Zidantur

Thanks! The consistency of the list is one of its best appeals, as being able to tutor toolboxy solutions gives the deck a large amount of consistency.

As for the hack problem, since we've started running tutors like Mystical Tutor and Merchant Scroll, as well as every cheap hack available to us, we haven't really encountered issues in finding a hack. Technically, counting the tutors, we have around 11 hacks at our disposal. Even if you don't end up finding a hack through topdecks, you can always just play Momir Vig, Simic Visionary, then tutor up Vizier of the Menagerie, and win the next turn using Vizier as our hack.

Quick rulings question - so if you "hack" your commander and change the "blue" to "green" and he is moved back into the command zone or exiled, does he lose the effect? Or does mind bend make the effect permanent for the rest of the game?

h3quit0r

Hacking Momir only works for that one, specific object. MTG's rules for objects changing zones is that for most cases, when an object changes zones, it forgets everything about its previous existence. This means that if you hack Momir while he's a permanent, and he dies and goes to the Command Zone, he is effectively "unhacked".

Is there a reason you don't run wheels? You mention that refueling can be hard without Sylvan Library or Mystic Remora, so wouldn't even a single Wheel of Fortune help?

QuietSwordSereneHeart

Generally, the biggest strengths of wheels are the ability to win the same turn that you resolve one, or dump your hand early and then wheel while everyone else at the table has cards stuck in their hands. The hackball strategy isn't really great at doing either of those things, 3 mana to cast a wheel means that we're generally not going to have the mana to win after casting one, due to our lack of fast mana, and because of that same lack of fast mana (compared to faster wheel decks), it's also a lot harder and less consistent to empty our hand by turn 2 to cast the wheel, as mana dorks don't really help that.

The decision to drop wheels also came from a bunch of testing, where a lot of the time, even if we could cast a wheel, we'd find that it wouldn't be that good because we'd be able to go for a win in a turn or two anyway because of Momir, and giving the other players cards wasn't worth it, or the wheels would just rot in our hands, as we went for a win because we had everything for an attempt anyway.

How does the Chrome Mox + (any blue card)+ Natures Claim + Riftsweeper, net infinite (blue) mana?

Couldn't you run a Laboratory Maniac for another maybe easier or simpler way of winning? Throug Elvish Visionary?And what about Intruder Alarm? for easier mana generation? Without sabertooth.And what about Phyrexian Metamorph? This Way you'd have 3 Nettle Sentinels, and then could go off easily as well.Can you elucidate me on reasons not to include these?Gona give it a try to this list, in paper, only seems to me it could be easier to achieve victory with these cards above.Thank you

_BaaL_

Most of these questions are answered in the primer, but the basic summary is that all those other effects are "win-more". We already win the game when we've hacked Momir and cast a green creature, so there's no reason to run a ton of extra things that make winning "easier". You only need to win the game once, and since we want to win the game with as few "dead cards" as possible, we run compact and multi-purpose, flexible wincons. We already have more than enough mana generation (you typically can combo off with about two times the amount of mana needed), and so Metamorph and Intruder Alarm are also both unnecessary.

How does the Chrome Mox + (any blue card)+ Nature's Claim + Riftsweeper, net infinite (blue) mana? Im relatively new to competitive edh and I was having a difficult time understanding the interaction/Combo . I was also wondering if this would be a good starting deck. Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you

WarSpaniel

That specific combo to net infinite blue is rare, but it works because you only use it when you already have assembled infinite green mana + infinite card draw. It's a tool to transform G into U, and then have access to all our wincon in Winds of Rebuke. As for how the combo literally works, you cast Chrome Mox, exiling a blue card. You then tap it for U, and destroy it with Nature's Claim. Next, you put the blue card you exiled back into your deck with Riftsweeper, and put the Chrome Mox and Nature's Claim back into your library with Nantuko Tracer. Finally, you loop your Elvish Visionary to draw all the pieces again, then repeat. This allows you to turn infinite G into infinite U, but we don't really need it, since we already run Birchlore Rangers (for other reasons).

This deck, especially its budget versions, are a pretty good starting point for competitive EDH. It's a little bit on the complicated side, but if you practice a little and stay aware during games, you should be fine. Feel free to pop by our Discord server if you want quick replies for any questions you have!

Hi are there any cards in new sets worth of considering/including in the deck?

Thanks in advance.

lynden

Apart from the sick new Llanowar Elves art, I don't see anything particularly compelling from recent sets.

Hey there.

First off, sick deck. I'm running a somewhat budget version of this deck. Cradles are expensive lol.

Second,--not sure if you have answered a similar question already--what's your reason for not using Laboratory Maniac? I have it in my deck list as an alternative win con whenever I'm unlucky enough to have a Glimpse of Nature in my hand instead of a hack piece, because going infinite won't be possible without decking out due to Glimpse not having a "may draw" wording.

Thanks, and let me say again, this is a wonderful list. +1

SiegeRhiNOOO

Nice catch! You've actually hit on the biggest issue that the budget Cradle-less versions have. I've been meaning to do a write-up here on the primer for it.

In this version of the list, the version with Crop Rotation and Gaea's Cradle, we actually use a different infinite mana combo entirely to solve the Glimpse Problem.

1. After drawing your entire deck with Glimpse and the normal mana combo, you should have a pretty big amount of mana (over 30 or 40 most likely).
2. Cast some creatures in your hand to bump creature count up to as high as you can get it reasonably. I don't know the exact number, but I shoot for about 20 creatures to give me wiggle room. Be sure to cast Green Sun's Zenith in between creature casts so you don't deck out.
3. If Gaea's Cradle is stuck in your hand, use Glamerdye to get it in the yard, then Nantuko Tracer it onto the bottom of your library.
4. Cast Crop Rotation and fetch out the Gaea's Cradle, then tap it for big mana.
5. Temur Sabertooth the Nantuko Tracer back to hand, cast Green Sun's Zenith, then cast Nantuko Tracer to put Crop Rotation on the bottom of your library.
6. Bounce and cast Nantuko Tracer again, which draws you into Crop Rotation. Put the land you sacrificed earlier onto the bottom of your library.
7. Cast Crop Rotation and sacrifice Gaea's Cradle as the additional cost, and fetch out the land you put into your library earlier.
8. Temur Sabertooth the Nantuko Tracer back to hand, cast Green Sun's Zenith, then cast Nantuko Tracer to put Crop Rotation on the bottom of your library.
9. Bounce and cast Nantuko Tracer again, which draws you into Crop Rotation. When it ETBs, put Gaea's Cradle onto the bottom of your library.
10. Repeat steps 4-8 to generate infinite green mana, and then go through all the normal win steps. Just make sure you keep casting Green Sun's Zenith to keep you alive

In the budget lists, we haven't found the "perfect solution" for the Glimpse problem quite yet. The issue is that we want to preserve "slot integrity", which just means that we try to keep cards as useful as we can outside of the combos. For instance, this is why we use Winds of Rebuke instead of Laboratory Maniac, because Winds of Rebuke is more useful outside of the combo. The best budget solutions we have so far are things like Lightning Greaves or Exploration + Alchemist's Refuge, but since those cards aren't really that good on their own, they compromise slot integrity. For this reason, our budget lists just run Crystal Spray instead of Glimpse of Nature (for now).

If you want to hop on our Discord Server sometime, we'd love to have your help solving this problem!

SiegeRhiNOOO

Oh, one more thing. If you run both Ancient Tomb and Cavern of Souls, you are probably fine with also running Crop Rotation in the budget list, and you can get around the Glimpse problem by running Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx instead.

How do you feel about Spellseeker? It can be a interchangeable piece for the Winds of Rebuke combo in our end game, taking the place of Heart Warden with the downsides of not drawing our whole deck, and we can't use it to start a tutor chain. This gets around draw hate cards at the expense of search hate cards. Spellseeker on the upside does search for all of our instant and sorceries, aside from Force of Will, so it can be used to find any of our Hacks to start a chain. Another way to look at it is that Spellseeker is a reusable Merchant Scroll.

I wasn't the most clear with my first post. I'm not suggesting switching Heart Warden for Spellseeker. It would more so be a replacement for Merchant Scroll. I understand all the redundancy and combos that Heart Warden provides. Merchant Scroll on the other hand is something to think about, as I already said, has the sole advantage of getting Force of Will.

Catgroove

For perspective, at the point that we'd need Heart Warden, we already are able to get rid of any threats on the board like Aven Mindcensor or Spirit of the Labyrinth.

That said, I've been thinking hard about Spellseeker, but I don't think I will end up playing it in this list, mainly due to its expensive mana cost. Compared to Merchant Scroll, it's 4 vs 3 mana to find a hack. While this might not sound significant, this is a pretty important number, as the turn after we play Momir Vig, Simic Visionary we typically have about 5, sometimes 6 mana. A 3 mana hack can be cast, along with a 1cmc green creature, and finally Quirion Ranger, and fully start off a chain. However, Spellseeker costs 1 more and wouldn't be able to be used for this purpose.

There's also the idea that Heart Warden is more useful outside of combo turn than it seems. We need a certain density of 2 mana ramp, and if it wasn't Heart Warden it might end up being something like Voyaging Satyr.

This is sort of out of character for me, but for once, I think that freeing slots might not be favorable, since it will decrease the quality of the slot that is left. However, I'd certainly encourage people to explore and test this out even more, since Spellseeker has a lot of interesting facets which I've most likely missed. As it stands, I like the "more, but more useful" setup we have with our combo slots, as opposed to "fewer, but less useful". Thanks for your really thought-out comment, though! I haven't thought about it from the perspective of replacing Merchant Scroll before.

I would suggest something along the lines of Concordant Crossroads or Lightning Greaves to make your mana much more efficient.

Thanks alot for the inspiration. I used to play momir vig with a similar stategy, but used Soul of the Harvest and similar things instead of hacks, cause I never thought about that option. It always was a bit too slow, but now I can finally speed up the combo.

I’m looking into building this deck but I have a question. Does winds of rebuke work against an opponent with an Eldrazi Titan in the deck? Like eventually they would have just that card in the deck and be asked to draw 2 and the would die? Or do they draw the Titan, put it in the yard, and then it just goes back to the deck letting them draw forever. Thanks

gsbsharp When you hit the titan, use Scavenging Ooze to exile it in response to the trigger, and then just keep milling them

I had a similar question about cards with replacement effects. The new Nexus of Fate and less common Blightsteel Colossus never actually reach the GY before being shuffled back in. Is there anything that can be done in this case?

..I suppose the old reality shift win gets around this?

Conicalpile in the case that someone has a replacement effect, just do the combo normally, bounce all of their nonland permanents, untap all your elves to have blue mana held up with Birchlore Rangers, discard to 7 counterspells, and just win through combat damage next turn as they shouldn't be able to win through having their deck exiled, only their hand + nexus to work with, no board, and you holding up 7 counterspells.

What are you guys thinking about the spoiled Beast Whisperer? I think about it as an upgrade for the Vizier of the Menagerie, because you don't rely on your Heart Warden to draw the deck. Any other thoughts on that topic?