You only have one card in your deck that removes cards that shuffly back in ie. eldrazis, and i'm guessing its in to transmute rather than be cast. You can pretty easily mill someone in EDH, just add in a few cards that exile graveyards and it will help out a bit.

Thanks for the comment AzrielBarakiel. You're correct in that Shred Memory is in there for the Transmute effect mostly, Althought it can be used to hate graveyards later on with Snapcaster Mage and Archaeomancer .

Looking more closely though, I could do with some more Graveyard effects. I was thinking Nihil Spellbomb , Tormod's Crypt , Scrabbling Claws as well as a Trinket Mage to find them. Alternatively, I could include Coffin Queen and Ravenous Trap . Which ones would you recommend?

Also, if you haven't noticed, this deck currently sits on over 100 cards. What would your suggestions be for cards to drop to fit it down to the EDH legal 100?

Thanks again!

honestly I cant tell you what to cut, i mean there are a few cards in here that i dont think are as strong as they seem in actual play, but it depends on your play group. you have quite a few high costed cards, so in my experience that is where I start cuts, I think 'its useful but am i alright holding it until I can use it or would I rather be doing something else?' and with your deck which can be control mill and aggro it depends on what you want to focus on. Also since you are playing multiple archetypes, try for graveyard removal that lets you draw a card form it, replaces itself, the spellbomb is good, Relic of Progenitus the claws you mentioned earlier, all find choices. I love cards that have the three magic words 'draw a card'. But really just tune your deck to how you feel it should be played. thats all I can suggest :p

also adding in some artifact mana ramp wound thirt at all, Sol Ring Dimir Signet Darksteel Ingot , etc.

Thanks again AzrielBarakiel. From your suggestions, I added:

Nihil Spellbomb

Ravenous Trap

Coffin Queen (Graveyard hate and a reanimator)

Sol Ring

Dimir Signet

Mana Vault

Darksteel Ingot

I decided not to include Scrabbling Claws and Relic of Progenitus due to the 'Claws cost to activate, and the Relic's exiling of my own graveyard. Tell me what you think! :)

Shared Trauma is cute, but kinda slow and I doubt anyone will pay into it unless it benefits them also. its starting to look like a really solid deck by the way.

I did originally run Shared Trauma , but I decided to cut/swap it for Mind Grind for that exact same reason. No one else other than reanimator decks are going to pay into into it, and I'm probably already helping them as it is. Ha.

Thanks for the encouragement and help improving this deck :).

Tagged for notification purposes AzrielBarakiel.

you ever think of Memory Erosion ?

Was originally in the deck, but was part of the brutal cuts that had to be made to fit it down to 100 cards. After playtesting, I'll probably try to take out some of the weaker cards to fit it in :).

The Mindcrank combo also works well with Bloodchief Ascension .

Are you aware you have an infinite mana combo in your deck? (Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake .) I ask because I didn't see it mentioned in your description, and Peregrine Drake is rarely played outside of that combo.

You also have Salvaging Station + Executioner's Capsule , which I assume was at least partially intentional.

I feel like this deck might be in a bit of an awkward spot because mill isn't a fantastic support strategy. It usually takes up too many resources and slows down the rest of the deck.

Cards I would cut:

• Ravenous Trap - Seems unnecessary.
• Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker - Seems out of place. Not really useful outside of aiding your general and Consuming Aberration .
• Nemesis of Reason - See above.
• Codex Shredder - Limited.
• Conjurer's Closet - Only really works with a few of your creatures.
• Voyager Staff - Seems a bit limited, but could be used as pseduo-removal.

I don't really like Black Sun's Zenith as a sweeper because you have to dump mana into it.

The mill cards are borderline. I see their applications in this deck, but I'm not sure they're worth including.

Salvaging Station doesn't really seem necessary. It does interact well with some of your cards, but it isn't the strongest card in your deck. If you need to make cuts to get down to 100, I would consider removing this.

I suppose the first step is pruning everything down to 100 cards, then upgrading what's left.

Might consider taking out all of the clone effects, since they no longer nuke opposing generals.

Epochalyptik: Thanks for the input. I know it also works with Bloodchief, when I was first planning this deck out I did include it. However, using the guildmage instead, means I can find both "pieces" with the Transmute effects of Shred Memory and Muddle the Mixture . Would you suggest cutting the guildmage and replacing it with Bloodchief? Without the Mindcrank, the guildmage is fairly weak on his own, but the enchantment is still strong on it's own. Will probably replace it.

Yes, I am aware I have an infinite mana combo in here. It was intentional. That Mind Grind /Nephalia Drownyard isn't going to power itself :)

The Salvaging Station and assorted trinkets to go with it are intentional. The amount of value they provide is just insane. Typically flies under my opponents radar as well, giving me incremental card advantage. I really enjoy using it so I'd like to keep it in if possible.

Cards to cut:

Ravenous Trap : I enjoyed being able to waste an opponents graveyard for 0, would often catch people off guard, especially cocky Eldrazi players. However, I do have other GY hate (Shred Memory and Nihil Spellbomb ), both of which are recurable (Snapcaster Mage and Salvaging Station ).

Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker : Ha ha, just when I picked up a foil copy of him too... I concede your point, but I'll try to keep him in for now, just so I don't feel like I wasted my money. I'll probably take out the Nemesis of Reason too.

Codex Shredder : A handy little trinket that plinks away at my opponents libraries. It's main use however is to sac itself to bring back important cards from my Graveyard, usually Cabal Coffers or Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth . Another trinket that can be tutored and salvaged.

Conjurer's Closet : I want this to stay. Out of the 22 creatures currently, 12 of them have relevant ETB effects. Being able to flicker my clone effects and use my opponents Solemn Simulacrum s or Acidic Slime s for free is too useful.

Voyager Staff : Useful for removal of Avacyn, Angel of Hope , I mean, Indestructible creatures, or to save mine my removal/wraths. Again, yet another trinket for value.

Black Sun's Zenith : Merely here as it is a cheap, tutorable board wipe that can deal with Indestructible creatures.

Thanks for your input. It's been really helpful. I'll take another look at the deck soon and see if I can't make any improvements :).

AzrielBarakiel

Thanks again, I have cut down on the number of clone effects. Notable omissions include Clone and Phantasmal Image . However, as I said above, being able to clone my opponents good ETB creatures is partly what this deck is all about. The fact that they aren't Legendary kill cards any more isn't that big a deal. "Aww sweet, my own Kozilek, Butcher of Truth ? How nice of you!" :P

You could always run both Bloodchief Ascension and Duskmantle Guildmage . The redundancy just gives you options during the game.

Epochalyptik

Well if I have spare slots for cards after it's done, I could consider it.

Brought it down to 105 cards, after your advice. What would you suggest to cut now? I'm not sure if I like how the deck has moved away from a Mill based strategy now though. It feels almost like I'm simply using Lazav for his colours.

Thoughts on cards that could be useful:

Fabricate

Proteus Staff

Leyline of Anticipation

Cyclonic Rift

Dreadship Reef

Desertion

Induce Paranoia

Lim-Dul's Vault

Blatant Thievery

Geth, Lord of the Vault

Thanks for the comment shaistyone. The problem I have is what cards to cut to add to the deck in their place? Although, I have considered and used to run some of your suggestions.

Fabricate : Useful, but I replaced it with a Tezzeret the Seeker . While Tezzeret can't get the bigger artifacts (Steel Hellkite , Salvaging Station ) straight away, the fact that he tutors for and drops other artifacts straight into play with his -X ability to too useful to replace.

Proteus Staff : Doesn't contribute to the "Mill" aspect of the deck and doesn't synergise well with Lazav, as he only cares about creatures going to the graveyard. Also, due to my own lack of top deck manipulation, not something I can rely on for my own creatures.

Leyline of Anticipation : I would use it if I could find a card slot for it.

Cyclonic Rift : Same as Leyline, but on a lower priority. The fact that I can't bounce my own stuff (clones and ETB effects) does reduce it's effectiveness. I'd rather run Devastation Tide or Evacuation .

Dreadship Reef : A land vulnerable to Strip Mine and Blood Moon type effects and only produces colourless mana on the turn it comes in. This deck has some high colour requirements (a lot of my cards are double or more of a specific colour) so this would slow me down.

Desertion : An amazing card. However, I'm not that bothered about using it due to to Lazav's copy effect. If I use a regular Counterspell then I can still have Lazav, Dimir Mastermind become a copy of the countered creature.

Induce Paranoia : I used to run this card, but I found leaving 4 mana up constantly was harder than I first thought and would slow me down too much. It got replaced with Hinder .

Lim-Dul's Vault : A very useful card, but I can't "abuse" it as such. Sure, I have creatures that can bring back Instants and Sorceries, but I'd rather use them on more relevant cards like Demonic Tutor , Damnation or Rite of Replication . Also, I'm not trying to "combo off" with this deck ASAP, so I don't feel it deserves a card slot in this type of deck. A very good card as I've said though.

Blatant Thievery : I'd run it if I could find a card slot for it. Very useful and fits with my "using your own stuff against you" theme.

Geth, Lord of the Vault : Another useful card that I'd like to include. He does everything this deck wants. Reanimates from other people's graveyard and mills.

Thanks for your suggestions! So, with them in mind, I'd like to try and add Leyline of Anticipation , Blatant Thievery and Geth, Lord of the Vault at least. What cards would you suggest to cut to fit them in?

Mesmeric Orb is an awesome mass mill card. just run a shuffling eldrazi or comparable as insurance.
Undead Alchemist is outrageous, I love him in my Lazav EDH deck.
MOAR TUTORING! Imperial Seal , Vampiric Tutor ...
I've been playing EDH on Cockatrice - if you actually own the cards, you won't want to buy a Mana Drain , but if you don't, you want it in here.
Codex Shredder is good for graveyard revival from incidental self-mill as well as consistent 'set and forget' mill from early in the game

Thanks for the comment metagrobolized.

I would like to run a Mesmeric Orb . I can fetch it quite easily with Tezzeret the Seeker and it mills without using up any of my resources. What would you suggest I cut to fit it in? Same goes for Undead Alchemist .

Vampiric Tutor is already in the deck, and Imperial Seal is well out of budget for this casual deck. Same goes for Mana Drain really. It's not needed or wanted.

Thanks for the comment though! :)

HAHAAHAHA I had no idea imperial seal was $600 - sorry to even suggest it.

Um, I don't really like Dimir Keyrune . Shred Memory doesn't seem to make sense for your strategy - wouldn't you rather draw a useful card than have to pay mana to tutor?. Grafdigger's Cage is better for gy hate and works with your artifact thing you have going on. I'd also suggest taking out Puppeteer Clique - if your opponents have good ETB effects on their creatures, they're probably reanimating them themselves. You can get a similar effect with Dimir Doppelganger for cheaper.

Also, Vesuva is badass. Imagine 2 Cabal Coffers with an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth ..

Dimir Keyrune is a good mana rock to provide acceleration with, as well as fix my colours. It's also an excellt target to Cipher Stolen Identity on to, as it has the ultimate evasion, as well as avoiding a lot of removal spells.

Shred Memory makes a lot of sense with with my strategy. I'll often mill things I don't want people to have in their graveyard. Genesis , the Eldrazi Legends, Brawn , Anger , Unburial Rites to name but a few. The fact that it also makes a useful tutor spell just adds versatility. Grafdigger's Cage IS better GY hate, but it also stops several of my most useful cards, such as Snapcaster Mage , Codex Shredder and Bribery .

Puppeteer Clique isn't really to stop my opponents ETB creatures. It functions as a way to steal my opponents bombs ("Nice Gisela, Blade of Goldnight bro") as well as GY hate, especially when paired with Deadeye Navigator . The fact that he does give me my opponents ETB effects and "4 creatures" from one card is too much value to pass up.

I do agree with you about Vesuva , although I am more partial to Thespian's Stage . The fact that I wouldn't be able to reset what Vesuva is set to would be bad if I just wanted to keep up with my land drops. And I only have 2 lands myself that have any sort of ETB effect.

It seems good, but I personally stick to the theme more, regardless of who the target is. Definitely use Mesmeric Orb , acquire a Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker , Jace's Phantasm , and Wrexial, the Risen Deep for more utility from their graveyards. Wight of Precinct Six might help against aggro decks. If you're really having trouble with aggro decks, think about cheap cards with regeneration maybe? Something to hold them off until you can amass mana and lay a beater. Mind Funeral is good for it's cost, and Keening Stone combos nicely with Traumatize . Hedron Crab is another good early game card. Against my meta, any way possible to steal a creature seems to be a huge advantage. Corrupted Conscience can be downright mean.

Good luck, would be interested what your thoughts are

Hi juice369. Thanks for your comment!

Yeah, Mesmeric Orb is definitely on my wants list to include. The only problem is what to drop for it. The only thing I can think of is Shared Trauma as it simply isn't as efficient as Mind Grind (unless other people pay into it) and without the Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Cabal Coffers combo, even worse.

As I've mentioned above, the deck has a multiplayer focus. Therefore, unfortunately, the mill effects that only hit one player aren't what I want to include. I wouldn't mind trying Keening Stone however. It's a decent EoT mana sink that can chip away at Libraries, even without the Traumatize combo. Jace's Phantasm and Wight of Precinct Six are definite non-includes for me though. All they are is dumb beaters really, and offer no interaction other than becoming bigger for combat.

I appreciate your comment and what you think in return :).

I think you and I greatly disagree on what the focus of this deck should be. In playtesting your deck, it seems your commander doesn't do all that much, and it seems like you're saying he's your tertiary win-con. For me, the win condition is to slap them in the face with their own cards for hilarity and beatdownness rather than the other way around. Would you rather have Iona, Shield of Emeria cast stating your blue or black, or their white?

Most good EDH decks I've seen want to maximize utility from their general; he's the one card you don't have to tutor for(at least at the start of the game). You said "The idea of the deck now, rather than play hard control, is using my opponents' resources against them while whittling away at their libraries through mill effects." What's the purpose of Conjurer's Closet / Deadeye Navigator then? Is a flicker effect on Trinket Mage really going to swing the game in your favor? I'm not saying Trinket Mage is a bad card, but it just doesn't help all that much with your 'idea of the deck.' Most likely, it fetches a top once, that's it.

Consider this scenario I played out the other day: 3 man game, I played Lazav right on track on turn 4. On turn 5, I targeted the guy playing a beatdown general with Mind Funeral , and he threw about 10 cards into his graveyard, including an Utvara Hellkite , which I of course, had Lazav morph into. Now, on turn 5, I'm hitting them essentially with an 8 mana cost card plus hexproof, and with that alone have 12 power on the board, in the air, half of it hexproof, the other half untapped.

Now let's take your deck and pretend that all variables are the same in this situation. Let's pretend that for the same cost, you had cast Liliana's Specter instead of Mind Funeral . So eveyone but you discards a card(which they would be foolish to discard any creature you could copy with Lazav), and you most likely will have 5 power on the board, with 2 of it having flying. If Kaalia of the Vast attacked even once before this, they have the board in control and can hit you with one of their nasty flying beaters, because you don't have a 6/6 Dragon token with many more to come, you have a 2/1 flyer that probably caused them to discard a land.

I really think you're too all over the place. How is Stifle a multiplayer card? You shut down one general's ability once? What's stopping them next turn? What if you play Snapcaster Mage targeting Shared Trauma instead of Stifle ? What if that Stifle was instead an Increasing Confusion ? You wouldn't have to wait for Snapcaster Mage to flashback it, and suppose you cast it for 5 and flashbacked for the same, you've now put 15 cards into their yard. If you had cast Traumatize before it, you'd have approximately 59 cards in that player's graveyard. Hit them with Jace, Memory Adept four times and their game's over. So now, I ask you, what's more conducive to your 2nd win condition, Stifle or Increasing Confusion ?

My advice: gut this deck. Unless you're playing super casual(which for a TCG average of $663, doesn't appear so), there's no need for cards which don't stick to the theme. What goes better with Lazav, Dimir Mastermind , Tezzeret the Seeker or Sword of Body and Mind ? With the equip ability, the converted mana cost is the same. In other words, you need more milling, not less, and you can simply target the guy you suspect has the biggest or best creatures in his deck if the mill effect isn't global. So, you need Sands of Delirium , not Nihil Spellbomb . Consuming Aberration wants cards in graveyards for Pete's sake!!! Replace Shred Memory with Animate Dead , and you can have that powerful creature rather than exile it! Better yet, replace Aether Spellbomb with Rise of the Dark Realms and now you can have all four of those creatures and more, instead of returning one to their hand once!! Unless they have a boardwipe, that spells game over.

Check out my deck in my profile, should you want some inspiration. I would like to get rid of Mortus Strider in favor of Geth, Lord of the Vault , and Sanguine Bond doesn't really fit my theme(Mesmeric Orb would be much better), but otherwise I feel it's pretty tight and more focused. Eventually I'd like to add the infinite mana combo along with Thespian's Stage . The deck works very nicely, as long as someone is playing something other than aggro, voltron, or instant/sorcery focused decks.

Now get out there and laugh when you hit them in the face with their own Kozilek! twice for the win!!!!

Ha ha, I think it is quite obvious now that we do differ on how this works and performs. Ok, lets start from the top;

Yes, in this particular deck, Lazav, Dimir Mastermind doesn't do amazing and great feats on his own. More often, he seems to take advantage of which creatures get killed with spot removal or get milled. But I'm fine with this. At the time of writing this, ALL my other EDH decks (Kaalia of the Vast , Sharuum the Hegemon , Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer , Karador, Ghost Chieftan and the newest addition; Nekusar, the Mindrazer ), have varying degrees of reliance of their commander. So to have a commander that the deck doesn't need the commander to run is rather refreshing for me. I like all my decks to have a slightly different focus, simply so I don't get bored of playing them.

Oh, and as for the Iona, Shield of Emeria question, I'm not really all that bothered. I make sure all my decks can pass the "Iona lock" with removal in different colours :).

Conjurer's Closet and Deadeye Navigator are there to maximise the value of my creatures. I have stated before that I think this deck could do with running more of them. I am working towards this, but for now, I need to make sure I can keep getting value out of all my creatures I can. Sure Liliana's Specter might look a little weak on the surface, but bounce it a few times and you'd be surprised how quickly people try to kill it. Ha.

As for Stifle , it is an insanely useful card that needs to be played with to see it's true power. Someone going for the win with Craterhoof Behemoth and/or Avenger of Zendikar ? Not any more. Eldrazi shuffling all your hard mill efforts back into their library? Stifle the shit out of that trigger. Yes, Increasing Confusion can put me closer to winning (only against one person I might add), while Stifle can save a table, or in my Eldrazi example above, help put me towards winning.

Tezzeret the Seeker is such a useful utillity PW. Fetching/untapping Seat of the Synod , Vault of Whispers and Sol Ring all day to ramp, and then because he flies under the radar somewhat, help to knock people out with his ultimate.

And Sands of Delirium over Nihil Spellbomb ? How do you plan to deal with, calling from my own examples, Sharuum the Hegemon or Karador, Ghost Chieftain decks abusing their graveyard that you are so graciously helping fill? Not to mention, the ever present and continuously repeated Eldrazi shuffle trigger. You're not always going to have Lazav out when Kozilek, Butcher of Truth or Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre hit the GY to take advantage of it.

I do appreciate your comment and I can tell you went to a massive effort to type out such a response, but it seems to me none of your playgroup like to abuse their graveyards. I regularly play against Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord , Sisters of Stone Death (built around G/B Graveyard shenanigans), Dralnu, Lich Lord , and Bruna, Light of Alabaster so sometimes you need a little Graveyard hate! :).

Forgot to add a tag so the notification pops up: juice369.