Forgot to mention another, Clever Impersonator. I don't know if you're necessarily going for clone effects, but that is far and away the best. Also forgot to mention Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, in case you don't like doing stuff on your own turn.

All these are actually really good, I'll be looking at putting most of those in. Since my deck is more of an upkeep deck Teferi is a weak free drop and my eldrazi will be coming out for free over flashing them in. The secondary effect is nice, and might still warrant him a spot. I'm rarely going to be at a card disadvantage (I'm mono blue and I cheat out massive draw cards. It's an awesome combination) and most times I can afford to lose the advantage in hand to ensure I have an eldrazi blowing up land. Most people can't use their card advantage without lands >:D Commandeer is a definite.

Hey there, I'm also running Braids as a commander. I was curious if you could take a look! +1 your deck has helped mine adapt a little bit and is a great deck! I'm More Than Just my Hair You Know.

Vesuvan Doppelganger is a better version of Vesuvan Shapeshifter and Cryptoplasm, just saying.

@sonnet666 When just looking at the base effects, yes. However in terms of speed it is slower hurting it's strength just a bit. Like stated earlier this deck prefers fast clones. I'm still debating the morph clone. He's technically fast and being able to split his cost across 2 turns allows me to open up extra mana for counters. Problem is I want a couple more morph cards so that my opponents won't be able to predict my morph strategy. That's the best reason for running morph anyways. Now for your suggestion the only way to play him with mana open is to play him using braids. This means one of my most basic strategies, drop a large creature and then clone or steal the biggest threat putting me ahead, stops working. Better yet braids only reaches the first upkeep for me a third of the time as something like Ashen Rider removes her. That means 4 cost is a basic clone CMC for me. Higher costs need to be able to create more clones or provide some additional utility. Yes the doppelganger is good, but I don't like wasting my upkeeps on clones and this deck aims to win very swiftly.

Here's an example of speed. Blightsteel Colossus allows both those you mentioned were weaker to win games the moment I drop blightsteel which can be as early as turn 3. Under this situation my clones would still have summoning sickness until turn 4 but would then have 2 blightsteels, the original and the clone, ready to swing on turn 4. Furthermore Cryptoplasm absorbs hate. It's not overly powerful on turn three, but the threat of what it COULD be is great enough to bait out removal spells opening up both braids and my real threats to getting away with shenanigans. Morph is similar. If I add some massive morph threats they are willing to waste a Hero's Downfall to rid themselves of an unknown to avoid a greater threat, which means for three mana I just rid myself of one of the most annoying removal cards to deal with all before my real threats come out. The problem is my playgroup isn't scared enough by morph until they know there are bigger morph threats within the deck to be afraid of. Despite that because of its morph cost and flexibility I'm still inclined to prefer it for the trick plays early on over yours. Cryptoplasm will be staying simply since it has speed and even without an ETB still performs it's job as fast as most clones while still having the bonus effect. I'm inclined to take Casey4321's Vesuvan Shapeshifter because it keeps up with my decks pacing AND actually allows me to outsmart my opponents. Let's face winning a game because you outwitted your opponent feels a million times better than winning because I blew a grand on magic cards... And makes me feel less like an idiot for spending a grand on magic cards... Seriously why did a spend a grand on magic cards?

I said Casey4321 but meant Shields. Whoops.

Sakashima's Student could be really fun to play it with ninjutsu, a lot of fun if you have Blightsteel Colossus out xD

He is fun, and the option to sneak him in for a mere two mana has a lot of potential. I'll find him a spot.

Thanks for the advice on my deck, have you considered running the combo from my deck being Arcanis the Omnipotent + Mind Over Matter because it will help you to dig through your deck for the right cards at the right time. You already have one part of the combo so all you would need to add is Mind Over Matter. However if you do run this combo you will likely need a deck reset like Psychic Spiral or Elixir of Immortality. Other than that I can't think of anything to suggest, solid deck man.

On a side note, I thought blue braids was banned as commander. Was I just mixing the two different braids up or was she recently removed from the banlist?

You mixed up commanders. Black is banned due to being extremely degenerate being able to drag an hour game for 6, which is both annoying for group games and makes tournaments impossible to decide victors in a timely fashion. As for deck resets I can merely discard my titans. Means I don't have to use mana to do it either. However let's look at whether it's worth running. It doesn't particularly combo with anything but arcanis and by itself has little worth. Furthermore it's cost is very difficult to justify as I can't cheat it out and I aim for turn 6 or faster wins. Due to lack of synergies and the likelihood of it being a dead draw I have to say no.

could you explain why you have Kira, Great Glass-Spinner? i can't see its value in this deck

nvm, didn't see "creatures you control" clause >.<

Here's a quick question. As I'm sure many of you know Ugin's Planeswalkers card was spoiled a few days ago much to the excitement of all. Here's my question, do I add him.

Pros

-thanks to the threats in deck his ult is an automatic win most cases I pull it off.

-his +2 while weaker in EDH covers a broad range of commanders and provides some usable burn.

-his -X covers one of my biggest weaknesses, mass token production. Furthermore most of my threats are colorless or have huge CMC protecting them. Finally it gives me an extra way to remove Braids when needed.

Negatives

-I can't cheat him out, and even with ramp there will be times he's too late in the game to speed me up.

-he will takes the third turn to ult, which means even if I pulled him off turn 4 I still won't be winning quickly.

-to add him I have to justify a drop. And that's really, really hard to do at this point.

-at this rate I'm going to need 6 copies of him. 4 for a standard deck, 1 for my The Flame that Burns Twice as Bright: Cancer Deck since Ugin is quite literally my brother's favorite dragon (he's in his favorite two blocks, time spiral and zendikar and is in his second favorite burn, Ghostfire), and then the one for this deck.

I would add him. I'll be playing him in Ob Nixilis. He's really versatile and not mana intense. He may come out a bit later than you would want, but his abilities more than make up for it.

for token decks Rogue's Passage + Steel Hellkite then you make x=0 and bye tokens

i like the new ugin, you can take care of things like Grand Abolisher or Containment Priest that will prove pretty annoying to this deck

Unfortunately steel Hellkite really doesn't warrant a spot even though he does clear up tokens. Too unreliable to get him in without the passage and he doesn't win games on his own, let alone tokens being a situational problem in the first place. When I said that tokens was a weakness I didn't mean it was an impossible situation for me. Just statistically things that can keep up with my annihilator have a tendency to be harder to beat. It's kind of like a mill deck verses laboratory maniac in EDH. Yes it's a problem but since you're mill it's easy to mill it to the graveyard or remove it with a control card, since most mill decks are control heavy. I might add Rogue's Passage however as it does synergize well with my infect cards as well as it being dangerous when you can't block my big creatures with deathtouch, another one of those big weaknesses this deck doesn't like (though like tokens isn't big enough to go out of the way to put in a single solution card in for it).

As for hate bears like the ones you listed I've never had too many problems with them, though Ugin killing them did not pass my notice. Containment Priest has proven to be incredibly annoying but getting it out of a hundred cards in a one on one is unlikely and generally in group games they still take advantage of braids at least once pulling aggro away from me giving me time to use my superior ramp to start casting anyways. In essence it's never been a make or break problem, nor has tokens or deathtouch. Those just happen to be the things that perform better against me.

I think Ugin is a absolute inclusion in most decks for the second ability alone.

if money it's not a problem for you, you should swap Ghost Quarter for one of these two: Strip Mine, Wasteland

i find Rogue's Passage to be a great card for 1 hit KO creatures that don't have evasion (like Blightsteel Colossus) but i don't know if it's that of a improvement to the deck

It is as it doesn't interfere with my mana base (advantage of being mono colored) nor does it come in tapped. Furthermore it provides a reliable win con with out interfering with any combos and since it adds mana it'll never be useless. Honestly it's better than my morph land, which was mostly put in there for the what if reactions my opponents have to it. I think I'll add the new lands in addition to ghost quarter and playtest it. If after a partial I'm still struggling to get my blue I might have to change, but will still keep the stronger land destruction for the what if. Definitely screws my opponents if I can mana screw them and remove braids locking then up.

Also since pretty much everyone agrees about Ugin he's a definite add. Might drop Guile for it as though it is one of my strongest combo cards and a great priority tutor by itself is lackluster and let's face it Ugin does a great job at everything he does. As for his second ability being the stand alone reason to add him to most decks I'd have to differ. He's expensive for a field clear. While yes he's colorless being a turn 8 drop without ramp means you want a field clear that targets, and he doesn't even do that. In order to make him truly work in your favor you need to be built around him, and in most any deck with access to white or orzhov you're better relying on those colored field clears as a) they have more flexibility in what they do and b) much cheaper options for what they do. What makes Ugin worth despite his cost isn't his second ability but rather is his combination of large loyalty counters, flexible defensive play, and a powerful and reliable win con. If anyone of those factors was missing I would consider this a rather lackluster card and not worth adding in not only this deck but most others as well.

Stormsurge Kraken i don't like it, but that's my opinion, and i find Guile better than the kraken

and, if you didn't have that much colorless, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx would be good (you got a lot of blue devotion, with the big creatures, and your enchantments)

Hey, I wanna thank you again for all your help on my Ob Nixilis of the Black Oath deck. Could you perhaps offer a little insight into a new deck of mine? Note I am trying to keep it relatively cheap.

I had a guy say he had developed deck that I couldn't beat with braids and how for spending so much money on my deck it was crap. All it did was get him infinite life. I proceeded to annihilate all his permanents, and then beat face while I restocked my deck with my titans. I refrained from attacking for commander stating I was going to force him to draw out. He scooped. I don't even feel bad for it. No one insults my pretty Braids.

Lol life gain is not unbeatable just annoying good thing you beat him

I'm aware infinite combos are not a strength for this deck, if I don't counter it then I basically get to sit there and deal with it. However I'm also aware it's not a weakness since I can clone out their combos or better yet, do what I did to this guy and force him to sit on his bum twiddling his thumbs while I dominate every other aspect of the game. I just found him being a major prick over me spending more money on magic than him annoying. There ARE good budget decks out there for under $50. I chose not to use someone like Zur the enchanter because personally I like having more unique decks and finding how to make my play style fun and unique. That's why I use Karador over Ghave and even made my Vela deck.

I don't think this game is a waste of time and money anymore than buying a Harley Davidson (what I'm personally saving up for right now) is. I enjoy it, it gives me a social outing, and having rare cards I find both me and other people enjoying because it adds a better experience to the game by making one game unique from the next. Furthermore half my collection came from my brother and most of the cards in my collection came from trading the other half of my collection. Just because you don't have my cards doesn't mean it's a money hole to win this game, it's a strategy game. His strategy had holes, very exploitable holes, despite it "counters" my deck. Honestly if the guy actually threw in a doom blade or other spot removal it'd be better than just having a dozen ways to gain infinite life. Unfortunately he's too caught up in the price tags in what I own to actually look at what he has and build a strategy around making it work.

Been thinking of adding a sideboard. Question is what to add. Should I fill it with specific utility creatures, such as Stormtide Leviathan for if I run into an elf deck, or should I add more control elements such as cheap counters. Of course I could do a mix. I suppose the real question is what are my biggest weaknesses and how best should I prepare for them. I suppose right now I'm a mid range deck, so specific solutions for different situations would be useful.

Thing is I've never done a sideboard for EDH. 60 card is a bit simpler since you can add 4 doomblades and call it a day as there will be many situations that'll be your cheapest straight up removal. This is a tad trickier since I want to be able to add multiple solutions to any one case, but am limited to one card making it hard to find great coverage cards.