Taigam of the 10,000 fist

Commander / EDH* Combo Competitive Control Counters Primer WU (Azorius)

Teh-MTG-Doge

Instant (28)

• 1x Anticipate
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disallow
• 1x Disenchant
• 1x Dispel
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Mindbreak Trap
• 1x Misdirection
• 1x Mission Briefing *f-pre*
• 1x Muddle the Mixture
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Negate
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Stifle
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Tale's End
• 1x Thirst for Knowledge
• 1x Trickbind

Creature (9)

• 1x Aven Mindcensor
• 1x Baral, Chief of Compliance
• 1x Containment Priest
• 1x Curious Homunculus  ^Flip
• 1x Drift of Phantasms
• 1x Hushbringer
• 1x Sunscape Familiar
• 1x Thryx, the Sudden Storm
• 1x Wavebreak Hippocamp

Artifact (19)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Azorius Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Everflowing Chalice
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grafdigger's Cage
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Mox Amber
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Sapphire Medallion
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Progress
• 1x Thought Vessel
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

Land (20)

• 1x Adarkar Wastes
• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Gemstone Caverns
• 1x Glacial Fortress
• 1x Hallowed Fountain
• 7x Island
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Mystic Sanctuary
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Sea of Clouds
• 1x Tundra

Commander (1)

Sorcery (19)

• 1x Call to Mind
• 1x Capture of Jingzhou
• 1x Compulsive Research
• 1x Deja Vu
• 1x Extract
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Merchant Scroll
• 1x Personal Tutor
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Relearn
• 1x Sage's Knowledge
• 1x Serum Visions
• 1x Shimmer of Possibility
• 1x Sleight of Hand
• 1x Temporal Manipulation
• 1x Time Warp
• 1x Timetwister
• 1x Windfall

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Copy Artifact
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Omen of the Sea
• 1x Rhystic Study

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Sideboard

Instant (7)

• 1x Mana Leak
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Return to Dust
• 1x Silence
• 1x Spell Pierce
• 1x Teferi's Protection
• 1x Unsubstantiate

Artifact (2)

• 1x Lightning Greaves
• 1x Whispersilk Cloak

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Maybeboard

Instant (8)

• 1x Delay
• 1x Mental Misstep
• 1x Rapid Hybridization
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Spell Pierce
• 1x Supreme Will
• 1x Telling Time
• 1x Winds of Rebuke

Creature (2)

• 1x Alseid of Life's Bounty
• 1x Thassa's Oracle

Artifact (2)

• 1x Key to the City
• 1x Witching Well

Land (1)

• 1x Maze of Ith

Enchantment (2)

• 1x Mirrormade
• 1x Search for Azcanta  ^Flip

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

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Pre-note please read

Decks are growing and changing things as new ideas are tried, this primer is also still in a state of change as I’m working on the transition. I've also never worked with HTML before so updates are a little slow. Still a WIP in many ways, thank you

Non-deck stuff Show

Who am I

Hello, my name is Kyle and this is my Taigam, Ojutai master - Intuition pile deck entitled Taigam of the 10,000 Fist.

I've been playing Magic: the Gathering since the release of Dragons of Tarkir. I got into MtG when a roommate invited me to the game store and we ended up splitting a box of boosters. He busted an Atarka and I Silumgar, from there we threw decks together and the magic began. I've built a number of decks over the years and still have a love for each one. In 2017 I picked up the Dragons commander deck and one of the first decisions I made was to pull Taigam out and give him his own deck. Most in my store said he was strong but he'd always be about 'optimized' but I liked the idea of the rebound and wanted a control deck, at the time I had not even heard of cEDH. Over these years I have avoided any net decking for him, testing and trying out interesting things, slowly piecing together what it now is and affording the expensive cards since I only play paper so far. This list is what is known as a cockatrice list with no budget.

Thank you for your time and any comments, I hope there are others who can enjoy this list as much as I have.

P.S. I know some places have rules about getting approved to be called a "primer" but have seen no indication of that here. If there is such please let me know so I may correct the situation. I had noticed Taigam does not have

Introduction to the Deck Show

Is this deck for you?

Do you want to abuse TF out of instants and sorceries? Do you want to try and play with as few non-mana, non-combo permanents as possible? Do you like the idea of a deck that can pull off a turn two combo but also has strong control to manage other deck? Do you want protection from Lavinia's second clause and still cast instant and sorcery spells for free? If you said yes to these this deck may just be for you.

Deck Philosophy

With this list I am not looking to make the new all time king of cEDH, but want to push Taigam to as strong as he can be and present a strong cEDH version of the deck. This idea started very early in my brewing that I decided I wanted to avoid online lists and just try things. I also decided early that I really wanted to showcase Taigam's rebound ability and as part of that skim down to as few creatures as possible in the deck, without sacrificing power.

Was doing pretty good on both of these when I was able to trade for and add the card Intuition. I quickly learned how powerful of a card it is, especially in Taigam. With the third and final addition I had the three things I really wanted this deck to focus on.

• Show Taigam as strong as I can make him
• Focus on using instants and sorceries
• Showcase Intuition as a powerhouse, especially in Taigam

Let's talk about Taigam

Before delving into the deck we should take a moment to discuss Taigam himself. A not so humble monk from the mountain temples of the Ojutai Clan on the plane of Tarkir, the best of the great teacher's human pupils and peer to the mighty Narset. Powerful and full of ambition Taigam is the model of cunning and the dragon's eye.

He's a blue, white, and two generic for a 3/4 human monk with two very important abilities. The first is a state based "Instant, sorcery... spells you control cannot be countered by spells or abilities". As a constant effect Taigam protects the majority of what we are doing allowing us to keep our interaction for what our opponents do. His second block of text triggers when we cast instant or sorcery spells and gives them rebound, if he had already attacked this turn. Even if Taigam gets removed, which we can typically stop, the spell will have rebound allowing us to get it again for free at our next upkeep. It is in this way that Taigam gives us extra value to the majority of our spells, especially tutors and time spells. So that's what he is and what he does, but how does that fit in for cEDH?

When evaluating a commander, especially for cEDH, there are three things that I typically consider.

1. Mana cost
2. Card advantage
3. Combo-ability

At four mana Taigam is starting to push it for cEDH but still remains in common turn two play-ability, maybe even turn one if we are lucky. This puts him firmly within reasonable range but still have to put in the effort, so his CMC is OK. Though he doesn't directly draw us any cards or tutor, his rebound trigger allows us to get our draw spells and tutors a second time for free. It's indirect but this is a form of card advantage provided by Taigam and helps to catch up or expand the disparity between us and our opponents, takes a little extra work but it is equivalent to dig. And finally is combo-ability. Taigam is an important and central piece to our extra turns combo allowing him to punch opponents to death in one stretched out turn.

While pushing the envelope in some categories Taigam has a CMC we can work with, indirect card advantage, and a combo he is a part of. His first ability is an extremely strong form of protection for pretty much everything we want to do, allowing us to focus our control on stopping others more and less worry about if our own spells are safe. Especially in a meta with Lavinia, Azorius Renegade this protection is good. While others cannot Force, Pact, Gush, etc. we are free and clear.

Introduction to the Deck

Taigam of the 10,000 Fist is a spell slinging deck in Blue/White, missing the commonly included red. While our density is pretty strong we don't quite reach the lofty spot of storm. Instead of trying to reach a critical mass of spells cast in a single turn we want to use Taigam's rebound to keep our turn going until we have been able to punch our opponents to death.

The most powerful line in the deck is through an Intuition pile, especially since we can get free uses of it and recur it repeatedly. We'll be going over intuition later and what it's place in this deck is a little later.

Now for the deck Show

10,000 Fists

Now that we've looked at Taigam let's take a moment to discuss the combo that we are going for using Taigam. This combo involves getting a free second use of our turn and Call to Mind ("CTM") effects via Taigams triggered rebound ability. Because of the free second use our CTM effects are able to +1 our hand allowing a recycle effect. Once we add the turns we are able to give ourselves enough time to remove problematic pieces on the board and swing for commander damage at our opponents, visually I like to think of it as Taigam slowing down time to land 10,000 blows in a single moment.

So lets go over how it works mechanically. Taigam's second ability triggers when we cast either an instant or sorcery spell, of which all cards in our combo are. When the trigger resolves it checks to see if Taigam had attacked this turn and if so gives the card rebound. So, having already attacked for the turn, we cast a time spell. Taigam will trigger and, unless they have a stifle or disallow, our turn spell will cast again on the next turn giving us two extra turns total. Even if Taigam is removed from the field the spell will have rebound stretching it out to two turns. Assuming Taigam is removed we can spend the first turn recasting him and hopefully ramping/digging. On the second turn he attacks and we can both recur and cast a turn spell again. This is all courtesy of rebound, allowing us to get a second use of both our turn and CTM effects allows us to string the two in a cycle of turns as we punch everyone to death.

It's a fun combo that is Taigam specific and helps to justify the expense of turn spells.

Intuition pile

Intuition is one of our methods to assemble this combo and with Taigam trigger is easily one of the more powerful things we are able to do. Intuition is a powerful tutor, an opponent may choose which we get but when we have multiple copies of the same effect in the deck we can ensure we will get what we want. It only becomes more powerful with rebound and cost reduction. It is able to get the exact pieces we need in just one cast and a rebound, as well as provides heavy deck filtering so we are far more likely to draw into the responses we will now need with the pile rolling. And if we don't we can bring it back and use it to get that protection or even mana. It isn't the only way to call up and assemble our combo but it's a strong one and easily the funnest.

There are a few target categories for our Intuition pile, but we're going to go over the main two that are required for the combo since the other categories have so many options it's really just depends on what is left in the library.

• CTM

This categories namesake comes from the best card in the target group. In the CTM pile we are looking for cards that will let us recur our instants and sorceries back to our hand. In the deck this includes Call to Mind, Sage's Knowledge, Deja Vu, and Relearn. If we already have two of these in hand/graveyard/rebound/etc. we can also call upon Mission Briefing to start the line.


• Turns


Next on the list is the turns pile. Five mana turn spells that Taigam pulls out to be a Time Stretch and do not put themselves in another zone. Usually we intuition fast enough/on a turn where CTM is our first pick since that's what we'll have back up mana to cast and can hopefully pull a Force or other affordable control piece to help us last till the next turn. Though if we have the mana for it going for turns first is a lot stronger. This is aided by really strong mana especially cost reducers. In this case we are able to tutor up our turn spells and cast one. We go to the extra turn, at beginning of upkeep we gain another turn as well as Intuition for our CTM category. These spells include Temporal Manipulation, Capture of Jingzhou, and Time Warp
• Ramp
• Control
• Removal

We can use Intuition to pull from from any of these groups as well, though doing so implies either a slower game with more control, need ramp, or there is a creature in the way of Taigam and it needs to be removed.

Secondary Lines to Assemble Turns

While Intuition is very powerful it isn't always going to be in our first couple turns and it's never prudent to spend tutors to get a tutor if we don't have to. Both Mystical Tutor and Personal Tutor can get our turns going by pulling a single turn or CTM effect at a time.

Deck Tech and FAQ

FAQ

• Lavinia lockout

Recently the stax lockout commander Lavinia was released and her ability to shut down a lot of the free things cEDH decks want to do has garnered her interest. Normally Lavinia, Azorius Renegade’s second ability stops her opponents from getting to do things for free. For many this can be a huge hindrance, but because of the way she does this it actually helps Taigam, at least in the sense it hurts us the least. Instead of saying we cannot even cast these spells like her first ability states, it says these spells get countered. But Taigam says neither spells nor abilities can counter our instants and sorceries, so out rebounded spells are safe with Taigam in play. We can even get around her lockout stax. Our ramp in the other hand is more vulnerable, plus it means we have to wait to cast turn spells until we have five lands in play.

Extras Show

First Hand

With Taigam of the 10,000 fist there isn't much in the way of specific cards that we are aggressively mull-ing for, but we can still get an idea of what we are looking for. Ramp has got to be one of the biggest of them, we need to get Taigam out ASAP and waiting till turn four to do it can't happen. After that we'd like to see a good spread of our other main categories. Preferably a tutor, some control, dig if we can but tutor preferred. If there is stax or heavy control around personal tutor can line straight into intuition via merchant scroll or pull mystical tutor if our mana curve is going to have to be lower.

Notable Exceptions, testing cards, extra.

Testing

• Extract

Looking at Extract as a means to be more aggressive and remove our opponent's win-cons before they can even see them. With double use and being able to pull it back, getting it off twice should be good enough to severely hurt most decks. While well built decks will have back up win-cons taking out even one should be good and in theory we'll be able to do even more. I've had it in deck for about a week but in the few games I've had it hasn't shown up. Decided to go ahead and add to the list but still in testing.

Notable Exceptions/Exclusions

• Not Forgotten

Not forgotten is a fairly reasonable include for Taigam, it mostly accomplishes the CTM affect but at one mana less and gains us a 1/1. Totally fair argument and I'm all for others doing that, so it's more an exception than an exclusion. For me, I want to get that card right to my hand and use it now. With the ramp we have in the deck, including cost reducers, it's felt pretty consistent on affording at least an Intuition into a CTM effect we can cast the same turn. Or a counter, draw, removal, other combo piece, even time spell if we ramped hard enough. For me that makes the extra mana worth it, personal preference.

• Elixir of Immortality

I think Elixir of Immortality is a really good card, so far I haven't found myself in a position where I needed it. Additionally our graveyard is nice to have access to and reuse our cards. Everything I want to get back I can CTM for or I draw into it because of how fast the deck can get filtered. A card that really connects to this is Stream of Consciousness. Instead of doing your whole library you can get specific cards meaning you get to keep some of your filter effect. Also means you don't have to risk seeing card's you don't want to see. But Stream also can hit opponent's graveyards meaning we can force put those back in. Necrotic Ooze, respond to resurrection effect, etc. and we can rebound it. I'd probably put stream back in before Elixer.

If graveyard removal became meta common for me I would slot in Elixir as a way to save my graveyard if possible.

• Grand Abolisher

As the deck is I felt I just didn't have the room, if a certain change sticks after playing there should be room for Grand Abolisher.

• Narset Transcendent

I'm not against Narset Transcendent, her ability to rebound when Taigam isn't available can make a huge difference. Though I feel she's a little expensive mana wise to get off the same turn you play her, 9 mana for her and a turn spell. I'm usually winning with 5-8 mana on field, playing Taigam when we have four and hopefully starting a chain the next turn with five. I haven't had too hard of a problem with stopping removal or recovering from it, Taigam protecting our control makes it easier to stop. Because of that it's cost hasn't really been worth it in the games that I've played. I can see it as a meta call if you're being forced into later game or Taigam is constantly being removed, though I feel a meta tuning would be more effective.

• Enlightened Tutor

With the removal of the drama-stick combo will be working back in on the next update as a means to get strong ramp early.

Stats

Average Turn Cycle Wins

• 70 games of goldfish (so far): 4.38
• 12 in game wins: 4.11
• W/L ratio tracking to be added eventually

Thanks

Thanks to

• mindcrank360 for asking question to fill sections of the primer

Date added	7 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	8 - 0 Mythic Rares 43 - 2 Rares 19 - 4 Uncommons 22 - 3 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	1.93
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U
Folders	make it, EDH, Want to build, Legends of Tarkir