I love to draw cards and I wanted to build a deck, that isn't horrible for my friends to play against. So I came up with this list and it's a lot of fun to pilot: you draw through your deck multiple times in a game and it's so cool to find one of the surprisingly many avenues to victory. This is certainly no competitive deck - far from it - but it feels very nice for a casual deck. If you have some suggestions to improve the deck I would love to hear them!

Disclaimer1: You probably won't enjoy this deck if you hate arithmetic with a passion. It sometimes gets quite difficult to come up with the right order of spells with Alhammarret's Archive in play and multiple Arjun, the Shifting Flame triggers going on the stack - you want to win and not mill yourself :D Playing this deck can be a mindmoil (pun intended =P).

Disclaimer2: This deck doesn't contain any infinite combos and no MLD, but one way of winning is milling out your opponent and some people find this unfun.

Ways to abuse the card draw of Arjun, the Shifting Flame (Payoff section)
Arjun + Alhammarret's Archive / Thought Reflection
Arjun + Sphinx's Tutelage / Jace's Erasure
Arjun + Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind / Psychosis Crawler
Arjun + Chasm Skulker
Arjun + Diviner's Wand
Arjun + Tomorrow, Azami's Familiar

Multiple Arjun, the Shifting Flame triggers
Baral's Expertise , Mind's Dilation, Oona's Grace (retrace), Recurring Insight (rebound), Think Twice (flashback) allow us to trigger Mindmoil / Arjun, the Shifting Flame multiple times.

Getting around the disadvantages of Arjun, the Shifting Flame
Elixir of Immortality, Day's Undoing , Time Reversal: So we don't deck ourselves.
Parallel Thoughts: We can always choose to draw from the Parallel Thoughts stack, even if it's empty - so it works as a tutor as well as an Obstinate Familiar.
Laboratory Maniac: Makes a win condition out of decking ourselves.
Gustha's Scepter / Brainstorm: To save cards from our hand.

Auto-includes
Sol Ring, Worn Powerstone and Izzet Signet are just very efficent ramp cards.

Draw/Ramp
Mind Stone, Commander's Sphere , Hedron Archive and Izzet Cluestone can replace themselves later on in the game. The deck doesn't need huge amounts of mana but every card in hand is very valuable once we go off.

Grab Lands
Solemn Simulacrum , Wayfarer's Bauble and Burnished Hart grab lands, which is nice to dodge artefact removal like Vandalblast.

Utility
Thought Vessel is complicated. It's very nice to be able to hold 10 cards in hand after a Recurring Insight, but sometimes it would be nice to discard down to seven if you hold 40 cards and you know you can only cast one last spell before you deck yourself.

I didn't consider the more expensive ramp cards like Gilded Lotus or Mana Vault.

Alhammarret's Archive and Thought Reflection are a pillar of this deck - they are just crazy with a Mindmoil out.

Day's Undoing and Time Reversal shuffle the graveyard back into the library. Giving us essentially a bigger deck to work with and making it possible to get keycards like Thought Reflection back from the graveyard. I'd love to add a Time Spiral (or Timetwister :P) in here - but I don't have one.

Reforge the Soul , Windfall, Time Reversal, Recurring Insight, Overwhelming Intellect (and sometimes Day's Undoing ) draw us a burst of cards, allowing us to trigger our win conditions multiple times. They are all quite insane with a Thought Reflection or an Alhammarret's Archive out.

Moonring Mirror seems interesting, I put it in without testing it yet tbh. But this can reload our hand in the mid game, something I was looking for. Also it allows us to save a spell like Laboratory Maniac for example. It's risky though, the exiled cards can be lost if the mirror gets removed.

Compulsive Research and Mystic Remora are just in here as regular draw spells. I will play around with some different options here.

Gush is the one card I'm very surprised doesn't show up on edhrec. It's soo good if you go off, since it can convert two lands into two hand cards and is a free draw spell. You can even react to a Mindmoil trigger on the stack to maximize the effect.

I like Brainstorm very much in here. With Alhammarret's Archive it's an insane one mana draw spell and with Mindmoil it let's you set aside two cards of your new hand for the next trigger.

Ponder and Preordain are just very good cantrips and Ponder let's us shuffle, which is sometimes beneficial if you know that a good card is at the bottom of your library.

Oona's Grace and Think Twice can be used multiple times out of the graveyard, which is nice to trigger Mindmoil if our hand isn't good enough.

Glorious End , Clever Impersonator , Cast Through Time , Final Fortune, Opal Palace, Academy Ruins, Blighted Cataract, Talent of the Telepath (that might be a really fun card, that triggers Mindmoil multiple times.

Recursion
Mystic Retrieval , Pull from the Deep, Spelltwine , Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  , Argivian Restoration, Buried Ruin, Mnemonic Nexus , Learn from the Past, Cranial Archive , Codex Shredder, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Psychic Spiral

Control
Curse of the Swine , Insidious Will, Foil, Volcanic Vision , Starstorm , Evacuation, Wash Out, Mystic Confluence, Rewind , Voidmage Husher, Maze of Ith , Propaganda, Capsize, Chain of Vapor, Wipe Away, Snap, Into the Roil, Reins of Power, Spiraling Embers, Counterlash

Draw
Memory Jar, Blue Sun's Zenith , Invoke the Firemind , Rhystic Study, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Mystic Speculation , Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Borrowing 100,000 Arrows , Keep Watch, Artificer's Epiphany , Concentrate, Tidings, Ugin's Insight

Tutors
I'm not planning on adding more tutors, I prefer a low tutor count for casual play and especially in this deck I don't think it's very much needed.
Trinket Mage, Archmage Ascension , Firemind's Foresight , Gamble, Merchant Scroll

Cantrips
Gitaxian Probe, Serum Visions, Whispers of the Muse, Desperate Ravings, Ignorant Bliss

Ramp
Zoetic Cavern, Everflowing Chalice , Fellwar Stone , Coldsteel Heart, Thran Dynamo, Coalition Relic, Caged Sun, Omniscience , Spectral Searchlight , Inner Fire

Combos
Tidespout Tyrant + Sol Ring + Everflowing Chalice : Infinite cast triggers and mana.
Turnabout + Reiterate: Infinite cast triggers and mana.
These combos seem cool and enticing, but I will try to stay strong and not include an infinite combo.

Mizzix's Mastery: It's supposed to be a finisher, set up a win condition and maybe a Mindmoil and cast a few draw spells out of the graveyard. But since we need cards like Time Reversal and Elixir of Immortality, it's a bit undependable. I kinda like Omniscience as a finisher, but it's a bit expensive.

Coral Atoll: I love Izzet Boilerworks in this deck. It's a land drop that doesn't cost you a hand card. Coral Atoll is similar, but without the fixing and it has to be an untapped land that you bounce. I'm very unsure about this one, what's your opinion??

Remote Isle / Smoldering Crater : Lonely Sandbar and Forgotten Cave were awesome so far, trying out the more expansive (worse) versions and see if they might be good enough. Need some playtesting with them in.

Laboratory Maniac: So far I haven't won with him yet. Also he seems like the most "unfun" way of winning in the deck. I will keep him in for the moment, but he might be on the chopping block in the near future.

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Date added 7 years
Last updated 7 years
Exclude colors WBG
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

4 - 0 Mythic Rares

35 - 0 Rares

25 - 0 Uncommons

16 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 3.59
Tokens Bird 2/2 U, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Squid 1/1 U
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