • Swing for Tymna draw

  • Offer blocking options

  • 2-cost dorks produce multiple mana

Cons:

  • Do not tap immediately on the combo turn

  • Vulnerable to activated ability denial (Cursed Totem, Linvala)

  • Vulnerable to wipes

  • Deathrite and Deep Shadow do not significantly contribute to Scepter critical mass

Rocks:

Other Rocks:

Pros:

  • Allow mid-turn acceleration for Scepter critical mass

  • Enable Mox Opal

  • Fixes colors with colorless

Cons:

  • Without fast-mana acceleration, 2-cost rocks result in slow hands

  • Vulnerable to artifact hate (Null Rod, Stony Silence)

  • Increased life loss from Ad Nauseam

Remember: mana ramp is compounds cumulatively. The earlier you begin to ramp, the more resources you are able to expend subsequently ramping and drawing. Exploding out-the-gate is incredibly important to race early lock-out mana denial (such as Trinisphere and friends) and establish engines that let you get your gameplan and/or sufficient control online. This is one of the primary motivations for our choosing to play dorks over 2-cost rocks.

To customize your build of CST, ask yourself a few questions:

  • How much creature hate is being played? Artifact hate?
  • How often are my dorks able to swing in for Tymna cards?
  • How often am I pumping bulk mana from 2-cost dorks into Thrasios or other big-mana plays?

These should give you a sense of how much you'd like to skew toward artifact ramp from the default build. Start cutting dorks from the bottom of the dork list and adding rocks from the top of the rock list until you reach the right mixes of ramp. It starts becoming attractive to add Mox Opal around 16 total artifacts. Mox Amber is attractive for slower midrange builds. If you skew toward artifact-focus, add Ancient Tomb in place of the basic Forest.

Laboratory Maniac & Demonic Consultation

NOW MAINBOARD! HOORAY! COMING TO A NEW TIMEZONE NEAR YOU!

This package is a go to swap for heavy stax metas or tables where your ability to win through artifact hate like Null Rod and Stony Silence is reduced. Additionally, it also is a win through Cursed Totem. This can be added to the deck to play well with Tainted Pact and offer a concise way to take the game in the midst of heavy board stall. We suggest removing the combo Power Artifact and Grim Monolith in some way and swapping in this win condition in its stead. However, many swaps are also viable and can be left to pilot discretion and the specific meta they are playing in. This is one of the strongest packages in the format and a highly viable combo.

Voltaic Key & Scroll Rack

These cards can help increase the artifact density, and might pair well in more rock-heavy builds (say, your meta is filled with Cursed Totem and Pyroclasm effects). They have lost some stock since the banning of Paradox Engine, but remain respectable choices.

Power Artifact

Paired with Grim Monolith, PA is another solid win condition that can increase density and add stax resilience, particularly against Sphere of Resistance effects or Rule of Law effects (resolve Thrasios, then Grim, then Power over multiple turns; then either blow away the stax with draw deck + Cyclonic Rift on an opponent’s turn, or hold up Silence / countermagic to make it back to your turn.

We'll use this space to discuss our mainboard choices, but remember that these things may change depending on your respective metagame needs!

Pongify - This has now been swapped to Assassin's Trophy, which is overall much stronger. Same ideas apply, however.

This card is played in lieu of Swords to Plowshares, for the reason that most single targets which need to be removed are hit by both of these spells, however Pongify gives another loopable spell for the Isochron Scepter or Timetwister win conditions, allowing the deck to create a large number of 3/3s and hold up countermagic to win the game on the following turn. In game, this choice does block out some of the Tymna the Weaver openings for card draw, but should not stonewall the deck often considering there are other players to attack as well. The overall benefit of another win-condition outlet for this small drawback led us to make the swap and include Pongify.

Plunge into Darkness

The absolute champion of inexpensive dig spells, this card was included since overall the deck is only looking to assemble 2 cards to win the game. Considering that Plunge into Darkness is specifically in line with digging for specific cards, we have included this card to improve the deck’s consistency. In testing, there are some worthwhile notes to share. The first is Plunge a little more conservatively than you would in a deck like Food Chain Tazri. It’s possible you plunge very deep (~30 cards) and then exile your win conditions looking for the card you need, so take care to factor in what else you need to create and utilize your infinite mana engine. On average, look to dig about 8-15 cards blind. If you have other parts in hand, then you can begin to increase your Plunge depth. Ideally, Plunge deep if you really just need a single card, and be more reserved the more parts you are missing. Worst case scenario on a miss, it will replace itself with another relevant card like more draw or a counterspell.

Winds of Rebuke

This card has been removed from the mainboard thanks to new printings and some of the shifts due to the Paradox Engine banning.

This card has consistently proven itself as an excellent general bounce spell in the format while also punishing topdeck tutors effectively. Here we mention it just to bring up that it is a win condition with the dual Isochron Scepter/Copy Artifact win condition in the deck.

Tainted Pact

Now we play Laboratory Maniac effects! Yay! This card is even better!

Cue pre-ban explanation.

And no Laboratory Maniac? Heckin gosh yes my dude. The rationale is nearly identical to that of Plunge into Darkness. We are very often looking for specifics, and this card again is a way to zip through the deck and find single cards with high consistency. Later on, when we talk about alternate packages, one of those includes Laboratory Maniac and Demonic Consultation, which will use this card as combo redundancy. However without Maniac it is another tutor thanks to the singleton manabase.

And now it's even stronger.

Dorks!

This is one of the major shifts in the list. Both of us have felt that while certainly powerful, previous Scepter lists with Tymna the Weaver did not fully abuse how effective her card draw is. With this in mind we sliced a number of the slower artifact mana and replaced them with dorks. These cards still hit Scepter threshold however also can be used to draw cards every turn with Tymna the Weaver. Cards like Priest of Titania provide some staying/grinding power with Thrasios, Triton Hero and let us easily hit threshold into other bear based decks by netting mana off the opponents’ Elves in play. Notion Thief is a generally powerful card which gives huge blowout potential to the wheels in the deck as well as again being a source of card advantage with Tymna. The normal dork package is included and rounded off with Dark Confidant which gives a guaranteed extra card per turn and potentially a second with Tymna. In testing this choice let the deck consistently draw extra turns and abuse its life total as a resource in ways other decks did not with the exception of Ad Nauseam, Necropotence, and Sylvan Library. Considering the inclusion of these cards in the list, the deck effectively keeps a constant stream of card advantage by efficiently using each resource at hand to the fullest.

Demonic Consultation

Very powerful and adds an element of inherent risk. Instant speed to-hand tutor for B is unmatched in tutor power, but the possibility of exiling the searched card in the top or too many outlets on the way down is ever-present. The odds of hitting the named card in the top 6 of a 90-card library are approximately 6.66%. It is now mainboard and enables the instant win with LabMan effects.

These are (mostly) powerful cards we have chosen not to include in the list or the mainboard. Each card has the reasoning associated with it.

Swords to Plowshares

Touched on earlier, we selected a card which doubles as a win condition instead of running Swords. While still an excellent card and not an incorrect choice, Pongify helps improve win condition density with the aggressive card digging the deck can do with Plunge into Darkness and Tainted Pact.

Angel's Grace - NOW MAYBEBOARD

With the inclusion of Consult lines, this card is now maybeboard. But still very good!

Oh, the love of Zur the Enchanter, that lovely modern combo, and potentially one of the strongest combos in the EDH format. Inclusion of Grace allows for the backup line which uses Windfall. Ultimately, we will leave it up to pilot preference as to the inclusion of this card, and simply state our reasoning for and against it. Angel's Grace + An Nauseam is a terrifying combo which threatens an immediate win. Turns out Modern does have some nice pointers.

__

Grim Tutor

No.

3+ Mana Tutors

Okay, so here we will expand on the previous idea. Generally speaking, 3 mana tutors put too much strain on the curve since before assembling infinite mana, the margins a pilot will operate on are very narrow. The cards in this slot are often of too poor quality to warrant inclusion over another card. The exceptions to this rule in some cEDH lists are Doomsday and Dark Petition, the former being itself a win-condition and the latter fixing mana after cast.

Aven Mindcensor

A powerful asymmetrical hatebear that often trades 1-for-1 at instant speed. Importantly is an evasive swinger for Tymna, which usually means a guaranteed extra draw when on that gameplan. Great for grindy games, especially against tutor-commanders than shine in those scenarios, like Zur, Yisan, Sisay, etc. Also quite strong against Protean Hulk.

Stifle

While a little narrow and quite an angle-shot, it's quite good against Hulk and other strong abilities.

Containment Priest

Excellent anti-Hulk/Razaketh tech. Tends to be somewhat narrow, but a potent meta-call in the right context.

Gilded Drake - This card goes in and out of mainboard!

An amazing meta call. Doesn’t directly do anything for the deck’s plan in the blind, but quite good in many metas.

Walking Ballista

In order to keep this list’s dead draws to an absolute minimum, we have elected to use Timetwister loops and Scepter/Copy win conditions as much as possible. This prevents draws which do not do anything until you are already in a situation where you have “won.” Considering that winning post-infinite mana with Thrasios, Triton Hero is not an issue, the list does not require unneeded dilution.

High Tide

Scepter Thrasios is not a storm deck, nor does its combo require large amount of mana to assemble in full. With dorks to compensate and a singleton manabase supporting additional tutors and alternate win conditions, the benefit of High Tide is lost to the benefit of being able to increase tutor/dig density. The inclusion of dorks allows for play under Blood Moon and Back to Basics, which are relevant hate cards that High Tide manabases can combat fairly effectively. This is also why there is no Candelabra of Tawnos.

Mox Opal

A great card, and sadly a straightforward exclusion. We don’t have the mainboard artifact density to make it consistent enough to play. However, in rock-heavy builds, it makes its way back in.

Reality Shift

This is a worthwhile card to increase your outlet spell density. We didn’t include it in order to make room for other things, but if you find yourself wanting more outlet cards (say you play against Jeleva exile frequently or are never-lucky-always-punished on Plunge or Pact), this is a good go-to.

We built a few wallet-friendly versions! Don't be afraid to dig into the 3-mana tutors or artifact only tutors if your budget is super tight. Construct the best BUG manabase you can and reduce the white splash if it's troublesome. You can play LabMan/Consultation to replace the expensive wincon outlets and get a little extra tutor density. Add the mana rocks and tutors as you can afford them.

$500 CST

$1000 CST

These will scale beyond their denoted price as time goes on, unfortunately, as good cards get expensive.

Here we arrive at the end of our write-up. We hope that it was informative in ways more than just within the realm of CST, and we thank you for spending some time to read about what we have put together. Additionally, our real hope in this endeavor is that people may pick up the list and explore the modular components of it, testing and seeing which builds are effective in their pods, and approach constructing their own cEDH decks in a similar fashion: that is aiming to always optimize and improve what is at hand while realizing that often there is more than one path to victory!

If you enjoyed this primer, consider donating an updoot to share in the infinite love. <3

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Updates Add

Primer/Content/Updates moving to MoxField! — April 23, 2020
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Hey team,

I'm moving my stuff to MoxField, I like the interface more. I will update the list on that platform from here onwards.

Come hang out!

CST Primer

Thassa's Oracle and the State of the Format — Jan. 20, 2020
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aaa — Nov. 1, 2019
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Arcane Signet — Sept. 23, 2019
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Paradox Engine banned. — July 8, 2019
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Winds = Rebuked — June 27, 2019
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Consult PST — June 21, 2019
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Lands are talking — June 10, 2019
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Assassin's Trophy — Sept. 13, 2018
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Revision 18 See all

(4 years ago)

+1 Fierce Guardianship main
-1 Negate main
-1 Scroll Rack maybe
-1 Voltaic Key maybe
Top Ranked
Date added 6 years
Last updated 4 years
Exclude colors R
Splash colors W
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)

13 - 0 Mythic Rares

57 - 0 Rares

15 - 0 Uncommons

14 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 1.74
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Spirit 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders cEDH_Resources, shaper is the best, EDH, CEDH, Competitive EDH, PST, Interesting Commander Decks, Thrasios Builds, cEDH, cedh
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