Thrasios/Silas Doomstaff Oathtide

Commander / EDH* BUG (Sultai) Competitive Creatureless Storm

Wishwreath

Instant (29)

• 1x Ad Nauseam
• 1x Assassin's Trophy
• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Cabal Ritual
• 1x Chain of Vapor
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Dark Ritual
• 1x Delay
• 1x Dramatic Reversal
• 1x Flusterstorm
• 1x Force of Will
• 1x Frantic Search
• 1x Gush
• 1x High Tide
• 1x Hurkyl's Recall
• 1x Impulse
• 1x Intuition
• 1x Lim-Dul's Vault
• 1x Mana Drain
• 1x Memory's Journey
• 1x Mystical Tutor
• 1x Narset's Reversal
• 1x Noxious Revival
• 1x Pact of Negation
• 1x Reality Shift
• 1x Swan Song
• 1x Turnabout
• 1x Vampiric Tutor
• 1x Veil of Summer

Enchantment (6)

• 1x Carpet of Flowers
• 1x Mystic Remora
• 1x Necropotence
• 1x Oath of Druids
• 1x Power Artifact
• 1x Squandered Resources

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Jace, Wielder of Mysteries

Land (29)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Bayou
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Breeding Pool
• 1x City of Brass
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Forbidden Orchard
• 7x Island
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Misty Rainforest
• 1x Morphic Pool
• 1x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Polluted Delta
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Scalding Tarn
• 1x Swamp
• 1x Tropical Island
• 1x Underground Sea
• 1x Verdant Catacombs
• 1x Watery Grave
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Sorcery (13)

• 1x Demonic Tutor
• 1x Doomsday
• 1x Gitaxian Probe
• 1x Imperial Seal
• 1x Mind's Desire
• 1x Night's Whisper
• 1x Ponder
• 1x Praetor's Grasp
• 1x Regrowth
• 1x Time Spiral
• 1x Toxic Deluge
• 1x Windfall
• 1x Yawgmoth's Will

Commanders (2)

Artifact (21)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox
• 1x Dimir Signet
• 1x Engineered Explosives
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Grim Monolith
• 1x Isochron Scepter
• 1x Lion's Eye Diamond
• 1x Lotus Petal
• 1x Mana Crypt
• 1x Mana Vault
• 1x Mox Amber
• 1x Mox Diamond
• 1x Mox Opal
• 1x Proteus Staff
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Dominance
• 1x Voltaic Key
• 1x Wishclaw Talisman

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Maybeboard

Enchantment (3)

• 1x Exploration
• 1x Heartbeat of Spring
• 1x Waste Not

Artifact (1)

• 1x Bolas's Citadel

Instant (3)

• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Culling the Weak
• 1x Dispel

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Narset, Parter of Veils

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Dark Petition

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Introduction

Thanks for checking out my list! This primer is a work in progress.

Welcome to my mini primer on Doomstaff Oathtide, a BUG storm list headed by Thrasios, Triton Hero and Silas Renn, Seeker Adept. This is a low tier cEDH deck that is designed to play similar storm lines to established cEDH lists (e.g. Doomtide T&T, Kess Storm, Jeleva Slim, Shimmer Zur, etc.) while also having access to some "one card win conditions" in Oath of Druids and Proteus Staff. Ultimately, this list combines the ideas and card quality of various storm decks and combines them into an incredibly flexible core package that can storm off from seemingly unassuming positions. I have really enjoyed piloting the deck, it's a tremendous amount of fun, and it has quickly become my favorite deck to play. For anyone interested in playing storm or for players who are storm veterans, I hope that you enjoy the read and give the deck a try!

Why Thrasios and Silas Renn?

Buckle in for a long section here, but I think it's important to completely outline why this specific commander combination has been selected over other options.

Competitive EDH has a lot of choices for commanders, many better than others in a lot of respects. In terms of evaluating storm commanders, there are a handful that come to mind immediately as viable or established: Breya, Etherium Shaper, Ydris, Maelstrom Wielder, Kess, Dissident Mage, Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge, Kykar, Wind's Fury, Thrasios, Triton Hero with either Vial Smasher the Fierce or Tymna the Weaver, etc. A lot of these lists offer specific benefits and concede some advantages, but all of them are playable and successful to at least some degree.

When initially choosing commanders to pilot a storm list, my first instinct was to look at old Tymna and Thrasios (T&T) Doomtide lists before anything else. There's a lot to love about them: Access to a ton of mana, 4 colors for card flexibility Doomsday, Isochron Scepter combo with Dramatic Reversal, Auriok Salvagers + Lion's Eye Diamond for infinite mana, and depending on the list there were some great outlets for all of the mana and/or card advantage: Aetherflux Reservoir, Bolas's Citadel as a more recent include, Paradox Engine (RIP), Mind's Desire, Walking Ballista, and even Tendrils of Agony as shared with red based storm decks like Ydris, Maelstrom Wielder. They run a lot of efficient and compact win conditions, and can storm off from out of nowhere without always needing to rely on their "2 card combos". Along with all of this, their color combination and efficiency can lead to a lot of other possibilities and tech choices.

As a quick side note, even though I could have delved into Kess, or Elsha, or Ydris and attempted to do something with those cores, I'm not sure there's much I can add to those lists to improve them. Additionally they all run Red, which while is a great color for storm, cards like Past in Flames, Wheel of Fortune, and the red ritual spells like Seething Song all have other options in different colors. Commanders like Ydris and Kess tend to rely very on their ability to cast and resolve the commander (especially with Ydris) for storm turns, and another of my big goals in brainstorming ideas was to not have my commander be absolutely integral to the strategy. So, while Thrasios provides an infinite mana sink and card advantage, he is not necessary for a lot of storm lines, and doesn't require me to play red for redundant rituals.

Back on track, why not just play Tymna and Thrasios if it's already tried and true in so many ways? In looking at these lists and strategies, my big idea was to shy away from Tymna in storm for a few reasons:

1. Tymna/Thrasios comes in a lot of different variants, and is thus very unpredictable in exactly what kind of deck it can be (Hulk, control, storm, Consultation, and now Fish variants). Despite this, Tymna has always been integral in her inclusion for colors and for being a draw engine no matter what the core strategy is; however, many decks now include powerful, mana efficient creatures to block Tymna to prevent the card draw: Oakhame Adversary, Runic Armasaur, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben just to name a few, but all of these creatures can come down early and even before Tymna and effectively shut all of her card draw down. After the Paradox Engine ban, being able to block Tymna became much more important and has continued to stay that way to a large degree. To address unpredictability, even by playing T&T and with all of its variants, there is still a certain level of certainty in what variant you are facing as many of them share a core set of cards, especially given certain metas (like Thassa's Oracle based lists which are now the majority of T&T lists) at the time of writing this.
2. Even in more all in combo or storm centered decks with Tymna, she still requires a decent creature count in order to make the most out of her draw ability. Something like Arbor Elf might make mana, but when the mana isn't always required it turns into free card draw with Tymna. If you shut off Tymna's creature flow, her card draw gets worse. Additionally, drawing into those creatures on a combo turn (things like Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves) don't do anything to help produce mana on that turn unless they somehow have haste (which they likely don't).
3. Despite providing access to 4 colors with Thrasios, white does not add a primary form of attack that is absolutely necessary for a storm deck to function. In most Tymna/Thrasios combo lists the amount of white cards is minimal and usually culminates into just Dovin's Veto, Enlightened Tutor, Silence, Smothering Tithe, Angel's Grace, Auriok Salvagers, Swords to Plowshares, Eladmari's Call, and maybe a few others. While a lot of these cards are excellent, none of them are inherently irreplaceable by cutting white out of the list and shifting to another partner for Thrasios, allowing us to maintain an infinite mana sink but offering something that was less "creature centric". While it would change some of the combos, removal, and interaction, it would also smooth out the mana base to make some of the more storm focused combos (like High Tide lines) that T&T runs more focused, streamlined, and easier to have colors for.

Now, there are also card specific reasons as to why I have shied away from Tymna:

1. Oath of Druids. As mentioned above, Tymna lists usually rely on a combination of rocks and mana dorks to produce mana, and those mana dorks are also important in drawing cards off of Tymna's trigger. Some variants also rely on Hermit Druid in order to facilitate Protean Hulk combos, allowing them to put their entire deck into the graveyard to combo out. I realized that by running no creatures in the deck, I can still have access to a Hermit Druid effect in Oath of Druids while removing the mana dorks that would otherwise be dead draws on the combo turn. In removing mana dorks, it also neuters Tymna's draw ability to the point that it makes more sense to just add efficient draw spells in place of the creatures, and cut Tymna all together for something that can benefit the deck from a different angle. Additionally, Oath of Druids does not inhibit me from playing basic lands like Hermit Druid would in order to get the mill effect, so I can easily run High Tide and get the best of both worlds.
2. Proteus Staff. Similar to Elsha of the Infinite and Fblthp, the Lost decks where they utilize this card as a win condition to stack their decks and win, by having no creatures in the list we can also use this card with Thrasios, Triton Hero in order to have access to not just our perfect top decks, but also our infinite mana outlet. While Thrasios does not allow for playing cards off of the top of the library or drawing two cards when he ETBs, by utilizing him with Proteus Staff we guarantee access to our mana sink in the event that we draw into infinite mana combos or ways to find them. What this requires is the ability to be able to draw cards after activating Proteus Staff, and a storm focused list will be able to have sufficient draw to make this functional.

Hopefully this shows why although Tymna is great, there are enough considerations which don't always make her the ideal partner for Thrasios, at least for storm. So now we have a Thrasios, Triton Hero and no partner for him, so let's give him one.

When evaluating for commander choice, the basic principles that a lot of people go to are the following:

1. Does the commander provide card advantage?
2. Is the commander a combo piece?
3. Does the commander act as a win condition?
4. Does the commander have a reasonable casting cost or reliable way to get into play?
5. Does the commander have a powerful ability that is worth having access to in order to fuel a win condition?

As long as a commander can fulfill some of these principles, they are likely viable in cEDH to some degree, with partners being some of the most viable and considered options in cEDH.

It is already well understood that Thrasios, Triton Hero fulfills virtually all of those principles: He provides card advantage with his ability, he is a combo piece in that he is an outlet for infinite mana (which functions as a win condition), and he has a CMC of 2, making him easy to cast at any point in the game. He is also in two of the best colors in MTG, and for all of those reasons he is considered to be one of the best commanders available to us.

So what about the other partner? We have a lot of options available to us, but I will outline the best options for this strategy.

1. Vial Smasher the Fierce. Gives us access to black for all of the tutors we could ask for, and while it does require some amount of red to be optimal, that's a fine concession. The downside is that Vial Smasher's ability is not exceptionally good in focused storm decks, and because of this he requires a specific deck to be at his best. This is where decks like Curious Control and 4C Rashmi come into play, and while those decks are fantastic, we are looking to do something different.
2. Kraum, Ludevic's Opus. Not an amazing option, but it provides card draw and a big body, albeit at a CMC of 5. Pass.
3. Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix. She provides a lot of mana for drawing cards but limits us to just Simic colors, which really hurts available tutor options.
4. Silas Renn, Seeker Adept.

This is where Silas gets his own section: Silas Renn, Seeker Adept is deceptively good when looking at storm potential. He has a LOT to offer to the table that benefits a lot of storm's game plans:

1. Access to Black for all of the tutors, rituals, and most importantly Yawgmoth's Will.
2. Low CMC body with Deathtouch, an amazing deterrent and blocker when we plan on running 0 creatures in the main deck. This allows us to block and remove things like Tymna, The Gitrog Monster, and anything else that would swing at our otherwise completely undefended life total.
3. An ability that recurs artifacts from the graveyard. Thanks to his Deathtouch, it is unlikely that he will always be blocked. This acts as an insurance policy for board wipes that would destroy our mana rocks, and he can also recur win conditions like Aetherflux Reservoir and Proteus Staff while also being a reasonable target for the latter if we have the mana/card draw to win without an infinite mana sink. He can also act as pseudo ramp by returning cards like Lotus Petal, and if attempting the combo out during second main phase, he can allow us access to an important artifact that we may otherwise need Yawgmoth's Will to retrieve instead.

TBC....

Combo Lines

In this section I will go over the various combos or combo enablers that the list can play.

Oath of Druids Combo Show

This card is essentially the Hermit Druid of our deck, but almost better in that it allows us to play High Tide for storm lines while still milling our entire library. The power of this card is one of the reasons that we elect to play 0 creatures in the list. This combo begins during your upkeep, and it requires the following:

1. Oath of Druids in play before your upkeep.
2. Any opponent having more creatures in play than you do.
3. A minimum of available in your mana pool ( must be available during your upkeep, must be available during your main phase).

The combo in detail:

1. During your upkeep, the Oath of Druids trigger will go on the stack. If it resolves, you will reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a creature and put it into play, with all other cards going to the graveyard. Since you have no creatures in your library, you will put your entire library into your graveyard.

2. Now you have no library and will lose during your draw step. Before your Draw Step, you will need to cast Memory's Journey for its Flashback cost () from your graveyard, targeting Yawgmoth's Will, in order to shuffle it into your library. Since you have no library, your library will now become Yawgmoth's Will.

3. Move to your draw step and draw the last remaining card in your library, Yawgmoth's Will. Cast Yawgmoth's Will for .

4. Now you have access to every card in your graveyard, including all of your fast mana rocks and rituals for additional mana. You can cast these however you see fit in order to win either through Jace, Wielder of Mysteries or Aetherflux Reservoir depending on the current board state (you will need to evaluate which is safer). Additionally, you will have access to free protection here through Pact of Negation and Force of Will (as long as you have a blue card in hand), etc.

Line Variations:

• If you started with Oath of Druids in play, and with Memory's Journey in hand, the combo is still possible, it will now just require instead of in order to cover casting Memory's Journey from hand in order to not lose at the draw step and set up for Yawgmoth's Will.

• If you started with both Memory's Journey and Yawgmoth's Will in hand, your shuffle target (or targets in this instance) can be anything you want, with the recommendation of either protection for your combos (e.g. Pact of Negation, Force of Will, Swan Song, etc.), or an "insurance policy" card like Time Spiral in the event that you cannot combo safely after resolving the Oath of Druids trigger and need to reshuffle your graveyard instead of going for Yawgmoth's Will. It is likely that you will only need Time Spiral if Oath of Druids lines are used later in the game as by then it will be easier to have access to more mana. In almost every scenario, protection is usually the best choice here, the best choice being Pact of Negation to protect Yawgmoth's Will on cast without needing any additional mana.

Proteus Staff Combo Show

This card is the other reason why we play 0 creatures in our library. When we activate Proteus Staff targeting one of our commanders, we will elect to place our commander on the bottom of our library: because we run 0 other creatures in the deck, we will reveal our entire library, with the last card being our commander. Our commander will return to play, and thanks to Proteus Staff, we can stack our entire library in any order that we want. This is essentially a hybrid copy of Oath of Druids and Doomsday in our list, as it allows us to have access to any card in our library (like our Oath of Druids lines), while also functioning as "piling" a la Doomsday. The only difference is that the piles are larger than Doomsday piles.

For those of you who are aware of the Fblthp or Elsha Proteus Staff lists, you will notice that Proteus Staff is noticeably weaker in this list compared to those, especially Fblthp. This is because it is more difficult for our list to draw 2 cards after activating Proteus Staff. Fblthp gets the draw 2 for free, and Elsha has better draw access due to colors, list selectivity, and her static ability. Still, all of the cards that are required for these piles are good not just here but also in standard and more "fair" storm lines, as well as being great in Doomsday piles. Because we don't run any creatures, this is an easy 1 card include as a potential win since it already has synergy with so many of our cards. Even without Staff "piling", being able to put combo pieces on top of our deck is immensely powerful, and a followup as simple as Brainstorm can put them into our hand. Because we also have access to black, we can do something those decks cannot do, which I will show you later. While the "piles" can be mana intensive, they also become easier and more flexible the later the game goes. Overall, even though it can be slow and mana hungry, this 1 card can allow us to set up a variety of flexible and safe lines to victory.

For redundancy, I will still outline the standard setup:

1. Either Thrasios, Triton Hero or Silas Renn, Seeker Adept (or another creature somehow, but most preferable here is Thrasios since he is your infinite mana engine) in play under your control.
2. Proteus Staff on your side of the field.
3. 2U to activate Proteus Staff.
4. Some way to draw at least 2 cards after activating Proteus Staff (Night's Whisper, Thrasios, Sensei's Divining Top in play with any card that draws 1, etc.).

Once we have established our draw 2, we have a handful of playable piles:

Pile 1

Post Staff (need 1 land in hand and access to B from another source after the draw 2) from top of library down:

Gush, Mana Crypt, Mox Diamond, Windfall, Mana Vault, Voltaic Key, Dark Ritual, Dramatic Reversal, Isochron Scepter.

Draw 2 --> Cast Gush for its alternative cost to draw 2 --> Cast Mana Crypt and Mox Diamond --> use mana from Crypt and Mox Diamond to cast Windfall (as long as someone has 5 cards in hand) --> Cast Dark Ritual to cast Mana Vault and Voltaic Key --> tap Mana Vault for (leaving floating), use to activate Voltaic Key, untapping Mana Vault, then tap Mana Vault again ( floating) --> use to cast Isochron Scepter imprinting Dramatic Reversal --> Infinite mana of all colors --> Thrasios activations to draw remaining combos or do whatever else you want with cards you have in hand.

Pile 2

Post Staff (need 3 lands in play, need 1 land in hand and 2 discardable, non "pile" cards after draw 2) from top of library down:

Gush, Mana Crypt, Frantic Search, Mox Diamond, Brainstorm, Mana Vault, Voltaic Key, Dramatic Reversal, Isochron Scepter.

Draw 2 --> Cast Gush for alternative cost to draw 2 --> Cast Crypt and Diamond and use their mana to cast Frantic Search --> cast Brainstorm with one land to draw Key and Dramatic Scepter combo--> Tap another land to cast Vault --> Tap Vault to cast Key, and activate Key untapping Vault --> Tap Vault for , and with 1 land untapped you have 4 mana to cast and activate Dramatic Scepter --> Thrasios activations.

Pile 3

Post Staff (need 1 land in hand):

Gush, Mox Diamond, Brainstorm, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Dramatic Reversal, Isochron Scepter.

Draw 2 --> Cast Gush for alternative cost --> Cast Brainstorm with mana from Mox Diamond, draw Vault and Dramatic Scepter, put 2 other cards away --> cast Crypt, tap Crypt to cast Vault ( floating) --> tap Vault for ( floating) --> cast and activate Dramatic Scepter --> Thrasios activations.

Those are a few of the piles that we can do that win on the spot as long as we can access that first draw 2 to "crack the pile"; however, since we are in black, Proteus Staff can allow us to have the perfect setup for arguably the most powerful black card in EDH: Ad Nauseam.

Pile 4

(Need 3BB post staff and a way to draw 1 card):

All you have to do here is activate Proteus Staff and put Ad Nauseam on top of your library. Underneath, you can layer all of your net positive mana rocks, your combo pieces, your protection, whatever you choose. This allows you to precisely pick what you need from your Ad Nauseam and calculate exactly what you can draw with your current life total. From here you can go into any combo lines you want. You can also activate Staff on your turn and wait a round around the table and hard draw Ad Nauseam and go for it during your main phase; it's riskier, but very doable depending on what kind of protection you are holding in hand.

Pile(s) 5

(Need a draw 2 and enough mana for your 2 target draws):

Proteus Staff also functions as a 2 card combo tutor as long as we can draw those 2 cards quickly. You can find Grim Monolith + Power Artifact to get infinite colorless mana to sink into Thrasios (be sure you can cast him though), or Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter.

By now I hope you can see that we can use Proteus Staff so flexibly that if we can resolve its activation we will very likely find a winning line or at least establish access to one on the next turn. Plus, as the game goes on, piles get even easier to create, as more mana already available to us means less cards that need to go into a pile: if we already have Mana Vault and Mox Diamond in play and we can go for Proteus Staff, we now can subtract those cards from their respective piles and now have to draw into less cards in order for the same combo to work. If we already have Gush in hand, we just have to alter the piles slightly and not include a card like Night's Whisper to crack the pile. Additionally, it is not difficult to create almost any pile you want as long as you have the mana. For example:

Pile 6

(Need 4+ mana in mana rocks that can produce at least 1 U mana and Sensei's Divining Top in play/any card that can draw 1 card):

Gush/Night's Whisper, Gitaxian Probe/Night's Whisper, Dramatic Reversal, Isochron Scepter, Mind's Desire.

-Cast Gush for alternative Cost --> Cast probe for 2 life --> Iso Rev --> From here, you can activate IsoRev with Top to draw your entire library, OR use top once to draw Mind's Desire and activate it with an infinite storm count thanks to IsoRev, OR simply use Thrasios again.

It's not the best pile, and it has some stringent requirements, but you're already looking to play mana rocks early anyway; so, if you then draw into Staff, you can create a pile like this and make it work, AND play around a variety of hate pieces.

With access to mana and one of our commanders, drawing into Proteus Staff can be a game ending threat from almost any position, and you can create almost any pile of cards you need to make that work.

Doomsday Combo Show

Doomsday is our more direct and aggressive form of "piling" in this deck because the card effectively limits us to 5 draws for the rest of the game; but, as we all know those 5 draws are designed to win on the spot so while the risk is great, the reward is winning the game.

Most of the piles that this deck can create with Doomsday can be found in the EDH Doomsday primer, located here:

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The EDH Doomsday Primer

Unknown* AlwaysSleepy

SCORE: 185 | 76 COMMENTS | 90289 VIEWS | IN 129 FOLDERS

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The big difference here is that instead of utilizing Laboratory Maniac or Thassa's Oracle for our piles, we use Jace, Wielder of Mysteries as he allows us to play our creatureless strategy for Oath of Druids and Proteus Staff and allows us to more effectively use High Tide.

What this means for our deck is that for any pile that appears in the Doomsday primer requiring Laboratory Maniac, our piles will all cost at least 1 more mana due to Jace costing 4, not 3. This mana can come from anywhere outside of the pile, and otherwise, the lines are virtually the same. Because of this extra mana requirement, Doomsday is not always my first "go to" win condition in the list, but if opportunity presents itself it's a perfectly acceptable plan A.

For the sake of completion, I will provide what I believe is all of the possible piles we can make, all from the top of the library to the bottom:

Pile 1

Brainstorm, Night's Whisper, Ponder, Gitaxian Probe, Jace.

Pile 2

Gush, Gitaxian Probe, Lion's Eye Diamond, Yawgmoth's Will, Jace.

Pile 3

Frantic Search, Gitaxian Probe, Lion's Eye Diamond, Yawgmoth's Will, Jace.

Pile 4

Night's Whisper, Gitaxian Probe, Lion's Eye Diamond, Yawgmoth's Will, Jace.

Pile 5

Gush, Pact of Negation, Frantic Search, Gitaxian Probe, Jace.

Pile 6

Utilizing Sensei's Divining Top to open the pile:

Gush, Gitaxian Probe, Lion's Eye Diamond, Yawgmoth's Will, Jace.

Pile 7

With Lion's Eye Diamond in hand and Sensei's Divining Top in play:

Gush, Night's Whisper, Dark Ritual, Gitaxian Probe, Jace.

Pile 8

No cards in hand and Sensei's Divining Top in play:

Night's Whisper, Gush, Lion's Eye Diamond, Gitaxian Probe, Jace.

Pile 9

Opening pile with Night's Whisper:

Gush, Dark Ritual/Mana Crypt or Pact of Negation/Force of Will, Gitaxian Probe, Ponder, Jace.

Pile 10

Opening pile with Night's Whisper:

Jace, Gush, Gitaxian Probe, Lion's Eye Diamond, Yawgmoth's Will.

Pile 11

Open with Ponder and Gitaxian Probe:

Gush, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond, Yawgmoth's Will, Jace.

Pile 12

Open with Gitaxian Probe and Brainstorm:

Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond, Gush, Yawgmoth's Will, Jace.

Pile 13

Open with Gitaxian Probe and Brainstorm, and MUST have both cantrips and Yawgmoth's Will in hand:

Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond, Gush, Jace, any other card.

Pile 14

Open with Gitaxian Probe and Gush:

Lotus Petal, Ponder, Lion's Eye Diamond, Yawgmoth's Will, Jace.

Pile 15

Need to be able to cast Mind's Desire off of the first draw, open pile with anything:

Mind's Desire, Force of Will, Windfall/Time Spiral, Gush/Pact of Negation, Jace.

Pile 16

Open with Gush:

Lion's Eye Diamond, Gitaxian Probe, Mind's Desire, Jace, any cantrip.

Pile 17

Must have Necropotence in play, open with anything:

Gush, Gitaxian Probe, Jace, any card, any card.

Pile 18

Open with anything:

Gush, Jace, Windfall, any card, any card.

As far as I can tell, these are the possible Doomsday piles that you can build with this list. Some are obviously more playable and better than others, as well as having less stringent mana requirements, but I think laying out all of the available options is best when learning the deck, and it's a good reference to come back to: Doomsday is a difficult card to play, and it's easy to make mistakes, so I hope that a comprehensive "encyclopedia" of the deck specific lines will be useful to somebody! When I have some time I will go through each one and explain the requirements for each pile and how to play some of them, but the Doomsday Primer contains much of this information. Just recall that our piles will require 1-2 more mana usually because we utilize Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and NOT Laboratory Maniac or Thassa's Oracle.

Dramatic Scepter, or IsoRev Combo Show

By now almost everybody should be familiar with Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal and their combo, but if not, here's a quick rundown:

As long as you have mana rocks that generate 3 or more mana, when you have an Isochron Scepter in play with a Dramatic Reversal imprinted onto it you can generate infinite mana because by casting the imprinted Dramatic Reversal off of Isochron Scepter repeatedly. You untap the Isochron Scepter each time Dramatic Reversal resolves, and you float mana with your rocks before the resolution, netting mana each time you do the loop. If your mana rocks make colored mana, then you can make infinite mana of those available colors, which is preferable in almost every situation.

So, once we make infinite mana (preferably of all of our colors) we have a few options available to us:

1. Cast Thrasios, Triton Hero and activate his ability as much as we want, drawing our entire deck and putting all of our lands into play. The lands will enter tapped, but if we need to untap them for any reason we have access to Turnabout. If we still need some colored mana we also have access to Squandered Resources to sacrifice all of our lands for any mana we need. With all of our deck in our hand and infinite mana, the easiest ways to win are with Jace, Wielder of Mysteries or Aetherflux Reservoir. For Aetherflux Reservoir you just have to cast and resolve it, then activate IsoRev again to gain "infinite" life and kill the table.

2. Find and cast Mind's Desire with an "infinite" storm count. Since The IsoRev combo contributes to the storm count, once you find Mind's Desire and cast it for , you can cast every card in your deck for free. If you start with it in hand this line is best, but something like Vampiric Tutor or Mystical Tutor and any cantrip will wind it for you. The same outlets are used here in Aetherflux Reservoir and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. Mind's Desire serves as a functional backup of Thrasios in this instance (in case of Pithing Needle esque effects or lack of green mana), once you have infinite mana through IsoRev.

Power Monolith Combo Show

This is a simple, infinite colorless mana combo:

Grim Monolith + Power Artifact = infinite colorless mana for the cost of .

This mana only has real use in being sunk into Thrasios, but it does allow you to draw your entire deck. In some instances it can let you cast rocks from hand to begin fueling a storm turn, so it's not always as linear as it seems (dumping 2 colored mana rocks can be enough to begin storming off depending on the board state). Even though Power Artifact has no use in the deck outside of the combo, it's still a good one card include to utilize the synergy with one of our best mana rocks and give us a way to draw our deck.

Memory's Journey Loops Show

This is an additional, but not primary combo we can go for with the normal IsoRev combo. While it is effective at winning the game, it requires more moving pieces than our other combos, and is thus easier to disrupt. I consider this to be the plan C of the deck, whereas normal storm lines, Oath of Druids, Proteus Staff, and Doomsday sit in the plan A-B area. For example, I would go for this combo if somehow my Aetherflux Reservoir and Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, and even Doomsday in some instances were exiled but I still had access to IsoRev.

A lot of other EDH/cEDH primers talk about Memory's Journey/Timetwister loops but don't always detail the steps of how they work, so I often see threads on various forums where players are asking how these loops work. Since this list only runs Memory's Journey, I figure I can show how those loops work, step by step, in this section of the primer.

The requirements:

1. Infinite mana of all of our colors (through IsoRev).
2. Uninhibited access to our commander Thrasios, Triton Hero.
3. Memory's Journey not exiled (can be in hand or GY).
4. Access to either one or both of Regrowth and/or Noxious Revival.
5. Access to either one of Praetor's Grasp or Reality Shift if you have access to either Regrowth or Noxious Revival.
6. Access to Swan Song if you have access to both Noxious Revival and Regrowth.

Access to these cards will be obtained through either drawing them with Thrasios's ability, or by having them in hand already, or them being in the graveyard with Noxious Revival or Regrowth in hand to get them back.

The overall combo(s) is/are to infinitely cast a card like Praetor's Grasp to exile our opponent's libraries or play their win conditions, OR Reality Shift their libraries away if they have a creature in play.

Another variant of the combo involves both Regrowth AND Noxious Revival where we can counter our own spell with Swan Song as much as we want in order to generate infinite 2/2 birds.

Here I will lay out exactly how the loops work in a few ways with an important note: for this section, every time I use the word "draw" by itself, this refers to using the ability of Thrasios, Triton Hero, as we will have infinite mana by this point and thus infinite draw with his ability.

"Standard" Loop Example

1. Draw entire deck with Thrasios.
2. Cast Praetor's Grasp on an opponent to remove a card.
3. Cast Regrowth targeting Praetor's Grasp.
4. Cast Praetor's Grasp targeting an opponent.
5. Cast Memory's Journey targeting Regrowth and Praetor's Grasp, shuffling the 2 cards into your empty library.
6. Draw Praetor's Grasp and Regrowth with Thrasios.
7. Cast Regrowth targeting Memory's Journey.
8. Repeat steps 4-7 until opponents have no libraries or until you find a win condition of theirs that you can cast and win with on the spot.

For the above loop, you can replace Regrowth with Noxious Revival. When using Noxious Revival, you just have to use Thrasios to draw the Noxious Revival target in order to get it into hand in order to cast it (Regrowth puts the target in hand, Noxious Revival plus a draw from Thrasios puts the target in hand, it's just an additional Thrasios draw that allows them to function the exact same way).

Also in the above loop, we can replace Praetor's Grasp with Reality Shift in the event that every opponent has a targetable creature in play. Some tech here is that not only is Forbidden Orchard a great enabler for Oath of Druids, but we can also use it to force a creature onto an opponent for them to be susceptible to the Reality Shift loop. Again, repeat the loop until you have exiled all of your opponents libraries.

Swan Song Loop

We also have access to a loop involving Swan Song, where we use it to counter either Noxious Revival or Regrowthto create a 2/2 bird, and then use the recursion spell we didn't counter in order to help reset the loop:

1. Draw entire deck with Thrasios.
2. Cast Regrowth targeting any card in your GY and hold priority.
3. Cast Swan Song targeting your Regrowth on the stack. It will be countered, giving you a 2/2 bird.
4. Cast Memory's Journey targeting Regrowth and Swan Song.
5. Draw Regrowth and Swan Song with Thrasios.
6. Cast Noxious Revival targeting Memory's Journey.
7. Draw Memory's Journey.
8. Cast Regrowth targeting any card in your GY and hold priority.
9. Cast Swan Song targeting Regrowth on the stack. Make another 2/2 bird.
10. Cast Memory's Journey targeting Noxious Revival, Regrowth, and Swan Song.
11. Draw Noxious Revival, Regrowth, and Swan Song with Thrasios.
12. Repeat steps 1-11 for infinite 2/2 birds.

Regrowth and Noxious Revival can be used in place of each other in the above combo, it just requires Thrasios to draw the cards at slightly different times but with no functional change in how the combo operates. The downside of this variation is that the birds don't have haste and don't win immediately, but it is a potential out you can go for (and a reason you could decide to run Bolas's Citadel in order to ping the table if you wanted to go that route).

WHY DO WE NOT RUN TIMETWISTER IN THIS LIST TO ALLOW FOR THOSE LOOPS?

Short answer here is that you can, and I would replace Time Spiral for it before any other card in the deck. I also do not own one but that's inconsequential as to why I do not run it:

1. Because this list runs High Tide, Time Spiral has a much higher ceiling than Timetwister does in this list. It's a curve increase, but the ability to untap lands in a storm list is worth the additional 3 mana in my opinion.
2. We cannot replace Windfall with Timetwister because Windfall has specific purposes in Proteus Staff and Doomsday piles, where those piles would not function with Timetwister.
3. We cannot swap Memory's Journey for Timetwister because even though we could perform the loops with only Timetwister, we would neuter our ability to run Oath of Druids, as Memory's Journey is a crucial recursion spell in that combo line.

Anyone is more than welcome to include Timetwister in the list and make whatever swap they need for it. I have found in my testing that it is just unnecessary, and I would always rather have access to Time Spiral instead because it just much more powerful.

Other Storm Lines Show

The other remaining "combos" are ultimately just draw, ramp, and tutor power in order to get into the lines mentioned above with some exceptions and variations. There is nothing really specific here to go over, so I will use this section to outline some of the deck's other possibilities, some card discussion, and lines that can lead to a victory.

1. Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Chain of Vapor, Hurkyl's Recall, and Carpet of Flowers can all be used as rituals and as ways to increase storm count. Cabal Ritual is obviously best when you have Threshold but is still useable outside of that. Chain of Vapor acts as a removal spell for things like Eidolon of Rhetoric or any other permanent that may prevent us from going off, but ALSO acts as a ritual spell in that we can use it to bounce our own mana rocks to our hand by sacrificing our own lands (this will also boost storm count for Mind's Desire and Aetherflux Reservoir while simultaneously helping us ramp into them). Hurkyl's Recall is another "ritual", but we can also use it as removal in a pinch. Carpet of Flowers is only good against blue decks, but it can sometimes produce a tremendous amount of mana for the low cost of , usually over multiple turns as well.

2. Mind's Desire does not always need infinite storm in order to be good. If you are able to generate a storm count of even 6 or 7 and go for Mind's Desire, that can be enough to continue storming off from a different angle. As an example, in one game I played I was all in on a Mind's Desire with a storm count of around 9, and my reveals included Mana Crypt, Lotus Petal, Pact of Negation, Yawgmoth's Will, Chain of Vapor, Dramatic Reversal, and 2 lands. Those cards allowed me to generate a lot of additional mana, additional storm, and Yawgmoth's Will allowed me to cast Mind's Desire AGAIN with a storm count of around 17. From there, I was able to find enough pieces to assemble IsoRev and win. Long story short, even though Mind's Desire can sometimes be awkward, it can be a great last chance storm out if all else fails after you've drudged through as many cards as possible with no other ways to win available.

3. High Tide, Turnabout, and Squandered Resources function as additional ramp, with High Tide being the most powerful. We run 7 basic Islands and 4 Dual Lands that care about High Tide value, so with a few Islands out and a resolved High Tide we can generate a very large amount of mana. Combined with something like Turnabout, we can cast almost anything we draw into or have in hand already. Additionally, Squandered Resources lets us squeeze even more mana out of our lands after we have tapped them, and on the combo turn once our lands are tapped (outside of using Turnabout on them) they will no longer be useful, so getting 4 free mana for no investment other than a previous cost of is worth the slot. Even more powerful, is when we can cast something like High Tide, generate a lot of mana, cast Turnabout for even more mana, and THEN cast Yawgmoth's Will, allowing us to recast High Tide and Turnabout. By this point mana should not even be an issue, and any tutor should allow you to find whatever piece you need to win, along with whatever else may have been in your graveyard at the time of casting Yawgmoth's Will.

Individual Card Discussion

In this section I will be going over each card in the list individually to give some insight on the reason for its inclusion or just to detail its basic function. Some of these have been covered somewhat extensively in the Combo Lines section so for those cards I will likely ask you to refer back to that section.

Removal Show

Assassin's Trophy is just good catch all removal. The land ramp isn't exactly negligible in such a fast format, but being able to hit any permanent is what's important here. Abrupt Decay is an acceptable 1 for 1 swap here, and either is fine, I just prefer the Trophy for its flexibility.

Chain of Vapor is also catch all removal, but with the addition of being a "ritual spell" with the use of our mana rocks. This has been detailed in the previous section that goes over additional combo lines.

Cyclonic Rift is one of our board wipes, but is also good targeted removal in a pinch. It's an all encompassing format all star, and it's good here too.

Engineered Explosives is board wipe number two, but is a bit more selective on what it can remove; still, it's good in this list for a few reasons:

1. It can be recurred with Silas Renn, Seeker Adept to be used multiple times if needed.
2. We can use it to selectively remove certain problematic permanents while leaving some of ours intact.
3. It's a 0 CMC artifact that we can use to fuel storm count.

It's a tremendously flexible and low investment board wipe/targeted removal, so it's a great include.

Memory's Journey is our grave hate card but also functions as a combo piece for when we have infinite mana, as it functionally replaces Timetwister for looping any spell that we want. For our purposes, our loop targets are Praetor's Grasp and Reality Shift. This card is an all star.

Noxious Revival doubles as removal for Protean Hulk combo pieces and as a recursion piece for ourselves. It is also a part of Memory's Journey loops.

Reality Shift is chosen over a card like Pongify because as a last resort we can loop it with Memory's Journey when we have infinite mana. The exile can also be relevant against some Hulk variants.

Toxic Deluge is our last board wipe, and can clear an entire board of creatures for little investment. It can be a bit rough when we're also on Ad Nauseam, but it's strictly better than Damnation or any other black based creature wipe.

Counterspells Show

Delay is great protection on the combo turn, and it also great in counterspell wars. Usually it acts as a less restrictive Counterspell because a 3 turn delay on a spell in cEDH usually means that the spell that was Delayed will never get cast again.

Flusterstorm is the ultimate counterspell for storm decks, and is still a great spell for defensive purposes. Even with barely anything being cast it can act as a hard counter early.

Force of Will is a free counterspell, one of the best in the game, mandatory inclusion in any blue list with few exceptions.

Mana Drain is just better Counterspell, and the mana it provides can be the mana we need to storm off.

Narset's Reversal is a tremendously powerful spell, and it is incredibly flexible. You can steal someone's combo turn with it, you can steal ramp, etc.

Pact of Negation is another free counterspell, where the upkeep payment is usually negligible because it is primarily used as protection for the turn that we plan on winning.

Swan Song is an amazing 1 CMC counterspell that hits a lot of format powerhouses. It can also be used in Memory's Journey loops.

Veil of Summer is basically Angel's Grace in green based storm lists except that it doesn't have the Ad Nauseam synergy. This card cantrips on the storm turn, and provides future protection for your entire turn.

Mana Rocks/Ramp/Rituals Show

Arcane Signet is the best 2 CMC colored rock we have, so we run it.

Cabal Ritual can provide 3-5 black mana, and that's good enough to fuel out a lot of different cards. Good with Yawgmoth's Will as well.

Carpet of Flowers is a 1 mana ritual in green, and can provide a lot of mana over a lot of turns.

Chrome Mox is a 0 CMC rock. It's not the best one, but it's not the worst. Still, it's free, fuels storm, and taps for colors.

Dark Ritual adds , and that's it. Good ramp for storm decks, good with Yawgmoth's Will lines.

Dimir Signet is the worst of our rocks, which is saying something because it's a great one.

Fellwar Stone is like a restrictive Arcane Signet, but it's still almost always going to tap for the colors you need.

Grim Monolith is one of our net positive mana rocks, and also a combo piece with Power Artifact for infinite colorless mana to sink into Thrasios. Outside of its own ability, we can also use Voltaic Key to untap it for ramp.

High Tide is one of the more explosive rituals in our deck because of how many islands we run. It's also extremely powerful with...

Turnabout. This can let us either untap all of our lands after using them with High Tide mana, or it can untap all of our mana rocks to get even more mana from them. In a pinch we can also use it to tap down our opponent's resources to keep them from comboing off.

Hurkyl's Recall functions as a ritual with all of our mana rocks and can also bounce significant portions of an opponent's board.

Lion's Eye Diamond is technically a combo piece as well, but it's our Black Lotus in a lot of respects. It has value in every single one of our primary combos while not always being necessary, and can provide us with some explosive turns along with Yawgmoth's Will.

Lotus Petal is great because it's a free rock for storm turns, is free mana, and we can recur it with our commander. Great card.

Mana Crypt is Sol Ring for free, and the potential Lightning Bolt at our upkeep is usually unimportant.

Mana Vault is great because it makes , and is excellent on storm turns for pushing the mana limit as high as possible.

Mox Amber is arguably the worst rock in the deck, but I don't think it is because it always taps for mana when we have Thrasios, Triton Hero out which is one of our main goals anyway. It's also CMC 0, so even if it can't always tap for mana, it fuels the storm count.

Mox Diamond is one of the best rocks in the game, and it's mandatory in basically every cEDH deck.

Mox Opal usually always taps for mana because of how many rocks we run.

Sol Ring doesn't really need much explanation.

Talisman of Dominance is our best Talisman, and really the only one we need to run to fix our 2 most important colors.

Tutors Show

Demonic Tutor is a staple tutor for all black decks, and on a storm turn it can find a game winning piece at any point you have access to .

Doomsday. I'll ask you to refer to the section regarding the Doomsday combos, but since Doomsday is technically a tutor in many respects, I'm including it here.

Imperial Seal is a sorcery speed Vampiric Tutor, but it's exceptionally powerful at any point in the game.

Intuition isn't in the list for any specific piles, but more for just pure efficiency. I suppose it does allow you to get any card you want by getting Regrowth, Noxious Revival, and your target card. You could also use it to tutor for pure win conditions: a pile like Doomsday, Proteus Staff, and Ad Nauseam telegraphs a lot, but because of the flexibility of the deck none of those 3 cards require any of the others in order to win. Extremely powerful tutor.

Lim-Dul's Vault doesn't add anything to hand, but it allows you to find a solid set of 5 cards to work with. Sometimes it can just find another combo piece one the end of someone else's turn. For 2 mana it sees an astonishing amount of cards, so it gets a spot.

Mystical Tutor puts in a lot of work: it finds a lot of our storm cards, our counter spells, our removal, all for 1 mana.

Praetor's Grasp is a win condition and a tutor: As a tutor we can use it to find one of our own combo pieces out of someone else's list. It can also find protection like Force of Will. As a win condition it can be used to play other people's entire decks through a Memory's Journey loop.

Vampiric Tutor is a mandatory black tutor.

Wishclaw Talisman is a functional replacement for Grim Tutor, but may actually be better in this list for the following reasons:

1. It's pitchable early and easily recurred with our commander.
2. We can respond to the activation with something like Turnabout, Hurkyl's Recall, Chain of Vapor, or Voltaic Key to use it more than once or keep our opponents from being able to tutor with it.
3. It has no life cost, and works better with Ad Nauseam.
4. It is less mana restrictive than Grim Tutor.
5. It is not necessary to activate it on the turn you play it, so in a way it is "cheaper" than Grim Tutor.

It can definitely be swapped out for Grim Tutor or even Cruel Tutor if you wish, but Wishclaw Talisman just has a lot of synergy in this list where the other two cards do not.

Draw Show

Ad Nauseam is the ultimate draw spell in cEDH. Our curve is pretty low at 1.94, and outside of some bad luck you can "draw" upwards of 25-30 cards with this. This should be enough gas to get you into at least one of many combos, or at least find additional methods to establish them. Proteus Staff can also be used to set up whatever Ad Nauseam targets you want to hit.

Frantic Search is solid filtering at any point in the game or on storm turns, untaps our lands (great with High Tide, and has uses in our Proteus Staff and Doomsday piles.

Gitaxian Probe is a "free" cantrip, and provides us with information on the player we think would most likely be able to stop us from winning. It can also be used politically to reveal another player's hand and make the table consider them to be a potential threat. It's good in Oath of Druids lines, Proteus Staff piles, AND Doomsday piles.

Gush is our most explosive "draw 2" spell. The alternative casting cost is easy to assemble with how many Islands we run, and it's great in our Proteus Staff and Doomsday lines.

Impulse is more card selection than card draw, but it sees 4 cards for 2 mana at instant speed, so it gets a spot.

Mystic Remora can sometimes be Ancestral Recall or even better in this format. I would say in this deck it's worth paying for the cumulative upkeep cost once or twice, because by then it should have let you draw a decent amount of cards.

Necropotence is tremendously powerful draw, and lets us go in on hands that might fizzle safely by allowing us to draw a fresh 7. It also can be used in a fringe Doomsday pile to really stretch how useful it can be.

Night's Whisper is a solid piece of card draw at the cost of some life. It's also good in Doomsday piles, and even some Proteus Staff piles.

Ponder is a simple card selection cantrip that can provide a shuffle. Also good in Doomsday and Proteus Staff lines.

Sensei's Divining Top is a fantastic inclusion all around: it's a cheap artifact for storm turns, provides card selection, great with all of our tutors and shuffle effects, and great opener for Doomsday and Proteus Staff lines.

Time Spiral is a huge spell. It's a "free" draw 7 in that it untaps our lands. Exceptionally powerful with High Tide, and can be a great play extender on a storm turn. It also can save our graveyard preemptively if we suspect GY hate heading our way, and it can also turn off other yards as well.

Windfall is a simple wheel spell, it's gas and has a place in Doomsday and Proteus Staff lines.

A lot of our draw also comes from our commander Thrasios, Triton Hero, and sinking early mana into his ability is a great way to ramp and fill our hand when games are slow.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	13 - 0 Mythic Rares 49 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 13 - 0 Commons
Cards	101
Avg. CMC	1.94
Tokens	Bird 2/2 U, Manifest 2/2 C, Spirit 1/1 C