It seems really complicated because its a deck that uses 1 card out of 100 to do something cool. I have a nice zur deck that actually uses zur for his true purpous, The Real Zur Deck Once you get him out, you can swing the first time and grab Reconnaissance and never have to worry about swinging again

This is not a voltron deck, this is a combo deck.

Zur is used as a backup plan / tutor. The three enchantments I run are all useful in their own way and push towards the combo.

Realistically if Zur swings, he's getting necropotence (or PA if I already have my monolith in play). I don't rely on Zur connecting because once is all I need, and honestly I don't expect Zur to survive long enough to swing.

The decklist doesn't have space for cards that don't really do anything.

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Phyrexian Unlife? it is tutorable with Zur and works with the Ad Nauseam combo.

I've tried it, and it was unnecessary. It's one of those cards I never wanted to see in my hand, and was useless without ad naus.

Why no Imperial Seal? I see you have Timetwister, so budget obviously isn't a consideration.

Imperial seal and Grim tutor are both on my to buy list. I unfortunately don't have a spare $1000 currently tho :(

I'm also working on switching from infinite mana combos into doomsday as well, so that will be taking priority over tutors.

Makes sense. I playtested the list and it felt a lot like Grixis Storm does. The only improvement I felt it needed while testing it was "where's Lab Man" and he comes with the Doomsday package.

That's more or less been my feeling as well.

It plays a lot like grixis storm since a friend plays it and we tune together quite a bit.

Since putting it together monolith combo has been just okay. It's plenty fast which is why I haven't updated yet, but doomsday will be much better in the long run. I get to pull out a bunch of cards that really don't do much outside of the combo and replace them with 1 card that does nothing (LabMan) and a bunch of good cards.

oloro as commander meaby

Zur is significantly better than Oloro.

Zur vs Oloro is an argument I've had quite a few times. It comes down to the fact that Zur is a very capable back up plan if something goes awry with our primary strategy. In a situation like this Oloro is not an 'oh shit' button, he simply does not have the power to bring us back from a weak start. The life gain off Oloro is not irrelevant, but 8-10 life is just not enough to warrant losing Zur's pure power.

Why Trinket Mage instead of Fabricate?

In all reality they are interchangeable in this particular deck.

All the targets worth tutoring are 1 cmc or less. I don't generally find myself tutoring for rocks outside of the ones that net mana, and even that is rare. Everything else is 1 mana or less.

Can someone help clarify please, only been playing since khans block.I understand most of the combo. Your going to doomsday into the winning five draw predict on your turn predict into milling the labman. Then draw into gitprobe and LED. Then you probe, draw yawgs will and I would assume you play will put lab man into play then gitprobe for the win. But to crack LED you discard your hand, yawgs will is a sorcery so you can't respond to the trigger to play yawgs will can you? How does it work please?!?!?

Thanks!!

Only been playing sense khans block so takeout easy please and I see the combo, doomsday into the winning 5 take your turn draw the predict run that into labman mill him draw gitprobe and lED then probe into will. And then presumably play will summon labman from the yard and then git probe for the win.My confusion is lED into Yawgs will: will is a sorcery so you can't respond to the discard trigger of led to play will...can you? Unless I'm messing up the combo could someone explain please And thanks!!!

And if the combo doesn't work out how is Zur the win condition, what exactly would you be doing?

You cast gitaxian probe will will is the top card of your deck, and then activate LED in response. So your hand will be discard ed and then you draw will. Also more than likely you will have a card draw spell in hand when you cast doomsday, so you will win the turn you cast it.

Zur is not the backup wincon, he is there to pull you back into the game by grabbing necropotence and allowing you to restock your hand.

You should consider adding in Soul Echo. It's unplayable by itself, but it doubles as a backup to Angel's Grace. The best part is, Zur can tutor for it, meaning you don't have to worry about getting both Nauseam and Grace in hand to win. This both saves you needing a 6th available mana and makes the combo several times easier to pull off (you'll only need worry about tutoring / drawing in Nauseam, rather than both Nauseam and Grace).

I'm surprised you're using Lab Maniac over the much more consistent Sickening Dreams win condition. Otherwise, looks like a pretty solid deck. I used to run something like this as a backup in my Zur deck. I ended up cutting it because the combo was clunky, inconsistent, and wasted too many deck slots. Zur plays better as a control deck with a backup of Rest in Peace + Helm of Obedience, but if you're in a less competitive meta, Ad Nauseam combo is fine.

This is not a control deck, and angel's grace is not part of the primary plan. There is no space for enchantments that don't do anything. If I'm swinging with Zur, necropotence wins the game the turn after it comes into play.

Ad Nauseam on it's own is enough to win the game, drawing about 25 cards. Ad Naueseam is a 1 card combo when the deck is built to cast it, and I don't want to turn that into a 2 card combo.

Sickening dreams is way too greedy since part of the cost is pitching your hand in addition to requiring significantly more cards in hand to kill the table than doomsday.

The wincon is doomsday into labman + draw spells.

This list is designed for an extremely cut throat meta and does quite well at those tables. It averages a turn 4 gold fish and fights through hate extremely well.

Control Zur actually suffers pretty substantially at weaker tables by not having an efficient kill condition.

This same problem hurts him at high power tables as well, where he gives combo decks too much time to fight through the hate before killing them.

If you take a look carefully through the list you should notice that there are only 2 cards in here that are actually dead draws. Angel's grace and LabMan. With every other card advancing the combo in some way.

If you think control Zur suffers from inefficient kill conditions, clearly you've never played or played against a well-constructed one. Understandable. It utilizes land destruction and lockdown effects like Armageddon, Cataclysm, and Stasis to keep opponents in a state of near-impotence while Zur destroys them with commander damage through buff auras like Daybreak Coronet, Empyrial Armor, Ethereal Armor, and occasionally Phyresis. It's terrififyingly consistent and essentially unstoppable once Stasis hits field.

Also, regarding your earlier statement, you don't seem to understand how Ad Nauseam works. The most efficient use of the card is to cast it with Angel's Grace, Soul Echo, or Phyrexian Unlife in hand to draw your ENTIRE library and dump it using Sickening Dreams or a similar table-killing cantrip. The card can be used purely for drawing, but it's incredibly risky. Far better to utilize it to its full potential. The key highlight of the combo strategy is that it wins the same turn Ad Nauseam is cast 99% of the time, being that Grace is uncounterable by normal means and by the time you cast Dreams, you'll have at least two free counter spells in hand.

The Lab maniac alternative you're using is superior in the sense that Ad Nauseam isn't the only method available to destroy your own library (both Necropotence and Doomsday get the job done, as you mentioned), but it's inferior in that it's far more susceptible to responses. Opponents have an entire additional turn to respond to your combo. If your meta was anywhere near as cutthroat as you had suggested, the chances of actually being able to cast Lab and keep him on the field to draw out your last cards would be almost nonexistent unless everyone else at the table is running combo lists (if that's the case, you'll still lose out the much faster and more consistent 5-color Hermit and Ad Nauseam lists). That's why I had expressed surprise that you were running it earlier. I've played against a few decks that try to run Lab Man as a win condition, and they've been laughably easy to deal with. Once he's countered/exiled, the deck is, for lack of a better phrase, completely screwed.

Some cards you may consider:

Grand Abolisher. Combo decks tend to run him, and with very good reason. If opponents can't react to your casting Lab Man and a draw spell the same turn, that's game. His mana cost hurts a little, but your land and artifact base looks solid enough to handle him. At worst, he's drawing removal away. At best, he's guaranteeing your win. Should help you compete against true tier 1 decks with a bit more consistency.

Enlightened Tutor. I was incredibly surprised when I didn't see this one in your list. It's one of the single best turn 1 plays available, as early game is so often devoted to ramp.

Imperial Seal. See above. The cost is staggering, but you're running Timetwister, so I would guess you don't mind dishing out an absurd amount for a piece of cardboard.

Labman combos go off one turn, his primary pile isn't a "pass pile". As naus doesn't need to be a 2 card win when it functions in the manner it does along side doomsday. Etutor is awful when it brings card disadvantage and its only targets are found by Zur or trinket mage.

I personally don't think you have read either the description of my deck or the reddit thread linked in it. Which supplies a ton of very useful information about how the deck operates, as well as answering most of your comments.

Imperial seal is on my buy list, but currently out of my price range, which it says in the doomsday update on tappedout.

This deck casts ad naus the end step before my turn and wins on my turn. Doomsday is a cast and win on the spot spell, if I'm passing the turn I severely screwed up in all but the most extreme cases.

This deck is as fast as any other top tier combo list and extremely resilient to hate. 5c hermit druid is no longer at the top since it is easily disrupted and barely faster than the more resilient combos. Devoted ad nauseam decks are either trying to be super cute (read mono B maralen / sidisi both of which are extremely easy to disrupt) or doing the exact same thing I am.

In regard to mana denial, it simply is not enough on its own to stop top tier combo strategies. Running voltron cards for Zur is extremely inefficient in multiple ways. First it requires a fairly substantial quantity of slots. Second it kills extremely slowly. Sure you are threatening their life total, but you are giving people all the time in the world to find ways out of your lock and top tier decks will be able to fight through it given enough time.

LabMan kill through infinite life, and 'can't be killed' effects, where sickening dreams does not. It also is just as efficient and does not open itself up to any additional hate other kills do.

Turning ad naus from a 1 card combo to a 2 card combo is unnecessary. The slots required to do that are not worth while since you rarely want to see the cards, and honestly you do not need your entire deck in hand to kill the table. Any reasonable ad naus will kill the table if your deck is constructed properly.

You 100% do not pass the turn with labman in play. It's a death sentence.

I read it, and I stand by my earlier case. The deck is typically a two-turn win combo, unless you have enough additional mana after casting Doomsday to both play a draw spell and cast Predict.

From my understanding, the optimum strategy goes something like this:Turn 2 (with a good draw): cast Doomsday. Turn 3: Draw Predict for the turn. Cast it. Throw Lab Man into the graveyard, Draw Gitaxian Probe and Lion's Eye Diamond. Sac the diamond if needed and draw and cast Yawgmoth's Will to recast the Diamond from your graveyard, use the mana to recast Lab Man, and finally recast the Probe to win. Or rather, plow into the ground, since you tipped off your opponents that you were about to combo out the moment you cast Doomsday, allowing them to prepare a suitable slew of counters, stax pieces, and library hate to keep you from going off.

Now I know you mentioned in the article that you have plenty of 'piles' for Doomsday, some of which no doubt involve protection, anti-counter effects like Cavern of Souls, etc. Even so, unless the rest of the table is completely clueless or its their first time seeing your list in action, they're likely going to do everything in their collective power to halt you the second you cast doomsday. Your basic pile falls against even a single well-placed counter spell. Even with a more resilient pile, you can't hope to win against multiple instant-speed responses unless you have Grand Abolisher or a similar Silence effect in play at the time. Your so called one-card-combo Ad Nauseam alternative win condition might be more resilient. You'll still have to cast Angel's Grace if you want to win using the same-turn lab man strategy unless I'm missing something (which is still technically a three-card combo when everything is said and done, not counting the ramp found and cast while drawing out your deck, despite your rather humorous claim about Nauseam being a one-card combo). Again, I may be missing something there.