Lyra's Alethiometer

Commander / EDH Artifact Control Infinite Combo Spellslinger Storm UBR (Grixis)

herpdederp92

Instant (22)

• 1x Arcane Denial
• 1x Bedevil
• 1x Chaos Warp
• 1x Comet Storm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Countersquall
• 1x Cyclonic RiftGC
• 1x Delay
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Drown in the Loch
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical TutorGC
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Negate
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Reiterate
• 1x Snuff Out
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Turnabout
• 1x Twincast
• 1x Whir of Invention

Sorcery (14)

• 1x All is Dust
• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Dark Petition
• 1x Fabricate
• 1x Mana Geyser
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Mystic Retrieval
• 1x Reforge the Soul
• 1x Reshape
• 1x Scheming Symmetry
• 1x Scrap Mastery
• 1x Torment of Hailfire
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Windfall

Land (33)

• 1x Bojuka Bog
• 1x Buried Ruin
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Geier Reach Sanitarium
• 1x Great Furnace
• 1x Inventors' Fair
• 7x Island
• 1x Island
• 4x Mountain
• 1x Seat of the Synod
• 1x Shivan Reef
• 1x Spire of Industry
• 1x Sulfur Falls
• 4x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Deceit
• 1x Temple of Epiphany
• 1x Underground River
• 1x Vault of Whispers
• 1x Watery Grave

Creature (7)

• 1x Emry, Lurker of the Loch
• 1x Goblin Engineer
• 1x Goblin Welder
• 1x Spellseeker
• 1x Tribute Mage
• 1x Trinket Mage
• 1x Walking Ballista

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Mystic Remora

Commander (1)

Artifact (21)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chromatic Lantern
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Gilded Lotus
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Izzet Signet
• 1x Mana VaultGC
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Nevinyrral's Disk
• 1x Oblivion Stone
• 1x Rakdos Signet
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Creativity
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence
• 1x The Magic Mirror
• 1x Trading Post
• 1x Wishclaw Talisman

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (12)

• 1x Beacon of Unrest
• 1x Beseech the Queen
• 1x Black Sun's Zenith
• 1x Chain Reaction
• 1x Crux of Fate
• 1x Demonic TutorGC
• 1x Devastation Tide
• 1x Gamble
• 1x Increasing Ambition
• 1x Pyroclasm
• 1x Vandalblast
• 1x Whispering Madness

Creature (5)

• 1x Archaeomancer
• 1x Dualcaster Mage
• 1x Etherium Sculptor
• 1x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 1x Trophy Mage

Artifact (11)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Basalt Monolith
• 1x Bolas's CitadelGC
• 1x Coalition Relic
• 1x Empowered Autogenerator
• 1x Mystic Forge
• 1x Sculpting Steel
• 1x Semblance Anvil
• 1x Staff of Nin
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Thran Dynamo

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Tezzeret the Seeker

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Future Sight

Instant (10)

• 1x Electrodominance
• 1x Evacuation
• 1x Fire Covenant
• 1x Hero's Downfall
• 1x Lightning Bolt
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Pyroblast
• 1x Reverberate
• 1x Slaughter Pact
• 1x Terminate

Land (1)

• 1x Temple of Malice

---

"And the Aurora swayed above, its continual surging flicker picking out now this building, now that lake, now that row of palm trees, so close you'd think that you could step from this world to that... The sheets of light and color that were the Aurora tore apart; a great rending, grinding, crunching, tearing sound reached from one end of the universe to the other; there was dry land in the sky--"

--Northern Lights, Philip Pullman

Hi! I'm a longtime casual commander player. This is the deck I've built to tell the story of Lyra Belacqua and her journeys with the Alethiometer, also known as the Golden Compass. Leave any suggestions in the comments!

The deck and the story Show

Disclaimer: I am not a Vorthos player; this deck is competitive enough to prioritize function over form. With that said, here's Philip Pullman's Northern Lights in cards:

Our protagonist Lyra lives in a world where people's souls exist outside of their bodies as "daemons," talking animal spirits. Lyra is a young girl living at Jordan College in Oxford with her daemon, Pantalaimon, and her friend Roger. Many of the college's professors are studying Dust, elementary particles of consciousness, led by their researcher in the Arctic, Lord Asriel.

When mysterious kidnappers called the Gobblers begin kidnapping children in Oxford, including Roger, the beautiful Mrs. Coulter shows up to collect Lyra. Before she leaves, the Master of Jordan College entrusts Lyra with a peculiar truth-telling device he calls an Alethiometer. Lyra intuitively learns how to use the Alethiometer almost immediately.

Lyra lives with Mrs. Coulter until she discovers that Mrs. Coulter is the head of the Church's General Oblation Board, the "Gobblers" behind the kidnappings. Lyra flees with her friends, the Gyptians, as they sail up canals to the Arctic in an expedition to rescue the missing children.

They stop in Trollesund, where Lyra meets Iorek Byrnison, the dispossessed heir to the royal throne of the panserbjorne, giant armored bears. With the compass, Lyra helps Iorek recover his missing armor, and the bear agrees to accompany them on their expedition.

As they near Bolvangar, the Gobbler research station in the Arctic, Lyra discovers a child severed from his daemon, giving her a clue what the Gobblers are experimenting on. Then the Gyptians are raided by bounty hunters, and Lyra is captured and taken to Bolvangar. Lyra discovers that the researchers are using a machine to sever children from their daemons in a process they call intercision. Lyra is almost cut away from her daemon Pantalaimon, but she is rescued at the last moment by Mrs. Coulter.

Lyra escapes from Bolvangar by setting a fire and pulling the emergency alarm. She evacuates the kidnapped children, who are rescued by the Gyptians, Iorek Byrnison and a clan of witches led by Serafina Pekkala. After escaping the ensuing battle by hot air balloon, Lyra falls from the balloon and is captured by the panserbjorne. She tricks the usurper king of the bears into challenging Iorek Byrnison into single combat. Iorek wins and reclaims his throne.

Lyra finds Lord Asriel in exile, where he has continued his research on Dust in secret. He tells Lyra about Dust; that the Church believes it is original sin, and that it has spawned many parallel universes, and that he's built equipment to travel to them. Asriel sets up his equipment on top of a mountain peak while Iorek's bears and Serafina's witches battle Mrs. Coulter's military forces. Lord Asriel betrays Lyra by using intercision on her friend Roger to activate his equipment and tear open a hole in the sky...

(yes, I do apologize for using Tezzeret as Asriel even though he isn't in the deck, I'm still looking for the card in paper.)

High-tech spellslinging Show

So we're playing Kess, an overpowered commander. So we're digging out Dramatic Scepter, an overpowered combo. Obviously must be a god-tier cEDH deck, enough said, primer's done, goodbye!

All right, all right, seriously though. I'm aiming for budget competitive here, a 7-8 power deck containing fleshed-out core combos but omitting obvious top-end upgrades like Mana Crypt, Vampiric Tutor and Force of Will. On top of that, I wanted to build a deck that somehow ended up feeling like Instants, Sorceries, and Artifacts all matter, instead of just slapping together a generic consultation Kess package. So I began by crushing together cards from two of my old decks, All your deck are belong to Kess and A sphinx loose in Mishra's workshop. The result slowly mutated into the deck you see today, with plenty of control provided by instants and sorceries, and plenty of value provided by artifacts. And, um, a few value creatures floating around? And some lands? That's basically it.

Kess, Dissident Mage is crazy good for assembling 2-card infinite combos, since she lets you fire off any tutor twice: once from hand, once from graveyard. Her main downside is that she's mana-hungry, which most cEDH players fix by building decks whose average mana cost sits at about 1. Maybe 0.75. I don't know. I'm not competitive, I'm Johnny, Combo Player. So I just ramp as hard as possible, which in Grixis means lots and lots and lots of mana rocks.

And that's why artifacts can matter, even in a spellslinger deck. Because more mana makes more sorceries happen, which wins the game. Simple enough, right?

You should play this deck if:

--You like c-c-c-combo!

--You think Snapcaster Mage in the command zone is fair and balanced.

--You like control and counterspells and winning safely from a position of power.

--You think attacking with creatures is for nerds.

--You want to build a deck running competitive combo strategies but don't want to wade through decklists that cost ten thousand bucks. So read on!

How 2 Maek Gud Combo Show

First things first: we're a combo deck. So I'd better outline the basic combos first.

Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter is our bread and butter. Our core strategy is to play Isochron Scepter, imprint Dramatic Reversal, and get to infinite mana by untapping at least 3 mana from artifacts, e.g. Mana Vault, Gilded Lotus, 3 different signets... If you haven't heard of that combo before, you probably live under a rock.

The main game plan is then to dump our mana pool into a big X-cost damage spell. The best scenario is to burn a quick tutor like Spellseeker to slam down either a Comet Storm or a Torment of Hailfire for excessive damage to all opponents. We can also turn a Fabricate effect into a Walking Ballista to machine-gun down the table.

Reiterate + Turnabout is our basic backup plan when the obvious Isochron line falls apart. In particular, we need the Turnabout to spit out at least 7 mana (can be from either lands or rocks) for this to work. Similarly, Mana Geyser + Reiterate can accomplish the exact same combo if we can get the Geyser to generate 7+ mana. This line of play is initially much more mana-intensive, but it can win through stax effects like Null Rod and Harsh Mentor where Dramatic Scepter lines fizzle.

This deck has a few other nifty ways it can assemble wincons from marginal board states. Here's some of the other available lines of play:

--A Reiterate cast on a Dramatic Reversal can still net infinite mana if we have a very large number of mana rocks.

--A Twincast under a Isochron Scepter can copy a Turnabout on artifacts to go infinite as well.

--Off any Dramatic Reversal or Turnabout line, Sensei's Divining Top (our Alethiometer) gives us an efficient winning line. We tap the Top to draw a card, hold priority and put another Dramatic or Turnabout on the stack. We resolve the spell, untapping the Top, then we tap the top again. Repeat 50 times and presto, deck in hand, plenty of wincons available.

--Off a Dramatic or Turnabout line, a repeatedly untapped Trading Post can actually draw the whole deck provided the activations are looped carefully. The Trading Post chain goes: Pay 1 life and make a goat - sac a dummy artifact to draw 1 - Sac the goat to recur the dummy artifact - Repeat these steps 3 more times - Discard 1 of the 4 cards drawn to gain back 4 life. Now repeat to draw the deck. A similar, albeit less complicated, loop can be accomplished with Emry, Lurker of the Loch and Commander's Sphere.

--Off any Reiterate line, we can use Reality Shift to kill any opponent with a creature. First, cast Reality Shift targeting Kess (because it doesn't matter). Reiterate the spell targeting an opponent's creature. Let the copy resolve. They manifest the top card of their deck. Copy Reality Shift again targeting the manifested card. They exile that card and manifest the next card of their deck. Continue this process to exile their whole deck. If necessary, a few casts of Chaos Warp can dig through their deck until they flip a creature card into play to begin the loop.

--When in doubt, just casting Mana Geyser to pay a big X on Torment of Hailfire can often nuke players out of existence, particularly if Twincast is online to double up on damage. Who needs infinite loops?

Control and whatnot Show

Okay, so we're in UBR colors, so we've got basically all the options for removal and control magic. Plus, on the Vorthos side of things, I like the feeling of Lyra trying desperately to make sense of a world that's spiraling out of control around her.

For countermagic, we've got:

Arcane Denial

Counterspell

Countersquall

Delay

Disallow

Drown in the Loch

Muddle the Mixture (also a decent tutor if needed)

Narset's Reversal (not a linear counterspell but gives us lots of options to fight the stack)

Negate

Swan Song

For spot removal, we've got:

Bedevil

Chaos Warp (best tool Grixis has for enchantment removal, sadly)

Drown in the Loch

Reality Shift

Snuff Out

Comet Storm (much better as a wincon, but can still work as an overcosted Lightning Bolt)

Bojuka Bog (worth mentioning, to snipe that pesky Gravecrawler. Just don't misplay this alongside Drown in the Loch.)

And for boardwipes, we've got:

All Is Dust

Cyclonic Rift

Blasphemous Act

Toxic Deluge

Oblivion Stone (I wanted to make sure an artifact tutor gave us options for controlling the board state.)

Nevinyrral's Disk (ditto)

Lotsa tutors and recursion Show

First of all, we've got Kess in the command zone. As soon as she sticks on the battlefield, our turns often begin by recasting tutors from the yard to dig for new resources. That messes with the character of the deck quite a bit, since we want to plan out a package of at least two cards for each tutor to grab. And as great as it would be to say "Get Isochron Scepter and then get Dramatic Reversal," many of these tutors are modal and can't fully set up a combo by themselves, so things get... complicated.

Anyway, we've got a lot of tutors! Here's the tutors and some of the common cards they choose:

Dark Petition Blank check for any 2-card combo. Kind of a Demonic Tutor, except for the bit where it's not.

Mystical Tutor Very slow but very flexible. If we're in a good spot, we pull Reiterate and then Mana Geyser or Turnabout to set up a fast combo. Alternatively, Mystical can slowly dig out Reshape and Dramatic Reversal to get the Scepter combo online. If we're in a bind, we grab countermagic or Chaos Warp or Cyclonic Rift.

Wishclaw Talisman A very interesting card in this deck. In principle, Wishclaw is a blank check to complete the second half of any combo. Goblin Welder and Goblin Engineer unlock Wishclaw's full potential by sacrificing it upon activation, then recurring it later for a second tutor.

Whir of Invention One of this deck's flashier cards, Whir gives us the ability to instantly tutor and cheat in Scepter for 5 mana. Or we can flash in a high-impact bomb like Oblivion Stone or Gilded Lotus, then grab Scepter at a later time using Kess for flashback.

Reshape Provided we can afford to pitch a rock to cast it, Reshape is essentially a sorcery-speed copy of Whir. Notably, Reshape's 2 CMC makes it an excellent value pull for Spellseeker.

Tezzeret the Seeker Lord Asriel's -X lets us dig out 1-4 CMC artifacts efficiently. We're typically looking to just grab Sensei's Divining Top or Isochron Scepter, but mana rocks and Oblivion Stone are also good grabs. If he sticks around, the +1 to untap is also nice ramp.

Muddle the Mixture The transmute grabs tons of cards in this deck, including either Dramatic or Scepter, or Torment of Hailfire or Cyclonic Rift or even Wishclaw Talisman. Unfortunately we can only transmute once.

Fabricate Typically we grab a decent mana rock like Mana Vault or Chromatic Lantern first, then flashback for Scepter. If we're just looking for value, Sensei's Divining Top is always a great option.

Inventors' Fair Same options as Fabricate, but notably the Fair is a land and is hard for this deck to reanimate. So we get Scepter whenever possible.

Merchant Scroll Despite the restrictive conditions (only blue instants), a good path is to pull our Whir of Invention first and then flashback to grab Dramatic or Turnabout.

Spellseeker Tutor Dramatic if possible, or grab Reshape if we need the Scepter instead. Or go for Cyclonic Rift or Counterspell as needed.

Goblin Engineer Obviously Engineer can entomb and then reanimate Isochron. If that doesn't look like a good play, Wishclaw Talisman and Chromatic Lantern are usually good fallback options. I wouldn't entomb Sensei's Divining Top.

Tribute Mage Obviously Scepter if relevant, otherwise grab Arcane Signet or Wishclaw Talisman.

Trinket Mage Typically we want Sensei's Divining Top or Mana Vault, but it's also legal to grab 0-drops like Walking Ballista and Seat of the Synod.

Scheming Symmetry Possibly the only tutor in the deck that will almost always be used for reactive magic rather than combo pieces. The obvious exception is when we have Sensei's Divining Top in play, letting us access the card we tutored before our opponent does.

On top of all that, we want to build in a graveyard-matters theme, since Kess gives us a way to use resources in our grave. Besides Kess, we're also playing some recursion cards to get back any artifacts that get discarded or destroyed:

Buried Ruin

Goblin Engineer

Goblin Welder

Emry, Lurker of the Loch (the self-mill is definitely an upside of this card)

Trading Post

Scrap Mastery (a much need Recur-Everything button so that we can crack Nevinyrral's Disk with impunity)

Finally, we have options for raw card advantage:

Sensei's Divining Top I really shouldn't have to justify the Alethiometer.

Mystic Remora Because stupid fish is pretty darn stupid.

The Magic Mirror Usually a 4-6 mana spell for us. Normally the Mirror is only a good play when the game gets grindy and we need to outvalue opponents. Goblin Welder is the card that enables a fast reanimation of the Mirror in the early game, so look to get those cards together if possible.

Reforge the Soul because Kess lets us pitch spells to grave willy-nilly

Windfall ditto

Mystic Retrieval This is a lonely but necessary tool. Unfortunately, sometimes Dramatic Reversal ends up in graveyard, and we need it to change zones back to hand so that Isochron can imprint it. And sometimes Kess, Dissident Mage racks up 8 mana of commander tax.

Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Key combos	Mana Geyser + Reiterate Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter Reiterate + Turnabout
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 40 - 0 Rares 20 - 0 Uncommons 18 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.81
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Goat 0/1 W, Manifest 2/2 C