Featured card: Mishra, Artificer Prodigy

[[Primer]] - Mishra's Lantern

Commander / EDH Artifact Combo Competitive Control Stax UBR (Grixis)

Wishwreath

Artifact (33)

Creature (3)

Land (30)

Planeswalker (8)

Commander (1)

Commander: foil Mishra, Artificer Prodigy

Enchantment (10)

Instant (9)

Sorcery (6)

Disclaimer

This is a work in progress. This will continue to be updated and formatted as I have time. My apologies if some formatting is sloppy or confusing, please let me know in the comments what I can do to improve this, as I am not very computer savvy and my html formatting skills are garbage at best. That being said, I hope this post is informative and that you enjoy what's here!

Introduction

Hey everybody, this will be a quick introduction to how this deck came to be and the thought process behind its creation. For now this will be a pretty incomplete primer as I am busy with work, but over time my goal is to make this as informative as possible.

A few years ago I played a Mishra Stax EDH deck and it never quite felt like it was entirely finished despite months of effort put into improving the list. The list slowly evolved into being commanded by the partners Silas Renn, Seeker Adept and Vial Smasher the Fierce , and then Vial smasher was cut for Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa , and then the deck shifted pretty heavily away from artifacts as it became an Atraxa, Praetors' Voice superfriends list. A year went by and I have since played a handful of new lists, including LabManiac_Cameron's Seasons Pastigur List, Guerte's Breya Doomsday List, and a variety of other home-brew Stax lists (Derevi, Brago, and Glissa). Still, I always wanted to come back and revisit Mishra, as his ability has always been ripe with abuse potential, and Grixis colors offer so many possibilities in EDH; however, at the time of building the initial list I still did not own a Nether Void to really abuse Mishra's ability, and didn't (and still don't) own The Abyss to create the dream stax package, so how was I supposed to play him by utilizing only Possibility Storm as my synergy piece?

A few months ago I got into the idea of playing Canadian Highlander and have slowly been convincing people in my area to play it. I started out by playing UW Stoneblade/Miracles/Control, and once I got my Time Vault , swapped over to playing Grixis Lantern/Time Vault. Despite the differences between Canadian Highlander and EDH, the lantern lockout proved to be very efficient even in a singleton 1v1 format. Then, I had an idea. Mishra primarily synergizes with symmetrical counter effects or cards that alter how spells are cast ( Nether Void , Possibility Storm ), but his shuffle effect is usually pretty worthless unless you are Brainstorm locked, have Sensei's Divining Top out, or have access to a fetchland while still knowing what your draw would be. For the most part, the shuffle effect is completely pointless, but if you knew what the top card of your library was at all times through cards like Lantern of Insight or Field of Dreams , you could more decisively use the shuffle effect to your advantage while simultaneously controlling your opponent's draws with the lantern cards that have been popularized in Modern. I put 2 and 2 together, and what remained was a Grixis Lantern EDH deck with Mishra at the helm.

The overall goal of the deck is to stax out the table as hard as possible and eventually find a combo win condition, but we also get the benefit of playing a more complete lantern package that can help us slow down our opponents even more. Even though this list doesn't have access to Nether Void or The Abyss (yet), our stax package is pretty complete, and the lantern suite lets us attack our opponents from a completely different angle.

EDIT 5/1/19: Nether Void has now been added to the list, but it is not a mandatory inclusion to play this deck.

EDIT 8/26/19: Paradox Engine got hit, which removes one of our original win conditions; however, this new ban list brought us Painter's Servant and Grindstone, which has now been added as a new win condition. This new combo has effectively streamlined the deck: Land Equilibrium and Mana Vortex have been cut for more reactive removal and card selection (as well as lowering the curve and increasing the reliability of the deck), Karn SoE has been cut for Brainstorm, and we have cut our lines that require infinite mana (Staff of Domination and Power Artifact) for additional card draw. The PE ban hurt a lot of decks, but we really don't suffer from it at all; in fact, the Painter's Servant combo drastically improves this list over the PE variant and makes it much more consistent.

Why Play Mishra?

You might enjoy playing Mishra if:

you like playing stax
you like the lantern control deck from modern (and vintage as it turns out)
you like Grixis colors
you like playing with a unique commander that people think doesn't work in a singleton format
you don't mind being targeted at a table and enjoy a challenging deck to play with lots of decision making
you have a mature playgroup who don't mind being locked out and realize it's part of the game

You might not enjoy playing Mishra if:

you don't like centering your play around artifacts
you miss having access to and
you'd rather play dedicated combo or stompy
you like to lay low at a table
you prefer decks that can be played more on "autopilot"
your playgroup is casual or immature

The Lantern Quandry and How to Adjust to Singleton

What some of you may be wondering is how is porting a package from the Modern Lantern list into a multiplayer, singleton format ever supposed to work?

Well, let's discuss that for a second.

The brilliance (and the frustration that leads to that brilliance) of the Modern deck lies in how simply deceptive it is. It gets to play a lot of unassuming cards like Codex Shredder , Lantern of Insight , etc. and leverage them into a back breaking lock that is near impossible to break if it gets going. Where they really benefit is having access to , allowing them to play 4 of the powerhouse card Ancient Stirrings , granting them an incredibly consistent engine to keep churning out lantern pieces, inevitably sealing up the game by landing Ensnaring Bridge and milling their opponent to death. They also get to play Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek , granting them full information along with their lantern pieces, never letting their opponent draw a relevant card for the entire game. What makes the deck so frustrating to play against is by the time the lantern player resolves a Codex Shredder or Pyxis of Pandemonium , if they know your hand after a Thoughtseize , that might be the end of the game for the other player.

So, we have this incredibly frustrating modern legal package of Pyxis of Pandemonium , Codex Shredder , Ghoulcaller's Bell , and Lantern of Insight .

Well let's throw those in an EDH deck and we'll be good to go!

Well, not quite. This may come as a surprise to some of you, but EDH is a format where we can only play 1 of each card (except for basic lands, I know, yada yada yada). So just jamming in these cards and expecting to have it play an integral part of your list is ridiculous. So what we have to do is try and expand the list of cards with similar functions that are legal in eternal formats like EDH. When you dig into the card pool, there's a lot of cards that do what we want:

Field of Dreams , Grindclock , Nephalia Drownyard , Wizened Snitches , Scrib Nibblers , Duskmantle, House of Shadow , these are just the starting point.

Obviously some of these are better than others, but now we have a pretty inclusive list of cards that all compliment the lantern playstyle.

So we're done now right? Let's build a lantern deck!

Not yet, we're not. Sorry, but even with this expanded list of cards that fit this niche, some are still pretty bad, and it's still not nearly enough to base an entire deck around.

So what are we supposed to do?

What we need to do is find an additional strategy that compliments not only the lantern playstyle, but can also serve as a viable way to win a game on its own should the lantern package prove inefficient. Here, I see two viable routes that we can take the deck in:

Combo: Circu, Dimir Lobotomist is the king of top deck manipulation, and by adding the lantern package we not only get good disruption, but viable combo pieces that interact perfectly with Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal , allowing you to mill your opponents out in one fell swoop. This is a great place to take the lantern package, as it has good synergy with the commander and the combo pieces. The downside of playing Circu, Dimir Lobotomist is the lack of access to red, and the inability to play a complete stax package without severely hindering its own ability to win.
Stax: Stax decks are already brutal to play against, and it doesn't take all that much for them to establish a hard lock on the game as early as turn 2 or 3, and win by combo around the same time. But while stax decks are amazing at controlling the board, not every stax variant can handle the answers that their opponents draw from the deck, meaning that a lock can look good, but suddenly be blown out by a miracle draw Vandalblast with little ability to recover. But if we're able to stop our opponents from ever drawing the Vandalblast , we can ensure that our lock pieces never see time off the field, and that our combos are even more protected.

Ok, I see why Circu, Dimir Lobotomist works for combo, but why Mishra, Artificer Prodigy for the stax variant?

Good question (which I also talk a bit about in the alternative commanders section if you cheated and skipped ahead). What Mishra, Artificer Prodigy offers us is as follows:

Grixis colors: is an amazing color combination, and gives us access to a lot of great stax cards in those colors. Goblin Welder and Daretti, Scrap Savant are stax powerhouses in red, Liliana of the Veil and Leyline of the Void are amazing black cards to run, and blue gives us some amazing mana denial cards in Mana Vortex and Land Equilibrium should you choose to include them. Together, these can all form a pretty brutal stax core, and in one form or another, compliment the controlling aspect of the lantern package.
A unique ability. No, not the "search for a card with the same name as that card and put it into play" ability, the part that comes after that. That beautiful phrase, "shuffle your library". While the first ability is truly unique in the EDH metagame, the shuffle effect that the ability provides gives us a unique opportunity to alleviate a problem (at least I consider it a problem) that most Mishra, Artificer Prodigy decks face: the shuffle effect doesn't really matter unless you haven't played a land for turn, and that land is a fetchland, OR you have a tutor to find something else; plus, without knowing what the top card of your deck is through something like Sensei's Divining Top or Brainstorm , there's not really a point in guessing if you should shuffle or not. The lantern package is my proposed solution to Mishra, Artificer Prodigy 's shuffle effect. Let me explain:

Most people are aware of how Mishra, Artificer Prodigy interacts with cards like Nether Void and Possibility Storm . You stack the triggers so that Mishra, Artificer Prodigy 's resolves last, and you either get uncounterable artifacts or you get 2 artifacts for the price of 1, respectively. The sad part is that with Nether Void , the card comes back from your graveyard, so we don't get to do anything with our library. But with Possibility Storm , we have to search our library for the card we need to resolve our Mishra, Artificer Prodigy trigger, so we are forced to shuffle our library!

So, we have Possibility Storm and we're using it to get 2 for 1 artifacts with Mishra, Artificer Prodigy out. So how do we take advantage of this shuffle effect? Well, the cards Lantern of Insight , and Field of Dreams give us information on what the top card of our library is at all times! So before we cast a spell with Possibility Storm out, we know a potential card we might get to cast from it (say there's an Unwinding Clock on top and we want to cast Sensei's Divining Top , we know we'll get the Unwinding Clock AND the Sensei's Divining Top in play. but after we shuffle our library, we will now have brand new information on what our top card is, allowing us to decide if we want to cast another spell to get either the top card or something else, OR mill it away with a lantern effect so that we don't hit it, and put in in the GY to bring back later or exile it if the card doesn't help us in the current game. This post library search shuffle, combined with Mishra, Artificer Prodigy 's ability allows us to have increased information with every spell we cast, and allows us to manipulate our library as we play spells through Possibility Storm .

Even without Possibility Storm , Mishra, Artificer Prodigy 's search ability combined with Lantern of Insight or Field of Dreams lets us shuffle away dead cards from the top of our library for the chance of finding something better!

Overall, the lantern cards that reveal the top card of players' libraries combined with Mishra, Artificer Prodigy 's ability, turns his shuffle mechanic from something fairly pointless into useful information that can improve our draws and allow us to land lantern pieces, stax pieces, and win conditions more reliably.

Alright, sweet. But how are you supposed to control all 3 players' draws? The modern deck only has to deal with one opponent, so how are you supposed to deal with 3?

Another good question. What I think most players don't understand about playing lantern in EDH or cEDH is that you don't have to control every single draw. You just have to control the ones that matter. The modern deck gets off easy, as they only have one person they have to lock out. We have 3. Right away you should key in that just having Lantern of Insight and a Codex Shredder out isn't enough to stop everyone from drawing good cards, but what it does do is allow us to control the draw that is most likely to affect our gameplan. Let me give you an example:

Suppose we have a decent lock on the board. We've got a sweet Land Equilibrium lock thanks to some early acceleration, and we got 2 lantern pieces out , let's say Pyxis of Pandemonium and Field of Dreams . Our opponents are all stuck on 2 lands because of our Land Equilibrium , and we look at the decks around the table. There's a Razaketh, the Foulblooded , a Paradox Engine , and a Nature's Claim . Damn, a Paradox Engine ? That's a scary card, I should mill that away. But Nature's Claim is a 1 mana answer to my Land Equilibrium , so I should definitely mill that away. In this instance we can mill both because our lantern piece is a Pyxis of Pandemonium , but let's say it's a Codex Shredder . Do we take the Paradox Engine away? Or the Nature's Claim ? In this instance, since the Nature's Claim breaks our stax piece that is keeping everyone from progressing their boards, we mill that away, knowing that for the Paradox Engine player to land it and win with it, he has a lot to break through, AND he has to let us draw his answer (although some of these example cards have been banned/slotted out, the important thing to note here is the decision making process when you have an established lantern suite).

So we don't have to answer every draw in a pod. We just have to be able to manage whatever draws might end the game for us.

Cool, but how do we win a game after we do all of this?

Our primary ways to win are through combo, but we do have some grindier options if the lines are cleaner. It's not always easy to assemble Dramatic Reversal and Isochron Scepter , but Leyline of the Void or an opponent's Rest in Peace in combination with our own Helm of Obedience can seal up a game. We now also have access to Painter's Servant and Grindstone , yet another way we can win. Finally, under a decent lock we can also utilize our Planeswalker ultimates to push for game as well.

Ok, that all makes sense. Thanks for being so cool.

No problem, myself.

What Pods Can I/Should I play Mishra in?

This version of Mishra finds itself situated comfortably in highly tuned pods and cEDH pods. Without more extensive testing, I'm hesitant to definitively call this a cEDH deck through and through, but it does win its fair share of cEDH pods. You will most definitely find that this deck excels in highly tuned and more competitive pods, and performs quite well in true cEDH pods.

In terms cEDH, if you're evaluating the list from that mindset, you need to know the following:

This is NOT the best Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal deck.

This is NOT the best stax deck you can play.

This is NOT the best combo deck you can play.

What this deck IS, is a different approach to a commander that has a lot of cEDH promise. It has the strength to compete in cEDH pods, but it is not really a cEDH deck. It can win cEDH pods, but will usually never be the best cEDH deck at the table.

This deck is best suited for high power pods and playgroups, and falls just shy of being a true cEDH deck. After all, this deck is really just a high powered pet project, but it can still hang with the best of them.

Alternative Commanders

Circu, Dimir Lobotomist : this guy is probably the quintessential lantern commander, as his ability's synergy with the mill effects of the lantern cards, and he acts as a lantern card himself whenever you cast a blue or black spell; however, it is hard to play a stax gameplay here when Circu desperately needs to win by combo, primarily utilizing Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal as a way to generate infinite mana and untaps which lets you either mill out the table with your Codex Shredder or dump your mana into an outlet like Blue Sun's Zenith . This should be a clue that while both Circu and Mishra both make great use out of the Lantern engine, Circu is primarily a combo deck that uses the lantern cards to facilitate the combo's protection or uses them with the Dramatic Scepter combo as a win condition, whereas Mishra uses the lantern cards to increase card selectivity and enhance his stax package. Both are perfectly viable ways of playing with the Lantern cards, but ultimately require vastly different decks.

Mairsil, the Pretender : An interesting choice for a lantern commander, as when a lantern piece is milled or lost to the graveyard, he can ETB and you'll always have some form of access to a lantern effect; however, you're paying a minimum of 4 mana to have access to this for the first time (and then 6, and then 8...), AND he doesn't copy the static abilities of any of your artifacts which requires a build more centered around activated abilities, and thus is weaker to cards like Null Rod and Stony Silence . He also will not be able to use any of the mill effects upon entry without the help of Thousand-Year Elixir , so when you cast him for 4 mana or 6 mana depending on which time it is, you might as well be getting Time Walk ed. An interesting, but subpar choice in my opinion.

Oona, Queen of the Fae : her ability lets you selectively mill under a lantern effect, and provides a win condition by itself, but she is far more useful as a combo/control commander with Dramatic Scepter, and doesn't require or even want the lantern package like Circu, Dimir Lobotomist does.

Daxos of Meletis : the lantern cards let you get good hits off of Daxos, but losing out on black and red is pretty crippling if you're leaning towards a stax gameplan. Enlightened Tutor gives you a bit more security to find lantern cards, but by this point you're really trying to jam a square peg into a round hole if you catch my drift.

Brago, King Eternal : Another stax commander that can make some use of the lantern package. By blinking the lantern cards off of the Brago trigger, you can gain more control over what opponents draw; however, the lantern package is pretty unnecessary for Brago to run since his win conditions are already so efficient and compact that the lantern suite is just excessive. Could be worth trying in more of a niche list though.

Arcum Dagsson : A great combo/stax commander, but there's little reason to ever tutor up a lantern card instead of something more oppressive like Possessed Portal or Paradox Engine . I'm sure there's someone out there who likes using a lantern card or two in their Arcum build but I would by no means include it as a serious package in a list.

Daretti, Scrap Savant : another artifact heavy stax commander that can make some use of the lantern cards; unfortunately, we get 0 access to Field of Dreams , and we lose out on and which hampers our card pool. The loss of card selection is most brutal here, since mono doesn't have the best ways to reliably stop from milling an important card while also keeping opponents in check with the lantern suite.

Single Card Discussion

This will be a quick explanation of the majority of the cards in the list, what their function is, and some synergies and tricks with them.

The Lantern Suite

Lantern of Insight : The namesake card of the popular Modern deck. This is the lantern card we want to try and have online first to get control of the draw step, as without it you're just milling cards at random. We want this online over Field of Dreams primarily because it's an artifact, which we get more mileage out of than an enchantment. Seeing what everyone is about to draw is incredibly powerful, and short of someone casting Timetwister or Wheel of Fortune , you can more or less determine what they get to draw at any point. Our stax pieces help control whatever is drawn that we can't stop, and help prevent wheels as much as possible.

Codex Shredder : Another important lantern piece, as even though this is only targeted mill it also acts as a great recursion piece, allowing us to get back important sorceries and Planeswalkers we would otherwise struggle to recur without casting Yawgmoth's Will .

Pyxis of Pandemonium : The exiling lantern card. We really never want to use its second ability unless we know what we have exiled with the help of Lantern of Insight or Field of Dreams , so unless we know what we've hit we basically just use this as an additional method of stopping relevant draws.

Ghoulcaller's Bell : Simple universal mill lantern card. We want to use both this and Codex Shredder very carefully against reanimator lists, as we don't want to allow an early Razaketh, the Foulblooded or Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur to end the game because we were reckless.

Field of Dreams : The other "see the top card of all decks at all times" card that we want to see ASAP. It's a bit harder to interact with, being an enchantment, but it also requires another lantern card to actually start controlling card draws.

Grindstone : Part of a 2 card combo with Painter's Servant , but luckily for this deck Grindstone by itself is also another useful lantern piece, albeit a bit more mana intensive.

The important thing to note about all of these is that they provide more relevance to Mishra's shuffle effect, as now we can more selectively cast cards in our hand to determine if we need to shuffle away a dead card that's sitting on top of our library. We still want to try and empty our hands and land an Ensnaring Bridge to give us the most effective creature protection, but there are times when you'd rather draw an important lock piece hand have a hand size of 2 with your Bridge than have a hand size of 0 but be stuck with a bad top deck. It's a balancing act that you get the feel for as you play the list, and it's different experience in every pod because what decks you play against will determine what your hand size needs to be and what lock pieces you should aim to get online.

The other thing about the lantern package that is great is that it makes top deck tutors like Imperial Seal , Vampiric Tutor , Mystical Tutor , etc. less reliable for our opponents since we can force them to pitch or exile whatever they grab. If established early with a stax piece, it makes it far more difficult for them to find an answer unless they already have one in hand.

The Stax Suite

Tangle Wire : This card landing early allows us to slow down the game and either try and apply more stax pieces or set up our lantern engine. We can also recur this in the mid game with Daretti, Scrap Savant or another recursion piece to keep things tapped down. Can also be copied with Copy Artifact for maximum fun.

Sphere of Resistance : A simple tax increase on all spells, not much more to say about it. It does make the spells ultimately cast with Possibility Storm cost an extra though.

Trinisphere : Really hurts combo decks, and is brutal when we can play so much mana denial. This also makes anything cast off of Possibility Storm cost if it's the only tax card on the field, and if you add this with other stax pieces like Winter Orb and Static Orb , your opponents will have some of the most fun they'll ever have playing Magic.

Ensnaring Bridge : It's good in the Modern deck, and it's good here too. Dumping our hands and landing this is our version of Blazing Archon , and keeps pressure off of us long enough to establish a win condition.

Thorn of Amethyst : Hurts the combo players most of all. This also forces most of our own spells to cost more, so it's ideally played when we have some acceleration through mana rocks or our 2 mana lands. Damping Sphere is worth a mention here, as they accomplish roughly the same thing in our list, but Thorn of Amethyst is chosen over the Sphere primarily because we always want our Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors to tap for 2 mana, and we run enough mana denial to shut down cards like Gaea's Cradle and Cabal Coffers without needing to resort to Damping Sphere . Plus, after eating a Cyclonic Rift it's a bit easier to rebuild a lantern engine and stax pieces through a Thorn than a Sphere.

Static Orb : One of the most brutal stax cards ever printed in my opinion. This can put our opponents in a very tight spot with their resources, and in combination with cards like Tangle Wire , you can effectively Time Walk your opponents multiple times.

Torpor Orb : Cards like Aura Shards , Reclamation Sage , Bane of Progress , etc. are pretty scary for us, so this helps shut them off completely. There are also tons of other good ETB creatures in the format that we get to shut off as well, and it's enough to make sure that this card deserves a slot. We also don't run any ETB creatures of our own, so there's no conflict of interest there and we can slam this down whenever we want.

Mana Web : This spicy little Reserved List card makes the control players cry, and in combination with Winter Orb or Static Orb it forces some really unfortunate positions for our friends to play through. Remember that this does affect all opponents in case someone isn't aware of the oracle text.

Nether Void : I finally got my hands on a Nether Void ! And straight into the deck it went, replacing Chalice of the Void . This card combined with our commander makes our artifacts basically uncounterable AND doubles as an incredibly brutal stax piece. If you own it, run it. If you don't, play Chalice of the Void instead.

Winter Orb : One of the most iconic mana denial cards ever printed, and it does wonders in here just like it does in every other stax deck that it calls home. Throw Land Equilibrium into the mix along with Mana Web , and you've got yourself a good game of Magic.

Cursed Totem : Shuts off mana dorks, Hermit Druid , Walking Ballista / Triskelion , and key commanders like Selvala, Heart of the Wilds , Arcum Dagsson , Captain Sisay , etc. This does stop us from activating our own Metalworker and Karn, Silver Golem though, so play your lines carefully.

Mana Rocks

Metalworker : The most terrifying mana rock we run, since this guy can pump out 4, 6, or 8 mana pretty reliably. Landing this early can mean dumping your entire hand of stax pieces on the table. If this card goes unanswered you might find an early win due to a lock before people can even play spells.

Mox Opal : One of our WUBRG mana rocks, but only works when we have 3 or more artifacts out. A must include for any artifact heavy stax list. Also functions as a free sacrifice target for Daretti, Scrap Savant and Trash for Treasure to bring back something good.

Talisman of Indulgence , Talisman of Dominance : Simple 2 cost mana rocks that enter untapped and for the price of 1 life fixes our colors.

Mana Vault : Our most explosive mana rock outside of Metalworker , this can lead to some greatly accelerated plays. Free untaps with Unwinding Clock too.

Mox Diamond : Our second WUBRG mana rock, and at the cost of discarding a land to keep it, this thing is worth its salt. Might as well bring back the land you discarded with Crucible of Worlds .

Grim Monolith : A luxury mana rock in this list, as we don't run any combos with it. Still, it taps for a lot of mana and that's what we want in our rocks.

Sol Ring : It's Sol Ring.

Mana Crypt : Better Sol Ring, because it's free. The potential life loss is a bit concerning if we're under pressure, but Inventors' Fair , Trading Post , and Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas can help us stay out of the red.

The Tutors

Artificer's Intuition : This is our Survival of the Fittest . We can pitch any artifact to dig for our lantern package or our silver bullet artifacts. Anything we pitch we can bring back later. This card is great to see early, and it's never bad to have it on the table.

Fabricate : Finds any artifact, and can also act as a ramp piece by finding something like Mana Crypt or Sol Ring .

Vampiric Tutor : Instant speed top deck tutor for any card we want is too good to not run.

Gamble : Find any card, discard a random card. Sometimes you WANT to discard that Mycosynth Lattice you found. Sometimes it finds an answer or a stax piece.

Demonic Tutor : Staple black tutor, finds anything we need.

Intuition : There aren't really a lot of abusable Intuition piles for this deck, but it's a solid tutor that lets us move a lot of cards at instant speed and put some into the yard to reuse later.

Overall we don't want to run too many non-permanent tutors, as in a stax deck we want to develop permanent advantage, which loosely means playing basically every card we draw as we draw it. Too many spell based tutors makes it more difficult to land more stax pieces because mana becomes tight, so it's always better to just keep playing stax pieces, and only use a tutor when it's for a specific stax piece, win condition, or an answer to a problem.

The Planeswalkers

Daretti, Scrap Savant : This is one of our card selection engines, her -2 is one of our recursion engines, and her ultimate should we get it provides overwhelming value that is difficult to deal with.

Liliana of the Veil : Another Planeswalker that usually struggles to compete in multiplayer games, but her +1 gives us some great lantern insurance, as it can strip away a lot of answers from our opponents. Her -2 can answer a problematic creature, and her ultimate functions as a delete button for one player, but we really just want her for her +1 and -2.

Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas : Another card selection Planeswalker, his +1 lets us dig for good artifacts and helps us get around Sprit of the Labyrinth effects. His -1 can animate an artifact to supply a win condition, especially Inkmoth Nexus , and his -4 can keep us out of the red and be another win condition, especially under Mycosynth Lattice .

Tezzeret the Seeker : His +1 helps us break parity on cards like Static Orb and Tangle Wire , and he can also find those cards with his -X. His ultimate can work as a one time Overrun style effect, but be weary of cards like Evacuation so that you don't get blown out.

Ashiok, Dream Render : We cut Dack Fayden for this, and ultimately it seems to be an upgrade. Not only is this Ashiok a Mindlock Orb in our deck, it ALSO functions as a limited time lantern piece since it mills for us! AND it's built in grave hate! This card does so much of what we want, that even though it's a planeswalker and is kind of slow, it's worth a slot.

Karn, the Great Creator : His passive ability helps us stop opposing mana rocks, and gives our artifact heavy stax deck our very own Stony Silence / Null Rod that we can play safely! His +1 gives us a beater/blocker, and his -2 gives us additional recursion in response to grave hate. A great new card from War of the Spark. Oh, he also combos with our Mycosynth Lattice ...

Jace, the Mind Sculptor : Normally people view his +1 as a fateseal effect, but in this deck he's also a glorified lantern piece, as we get extra mileage out of this ability with the lantern package. His 0 gives us good card draw, and lets us set up our own top deck. His -1 is good creature removal, and can let us save things like Metalworker if we expect an upcoming Vandalblast , and his ultimate will make whoever you target scoop. He does so much work when he lands that he's worth protecting as much as possible.

Narset, Parter of Veils : Excellent way to stop opponents from drawing tons of cards, and she helps us dig for important Stax or combo pieces.

The Creature(s)

Goblin Welder : A must answer creature for our opponents if we have anything good in the yard, as successfully activating this ability even once can give us tremendous advantage. Being able to "flash in" Ensnaring Bridge before combat can really make things difficult for our opponents to deal with, and "flashing in" stax pieces at weird times can also be tricky for people to play around.

Painter's Servant : 2 card combo with Grindstone , and now that Paradox Engine has been banned and this card has been made legal, we've now swapped to this. It's much easier to assemble as well, as it lets us cut all of the mana sink cards that were dead on their own.

Board Wipes

Damnation : Sometimes you just have to kill every creature that's out there, and Damnation is good enough to do that because the "can't be regenerated" effect is nice to dodge things like Yavimaya Hollow and Asceticism .

Toxic Deluge : Sometimes things are indestructible, and sometimes token decks are looking to do you in quickly. Toxic Deluge lets us set them back pretty far at the cost of a few life. Cards like Hermit Druid may warrant enough anxiety to cast Toxic Deluge early though, so in a pinch it can act sort of like spot removal if you expect some creature based combo to be on its way.

Cyclonic Rift : Good spot removal, and a good board wipe. If we can overload this under enough stax pieces, that's probably game.

Additional Recursion

Crucible of Worlds : Our mana denial package is pretty extensive outside of cheating entirely and playing Armageddon , so Crucible of Worlds lets us reuse all of the lands we either used to deny mana ( Strip Mine , Wasteland ), milled with lantern cards, or used as a tutor in the case of Tolaria West . We can also keep aggressive early hands with a good mana rock, a Crucible of Worlds , and a fetchland,and ride that one fetchland for most of the game.

Yawgmoth's Will : The ultimate recursion card. This can let us rebuild after a board wipe, and it gets back our enchantments and Planeswalkers that we otherwise rely on Codex Shredder to take care of.

Counterspells

Swan Song : A good 1 mana answer to a lot of powerful cards in EDH, but we also get the benefit of making infinite 2/2 birds with Isochron Scepter imprinting this thing along with a Paradox Engine

Force of Will : we run a pretty high concentration of blue cards to pitch for this.

Mana Drain : Counterspell plus free mana, this lets us drop 1-2 stax pieces for free if we counter something big and important.

Graveyard Hate

Leyline of the Void : The best GY hate we can run since it only hits opponents, so we are free to abuse our yard as much as we want while the Protean Hulk players cry their way toward an answer.

Nihil Spellbomb : GY hate that draws us a card and can be brought back for reuse. Good insurance for rattlesnake cards like Academy Rector , and for win conditions like Walking Ballista mid combo.

Additional Removal

Engineered Explosives : A selective board wipe that we can usually set between 2-4, and if we set it to 0 we can make the Najeela, the Blade-Blossom player slow their roll a bit. We can also tutor this with Tolaria West .

Combo/Value Pieces

Mycosynth Lattice : This card has to be answered ASAP, because when we land it we're probably either winning the game, or generating so much advantage that we'll....well... probably win the game. I've already gone over all of the things that this card does for us throughout the primer, so I'll ask you to refer to previous sections. Bottom line is that this card facilitates so many of our win conditions that it has to be dealt with.

Hurkyl's Recall : Saves us from things like Vandalblast , but can also hose a player with Mycosynth Lattice out.

Isochron Scepter : Makes infinite mana (which we really don't need) with Dramatic Reversal and enough mana rocks. It more importantly provides infinite untaps for our lantern pieces, and we can use this to mill out the table with the right lantern pieces like Pyxis of Pandemonium . We can also imprint something like Mana Drain onto this to give us control options.

Dramatic Reversal : Primarily here to combo off with Isochron Scepter , but can also provide good one time use to help us make plays around our own stax pieces.

Helm of Obedience : It's a tossup between playing this and Walking Ballista , but ultimately Helm fits the list better because there's less pieces to assemble to make it lethal. With Leyline of the Void this kills one player at a time.

Possibility Storm

Possibility Storm is our big payoff card. With Mishra, Artificer Prodigy out, you cast an artifact, let's say it's Pithing Needle . Stack the Mishra trigger first and the Possibility Storm trigger second. The Possibility Storm trigger will resolve first, giving you a random (but potentially not random artifact with our lantern cards) artifact for free, and ultimately putting all cards exiled with Possibility Storm , including the Pithing Needle you cast in our example, back into the library. Then, Mishra's trigger will resolve, letting you search your deck for a Pithing Needle , and put it directly into play. Our commander in combination with this card lets us 2 for 1 all of our artifacts, and makes it difficult for our opponents to cast what they need. When we don't have Mishra online, this card still has value with our stax pieces, as cards like Trinisphere and Sphere of Resistance force you to pay mana to cast what you want off of the Possibility Storm trigger, and we can still reliably cast Mishra with this out because Possibility Storm does not affect cards not cast from the hand.

The other thing we can do with Possibility Storm is heavily affect what our opponents can cast with our lantern engine. Let's say we have Possibility Storm , Lantern of Insight , and Pyxis of Pandemonium in play (it can be any lantern card, but really all you need is Lantern of Insight ). Our opponent has Protean Hulk on top of their library, and a High Market in play, so we know that if they resolve Protean Hulk , they will likely win by sacrificing it to High Market and going into their Walking Ballista combo. We don't want that to happen. So let's say they cast Hermit Druid from their hand, knowing that Possibility Storm will give them a free Protean Hulk . In response to casting the Hermit Druid , we can activate either Pyxis of Pandemonium or Lantern of Insight , exiling the Protean Hulk and forcing them to get a different creature off of the Possibility Storm trigger, or force them to shuffle their library and lose the Protean Hulk into their deck, respectively. Now there's a chance they get super lucky and still reveal Protean Hulk after the shuffle, in which case... GGWP, but this disruption is still very effective to stop our opponents when we have good information. We can manipulate any problematic card we see in response to the Possibility Storm trigger, and this can be enough to force awkward spells that don't set us back. If they end up getting what they need from somewhere in the middle of their deck, we can't stop that with the lantern package, but with enough stax effects out we usually never find a bad time to cast Possibility Storm . This disruption always has some form of value with any lantern card, provided we have access to one or both of Lantern of Insight and Field of Dreams .

Additional Card Selection

Search for Azcanta : An early game engine, this lets us dump good cards in the yard and eventually get a land that lets us dig for win conditions.

Sensei's Divining Top : With 9 fetchlands, tons of tutors and top deck manipulation, and a Commander with a built in shuffle effect, we can usually see 3 new cards every time we activate top. We can also use this with our lantern engine to manipulate what cards we draw, keeping important pieces safe from lantern effects and milling other cards so that we see fresh ones on top.

Additional Utility

Copy Artifact : When you can copy any artifact you want for 2 mana, you can usually find something gross to do. Sphere of Resistance , even Ghoulcaller's Bell is worth copying. We can also copy good artifacts that our opponents run, and with Mycosynth Lattice we can copy any permanent we want.

Pithing Needle : A good control card, and answers a lot of great cards, not limited to Walking Ballista , Triskelion , Hermit Druid , Arcum Dagsson , Captain Sisay , Tasigur, the Golden Fang , Dack Fayden in a pinch, Isochron Scepter , Aetherflux Reservoir , Auriok Salvagers , Candelabra of Tawnos , Thrasios, Triton Hero , Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker , etc. Can also be copied with Copy Artifact for even more control.

Aether Spellbomb : Bounces a creature and can draw a card, good utility.

Rhystic Study : Good card draw, and good synergy with our Stax effects like Static Orb and Winter Orb .

Mystic Remora : Finally found room for the fish, a 1 mana "cantrip" that can net you a lot of cards.

Brainstorm : Additional draw/utility/lantern manipulation (we can save our own top deck by swapping it).

Counterbalance : Technically part of the stax package, but its reliability is dependent on luck or the ability to top deck tutor OR an established lantern package to a degree. It can give you some free interaction, and is a real hoser with Scroll Rack or Sensei's Divining Top .

Scroll Rack : With 9 fetchlands, tons of tutors, and good card draw, this artifact can let us see tons of new cards for a small investment. Since we are always digging for a combo piece or stax piece, this helps us dig even harder. Also has amazing synergy with Counterbalance .

Lands

City of Traitors : One of our 2 mana lands, this helps us accelerate early plays. We can also ride this card under a Mana Vortex or Land Equilibrium pretty comfortably.

Ancient Tomb : The other 2 mana land. The life loss isn't the end of the world, as the mana is more important.

Duskmantle, House of Shadow : This card has replaced Nephalia Drownyard for a few reasons: 1. It has a cheaper activation cost. 2. It only mills 1 card instead of 3 (why chance putting 3 cards, 2 of which might be useful for them to be in grave, instead of just hitting the one card you know you don't want them to have?). 3. It has better art. 4. It's from my favorite set. 5. I finally found one in my bulk.

Wasteland , Strip Mine , Rishadan Port : These are our mana denial lands. We can form a decent lock with Crucible of Worlds , and we can delete problem cards like Gaea's Cradle and a flipped Search for Azcanta for little investment.

Inkmoth Nexus : The little win condition that could, or with Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas , the big win condition that probably will. Inkmoth Nexus can also serve as a blocker in a pinch, and if we keep Ensnaring Bridge out with a hand size of 1, we can reliably kill through infect under a lock.

Tolaria West : Our tutor land. This finds any of our good utility or acceleration lands, but can also find Engineered Explosives , Chalice of the Void , Mox Diamond , Mox Opal , Welding Jar , and Mana Crypt . More tutoring with Crucible of Worlds .

Academy Ruins : Our recursion land that can get us back any artifact for the price of . Also works as a good safety net for our lantern suite.

Inventors' Fair : The other tutor land. The lifegain at upkeep is nice, but the ability to tutor for any artifact really puts this card over the edge. We can keep the tutor train going here as well with Crucible of Worlds .

We run the 9 fetchlands available to us (cannot run Windswept Heath ), all of which fix our colors. In the mid game, a fetchland with Mishra out and an artifact in hand can help us manipulate our top deck with Field of Dreams or Lantern of Insight in play, and give the fetchlands some longevity even if we have 0 fetchable lands left in the deck.

We run the suite of duals and shocks: Underground Sea , Volcanic Island , Badlands , Watery Grave , Steam Vents , and Blood Crypt , as they're the best of the best.

Finally we run 1 Mountain, 2 Swamps, and 2 Islands to round out the mana base.

Gameplan

Turns 1-3:

In the early game we have two primary goals: to set up an early stax piece that ideally affects the whole table, and establish a piece of our lantern engine. To do this we want to see early ramp in the form of a mana rock, a stax piece in hand like Winter Orb or Static Orb , and a lantern piece in hand or a way to find one. Depending on the pod, delaying the lantern setup and pushing for more stax is ideal (say in a heavy combo pod like Kess, Dissident Mage , Thrasios, Triton Hero / Tymna the Weaver , and Zur the Enchanter ). Against slower decks like Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Sen Triplets , we can more reliably tutor for the lantern engine and establish some control over their draws. Fast creature based combo or stax decks like Derevi, Empyrial Tactician and Najeela, the Blade-Blossom require some form of creature control, so tutoring early for a Toxic Deluge is not unreasonable. If we can get some good set up against our pod early, we can be well positioned to go into the mid game.

Turns 4-7, if necessary:

By this point we want to have some decent control over the board, or if we opened incredibly well, we may have a really good soft lock or even hard lock established. Now we want to start finding a way to win, or continue to apply stax pieces. If we're in a decent spot, landing a value planeswalker like Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas can start drawing us cards, and making sure that we find good cards to answer any threats that pop up are important here as well: Nihil Spellbomb to deter any GY combos, counterspells to stop key plays. We also want to continue establishing our lantern engine as best as possible here, because if we develop a table lock, a hand lock is the next best thing we can do to ensure we have no responses to our win conditions.

Turn 8 and Beyond, if necessary:

Now we're at the point where we're trying to win, searching for our combo pieces like Mycosynth Lattice , Painter's Servant combo, or Isochron Scepter or cheating them into play, or using our Planeswalkers to push for game in combination with our lock pieces or other key cards (see individual card discussion for insight). If we have established a good board and controlled what's happened on it during this time, we're in a good position to close a game out.

Note that this overall gameplan is HIGHLY subjective. Some games you can win as early as turn 3 or 4 with the right setup (especially now that we have a more combo centric finish), and others you might have to grind out past turn 10 or 12. Every game is different, so don't take this gameplan section as gospel, it's just a rough outline of what you're looking to do in a vague timeframe.

But What Do I Do If Things Don't Go Right?

If we can't establish an early lock, or get some form of control either on draw steps or over what our opponents manage to play, we have to play a LOT of catchup or find a different way to apply pressure. At this point we need to try and leverage what hate pieces we can find with other members of the pod and try using politics to our advantage. Some cards like Thorn of Amethyst and Cursed Totem can be catch all answers to an entire pod, so throwing everything you can to find one of these pieces may be enough to buy you time to establish a line to win.

Sample Hands and Mulligans in Sample Matchups

To get more of a visual on how to play the list, here are some sample hands in some pods that I frequently play in, and some insight on if and why I would mulligan.

NOTE: These hands are a bit outdated with the changes to the list/reactions to bans, but the overall thought process is what is important here.

POD 1: Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge , Thrasios, Triton Hero / Tymna the Weaver , Najeela, the Blade-Blossom

This pod is extremely combo heavy, but both Najeela, the Blade-Blossom and Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge are at least somewhat creature reliant. There's also going to need to be a way to get some grave hate here to stop Thrasios, Triton Hero / Tymna the Weaver and Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge from going off, so before drawing a hand I already see what direction I need to take this game.

First hand: Bloodstained Mire , Sol Ring , Darksteel Forge , Liliana of the Veil , Damnation , Watery Grave , Sphere of Resistance . Draw is Crucible of Worlds .

This hand has a lot of great things going on, and has one of the two things I was looking for: a creature board wipe. 2 lands and a Sol Ring means I can pump out a turn 1 Sphere of Resistance , followed up by a turn 2 Liliana of the Veil , using her +1 to start stripping cards away, including my own Darksteel Forge to bring back later. I can hold Damnation for an opportune time, ideally to try and kill Najeela, the Blade-Blossom and Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge together so that they both become even more difficult to recast under Sphere of Resistance . Even utility creatures that get killed for the T&T player are good to hit. Before I even know that my draw is Crucible of Worlds , I would instantly keep this hand.

POD 2: Yisan, the Wanderer Bard , Alesha, Who Smiles at Death , Breya, Etherium Sculptor

This pod has a bit of everything: stax, combo, creature combo/beats, etc. Yisan, the Wanderer Bard is looking to accelerate off of our stax pieces, Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is looking to land stax pieces until she can land a Master of Cruelties , and Breya, Etherium Sculptor is looking to go for Worldgorger Dragon combo and Bomberman combo ( Lion's Eye Diamond and Auriok Salvagers ). Because these decks are all trying to do different things, we're looking for a hand that can establish something universally crippling that can slow everyone down, and then try and grind out advantage where we can.

First Hand: Inkmoth Nexus , Cursed Totem , Unwinding Clock , Pyxis of Pandemonium , Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast , Talisman of Indulgence , Swamp . Draw is Badlands .

This hand is surprisingly good against these decks. Cursed Totem stops a lot of what Yisan, the Wanderer Bard wants to do, and also keeps Breya, Etherium Sculptor from comboing off without removing it. Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast gives us removal for both Yisan, the Wander Bard's creatures and for any hate bears that Alesha, Who Smiles at Death can land. We have a good ramp piece with Talisman of Indulgence , and Pyxis of Pandemonium is easily the best lantern card to have when we don't have top deck information. Unwinding Clock can provide us good value going into the mid game. Overall, this hand is very keepable, and drawing a Badlands lets us keep building up mana.

POD 3: Zur the Enchanter , Edric, Spymaster of Trest , Baral, Chief of Compliance

This pod is also pretty diverse in terms of establishing win conditions, but all 3 are pretty efficient combo/control decks. Zur the Enchanter can be either the Doomsday variant or the Shimmer Myr variant, but both are still looking to control what happens on the board. Baral, Chief of Compliance is Counterspell tribal with Dramatic Scepter or Paradox Engine as a win condition, and Edric, Spymaster of Trest is looking to take infinite turns and win through creature beats. Again, this will require a pretty well rounded hand but with an emphasis on trying to see cards that are good in control mirrors.

First Hand: Mountain , Artificer's Intuition , Demonic Tutor , Misty Rainforest , No Mercy , Blood Crypt , Marsh Flats

No Mercy is exactly what I want to see against Edric, Spymaster of Trest , but this rest of this hand is really underwhelming. Nothing to pitch to Artificer's Intuition , we're land heavy, and we have no acceleration outside of tutoring for it. I would ship this hand back.

Second Hand: Tezzeret the Seeker , Swamp , Aether Spellbomb , Karn, Silver Golem , Gamble , Ancient Tomb , Verdant Catacombs .

No stax pieces, no reliable way to cast the Planeswalker without relying on draws, and Karn, Silver Golem doesn't do anything here. Going to 6.

Third Hand: Metalworker , Torpor Orb , City of Traitors , Misty Rainforest , Underground Sea , Thorn of Amethyst . Scry ends up being Tangle Wire .

Now THIS is a keepable hand. We get Thorn of Amethyst to interact with each deck, we get Torpor Orb to shut down all of the Snapcaster Mage s that are gonna be in this pod, as well as all of the other ETB creatures that these decks run, AND we get Metalworker with City of Traitors to get all of this out quickly. Everything about this hand is wonderful, and we can sit pretty on the Thorn of Amethyst and Tangle Wire for quite a while to find more gas and stax pieces.

Deck Weaknesses

A pod with multiple fast combo decks: In pods like these we are desperate to find cards like Trinisphere , Thorn of Amethyst , and Sphere of Resistance . Without these we will usually succumb to some combo before we can establish hate. We also want to see GY hate for some combos as well, so mulliganing for Leyline of the Void or Nihil Spellbomb isn't out of the question. Aggressive mulligans are the best way to try and combat these pods.
Fast creature decks or token decks: Without finding and resolving Ensnaring Bridge , these matchups can be rough. Damnation and Toxic Deluge help a lot here, but finding a permanent solution to fast creature aggression is most important here.
Some stax decks: Hate bear lists than run things like Kataki, War's Wage can be very problematic for us. Artifact light stax lists like Derevi, Empyrial Tactician run things like Stony Silence and Null Rod , which can stop us dead in our tracks. Finally, a resolved Vandalblast or overloaded Cyclonic Rift can end us as well, so dealing with those threats early is crucial to winning a pod.

Notable Exclusions

Budget Options

What this will be is a quick a dirty list of approximate card to card swaps you can make for certain expensive cards in the list. Most of these swaps will be downgrades, and for some cards there are no replacements, but for the budget player who is interested in playing this list, I will give you what swaps I would personally make in order to keep the deck running as smoothly as possible. This list will NOT include budget discussion on ABUR duals or shock lands.

Grim Monolith swap for Thran Dynamo .

Jace, the Mind Sculptor swap for Tamiyo, the Moon Sage : her +1 has good synergy with our stax pieces, and her -2 can potentially help us dig for key cards in creature heavy matchups.

City of Traitors swap for Crystal Vein : it's a strict downgrade, but still gives 2 mana, and can be brought back with Crucible of Worlds .

Mana Crypt swap for Fellwar Stone : it enters untapped and usually provides all of our colors.

Mox Diamond swap for Chrome Mox : also a downgrade, but still adds our colors at the expense of losing a card forever.

Yawgmoth's Will swap for Ill-Gotten Gains : lets opponents get stuff back as well, but under an early established Leyline of the Void this card can be really good.

Metalworker swap for Everflowing Chalice : Way way worse, but can potentially add as much mana if you have some lock and can sink mana into it.

Nether Void : Swap for Chalice of the Void . Be careful with setting it on 2 though, because if you try and go off with Dramatic Scepter combo this will stop it.

Liliana of the Veil swap for Bottomless Pit : a downgrade, and forces you to try and establish your lantern engine more quickly, but it's a decent disruption card by itself.

Land Equilibrium swap for.... Parallax Tide ? Don't do this though. The deck now no longer runs Land Equilibrium or Mana Vortex so this recommendation is a bit meh now. Both are still good includes if you choose to run them though.

Mox Opal swap for Lotus Petal : only 1 time use unless you recur it, but it accelerates you.

Leyline of the Void swap for Grafdigger's Cage : shuts down reviving Wurmcoil Engine and the like, but it's a solid 1 mana answer to a lot of creature based combo decks.

Field of Dreams : Really has no replacement, but you can stretch it and play Zur's Weirding instead. I suppose you could try Wizened Snitches , but why would you?

Force of Will : Swap for Pact of Negation . It's also free, just don't forget the upkeep cost.

Mana Drain : Swap for Counterspell . A downgrade, but still the same mana cost. We just lose out of the acceleration.

Intuition : Swap for Muddle the Mixture or Shred Memory . Both Transmute for CMC = 2, and that's good enough to find our combo pieces. Pick whichever one suits your meta best.

Shoutouts

Here is a list of people and decks that have ultimately either inspired me as an EDH player or have helped shaped this deck in one form or another.

Thank you to LabManiac_Cameron for his Season's Pastigur list, as my meta tuned version is still one of the most fun decks I've ever played.

Shoutout to Guerte and his Breya: Doomsday Artificer list for inevitably inspiring aspects of this list.

Big thanks to sickrobot and his Circu Lantern list that was a big inspiration for this deck.

Conclusion

I hope you enjoyed my primer on Mishra's Lantern! I think that the list has a lot of promise in both highly tuned EDH pods and in the cEDH metagame, and can perform admirably in a variety of situations. Please let me know in the comments if there is anything you'd like me to expand on or add to this primer, or if you have any deck suggestions in general!

Thank you for reading!

Changelog

3/25/19

Cuts: Welding Jar , Ghirapur AEther Grid , Trading Post , Trash for Treasure , Crawlspace , No Mercy , Ugin, the Spirit Dragon , Wurmcoil Engine , Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast , Karn Liberated , Darksteel Forge , Nevinyrral's Disk , Karn, Silver Golem .

Adds: Force of Will , Mana Drain , Swan Song , Cyclonic Rift , Intuition , Paradox Engine , Walking Ballista , Dramatic Reversal , Isochron Scepter , Hurkyl's Recall , Power Artifact , Staff of Domination , Rhystic Study .

Notes on changes: Cut some of the cuter cards and more unreliable win conditions for a more concise combo package and counterspell suite. This ultimately takes the deck more towards a combo/stax deck, but should still be played as a stax deck first and a combo deck second. The primer has been updated with these changes and the Single Card Discussion section has new entries for each of these new additions to explain their functions.

5/1/19

Cuts: Chalice of the Void , Dack Fayden , Unwinding Clock , Walking Ballista .

Adds: Nether Void , Ashiok, Dream Render , Karn, the Great Creator , Helm of Obedience .

Notes on changes: Finally got my hands on a Nether Void , so I cut Chalice of the Void for it. It's a strict upgrade and it's been needing to happen for a while. Dack Fayden was cut for Ashiok, Dream Render , because it provides more value to our overall gameplan than Dack Fayden does. Unwinding Clock has proven to be a bit niche and not always reliable, so Karn, the Great Creator takes its place as an additional stax piece and recursion piece. Finally, Walking Ballista has been cut after a short test time for Helm of Obedience , as it's easier to assemble a win out of Helm and Leyline of the Void than for Walking Ballista to be live when we draw it (needs more pieces to win). Enough people also play Rest in Peace in any deck that splashes white that often times finding Helm of Obedience can win without finding any additional pieces, since our opponents did the work for us.

5/15/19

Cuts: Defense Grid

Adds: Narset, Parter of Veils

Notes on changes: Defense Grid has been pretty hit or miss, and it's presence has actually cost me games where I was holding interaction that I drew into after landing the Gird. Removing this for Narset, Parter of Veils to still maintain a relative Stax effect, but also as an additional way to draw into answers.

8/26/19

Cuts: Paradox Engine , Mana Vortex , Land Equilibrium , Karn, Scion of Urza , Staff of Domination , Power Artifact , Nephalia Drownyard .

Adds: Painter's Servant , Grindstone , Brainstorm , Mystic Remora , Scroll Rack , Counterbalance , Duskmantle, House of Shadow .

Notes on changes: Well, they decided to hit Paradox Engine . Not entirely surprised, but luckily for us it doesn't hurt us at all. In fact, this ban list brought us one of my favorite combos in all of MTG: Painter's Servant + Grindstone . This is a super easy swap for this deck because the Paradox Engine combos were harder for us to assemble, required more pieces, and left us with some dead cards and bad top decks. The Painter's Servant / Grindstone combo is just 2 cards, Grindstone is a lantern piece, and Painter's Servant (as long as it stays legal, which it probably will due to the Iona hit) has some really interesting implications with cards like Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast . While these aren't included in this update, I do plan on testing them to see how consistent they are, and how well they mesh with Painter's Servant .

While Land Equilibrium and Mana Vortex were sometimes insane for me, they are almost always bad top decks, and for a deck with only 30 lands they can be a bit goofy sometimes. These were cut for Counterbalance and Scroll Rack , as now with a lower curve we can interact with cEDH decks more effectively and reactively, plus Scroll Rack can help us dig for our combos.

Karn, Scion of Urza was sometimes just hit or miss. Brainstorm is overall more effective now that we run more concise combos and Scroll Rack .

Staff of Domination and Power Artifact were part of our Paradox Engine and Metalworker ideas, but now that PE is gone, a lot of the synergy and need for infinite mana disappears. The new inclusions listed above are the replacements (and they're better, I promise), but to fill up the space I finally got to slot in Mystic Remora , a card that was long overdue for a spot in the list.

Suggestions

Updates Add

Image View Timeline

Card Odds v1 Draw hand

Add to folder Copy

Download / Export / Embed Code

Comments

Attention! Complete Comment Tutorial! This annoying message will go away once you do!

Comment:

Become a supporter of TappedOut and hide ads for only $3/month!

Important! Formatting tips — Comment Tutorial — markdown syntax

Please login to comment

Casual

91% Competitive

Top Ranked	Achieved #18 position overall 5 years ago Achieved #13 position in Commander / EDH 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Artifact 5 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Control 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 0 Mythic Rares 60 - 0 Rares 17 - 0 Uncommons 6 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	2.29
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Emblem Daretti, Scrap Savant
Folders	Deck Ideas for the Podcast, Competitive EDH, Follow, Edh, Fun Decks, 1, Primers, Weird deck ideas, test, Cool af
Votes
Ignored suggestions
Shared with
Views

Magic the Gathering, FNM is TM and copyright Wizards of the Coast, Inc, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. This site is unaffiliated. Articles and comments are user-submitted and do not represent official endorsements of this site.