MTG Salvation

Hey everyone!

First time posting my decklist on this forum, so apologies in advance if I happen to screw anything up. Anyways, that aside, this is probably one of my most favorite EDH decks that I have built. As you can see through my wacky name (obviously taken from Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves) and some of the cards in my deck, this is meant to be casual (although it may hold its own in an EDH tournament, but I wouldn't know since i never have been to any). The big goal is just steal, steal, steal either through Mind Control esque enchantments, or through shapeshifters copying, such as Clone and Vesuvan Shapeshifter. Other shenanigans such as the ridiculous potential for a counter lockdown, as well as giving me way more turns than the rest of my playgroup.



Let me know what you think. Cards I definitely want to take out would be the Shapeshifter's Marrow as it is very unreliable. Mana Leak is also fun, but most of the time, my opponents can easily pay the mana cost. If you got any other suggestions, feel free to tell me. If you guys like my deck enough, I may make a Primer to go into more detail about my card choices for my deck (Since I love to discuss magic stuff and i wouldn't hesitate to write a witty piece about my boy Teferi)

Cards that went out from original decklist
Cancel: Very boring. Replaced by Dissipate.
Enclave Cryptologist: Inefficient, considering it's a level up creature. Replaced by Azami, Lady of Scrolls.
Island: Found extra utility cards such as Riptide Laboratory and Reliquary Tower to replace a few of those basic lands.
Mana Leak: While great in other formats, EDH is just too long for it to be effective. Replaced by Arcane Denial.
Mind Spring: As much as I liked this card, sorcery speed does kill its effectiveness just a tad. Gonna go with the Blue Sun's Zenith as it is an instant.
Ponder: Playtested with Preordain, and found a little bit more consistency using that card instead of Ponder.
Shapeshifter's Marrow: Only used this card as filler. Replaced by Thada Adel, Acquisitor
Unsummon: While this card is really nice, considering it's a bounce effect for U, Reality Strobe repeats a bounce every three turns.

Take out mana leak and put in arcane denial because it's a hard counter and you get to draw. Has corrupted conscience been useful? Ive never used it but it looks good. I would take out boseiju for reliquary tower because your general is better at making your spells uncounterable. I also would add more draw, cards like recurring insight and Myojin,of the seeing winds because they're a lot of fun and can pretty much give you a huge advantage. I would take out cancel for dissipate and unsummon for pongify as well. You might need more counters considering once you're general hits the board you'll be the only one able to counter spells and some nasty game ending stuff might slip through. Maybe take out dominate and put desertion in.

I do like Arcane Denial, seeing as how you won't piss off your opponent too much when his stuff is countered. Definitely will write that down. Also, why not keep the Boseiju in and just substitute an island for the reliquary tower? I'm sure going down one island wouldn't hurt me.

As for card draw, I definitely agree with you there. Could push out my Shapeshifter's Marrow for the Myojin. Another card I thought of a few moments ago was Aeon Chronicler. Would that be a good idea?

Also, thanks for pointing out the Dissipate. Wasn't aware of that card. I could definitely substitute that. As for Unsummon....I found it useful for not only bouncing their creatures, but my own too. Pongify might be nice removal, but like I said, I feel just a bit more comfortable sending it back to my opp's hand, especially if I have my Erayo/Arcane Lab lock.

Thanks for the suggestions!

Edit: Also forgot to mention, since my opponents love to play fatties, I've found Corrupted Conscience to be an amazing enchantment. "Your Kozilek sure looks lovely. Too bad I can blow up stuff AND poison you to death!"

While I'm more interested in seeing your Korlash deck, as I have one myself, this looks like a fun deck to play and to play against.

One of my better friends has a Thrax possession deck and it's easily one of the more powerful decks in our play group, so possession is a very nice thread to follow, even if it might absolutely drive some opponents crazy not being able to play there decks.

Have you ever seen a recurring insight go off? It should read draw 14 cards over your next 2 turns. Definitely very powerful. Aeon chronicler seems too expensive for what it does. I would rather play Azami,lady of scrolls in this deck because you'll usually atleast 4 cards since you can flash her in end of opponents turn draw 2 with her ability and them draw another 2 after you untap. And that's if you only have your general out. Add some more of your wizards to the mix and you'll be drawing a boatload of cards. Another land to look at is riptide laboratory because you're running a few wizards. With Venser it's basically your second capsize.

Also Jace 1.0 hasn't been that great in my experience. It's usually draw 1 card for 3 mana. I would remove it for Fact or fiction .

EDIT I also have some more expensive suggestions but I wasn't sure what your budget is. What are you willing to spend per card?

Keep Steel Hellkite in mind as when you flash it in at end of turn with teferi he can swing on your turn and blow out any problematic permenant.

Memnarch is hilarious theft. Flash him in with teferi and steal a few things before anyone can react.

Aura Thief is soooo fun for some combat tricks where someone attacks you, you flash him in and chump into stealing all enchants

Neurok Stealthsuit can be very solid as it can instant speed equip and shut down targeted removal that comes at you.

In case you dont know if you have Teferi + Knowledge Pool in play, your opponents cannot resolve cards from their hand which is a nifty dirty teferi combo. Fabricate and Treasure Mage are good for pulling out the Knowledge Pool if you want to play it. (just a note but your opponents can attempt to cast spells, when they do the knowledge pool kicks in and exiles their spell, they then pick a spell to attempt to resolve out of the pool which is then exiled as they cannot resolve spells when the stack has anything in it thanks to teferi's ability. They can cast flashback, generals from command zone, cards off top of library if they have something like Future Sight in play.)

Oh boy, so many comments. Alright, let's go through these

Graveborn: I'll probably post my Korlash setup sometime this weekend when I'm not so busy with schoolwork and what not. Not sure how yours run, but mine is mainly just an MBC.

Nutterbutter: While Recurring insight could get you plenty of cards, the late game meta might have your opponents running either empty hands or a couple of cards at best (unless of course, their strategy calls for a ridiculous hand size). That's why I'm pretty hesitant about it. Azami looks pretty legit though. Might consider her. As for Riptide, I'll definitely throw that in there next time I visit my shop. Thanks for your suggestions

ISB: You're a jerk. :P. I'm kidding, as I have some ridiculous combos with my deck too. However, for all those cards that you suggested, what would you take out of my deck? As much as your Knowledge Pool madness sure is appetizing, what would you suggest I don't need in my deck?

As for everyone else: I should mention that as this deck is meant for casual shenanigans, I don't want to spend more than say 20 dollars on a card unless its really worth it. If I wanted to go competitive, I'd go out and get those Force of Will and Mana Drain.

If you want to steal artifacts proactively, try Thada Adel, Acquisitor. On turn four, you can be rummaging through your opponents' libraries for all sorts of goodness, like their Sol Rings, Lightning Greaves or Everflowing Chalices.

I was in a game where one guy had Thada as his general and another had Arcum Dagsson as his. It led to a very quick rage quit, which was quite hilarious.

Quote from RABishop

If you want to steal artifacts proactively, try Thada Adel, Acquisitor. On turn four, you can be rummaging through your opponents' libraries for all sorts of goodness, like their Sol Rings, Lightning Greaves or Everflowing Chalices.

I was in a game where one guy had Thada as his general and another had Arcum Dagsson as his. It led to a very quick rage quit, which was quite hilarious.

And she is a rogue!. KE should be played anyway, but Thada makes it that much sweeter.

When I run her as my General it's nuts how often turn 4 unramped Time Stretches happen.

Out of everything on your list there are a few things I would consider cutting for some of the suggestions that have been made so far.

Declaration of Naught this is far more impressive in 1 v 1. It sort of sucks to start out by hating on one player as you are just making someone who wants to kick your ass off the get go. The only time I can see this being a good call is if there is a general that you just totally cannot deal with being on the board ever. I tried it myself but found it just makes enemies and is tough as you need to drop it b4 you are having problems.

Arcane Laboratory the only thing I see this comboing with is if you manage to get Erayo, Soratami Ascendant into play. While it is a decent lock I see Knowledge Pool being a far superior combo for this deck considering it can be tutored for easier and it works in combination with your general. The laboratory on the other hand is only one of the 2 pieces of the combo. You would still need to flip Erayo as well and neither of the pieces are really tutorable.

Shapeshifter's Marrow The problem I have with this is that you cannot control it at all. Also your deck is a bit revolving arround stealing creatures. If you try to deprive creatures from your opponents with this you will be making them possibly draw more answers for what you are doing which just isnt ideal in my opinion. Plus it is an enchantment which I just dont like in as much in Teferi as you have to cast it as a sorcery which eats up your mana.

Unsummon needs to be swapped out for something else. It is just a bit underperforming in EDH. If you want a bounce spell in this slot then consider one of a few different options between Wipe Away, Echoing Truth, Aether Adept
Wipe Away is nifty as it is split second denying your opponents an option to respond which is surprisingly useful utility on the card.
Echoing Truth is really good at removing all tokens you are facing in one swoop. It can also be used as unsummon and only costs one more mana.
Aether Adept bounce on a stick. You can use it to chump after you bounce something. You can also use it with any wizard based stuff such as Riptide Laboratory or Azami, Lady of Scrolls

Dominate could be outright cut. I had soooo many issues with it when I used to try it. The problem being other people will be better at ramping than you will and too often than not you will be stuck with an Eldrazi or a Blightsteel coming into play and you just dont have enough mana yet to steal it with this. It is so so ok late in the game but it really just takes a long time before you can use it on anything decent.

Ponder I have never been very impressed by this card. Try Impulse instead.

Mind Spring needs to turn into either Blue Sun's Zenith or Stroke of Genius. You are playing a deck that has lots of instant speed stuff and reducing a huge card draw effect that will tap you out to sorcery speed to save one mana is just not worth it. Run an instant form of it and you can at the least fake the options.

Enclave Cryptologist needs to be cut. If you like the card draw options try either Azami, Lady of Scrolls or Archivist. The sorcery speed level up on creatures is just a killer for teferi.

Keep in mind also that High Tide will allow you to go infinite mana with Palinchrome

I could also see some of your enchantment based creature / premenant steal options going out. Enchantments are a pain as they force you to tap down mana during your turn. If you can change them to creature or instant speed similar utility you can bluff the options even if you dont have it. If you are tapped down people know you cant counterspell.

Well thanks for your suggestions everyone! Made a couple more changes, although I think with exception to ponder and Arcane Lab, I'll follow up on ISB's advice. Only thing now is to go around start some card hunting.

Could I at least talk you into changing Ponder to Preordain? The ability to clear out cards you don't want then draw is just so powerful. If you ponder into 3 bad cards you are stuck with 3 bad cards on top.

Quote from ISBPathfinder

Could I at least talk you into changing Ponder to Preordain? The ability to clear out cards you don't want then draw is just so powerful. If you ponder into 3 bad cards you are stuck with 3 bad cards on top.

Not necessarily. Remember, even if you get three bad cards, you are allowed to shuffle your library and then draw a card, although you kinda have to hope that the card you draw isn't the three that you pondered. That said, Preordain sounds pretty good too, considering that you know those two bad cards you scryed on top will stay permanently on the bottom. I'm gonna go with you on this one and switch it up to Preordain.

You could replace the Mana Leak with Last Word...

If were talking 4 cmc counters there are much better options than last word IMO.

Cryptic command , dismiss and mindbreak trap seem better to me. Last word's ability is useless if you're not playing against blue.

I was gonna say...

I already took out Mana Leak due to its uselessness. If I did toy with 4cmc counters, i'd have to easily opt for Mindbreak Trap or Cryptic Command.

I'm surprised no one's mentioned Knowledge Exploitation with the theme of stealing your opponent's cards.

So folks, I wanted to make some changes so I could be less reliant on my enchantments and more on creatures and instants/sorceries. Would the following cards below work into my deck?

Body Double
Eternal Dominion
Shapesharer