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A Polished Vision

Commander / EDH Artifact Battlecruiser Control Multiplayer WUB (Esper)

DuTogira

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Land (37)

Planeswalker (3)

Enchantment (1)

Creature (19)

Artifact (15)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Sharuum the Hegemon

Instant (18)

Sorcery (6)

Sideboard

Artifact (7)

Instant (5)

Creature (2)

Planeswalker (1)

You awaken to a polished vision; a world full of etherium, clean boards, and order. A world where shenanigans are regulated, and where players come before you, lifting their hands to show just how much fun they're having.

The idea behind this deck was to be a sort of arbiter in three and four player games in my local meta, which has all manner of players ranging from Tier 1, spiky storm players, to casuals who are just starting to upgrade various commander pre-cons. It accomplishes this by using a host of recurrable board sweepers to keep the table in check, counter magics to prevent any crazy shenanigans, and a couple of powerhouse cards to swiftly eliminate any player who is too competitive from the table... assuming they don't kill you first.

"A Polished Vision" is an artifact based control/battlecruiser style deck. What this means is that it wins the game by playing the slow value game, slowing running all of your opponents out of resources via board clears, counter magics, high value creatures, and good old fashion beat-downs. As mentioned earlier, this deck can be played at almost any table without feeling overly oppressive, and the only thing that need change is what the player of this deck prioritizes tutoring with their fetch spells.
Against these kinds of decks, you want the sphinx cards, specifically Sphinx Summoner and Magister Sphinx to create a sturdy base from which to tutor up necessary creatures, and swiftly eliminate opponents using said creatures. Creatures that you want to tutor up, in order of priority, are Sphinx Summoner, Magister Sphinx, Myr Battlesphere, and then a situational soup consisting of Cataclysmic Gearhulk, Noxious Gearhulk, Torrential Gearhulk, Sphinx of the Steel Wind, Blightsteel Colossus, Duplicant, and Phyrexian Metamorph.
Your play-style will be a bit more passive, needing only to control those opponents that are immediately, and I mean IMMEDIATELY, seeking to kill you. Trying to control everyone at once indiscriminately will just get you targeted, cutting deals with other players to "handle an opponent" in exchange for something will just run you out of resources, and you can't fight three decks at the same time unless they are the most casual of decks.
Be very careful with board clears, as overusing them will not only piss off aggro players, but will likely damage your artifact-rock heavy mana base. This build is more than capable of continuously wiping the board to handle aggro OR continuously holding up removal and counter magics to grind with other control decks, but it is terrible at doing both at the same time. As such, it is wisest to politic these situations to try and convince the aggro player to stop hitting you or else you board wipe again. You run out of cards long before words, or so the Hegemon says.
Against casuals, you have access to a resource which competitive players will not give you: time.
You can play a far longer game, which means the sphinx cards become more oppressive than critical in nature. As such, it is better to tutor up the three Gearhulks where possible, and use them to slowly beat opponents down. This allows casual opponents to still play their decks, but gives you a recurrable outlet by which to answer almost any sticky situation you may find yourself in (among the three you have recursive access to counter magics, removal, and board clears.)
Tutor priority against casuals goes, in descending order, Cataclysmic Gearhulk, Torrential Gearhulk, Noxious Gearhulk, Sphinx Summoner, and then a situational soup of the rest of the artifact creatures in the deck.
Don't worry too much about damaging your own mana base with board clears. Like I said, casuals will tend to put less pressure on you to win quickly, and as such, you have time to set up a stable land base which won't be wrecked by a Cataclysmic Gearhulk.
Note: I will not be outlining the functions of most of the Instants and Sorceries in the deck, with the exception of tutors. This decks Instant/Sorcery suite consists of removal, counter magics, and sweepers, the functions of all of which being fairly straightforward.
Blightsteel Colossus is in this deck to provide an invulnerability to mill strategies (or at least as much of an invulnerability as can be expected), and primarily to be a method by which to close out games rapidly. This is an extremely slow control deck no matter how you play it, and Blightsteel Colossus is its go to solution for ending games in a timely manner rather than slowly grinding opponents out over the course of two hours.
Try to avoid having him exiled.
Hamlet's function is as a recursive board clear on a stick. As a sac outlet, he gets around annoying indestructible mechanics like those created by Eldrazi Monument and Avacyn, Angel of Hope. Hamlet got his nickname because he's Tragic Arrogance on a stick, and he has a habit of killing himself.
Yeah, I know you were all expecting a fancy nickname for Duplicant, but honestly this guy is just the main villain of almost any abduction horror movie ever, and yet none of these villains do him justice because he kidnaps prey as large as eldrazi.
His purpose in the deck is to permanently take care of high value creatures that you don't want coming back (like Sun Titan) and taking care of big, indestructible fatties (like Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger). Duplicant functions like a safety net, and thus shouldn't be fetched up until such a time as you absolutely know that you are going to need him -or do need him- to remove a high priority creature threat.
Enlightened Tutor should be used in the early game to fetch up mana accelerants such as Sol Ring to put you ahead.
Turn 4 and beyond, hold on to Enlightened Tutor as a method by which to fetch up situationally useful cards. Note that if you are running out of cards in hand, it is ok to use Enlightened Tutor to fetch up Sphinx Summoner as a recurrable value engine to keep yourself gassed up.
Ethersworn Canonist is in this list as anti-storm tech, as my local meta does implement a point system which heavily punishes infinite combos, but as storm is wont to do, both it and Doomsday style decks manage to avoid getting penalized by the implemented point system.
She can be swapped out for any card in the sideboard, though I would recommend Force of Will above the others. I don't run Force of Will nor Pact of Negation because I don't find cost counter magics all that fun... they let you get away with poorly managing resources, and while I recognize their power level... I just don't like using them. The good news is you aren't me, so feel free to put them in!
Use Fabricate & Reshape to fetch up artifacts based on your table's priority sequence.
Prioritize fetching 4 & 5 cost artifacts with Fabricate & Reshape when you aren't in need of an "ace in the hole" so to speak. This deck has the greatest difficulty in tutoring up artifacts at these CMC's.
Sphinx Summoner is typically your highest priority target with these tutors, and because they are sorceries, it's a good idea to use them at your earliest convenience.
Inventors' Fair is a card which I shamefully admit is completely underutilized by myself.
Put a die on your deck or something so that you don't forget your upkeep trigger to gain a life; I've lost two games in recent memory solely because I kept forgetting that damned upkeep trigger.
Remember that it is often a tutor hiding within your mana base. Yes sac'ing a land AND source of life gain can hurt, but it's often necessary at competitive tables.
Ben Ten gets his nickname because of my tendency to say "insert player name, ten" when he comes into play, letting that player know to set their life-total to 10. Ben Ten is just the name that stuck.
Ben Ten's function is to close out games rapidly, and is intended only to be used against more competitive tables, as he closes out games in both a rapid and unfair manner against more casual players. He combo's very well with Tezzeret, Master of Metal's -3 and Sharuum the Hegemon, since the two sphinx together have a combined power of 10 and both have evasion.
Mimic Vat is a card that I have a love/hate relationship with. On the one hand, it can recur your creatures which have powerful ETB effects, can act as graveyard hate against your opponent's creatures, and is a great target for Trophy Mage.
The "hate" comes from the fact that -especially at competitive tables- people make a habit of blowing up your Mimic Vat the second you exile one of your high value creatures. Just be careful about exiling your own creatures, especially against more competitive opponents.
I'm almost constantly flip-flopping between it and Mirage Mirror, so thoughts on which card may be superior in this list would be greatly appreciated.
Myr Battlesphere is just a high power finisher. No, really, that's it. He's quite possibly the most straightforward card in this deck.
Mystical Tutor is used to fetch up situationally powerful cards, the only quirk being that I have found through testing that Anguished Unmaking is probably the most generically powerful card that this tutor can fetch.
Romeo gets his nickname because he has a tendency of showing up, killing one creature (Tibalt), and then almost immediately being removed.
Romeo's purpose is to serve as your go to single target removal for creatures, as he gains you life when he removes creatures. The fact that he has menace also makes him surprisingly good at removing troublesome planeswalkers.
Both Phyrexian Metamorph and Sculpting Steel are useful for duplicating ETB triggers from high powered creatures of your own which may already be in play.
If higher powered creatures happen to be in play under your opponents' control, remember that Phyrexian Metamorph can duplicate those too. Sculpting Steel can only target artifacts, and thus is rarely able to copy opponents' creatures.
Sphinx of the Steel Wind and Wurmcoil Engine are both battlecruiser style creatures meant to gain you life while knocking your opponents' life totals down a few.
This deck does have a bit of a problem with hurting itself (like most competitive decks do), and these creatures are present to help remedy that. This is necessary because we don't make use of any combo wins, and thus not dying does actually matter.
Sphinx Summoner is perhaps the single greatest value engine that this deck possesses. He replaces himself via tutor when he comes into play, and if your opponent removes him, Sharuum the Hegemon can bring him back to tutor up more creatures.
Sphinx Summoner should be protected from exile-based removal wherever possible, given his high value nature.
Tezzeret the Seeker is most often used as ramp. His minus x is used to fetch up Sol Ring/Sculpting Steel/Burnished Hart. Once you have at least two pieces of artifact mana in play, use his +1 to help ramp yourself.
Occasionally you can use Tezzeret the Seeker to fetch tech artifacts, but those situations should be fairly obvious to anyone who has played more than a few games with this list.
Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas & Tezzeret, Master of Metal both utilize their +1's as value engines in the majority of situations.
Both can use their -4 & -3 respectively to finish off low HP opponents. This makes them especially potent when combined with Magister Sphinx.
Snapcaster Mech is here as a method by which to use all of your instants twice. Since Sharuum the Hegemon does not have flash, be aware that after casting him for the first time, Snapcaster Mech will likely not be recurring counter magics.
Academy Ruins is especially useful when combined with Snapcaster Mech, as it will allow you to recur counter magics at instant speed by casting the Gearhulk from your hand.
Treasure Mage tends to fetch up cards from that soup of situationally useful creatures. He's one of the most straightforward tutors in the deck, because circumstance has a habit of revealing which 6+ creature you most desire.
Smeagol should be prioritizing The Precious. If you already have The Precious, circumstance dictates whether you use Smeagol to fetch up an artifact land, or a tech card such as Nihil Spellbomb or Dispeller's Capsule.
Trophy Mage tends to prioritize Sculpting Steel because of Steel's nature as the highest power level drop artifact, but he has a few other choice targets that will become situationally apparent. Often you just use him to get a Burnished Hart/Chromatic Lantern for mana fixing in the early game, and that's ok!
Vampiric Tutor gets used early game for mana ramp/fixing, and thus tends to fetch up cards like Sol Ring in the first few turns. Once you get to turn 4 and beyond, hold on to Vampiric Tutor as a catch-all answer to just about any situation.
The sideboard consists of cards which I have either not included in this list because they feel overly powerful, cards which can be used as tech cards against certain metas, cards which add an easy infinite combo into this lsit, and cards which I recognize are powerful but could not make space for in the deck based on my personal preference of play-style.
Venser, the Sojourner is a card which could easily replace Panharmonicon to similar effect, but which I do not personally prefer. These two are on a similar power-level (with Venser probably being a bit better), but I prefer Panharmonicon.
Force of Will on the other hand is almost a strict upgrade over Commit, as is Mana Crypt over Orzhov Signet. These cards just feel unfair in nature to me though, as they push the deck in the direction of being able to create an insurmountable tempo lead over opponents, which is not the goal against more casual tables.
Lim-Dul's Vault could very easily replace Ethersworn Canonist, and the two are not on remotely close power-levels, but my meta has a high density of storm players. Since I have not yet found space for Lim-Dul's Vault anywhere else, it stays in the sideboard. Swords to Plowshares is in the same boat.

Suggestions and recommendations are not only welcomed but encouraged! Just be aware that I reserve the right to refuse suggestions for any reason, including:
-Being too powerful
-Not being the direction that I want to take this deck
-Not being able to find a suitable card to replace with the suggested card, though I am more than open to arguments as to which card(s) I should replace with the suggested card and why
-The suggestion creating an exploitable infinite combo in this list (I'm aware of the Metamorph/Steel + Sharuum combo, though in this list it does nothing other than force draws on MTGO, a platform which I do not use)

I know that list is kind of daunting. I promise I'm a nice guy, I'm just not interested in having "objectively better" arguments with people. Had enough of those for one lifetime.

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Notes to self — Sept. 19, 2017
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cut Sphinx Sovereign for Blightsteel Colossus

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Revision 18 See all

(3 years ago)

Date added 7 years
Last updated 3 years
Exclude colors RG
Legality

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

13 - 4 Mythic Rares

46 - 8 Rares

19 - 3 Uncommons

13 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.81
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Copy Clone, Emblem Venser, the Sojourner, Myr 1/1 C, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Deathtouch, Wurm 3/3 C w/ Lifelink
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DuTogira EDH
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