both deadman and I play basically the same deck (I copy his HW as I don't get enough serious games in to innovate). The basic aim of the deck is to tax people just enough to slow them down and throw out hate cards that hinder your opponents disproportionately more than they hinder you. Finally, you try to counter other threats while building card advantage or assembling a combo. That's really how the deck intends to win. Although you can win quickly with the list, it's pretty rare. I'd say you're looking at turn 6 to 10 most of the time. Trying to combo right out of the gates is usually pretty dumb.

Arbiter in most metas can be played as 'soft lock' or 'value-control' as you said, but tends to draw tons of hate from most players as unfun. At higher levels of play, that's not really an issue any longer, but aiming to play 'soft lock' or 'value-control' doesn't work all that well.

When it comes to the cards you suggested, I don't like any of them for arbiter.

The counters you run in arbiter should be as lean as possible while not being too narrow or weak. That's why you'll often see arbiter decks have stuff like Arcane Denial, Dispel, Flusterstorm, etc. The deck lists above doesn't really have the time to sit and draw tons of cards and try to play a reactive counter-based gameplan. That's going to fail miserably. Counters should be something you can sequence into your turn cycles so that you're always doing something productive on your turns. Unwind seems nice on paper, but too often you'll be faced with the decision to hold up the counter or play something relevant on your mainphase. Cheaper counters are great. For players that don't have that much money and can't afford cards like Mana Drain and Force of Will, I recommend cards like Arcane Denial. Delay, Negate, and even Memory Lapse. Cheap and unconditional is ideally what you want.

As for Damping Sphere, it's a tad narrow. I also like some other hate cards over this thing that target the same decks. Ethersworn Canonist, Rule of Law, etc. Still, if your meta is filled with decks that are annoyed by this card, you can run it. Arbiter is blessed with the ability to run a ton of flex cards that are often dedicated for hate. However, many of the hate cards aren't broad enough. For instance, there are games where Grafdigger's Cage is insanely good and others where it's a terrible card. One of the weaknesses of the deck is that it's prone to drawing hate cards that may not be ideal at facing down opposing strategies.

Teferi, Hero of Dominaria is a powerful walker and it would be nice to have one out for several turns, but it's a little too hard to protect. You generally want more consistent cards. I love Narset Transcendent. I actually used to play this deck in a league a while back and ulted her twice the night I first bought her. In some metas, walkers can stick on the field reliably. However, I found it to be really hard to defend walkers. I've since dropped her but I can't bring myself to get rid of her from my collection. Teferi's really in the same boat.

If you want more draw, I've recently been playing Windfall in my list and liking it quite a bit.

deadmanwaltzing - Thoughts about running Spellseeker?

TheDevicer Absolutely will be being added. I'm very hot on the card. Benefitting from GAA4's cost reduction and grabbing another card that can do the same is a really big draw. I'm contemplating running Pull from Tomorrow to ensure that it can grab an outlet we can use (I like a well-stocked toolbox), over Stroke of Genius although I'm not certain on that one.

Grabbing Reversal is pretty huge, and the suite of other options it fetches us is very attractive. Have a foil on pre-order.

I'm testing Pull right now as well. I think losing stroke isn't ideal just cuz having access to tons of blue sources on combo turns is often ideal and the colorless artifact mana can tie your ability to play countermagic.

Hi deadmanwaltzing,

Firstly, I just wanted to let you know that I'm a big fan of your deck list along with the large amount of work that you (and TheDevicer) have put in for testing/brewing with GAAIV. I was just wondering how much utility you guys usually get out of Scroll Rack? It's usually useful for me when I have a fairly size-able hand in which case I would have a good advantage regardless in terms of tutors and/or draw spells. When I'm low on cards, it seems like a terrible top deck that doesn't do too much to bring me back into the game. I've been considering cutting it but wanted to hear your thoughts. I run a slightly less streamed-lined list (with some cards like Bribery and Consecrated Sphinx) and play an even split of 1v1 and multiplayer, but I have been testing more focused builds.

Cheers and Thanks! Dragonstompy

Scroll Rack is insane. With the wealth of tutors and fetches you have, it's quite easy to shuffle dead cards away from your hand and into live ones. By design, the deck has a diverse range of different types of cards. Because we have very few multi-purpose tools, it's sometimes annoying to be stuck with the wrong kind of cards in hand. Sometimes you need to advance your position, sometimes you need to answer threats. That the real purpose it serves for us.

It may seem like scroll rack only really gets good when you have a full grip, but it's one of those cards that gets a lot of value even in medium situations. Rack also makes it really difficult to fizzle when you have to manually power through your deck with Paradox Engine (a rare occurrence, but it happens. I had to win like that twice yesterday).

Also miracles.

If you had to press me to cut a card from this list, it would be Narset Transcendent. I ran her for 2 years and she was either amazing or complete booty. I really like her too. I remember getting to ult her two games in a row the night I first bought my copy in a shop league. Still, it's her high variance that gets to me. Maybe if you're playing in a creature-light meta.

Oh, forgot to mention this, but adding pull has been great for me. I tried capsize for a while because I saw you had it but the card felt awful most of the time.

Thanks TheDevicer, you make some good points with the shuffle effects from the tutors/fetches. I guess my next question is how do you typically go about generating card advantage with Arbiter? We run cards like Mystic Remora and Rhystic Study, but aside from them it seems like we're pretty reliant on our big draw X spells resolving. Other top CEDH commanders run the same suite (with the aforementioned enchantments and Time Spiral/Timetwister with the added advantage that their commander can also act as a utility piece or advantage piece (e.g. Tasigur, the Golden Fang or Kess, dissident mage ). I've been thinking whether it'd be good as you mentioned to add a third draw X spell in the form of Pull from Tomorrow and include Fact or Fiction.

I play in strange metas. Sometimes it's true cEDH. Sometimes it's hyper tuned decks with maybe some odd choices in generals. Something like Xenagos, God of Revels, Saffi Eriksdotter, Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, etc. Lots of creature-based stuff in the latter group. I often take my deck from hyper tuned cEDH to running dumb pet cards like Ugin, the Spirit Dragon depending on the kind of decks I'm going to be playing against that night. The core of the deck and its speed stay relatively similar. When I play a less tuned version, I get a lot of value out of Dig Through Time, Fact or Fiction, Mystic Confluence, plus all the usual stuff. It may seem strange, but cEDH decks can actually struggle a tad versus highly tuned casual decks since those things still run lean answers but their card quality tends to be a bit higher. cEDH emphasizes speed and efficiency over power. If you like drawing more cards, those things are fun.

When it comes to the cEDH version, you lean really heavily on your X spells. In particular, I've come to love Pull from Tomorrow. I often treat the card as the one throwaway X draw spell I have. Tutoring for it is a frequent line I feel forced into as I haven't committed to a combo yet and feel like generating resources. For the most part, and EOT X spell seals games away.

Otherwise, I really love Land Tax+Scroll Rack as an engine. Isochron Scepter+Brainstorm or Impulse feels dirty as well.

The rest are obvious. As a closing thought, I think the deck actually wants 3 X-spells as the deck aims to generate infinite mana, but that mana doesn't do much if you don't have an outlet. Having only two X spells forces you into this weird space where you want to resolve one to draw cards but also want to hang onto it in case you top deck your last missing piece and will need the X spell to go off. Having redundancy allows you to fire one off without a thought.

Hello deadmanwaltzing,

I do not have Time Spiral & Timetwister & Transmute Artifact . Should i remove Personal Tutor since it's only interest is in this configuration to seek for Creature removal or other tutor ?

Thanks you for your list and your help !

Vectrix Yeah, Personal Tutor is a fringe playable card that you only really want if you have the full toolbox available to you, there are plenty of other cards you could include in its place.

Spoiler season has been a wild time. How do you feel about Teferi, Time Raveler , Narset, Parter of Veils , Narset's Reversal , Dovin, Hand of Control , and Dovin's Veto ?

i thought you couldnt use blind obedience in this deck because theres no black in the commander

Hey deadman,

It looks as though I'm in a similar position as you in regard to figuring out a direction with a GAAIV list with the recent WAR release. If you'd like, you're more than welcome to add me on Discord and we can bounce ideas off of each other. Feel free to friend request me @Dango#6332 and I'd be happy to help in any way I can! Cheers m80 :)

I know it’s pretty soon, but I was wondering what your plans were now that paradox engine has been banned.

ThePrimalShift Honestly? As far as cEDH goes, dismantle the deck and build something good. As far as the deck goes as a 'pet deck', probably just lean harder on the dramatic sceptre combo.

Paradox Engine kept this deck functioning as a cool, fringe deck that could surprise people with its proactive lines and powerful hate pieces. Losing the card hurts and the deck lost a lot of power as a result. I'll likely look to re-tool this deck at some point but right now I'm still in mourning.

Say it ain't so :'( Thanks for the response. I had just started getting into the world of cEDH, I have a mono black deck that I felt was competitive but seeing the scope of how powerful these higher tier decks, I was looking to branch out into something more competitive, I saw your take of GAA4 and instantly fell in love with the way the deck runs and how consistently it stalls the game and produces the win con. I will keep an eye out for any updates you make, and know that I too am in mourning for Grand Arbitor Augistin IV, because the dude is such a savage. Thanks again for the response.

I work in a card shop and one day for giggles, I built this deck. I played my boss. I am not allowed to play with this deck against him. I jerked him around with it so much I made him scoop. Great deck! (even if it did almost get a table flipped. XD)

Although I just borrowed the cards and some we didn't have, I had to substitute some suggestions but it was fun for me.

Sweet decklist. Any plans to update it regarding the ban of Paradox Engine in EDH?