The CEDH Circu Primer

Commander / EDH* Competitive UB (Dimir)

Bad_Dog

Land (29)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cephalid Coliseum
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Darkslick Shores
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Island
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Prismatic Vista
• 1x River of Tears
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Snow-Covered Island
• 1x Snow-Covered Swamp
• 1x Spire of Industry
• 1x Sunken Ruins
• 1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave

Creature (5)

• 1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
• 1x Gilded Drake
• 1x Notion Thief
• 1x Phantasmal Image
• 1x Thassa's Oracle

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

Instant (26)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Brain Freeze
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Demonic Consultation
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Fierce Guardianship
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Negation
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Hurkyl's Recall
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Miscast
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Rain of Filth
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Tainted Pact
• 1x Unsubstantiate
• 1x Vampiric Tutor

Sorcery (15)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Mnemonic Betrayal
• 1x Peer into the Abyss
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Scheming Symmetry
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Transmute Artifact
• 1x Windfall
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will

Commander (1)

Artifact (19)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Bolas's Citadel
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Codex Shredder
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Lantern of Insight
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Wishclaw Talisman

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Copy Artifact
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Rhystic Study

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Maybeboard

Creature (3)

• 1x Dark Confidant
• 1x Sigil Tracer
• 1x Spellseeker

Instant (2)

• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Winds of Rebuke

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• Do you like to sit darkly brooding in the corner before making an explosive and thought provoking turn?

• Do others "not get" your desire to play both fast combo and grindy control at the same time?

• Is eye shadow an acceptable clothing accessory for all occasions?

If you silently raged at the posers who gave fake answers like the good conformists they are, then this is the deck for you.

Welcome To Hot Topic Show

Intro

Circu, Dimir Lobotomist is the head surgeon of a disruptive and adaptive combo deck that can play the role of fast combo, control, or even pseudo stax depending on the opening hand and the stage of the game.

The list takes inspiration from a suite of powerful vintage and legacy doomsday and storm decks as well as the modern deck "Lantern Control" which uses topdeck manipulation via "Lantern" effects (such as Lantern of Insight) and "Bells" (such as Ghoulcaller's Bell) to determine how its opponents draw.

In Circu, the topdeck manipulators preform triple duty, acting as traditional control pieces, ways to filter draws, fuel the graveyard for effects like Yawgmoth's Will or Mnemonic Betrayal, and as win conditions via combos like Doomsday or Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter. Circu as a general functions in the same way stacking with the plan of increasing the power of your own draws while diminishing that of your opponents. Using his ability with one off spells is a great control out, but spamming it with infinite storm is game ending.

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You Just Don't Understand ME!! (Understanding The General) Show

Circu's abilities, unlike most of us during our teenage years, are relatively easy to understand and have direct influence on how the deck is structured.

• Whenever you cast a blue/ black spell, exile the top card of target player's library.
• Your opponents can't cast spells with the same name as a card exiled with Circu, Dimir Lobotomist.

What this means for building a competitive deck is that you have a general which can:

• Interact with the top of players' libraries (yours or others)
• Win the game in conjunction with infinite spells cast
• Lock opponents out of exiled spells

Being able to interact with the top of a library is a very strange ability for a general to have quite an array of applications. Turned against an opponent it can snipe cards from their deck effectively countering topdeck tutors, complicating cantrips, and, in conjunction with a Lantern of Insight type card, it can severely diminish the quality of their draws and backed up by mill rocks like Codex Shredder it can even become a soft lock. On the flip side, if you target yourself with Circu's ability, you can clear poor draws out of the way, lock opponents out of spells they share in common with you, and diminish the size of your library (something that is quite powerful with cards like Doomsday).

But beyond using Circu's abilities for value and locking, the true power behind the general is when he's used to end the game. Circu is a kill condition with infinite storm and although there are a range of ways to enable this, from infinite mana + a buyback spell to looping Timetwister, the to most efficient way to achieve this end is with the powerful combination of Isochron Scepter imprinting Dramatic Reversal and an amount of mana rocks in play that can generate two or more mana.

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Competitive Circu Core Cards Show

This is the list of cards which make up the core of CEDH Circu decks, regardless of archetype. It's occasionally correct to make exceptions or alterations in these cards, depending on your meta, but those situations are rare.

• Lands (22) 1x Academy Ruins 1x Ancient Tomb 1x Bloodstained Mire 1x City of Brass 1x Command Tower 1x Flooded Strand 1x Gemstone Caverns 1x Island 1x Mana Confluence 1x Marsh Flats 1x Misty Rainforest 1x Morphic Pool 1x Polluted Delta 1x Prismatic Vista 1x Reflecting Pool 1x Scalding Tarn 1x Sunken Ruins 1x Swamp 1x Underground River 1x Underground Sea 1x Verdant Catacombs 1x Watery Grave

• Creatures (2) 1x Dark Confidant 1x Notion Thief

• Artifacts (18) 1x Bolas's Citadel 1x Chrome Mox 1x Codex Shredder 1x Cursed Totem 1x Dimir Signet 1x Fellwar Stone 1x Ghoulcaller's Bell 1x Grim Monolith 1x Isochron Scepter 1x Lantern of Insight 1x Lotus Petal 1x Mana Crypt 1x Mana Vault 1x Mox Diamond 1x Mox Opal 1x Sensei's Divining Top 1x Sol Ring 1x Talisman of Dominance

• Enchantments (3) 1x Copy Artifact 1x Mystic Remora 1x Necropotence

• Instants (25) 1x Ad Nauseam 1x Brainstorm 1x Cabal Ritual 1x Chain of Vapor 1x Counterspell 1x Cyclonic Rift 1x Dark Ritual 1x Demonic Consultation 1x Dispel 1x Dramatic Reversal 1x Fatal Push 1x Flusterstorm 1x Force of Will 1x Hurkyl's Recall 1x Lim-Dul's Vault 1x Mana Drain 1x Mental Misstep 1x Muddle the Mixture 1x Mystical Tutor 1x Narset's Reversal 1x Pact of Negation 1x Plunge into Darkness 1x Swan Song 1x Thought Scour 1x Vampiric Tutor

• Sorceries (13) 1x Demonic Tutor 1x Gitaxian Probe 1x Imperial Seal 1x Merchant Scroll 1x Mnemonic Betrayal 1x Night's Whisper 1x Ponder 1x Preordain 1x Timetwister 1x Toxic Deluge 1x Transmute Artifact 1x Windfall 1x Yawgmoth's Will

• Planeswalkers (1) 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

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Competitive Circu Archetypes Show

Doomsday

Black Lantern Corps

Aggressive, Circu Doomsday. Hit hard and early with your combo or silver bullet stax. Use the general to alter pile sizes. Literally, the fastest scepter deck in the format.

Show

In addition to the core Circu cards you're going to need these:

• Sorceries (2)

1x Deep Analysis

1x Doomsday

• Instants (1)

1x Gush

• Artifacts (1)

1x Lion's Eye Diamond

• Creatures (1)

1x Laboratory Maniac

• Lands (5)

5x Island

Demonic Consultation

Tainted Lantern

What happens when you use the format's most efficient tutors as win conditions in their own right. Slightly slower than the Doomsday build but a better witch to the control role and at fighting grindy games. The second fastest scepter deck in the format.

Show

In addition to the core Circu cards you're going to need these:

• Instants (1)

1x Tainted Pact

• Planeswalkers (1)

1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

• Lands (6)

1x Cabal Pit

1x Cephalid Coliseum

1x Darkslick Shores

1x Exotic Orchard

1x Snow-Covered Island

1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

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Lantern Control Show

The discussion/ debate about whether to run Lantern of Insight and associated mill rocks is this simple:

Do you want to get full value out of your general, or not?

There are other positives to running these effects (having better naus or necro turns, having scepter win cons that cost , making the deck more active and less reactive, better in control mirrors, topdeck manipulation, etc.) but there and there is some merit to taking them out for more redundancy in other effects. But the conclusion is still the same. Lists that don't run lantern/ bells are not able to get as much out of playing Circu as those that do.

If you draw mill rocks in a control hand they function early as disruption and morph into a soft lock or form of card advantage depending on the pieces that you draw into and are able to mix it with.

If you draw mill rocks in a quick combo hand, the rocks function as a 1 cmc win condition, accelerating your clock by about 1 turn.

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Taking Down The Table Show

It's often prudent to start at the beginning when giving instructions or telling a story. But Circu shuns conventional and conformist narratives so we're starting at the end.

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Combos Show

The Ice Pick

This deck has a large number of interlocking combos and to talk about all of them would take much more writing. These are the primary ways to win with the deck but each piece on its own has strong synergy with the control aspect of the deck.

In increasing order of difficulty to pull off, the combos are:

Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter This combo is very straight forward. Imprint Dramatic Reversal on Isochron Scepter and use mana rocks that produce a total of to infinitely untap all nonland permanents on your board. Any of the decks' "bell" effects, the most surefire being Pyxis of Pandemonium, can be used as outlets for this combo. Additionall, because the cobmo creates infinite copies of Dramatic Reversal, you can also use Circu as an outlet to exile your opponets' libraries. An extremely efficient and relatively easy line, more often than not you will find this being the combo of choice as you play the deck.

So now that we know the end goal, how do we get there?

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Playing The Deck Show

Lantern Control: Conducting Dimir Lobotomy

Playing Fast

Playing Slow

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Matchups and Meta Calls Show

Due to the many excellent card options available to Blue and Black, Circu Lantern Control is a deck that will never be "complete". There are so many good card options that it just simply isn't possible to run all of them, even in a 100 card singleton list. Instead, I suggest adapting the list to your own personal preference and choosing cards that have a greater impact in your personal meta. While the core of the deck presented here is relatively concise, there are many reasons to adapt the support cards which you choose to run. This section is for great cards which are totally valid, but more of a meta call.

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References and Thanks Show

Thanks to asm for the early suggestion of going Doomsday

Thanks to monkeryz for being the first person to support this crazy nonsense

Special thanks to rockleemyhero for the immense help in brewing

And of course, thanks to the Circu Discord and the mod team there for being awesome

Top Ranked	Achieved #39 position overall 6 years ago Achieved #29 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH UB (Dimir) 5 years ago
Date added	7 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 56 - 0 Rares 19 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.93
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U
Folders	cEDH, like, Primers, EDHs, Intersting High Powered EDH Ideas, cedh, Decks I Want to Build, cEDH, Going to build this one, Commander