This here is a revised version of my first attempt at building an EDH deck from scratch myself (this one, in fact). This is the list I built in paper form, and is the first one I've actually managed to finish, which I'm very pleased with. It's a pretty fun deck that I love playing and took a surprising number of perhaps unexpected wins during its testing on Cockatrice.
What does the deck do?
In short, it draws cards, and lots of them, for everybody!
The core of the deck is focused around having every player draw as many cards as possible with the ultimate aim of decking either our opponents or ourselves to win, with a couple of backup plans if we somehow get stopped on that plan.
The Commanders
I chose the commanders for a few reasons; I knew I wanted to make a deck that drew a ton of cards, and Simic colours are my favourite to play. Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix seemed like a good option from the outset for my game plan, as she both benefits from the amount of cards we aim to be drawing, and acts as a mana engine to turns cards we've already drawn into mana ramp, in turn allowing us to cast big X spells - in particular Blue Sun's Zenith. Stroke of Genius and Braingeyser - that can, when set up right, be used to make our opponents - or ourselves, if need be - draw their entire decks!
Since Kydele has Partner, I wanted to make the most of that by running two commanders, to both add the option of running more colours to broaden the deck's capabilities and run a second creature that either complemented Kydele's ramp engine or provided a benefit to get us into the long game; in the end, I settled on Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist. Ludevic encourages opponents to go after one another in a similar vein to Edric, Spymaster of Trest - who is also in the deck - by providing them a card advantage-based incentive to attack players that aren't us, in turn allowing our deck time to sit quietly and build its position until it has the resources to win. Besides Ludevic, the deck has a few other political tools to divert aggression away from itself, such as Propaganda.
Ludevic being a commander means the deck also benefits from being able to play red, gaining a few more card draw engines while also bolstering the boardwipes I can run - going from mass bounce to mass burn!
How does it win?
The deck has many ways to win the game beyond simply forcing through damage with creatures.
We have the option of wearing our opponents down by simply drawing cards. Psychosis Crawler is the best option or this; we also have Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, but the fact he deals damage to a single target rather than to each opponent means we have to draw a lot more cards to make him a viable win condition. The Locust God also turns our card draw into raw power, giving us hasty insects for each card we draw in a turn - suddenly turning an empty board into a huge swarm of evasive threats that can be difficult to deal with.
If our opponents run decks that gain them a lot of life, we can go for alternate means of victory. As mentioned before, we can force our opponents to simply draw so many cards that they deck out, even with a comparatively full library if set up correctly - the incremental card draw from all those group-hug artifacts and enchantments mounting up, before targeting an opponent with a huge Blue Sun's Zenith or Stroke of Genius to mill them out completely.
Failing all that, we have Laboratory Maniac, so we can win the game simply by drawing all the cards in our own library, too!
The Deck's Toolbox
To provide more incentive to keep us around for longer and to somewhat mask the deck's true intentions (albeit under a very thin veil!), a bulk of our card draw engines take the form of grouphug artifacts and enchantments that draw lots of cards for everybody, including Horn of Greed, Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, Rites of Flourishing, Jace Beleren and Dictate of Kruphix. These cards don't tend to be the target of much removal, since they always benefit everybody at the table - why would you want to blow something up that's helping you out?
A sort of exception to this is Fevered Visions, a card that does work in its own right - given that in Commander you start at 40 life, players aren't too upset at taking 2 every turn initially - it's only when the enchantment has done 10 or so damage that they tend to start to realise they might be in trouble!
Because we're drawing so many cards, there are a fair amount of cards that ensure we get to keep those cards in our grip - redundancy is a pretty useful thing in Commander! - so the deck runs Reliquary Tower, as well as Library of Leng, Venser's Journal, Thought Vessel and Kruphix, God of Horizons.
Why no tutors or accelerants?
Tutors and mana accelerants like Sol Ring are a staple part of EDH, yet my deck doesn't run any. This is primarily for two reasons.
The first is to maximise the number of deck slots I could give over to my core game plan of drawing as many cards as possible. This feeds into the second reason: The deck is capable of drawing so many cards so quickly that more often than not we simply draw whatever it is we might need anyway!
Cards I'm unsure about
While I enjoy playing the deck in its current form, there are a couple of card choices I'm still reconsidering and would probably like to change.
The primary candidates are Mindmoil and Arjun, the Shifting Flame. The idea behind running these cards is that because, with them on the field, each time I cast a spell I cycle my hand, it would lead to huge mana ramp for Kydele and more life loss with Niv-Mizzet and Psychosis Crawler. They did do this, but wound up being a double-edged sword, costing me more games than they won me - sometimes getting me into unwinnable situations where casting a spell would cycle enough cards to kill me. While that's down to some lack of foresight in my own plays, the fact that this can happen at all can be a problem. Moreover, the fact that my hand cycles every time I cast a spell with these two cards makes it very difficult to form a coherent game plan and stick to it - and sometimes you don't want to cycle away a hand full of relevant answers, which leads to those cards stifling your play options! If a similar card was printed where these Puzzle Box-like effects were 'may' abilities, then I'd jump on it and run it for sure. As is, These two cards are prime candidates for cuts and upgrades.
Another card I'm looking at as a potential cut is Terastodon. The fact that it blows up three noncreature permanents is undoubtedly great - it does, after all, give an avenue of dealing with Planeswalkers - it does ultimately cost 8 mana and is otherwise just a large, non-evasive, unprotected body that may get an incidental trigger off of Selvala, Heart of the Wilds. This one needs more testing, I feel, as there are benefits to its inclusion and things that could easily be run in its stead.
Finally, while it does help with the 'hey leave me alone' part of the plan, I've found Propaganda to ultimately not have too much of an impact on my opponents' decision making, so it could ultimately stand to be replaced with something more impactful.
Possible Replacements - the Maybeboard
A potential swap for Terastodon might be Vandalblast, being cheap to cast in both its regular mode and its one-sided Shatter variant.
Plasm Capture gives us an extra way to stop our opponents from doing something we don't like - or stopping them from stopping us! - while also playing into our big mana plans, similar to Spell Swindle.
Mana Reflection also plays excellently into the big mana plan, especially in conjunction with the Karoo lands, filter lands and Temple of the False God.
Brainstorm is a stand-in here for any number of the one-mana blue cantrips, a cheap and efficient way to get the card advantage engine rolling. Other options could include Oona's Grace, which could turn excess late-game land into extra cards, or Faithless Looting with its cheap draw-2 ability and equally cheap flashback cost.
Vedalken Orrery - redundancy for Leyline of Anticipation.
Umbral Mantle and Staff of Domination provide paths to infinite combos with both Kydele and Selvala - and, in fact, the Mantle with Selvala provides a gradually-increasing amount of coloured mana as she becomes the biggest creature on the board - making the plan of milling either our opponents or ourselves out much easier as we can just generate infinite mana and then sink it into an enormous Blue Sun's Zenith or the like. Definitely powerful options to consider if taking the deck on a more 'competitive' line.
Comet Storm - a potential alternative wincon. Just sink a ton of mana into it and aim at players' faces.
Conclusion
I know it's been a lot of reading to get to this point. Thanks for sticking with me in all my ramblings! I really enjoy playing this deck; it can do its fair share of silly things while seeming quite innocent and harmless, before wiping opponents out when they least expect it. If you have any questions, feedback, or suggestions for tweaks and improvements, please share them!
Update - 24/8/18
After Dominaria and Battlebond came out, I made a couple little tweaks to the deck.
Out: Arjun, the Shifting Flame, Propaganda
In: Tatyova, Benthic Druid, Toothy, Imaginary Friend
I fell in love with Tatyova as soon as she was spoiled, and wanted to play her in as many decks as I possibly could as soon as she was released - helping me draw through my deck and gaining me a little life just for playing lands is a big upside. Eventually I want to build an entire commander deck around her.
Toothy has a similar function to Chasm Skulker, being a 3-drop that gets bigger just for doing what the deck is doing anyway, and then providing an upside when it dies - in this instance drawing a bunch of cards!
Depending on how these changes play out, I may yet take out Mindmoil instead and put Propaganda back in.
