The mana cost is often the most relevant part of the deck's wrathing needs.

Hatebears rebuild if you give them another turn to live, so you want to be wrathing and then winning at the same time. Deluge for 2 is often all that needs to happen to clean the board up and that 2 life is well worth the 1 mana reduction.

I also rarely cast it.

Oring and Grasp of fate are generally my preferred answers to nonsense.

Are there any card's you cut that you miss? I guess the better question is if they allowed you a one card sideboard what would it be? This question orginated from my discovery of Counterbalance and Shadow of a Doubt from your revisions.

There's nothing I really miss.

I have a couple extra enchantments in my deckbox, as well as voltaic key and turnabout. But aside from maybe solitary confinement its very unlikely that any of those cards make it back into the deck.

Counterbalance was actively a bad choice.

How do you feel about copy artifact? To slow overall?

I dont have any artifacts I really care about copying.

I have a question concerning a loss I had to a Brago Stax deck. I mulled my first hand to Jace, Dark Confidant, Imperial Seal, Verdant Catacombs, Island, Gitaxiam Probe and Chain of Vapor. We scry two at the shop so I knew I had a land to draw. I casted Imperial Seal (Verdant Catacombs into Underground Sea) to put Ad Naseum on top of the deck. Was that too greedy? Should I have gotten Grim Monolith, a counter to resolve Zur, or a another artifact? The Brago deck played all the perfect anti Zur cards (Thalia, Aura of Silence and Aven Mindcensor in that order).

When playing a stax deck, do you forgo the ad naseum line to play Zur in most cases?

Zur fixes the problems stax throws at us.

Your hand is solid, but tutoring for AN there was quite greedy. I would likely have held the tutor on turn 1, since there is no way in hell you can cast AN this early. You need to draw a ritual and another land to cast it.

Grabbing grim monolith could be pretty funny, especially if your opponent doesnt know you run power artifact. However his board state is pretty problematic for you. Mindcensor makes answering him much MUCH more difficult.

Likely I would have played bob on 2 and waited since your hand doesnt have a quick combo present. Knowing its a stax deck, would have likely resulted in building up my board position with Jace and Zur and digging for more answers. Once the mindcensor goes away it gets much easier.

Hey skuloth, my build is still working fine. Phyrexian Unlife is still in as a meta call, and I will throw Power Artifact in that slot as soon as I can grab one.

But have you consideded Hurkyl's Recall? I got hit with it a week ago in an attempt to slow me down (didn't work, obviously), but I realized that it could work similar to a Chain of Vapor on the DDay turn. It can also clear a stax player's lock pieces for a turn. Thoughts?

Will likely work quite well.

I have yet to test it tho since I dont own one.

I'll try it out and get back to you on how well it works.

Skuloth, I would be interested in a recap of your experience in the r/CompetitiveEDH Cockatrice tournament. A general overview of the deck's performance and anything you might have learned about the current state of competitive EDH would be awesome. Did your estimation of any of the decks increase and/or decrease?

I won round 1 against nothing threatening.

I lost round 2 after stopping Moxnix, but apparently Lupu on Grand Arbiter still had counter magic to spare.

I quit after that. Its really annoying when literally no one is willing to fill out a survey saying when they are available, and I wasnt willing to get stressed over it and waste my time that could be better spent having fun.

I didnt really pay any attention to it after dropping.

Are you saying Lupu had counter magic but gambled that you would use yours to stop Moxnix? I ask because while never playing in high level tournaments I imagine this can be an issue? I think Lupu won one or more rounds because of Humility.

Moxnix tried to go off, lupu responded with a counterspell which was answered by moxnix.

Lupu had no more mana up. I threw countermagic at moxnix.

Moxnix passes. I dark rit, AN. Lupu spins and flips top, casting pact of negation.

It was a struggle.

So far Hurkyl's Recall is working well against the artifact-based stax decks in my meta. The only issue I've run into is that it doesn't hit Stasis or creatures, but that's fine. Definitely seems like a meta call, although it's still helpful during the DDay turn.

Any changes you've considered testing lately?

No changes have been made recently.

Hey I just wanted to say that this build is fantastic!

I'm trying to actually put it together for a one time run at my LGS.

However I'm lacking Flusterstorm, Candelabra, Grim Tutor, and Lion's Eye Diamond.

I can probably get a LED but on the off chance that I can't, do you have any suggestions for the slot to replace it. Also suggestions for the other 3 I'm missing?

Thank you!

Have you ever considered Intuition?

Yea, it doesnt do enough. When the deck is tutoring it wants very specific cards and intuition isnt able to grab specific cards.

Hi Skuloth. I've been playing a list based on yours recently with some success Zur's Doomsday. Some decks I usually play include a Meren grind/stax, Sidisi Vizier stax/combo, Teferi mage of Zhalfir Combo, Purphoros tokens.Some cards from your list are outside my reach (Flusterstorm, Mana Drain, Candelabra of Tawnos, LED, Timetwister, ABU Duals, Zendikar Fetches, Grim Tutor). Others I'm in the process of acquire (Mana Crypt, Grasp of Fate, Pact of Negation, Toxic Deluge, Jace [waiting for rotation]). Then there are cards like Dark Confidant, which I can acquire but want to ask you if you think it's crucial for the game plan, from your experience :)From my testing, I'm really happy with Mystic Remora (drawing from 3-6 cards in 2 turns) and Shadow of Doubt (I know you didn't take the card out for underperforming but for space needs).What advice can you give me? Thanks in advance :)

Is there anyway to budgetize this deck while still keeping it a top tier combo machine?

Proxies fam.

I'm going to second proxies.

Some of the top end cards will not make or break you. Candle and the expensive tutors in particular. However the mana base and mana engines for the deck will hurt you A LOT if they are missing.

Sounds reasonable, I'm on a quest to find a deck to champion that I can continuously polish over time, and zur/ this list seems to be calling my name haha