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Consultation Zur [PRIMER]

Commander / EDH Ad Nauseam Combo Competitive Multiplayer Primer WUB (Esper)

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Commander: Zur the Enchanter

Artifact (16)

Sorcery (11)

For updated primer and decklist please follow the link: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/1t0Cpm1xqUeyA-6xi2TrGQ

Necropotence in the command zone

===center Zur remained aloof from Terisiare's suffering, intent only on his own perfection. ===endcenter

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Ever since he was printed, Zur the Enchanter has been one of the biggest names in Commander format and one of the few commanders that people think of as forerunners of cEDH. The only thing you had to do, to make people you’re playing with resentful and rebellious, was to take out your Zur deck. Such practice remained to this day and besides joy that playing Zur brings to you and fun you are experiencing doing so, it also sticks a huge target on your forehead, just because everyone respects the deck and know what your deck is capable of doing in almost any variant.

written by Neale Talbot for Quiet Speculation, showcases how big of a part Zur played in competitive meta since early era of cEDH. If we compare list shown in this article with ones that Zur players play today, they are not nearly the same, but comparing with other decks by that time, it was pretty clear how overpowered that set of cards was. Zur always stood on top of the meta and he will always remain as one of the best and the most powerful commanders ever printed.

This primer is aimed for both new players and introducing them to Zur in cEDH or even for experienced players, to perhaps, refresh some knowledge and encourage creative thinking.

Cheating things into play is extremely powerful thing to do in EDH and Magic in general, especially when it’s something that can progress your game plan, disrupt other players or even win you the game. If you’ve chosen Zur as your commander, you are lucky enough to do such things. The biggest thing about it is that he doesn’t have to actually connect to another player to resolve his ability, but simply - just attack! A 1/4 body and flying ability really help to that because even he doesn’t need to connect, he has a decent chance of surviving most of the stuff that blocks him, so he can attack again next turn and evasion makes it even easier to do so.

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===center “A mage must be precise as well as potent; cautious, as well as clever.” —Zur the Enchanter ===endcenter

People have learned how to play against Zur’s broken ability, which forced Zur players to adjust to that kind of threat assessment, which is directed towards more aggressive protecting of their gameplan, and that’s where Zur’s color identity shines the most. Esper colors provide you with some of the best and most powerful cards in the format in groups of counter magic, card advantage, tutors, removal and various protection spells.

With an ability such as Zur has and all the cards his color identity gives you access to, he’s been on top of competitive tier lists almost since the beggining of the format. Some people turned to more consistent and faster strategies, but there is still a lot of people that are playing and working around making Zur fresh and better than each day before it was, keeping him close to the top as he always was.

Pros: * Good color identity in shell. * Access to the most compact and one of the best win conditions in the entire format. * High card quality and ability to run best sets of interaction, card advantage and tutors. * Adaptable to various archetypes.

Cons: * Expected plays. * Vulnerable to specific stax effects, notably the ones that prevent or interact with searching your library (i.e. Stranglehold , Opposition Agent and Aven Mindcensor ). * Some variances lack board presence in form of creatures, which makes them vulnerable to attacks. * Lack of color identity (since it got a big push with several prints from last few years).

Zur’s color identity is good enough to give you access to best counter magic, best tutors and most ultility spells in the game. Very important thing about those is that it allows you choice in a massive pool of cards with those effects, because we want to retain the card quality of the list and being on a Consultation variant of the deck allows you to do so. Running cards that are best in slot and having access to most staples in the format, really push your gameplay quality aswell and that is the primary reason we can say that this decks card quality is amongst the highest ones.

It’s something of would you would consider midrangey Zur build to be, but not quite there; having both control heavy elements and aggressive approach in form of getting card advantage in very different ways to outvalue opponents. Deck also uses it’s commander to cheat in those engines in form of enchantments the list is playing and that’s what makes commander really synergistic with the game plan.

Apart from maintaining card advantage and progressing your game plan, there are also good disruptive elements of the deck that are included to maintain the game on the tempo level which is suiting you, so you can either explode out of nowhere or outgrind your opponents if it’s a slower game; anyway around, you can play to maintain opponents’ game in your favor while you have enough free space to progress your plan further.

If you look at most Zur lists, you’ll find a big number of cards that are overlaping between those lists; that’s because those cards are best-in-slot (BIS) cards you wanna be playing in your deck. It's the same reason why Zur decks are often jokingly called "a pile of staples decks".

You can find a link below which shows core cards that you can use to start brewing your Zur deck. If you scroll a bit down further on this primer, you will also find a considering list on this deck which contains a lot of cards that have been tested throughout time and are used depending on the meta and playstyles; feel free to fill other slots to express yourself and adjust to your own meta you are playing in.

If you think there is something more you would like to know about deck building strategies for Zur, I can’t recommend enough to you, to go and read syjte’s detailed writeup and in-depth guide on the theme, following the link .

As mentioned earlier, in despite of just being three colors, Zur is very flexible on builds and a quantity of variances that you can build him. On you is to choose what suits your playstyle and with which one you think you would have the most fun playing it, how does it work in a meta you’re playing in etc. It’s up to you how you are going to fill those slots and how creative you can get.

===center ”Magic overused can freeze the mind. Creativity is more important than power.” —Zur the Enchanter ===endcenter

Predecessor to all of competitive Zur lists, which was originally made by Skuloth and inspired players to play Zur and cEDH in general. This deck became a real threat in 2011. with the release of Innistrad and printing of Laboratory Maniac , which made a perfect combo with a card named Doomsday . Besides it’s regular Ad Nauseam plan, lists that use Doomsday aim to generate a 5 card pile and go through it with different combination of cards that can form a pile, to lastly get Laboratory Maniac into play and win the game by drawing a card. Nowdays, many of these lists are playing similar game plan as Consultation Zur, with addition of including Doomsday as another enabler for their win lines.

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If you are more interested in playing Doomsday Zur or playing Doomsday in any other EDH deck, these primers are good reading materials: * The EDH Doomsday Primer - AlwaysSleepy’s and reversemermaid’s Doomsday primer for various decks in EDH * - AlwaysSleepy’s Doomsday primer focused mostly on Thassa’s Oracle

An adaptive deck which started as a Doomsday list with using Demonic Consultation , but all newer lists aim to cut all of outdated pieces and try to maximize card quality. Perfect list to play nowdays as it’s compact, doesn’t fall off and is a great contender in todays’ meta. List aims to win by getting big card advantage via Peer into the Abyss , Ad Nauseam or Necropotence and then using either Tainted Pact or Demonic Consultation with either Laboratory Maniac, Thassa's Oracle or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries .

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A storm typed deck, originally made by Suasion, which aims to rush Zur so he can get Necropotence to generate huge necro pile and play either Shimmer Myr or Emergence Zone , so you can storm your mana producing rituals and artifacts at instant speed, to generate mana and storm count to win via Aetherflux Reservoir or Oracle lines.

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  • Original list: Suasion’s Shimmer Zur Storm

  • Latest:

  • ’s alexdagreat deck tech on his Tainted Shimmer Zur:

  • - shimmer/reanimator build which built around Shimmer Zur base, but instead of using Reservoir, it uses reanimation plan to work with Thassa’s Oracle at instant speed

An esper stax deck which aims to slow down the board by using various taxing effects, of which a lot Zur can grab himself. Following the trend of printing new cards and meta shifting, deck turned to more midrangelike build and looks a bit less like a /traditional/ stax list. Win conditions are various and depend on players choice; most common are Oracle + Consult lines or as some builds play Helm of Obedience + Rest in Peace combo.

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Closest to what some would consider a voltron type deck in competitive EDH; very similar to stax builds especially in earlier lists, but nowdays lists are with more focus on a midrange plan, somewhat similar to stax lists. This deck aims to disrupt other players game plan while simultaneously progressing your own and pressuring life totals with Zur, all until you grind out to your victory like a classic control build would. Win conditions are various and depend on players choice; most common are Oracle + Consult lines, Helm of Obedience + Rest in Peace combo or even Zur beatdown.

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Mulligans, like with every other deck, really depend on matchups, position at the table and deck variance and. The ability to assess, what to keep and what not, comes with experience and playing in different circumstances.

Because of high card quality and good redundancy in key groups of cards, this specific list often allows you to mulligan very aggressively untill you get a good opener. Especially on first seven cards you draw, because of multiplayers rule where you get first mulligan for free and at no cost of losing cards. Although this method is most often correct, you should always keep your mind if you can keep a mediocre hand to start the game and play with it throughout the game; as it has been said, those situaions depend on decks you are playing against and variance of the deck you are playing aswell.

What you are looking for most often is any kind of ramp to gain advantage (fast mana in form of artifacts), card advantage and/or card selection, interaction in form of counter magic or removal and possibly tutors for either any of those pieces or the ones that tutor your win conditions. Sometimes, it’s also correct to take some of the disruptive pieces as they are going to buy you time to develop your own game.

In a format where each pleayer is staring on 40 life points, it would be a pity not to use life points as a resource and coincidentaly enough, all of our great card advantage strategies are doing just that.

Zur the Enchanter is often joked as a Necropotence in a command zone and that’s for a reason. It’s the bread and butter of the deck, Zur’s goldigger, lifetime partner or whatever you wanna call it - you just simply do not play Zur without Necropotence . What makes Necropotence so good in Zur is the fact that you can get Necropotence of his triggered ability and make it pseudo-uncouterable since it surpasses stack unless your opponents do not interact with triggered ability with cards that have Stifle effects.

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There is not much to say about Necropotence since the card is pretty straight forward itself - it provides you with pure card advantage and card selection where you trade your one point of life per card. That is pretty amazing because of the already mentioned usage of life total as a resource in commander, so you can use it as a resource to either refill your hand each and upcoming turn or take a huge amount amount of cards for selection and take what you need to win or your next turn.

There are decklists that use card such as Emergence Zone , Shimmer Myr , Scout's Warning and Quicken to ultilize their gameplan and try to cast stuff after they get their cards in the end step at instant speed.

Most of the people label decks by their deck names based around their win condition, which is not wrong, but a lot of people do not understand or even forget that Zur is primarily an Ad Nauseam deck at his core.

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What does that mean? It means that almost every Zur list is primarily trying to cast Ad Nauseam to generate big card advantage and win from there either by simply playing your win conditions or by chaining tutors into them, it really depends on what you get with each Ad Nauseam cast. Ad Nauseam is one of the formats most powerful spells and it’s played in competitive EDH because decks are built around it (including cards with low mana value) so it generates more card advantage possible for the life available.

===center “Concentration is key. Without it, a mage conjures nothing but a splitting headache.” —Zur the Enchanter ===endcenter

If you combine Ad Nauseam with a spell named Angel's Grace , that combo allows you to repeat Ad Nauseam enough times untill you put all cards from your library into your hand, despite the life loss because Angel’s Grace is preventing you to lose the game that turn. It also has Split Second, which makes it impossible to interact with (Split second is a static ability that does not allow any players to put any spell or activated ability on the stack as long as the spell with Split second is on the stack).

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Beside winning with your empty library replacement effect, often forgotten win condition which we use if our replacement effects get exiled; that is the usage of Windfall to mill everyone out after you’ve drawn your deck with Angel’s Grace + Ad Nauseam combo. It would be great if you Silence your opponents before executing this line, since you are giving them cards with your wheels.

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  1. Cast Windfall .
  2. After casting Windfall, retain priority and cast Brainstorm, then choose to put Yawgmoth's Will and something else on top of your library (most commonly some sort of protection).
  3. Resolve Windfall - discard your hand and draw only two cards while your opponents draw most of their libraries (Note: You cannot die due to drawing into an empty library because of Angel’s Grace).
  4. Cast Yawgmoth’s Will and cast Windfall again.
  5. You won’t draw any cards because there are no cards in your library and your each opponent will eventually draw into an empty library losing the game.

Peer into the Abyss , also known as PitA is an extremely powerful spell printed in Core Set 2021, that will win you the game after it resolves, most of the time. At first glance it looks like a mix between Doomsday and Ad Nauseam and in some way it is, or perhaps just better.

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Cost of can make a lot of people sceptical about playing it. Playing both Dark Ritual and Cabal Ritual , with addition of Culling the Weak , really help to cast this spell very early; if you still feel you are lacking producing sources, you can also include Rain of Filth . Another concern is about it’s mana value, especially for Ad Nauseam type of decks because it can lose you a lot of life on your Ad Nauseam cast. In despite of the potential life loss, you still want to run this card as a redundancy for Ad Nauseam and Necropotence and in order to generate massive card advantage.

What makes PitA so special is the fact you can cast it even if you’re on a very low life total. You will still lose half of your life which may not be relevant at all, because you will still get a big amount of cards from your remaining library and that’s what is relevant to you so you can win.

The only issue and weakness of this card when it’s compard to Ad Nauseam, besides being a sorcery, is that it’s actually drawing those cards, so cards like Notion Thief , Narset, Partern of Veils, Hullbreacher or Smothering Tithe make a big payoff for your opponents in either scenario, either them getting advantage or you not gaining one at all; that’s why it’s really important to be careful of what’s already on the board, aswell as respecting and being aware of your opponent’s open mana.

Consult lines - a very easy and compact ways to win games in cEDH. Also, they are most common way to win nowdays. Those lines replaced Doomsday lines because they are more efficient, easier to cast, less complicated to execute and requires less resources to remove your library.

Thassa’s Oracle 1. Cast Thassa’s Oracle and let it resolve. 2. When enter the battlefield trigger gets on the stack, retain priority and cast Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact to exile all cards from your library. 3. Let enter the battlefield trigger to resolve and since devotion is equal or higher than number of cards in your library, you win the game.

Laboratory Maniac / Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

  1. Cast Laboratory Maniac or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries.
  2. Cast Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact to exile all cards from your library.
  3. After all cards from your library get exiled, cast a spell that draw you a card or if you are playing Jace, you just have to activate his +1 which allows you to draw a card.
  4. Since your library is empty and you would’ve draw a card, that effect gets replaced and you win the game instead.

Forbidden Tutors

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You can often hear people calling Demonic Consultation and Tainted Pact - forbidden tutors. That is because both of those cards search through your library on a linear way, with cost of removing cards from top of your library from the game, untill you find a card that you were looking for.

As both can be used as a way to empty your library, so you can win with our chosen labman effect, it’s not to forget the can serve as tutors in moments where we need interaction, missing combo piece etc. What makes them amazing is the fact that they can be played at instant speed and they put tutored card into your hand.

Choosing your labman effect

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The effects that replace drawing the last card from the deck with a win instead of a game loss, can uniquely be called labman effects because Laboratory Maniac is an original card which was printed and presented that unique effect to the game. With printing of Jace, Wielder of Mysteries we got a second labmanlike effect brought to the game and it was quite powerfull to have redundancy for this effect, no matter how awkward or difficult was to pull off.

After Thassa’s Oracle was spoiled in Theros: Beyond Death and brought another, third labmanlike effect to the game, it’s cheaper cost of only and absolutely broken ability that wins the game on etb and makes it harder to fight against, instantly pushed Jace out of the lists and quickly became a primary outlet for many decks in cEDH in general. Altough, you may find a lot of decks still using Jace because of his nature to make lines more compact in form of maintaining a two card combo nature.

It can be quite confusing and people often ask: How come many Zur players cut Jace for Laboratory Maniac since Jace has a stapled draw onto him and doesn’t die to uncounterable removals such as an Abrupt Decay , for example? - It’s all about personal preference. Yes, Laboratory Maniac may need a cantrip next to other pieces he needs to win, but he is easier to cast and easier to follow up with a spell afterwards comparing to Jace. Also, running Laboratory Maniac opens up redundancy on some niche and spicy strategies with Scout’s Warning which allows you to flash him or Thassa’s Oracle into play at instant speed. On the other hand, Jace isn’t completely a dead card comparing to Laboratory Maniac; he can still draw you cards on his activate abilities and he has a draw effect on himself which is relevant if you are going to win.

At this time, this particular list is running Jace, Wielder of Mysteries instead of Laboratory Maniac as it's second, and that's mostly because of my own personal preference and already mentioned reason and that's because Jace draws a card from himself, which I found being really helpful since he doesn't require another piece for winning the game besides a forbidden tutor and himself. That all being said, Thassa’s Oracle should be your locked pick and the second one really depends on your personal preference and/or deck strategy.

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Here you can find links for three lists I've made for each of budget categories for Consultation Zur list. -

Note: Deck prices can vary depending on how prices move, so please keep in mind that I change them depending on how I notice the same.

Why isn’t Zur played as much as he was before?

Many players feel like losing the color identity of red in current metagame doesn’t make any sense because of some powerful cards in that color identity, which makes it hard to justify not to play without it. Another reason would be popularity and overall pressence; Zur has been around for quite a while a very played deck and some players consider it being solved or stale to play, so they turn to new and fresh brews.

What is the best Zur deck to play?

The best Zur deck is the one that suits players playstyle and their meta the best. Being such a flexible commander, Zur has decks in many different archtypes and players can choose from many of them. But what would be recommended to play into a blind meta today is Consultation Zur deck; those lists are playing in style of midrange decks and are running high quality cards and staples without any dead cards. Consultation variant is also very adaptable to players playstyle and meta without losing key pieces which their decks need to function properly.

How much removal is enough removal?

As deck wants to interact mostly on the stack, lists are running many counterspells but fewer removal. It’s recommended to run core removal cards with addition of cards with added values to their removal side (i.e. Drown in the Loch and Cyclonic Rift). Running other specific removals is up to players personal choice and need for it.

Is Doomsday still viable in Zur?

Doomsday generally fell of as a strategy and primary wincon with time and newer wincons getting more compact. Running Doomsday makes it easy for opponents to disrupt players and it made them to run bad cards to support Doomsday. Nowdays, it serves as another win enabler and acts like redundancy in Consultation lists that are running it, mostly because of nostalgia and flavor.

Is Zur playable on a lower budget?

Surprisingly enough, Zur performs extremely good on a budget considering he needs all of the expensive mana rocks to ramp. Most of the key pieces are cheap and most of them are somewhat replaceable. Primer contains three budget lists for Consultation Zur in three different budget categories - feel free to check them out.

Is (Shimmer)Zur playable without Mox Diamond and Grim Monolith?

Yes it is, but player’s game might be slower and it will be harder for them to ramp and/or storm off without those if they are playing shimmer variant. It’s recommended to players to proxy those if they can and are allowed to do so, because it will increase decks performance a lot; if not players can slot in something like Helm of Awakening to help them out with ramping then into other, more mana expensive artifacts much easier.

Jace, Wielder of Mysteries or Laboratory Maniac?

Read the primer under Choosing your labman effect section.

Is it wrong to run Ad Nauseam without Angel’s Grace?

Not at all. Angel’s Grace opens up an another combo line with Ad Nauseam (and Windfall), but other than that it rarely does any good. Ad Nauseam is primarily used as a mass card advantage generating spell and it’s on players choice if they want to run it as a combo piece aswell.

Is Peer into the Abyss worth... ...taking 7 damage from Ad Nauseam?

Yes.

...paying 7 mana with BBB for it?

Absolutely! Even though you are gonna spend ritual(s) to cast PitA, with getting that many cards should be a problem to ramp further.

I hope that you found some information useful and that it was of some help to you. If you think I missed something that you find important to mention or if you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment bellow! Thank you for reading!

Special thanks!

All the links and materials used here were taken from The Zurver Discord server, so big thank you to all the members there that provided and shared mentioned. Big thanks to content creators aswell, for making deck techs videos which were used here, there are a lot of help, especially for somene who is new to the format and the deck.

On my hand, I’m inviting you to join the Discord server to share some experiences and ideas with other members, discuss new techs or even ask for some questions, many of us will gladly help!

Click to join The Zurver!

===center “A resourceful mage has many sources of information. The best one is your foe.” —Zur the Enchanter ===endcenter

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Updates — Nov. 20, 2019
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Updated both list and primer.

A lot happened — June 20, 2019
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Casual

96% Competitive

Top Ranked
Date added 6 years
Last updated 3 years
Exclude colors RG
Legality

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

14 - 0 Mythic Rares

55 - 0 Rares

16 - 0 Uncommons

13 - 0 Commons
Cards 100
Avg. CMC 1.86
Tokens Bird 2/2 U
Folders Deck ideas, Zur, Ideas, Decks, Cool decks, bro, Want to Build, Cool Decks, Primers, Others, Check
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