Hey LabManiac_Cameron question?You’re in a room with two doors. There’s a guard at each door. One door is the exit, but behind the other door is something that will kill you. You’re told that one guard always tells the truth and the other guard always lies. You don’t know which guard is which. You are allowed to ask one question to either of the guards to determine which door is the exit.

What question should you ask?

Hey Cameron, is Echo of Eons a good enough replacement for Timetwister ?

Jt5525e10 - Ask either guard what door the other guard would say is the exit, then choose the opposite door. If you ask the guard who always tells the truth, he knows the other guard would lie, so he’ll point you to the door leading to death. If you ask the guard who always lies, he knows the other guard would truthfully show you the exit, so he’ll lie and point you to the door leading to death.

Chillerpillar Thus far it is looking like it.

Is Transmute Artifact worth it, now that we have Bolas's Citadel as a target? Turning a signet into a citadel seems good :)

LabManiac_Cameron will you be updating your list for modern horizons after the release of 2020 to do the two at once? Love the deck :)

Hey, love the deck! Any reason for not running Training Grounds ?

Love the deck, playing my own version of it. How are you going to build around the ban of paradox engine?

atlimar - As of the Dox engine ban, no.

lanfleft - Added for now. Haven't gotten significant testing with Force of Negation yet. So it hasn't made its way in.

WildFang16 - It was in the deck previously and has been removed.

Subject-VII- - Preliminary update is in list now. shifting to Neoform & Nezahal + Incubation druid. Bolsters the freed from the real plan.

Cameron is there something that explains the freed from the real direction that you could point me to or just explain? I understand the mana outlet it can produce with something that makes multiple mana but is that it?

Is eldritch evolution not viable?

Papaglock21 We're leaning in harder on Freed lines because another avenue outside of Scepter is objectively a good thing, and there aren't really any dead cards with it outside of Freed from the Real itself. With the dox ban, this is a fine alternative to making the deck modular by having these options available if something goes awry with plan A. Now, instead of just Bloom Tender and Arbor Elf + Utopia Sprawl on a Forest, we have Incubation Druid as another target for Freed and it's important to note here that both Tender and Druid are tutorable and online via Neoform .

Valaj The redundancy Eldritch Evolution has with Neoform is not super necessary here. it is objectively worse and is only really effective if we want to grab Nezahal. It doesn't turn Incubation Druid on like Neoform does and that's a very relevant feature. If we were on Razaketh, then it would be warranted, but we're not and I don't think we want to be.

Papaglock21 - Freed from the Real is the only 'dead' combo piece for Incubation Druid / Bloom Tender / Arbor Elf + Utopia Sprawl on a Trop/Breeding Pool. However, all of those other cards also all work with Dramatic Scepter. Adding in Neoform allows us to turn a mana dork into an activated Incubation Druid or Tasigur into a Nezahal. Either way, it is a very high impact transition.

Additionally, as Planeswalkers have become more prevalent. I have actually enchanted an opponent's only blocker in order to tap it down and kill a Narset on the other side of the field.

Valaj As Dango said, Neoform activates Incubation Druid. If we were on Razaketh, then yeah it would be better and included.

LabManiac_Cameron why you keep Thought Vessel instead of Talisman of Curiosity ?

skaterajfst - good catch. I didn't. I just forgot that in the changes.

Hey LabManiac_Cameron, any tips on building this with less combo? The decklist you referenced in the description (Tidespout Tasigur Control) seems to be broken

Elywood - if you are going for less combo, take out the Dramatic Scepter package and move back to the Palinchron + Phantasmal Image package. It slows you down in that you are required to have 7 lands in play to get infinite mana, with at least three of them making blue. My older versions running Show and Tell, Omniscience, and Palinchron would take care of that.

But in the end you will always want some sort of combo to finish things off. Just with Palinchron it is much slower.

Hey Cameron!

First of all, good job constructing the concept of the deck and maintaining the article. I like the fact that it's so versatile that you can play either combo, control and/or stax. Budget wise is very attractive to me because it can be swapped between those archetypes easily by changing some pieces of the engine.

I've chosen to build around most of your concept for a commander league on my city. The catch is that it's for 1v1 play, specifically for the MTGO 1v1 commander banlist.

What would you suggest i start with? Control? Combo? Stax?

I have a Paradox Engine Arcum Dagsson deck, so i'm pretty solid on the blue side. I know my banlist doesn't ban PE yet but i'd like to be prepared beforehand or even just not have to be concerned about having to change decks on a daily basis.

Thank you again! Keep up the good work

I have some questions around Karn, the Great Creator. I get that he's a magnificent, one dimensional Null Rod, which is a strong effect. If that effect is strong enough, I guess he should be an auto-include in every cEDH deck.

What I question is how he doesn't particularly further the game plan of the rest of the shell, and he doesn't replace himself upon entering.

Is the Null Rod-effect so strong that it doesn't matter that the card in that slot isn't synergistic with the rest of the deck?

Hey Cameron, what would you say a flex card is in the list? I really wanna add back training grounds especially now that incubation druid ma

atlimar - he also lets you exile artifacts from your graveyard to Tasigur delve and then return them to your hand. The null rod effect isn't ALWAYS an auto include, in metas that are mostly mana dork based it will not be as back breaking as it is in Kess / Urza / Thras & Tymna xxxxx metas.

Legion564 - in my current list, Search for Azcanta, Praetor's Grasp or Pernicious Deed.

sabaku24 I'm not too sure I follow your question, you might be better helped by joining our discord and asking the question there with more detail - Labmaniac's Discord

LabManiac_Cameron Why is Neoform + Incubation Druid better than just running something like Diabolic Intent to tutor either Freed from the Real or Bloom Tender .

SK00MA I bet it's because Neoform puts the card into play ith a counter on it so it is ready to tap for 3.

I tried the Neoform/Druid cards and I've found that I don't really like them. Neoform becomes conditional and it's sorcery speed. I'm playing Mental Misstep and put Thought vessel back in

Sawyer3 Neoform lines aren't for everyone because they are really meta dependent. Control in general is very meta dependent, so you honestly shouldn't copy and paste Cameron's deck and follow every change he implements because this list is what works for him and his playgroup and you can't expect everything he uses here to work in yours. You should always adapt to your meta and not the general one. Feel free to stop by the Discord channel and we can help you decide on alternative avenues and directions you can take.

Dango

Yeah, my pile isn't a copy and paste, I've modified it to my local meta and gave the Neoform/Druid pieces a try and went back to the other cards that worked well for the environment I play in.

Always good to try new things, I also have this decklist modified to a Flash Hulk version that works great short game, lower long game