Eye of the Storm, Arcane Melee and Cast Through Time!

A friend of mine plays a Talrand deck with Mass Polymorph and 6-7 fatties like Inkwell Leviathan, Pearl Lake Ancient and Scourge of Fleets

Cards like Frantic Search and Snap are great with Talrand and broken with Eye of the Storm

I actually have been trying to bring the CMC down, and as for the "free" cards, my personal experience is that those cards screw me over when they get countered because the CMC is actually part of the downside :(

I like a good Talrand EDH deck! I see that this deck is less dependent on 2/2 flying tokens (and less sensitive to removal of the commander) which would be interesting to see play out.

What do you think about Tamiyo, the Moon Sage? Her ultimate works great with lots of instants and sorceries at your disposal, her + ability can sometimes shut down a threat or lock a player out of a strategy or resource, and her - ability works well with control and strategies that depend on one-time-use cards more than permanents. With lots of counterspells and bounce, there is a chance you could protect her and with the way some games get standoffish for a few rounds, sneaking up to her ultimate may not be impossible to do.

I think that she has gone up in price since I got a copy of her, but she works extremely well with Talrand.

I think she's just too expensive at five mana sorcery speed for what she does. If I weren't so heavily instant based (which is best for Talrand), she would be amazing.

Rogue's Passage: unblockable and doesn't hurt you mama base?

Hmm...

Pros:

• Makes 2 damage to go through for 6 mana

• Is better with Runechanter's Pike if an opponent has a flier/reacher

Cons:

• Only useful at sorcery speed when 51 out of my 62 spells (82%) require mana open at instant speed

• Can't tap for blue when 36 out of my 62 spells (58%) need 0 generic mana

• The deck makes lots of small evasive creatures, not few big creatures with no/little evasion

Seems like a step in the wrong direction...

Note to self:

Out with Time Stop, Gather Specimens, and Foil for Rise from the Tides, Trail of Evidence, and Epiphany at the Drownyard.

For my talrand, I was also going to put in Trail of Evidence and maybe Jace, Unraveler of Secrets depending on what he would put me back ...

I thought some of those other options were good but also kind of high on the CMC and possibly "win-more' whereas the card draw from trail of evidence seems like it would be solid gold.

Do you think the new jace is worth including in this kind of strategy?

Well, unfortunately Jace, Unraveler of Secrets is five mana at sorcery speed, but I just don't him providing that much for the deck. Is an Oracle's Insight that useful?

I'm excited for Rise from the Tides because of how it gets me out of losing position if my commander has been hated on all game. As for Epiphany at the Drownyard, it seems like a cheaper Stroke of Genius that can also fuel my graveyard, so there's no question it gets me out of a bind too.