This kind of toolbox-style deck is my absolute dream but I have no idea how to even remotely begin constructing one. What a gorgeous deck, I'm sure no two games are the same.
This deck legitimately gives me envy, I was so happy when you gave me the chance to go through it with you when you were looking to update it. edit 21:58 Pharika reference???
I recently stumbled upon your channel and after watching a bunch of videos I'm almost able to planeswalk. Awesome thought provoking content and great advice. Thank you!
Man these are my favorite kinds of commander decks. They make each game feel like a roguelike, where you work with what you got and react to the game as best you can given the cards at your disposal. I want to speak the deck building process a tad, since I think I built my third deck in a similar way. After tens of failed builds on archideckt, I compiled a long list of cards I wanted to play with. I stared at them for an hour or two and tried to figure out how many of them I could fit into the same deck. All of the cards pulled along different synergy axes, but the points of cohesion coalesced around 10 or so cards. It felt like I was discovering the deck, unearthing synergies that directed card and commander choices. The process was so intensive that I haven't successfully put another deck together since. It's so much work to find flavor that divine, but after I found it my standards for decks rose to match it.
It's so cool to hear you talk about a deck your proud of. Finding a main synergy and going from there is such a rewarding process. A deck I am trying to this with right now is Shrines without Go-Shintai. What I came up with is a Jodah, the Unifier brew that uses Jegantha as a companion. The Crux of the deck is that every legendary spell in the deck that isn't a shrine has a mana value of 5 so that they can only cascade into a Shrine. What resulted from this is a diverse set of value legend spells that hold me over until I amass enough Shrines to win through them. What is great about the shrines mainly coming from the top of my library is that I don't get to pick what shrine appears which has made games very diverse. The deck is still in a pretty early stage but I can't wait to iterate and improve it with more testing.
One of my favorite decks! I recently bought my list of the concept, I took your list, made some upgrades such as adding Escape Protocal as extra redundency. Lots of minor card upgrades as well, such as Monstrosity of the lake, etc. Thank you for sharing your amazing list, It's been one of my favorite decks for the longest time! I'm intrigued to see what changes you've made since then! Edit: I'll definitely be taking some of your card choices, I didn't even think about transmute before you mentioned it! Great deck and great concept 👍
I’ve had a cycling toolbox deck in my edh arsenal for a long time. It’s gone through many different iterations but has always been my favorite deck! It’s currently helmed by Atraxa Grand Unifier lol. I’m glad to see someone giving this kind of archetype some love!
I love this deck, and it was part of the inspiration for my own toolbox deck that is still super difficult but rewarding for me to play. I play a graveyard-centric toolbox deck helmed by Tasigur, the Golden Fang. It has recursion in the command zone, but it requires an opponent to pick a card for me making it political, and rather than trying to keep my graveyard empty to force them to pick the best card, i use it as a way to forge alliances by having people agree with what the problem is and dealing with it. Then I use recursion in the 99 to return my wincons. Its taking time for me to learn my lines for all the tutors especially the graveyard tutors like gravebreaker lamia, but I'm slowly improving at it and trying to reduce long turns
I also play Tasigur but mostly as a way to play a gy deck that focuses on all card types instead of just the typical creature focused self-mill decks. Did you find any ways to use tasigut mana efficently (except for training grounds and that 2 mana adapt dude)? I often find it hard to use his ability until it's turn 10 or later since 4 mana isn't as cheap as I would like to be haha
@User_N8 it is still quite difficult, one card I use for that purpose is wilderness reclamation letting me untap an extra time, this is often one of my tutor targets. One of the best ways to use it is as a way to ensure you don't waste mana while holding up instant speed interaction. Rewind is a pretty fun option here, because it costs the same amount of mana for you to counter something, so if you don't need to counter anything you can just use the ability, and even if you do counter something it untaps the lands you need to use his ability anyway
I love tasigur as a toolbox, its a shame all the lists are derived from his cedh golden era and completely ignore his activated ability. I'm also guilty of this but even then he's such a fun rewarding commander
@ Yeah Reclamation is nice, I didn't build tutors into my deck yet though. Rewind is actually a nice call, I only played that in a spell slinger so far, but it does make sense in tasigur. thanks!
I've been an avid slide player for years now. And it is interesting to see where you took it. Mine is a zur deck built more generally around stifles and quality wizard etbs, with much less emphasis on the grave and no artifact synergy. One card I've been trying with that (as far as I know) only 1 other person has spotted is micromancer. You can actually run a really competent suite of removal, counterspells, tutors, boardwipes, carddraw etc. Only with instants/sorceries that cost 1 (e.g the spree cards, swords to ploughshares, multiple choice, consign to memory). This makes micromancer a solid value wizard that can offer high versatility, while being searchable off wizardcycling. I'm a huge believer in the potential of micromancer in slide, and I cannot find other people online discussing it. Consign to memory is extra nasty as it can stifle the slide triggers so you have yet another way to keep things in exile. One sequence that is so strong I'm surprised you didn't mention is step through ---> archeomancer. Archeomancer then recurs step through, step through cycle slides archeo, archeo gets step back, etc. Etc. Uncounterable, repeatable low cost tutoring for any wizard in deck? All off the back of slide in play + step through in hand? Nuts.
I recently had a very similar journey. I spent at least a month thinking about nothing but astral slide in a Rasputin, dream weaver deck, by blinking Rasputin I essentially had unlimited colorless mana, this led to a need for a completely unreasonable number of cycling cards and I managed to find room for 29 whole cards with cycling. building in the same sort of transmute tutor chains became a main part of the deck as well. It's so fun to build around a card in the 99 that's more difficult to remove, and accidentally giving yourself toolbox like options is a beautiful balance
I kind of want to try this with Pantlaza, Sun-Favored. Hear me out. Non-land cycling cards generally have a mana value >4 while the support pieces have a mana value
Your first video mentioning the cycling Sharuum deck inspired me to make a Yore-Tiller Nephilim cycling deck. It tries to win by either good etb value or by extra combat loops that sac and revive creatures for as much etb as you need. Its part of a pod of 5 nephilim decks I’m making that are designed to fight each other so no one gets upset about an illegal commander cuz everyone would have one. One of my favorite things the deck can do is because Seize the Day can target an opponent’s creature, if Ink-Treader Nephilim is on the board you can get a bunch of combats and if you can give Yore-Tiller vigilance you basically grab your whole graveyard.
This deck makes me so happy. The first deck I ever built entirely from the ground up was a Sharuum deck with Danse of the Manse and God-Pharaoh's Gift.
I feel so validated by this video. I used a similar technique to make not a commander deck, just a casual 60 card deck. It runs extort, weenies, tokens, it's stacking effects from lifegain, it uses various verions of Sanguine/Exquisite abilites to just find a way to wring extra value out of throwing out piddly flyers and aggressively bleeding opponents through chip damage and aerial bombardment. It's so fun, and has me wanting to make a proper Commander deck out of the thing. I am thinking of using Liesa.
Before I ever saw your first video on your Cycling deck I ended up building my own Naya Cycling deck. During my deck building process I've ended up following a similar journey in how I've build the deck. I've recently gone back to rebuild the deck to try a different feel to it and I've ended up on a CMC > 3 deck with the goal to cascade into either Astral Drift, Astral Slide, or Enlightened Tutor due to the large amounts of enchantments I have in the deck. It's probably my Favorite deck and one I've had around since I built it a few years ago.
It’s 100% grinding my gears that you took over in your CYCLING DECK. The utility of a fog is so underrated. That you literally put in a 1 mana do-nothing vanilla “beater”.
That card seems good! But yes as Cameron suggested, I prioritize creatures with very low cycling costs extremely highly. I may try it in place of Don't Blink at some point, which is kind of a cycling/removal flex slot
This deck tech is insane. Since I saw the card Astral Drift I wanted to make a Cycle deck. I think I'll pick up your list and see what I can do with it. Thanks !
man, i'm kind of envious of this deck, and your ability to assemble it. Astral Slide always seemed like such a cool card to build around but i could never find a way to build around it for the life of me. I might netdeck this for a few games. I'm not particularly confident in my deckbuilding abilities but i figure learning to pilot this ought to at least make me a better player.
Glad to see this video! picked up your decklist a week ago, and it is definitely my playstyle and will put some more time into it. I am trying to figure out my own unique pet card to play around that I can build something unique from, might be a while till i find it since you already got astral slide covered and I love this card
I always wanted to build a unique deck like this... but just am not that creative. Good at research... but just can't find anything cool for myself. Your ability to build something so cool is inspiring.
You are the only commander creator I enjoy watching. I do not play the format anymore, but love hearing how to tackle this format. Do you assist fans with building decks? I have a dream commander deck that focuses on story telling and not winning. It's commanders are Silvar and Trynn. The idea is that humans gather in fear as the plane they live in is terrifying. They struggle for control against their gods and vampire oligarchs. The story ends with a glorious gathering of humans which unit to destroy their fear, or succumb to it as they are all consumed by their greedy overlords.
I'm a big fan of 1999-2003 era MTG. It's after the design team had a bit of experience under its belt, but it still has a healthy heaping of early MTG zest.
I always wondered why this deck seemed so cool to me in particular whenever you talked about it. After hearing you describe the most common lines, I now realize my Inalla deck was basically built off the same piecemeal tutoring value engine control philosophy. I think yours is cooler though.
This is generally how (good*) cedh players build their decks. what can make commander so cool is how unique thoughts/ideas come up with such interesting decks
I built a cycling deck that was originally built as a stax deck, it has also evolved since its inception and moved away from the cycling theme, but I did keep the Decree of Annihilation + Barren Glory combo for funsies.
This is exactly how my Zur, The Enchanter/Inquisitor Greyfax (lower tier ver) American Police deck works. 1 - Value through board state creatures and auras 2 - Suppressing opponents through same auras, and 3 - Stay alive through Lifelink. The fact that I'm 7 months into MTG and I've got to this point, solely going to my LGS and LOOKING at cards in a multicolor box that were on discount that "looked aesthetically cool" I ended up making a deck that has won 1 v 2s, 1v1s and haven't seen a solid loss in 1v4 (commander proper). That's esper for ya
So I have a Astral Slide (technically only drift rn because either haven't ordered slide yet) deck using The First Doctor and Susan Foreman. The gimmick is that the only cards in the deck below 4 mv are the Slides, so when I cascade for 4 using the TARDIS I will always hit a slide. It is currently a budget deck, minus the spara's headquarters it is just a bit above 30 dollars. All things considered, it works okay. But the more I play it the more I realize it WANTS to be a control deck, even though it wasn't planned as one. It is waaaay to slow to win the game and really does want to do all the things you say here in the video. Keep itself alive, suppress opponents and generate value. But it wasn't really properly designed to do the first two, just the third. So it mostly just ends up durdling and not making progress towards winning. I think the insights in this video will help me a lot. I've considered switching Susan to Vislor Turlough as he is a 4 drop that will cascade into slide in the command zone as well as being a win con that can be reset with slide. Black might be the better option here for the deck, as you have determined yourself. Susan has advantages though, she is a second time lord so both her and first doctor have to be gone in order to turn off the TARDIS's cascade. She is also a mana dork which help me keep a more consistent curve even with tapped lands, which obviously the deck wants because of all the cycling lands, (even though I don't have them all in there right now). Green also allows for better land ramp, which was the primary reason I chose it in the first place. I've also been trying to keep it to a 30 dollar budget, but at this rate with how ineffective it is at closing out games I think I might up it to 50. Idk, the first draft was hella easy to make, but the more I toy with it the more I am experiencing the same thing as you. This is a really hard deck to build, but also quite fufilling in a lot of ways. Regardless I'm going to take a look at each card with an extremely critical eye and try to pin down what is really necessary and isn't and what synergies I've included/thought about are a bit extraneous and not worth it. Final note, have you considered disciple of caelus nin? It is tutorable with wizardcycling and locks your opponents into having only 5 permanents while you can cycle it away before your turn to keep all yours on your turn. Prob the best way I currently have of ending the game because asymmetrical hard lock like that should make most people go "okay, I'm good" but I haven't been able to test it irl because I don't play much at all. Also, I'm excited to try building a deck for the contest!
I do have a fun deck that has Halsin as the secret commander, along with Alloy Animist and Tough Cookie. The goal is to make foods and turn them all into 4/4 bears. What I hope to do as well with cards like Shelob and Vraska is turn my opponents cards into treasures or foods, and then turn those into 4/4 bears. I call it Witherbloom Wilson and the Gummy Bears and the commander is Wilson, Refined Grizzly and Agent of the Shadow Thieves.
This is so similar in concept to the deck I ended up with by tinkering with the Sefris of the Hidden Ways precon, which is my favorite deck, but turned to 11. Mine even includes the transmute cards and mage tutors. I'm green with envy, or maybe Esper with envy?
Have you considered running Teferi's Ageless Insight? Turning each cycling card into a draw two, discard one would help rip through your deck. With Fluctuator, it seems like it would be incredibly valuable.
This deck looks so fun but I need to know, have you tried Runaway Boulder? It has a lot of cool interactions like with Waterlogged Teachings and can be flickered with Escape Protocol. Plus it’s great at being reanimated by sharuum since you can cycle it to flicker sharuum to immediately return it to play. It’s also just a really funny card, Pauper Tron uses it as a tutor target for Mystical Teachings that you can Ghostly Flicker.
I had a zur slide, but it wasn't very fun and was super linear, seeing this one made me want to use this deck, so I changed the list a little and I'm having a lot of fun :)
Snail, you are as wide as you are great (which btw is a lot). I agree with your tutor theory, but the problem is 99% of the time it's played as you said; a cEDH way to increase pull chance for an instant win. In this deck they seem incredibly fun!
I play astral slide too in a Pantalaza deck(that discover Dino) with the enchantment “castle”. The rest of the deck is over 4 cmc except for blink spells so I almost always get astral slide when I cast my commander.
A great deck idea, I have just realized my obeka blink deck had a similar thought process. It is a mix of thief, sneak attack and blink. It is still janky but at leat I'm having fun
From the sounds of it, one of these days you'll achieve your final form and build a cube. Many of the same considerations that you clearly found interesting in building/updating this deck are central to creating a well balanced cube. Plus, you get to play 1v1 Magic, the way Richard Garfield intended.
I've been trying to build a similar idea with Master of Keys at the helm. Pulls more towards enchantment based tools, of course, but I like it as a recovery tool even if I can't get value out of blinking him directly
Since this deck got the 6/5 on the magic mirror podcast, I’ve loved it. I have been wondering, why thought vessel? The looting the deck does is great for its primary gameplay, and the game has a built in discard mechanic, and thought vessel turns it off. Is it a hate piece against Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur? Why it over something like mind stone, that in a pinch can draw a card and be gotten again by Sharuum?
Thought Vessel is actually a card I've been thinking of replacing. I might swap it out for a Liquimetal Torque next time I can get my hands on one of those.
16:31 Indeed, I do think it would be interesting to interrogate this. I'd say you should make a video about it, but I suspect it would look similar to your Combo video.
Im currently in the process of making a cycling deck with "Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists" as the commander. Not 100% sure what direction to go with the deck besides jam a bunch of high cmc cycling creatures to feed the commanders ability.
Amazing deck and great video as always! Would you be able to provide a more budget version of the deck? maybe below 50€ / 70$ or even lower? (archidekt shows 98€ / 176$ for the list you provided) In a similar way - maybe a higher power version of the deck with some on theme combos to win could be interesting to explore too!
$40 can pretty easily be cut out by cutting Portal to Phyrexia, Mystic Remora, and Glen Elendra Archmage, and replacing those with a board wipe, a draw spell, and a counterspell (pretty much any work). After that cuts get a bit trickier.
Jon Suarez in S14E6 of Commader Vs. had a Zur the Enchanter cycling deck that put his tutor for Slide in the command zone. I think that makes the deck more consistent (like with your 4+ mana tribal deck). If updated with recent cards it would be better and it was really good before. The disadvantage is persuading opponents you wont just fetch Necropotence and combo off on the following turn. And you don't have easy access to Sharuum's reanimate trigger. 1 Estrid's Invocation 1 Nimble Obstructionist 1 Fetid Pools 1 Faith of the Devoted 1 Cast Out 1 Forsake the Worldly 1 Drake Haven 1 Scarab Feast 1 Curator of Mysteries 1 New Perspectives 1 Archfiend of Ifnir 1 Vizier of Tumbling Sands 1 Irrigated Farmland 1 Censor 1 Migratory Route 1 Ash Barrens 1 Ancient Excavation 1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury 1 Cloudblazer 1 Imprisoned in the Moon 1 Reflector Mage 1 Grasp of Fate 1 Prairie Stream 1 Sunken Hollow 1 Clever Impersonator 1 Eidolon of Rhetoric 1 Thassa, God of the Sea 1 Strionic Resonator 1 Merciless Eviction 1 Supreme Verdict 1 Detention Sphere 1 Isolated Chapel 1 Sundial of the Infinite 1 Command Tower 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Sun Titan 1 Marsh Flats 1 Drowned Catacomb 1 Glacial Fortress 1 Traumatic Visions 1 Reliquary Tower 1 Path to Exile 1 Resounding Wave 1 Arcane Sanctum 1 Mistveil Plains 1 Steel of the Godhead 1 Mulldrifter 1 Oblivion Ring 1 Hallowed Fountain 1 Azorius Signet 1 Godless Shrine 1 Orzhov Signet 1 Copy Enchantment 1 Dimir Signet 1 Watery Grave 1 Ghostly Prison 1 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Decree of Silence 1 Decree of Pain 1 Decree of Justice 1 Temple of the False God 1 Unburden 1 Eternal Dragon 1 Renewed Faith 1 Lonely Sandbar 1 Complicate 1 Undead Gladiator 1 Barren Moor 1 Polluted Delta 1 Flooded Strand 1 Astral Slide 1 Secluded Steppe 1 Karmic Justice 1 Auramancer 2 Swamp 2 Island 2 Plains 1 Phyrexian Arena 1 Caves of Koilos 1 Adarkar Wastes 1 Underground River 1 Rhystic Study 1 Enlightened Tutor 1 Radiant's Judgment 1 Miscalculation 1 Polluted Mire 1 Drifting Meadow 1 Fluctuator 1 Rewind 1 Expunge 1 Remote Isle 1 Blasted Landscape 1 Aura of Silence 1 Maze of Ith 1 Sol Ring 1 Demonic Tutor
Running Zur as commander certainly makes it more consistent, but Zur is considered a kill-on-sight commander and might cause you to get hated out of the game quickly
Man I really have no idea what I’m doing. I’m trying to make a deck with Herigast as the secret commander because I love emerge, but I don’t want to be limited to mono-red by having him in the command zone. But… I don’t really have a set direction with the deck yet. I just have this idea in my head of “well, when everything has emerge, suddenly the game becomes Yugioh and I’m using my creatures as my resources instead of lands and mana”. But I don’t know what kind of like, endstate I should aim for with that. Edit adding onto this because I forgot to even mention why I’m bringing this deck idea up, but, it’s because it feels very similar to the sharumslide deck. I know two of my key components are Herigast and Paleoloth, a green creature that lets me recurr creatures whenever I cast a creature with 6 power or greater. And I know that the main themes of the deck broadly are, big CMCs that I wanna get out for cheap with Emerge, sacrifice triggers to build value when I’m saccing creatures for emerge costs, and recursion of some sort so I can repeat sacrificed creatures effects. But… idk where to go with these themes. I just feel lost trying to make them work together, or even finding the cards that do it.
As a Snail Stan through and through, I have to avenge your critique on Gavi Nest Warden. The main key difference is this deck prioritizes graveyard subthemes over card draw on opponents turns. Most gavi lists utilize astral slide and flicker/token sub-themes, but still retain the toolbox nature of your Sharuum list. Hope to shuffle up against this list one day 🤘
i built a similar deck except i instead opted for xur as the commander. a little more scary but it means i consistently can get out astral slide / drift and start flickering. Lots of fun but needs an update
This is an amazing deck. You can really feel the years of care and dedication put into the deck. I’ve always wanted to hear you breakdown the deck because you bring it up often. EDIT: HOLY FACE REVEAL BATMAN
just a quick 2cents on tutors, the more weird and niche they are, the more ok I am with them. I dont hate tutors overall, but if a deck gets too consistent sometimes I dont want to play against it Edit: by consistent, I dont mean "the deck does the thing the deck does" I mean consistent in "the deck does the exact same thing the deck did last time", which to some extent is fine, this deck wants its astral slide, yeah. But it would be like if you only had the same 5 cycling cards each time ig it is a heavily personal biased take tho
I can remove it, and I can also use a mixture of Astral Slide and Escape Protocol to break parity, since Astral Slide can keep the Containment Priest in exile while Escape Protocol flickers a thing a couple times.
I am of the opinion that tutors feel boring if you are using them to get the same thing almost every game, if you are using them like here as a toolbox most of the time then they are less boring, that's how 2 of my decks play their tutors, though nowhere near as intricate a decision tree as your case, I usually hope to find silver bullets And even the boring kind can be interesting to play in the right context, I have one higher power combo deck for a pod of friends with similarly powered decks that runs a handful of unconditional tutors, the fun for me in those pods is the interaction vetween the decks, can I pull my combo off through the stay pieces? Can we stop the thoracle combo player with the stuff on the stack? Will they take the bait and counter my redundant combo piece or will they try to remove the less redundant one? If the deck wins it's because of one of three combos, but how we get there is always a journey because we are all trying to stop each other and that is never the same twice, how often does someone exile 2/3rds of their deck to find a stifle effect with demonic consultation they were gonna cast next turn with Thoracle because it is the only counterspell he has left that could stop a combo, all while the stack is now 6 spells and 15 abilities deep and everyone else is tapped out
That's a neat card, though this deck already has an irresponsibly large number of taplands, and seven cards is a kind of steep cost to copy a single ability
@@salubrioussnail cut an artifact land? You only really need to copy something big once for it to be worth it, plus it can be tutored with scampering surveyor
This kind of toolbox-style deck is my absolute dream but I have no idea how to even remotely begin constructing one. What a gorgeous deck, I'm sure no two games are the same.
This deck legitimately gives me envy, I was so happy when you gave me the chance to go through it with you when you were looking to update it.
edit 21:58 Pharika reference???
I recently stumbled upon your channel and after watching a bunch of videos I'm almost able to planeswalk. Awesome thought provoking content and great advice. Thank you!
I hear the Upcoming Ghirapur grand prix's top prize is final spark you need to start planeswalking
Ur literally a snail, how can you build things?
Very slowly.
@@imaginarymatter Instructions unclear, ate the cardboard.
He went to school, be nice to Snail
See, but this snail is salubrious, healthier than the ordinary snail
With their mind
I loved the color coded highlighting of synergistic effects you did @2:49. Keep up the great work, another excellent video!
Man these are my favorite kinds of commander decks. They make each game feel like a roguelike, where you work with what you got and react to the game as best you can given the cards at your disposal.
I want to speak the deck building process a tad, since I think I built my third deck in a similar way. After tens of failed builds on archideckt, I compiled a long list of cards I wanted to play with. I stared at them for an hour or two and tried to figure out how many of them I could fit into the same deck. All of the cards pulled along different synergy axes, but the points of cohesion coalesced around 10 or so cards. It felt like I was discovering the deck, unearthing synergies that directed card and commander choices. The process was so intensive that I haven't successfully put another deck together since. It's so much work to find flavor that divine, but after I found it my standards for decks rose to match it.
It's so cool to hear you talk about a deck your proud of. Finding a main synergy and going from there is such a rewarding process.
A deck I am trying to this with right now is Shrines without Go-Shintai. What I came up with is a Jodah, the Unifier brew that uses Jegantha as a companion. The Crux of the deck is that every legendary spell in the deck that isn't a shrine has a mana value of 5 so that they can only cascade into a Shrine. What resulted from this is a diverse set of value legend spells that hold me over until I amass enough Shrines to win through them. What is great about the shrines mainly coming from the top of my library is that I don't get to pick what shrine appears which has made games very diverse.
The deck is still in a pretty early stage but I can't wait to iterate and improve it with more testing.
One of my favorite decks! I recently bought my list of the concept, I took your list, made some upgrades such as adding Escape Protocal as extra redundency. Lots of minor card upgrades as well, such as Monstrosity of the lake, etc. Thank you for sharing your amazing list, It's been one of my favorite decks for the longest time! I'm intrigued to see what changes you've made since then!
Edit: I'll definitely be taking some of your card choices, I didn't even think about transmute before you mentioned it! Great deck and great concept 👍
Can you share your list?
I’ve had a cycling toolbox deck in my edh arsenal for a long time. It’s gone through many different iterations but has always been my favorite deck! It’s currently helmed by Atraxa Grand Unifier lol. I’m glad to see someone giving this kind of archetype some love!
I love this deck, and it was part of the inspiration for my own toolbox deck that is still super difficult but rewarding for me to play. I play a graveyard-centric toolbox deck helmed by Tasigur, the Golden Fang. It has recursion in the command zone, but it requires an opponent to pick a card for me making it political, and rather than trying to keep my graveyard empty to force them to pick the best card, i use it as a way to forge alliances by having people agree with what the problem is and dealing with it. Then I use recursion in the 99 to return my wincons. Its taking time for me to learn my lines for all the tutors especially the graveyard tutors like gravebreaker lamia, but I'm slowly improving at it and trying to reduce long turns
I also play Tasigur but mostly as a way to play a gy deck that focuses on all card types instead of just the typical creature focused self-mill decks. Did you find any ways to use tasigut mana efficently (except for training grounds and that 2 mana adapt dude)? I often find it hard to use his ability until it's turn 10 or later since 4 mana isn't as cheap as I would like to be haha
@User_N8 it is still quite difficult, one card I use for that purpose is wilderness reclamation letting me untap an extra time, this is often one of my tutor targets. One of the best ways to use it is as a way to ensure you don't waste mana while holding up instant speed interaction. Rewind is a pretty fun option here, because it costs the same amount of mana for you to counter something, so if you don't need to counter anything you can just use the ability, and even if you do counter something it untaps the lands you need to use his ability anyway
I love tasigur as a toolbox, its a shame all the lists are derived from his cedh golden era and completely ignore his activated ability. I'm also guilty of this but even then he's such a fun rewarding commander
@ Yeah Reclamation is nice, I didn't build tutors into my deck yet though. Rewind is actually a nice call, I only played that in a spell slinger so far, but it does make sense in tasigur. thanks!
That sounds like a really interesting toolbox list I’ve never seen before. Would you be willing to share your list?
I can't wait to crush this deck in a game >:)
please make a video out of it if you do ;)
livestream this game please, it would be a blast!
I've been an avid slide player for years now. And it is interesting to see where you took it. Mine is a zur deck built more generally around stifles and quality wizard etbs, with much less emphasis on the grave and no artifact synergy. One card I've been trying with that (as far as I know) only 1 other person has spotted is micromancer. You can actually run a really competent suite of removal, counterspells, tutors, boardwipes, carddraw etc. Only with instants/sorceries that cost 1 (e.g the spree cards, swords to ploughshares, multiple choice, consign to memory). This makes micromancer a solid value wizard that can offer high versatility, while being searchable off wizardcycling. I'm a huge believer in the potential of micromancer in slide, and I cannot find other people online discussing it. Consign to memory is extra nasty as it can stifle the slide triggers so you have yet another way to keep things in exile.
One sequence that is so strong I'm surprised you didn't mention is step through ---> archeomancer. Archeomancer then recurs step through, step through cycle slides archeo, archeo gets step back, etc. Etc. Uncounterable, repeatable low cost tutoring for any wizard in deck? All off the back of slide in play + step through in hand? Nuts.
I remember seeing this deck while browsing your archidekt and bring floored by it's elegance. Glad to hear your thoughts on it directly!
I recently had a very similar journey. I spent at least a month thinking about nothing but astral slide in a Rasputin, dream weaver deck, by blinking Rasputin I essentially had unlimited colorless mana, this led to a need for a completely unreasonable number of cycling cards and I managed to find room for 29 whole cards with cycling. building in the same sort of transmute tutor chains became a main part of the deck as well. It's so fun to build around a card in the 99 that's more difficult to remove, and accidentally giving yourself toolbox like options is a beautiful balance
I kind of want to try this with Pantlaza, Sun-Favored. Hear me out. Non-land cycling cards generally have a mana value >4 while the support pieces have a mana value
Your first video mentioning the cycling Sharuum deck inspired me to make a Yore-Tiller Nephilim cycling deck. It tries to win by either good etb value or by extra combat loops that sac and revive creatures for as much etb as you need. Its part of a pod of 5 nephilim decks I’m making that are designed to fight each other so no one gets upset about an illegal commander cuz everyone would have one. One of my favorite things the deck can do is because Seize the Day can target an opponent’s creature, if Ink-Treader Nephilim is on the board you can get a bunch of combats and if you can give Yore-Tiller vigilance you basically grab your whole graveyard.
This is exactly the video I needed for my artifact creature aristocrat/grqveyard Rendmaw deck
This deck makes me so happy. The first deck I ever built entirely from the ground up was a Sharuum deck with Danse of the Manse and God-Pharaoh's Gift.
I feel so validated by this video. I used a similar technique to make not a commander deck, just a casual 60 card deck. It runs extort, weenies, tokens, it's stacking effects from lifegain, it uses various verions of Sanguine/Exquisite abilites to just find a way to wring extra value out of throwing out piddly flyers and aggressively bleeding opponents through chip damage and aerial bombardment. It's so fun, and has me wanting to make a proper Commander deck out of the thing. I am thinking of using Liesa.
Before I ever saw your first video on your Cycling deck I ended up building my own Naya Cycling deck. During my deck building process I've ended up following a similar journey in how I've build the deck. I've recently gone back to rebuild the deck to try a different feel to it and I've ended up on a CMC > 3 deck with the goal to cascade into either Astral Drift, Astral Slide, or Enlightened Tutor due to the large amounts of enchantments I have in the deck. It's probably my Favorite deck and one I've had around since I built it a few years ago.
The play of Perplex with a second counterspell in hand is SO EVIL. I love it.
It’s 100% grinding my gears that you took over in your CYCLING DECK. The utility of a fog is so underrated. That you literally put in a 1 mana do-nothing vanilla “beater”.
I think the idea was that it was a cheap creature for Oversold Cemetery that also cycles.
That card seems good! But yes as Cameron suggested, I prioritize creatures with very low cycling costs extremely highly. I may try it in place of Don't Blink at some point, which is kind of a cycling/removal flex slot
This deck tech is insane. Since I saw the card Astral Drift I wanted to make a Cycle deck. I think I'll pick up your list and see what I can do with it. Thanks !
man, i'm kind of envious of this deck, and your ability to assemble it. Astral Slide always seemed like such a cool card to build around but i could never find a way to build around it for the life of me.
I might netdeck this for a few games. I'm not particularly confident in my deckbuilding abilities but i figure learning to pilot this ought to at least make me a better player.
Glad to see this video! picked up your decklist a week ago, and it is definitely my playstyle and will put some more time into it. I am trying to figure out my own unique pet card to play around that I can build something unique from, might be a while till i find it since you already got astral slide covered and I love this card
I always wanted to build a unique deck like this... but just am not that creative. Good at research... but just can't find anything cool for myself. Your ability to build something so cool is inspiring.
You are the only commander creator I enjoy watching. I do not play the format anymore, but love hearing how to tackle this format. Do you assist fans with building decks? I have a dream commander deck that focuses on story telling and not winning. It's commanders are Silvar and Trynn. The idea is that humans gather in fear as the plane they live in is terrifying. They struggle for control against their gods and vampire oligarchs. The story ends with a glorious gathering of humans which unit to destroy their fear, or succumb to it as they are all consumed by their greedy overlords.
While not being a style of deck I imagine myself building, it looks pretty cool to play. The combination of synergies look awesome too
I love that this whole deck came about because of Onslaught. I swear I discover a new interesting card from that set every time I look at it.
I'm a big fan of 1999-2003 era MTG. It's after the design team had a bit of experience under its belt, but it still has a healthy heaping of early MTG zest.
0:52 You know what else is MASSIVE
I always wondered why this deck seemed so cool to me in particular whenever you talked about it. After hearing you describe the most common lines, I now realize my Inalla deck was basically built off the same piecemeal tutoring value engine control philosophy. I think yours is cooler though.
I was brewing this archetype while going through your deck earlier today, wth.
Literally four hours ago I was wanting to try and make an Esper cycling deck... this will be my inspiration.
TRANSMUTE MENTIONED!!!!!
This is generally how (good*) cedh players build their decks. what can make commander so cool is how unique thoughts/ideas come up with such interesting decks
Great deck, great explanation, thanks !
Finished watching the video and dude you need to build a cube trust.
I built a cycling deck that was originally built as a stax deck, it has also evolved since its inception and moved away from the cycling theme, but I did keep the Decree of Annihilation + Barren Glory combo for funsies.
I built a Teneb deck with a similar midset like 5 years ago, and I still love the deck to bits
This is exactly how my Zur, The Enchanter/Inquisitor Greyfax (lower tier ver) American Police deck works.
1 - Value through board state creatures and auras
2 - Suppressing opponents through same auras, and
3 - Stay alive through Lifelink.
The fact that I'm 7 months into MTG and I've got to this point, solely going to my LGS and LOOKING at cards in a multicolor box that were on discount that "looked aesthetically cool" I ended up making a deck that has won 1 v 2s, 1v1s and haven't seen a solid loss in 1v4 (commander proper). That's esper for ya
As a flicker/artifact mage that loves esper, I love this.
This is by far the coolest commander deck I've ever seen, it's so interesting and complex, fantastic job
This deck is my favorite of yours for sure!
So I have a Astral Slide (technically only drift rn because either haven't ordered slide yet) deck using The First Doctor and Susan Foreman. The gimmick is that the only cards in the deck below 4 mv are the Slides, so when I cascade for 4 using the TARDIS I will always hit a slide. It is currently a budget deck, minus the spara's headquarters it is just a bit above 30 dollars.
All things considered, it works okay. But the more I play it the more I realize it WANTS to be a control deck, even though it wasn't planned as one. It is waaaay to slow to win the game and really does want to do all the things you say here in the video. Keep itself alive, suppress opponents and generate value. But it wasn't really properly designed to do the first two, just the third. So it mostly just ends up durdling and not making progress towards winning.
I think the insights in this video will help me a lot. I've considered switching Susan to Vislor Turlough as he is a 4 drop that will cascade into slide in the command zone as well as being a win con that can be reset with slide. Black might be the better option here for the deck, as you have determined yourself. Susan has advantages though, she is a second time lord so both her and first doctor have to be gone in order to turn off the TARDIS's cascade. She is also a mana dork which help me keep a more consistent curve even with tapped lands, which obviously the deck wants because of all the cycling lands, (even though I don't have them all in there right now). Green also allows for better land ramp, which was the primary reason I chose it in the first place.
I've also been trying to keep it to a 30 dollar budget, but at this rate with how ineffective it is at closing out games I think I might up it to 50.
Idk, the first draft was hella easy to make, but the more I toy with it the more I am experiencing the same thing as you. This is a really hard deck to build, but also quite fufilling in a lot of ways. Regardless I'm going to take a look at each card with an extremely critical eye and try to pin down what is really necessary and isn't and what synergies I've included/thought about are a bit extraneous and not worth it.
Final note, have you considered disciple of caelus nin? It is tutorable with wizardcycling and locks your opponents into having only 5 permanents while you can cycle it away before your turn to keep all yours on your turn. Prob the best way I currently have of ending the game because asymmetrical hard lock like that should make most people go "okay, I'm good" but I haven't been able to test it irl because I don't play much at all.
Also, I'm excited to try building a deck for the contest!
I do have a fun deck that has Halsin as the secret commander, along with Alloy Animist and Tough Cookie. The goal is to make foods and turn them all into 4/4 bears. What I hope to do as well with cards like Shelob and Vraska is turn my opponents cards into treasures or foods, and then turn those into 4/4 bears. I call it Witherbloom Wilson and the Gummy Bears and the commander is Wilson, Refined Grizzly and Agent of the Shadow Thieves.
This is so similar in concept to the deck I ended up with by tinkering with the Sefris of the Hidden Ways precon, which is my favorite deck, but turned to 11. Mine even includes the transmute cards and mage tutors.
I'm green with envy, or maybe Esper with envy?
That is a really cool Haunted One alter!
I am working on a list for a necrobloom astral slide and checked your deck for ideas, but we are building in fundamentally distinct directions
Have you considered running Teferi's Ageless Insight? Turning each cycling card into a draw two, discard one would help rip through your deck. With Fluctuator, it seems like it would be incredibly valuable.
Beautiful. Very jealous, want to pilot this deck.
This deck looks so fun but I need to know, have you tried Runaway Boulder? It has a lot of cool interactions like with Waterlogged Teachings and can be flickered with Escape Protocol. Plus it’s great at being reanimated by sharuum since you can cycle it to flicker sharuum to immediately return it to play.
It’s also just a really funny card, Pauper Tron uses it as a tutor target for Mystical Teachings that you can Ghostly Flicker.
That's an interesting card, I haven't tried it before but I could see it slotting in decently. Might have to give it a try at some point.
I had a zur slide, but it wasn't very fun and was super linear, seeing this one made me want to use this deck, so I changed the list a little and I'm having a lot of fun :)
I don't think I'm the only one that's going to say this, but this deck is a masterpiece and should never be taken apart.
Took you list and basically replaced your pet cards with my pet cards. One of my favorite decks to run, thing is a masterpiece.
Oh you'd ADORE my Sefris deck that resolves around Ratadrabik.
sounds cool, could you share?
Snail, you are as wide as you are great (which btw is a lot). I agree with your tutor theory, but the problem is 99% of the time it's played as you said; a cEDH way to increase pull chance for an instant win. In this deck they seem incredibly fun!
congrats u have just convinced a jaded grumpy ex-player sick of synergy piles to brew a new deck
I play astral slide too
in a Pantalaza deck(that discover Dino) with the enchantment “castle”. The rest of the deck is over 4 cmc except for blink spells so I almost always get astral slide when I cast my commander.
A great deck idea, I have just realized my obeka blink deck had a similar thought process. It is a mix of thief, sneak attack and blink. It is still janky but at leat I'm having fun
From the sounds of it, one of these days you'll achieve your final form and build a cube. Many of the same considerations that you clearly found interesting in building/updating this deck are central to creating a well balanced cube. Plus, you get to play 1v1 Magic, the way Richard Garfield intended.
ugh this is what i love about commander
I've been trying to build a similar idea with Master of Keys at the helm. Pulls more towards enchantment based tools, of course, but I like it as a recovery tool even if I can't get value out of blinking him directly
Awesome content. Keep it up!
Since this deck got the 6/5 on the magic mirror podcast, I’ve loved it.
I have been wondering, why thought vessel? The looting the deck does is great for its primary gameplay, and the game has a built in discard mechanic, and thought vessel turns it off. Is it a hate piece against Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur? Why it over something like mind stone, that in a pinch can draw a card and be gotten again by Sharuum?
Thought Vessel is actually a card I've been thinking of replacing. I might swap it out for a Liquimetal Torque next time I can get my hands on one of those.
16:31 Indeed, I do think it would be interesting to interrogate this. I'd say you should make a video about it, but I suspect it would look similar to your Combo video.
This deck looks sick. 🎉🎉🎉
Happy coincidence I just build a Haslin deck!
Your tutor package reminds me of my ragnar pinger deck
Mycosynth wellspring might be a good fit!
I wish I had time to build a deck for the deckbuilding challenge, but I'd build Alora/Criminal Past with an alternate WinCon of Mortal Combat
The Sharuum Slide: or, How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Play Yu-Gi-Oh
Im currently in the process of making a cycling deck with "Ellie and Alan, Paleontologists" as the commander. Not 100% sure what direction to go with the deck besides jam a bunch of high cmc cycling creatures to feed the commanders ability.
Amazing deck and great video as always!
Would you be able to provide a more budget version of the deck? maybe below 50€ / 70$ or even lower? (archidekt shows 98€ / 176$ for the list you provided)
In a similar way - maybe a higher power version of the deck with some on theme combos to win could be interesting to explore too!
$40 can pretty easily be cut out by cutting Portal to Phyrexia, Mystic Remora, and Glen Elendra Archmage, and replacing those with a board wipe, a draw spell, and a counterspell (pretty much any work). After that cuts get a bit trickier.
Jon Suarez in S14E6 of Commader Vs. had a Zur the Enchanter cycling deck that put his tutor for Slide in the command zone. I think that makes the deck more consistent (like with your 4+ mana tribal deck).
If updated with recent cards it would be better and it was really good before. The disadvantage is persuading opponents you wont just fetch Necropotence and combo off on the following turn. And you don't have easy access to Sharuum's reanimate trigger.
1 Estrid's Invocation
1 Nimble Obstructionist
1 Fetid Pools
1 Faith of the Devoted
1 Cast Out
1 Forsake the Worldly
1 Drake Haven
1 Scarab Feast
1 Curator of Mysteries
1 New Perspectives
1 Archfiend of Ifnir
1 Vizier of Tumbling Sands
1 Irrigated Farmland
1 Censor
1 Migratory Route
1 Ash Barrens
1 Ancient Excavation
1 Gonti, Lord of Luxury
1 Cloudblazer
1 Imprisoned in the Moon
1 Reflector Mage
1 Grasp of Fate
1 Prairie Stream
1 Sunken Hollow
1 Clever Impersonator
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Strionic Resonator
1 Merciless Eviction
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Detention Sphere
1 Isolated Chapel
1 Sundial of the Infinite
1 Command Tower
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Sun Titan
1 Marsh Flats
1 Drowned Catacomb
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Traumatic Visions
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Path to Exile
1 Resounding Wave
1 Arcane Sanctum
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Steel of the Godhead
1 Mulldrifter
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Azorius Signet
1 Godless Shrine
1 Orzhov Signet
1 Copy Enchantment
1 Dimir Signet
1 Watery Grave
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Decree of Silence
1 Decree of Pain
1 Decree of Justice
1 Temple of the False God
1 Unburden
1 Eternal Dragon
1 Renewed Faith
1 Lonely Sandbar
1 Complicate
1 Undead Gladiator
1 Barren Moor
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Astral Slide
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Karmic Justice
1 Auramancer
2 Swamp
2 Island
2 Plains
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Caves of Koilos
1 Adarkar Wastes
1 Underground River
1 Rhystic Study
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Radiant's Judgment
1 Miscalculation
1 Polluted Mire
1 Drifting Meadow
1 Fluctuator
1 Rewind
1 Expunge
1 Remote Isle
1 Blasted Landscape
1 Aura of Silence
1 Maze of Ith
1 Sol Ring
1 Demonic Tutor
Running Zur as commander certainly makes it more consistent, but Zur is considered a kill-on-sight commander and might cause you to get hated out of the game quickly
Man I really have no idea what I’m doing. I’m trying to make a deck with Herigast as the secret commander because I love emerge, but I don’t want to be limited to mono-red by having him in the command zone. But… I don’t really have a set direction with the deck yet. I just have this idea in my head of “well, when everything has emerge, suddenly the game becomes Yugioh and I’m using my creatures as my resources instead of lands and mana”. But I don’t know what kind of like, endstate I should aim for with that.
Edit adding onto this because I forgot to even mention why I’m bringing this deck idea up, but, it’s because it feels very similar to the sharumslide deck. I know two of my key components are Herigast and Paleoloth, a green creature that lets me recurr creatures whenever I cast a creature with 6 power or greater. And I know that the main themes of the deck broadly are, big CMCs that I wanna get out for cheap with Emerge, sacrifice triggers to build value when I’m saccing creatures for emerge costs, and recursion of some sort so I can repeat sacrificed creatures effects. But… idk where to go with these themes. I just feel lost trying to make them work together, or even finding the cards that do it.
all hail snail, chef's kiss
As a Snail Stan through and through, I have to avenge your critique on Gavi Nest Warden. The main key difference is this deck prioritizes graveyard subthemes over card draw on opponents turns. Most gavi lists utilize astral slide and flicker/token sub-themes, but still retain the toolbox nature of your Sharuum list. Hope to shuffle up against this list one day 🤘
My cycling deck is Zur so I can go get astral slide (a pet card for me). I love it.
Oh wow I already have an Amber deck that I have played a bunch. This might be a challenge for me.
Do you have any advice for starting to build a highly synergistic deck, like this one? Like how to choose key pieces and colour?
cloud of faeries not being in here is criminal
i built a similar deck except i instead opted for xur as the commander. a little more scary but it means i consistently can get out astral slide / drift and start flickering. Lots of fun but needs an update
Aaaaah so it's a yugioh deck! (Seriously, great video!)
Are you the immortal deathtouch kind of snail or the ordinary kind ?
Congratulations, your one Omniscience away from having a Yu-Gi-Oh-Deck
Would the deck be much different with a larger budget?
This is an amazing deck. You can really feel the years of care and dedication put into the deck.
I’ve always wanted to hear you breakdown the deck because you bring it up often.
EDIT: HOLY FACE REVEAL BATMAN
This is just the sefris without the dungeon mechanic lol
This is the deck building way
just a quick 2cents on tutors, the more weird and niche they are, the more ok I am with them. I dont hate tutors overall, but if a deck gets too consistent sometimes I dont want to play against it
Edit: by consistent, I dont mean "the deck does the thing the deck does" I mean consistent in "the deck does the exact same thing the deck did last time", which to some extent is fine, this deck wants its astral slide, yeah. But it would be like if you only had the same 5 cycling cards each time ig
it is a heavily personal biased take tho
Snaaaail content 🎉😊
How do you handle cards like containment priest?
I can remove it, and I can also use a mixture of Astral Slide and Escape Protocol to break parity, since Astral Slide can keep the Containment Priest in exile while Escape Protocol flickers a thing a couple times.
i just ordered astral drift today...
I am of the opinion that tutors feel boring if you are using them to get the same thing almost every game, if you are using them like here as a toolbox most of the time then they are less boring, that's how 2 of my decks play their tutors, though nowhere near as intricate a decision tree as your case, I usually hope to find silver bullets
And even the boring kind can be interesting to play in the right context, I have one higher power combo deck for a pod of friends with similarly powered decks that runs a handful of unconditional tutors, the fun for me in those pods is the interaction vetween the decks, can I pull my combo off through the stay pieces? Can we stop the thoracle combo player with the stuff on the stack? Will they take the bait and counter my redundant combo piece or will they try to remove the less redundant one? If the deck wins it's because of one of three combos, but how we get there is always a journey because we are all trying to stop each other and that is never the same twice, how often does someone exile 2/3rds of their deck to find a stifle effect with demonic consultation they were gonna cast next turn with Thoracle because it is the only counterspell he has left that could stop a combo, all while the stack is now 6 spells and 15 abilities deep and everyone else is tapped out
neat stuff, dude
Every tutor (and fetchland) adds boring non-gameplay delays to the game: adding what Evan Erwin called "loading screens" he didn't want.
generic tutor hate is an indicator of either inexperience or a jaded player
I think that is a rube goldberg machine built out of magic cards lol
Snail, where is your sunken palace?
That's a neat card, though this deck already has an irresponsibly large number of taplands, and seven cards is a kind of steep cost to copy a single ability
@@salubrioussnail cut an artifact land? You only really need to copy something big once for it to be worth it, plus it can be tutored with scampering surveyor
Dude just built a Yugioh deck