MTG Salvation

Izzet combo/spellbased goodstuff and my very favorite color combo. Cast spells until the world burns or until you run out of cards, sometimes both at once.

By Card Type:


By Card Function (cards listed more than once):

I have acquired a Timetwister. This deck shall be the first to sleeve it up. I made a few other minor tweaks as well. Really can't wait to finally cast a piece of power :).

Solid list, my man! How long have you been playing this current list and what do you find are usually your best win conditions ? Is there anything here you're not crazy about when you were typing it up ?

I've been running a creatureless proteus staff / Firemind's Foresight combo version that's taken me forever to get where I feel comfortable with it - and it reminds me of my vintage days of magic. I've sifted through thousands of sorceries and instants to arrive where I am here with this wacky pile.

If it's alright, I'll post it below for you to see - since it's not on the forums anywhere else...



There's a couple of cards in there I want to highlight:
Withering Gaze This is can be a 1-sided draw seven. More in rare circumstances.
Retraced Image This is here to let me drop an extra island. Sometimes I get to drop a gilded lotus for free instead.
Sapphire Charm This is one of my win conditions (It's first mode, infinitely with the reset/reiterate combo) - but it's second mode is handy in a ton of situations.
Submerge - I'd consider this an MVP of the deck - especially in response to any effect that shuffles their library.
Proteus Staff - This needs to come out now that Burnished Hart is in there, actually. Before that, it'd tuck melek, find him and let me reorder the whole library to win pretty much right away.
Ertai's Meddling - I can't recommend trying this out enough. This is one of the best counter effects I've seen and I've used it on my own spells as well as other people's. It doesn't counter - it exiles the spell from the stack. Politically, it can cause a player to get teamed up on before their spell resolves.
Dream Halls - I don't run this anymore because it lets people cast all their instants in response to a draw 7. That might be your style, though.


Lands:
Lotus Vale is dangerous. I usually only play it later on to get more value out of Frantic Search and Time Spiral. It was better when Mind Over Matter was in my Deck, honestly.
Fetchlands - Honestly, you'd want to cut the CIPT fetches and run only a Scalding Tarn (plus the off-color ones if you want) - but I'm getting rid of all my fetches until they're reprinted.
Kher Keep - This should probably an island. It was a proteus staff enabler.

Quote from Burntgerbil

Solid list, my man! How long have you been playing this current list and what do you find are usually your best win conditions ? Is there anything here you're not crazy about when you were typing it up ?

Thank you! The list itself had it's genesis around a year ago as a Niv deck that loved using Molten Psyche for the win. As soon as Melek was spoiled, the deck was remodeled to accommodate him.

Epic Experiment gets the job done for me the most often I would probably say, punting x for six and above is not a good thing to let me do. It's also really easy to do and still have mana up for counters and/or copying. From there, I would have to say breaking Turnabout is my next choice (which usually results from Epic Experiment being cast or vice versa), as having a cloud of mana floating in the air typically means people are going to die.

I occasionally question myself on Burning Vengeance/Secrets of the Dead. I have the urge to run Tezzeret and I feel like one of these guys would be the cut, but deciding which I value more is the pain as I use my 'yard pretty heavily so they can both pull their weight like champs. One of these days I might just cut them both and see which I miss more often. Other than that area of niggling, I'm overall very happy with the list, it plays tight, everything gels well together, and it has a terrific sense of forward momentum throughout the game.

There's a couple of cards in there I want to highlight:
Withering Gaze This is can be a 1-sided draw seven. More in rare circumstances.
Retraced Image This is here to let me drop an extra island. Sometimes I get to drop a gilded lotus for free instead.
Sapphire Charm This is one of my win conditions (It's first mode, infinitely with the reset/reiterate combo) - but it's second mode is handy in a ton of situations.
Submerge - I'd consider this an MVP of the deck - especially in response to any effect that shuffles their library.
Proteus Staff - This needs to come out now that Burnished Hart is in there, actually. Before that, it'd tuck melek, find him and let me reorder the whole library to win pretty much right away.
Ertai's Meddling - I can't recommend trying this out enough. This is one of the best counter effects I've seen and I've used it on my own spells as well as other people's. It doesn't counter - it exiles the spell from the stack. Politically, it can cause a player to get teamed up on before their spell resolves.
Dream Halls - I don't run this anymore because it lets people cast all their instants in response to a draw 7. That might be your style, though.


Lands:
Lotus Vale is dangerous. I usually only play it later on to get more value out of Frantic Search and Time Spiral. It was better when Mind Over Matter was in my Deck, honestly.
Fetchlands - Honestly, you'd want to cut the CIPT fetches and run only a Scalding Tarn (plus the off-color ones if you want) - but I'm getting rid of all my fetches until they're reprinted.
Kher Keep - This should probably an island. It was a proteus staff enabler.

List looks good. I like some of these choices a lot. My group actually just finished working out rules for a wishboard night that I was planning on using this deck for, and a bag of tricks on the side like Withering Gaze is what I'm looking to do. Thanks for the comments and ideas!

Cool! I played an absolutely insane 8 player game last night where someone dropped a Hive Mind when we had a ton of lands in play. I played Time Spiral (x8) With a Quicken (for each player) - the hive mind was destroyed before the first time spiral resolved, someone cast a Time Stretch (Not me - I don't run ANY extra turn effects in Melek) - but I was able to copy it 5 times with a reiterate.

It understandably took quite awhile to resolve the time spirals - and I had to take off before I got my 10 extra turns - but it was utter insanity. At one point, we weren't even able to tell who's turn it was - good times!

If you like withering gaze and you have a bunch of mono-red in your meta, Baleful Stare might be a solid option too.

Well, I said I was going to do it. Dropped Burning Vengeance and Secrets of the Dead for Tezzeret and Intuition. I think this should work out

Well, Commander 2013 didn't bring with it anything I was excited to run in Melek so I just had to make some minor tweaks to my manabase. I cut Felwar Stone, Kher Keep, Haunted Fengraf, and a Mountain for Mana Crypt, Mox Diamond, City of Traitors, and a Island to smooth out my colorbase and up my explosive potential. Anyways, just keeping the list up to date. Kaizoku ou ni ore wa naru!

Lucked into a Jace last night eager to put in work for the 'zet and I think he's gonna do just fine. No other changes I can think of offhand.

Christmas comes early in the form of Mana Drain :). Dropping Memory Lapse to slot it in.

List looks pretty good. I've made a few minor changes recently - I had a rapid hybridization that I swapped out for a chain of vapor. The chain seems really good in here. I've worked in an Intuition and a Meditate in my version as well.

Not a whole lot of changes, the most notable add is Treasonous Ogre who is top shelf. Imperial Recruiter gives some reach into our creature package, grabbing everything but our Kelpie, and Ponder finds its way finally into the deck.

Sweet list! I'm looking to build my own budget Melek and I was wondering a few things:

1) Nivix Guildmage good? Looks like a big mana investment to get any value out and a bit fragile.
2) This looks like a "combo as quickly as possible" list. Any issues being hated out from tables when they see your general, or follow-up games where you've combo'd? You seem to have very little defense or ways to interact with the board.

The rest of the list makes sense to me.

Thank you!

Guildmage is a mixed bag. On one hand he offers you another outlet to abuse Turnabout, his looting ability is quite handy, and he's a body to strap something like Runechanter's Pike onto if you're running such a thing. On the other hand he is fragile and definitely runs the risk of being a dead draw. On the gripping hand I just personally like the card a lot so its probably been getting a pass. I've wanted to try Phyrexian Metamorph onboard for awhile, this sounds like a chance to test it.

You're assessment is spot on: combo and win or die. I always expect hate sitting down with an Izzet deck because people know that's how that bread is buttered. Depending on how the first match went I might expect some additional hatred but there was also usually at least one more combo deck in the mix (games averaged around 4-6 players) so taking the full brunt of the table was generally unusual. We also played with full fifteen card sideboards which added to the drama (and might answer some of your concerns).

Anyways, thank you again and good luck with your own deck!

Ahh, I never really get the pleasure of playing more than one game with my melek build. I think that for most of my pals, there's something innately frustrating about playing against a deck that you know will help you draw 30+ cards and still probably lose. That said, my list has been pretty much static for the last 6 months - here's my current list:



Everything being equal, I usually just mystical/personal tutor for a prosperity effect or molten psyche with melek in play to seal the game. I've offloaded all my blue fetches - but you can be certain that once they get reprinted, there will be the full contingent of 7 fetches in here.