Cinestra

Sorry for taking so long to get back with you about this, but here it is...

I really do like Oko over Ashiok, Dream Render , but I'd like to try and see if there is a way to add Oko and keep Ashiok. Searching up cards is so powerful in cEDH for some decks I want to have and answer to them. Considered dropping down to 29 lands to keep Ashiok in dropping Tarnished Citadel . I'm no expert in deck building so take it for what that is worth.

Oko really shuts down some gaming winning strats leaving opponents will little ways to answer outside of combat damage. Had 1 table that I turned the Frog (gitrog) into and elk, Anji into an elk and most of CVT's rocks into elks. With little to no way to sack or get rid of their new elks you kinda lock them out of the game.

A lot of them didn't know what to do from this point and went on the combat plan, but tbh with 40 life 3/3's take a long time to kill ya.

Czweig

Thanks!!

So Lion's Eye Diamond can be in a lot of places for cEDH, but unfortunately I don't think it is the best place for Tasigur. Many decks that will want to use this card will either want to utilize it as a ritual or utilize it as an infinite mana outlet with auriok salvagers. As such, reanimator decks (especially those with Auriok Salvagers), doomsday decks (since they can crack the diamond in response to a draw spell and the diamond really helps them generate just enough mana to go off), and perhaps wheel decks (since they can crack the diamond in response to their wheel). I think there's also some kind of infinite mana combo with muldrotha + LED + Phatasmal image as well.

That's a general overview of when people want to play Lion's Eye Diamond. In general, this deck looks for pure card quality most of the time and so the cost of the ritual (discarding our hand) is often times way too much imo. We do play yawgmoth's will and so LED does have synergy there, but I think it's still a bit excessive of a cost for this kind of deck. I think perhaps a Razaketh variant of Tasigur could utilize Lions Eye Diamond to get that extra burst of mana to win, but I don't really think this deck is quite in the spot for that. Hope that covered the bases of maybe where to consider LED and where not to.

I'm by no means an expert of the card because I haven't really played a deck with it before, but I hope to shed some light on why it wasn't really considered here. Thanks

newrise

Awesome glad to hear that. Yeah that's kind of what I was expecting from Oko-- turning their commanders or ramp into simple 3/3s that you can block with Tasigur must feel excellent. Your table for Oko honestly sounds like the dream LOL

Honestly I think I would be in a spot of mainly wanting one or the other. Both Ashiok and Oko fill this spot of primarily only being a defensive card within the deck, and I don't want to dedicate too many slots for that kind of position. But yeah you can always try cutting a land or you can actually try cutting your Echo of Eons instead for that kind of slot. Lemme know whatever you decide on trying!

This is such a good deck I really love it Cinestra but you should really consider running Seasons Past it's such a good card in Tasigur anyway I love your playstyle and I want to play with you someday!!!!!!!!

Just want to say that I appreciate your primer Cinestra.

bc_17100

... I will END you laksdjflkadsfla

Ender666666

Hi Ender, I'm actually so glad that you like the primer! Thank you very much for the kind words ^^

For anyone else curious, I plan on refining my primer just because I have some additional thoughts after playing the deck for a while and wanted to streamline some thoughts. Thanks so much to anyone following the list!

What would you replace timetwister and imperial seal with if you were a poor man?

Matticusrex

Hello, Matticus!

I appreciate the comment! So I've actually received questions about Timetwister replacements for budget reasons a lot beforehand. This is what I have said about it before:

"So one question I've been receiving quite a lot is what would I use as a budget replacement for Timetwister. Although Timetwister has great synergy with Notion Thief and Narset in our deck, it's most in this deck because it's a great card by itself. It just so happens to have great synergy with Notion Thief and Narset. Honestly I think that Windfall by itself is fine enough to combo with both Notion Thief and Narset. With that out of the way, I would suggest playing the very next best card that you like in place of Timetwister. I've put together a maybelist which could all be great suggestions on what cards you might like to try out. Personally, I use Muddle the mixture for my own paper list."

Essentially, I would suggest playing the two next best cards that you can think of for your own list. I would advise against trying to make in-line replacements with worse versions of the cards you are trying to replace (for example, I would advise against Dark Deal, Echo of Eons, or Whispering Madness in place of Timetwister). This list has a huge emphasis on the value of each individual card and so you want to maximize your card quality as much as possible. I'm not saying that you should feel bad about playing budget cards, I'm more saying that you should play something that is great on its own-- not just as an in-line budget replacement.

My maybelist has a large list of cards that I think are worth playing in this list. I would suggest taking a look at any of them and try replacing them with what you would deem to be great cards individually in your own list. As I said before, I replaced Timetwister with Muddle the Mixture in my own list. I will list some of the cards that I would highlight from my own maybeboard for you:

List of cards I would suggest trying out: Muddle the Mixture , Plunge into Darkness , Reap

List of meta cards that can be great if you know your meta: Runic Armasaur , Verity Circle

Hey, Cinestra!

I was wondering if there is any particular reason you run Damnation over Languish or Yahenni's Expertise ? Thanks in advance and happy holidays.

pato_mtg

Hi, thanks for the question!!

So I actually dont think theres a HUGE reason to run Damnation over Yanhennis / Massacre / Languish. I would honestly just use whichever you think works the best in your meta.

Massacre would be great with a lot of Tymna / Najeela decks, but I honestly feel like a lot of the times they could be getting their white source from a non-plains land. Languish would be really cool to keep Tasigur alive each time, but I actually think it's good to kill off Tasigur every once in a while to redelve your graveyard for better choices and I don't really like how it doesn't hit stuff like Gitrog. Yahenni's Expertise is probably the one out of the 3 that I would try next just because it essentially lets me play a free card afterwards-- but I think I might value killing everything over the free card. Not entirely sure about that logic to be honest though-- it's up to you LOL.

Personally, I chose Damnation as just a catch-all so that I wouldn't have to worry about a board wipe that might not hit Zur / Gitrog Monster / Kraum / etc. I really don't think there's a huge reason to pick one or the other honestly though. I actually feel like the meta is becoming increasingly creature oriented, so I feel like a third board wipe would entirely be possible.

Awesome, thanks for the in depth response. I play in a more mid-high meta and was thinking about the same thing, right now I am running Toxic Deluge, Languish and Pernicious Deed and they have been doing a good job overall but there is always that one game where I wish Languish would have been a damnation so your list got me wondering :P I think I might be overvaluing keeping Tasigur alive a bit much, I'll have to give Damnation a try for my next few games.

Another question; I notice you don't run any Talismans, is there a reason for that? Are signets just so much better in your opinion/list?

pato_mtg

Good question!

So I actually don't want to give ANY illusion that Signets are better on average in cEDH. Signets feel really awkward when you tap out to play them early on in the game. It's kind of a corner case, but Talisman being able to tap for mana on its own is really great imo. It's nice in a sense that you can turn colorless mana into colored mana, but signets are also very restricting by forcing you to produce certain colors. I'd honestly take the one life loss than take those weaknesses imo Like tapping out for ramp and then being able to hold up swan song / dispel / fluster / etc is really nice. Or even just Land -> Sol ring -> Talisman -> Mana dork. Those are all really nice plays that you can't really do very early with Signets sometimes. They're kind of corner case, but I think they're important scenarios.

We are playing Signets instead of Talisman because in order to go infinite with IsoRev scepter and Tasigur, we need access to colored mana that doesn't hurt us whenever we try to tap it for mana. So in essence, going infinite with Talisman as your only colored source for Isochron Scepter would kill you. Unfortunately, I took the concession to play signets instead of talisman in order to have Isochron scepter be online on average more for Tasigur.

Cinestra Awesome, that makes a ton of sense, I love that magical opening hand when you can get to dump your whole hand thanks to talismans but when trying to go for the win I see how the talismans would be even more awkward :)

Thanks a lot for the responses!

Thanks for the marvelous list!

1. Can you explain how necropotence is used in the infinite bird/ape combo?

2. Will Thassa’s Oracle have a place here?

Czweig

Hello, thanks for the question!

1. So when you make infinite birds and infinite apes with Tasigur's activated ability, you are going to mill your entire library in the process. Because you are going to need another turn to hit the opponents with said apes and birds, you are going to HAVE TO draw a card on your next turn. Timetwister, Noxious Revival, and Necropotence all prevent you from decking out on your next turn. Timetwister refills your deck, Noxious Revival will put a single card back on top of your deck, and Necropotence skips your draw step.

2. Absolutely. I think it should be in all Consult lists honestly. There are three different ideas that I've been thinking about currently for Tasigur regarding Oracle. The first idea is the easy Thassa's Oracle replacement for Jace because Thassa's Oracle is better in almost all respects. The second idea is to play both Jace and Thassa's Oracle, and just find a non 1-for-1 cut for Thassa's Oracle like Stubborn Denial or Negate. For Golden Control, I feel the second ideas is the most likely to happen. The THIRD idea is that Thassa's Oracle allows flash hulk to be a much more efficient combo to us since the Sultai hulk pile (Thassa's Oracle + Spellseeker for Consult) essentially has 0 dead slots. So the idea would be to swap some pieces (such as IsoRev) of the main deck in order to make room for Hulk. The idea is that Flash Hulk is a better combo than IsoRev since its cheaper to cast, its instant speed, has 0 set up required, and is immune to any kind of removal. Before I think IsoRev had the advantage of being more slot efficient and while that may somewhat be the case still, this Sultai Hulk's only dead pieces is just spellseeker (who's honestly not that bad imo).

It's still very much an experimental idea, but here is the resulted brew if anyone else is interested:

Hulkigur

Commander / EDH* Cinestra

SCORE: 1 | 3 COMMENTS | 157 VIEWS

I love the Hulkigur list! I am curious as to why you wouldn’t keep Isorev in and just have both wincons? ... you would have to keep the signets in (instead of talismans)

Is it a case of too many cooks in the kitchen?

Czweig

Sorry for the late response, but thanks so much for the follow-up question. I am very excited to answer any kinds of questions!

The idea for Tasigur has always been to essentially run a value deck where we minimize dead cards and run the best wincons. My idea has always been around like playing a main wincon and then running a support wincon in case the main one gets hated out. Particularly for Golden Control, my primary wincon was IsoRev and the support was Consult Jace. I honestly feel like running any more wincons that are essentially dead outside of the "combo" would really hurt the deck value density if that makes sense. I really think one primary wincon and a secondary back up is more than enough for us and many other decks honestly. Any more wincons I feel like would lead to alphabet soup (where you have a bunch of different wincons in hand that don't actually synergies with each other). Like say for example we ran IsoRev, Freed Tendies, Flash Hulk, and Consult. If we have Freed from the Real, Flash, and Dramatic Reversal in hand-- our hand looks really sad. I feel like it would be okay to have a bunch of different ways to produce a win if we were primarily a proactive deck trying to combo off, but I think our primary idea is to kind of stall out the game with control while generating card advantage and eventually land a win con that we can fight to protect. I think that idea of deck building lends itself a lot more towards having slim wincon packages and not running many of them if possible.

So if the idea is that I want the best wincons possible that require the least set up and the least dead pieces in my deck essentially. For me personally, I'm pretty set on running two main wincons. Consult obviously is staying so we're not going to worry about that. So then the question becomes do we play IsoRev or do we play Hulk. As a wincon, Flash Hulk has a lot of advantage over IsoRev (instant speed, no board required, less mana). Pretty much the only dead card we would have to run to support Flash Hulk would be Spellseeker-- which is not awful at all in my opinion. The biggest thing holding us back from Hulk before was that Hulk Piles would require us to run a lot of dead cards. With the printing of Thassa's Oracle, that is no longer the case. I have a strong feeling that the advantages of Flash Hulk outweigh the advantages of IsoRev for Tasigur. I'm not entirely sure if Golden Control will move towards that direction quite yet, but that is why I'm brewing around with the Hulkigur list.

So TLDR, yeah I think its the case of too many cooks in the kitchen haha.

Ohh boy do I love me some Oko in this deck! Had a cEDH game the other night. It was me on Banana man, 2x Urza and Emry.

I lost the dice roll, but got to go after the Emry player. My opening hand was as follows:

Yavimaya Coast - Oko, Thief of Crowns - Sol Ring - Mox Diamond - Mana Drain - Stubborn Denial - Carpet of Flowers

Emry player went first with an Island go. Then my turn. I lucked out and drew a land to play out Mox. Dropped Yavimaya Coast , Sol Ring , Mox Diamond and Carpet of Flowers into 0 counters in that order and passed. Next up was the 2 Urza players. First one dropped island into Sol Ring and passed. Next one played island go.

Back to the top of the turn the Emry player played another island and dropped a mana rock (I forget which one) and passed to me. On my turn I named the Emry player for my Carpet of Flowers trigger. Now I had 2 blue mana to hold up for a fight to put out Oko, Thief of Crowns . No one fought over it, but did moan a lot. I then elk'd the first Urza player's Sol Ring and passed.

They played island into Mana Crypt into urza. I wasnt sure about Urza hitting the field this early so I started a counter war. To act like I has come big play I cast Mana Drain which they responded to wit ha Force of Will then I hit em with a Stubborn Denial and the counter war was over. They pass to the next Urza player and another island go.

This goes on for numerous rounds until Emry gets cast and I elk it. I cast Tasigur, the Golden Fang on turn 3 to fend off the elks I've been making. Eventually I get to a point where I active Tasigur and they gave me a mana drain which I later used to counter their Urza lol.

About turn 4 Emry player drops a Mesmeric Orb which was amazing for me as I get cards from the yard and I had Carpet of Flowers up for mana I needed. The Urza players kept milling good cards and counters.

On about turn 8 or so after I've used Damnation to wipe out the elks and things I don't like I cast a Mystic Remora and pass with about 4 lands and a few rocks open. Next turn the first Urza player tried to go off, but I stop urza from hitting the field again and in the process draw about 5 cards. Next turn next urza tried to go off again and I keep countering key things and draw about 10 cards from that exchange. Emry player cast their general again and a few other spells drawing me even more cards.

Having a huge grip by the time my turn hit I let Mystic Remora die and tried to go off. One of the Urza players had a Rhystic Study and luckly I had draw a Narset, Parter of Veils with enough mana from carpet to cast it and go off. We fought over Narset as he saw what I planed to do, but she eventully resolved. I knew they has a Pact of Negation in hand, but had my own for backup. I then dropped Jace and made my library disappear winning the game.

Sorry for long story, but it was a great game that I controlled from the start and it showed just how useful(broken) Oko can be when you get him out early and no one can deal with him. Its these kind of games that make me really appreciate the deck and everyone who has put some much work into making it. I never would have thought with so much blue and counters at the table I could have won much less controlled it like I did. Also My deck list is always up to date with the primer with the exception of running Timetwister . I own one, but find it hard to carry it around so I've got Echo of Eons in its place as for me it works just as well when I need it.

TL;DR Oko is a must vs creature strats and will win you the game.

newrise

Damn that opening looks gas and being able to jam that Carpet of Flowers against THREE other opposing mono blue players seems awesome. Mesmeric orb actually seems so great for us too ahaha, you lucked out there!

It's honestly one of the best feelings in the world being able to stop two players from going off LOL. Mystic Remora made all of the counter wars greatly move towards your favor, and so that seemed to be a good time to fight honestly.

I definitely can see how Oko can dominate those games. Those are pretty commander centric decks and so Oko turning not only their commanders into elks but also their ramp as well sounds amazing. Oko has honestly been preforming quite well for me as well, I'm glad that it's been working out for the both of us!! Thanks for trying out the list and I am more than happy to hear about its positive results. Please let me know how any further games go and any input you might have about card choices and whatnot!

Honestly I was hoping this deck could stay away from flash hulk, but I see your reasoning. Gonna give your new changes a try and see how it works out. Never been one to enjoy the combo off and win quick. I know many people enjoy that, but controlling the game and then setting up a late game win is so much more fun to me.

Good luck in your testing and I'll try and post results of my own here too.

newrise

Yeah I can understand why you would be very hesitant about Flash Hulk.

I'll be very honest and admit that I do not enjoy going for extremely fast wins either. Flash Hulk is definitely the fastest kind of wincon and so I can understand why people would assume that the shift towards Flash Hulk would mean that we are simply a fast combo deck now.

While our wincon has shifted and allows us to play a lot faster, my idea is to continue primarily playing as a control deck. Rather than trying to race for the fastest Hulk list, this one is looking to be the most value Hulk list that can grind very well. It's a reason why we still aren't on many of the rituals and we are still trying to play all of the grind engines like Rhystic Study / Necropotence and a bunch of interactive cards.

Flash Hulk allows us to actually play a lot more flexibly because holding up mana can represent counterspells / Tasigur activations / flash hulk. I'm honestly not too happy about playing Hulk myself to be honest-- but I do strongly believe it's the best path for us. #PleaseBanFlash

How do we win with Thassa’s Oracle? Also what are we going for in the hulk piles? Sorry for the newb question.

WarSpaniel

So basically we are going to cast Demonic Consultation to exile our library and then cast Thassa's Oracle. When Thassa's Oracle enters the battlefield, we will win the game because our devotion to blue will be greater than or equal to the number of cards left in our library. Even if Thassa's Oracle dies during the ETB trigger, we will still win the game because our devotion to blue will be 0-- which will be equal to the number of cards in our library (zero). One reason why this win condition is so good is because there aren't very many stax pieces that stop this at all.

The Hulk pile we will be going for is Spellseeker and Thassa's Oracle. Make sure to order the triggers such that the Spellseeker ETB happens first. With Spellseeker's etb, find Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact. Then with the Thassa's oracle etb trigger on the stack, cast either demonic consultation or tainted pact to exile your whole library.

Just keep in mind that our hulk pile needs additional mana to win. Unlike other hulk piles, we don't actually just win from 1U. The minimum amount of mana we need to win is 1UB. There is an argument that we should be playing Blood Pet, which would allow us to win simply from 1U (and we would be able to put it in the pile with spellseeker and thassa's oracle). The biggest reason I'm not playing it is because I think it's a completely dead slot outside of the flash combo and I'm looking to build a value hulk deck. But there is a strong argument that we should include the Blood Pet to allow our flash to be better.

Hope that answers your question!

Hello not sure if you're still active on this primer, but I'm running a variant of the original Golden Control Tasigur and I seem to always be running into the awkward situation of not having enough mana to cast a counter, activate Tasigur and counter again. I find myself tending to stall around the 6 mana mark which is only enough for 1 counter at best, so I was wondering if you experience the same thing and/or how do you deal with those situations?

The deck runs a lot of answers and I can stall games out, but I can never seem to have enough mana to use Tasigur for value.

RenoKousei

I very much still am active on this primer! I really appreciate any kind of question and I'm happy to answer any of them!

In my opinion, you shouldn't really heavily depend on Tasigur's activated ability for value. The reason being is that Tasigur's activated ability is extremely costly, like you point out. Even if he had an activated ability like Thrasios or Kenrith, 4 mana for just one card hardly is a good deal in cEDH. He's a great sink for dumping excess mana, but utilizing him as your primary source of card advantage is going to be very rough because of how mana intensive he is. Instead, you should really be looking to develop another card advantage engine first (Sylvan Library / Dark Confidant / Oakhame Adversary / Rhystic Study / Mystic Remora / Necropotence / etc). These kinds of tools can really help you generate the value you're looking for. And then once you have your card advantage and ramp set up, you can funnel excess mana into Tasigur activations.

In my opinion, the mark of having six mana up for Tasigur activation AND a counterspell is a sweet spot for me. Perhaps in your pods you might have like a lot grindier games where that doesn't cut it though. If you're looking to squeeze more value out of Tasigur activations or hold up more mana for counterspells, I would highly suggest trying out Training Grounds or Biomancer's Familiar. I recently cut Training Grounds in my most recent update, but I've honestly been really thinking about going back on it lately. I think particularly Training Grounds would be an amazing addition to help you with this exact dilemma you're describing.

Not sure if I entirely answered your question, but hope it helps! Please feel free to shoot another comment if you have any follow-up questions or whatnot. Thanks!

can you explain how the season's past loop works