@ManBearPig2021 Actually you can't play lands off of Urza's ability unless you have land plays left available to you.

@Fellin22Why what?

why did they print urza

If I may make a point. Traxos, Scourge of Kroog and Shimmer Myr would be exceptional in any Urza deck.

It's showing you're at 101 cards.

Cutting something is tough, maybe the Etherium Sculptor , Mishra's Bauble or a land? Sculptor is a combo piece, but can be replaced, not sure if you're eunning enough filter and rocks to justify cutting a land or the bauble.

Have you considered Mana Severance to remove unnecessary lands once you have a good mana engine going? Has worked great for me in a deck of mine where I don’t want to draw unwanted lands.

Fellin22, I agree and disagree. I think Urza is really cool, and the flavor is perfect to a T. But, I do think he gets banned. Which sucks, I guess. But I really don't think he's going to be fun to play against.

Isnt it too early to call this a "primer"? Usually people who write primera have a lot of experience with playing a deck.

Seems like a deck I would never want to play against. It must be good +1

Seems like a good solid deck. +1. Wurmcoil Engine , is a nice add, especially with the decks theme. Vedalken Archmage also adds value and tons of card draw. Sai, Master Thopterist let's you play artifacts to play more artifacts.

Nice deck. You hit many of the combo pieces. One suggestion I would have is to add Basalt Monolith , Rings of Brighthearth , and Power Artifact .

If you do add Mana Severance , then definitely also add Goblin Charbelcher .

Depending on your deck's overall goal and theme, Retrofitter Foundry and Efficient Construction might be two other potential choices.

In case you can benefit from my combos, feel free to look at my deck. Happy trails torturing people! Really hope he doesn't get banned hahaha.

No Ornithopter ?

Other than that, this looks crazy

@ChhrisThanks man, and yea it's definitely not a deck to have a fun interactive game with.

@lifemtg Thanks. Unfortunately Wurmcoil doesn't really have a place here, the deck is trying to keep the curve as low to the ground as possible, and is just too much. Plus I don't really need creatures in this deck. Archmage was originally in the deck but I realized I don't need it because I have plenty of other ways to draw cards AND again it's too expensive for the deck CMC-wise.

@mtgftw2014I don't really need the Basalt mana combos, like I have plenty of mana just from the moxen that Urza creates and the rocks I already run. Also I haven't decided that I NEED Mana Severance yet... like I could see it being good but I don't know what to cut at this point. Charbelcher is just another win con I don't need. Foundry is meh here, it's just generally too slow. I want to win by turn 5, 7 at the latest. Construction is just a more expensive Sai, which I'm already running... In fact he's going to be replaced by the new Horizons card, Mirrodin Besieged because it's an enchantment which is generally harder to kill.

@Daemon_Prince91 Originally it was in here... but I realized that a creature with toughness 2 is easily killed by a dozen spells on turn 1 so I replaced it with a Voltaic Key which is a combo enabler! Thanks for the comment!

Also if you haven't upvoted the deck, please do so! I'm trying to get the deck to #1 eventually.

Do you have access to a Mishra's Workshop ?

Mishra's Workshop , in an Urza deck? Flavor fail.... ;)

bushido_man96 Tape over the sleeve and write "Urza's."

Rambolicious_0 and the flavor text. It could say, "It's MY workshop now, bitch!"

Torpor Orb is not the most ideal stax piece in an Urza deck as it shuts off Urza's own ETB triggers which are a command zone assured way of generating infinite mana rocks as well as infinitely large infinitely many X/X constructs as a win condition. Would not run this personally.

Crystal Shard is essentially a must run win con that generates good value outside of being a win con in any Paradox Engine Urza list. In my testing so far its proven to be the most reliable method of winning games as well as a reliable method of generating value to find the pieces needed to win a game. I consider this the single most important card for any list that runs Paradox Engine, with SDT being a close second.

I've got my list that I've been working on here if you're interested: Looper

Torpor Orb doesn't affect me in any way, I could care less about that X/X Construct it is not nessecary to win off of. However it does shut down things like Viridian Shaman , Brago decks, and just really any etb affects that would harm me as there are plenty.

As for the shard, I dunno about that... Honestly I feel like the CMC is too high for what I'm trying to do here... But who knows, I'll playtest it for sure.

@ DrkNinja So far in play testing with my friends (most of whom are ex professional MTG players) the construct has proven to be the single most important part of Urza decks. The "mana refund" for playing him leaves open the ability to interact after landing him, and the construct itself is a massive threat on the board as it often grows to a very large size. An overwhelming majority of our Urza wins so far have come not from infinite combos, but actually from combat damage. It's almost more important to kill the construct than it is to kill the Urza as Urza just comes back and makes another construct and now 2 people are taking 8, 10, 15+ damage to the face each turn cycle.

Cyrstal Shard is a piece that enables both infinite mana combos as well as making an arbitrarily large number of arbitrarily large creatures (which can also generate infinite mana). It can protect your Urza from commander tax, tax an opposing player on a cycle to leave less opponents to interact with on your turn, and even bounce an opposing threat when an opponent is tapped out. It's not only an outright win condition and must remove piece for opponents to deal with, it can generate value out side of actually winning the game in ways that something like Aetherflux Reservoir or Jace cannot.

I'm not sold on Paradox Engine for Urza. I want my infinite mana in place so I can exile the entire library in one go. From there the spells can be cast in the order of my choosing and not left to the randomness of the shuffle ability. I feel like I'm missing something though because every build is using the Paradox Engine. Is there some other synergy that I'm overlooking?

I think Paradox Engine is just the setup, isn't it? Cast a free artifact after tapping all of them for mana, and building up more mana to activate Urza in one go?

rphill82 bushido_man96 is correct. So at the end of the day, why does it matter what order you cast them? I mean you if a majority of your deck are cards either more artifacts, or spells like Frantic Search / Brainstorm why does it matter the order if you win off it?

@rphill82 Paradox Engine is one of the most efficient infinite mana generating combo pieces every printed in mtg. All 3 of the top tier cEDH decks (PS Thrasios/Tymna, PS Thrasios/Smasher, and PS Tasigur) run on the primary combos of Paradox Engine (plus mana rocks/dorks) and Scepter+Reversal. These combos are both card slot efficient and mana efficient which leaves more card slots available for interaction and supporting elements. The reason Urza lists are running Paradox Engine is the same reason these top 3 decks are running it, its extremely effective and efficient at what it does and does not require additional card slots devoted to combo pieces. All cEDH decks will already be running fast mana sources and other spells, which are the only other elements required.

As far as your assertion that the order matters, you are actually 100% correct here and a ton of players are mistakenly under the impression that an Urza deck can begin it's shenanigans without already having reached critical mass in the same way that Thrasios and Tasigur PS lists can, stuttering along on a slim mana margin until you eventually hit the cards to generate critical mass and reach a deterministic line. This cannot be done with PS Urza for a number of reasons: Urza shuffles the library so the top cards can not be set up to increase the chances of hitting the necessary next piece, Urza requires a greater mana investment to initiate the process at 5 mana, and you see less cards with Urza (1) than with Thrasios (2) and Tasigur (2 go to the grave and you are assured of receiving a spell back). The overwhelming majority of the time an Urza deck attempts to use the same process to stutter start it's engine the way these other decks do the attempt will result in a fizzle and a tapped out board state leaving Urza decks extremely vulnerable to a game losing situation as most lists are going to be running about 40-50 cards that cannot be cast off Urza's exile ability (lands are never cast, no paradox trigger, and counterspells require a target). Your assumption that you must generate infinite mana first BEFORE attempting to combo off is absolutely correct, and thus, the ordering of plays is critical.

The majority of PS Urza lists I'm seeing lately are continuously building this flaw into their decks and it is extremely sub par. The best solution to the problem is to ensure the deck has ways of continuously re-using a spell or card it already has access to. Crystal Shard is the most efficient means available as it only requires Paradox Engine, itself, and your commander from the Command Zone which should always be available to you. Repeatedly casting and recasting Urza generates an infinite number of tokens with that engine in place and these in turn generate infinite mana. The tokens themselves are a win condition, but you must wait a turn cycle to attack with them, so the infinite mana generated should then be used to exile the deck, cast spells to return everything to opponent's hands (Cryptic Command, Boomerang) via looping, and then attack when the cycle returns to you. The other option to win immediately is to loop Windfall and deck opponents but this requires you to run a loop enabler that is NOT Timetwister+Narset's Reversal (I use Elixir of Immortality , the most mana and card slot efficient card for this purpose). There are other loops aside from using Crystal Shard that can also achieve this infinite mana generation to ensure a deterministic engine line but they are less efficient to utilize ( Candelabra of Tawnos + Academy Ruins + Aether Spellbomb with Paradox Engine and 6 mana available from mana rocks for example) and should not be relied on as the primary means of infinite mana generation, which is fine as most decks will run Scepter+Reversal and Monolith+Power Artifact as supplemental primary engines alongside Paradox Engine.

In any case, very astute of you to realize that Urza PS lists cannot operate the same as top tier PS decks due to the way Urza's ability works. It is absolutely, fundamentally incorrect to attempt to do and yet is probably the most common thing I'm seeing despite it not being a viable cEDH tactic for this deck.