I don't consider this controversial at all, ASalesman: I'd been considering the cut for the same reasons for a few weeks.

At ten(!) CMC, it doesn't come down enough and any blue player worth their salt holding a counterspell won't let it resolve. I actually like Isochron Scepter more, especially in a FoF deck, because it can be used in so many ways, you can put imprint Mystical Tutor or Dramatic Reversal on it to end the game or just pretend you have one of those and use it as a counterspell lightning rod. It also can imprint and counterspell itself providing a stronger control game early on.

Omniscience is a wincon but too narrow and expensive of one to be good, in my opinion.

GHoag I have been considering Isochron because it does have some great uses in this deck. But I need convincing on Dramatic Reversal. What are your reasons for this card? I know it combos with Isochron, but I can’t imagine I would want to see it any other time.

Dramatic Reversal is there for the combo, but if you just need to cast a couple more Sphinxes, Dramatic Reversal acts as a Reset for mana rocks. That said, BECAUSE I run Dramatic Reversal, I don't have Jeweled Lotus and instead have "reusable" rocks like Chrome Mox and Mox Opal in my build.

It's other, far more tertiary use would be acting as an "artificial Vigilance" combat trick, but this isn't nearly as good nor often-utilized as the first two usages.

The single best part about the combo is that it can be assembled as soon as T1 and isn't incredibly difficult to assemble by say, T4 with cards like Muddle The Mixture to find the other combo piece (which I also included in my deck because it also helps protect combos by winning counter wars), whereas Omniscience, even with heavy ramping won't generally be castable by turn 5 or 6 at earliest, only to get countered because it's an obvious and absolute bomb.

Obviously the main impetus of the card choices is the combo. Once resolved with 3+ mana in rocks, one of them being blue mana-producing, it's functionally the same as Omniscience, allowing you to cast anything in your deck, but the Dramatic Scepter combo's pieces are individually useful in their own and, unlike Omniscience have strategic uses as well, as mentioned in my previous post.

Unesh will officially be competing in cEDH at Lotuscon 2023

As far as I know this has never happened before, I can’t find a shred of data. I am going to blaze the trail and take Unesh as far as it can go in this tournament so you don’t have to! That means I am going to be ramping up playtesting and theorycrafting this month to make Unesh as strong as he can be to compete for the first time ever. After years of devotion and study of Unesh, I think I will be able to pilot him well.

As I mention in the guide, I don’t think Unesh is a top tier cEDH commander. There are some cEDH norms that he doesn’t follow. Mono-color commanders traditionally struggle in the scene due to lack of resources, and Unesh’s average CMC is still high for the format. His unpopularity is one of his biggest strengths, so keep this on the down-low for me. Unpopularity breeds unfamiliarity. Unfamiliarity will lead many pods to underestimate the power that is there, and take them by surprise. Do I expect a win? No (but I’ll pray to Kefnet for a top 32).

The more I think about it, ASalesman, the more I think we basically want not only Panharmonicon and Virtue Of Knowledge, but also Reflections Of Littjara and every single creature or spell we can get our hands on that provides us with the ability to copy Unesh effectively, such as Sakashima and Irenicus' Vile Duplication. A the end of the day, all we really want to do is get more and more FoF triggers as we play, as Thassa's Oracle is Plan A. Plan B is now Aetherflux Reservoir but we still want to pick up as many spells as we can to further both goals simultaneously. Agree or disagree?

GHoag here is what I am considering: What would I take out for Reflections of Littjara? In powerful commander games it is important to have plenty of ramp, interaction, and a low average cmc. I personally wouldn't sub anything for Reflections. Unesh does really well at looking at cards in the deck, and the odds of finding my value engines quickly is high. I think dedicating 3 slots in the deck for this redundancy is too much. If you see 2 out of 3 of these in your opening hand its likely a mulligan in cEDH. If you see 2 out of 2 its the same story but more unlikely.

For the same reasons as above you shouldn't play too many, if you want the deck to be stronger. You need enough cheap creatures/spells to keep Unesh's ability rolling and that's it, no less. But also, no more because the deck has to fit other cards to be more powerful.

BTW more revisions will certainly be coming this month.

1 card sub

Replaced Spark Double with Orvar, the All-Form. Spark double and Sakashima are great cards with awesome text, in this deck they effectively do the same thing. I don't think the deck needs redundancy here. Seeing both of these cards in your hand is undesirable because they are relatively expensive mana-wise. A faster card needs to go in one of these slots. I chose to take out Spark Double rather than Sakashima because the text on Sakashima is better. Incoming Orvar. Orvar benefits from Unesh's cost reduction making it only 2 mana to cast. He is a cheap sphinx which is good enough and the rest of the text is an outstanding bonus. The first ability on Orvar synergizes extremely well with Unsummon, Snap, Ghostly Flicker, Unsubstantiate, and especially Chain of Vapor. The second ability isn't as important, but it is not an unhappy thing to see.

Another relevant almost infinite combo

I posted about this before and removed it because I wasn't sure if it actually works, but it does! So I will repost.

This combo involves Cloudstone Curio, Phantasmal Image, and Dockside Extortionist. Wait.. dockside is a red card, what gives?! Well dockside popular in cEDH and with phantasmal image, you can make a copy of it. This can be a win condition for Unesh given the right initial conditions.

Initial Conditions:

• Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign is on the battlefield (or command zone)
• You have a sphinx to cast (including Unesh).
• Cloudstone Curio is on the field.
• Phantasmal Image is on the battlefield as a copy of Dockside Extortionist.
• Opponents have enough artifacts & enchantments on the field to net you positive mana (~6)

Steps

1. Cast a sphinx (or Unesh)
2. The ETB triggers Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign. Use the BFOF to get another sphinx. If you already have enough sphinxes in hand, prioritize Thassa's Oracle and counter magic to protect your wincon.
3. The ETB also triggers Cloudstone Curio. Return Phantasmal Image to your hand. (!!THIS DOES NOT CAUSE PH. IMAGE TO SACRIFICE TO ITSELF!!)
4. Cast Phantasmal Image as a copy of Dockside Extortionist (assuming it is still a valid target), to gain treasures greater than or equal to the amount spent on the Sphinx and Phantasmal Image.
5. Return to step 1, unless Thassa's Oracle win condition is online in which case go to step 6.
6. Cast Thassa's Oracle.

I think this combo sounds crazy to people who aren't used to playing Unesh, because there are a lot of things that can prevent you from finishing this combo. Is it likely you will keep finding sphnxes? Short answer, yes due to the 20% rule. In my experience this revision of the deck will get you to the bottom your deck almost every time. What if they remove Dockside from the field? If someone has to use a removal piece on the opponent's Dockside, you can counter it. And if you can't counter it, it feels really good that the removal piece isn't pointing at Unesh. What if they remove Unesh? Now you have another Sphinx to play and continue the combo if you have the mana.

BIG REVISION + SIDEBOARD

I will post this comment then make the changes as specified in the list.

I have been studying a lot of cEDH meta, and found a lot of cards that I haven’t been using that are really great in Unesh. After a lot of consideration I have decided to pull the trigger on this revision.

• Replace Mystic Sanctuary with Otawara, Soaring City. Mystic Sanctuary is used to retrieve interaction and put it on the top of your deck. This is anti-deck thinning which feels really bad in this deck. Instead, lets have the interaction printed on the land itself. What is great about Otawara is that this interaction is an ability, not a spell. So it can be used even while cards like Grand Abolisher are on the field. You can remove the abolisher and then interact with your opponent.
• Replace Extraplanar Lens with Urza's Saga. The lens feels clunky. Sure it combos with Palinchron, but this combo requires lands to be on the field. Sacrificing a land has anti synergy with this. If the lens gets removed, you are out the double mana AND a land. It feels bad too often which is why it is getting cut. There are still 5 other combo pieces in the deck that you WILL see. You can even tutor for High Tide if you have to. Urza’s Saga is one of the best lands in the format and it isn’t hard to see why. More deck thinning. If its in your opening hand you guarantee Unesh by turn 3. Moonsilver Key seems to perform really well, so keeping this in as redundancy for this effect will turn out well I think.
• Replace 2 Islands with Mox Opal and Mox Amber. This deck has a lot of lands in it for cEDH. Although Unesh doesn’t mind being mana flooded usually, the count is still a bit high especially after adding Urza’s Saga. Fast mana in these spots feels nice. They aren’t necessarily going to get Unesh on the table faster, BUT they can effectively make your Thassa's Oracle win con cheaper. While you are rolling through your deck after Rite of Replication resolves, you can pick up these pieces to gain mana to cast Thassa’s Oracle.
• Replace Island with Gemstone Caverns. I goldfished this change a lot and found that Unesh will almost always prefer this in your opening hand over an Island. It makes early Unesh more likely, which is the primary goal of this deck.
• Replaced Trickbind with Mental Misstep. Mental Misstep is too good in the format. There are a lot of awesome 1 cmc cards. Sol ring, carpet of flowers, swords to plowshares, mental misstep, other 1 cmc counters, mystic remora, and more. Trickbind is a great card against the right opponent(ie Kinnan), so for me this goes in the sideboard.

Sideboard revision 0

This is my first stab at a sideboard. So constructive criticism is very welcomed. The main goals of the sideboard is to change out the interaction package to fit the pod better, and to shift to more of a midrange strat than turbo if necessary.

• Trickbind. Great interaction with other ability centered decks.
• Grafdigger's Cage. Unesh can play this card without consequence pretty much, and it is an effective stax piece in the meta. This card might even weasel its way in to the main board.
• Tormod's Crypt. More graveyard hate, nothing else to explain here.
• Flusterstorm for a spell heavy pod.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse also for a spell heavy pod.
• Pongify for a more creature heavy pod.
• Lotus Petal for better odds to cast Unesh first, making the deck more turbo. I think this card is possibly better than 1 or more of the mox’s, but I will leave it in sideboard for now.
• Perplexing Chimera. If you need to grind in the midrange more this guy can be a great option. Combining him with Homeward Path can be a good combo to soft lock your opponents in the mid game while you get to the bottom of your deck.
• Homeward Path for the above card.
• Ledger Shredder for making the deck more midrange with another card draw engine, allowing you to more likely get the interaction you need.

One more rev and talk about a strong new Synergy

• Take out Nexus of Fate for Ledger Shredder and move Back to Basics to the sideboard. The Nexus is great casually, but if I am paying 7 mana for a spell it better win me the game. Nexus of fate just doesn’t do that. Ledger Shredder is another card draw engine, it gets you deeper in to the deck. In cases where nexus of fate sits dead in your hand doing nothing, ledger shredder can be on the field generating excellent value, and it is 5 cmc less. I understand that infinite turns will no longer be wincon, and I think that’s okay. Thassa’s and Aetherflux fill those roles well enough. I will be updating the guide soon to talk about these recent additions as well as remove irrelevant info.
• Take out an Island for Lorien Revealed. Another deck thinning card that is basically still a land, but it has other synergies. The island cycling is another effect that can be copied by Virtue of Knowledge. This card can also be cast from the graveyard by Scholar of the Lost Trove. You will rarely hard cast this card, but you can in dire straits.

Speaking of Scholar of the Lost Trove, this card has some great synergy with recently added Orvar, the All-Form. When you cast Scholar of the lost trove while Orvar is on the battlefield, you can cast all bounce spells in your graveyard, then still get your value engine from the graveyard after that. If Unesh is on the field when this happens, you can get through a lot of your deck. If Aetherflux Reservoir is on the field you can get a large storm count. The cycle goes like this:

1. Cast Scholar of the Lost Trove while Orvar, the All-Form is on the field.
2. Scholar ETB cast a bounce spell from graveyard targeting Scholar.
3. This triggers Orvar and makes a token copy of scholar.
4. Return to step 2 for all bounce spells in your graveyard. If there are no bounce spells proceed to step 5.
5. Cast a big payoff artifact like Caged Sun or Aetherflux Reservoir to end the cycle.

So in this stage of revision where I am ruthlessly cutting high cmc cards, I will probably not cut Scholar of the Lost Trove because it can be such a huge payoff card. It also makes you less likely to care about tossing your big artifacts in the bin during your BFOF because you might be able to get them back later with this card.

I've been busy personally lately, but I had the chance to sit down in the last couple of days to do some analysis and philosophizing on the nature of the cEDH tier vs the High Power tier. Unfortunately, it's raised more questions than answers.

However, before I get into anything else, have you noticed the fetchlands making a difference in thinning the deck and or has that addition turned out to be negligible?

First of all in the pursuit of moving Unesh toward a fringe cEDH tier Commander, I appreciate some of the recent choices, such as cutting Omniscience and other mana-intensive spells, as these don't see play in true cEDH, anyway.

However, this now forces me to ask tough questions about cards like Scholar Of The Forgotten Trove and even Rite Of Replication. With Aetherflux now in the deck and Unesh quite good at FoF-ing through the deck on his lonesome, how realistic is a 9 CMC wincon vs the 4 CMC one in Aetherflux, much less a 7 CMC support piece that could be replaced by a cheaper Sphinx or a Shapeshifter such as the 2 CMC Metallic Mimic?

Also, if Rite Of Replication is still good and an actual relevant wincon at 9 CMC and we have Mystical Tutor as a 2nd copy, why not add Personal Tutor as a 3rd?

Parallel to this, Palinchron is an expensive infinite mana combo piece at 7 CMC. When paired with the fact that it needs something like Caged Sun (itself an expensive mana rock/combo piecet 6 CMC) this whole combo seems inefficient. However, I still think the solution is the Dramatic Scepter combo, as is not only much more viable (as it's an actual cEDH combo), but much more inexpensive to cast (2 CMC) but also to activate as well (2 mana, tap; 4 CMC total). We can also create redundancy by adding cards like Merchant Scroll, Fabricate, etc to add extra "copies" to assure we find it. It's also worth noting that once assembled, it generates us infinite mana AND/OR infinite cast triggers to win us the game on the spot with Aetherflux Reservoir on board.

With all that said, what is your average win turn, currently? I agree that the average cast turn for Unesh is 4, but I had a goldfishes hand result in a T3 Unesh this morning followed by a T5 win. This got.me thinking that if the T4 is fairly widely agreed upon as a "late" win in cEDH, we need Grim Monolith and as many other rocks we can get that will push us towards a T3 Unesh cast - or better yet, T2 - as we need to be threatening a win substantially earlier to sit at a cEDH table properly.

All that said, overall, I like the direction the list is taking, on the whole, but I'd like to address cards by type as well.

Creatures: I think a lot of the fat has been trimmed at this point and aside from the aforementioned Palinchron and possibly Scholar Of The Trove, the next highest CMC cards are Enigmas Thief and Dream Eater, bot of which achieve important removal functions, so there isn't much else.to be done in this quarter of the deck.

Lands: Similar to Creatures, Lands look pretty good at this point. I should note that Mystic Sanctuary say you "may" put a spell on top of your library, but aside from getting a wincon out of the graveyard, such as Dramatic Reversal or Rite Of Replication, it's more of a liability in the early game, so it could remain a basic Island in the deck, otherwise, I'd reconsider adding it back in. Otherwise, I like Urza's Saga and that it can grab Mana Vault! Great add!

Enchantments: again, not much fat to trim here, as everything here supports our game plan of running through the Library. That said, of Rite Of Replication were to be cut, functionally a decent lower CMC replacement would be Reflections Of Littjara. Speaking of Rite, this brings us to...

Sorceries: This entire section may be something that could be cut. I already explained why in the case of Rite, but in the case of Lorien, I don't think Islandcycling is that valuable and drawing three cards in a deck like this isn't amazing, anyway.

Instants: Frankly, I can't decide which card here is the "worst card" because they're all so good and so valuable. This section is arguably the single most optimized and I wouldn't touch it, save to maybe add more good cards after cutting from other sections.

Artifacts: This section is mostly solid as well. That said, I question the value of Caged Sun, as I can't think of a single cEDH deck I've seen run it. Lightning Greaves is somewhat questionable, too, with the recent revisions. Especially if Rite is actually a realistic and "fast enough" wincon (especially if we continue to lean toward big mana-construction to power out a T2-T3 Unesh), because as you mentioned in your primer, Greaves can shut off the Rite line. I think Wayfarer's Bauble is just bad, at this point and it sees a cut for Mox Diamond. I don't think Moonsilver Key makes the cut, either as the card is very similar to Bauble and I think Grim Monolith is more helpful, overall. Finally, while I appreciate Mox Amber's 0 CMC, it's inherent flaw in our deck is that it doesn't really help us power out Unesh as he's the only consistently available Legendary Creature and we only have two other ones in Orvar and Sakashima. However, due to the nature of Unesh, I think we'd pretty much always going to want to cast Unesh first and the others after for the FoF effect. As such, I think Mox Diamond is a superior 0 CMC rock to Mox Amber.

Anyhow, agree to disagree is always an option, of course, but consider these suggestions, let me know what you think and if any of them inspires you and you think of something else, let me know!

GHoag thank you for your most critical feedback. I agree with a lot you have to say on this. There are a few things I'd like to discuss further. I'll mirror your format so you know how I am responding to what. Thank you for the praise on the list so far, there is definitely some things to be worked out still. "The pinnacle is a concept only to the unambitious" -flavor text from a card I don't remember lol. (sorry for the novel below)

Regarding Fetchlands, I think the deck thinning is negligible or very hard to notice at most. This aspect of them definitely can't be a bad thing. But playtesting has shown that the negative effects of including them are negligible. I have never been upset about running all 4. Also, the synergy these lands has with Vantress Visions (Virtue of Knowledge) feels reeeally good.

Rite of Replication is expensive mana wise. The purpose of Rite is to get through your whole deck in one go assuming Unesh is on the field, which is not always the case. In my playtesting, it has been very hard to resolve due to mana cost, and when you do meet the mana requirement it is never safe from interaction. Given these flaws, this card might as well say "if you are targetting Unesh and this card resolves, you win the game." With the FOFs, you can pick up all counter magic and free mana rocks on the way down your deck to cast & protect Thassa's Oracle. A non-negligible side effect, this makes choosing piles easier to do because you no longer have to grab sphinxs or other wincons. This wincon is still relevant at this mana cost. I think the jury is still out if this is the best choice though. With inifinite mana you can do something similar, and I'll talk more about this below. Q: Why not add Personal Tutor? Simply because you don't need 3 copies of Rite. I already don't like Mystical Tutor, but the versatility to grab any instant makes it worth it. By the time you meet the mana requirement, you will have seen Rite or Mystical Tutor. Personal Tutor is too narrow to have in a slot, even on the 'Rite' plan.

cEDH meta talk, there is Turbo, midrange, and stax (early win, midgame win, lategame win respectively.) The average win without any interaction is turn 6-7 on this revision. This solidly puts Unesh into midrange. I think he can be sped up a bit with more revisions. Turn 4 is a late win for Turbo, but with enough interaction to stop the turbo player we can get to the midrange and win the game. Unesh suffers against a a few stax pieces. The main ones being Torpor Orb (which doesn't see a ton of play these days), and Null Rod and Collector Ouphe. Collectore Ouphe doesn't feel so bad with our interaction suite, and Null Rod is even more of a nuissance. If both are on the field, it is an absolute nightmare for Unesh.

Creatures: Yes a lot of fat was trimmed, and it took some time to really narrow down the best Sphinxs in these slots. There is still room for improvement here. For instance Vexing Sphinx feels awful. The reason I added it a while back was because he can be played early game for a bit of card draw. The card draw from this is not worth the mana spent, the fact that even with Unesh out he is 2 blue to cast also feels very bad. I will definitely replace him with another Sphinx, probably Argent Sphinx or Metallic Mimic. For 2 blue I am much happier to see the mana sink on Argent Sphinx. And for 2 colorless I am happy to see possibly the next cheapest sphinx not already in the deck. Enigma Thief though high CMC, I can reliably cast him for his prowl cost at 2 cmc, and his removal is top notch. Dream Eater though the removal is not the best, it is still good. The kicker here is honestly the surveil 4. You do Unesh FOF first, then surveil 4 and hopefully you can put all 4 in the graveyard. Still dream eater does feel a bit slower than everything else. Scholar of the Lost Trove, upfront I feel very strongly about this card. It's not because this is a pet card, it's because I think its very powerful in this deck. Even at 5cmc which is what I normally cast it for, it feels like insane value. You get the Unesh trigger, and a wincon from the graveyard that the opponents thought they didn't have to deal with anymore. After doing some math on this, the average cost of an Unesh trigger with Unesh on the field is ~2.25 cmc in the current revision (that is the cmc of a card generating the FOF divided by the total number of things generating FOFs excluding Rite). At 5 cmc, casting the Scholar gives you a 4 cmc game winning artifact and a ~2.25 cmc Unesh trigger. Not to mention, it gives you flexibility in choosing piles. For instance, If an opponent erroneously puts Panharmonicon in a pile by itself, you can shamelessly take the other 3 cards in that FOF. Palinchron is also rather expensive to set up, but not as expensive as Rite. I think it is a good back up win condition. If Rite doesn't resolve, or if Isochron w/ dramatic reversal doesn't resolve, we need at least one other way to combo off. With ways to tutor for High Tide this win condition has been online surprisingly often, and is definitely threatening. That said having this AND Rite feels too heavy mana wise. I think I am pretty much sold on Isoscepter because of how inexpensive it is. With recent mana rock additions as well as Mox Diamond and Grim Monolith (mentioned below) the wincon is online for far cheaper than Rite and effectively does the same job, also dramatic reversal can be used as a one time use now which makes it good on it's own.

Lands: After a day of listening to cEDH podcasts, this is what I came up with. Urza's Saga is nuts. After playtesting with these lands I felt a big power spike. Thank you for mentioning Mystic Sanctuary again. I didn't think about it being able to retrieve a wincon which is pretty relevant. I will consider slipping this one back in there. I also think that losing just one more Island wouldn't be very impactful. What do you think about Command Beacon? After playtesting, I think there is such a niche case when this card is good in cEDH. I think I prefer an Island here given the more recent revisions.

Enchantments: Agreed, all of these are great cards. Not much to change here.

Instants: I don't think there are any cuts to be made here. After playtesting I think I need to add more Instants to more reliably shut off early combo wins. Demonic Consultation and Ad Nauseum are rampant. Even fitting in a Dispel or Spell Pierce to the deck would go a long way.

Artifacts: Work needs to be done here. I agree with a lot of what you are saying. Lightning Greaves feels bad because board interaction is light and stack interaction is high in cEDH. Caged Sun is usually too expensive to play without cheating it in with Scholar. But scholar wants to hit other game winning cards anyway, so Caged sun needs to go. Grim Monolith and Mox Diamond need to go in. I have been reluctant to add them to the list because I don't have paper copies. You are spot on with these two though. I am not high on Moonsilver Key, but I do like Wayfarer's Bauble. The bauble putting a land into play is important to getting palinchron online, and this also sees great synergy with Vantress Visions similar to the fetch lands. Though bauable is definitely worse than mox diamond and grim monolith, it would be my last cut. Mox Amber indeed doesn't power Unesh out, but we don't need it to. I will say that my playtests have really favored this card. Being able to play more mana artifacts after a FOF for free will keep the FOFs rolling. Mox Amber feels very good. Mox diamond is superior, but I won't take out Mox Amber for it.

REVISION: After synthesizing both our viewpoints, here is a revision that I will go ahead and push. I think you will like this mostly, but let me know your doubts.

• Replace Vexing Sphinx with Spell Pierce.
• Replace Lightning Greaves with Dramatic Reversal.
• Replace Caged Sun with Isochron Scepter.
• Replace Lorien Revealed with Muddle the Mixture. I am okay with an effective land cut here after playtesting.
• Replace Moonsilver Key with Mox Diamond.
• Replace Wayfarer's Bauble with Grim Monolith.
• Replace an Island with Mystic Sanctuary.

EXPLANAITION: This rev cuts the Rite wincon and adds the less expensive Isoscepter wincon. There is still backup wincon in Aetherflux. Isoscepter is backed up by Palinchron, and Aetherflux is supported by Palinchron. Obviously, the goal with infinite mana is to play Thassa's eventually. Dramatic Reversal is good enough on its own now because of the artifacts added recently. I honestly think this is the cheapest that the wincon package can be while still being robust enough to not fizzle out. With these wincons, Unesh doesn't have to be on the field, which makes the deck less reliant on him, mitigating one of the deck's biggest flaws. Cutting Lightning Greaves will likely be inconsequential due to low board state interaction. Muddle and Spell pierce add some more stack interaction while Muddle can find combo pieces. I went with Spell pierce over Dispel because it can hit stax pieces as well as stopping an early combo win. Cutting a sphinx now relies on Ghostly Flicker to be part of the 20%. Mystic Sanctuary and Scholar of the Lost Trove are used to retrieve wincons from the grave if necessary.

I heavily considered subbing Dream Eater for Argent Sphinx. I will need to playtest that change before committing to it.

A detailed Guide Revision will come following all of these deck revisions

I am going to wait until after lotuscon, because my the theory is constantly shifting right now.

Whoops I am realizing I didn't actually remove Rite of Replication in the previous revision. Replace Rite of Replication with Argent Sphinx. Argent Sphinx metalcraft will normally be online in this revision and it allows us to grind out the middle game. Also we no longer rely on ghostly flicker for the 20%. The mana sink on argent sphinx is great for if we are trying to hold up counter magic.

One more minor sub

Replace Swan Song with An Offer You Can't Refuse. I need this slot to hit artifacts as well. I don't mind giving the opponent 2 treasures if it keeps something like Null Rod or the card that shall not be named off the table.

GHoag I revisited the combos in the deck today and I see what you were saying about Lithoform Engine now that Dramatic Reversal is in the deck. Combo redundancy, and very useful abiltiies by itself. I think it is strictly better than Argent Sphinx, so I am going to make that change.

Thinking again, Lithoform Engine might be too slow. I am going to continue to contemplate on this slot.

After reading everything and after you've implemented a substantial amount of change all at once, I'd say some playtesting is in order before making any other moves.

That said, I feel similarly about Lithoform. It's a High Power card. Which makes it usable in that context, but it's too "on the cusp" if cEDH is the goal. While it's nice to be able to copy Unesh triggers, it's mana intensive. Due to this alone, Reflections Of Littjara gets the nod before this, as it's only one more CMC to cast, but provides a lot more value after a one-and-done mana investment.

As for Command Beacon, no comment: As mentioned before, I'm exclusively goldfishing while building out the deck and assisting you with theory crafting on it. Beacon is one of those types of cards that is best evaluated through actual playtesting.

That said, I can still help you there somewhat by asking if, when you draw it, which happens more often: Do you find yourself wishing it's colorless pip was a blue one or are you grateful to see it, as it prevents you from being forced to pay an insurmountable Commander tax that would otherwise cost you the game?

But like I said, playtest it more and try to put a premium on assembling and protecting the Dramatic Scepter combo, because once it's live and infinite blue mana is accessible, functionally Unesh can't be permanently removed (barring Imprisoned In The Moon and Gilded Drake effects) as we can just infinitely recast it (which even benefits is, for the FoF triggers we get when opponents attempt this), so this makes cards like Command Beacon and Lightning Greaves a lot less important than just inexpensive/free counter magic.

More actual playtesting coming, but just from goldfishing I can tell Lithoform is too slow. Sometimes I notice Isoscepter isn't online due to not having the mana rocks, so I am going to put Moonsilver Key back in there to mitigate that problem. It's possible some interaction is better here.

Agreed: As stated, Lithoform Engine is a High Power tier card, tops. It is not cEDH material, so it remains cut.

Moonsilver Key should also remain cut, though. It (and to a lesser extent, Wayfarer's Bauble) suffers from a basic math issue: They both require three mana to cast and activate, at which point you need to commit more mana to casting your mana rock (unless you fetch Mana Crypt, and even then, you're operating at a -1 net mana; at this point with Wayfarer's Bauble, you're up by 1 land, but need to make it to your next untap phase to actually get to use it).

For this reason, I'd posit that even the humble Basalt Monolith is a better rock, on the merit that it's CMC 3 and net 0 same turn, which is one better. Plus, it could form a combo with Mesmeric Orb to mill ourselves out and cast ThOracle, so it has ever-so-slightly better potential all around (and I'm not asserting that either one is good, to be clear).

For now, I think the deck is in a much better form overall, so I'll do some more goldfishing and I encourage more playtesting at your end to assess any further changes.

I will state, though that your comment about win turn being 6-7 means this is firmly a High Power deck for pure assessment purposes, in my opinion, but that doesn't mean we can't kick it up a notch or two with some more tweaking.

Skeptical yet curious, I added Mox Amber as a substitution for an Island. I instantly regretted it, drawing it in 3 out of 5 of the opening hands I goldfished after adding it. Every single time I wished it was literally any other mana rock or even an Island would be better. I'm going to cut it, but if it's working for you, do what you will.

GHoag After last rev the deck wins at a turn 5-6 average (vice 6-7). Actual playtesting will happen tonight so I can get more insights on how to improve.

I was skeptical about mox amber at first as well. I will say, yes you absolutely dont want mox amber in your opening hand.

There are 2 reasons it won me over:

• It is strong when you can play it post-FOF to squeeze out another FOF on the same turn, and if you hit your mox opal after that maybe you get more. If I could have more 0 cmc artifacts in the deck I would.
• Don't forget to mulligan. In cEDH you get one free mulligan. A lot of times you can mulligan to 5 and still have a playable hand. So if Mox Amber is in your first or second 7, it is okay if the other 6 are playable.

I always remember that taking a mulligan is an option. Since the changes I have been treating it almost the same as my cEDH deck and mulling aggressively, sometimes regularly to 4-5 cards to ensure I find the right mix of pieces I feel are necessary to win.

I concur in full with what you said about the win turn, as well: I've noticed the deck is now a full turn faster and now the range is 5-6 turns, the most common being 6. This means the deck is now firmly an 8, which is excellent and making it one turn faster would essentially bring it into either the top of the tops of the High Power Tier or into fringe tier cEDH.

I suspect the key is more mana rocks to power out Unesh ASAP, but there are tweaks to ve made elsewhere in the deck, too, I'm certain.

I wasn't able to get a whole lot of games in yesterday, but I had one particular game where I lost spectacularly for a few different reasons.

Here is the setup:

• Seat 1: Godo, Bandit Warlord
• Seat 2: Talion, the Kindly Lord
• Seat 3: Unesh (me) with opening hand Island, Mana Crypt, Arcane Signet, Dramatic Reversal, Spell Pierce, Island, Bloodline Pretender.
• Seat 4: Tymna/Thrasios

I'll hit only on the key points to this story. Turn 1 goes around and nothing crazy happens, Tymna/Thrasios plays a mana dork, I play out my artifacts holding up Spell Pierce. Talion turn 2 plays Mystic Remora, and I decide to counter it with Spell Pierce. This is the wrong decision on multiple fronts. (1) I am first priority, I should've let the rest of the table deal with it because (2) it doesn't actually affect Unesh that much when I want to cast creatures, & (3) letting Talion draw cards in this instance could allow them to combo before me, but that means Talion will consume the tables resources so I can combo off after. Talion passes to me. I play an Island and note that I can power out Unesh with Dramatic Reversal and my 2 artifacts in play. Because I countered Mystic Remora, I should have done this. Instead I pass and basically do nothing, because I didn't have protection for Unesh & I wanted to preserve the combo piece. I think even without protection, it is still a good play to get Unesh on the table. Using the combo piece here is okay because I can get it back using Mystic sanctuary later, and I already have a scalding tarn in hand to fetch it if I need to. Pass to Tymna/Thrasios, they play Neoform sacrificing their mana dork. Had I not countered Mystic remora, I could've countered neoform and paid the Mystic Remora Tax which is what I should've done. With no responses neoform resolves and he fetches Collector Ouphe. At this point I am out of the game for a few turns which was ultimately enough to make me lose to chip damage and mana crypt a turn or 2 before I can combo off. I did take third because I took out the Talion player by casting a spell while their library was empty (granted they misplayed).

There is always unknown in the fog of war and hind sight is 20/20, but there were definitely some things here I could've seen coming. I think the biggest take away I think is that Unesh naturally allies with another blue combo player if they are the only other one at the table.