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Zur, Your second favorite box

Commander / EDH WUB (Esper)

Siax13 Dakotaylor


Maybeboard


Plan A is swing Zur into necropotence on turn 3 or 4 and pay as much life as you're comfortable losing, drawing 20-30 cards on your end step.

Based on what was drawn there are several lines to go to from here.

Thassa's Oracle + Demonic consultation

Thassa's Oracle + tainted pact

Always Oracle first making sure it resolves and in response to the ETB cast either one choosing a card not in your library or choosing not to put a card in your hand in order to exile your library winning you the game on the resolution of the ETB. This is going to be your number one go to. Any tutors you have typically go towards finding these two pieces as fast as you can. If you end up with both consultation and pact but no Oracle use pact to get Oracle because you won't risk exiling it in the top six and consultation naming a card not in your library to win the game. Pact and snapcaster mage/yawgmoth's will will also net you a win, pact to find Oracle, cast Oracle, in response to ETB recast pact from the grave with either Snapcaster mage or yawgmoth's will choosing not to put a card in your hand exiling your entire library. Oracle ETB resolves, no cards left in your library, you win.

Thassa's Oracle + shallow grave + consultation/pact

Thassa's Oracle + necromancy + consultation/pact

Because necropotence has a triggered ability that happens when cards are discarded causing them to be exiled oracle can be discarded and reanimated at instant speed before the necropotence's trigger resolves. These also allow for instant speed wins on the stack on top of someone else's if Oracle is already in the grave. Shallow grave, necromancy, yawgmoth's will, and being able to snapcaster mage into shallow grave gives you a total of 5 tries at getting Oracle to stick if it repeatedly gets countered not counting shuffling it back in with timetwister and Time spiral. Necromancy can also be used to pull someone else's Oracle from their graveyard saving you from having to search up your own.

If you only get one tutor off necropotence search for doomsday, if you have the black to cast it. Pile is frantic search and Oracle, free counter, x, x = win, given you can crack the pile with gitaxian probe, a dauthi voidwalker cast, or wait the turn cycle.

Ad nauseam + angel's grace

This will allow you to pick up your whole library reducing you to one life. You can then play all the fast mana, cast chain of vapor picking it all back up sacrificing lands, and then replay all the fast mana. From there you can play Oracle with protection.

Peer into the abyss

After you use necropotence to get 20 to 30 cards off your library if you haven't found the pieces for a win you can follow with half your life for half your library, which is a much better rate than necropotence that gives you 1/5 of your total library for half your starting life total.

Peer into the abyss + orcish Bowmasters

If you ramp hard enough in 1 v 1 you can potentially cast this early enough that half your opponent's library is greater than their entire life total killing them. Snapcaster mage/yawgmoth's will let's you hit 2 out of 3 in a pod. Then beat the third to death with the army or pull heliod the sun crowned and give Bowmasters lifelink first to have Bowmasters and the army for beat sticks.

Rest in peace/Dauthi voidwalker + helm of obedience

This is a backup line for if thassa's Oracle is lost or if it's just 1 v 1. Activating the helm when no creatures can be put in the graveyard exiles your opponent's entire library allowing you to pass to them losing. Rest in peace can also be tutored for with Zur meaning you only need one tutor to find helm if you don't necropotence into it. The helm won't sacrifice itself either because no creatures hit the grave so in a pod you take opponents out one at a time. With helm you can use one opponent's dauthi voidwalker to take out the other player if they don't sacrifice it in response.

Heliod sun crowned + walking ballista

This is another back up line where Zur can pull half the combo for you, but this one takes out all opponents. Heliod by himself is some much needed life gain as well.

Both back up lines can be done the turn after you necropotence if you got the artifact half off of your necropotence draws.

Solitary Confinement + necropotence

If you somehow fail to find any of the combo pieces at the cost of one life and one card per turn you can prevent yourself from taking damage and give yourself shroud.

Glacial chasm + solemnity

At the cost of sacrificing a land you can also prevent yourself from taking damage. Solemnity also works with mystic remora and prevents infect.

Opposition agent

In magical Christmas land you would use this in response to one of their tutors to steal your opponents Oracle, consultation, or pact. Allowing you to only have to find the other half out of your deck if it's not already in hand.

Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth

This card may be tempting to cut because it seems like it helps your opponent but you have two lands in the deck that do not tap for mana and nine fetches that you could use for black to cast Doomsday or save your life for necropotence or hard cast necropotence. Also you will eventually run out of targets for fetches.

Timetwister/ time spiral

Zur can re pull the pieces out of your library after you shuffle them back in from your graveyard if they get destroyed. If you manage to empty your hand it'll draw you a fresh seven at the cost of No Life. Also with orcish Bowmasters, smothering tithe, or notion thief they become painful to the opponents. Being able to snapcaster mage/yawgmoth will the timetwister and the untap off the time spiral put them each over the top in their own way.

Timetwister/ time spiral + Notion thief

Leaves each opponent with an empty hand and empty graveyard. Also you get to draw 7 additional for each opponent on top your new 7.

Reliquary Tower/thought vessel

A lot of people cut these in place of colored sources. Those people underestimate the value of keeping all 20 to 30 cards you necropotence, the half your library you get from peer into the abyss, everything you can ad nauseam into with or without angel's grace, or what you can notion thief from your opponents for even one or two turns before somebody destroys them.

The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale

This is not a land this is a 0 mana Stax piece. Nothing feels worse than having to tap all of your mana dorks to pay for your mana dorks. Having a low creature count allows us to get around paying as much as other players.

     MAYBE BOARD

As for the maybe board the shimmer and Hullbreaker lines work complimentary to each other and would be the most likely future includes.

Energy field + rest in peace

This would be another form of redundancy for damage prevention

I'd favor the overload board wipes damn and winds of abandon or toxic deluge over the 4 mana and up ones. This is mainly so ad nauseam takes a smaller bite when you hit them.

The extra lands are for if somehow you find games lasting long enough you run out of fetch targets. You can pull half the fetches and replace them with these utility lands.

Shimmer combo

Shimmer myr can be a very resilient combo because it can be done at instant speed on someone's end step or on top of someone else's Oracle/win. You start by floating all your fast mana. Using chain of vapor Hurkyl's recall or paradoxical outcome to return all your fast mana to your hand. Flash in shimmer myr. Once it resolves cast a mana Rock, hold priority and cast another in response. Repeat this process a few times before putting aetherflux reservoir on the stack. This let's you start netting chunks of life instead of 1, 2, 3. Let's say at the end of your opponents TURN 3 For example (best case scenario) you start by casting chain of vapor (1st spell) Floating 2 mana off your lands before sacrificing them, picking up your manacrypt, mana vault, and sol ring after floating the mana. That's 7 colorless and 2 mana from lands, spend 3 to cast myr (2nd spell), once it resolves spend 4 cast reservoir (3rd spell) hold priority and cast mana vault (4th spell) and sol ring (5th spell) with the mana floated from your lands. Cast mana crypt (6th spell) and gain 6 life. You now have 7 colorless mana open to cast any other artifacts you picked up and will gain 7, 8, 9 ect... Each cast allowing you to get up to 50 much more quickly. Also I can't stress enough that this can be done on someone's end step allowing you to move to untap on your turn and cast a few more spells if you couldn't quite make it to 50 during their turn.

Hullbreaker combo

Hullbreaker horror is an amazing multifaceted card, it pulls triple duty as it not only combos and controls it also works as a beat stick. With it on the battlefield any spell becomes a removal spell putting permanents back in players hands. Any instant becomes a pseudo counter spell allowing you to put spells off the stack back into players hands thus getting around uncounterable spells as well. Infinite mana can be done using one of the zero cost mana rocks and one of the mana rocks that taps for more than one mana. Example here mana crypt and so ring. Start by tapping sol ring for two mana, cast mana crypt, Hullbreaker cast trigger picks up sol ring, tap crypt for two mana making a total of four in your pool, spend one to replay sol ring, Hullbreaker cast trigger pick up crypt. You are now right back where you started with an untapped sol ring and three men are floating in your pool. Using Mox opal in place of crypt with enough artifacts to maintain metalcraft is the easiest way to infinite colors. Helm of Awakening is not a required piece for the combo to work, however it does make it much easier to filter infinite colorless manan into colored mana by reducing the cost of replaying the talismans and signets. Infinite mana the turn you play yawgmoth's will allows you to empty your entire graveyard regaining all that value. Infinite mana with walking ballista is also a instant win.

Hullbreaker + shimmer myr

As I mentioned before these two lines work amazingly when overlapped. Shimmer needs enough rocks in play to produce enough mana to storm off and fire aetherflux. Hullbreaker gives you infinite mana with just two rocks. Shimmer giving your artifacts flash makes them all pseudo counter spells and instant speed removal if hullbreaker is on the field. At this point you can also include sensei's divining top. With helm of Awakening it becomes free to cast. Cast it with hullbreaker, helm, and shimmer already on the battlefield, bouncing a zero or one mana rock. Tap top to draw and in response recast the rock you picked up for zero, Hullbreaker triggers returning top to your hand instead of putting it on your library and you still get to draw. Then recast top for zero bouncing the rock and repeat drawing your entire library.

knowledge pool lines

This is a line of play that is the epitome of slamming on the brakes. Knowledge pool coupled with drannith magistrate, Lavinia, teferi, or teferi hard locks your opponents from casting spells. Drannith says opponents can't cast spells from anywhere but their hands so when knowledge pool exiles their spell and tries to give them a free cast they are not allowed to cast the spell for free because it didn't come from their hand. With the teferis it is due to a timing restriction. An opponent goes to cast a spell it gets exiled by knowledge pool and then they would get to cast from the pool. When knowledge pool gives the opponent the free cast it is at instant speed. Both teferi prevent your opponents from casting at anything but sorcery speed. Lavinia works by countering any spell your opponent casts if no mana was spent to cast it. So when knowledge pool gives your opponent their free cast Lavinia counters it. The biggest drawback to this line is Zur can't find any of the pieces, you pretty much have to necropotence into one half and use and actual tutor for the other.

Beat down line

Phyresis giving Zur infect reduces the amount of damage required to kill a player from 21 commander damage to 10 infect. All that glitters giving us +1/+1 for each artifact and enchantment means roughly 1/3 of the deck buffs zur up. Aqueous form is to get around pesky flying blockers and etheral armor just in case you don't quite have the board state for All that glitters to do it by itself. Also this is NOT one of those you want to swing three times and pull all three pieces.
Ideally if you are going to use this line, when you necropotence you will see two of the three major pieces, keep them, next turn cast them, swing Zur getting the third piece and eliminating one player. If phyresis is lost pull heliod sun crowned to give lifelink and make back some of what you fed necropotence.

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Casual

95% Competitive

Date added 1 year
Last updated 1 year
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

14 - 0 Mythic Rares

54 - 0 Rares

20 - 0 Uncommons

6 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.18
Tokens Orc Army, Treasure
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