I would use Diabolic Intent, Rhystic Tutor or Diabolic Tutor. Not sure if all are Modern legal

Upvoted for trying to make a deck that overlaps two formats... and because I like Premodern. Just for reference though, I don't think Grim Tutor is Premodern legal. Premodern was meant to emulate the Standard environment of 1995-2003 so it doesn't include the starter and portal sets, or promo cards from that period. https://premodernmagic.com/cards ^is a good resource for the format (and one of the reasons I think it's had success along with using the modern rules) but has some bugs compared to scryfall

I totally agree about planeswalkers. The addition of mythic rares felt really cynical too. Old green cards having a wooden board for the text box and black cards with the old bubbly texture a parchment-like text box is just so corny and soulful, plus brown artifact frames looking like buried relics and not shiny new things.

I don't mind EDH being long in itself. I can see why a more social format became so popular for friends. I think it's more how WotC warped the design of MtG to make chase cards for Commander that I dislike. But yeah. Having to sit out for 1 hour if you lose definitely creates a lot of contempt for being attacked, and so on... which ironically discourages aggression and makes the game even longer.

A classic example of cumulative "player friendly" design choices gradually ruining what was once a far more balanced, aesthetically diverse, and strategically interesting game. The combat in Magic is better than a lot of other games due to defending players assigning combat, damage to creatures being removed at the end of turn, and possibilities with combat tricks... but just playing enchantments/artifacts and turning creatures sideways becomes much more stale when other elements of play that shift the boardstate are de-emphasized.

The stack and the mana system are the two best mechanics in Magic that really set it apart from other CCGs imo, but for all the recent complexity creep, I really feel a lot of new mechanics have just been boring variations of adding +1/+1 counters to things and gimmicks with overly long names that need stupid knick-knacks to track and aren't actually interesting to play.

I'm just not the target audience anymore.

Having theme decks with a focus on art and lesser-used tribals is just really fun.

Multani is nice not just because he benefits from draw but because he has shroud, which is big when older formats made creatures much more vulnerable to removal. Onslaught started to change that philosophy, and today WotC is very adamant that the game supports an almost emotional attachment to central pieces like commander legendary creatures and Planeswalkers in the lore (which helps monetization). That's fine, I think, but I prefer the grittier feel of the older game. Even with retro creatures being "bad" they were still usually the wincon.

I'm pretty sure Enchantress and Horn of Greed + Exploration are common combos for landstill type decks, but I'm mavoiding looking up too much about the Premodern meta (for now) and just making my own decks from setlists, since I'm only playing with friends and we kind of want to make our own quasi-jank and just deckbuild more.

EDH is big because 100-card singleton gives you a lot of options and you don't always have to make completely optimal plays, or collect multiples of cards. For what it's worth, I find 60 card formats have a lot more aggro, control and midrange archetypes - because multiplayer means that people take things like being attacked or counterspells personally, and midrange trading 2-for-1s doesn't matter as much when you have 2-4 opponents. But smaller combos benefit from EDH having free mulligans, a Commander that's accessible at almost all times, and just generally seeming like non-threatening options until they pop off.

All good! Please don't call your questions dumb :D be nice to yourself

Generally speaking, "casual" refers to 60 card games with no real banlist or deckbuilding rules other than the usual 4 card restriction. It's a kitchen table type of play that I'm guessing is less popular than EDH now.

Why is this under casual if it's singleton? Just curious.

1. Palladia-Mors was my first consideration for a cut, and my partner actually did suggest Symbiotic Wurm for the death trigger, so I'll playtest this. My main concern was that Wurm doesn't have flying or trample and 7 damage from insects is nice, but it's next-turn damage.

2. I'll test this, too. Though I've mostly done fine having 8 tutors, I guess more Sneaks is more chance of a faster win.

3. I totally agree with having 1 copy for a tutor... I find it hard to discern when it's best to run 3 or 1 copies of something at times, usually for situational/non-stacking effects. Orb could even be sideboarded but I do like the disruption it gives.

4. Erratic Explosion is awesome. Oddly, it might incentivize a lower creature count... which could be the chance to slot in Bolts. But 16 damage isn't shabby if I've already hit with something and don't have creatures in hand - since Gamble is my only creature tutor (and unreliable).

Thanks for your comment. I might also reconsider Icbrgr's suggestion to run a counterspell, at least in the SB, in case I'm facing another combo or heavy removal. And maybe mainboard Ancient Tomb + ditch City.

Hi! The deck is a work in progress (as in I'm literally playtesting and editing it right this second) but basically, Winter Orb stalls enemy aggro and control decks between turns where you've already swung with your big beasties and sacrificed them, basically allowing you to stay alive while topdecking and crawling their gameplan to a glacial pace, since your own threats are extremely cheap. Red and White just aren't great at ramp or draw so it brings them a bit more down to your speed. It can also be fetched with Enlightened Tutor after Sneak Attack is out. A playset of Sneak Attack would be more redundancy which is helpful if the first 2 are destroyed... but I figure I'm already screwed if that happens, and the deck has 8 tutors.

I considered adding counterspells, but given the mana base, I'd basically need to have a Lotus Petal out - I'm already splashing for Enlightened. And it's of limited use when creatures cheated with Sneak Attack aren't actually cast and thus can't be countered... ideally the combo is fast enough that most threats can be simply ignored or strangled with Orb. Cycling can be a similar concern, because cycling lands tend to come into play tapped and would slow down the combo game.