I definitely like your take with this build. But I am wondering why you haven't included more efficient counter spells. Counterspell itself ofc being the frontrunner, but also stuff like Arcane Denial, Negate, Dispel, etc would be a good include. I understand you want to be able to win without Zur, but the countering spells you have are not focused as much on protecting your own assets; they are more geared towards denying your opponent of assets. It may be beneficial to add more that help protect your own, that way you can ensure Zur or any other beater you have out will stick around. My only other concern is the amount of enchantments that are not tutor-able with Zur. I'm fine with keeping them in, as long as more card draw effects come with them. Although, usually with Zur the first thing you tutor for is either Diplomatic Immunity or Vanishing. If you get Immunity first, when you draw into the 4+ CMC enchantments, they are basically dead unless you have another body to put them on. All in all, I do like the build for sure, but just wanted to raise some of those points for you to consider. +1

Thanks for you're input! Really appreciate it :)

I've actually been thinking about the counter spells. Initially I put them in to repel late game game winning cards from opponents, not to protect Zur, but you are right, cheaper is better so I can protect my own stuff, not just deny opponents plays.

I'll likely swap Punish Ignorance and Undermine with Arcane Denial and Counterspell. The others I'd like to keep. Perplex has a transmute that lets me grab Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver, and I want to try Soul Manipulation before I drop it. Another option is to add more counter spells, but I will need to think of what to drop for those.

I think to solve my draw card problem either Curiosity or Dictate of Kruphix, or both. I would drop Auramancer's Guise and Restoration Angel (or replace the angel, she has limited uses :( ). Though I fear going too few on creatures would not be healthy.

On the point about the amount of enchants that are tutorable. The problem is cutting other parts of the deck for 3 cmc enchants that do not help the deck, but only help Zur.

To your point about that last paragraph... Not necessarily. There are other enchantments similar to Prison Term that would benefit the board state, and not just buff Zur. There are a ton of hateful enchantments that can be tutored like Rest in Peace, Blind Obedience, Mana Vortex, Necropotence, etc. If you wanted to go that route, that is. Ofc, this is your deck, and I don't want to change the theme, but instead want to offer up some suggestions that just go great with Zur no matter what the game plan is. I will think about it some more and get back to you. Have you been playing this amongst your group? How has it fared?

Thanks for getting back! I've been brain storming a lot on this. Doing a few test plays, I agree about adding a few more enchants that Zur can tutor up. It kind of sucks if after a few turns, I run out of things to grab!

To answer your question, I havn't played with this yet sadly. I'm still waiting on cards, and unfortunately, I need to have them mailed from a far far place. I expect to have the finished deck and playing in a month or 2 weeks if I'm lucky.

This post may be a mess, but so are my thoughts, I need both sleep and to sleep on this :)

Right now I play 1v1 on the weekend vs a mono black deck, but I aim to build for generally anything and multiplayer too.

Some of the enchants I'm thinking about:

Starting with Necropotence! Because of the skip draw phase it ruins plans for playing the cards I wanted to make this deck work with: Waste Not and Words of Waste. Still, it is a cool card I always keep in mind :)

The Blind Obedience I keep looking at this and not sure what to think. Its a nice effect to be sure, but how useful is it really in EDH?

Another question about something like Pacifism. What are your thought on using this over Swords to Plowshares? Keeping the creature on the board gives a nice copy target.

Rest in Peace This will be good to have in case, but havnt seen a big need for grave hate vs my 1v1 partner.

Greater Auramancy Enchants are so important to this deck, I believe I will need to spend the little extra for this card.

Copy Enchantment I see could be very useful, copy Prison Term for example.

Animate Dead This card is nice, but it requires a creature in the grave obviously. Won't work period if I go with Rest in Peace haha. Having similar thoughts about Dimir Doppelganger.

4 other high cost cards I'm thinking about:Stolen Identity and Rite of Replication vs Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood

The former will see results right away and Rite of Replication has always given me good results when I finally get that 9 mana. Yay Baneslayer Angel!

The later two, I honestly have no experience with. They seem to be more long term and slow. Exquisite Blood would it give me some steady life with Underworld Dreams. I just may need to test this out when I finally get the deck.

Enchanted Evening and Sphere of Safety are both well out of the 3cmc. But getting Sphere of Safety even without the former would make it harder to attack me, especially with Ghostly Prison and Propaganda.Is it too much?

Ethereal Armor Effects Zur, but it may be good to have one enchant that can give him decent damage if the other parts of the deck don't pull through. If I drew into Enchanted Evening it could be a game finisher. That's an "if" though and I'm not so sure its worth 1-2 or 3 slots if I do Sphere of Safety too.

Also, decided against Soul Manipulation. So few creatures and just not worth it.

Alright, so a couple things with what you have posted... Just wondering, how does Necropotence mess with Waste Not? Necropotence only effects you, while Waste Not only effects your opponent. I see how it messes with Words of Waste, and maybe that's what you are saying, since it would then in turn effect Waste Not. To me, Necropotence is an auto-include with Zur, especially if you plan to run Solitary Confinement since it creates an absolute lock for your life total. In my opinion, that's a more powerful engine than causing your opponent to discard.

I have found Blind Obedience to be very useful in EDH. Granted the creatures coming in tapped isn't always useful, but the artifacts is huge, since there are a ton of mana rocks, and other ones that they will have to wait one more turn to use. Plus it has built in Extort which has proven useful at times.

I wouldn't say use Pacifism effects instead of StP, I would say use both! The lockdown enchantments get pulled into play as Zur attacks, but sometimes you need to remove a creature on your opponent's turn, which is where StP and Path to Exile come in very handy.

The Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond combo is good, but I suggest adding ways to tutor for both, since you can't reliably get both at will, and neither are that useful on their own.

I think Ghostly Prison and Propaganda is enough to that regard, no need for more redundancy.

Ethereal Armor should definitely go in here, it is amazing for adding up Commander damage. I'd also recommend Empyrial Armor IF you go the Necropotence + Solitary Confinement route.

Necropotence is a good card for sure. I will try to play around it first because I feel it would go the other Zur path and I would end up trying to finish the game before I kill myself with it (probably doesn't happen). I will replace Ethereal Armor for the Empyrial Armor if I do this.

Ah yes, I meant it effected Words of Waste indirectly. I not only want some steady card draw but I want to kill my opponents hand too and benefit from it.

Ok, sold on keeping Swords to Plowshares, but I'll keep Pacifism out. The reason being it doesn't effect creature abilities which can be the real threat. Prison Term and Bonds of Faith should be enough.

I'll give Blind Obedience a go! Dropping Sphere of Safety.

Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond may be cards I just need to see in play first before I can make a decision. If they don't work out, easy enough to fill their place :) Ethereal Armor will stay, and at will add to their benefit. Zur will have the lifelink from Steel of the Godhead.

Another one of my concerns is board wipes. Is there a good way to shuffle the grave back to the library so Zur can pull all the dead enchants back? Should this be a concern? If I run Rest in Peace I guess not haha.

Personally, I like to use Replenish to return the enchantments! There's another one that returns just Auras, but that doesn't get stuff like D-Sphere or whatever other enchantments you may want to bring. The other one is significantly cheaper in dollar price, but Replenish is definitely worth the money. Also, if you like the Pacifism effect, but want to also shut down activated abilities, try Arrest. Stil tutorable by Zur, and much better than Pacifism itself. To your point about killing yourself with Necropotence, I've found that the Lifelink from Steel of the Godhead more than compensates for the life loss. You can gain more life that you pay for to draw, so it works out in the end. For board wipes, it's a hard thing to recover from for sure, so my approach is to just pack my list full of countering spells that are for just that. Other than that, just making sure you ALWAYS have the mana to phase out with Vanishing works pretty well. Although sometimes they will cast two spells with the first Vanishing trigger on the stack, so that's more difficult to play around. That's where Replenish is really nice. If Zur gets tucked, I just recommend some of the many tutors that Black has to offer; Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Imperial Seal, etc. They are also expensive dollar-wise, but worth it for the strength of the deck. There are cheaper tutors, but they are costly in mana, and have other downfalls. Like me, I'm using Rhystic Tutor because I just don't have money for Vampiric and some of the others. It's a really bad card, but it works when well-timed in a one on one matchup.

Thanks for the tips, bought myself a copy of Open the Vaults, the cheaper version of Replenish. I've already well surpassed my budget for the deck :x So I'm afraid tutors are not going to make it in...

I will extend my budget if this works out well and after I sell some of my cards, maybe picking up a Demonic Tutor. Would work well to get specific combo pieces. I don't think I've ever spent over $20 on a card but that art..

I actually bought a copy of Necropotence as a fallback strat if my draw/discard plan fails. This changes a lot in the deck and I'll leave those issues for another day haha. Time being I will make this work as well as it can like it is!

Thanks for all your help and suggestions! I think all that's left is physically handling and experimenting :D

Indeed. The best way to see what works and what doesn't, is to just play and play and play. In EDH sometimes it's hard to see what cards will work, since there are only one copy of anything. Sometimes it takes a while to see how a card works with ALL the other cards. Some will work with a few other cards in the list, and some just flat out work great every time you see it. Trying to find that balance takes a lot of time and testing. I will you good fortune in your building. :)

As having Zur as my favorite commander of all time, might I recommend Rhystic Study or Mystic Remora as extra card draw options.

I see Rhystic Study a lot, but I was hesitant to include it because its not very hard to pay the one, but either way, they are then paying an extra 1 for each spell. Worth a chance after I test current :)

Want to be a pain? Put Grand Arbiter Augustin IV in the deck. lol rage quit material!

Unless I'm missing something, Phyrexian Arena is going to pretty much always be better than Graveborn Muse

@PlattBonnay, Its a good suggestion, I hadn't compared them directly when I added Graveborn Muse, I merely thought I liked the art and would like some undead spirit creature in the deck that also has an ability based on draw :p

In place of Phyrexian Arena I decided on Dictate of Kruphix for tutorable draw. Filling my opponents hand gives me cards to make them discard and more damage from Underworld Dreams.

Giving opponents cards is for sure a dangerous gamble, but this is the casual Zur deck so that's OK :3

@Eafloyd, that card is good, but I feel it doesn't quite fit the theme. Not sure if there is a visible theme to others, but its there for me hah.

I'd say the two cards that best represent the theme I'm going for are Zur the Enchanter himself and Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver.

For example, my Arrest is not the ravnica version seen here, it's the Scars of Mirrodin one. I didn't have it in here until I found the other art.

I've really got to get into Commander one day. This looks fun!+1

Thanks!

Dont know what your experience with token decks are, but Detention Sphere is a good response to them. Maybe something to consider.

Haven't come across a token deck yet, but I'll def add it to the maybeboard in case I do, thanks for the suggestion :)