This is a Chain Veil Teferi deck. What's that? Wrong Teferi? Oops.
Fake Chain Veil Teferi
FakeCVT for short
Gameplan
Alright, you got me. This isn't a real CVT deck. It isn't the right colors, doesn't have anywhere near the same price tag and when you start discussing Teferi Timebender combos with cEDH players phrases such as "much slower" "worse Teferi" and "utter garbage" get thrown around a lot. This deck is a total poser. However, it still isn't to be underestimated. Sporting a full ramp/control/stax package and with access to blue card advantage it can do more than hold its own at high power and sometimes even competitive tables by disrupting its opponents' gameplans at crucial moments and slowly building into its own combo. The wincon is slow, but NOBODY can play around Stasis so it doesn't really matter too much. Plus, nobody will take you seriously as a threat when you say you are playing Chain Veil Teferi and then whip out Niambi. You're bound to get at least one win from that.
You want to spend the beginning of each match ramping up and drawing cards. Resolve one of your stax pieces early if you can to try and put a lid on any fast combo deck that is going to be winning in the first five turns. I have found that against more high power tables, resolving a stax piece early is much more higher value than ramping early and it may be worth to cast Blind Obedience turn 2 and hold off on that mana rock. Cast Niambi whenever you can to get a blocker out and put Teferi in your hand. Don't be afraid to throw him out there just to draw cards. Teferi Timebender is by far the worst walker in the deck and you can always get him back as long as you can cast or blink Niambi. Then just wait and assemble card advantage until you get yourself a Chain Veil and a way to win. Plop that bad boy down and you have yourself the beginning of a combo. +up your walkers to untap the veil and repeat until Teferi has enough loyalty to ult. Then repeat until you can win off of your chosen wincon.
The Stax Package
We like to tap stuff. Our planeswalkers untap our stuff. Our opponents aren't so lucky. In this deck you have a few major stax pieces.
Static Orb: This is probably your second best stax piece, and the one you will see most often due to its tutorability. One of my favorite things to do in this deck is pull it off of Tezz's -X and then use Tezz to untap my mana rocks on my next turn.
Stasis: The OG. Use Teferi to untap a single blue source every turn and then watch in amazement as the game grinds to a salty halt. Usually, I save up enough loyalty during a stasis lock to take an extra turn and allow my permanents to untap when I finally decide to stop paying the 1 blue.
Winter Orb: Another good one. Watch out for players with lots of rocks. They won't care about this one.
Tangle Wire: This one is especially good early game. It can be reset every turn using our boi Venser.
Blind Obedience: An extremely powerful stax piece, especially in conjunction with stuff like Stasis. Be careful not to lose this one as it is one of our win conditions.
Aven Mindcensor: This one is good on top of already existing stax locks. It shuts down a lot of ramp/tutoring strategies.
Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir: Surprisingly good when your opponents don't get any turns anymore. Otherwise just a 5 mana grand abolisher that is in here largely for flavor. Bonus points if you Helm of the Host him for your wincon.
Magus of the Tabernacle: This one adds up when you can't untap your mana. Just remember that he costs 1 for you as well. Also provides a good way to kill Niambi if you need to recast her.
Grand Arbiter Augustine IV: 4 mana Teferi? Damn that actually makes him playable. The taxes hurt, too.
Rhystic Study/Mystic Remora: Your opponents often can't pay for these due to their mana sources not untapping.
The Wincon
We have infinite turns. Now what? Well, there are actually a few options. Option one would be to draw everyone out with everyone's favorite Blue Sun's Zenith. Option two, and my personal favorite, is killing everyone with damage from Ugin's +2. The last major wincon is Blind Obedience loops killing with extort. With either infinite mana or infinite turns one can repeatedly loop Deadeye Navigator + Archaeomancer + Enlightened Tutor + Extort to kill the table. As a final note, as long as you can bin your own permanents with Teferi, Hero of Dominaria, you will never draw out. In your version of the deck, though, you can win however you want. Infinite turns has that advantage.
The Paths to Victory
Route 1: Deepglow Skate. The Skate get's Teferi quite a bit of loyalty, and it can be recurred with quite a few cards in the deck. Deadeye Navigator is the best man for the job but there are also jankier options. With ten mana and either a Venser or Teferi, Time Raveler on board we can double cast the Skate to net loyalty on all our walkers (assuming Time Raveler is at three or more loyalty) which will allow us to ult Teferi, Timebender every turn.
Route 2: The Chain Veil and Friends. Our Teferi is worse than Teferi Temporal Archmage. It cannot go infinite with The Chain Veil. Not without help that is. With our other Planeswalker untap abilities we can untap rocks off our repeated CV activations. We may even be able to get infinite mana which would allow us to play out all of our stax effects at the very least. There are other ways to shortcut this as well. You can Blink Teferi with Venser after ulting to boost his loyalty back to starting for the next turn and shortcut some CV activations. Oath of Teferi can do the same thing, as well as shortcut you another activation if you have it on board. Using untap effects such as Tezz's +1 can also help mitigate the obscene amount of mana you need for this combo.
Route 3: The Chain Veil and Twenty Mana. That's enough +2's to get you a -9 every turn without any help. Broken good combo, guys.
Backup Plans
Well, first of all, there is always commander damage with Niambi :)
Losing Teferi: FakeCVT should be able to function relatively well in the rare situation that Teferi Timebender gets hit by a cheeky Anguished Unmaking or something similar. The other walkers in the deck can still combo off with The Chain Veil relatively easily, and if you can get a solid enough stax lock you may not even need Teferi to win off of Blue Sun's. You can also still get infinite mana and/or Ugin +2's using other walkers such as the real Chain Veil Teferi combo or Tezz. Tezz wins on his own if you can get an everflowing chalice that taps for 5 mana.
Losing The Chain Veil: This kinda sucks because it is the most easily tutorable wincon in the deck. Do not panic. You still have Deadeye/Venser and the Skate. If something happens to the Skate you can always fall back on the good old fashioned stax lock into Blue Sun's.
Losing your Singleton Wincons: Welp. They wheeled away our Blind Obedience, killed Ugin, exiled Teferi and Praetor's Grasped The Chain Veil. Now what? Scoop? Well, no. Did Teferi scoop when the Phyrexians threatened Zhalfir? No. He phased out his homeland and kept fighting. Years later he has become so powerful that he not only has one of the best commander decks in cEDH but he also has the best parody deck in all of commander (this one) made using his cards. Things may look grim without our wincons, but you can always generate a total stax lock and win via draw attrition. Using Teferi, Hero of Dominaria you can bin your own permanents to prevent yourself from drawing out. Then by using a stax lock, and perhaps recurring a counterspell using Archaeomancer + Deadeye or using Jace's ult, you can just smirk at your opponents until they draw out or walk away. Stax locks can also be achieved by using a good amount of the planeswalker ults in this deck. You can also try to beat people do death using Tezz's 5/5s.
Closing Notes
Obviously, this deck isn't optimized. It is made using the cards I have access to in paper. If it was going to be optimized I would add Mana Crypt, Force of Will, Ancient Tomb, Cavern of Souls, various duals and fetches, and others. If someone wants to make a budgetless optimized version of this deck and send it my way I will post the link here.
Also be warned that many players, new players especially, don't enjoy playing against stax effects. I have a modified version of this that I play at more casual tables. I swap out Winter Orb, Static Orb, Stasis and Tangle Wire for 2 boardwipes and 2 counterspells. Might be something to consider if your playgroup gets upset with your antics. Remember, the point of the game is to have fun (mostly to win tho), something that is especially true for a parody deck like this one.
Any and all suggestions welcome!
New Edits: Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir ---> Teferi, Time Raveler. Same ability as our Mage but for 2 less mana. Plus the walker has other neato abilities. His +1 isn't terribly useful, save threatening a wipe but his -3 has some synergies with Deepglow Skate.
Sensei's Divining Top ---> Smothering Tithe. Top wasn't really impressive in this deck IMO and the Tithe fits right in with our stax and tax subtheme. Taxes... Treasure... Teferi!
Render Silent ---> Dovin's Veto. Render was just another 3 mana counter spell in here. I think Veto will perform better at 2 mana.
The updated primer and the rest of the changelog can be found here: https://archidekt.com/decks/78924#Fake_Chain_Veil_Teferi
