[EDH] Erayo, Soratami Ascendant

[fusionshogun]

Here is my Erayo, Soratami Ascendant EDH deck.

1 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant

1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Gilded Drake
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Magus of the Future
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Trinket Mage
1 Venser, Shaper Savant

1 Arcane Laboratory
1 Back to Basics
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Braingeyser
1 Brainstorm
1 Bribery
1 Capsize
1 Chrome Mox
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Drift of Phantasms
1 Evacuation
1 Fabricate
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Force of Will
1 Frantic Search
1 Future Sight
1 Gigadrowse
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Grim Monolith
1 Gush
1 Helm of Awakening
1 High Tide
1 Hinder
1 Impulse
1 Intuition
1 Land Equilibrium
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Drain
1 Mana Vault
1 Meekstone
1 Memory Jar
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Misdirection
1 Mox Diamond
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Pact of Negation
1 Pithing Needle
1 Ponder
1 Pongify
1 Power Artifact
1 Rebuild
1 Remand
1 Repeal
1 Rewind
1 Sapphire Medallion
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Stasis
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Sunder
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Time Spiral
1 Timetwister
1 Transmute Artifact
1 Treachery
1 Turnabout
1 Voltaic Key
1 Windfall
1 Zuran Orb

1 Academy Ruins
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Flooded Strand
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Polluted Delta
1 Riptide Laboratory
1 Scalding Tarn
16 Snow-Covered Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Tolaria West
1 Wasteland

[Dave]

Maybe Pongify? It´s useful and cheap.

[fusionshogun]

Thanks for the suggestion! Pongify does look pretty great. I'll cut Chain of Vapor for it because at the moment, Chain of Vapor is only good before I've cast Erayo or whatever else (otherwise, obviously, it gives them an out to multiple combos I have).

[fusionshogun]

I tried Leyline of Anticipation in this deck. It wasn't too great, but in one particular situation it's amazing. It gives this deck the potential to be the fastest (I think) EDH deck period, with the capability to lock out the game on turn 0.

Drawing your cards and seeing: Leyline of Anticipation, Lotus Petal, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Chrome Mox/Mox Diamond, any land/any blue card, and Arcane Laboratory, is quite an experience.

[Offler]

What about cascade, replicate or other effects to make him flip sooner?

Edit: no cards with cascade are monoblue... Just forget about that... What about copying spells?

Chain stasis, or brain freeze, Temporal fissure maybe?

[fusionshogun]

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't like playing cards that are weak on their own just to try and flip Erayo sooner. Also, cards like these would have to be low CMC, and the only one of those suggested is Brain Freeze. Brain Freeze is almost negligible in EDH, so I'd rather run a more powerful card. Right now, the slots that I consider the weakest are Cloud Key and Desertion. I can't think of any good replacements for those, although perhaps Cryptic Command could replace Desertion. Triple blue isn't the easiest thing to get in this deck with so few lands. I'm thinking about taking out those two cards and just replacing them with 2 more Snow-covered Islands.

[whienot]

Try Ward of Bones. It's another soft lock piece. You're already playing Fabricate, Reshape and Transmute Artifact, so it's incredibly easy to find. It's similar to Land Equilibrium and many opponents will quit when you assemble flipped Erayo + the Ward.

[T is for TOOL]

Depending on whether the deck is being geared for multiplayer or 1v1, I'd consider the following changes:

-1 Braingeyser
-1 Basalt Monolith
-1 Power Artifact
+1 Tidespout Tyrant
+1 Candelabra of Tawnos
+1 Mind Over Matter

Tyrant helps generate infinite mana, and bounce opponent's permanents. It doesn't help if you draw it at the wrong time, but then again, neither does Power Artifact (Even if you don't like this idea, I would still drop Power Artifact for Rings of Brighthearth. Candelabra is a great early drop that can help turn artifact mana into blue mana, generate lots of mana via HighTide, and occasionally protects your lands from tap effects. Mind Over Matter keeps the mana flowing when you have plenty of cards in hand and has some synergies with other cards that you run, most notably Sensei's Divining Top.

-1 Cloud Key
-1 Intuition
+1 Sapphire Medallion
+1 Compulsive Research

Medallion is a cheaper more versatile version of Key. You already run several effects that reduce the cost of your artifacts and most of them are cheap to begin with. I cut Intuition because I didn't see a good pile to search for. Am I missing something? (Intuition for Crucible of Worlds, Academy Ruins, ???)

-1 Desertion
-1 Oblivion Stone
-1 Pithing Needle
-1 Pongify
-1 Stasis
-1 Sunder
+1 Cryptic Command
+1 Cloud of Faeries
+1 Preordain
+1 Trade Routes
+1 Ancient Tomb
+1 Seat of the Synod

Here I added cards that help the deck into an early Erayo flip and cut ones that didn't. I don't understand the purpose of Stasis. You aren't running ways to maintain it on the battlefield (e.g. Forsaken City) or cards that make it a lock like Frozen Aether. I suppose that you can use it to stall the game while everyone makes land drops, but that seems like a dubious plan to me. Seat adds more blue sources to your manabase and it can serve as Reshape/Transmute Artifact fodder.

[fusionshogun]

As always, I appreciate these suggestions. Here are my opinions on those cards that you've mentioned, some of which I've already tried.

Ward of Bones looks awesome. I'll try cutting Land Equilibrium for it for a while, although the 6 CC concerns me a little. The fact that it stops creatures is pretty ridiculous!

Tidespout Tyrant: Is a powerful creature with even stronger applications with storm, but is otherwise too expensive and only mediocre unless I already have a board that should've been enough on it's own.

Candelabra of Tawnos: I like this one, but I can't cut an infinite mana combo for it. The fact that it's cheap and has applications throughout the game is nice, but I only was incredibly in love with this card prior to Tolarian Academy's ban.

Mind Over Matter: This deck dumps it's hand quickly to play Erayo. It also plays cheap spells that don't need the mana that Mind Over Matter is superb at producing. It's one of the most powerful cards printed, but it has less synergy with this deck than I would demand from a 2UUUU casting cost card.

Sapphire Medallion: Although it's not actually functionally good at replacing Cloud Key (because Cloud Key is a redundancy in the Top+Future Sight/Magus of the Future+Etherium Sculptor/Helm of Awakening/Cloud Key), the lower CC and powerful asymmetrical effect is enough reason for me to test this out.

Compulsive Research: Sorcery speed is a downer. Also, this deck wins with combos which have multiple redundancies, therefore there are often many Intuition piles that outright win.

For the rest, I'm only going to try and explain my card choices, and explain why I would disagree with some suggestions.

Desertion/Pithing Needle/Pongify are all cards I would be willing to cut. However, I like Desertion more than Cryptic Command. I tested Cloud of Faeries and was dissatisfied with it. It's just consistency vs power. Cloud of Faeries makes an early Erayo flip happen marginally more consistently, but since this is 100 card singleton, consistency is less good than power in most situations. I replaced Cloud of Faeries with a more powerful card, and I haven't looked back. I could see cutting Pongify for Preordain, however in my metagame, I often play against a Radha deck, and Pongify is one of my few outs to Vexing Shusher. Seat of the Synod is strictly worse in a deck that likes it's Snow-covered Islands and that plays Back to Basics. The same argument can be made for Ancient Tomb, and even though Ancient Tomb produces 2 mana, the damage isn't negligible. Often, I can set up the Erayo lock, and still lose to the entire table ganging up on me with man lands or something like that. I hadn't considered Trade Routes, and it could have applications, but generally in EDH lands are more important: even in a deck like this. Stasis combos with Venser+Riptide Laboratory and with Capsize. It also has served the purpose of giving me the time to Jace people out of the game. Oblivion Stone is basically here because it answers anything and everything that isn't indestructible. It also allows me to play conservatively and save my own lock pieces. Sunder combos with Land Equilibrium, and is generally one of the more powerful blue spells in EDH based on the nature of the format.

Thanks again for the suggestions, and I will test out some changes and report back sometime soon!

[fusionshogun]

This weekend I had fun playing in a little EDH tournament at a local store I frequent. I went 3-0-1, and we split top 4.

Round 1: I played against a friend's 5-color control deck using Progenitus as a general. I went with a risky hand, but he made a play mistake and let my Trinket Mage hit Jace, the Mind Sculptor once, which ended up putting Jace behind on a crucial turn. After the match he said he was holding Sudden Death for my Erayo, and I explained that that is another thing that Erayo can do, is threaten Erayo without actually needing it to win. The turn before he could've ultimate'd me out of the game, I assembled Future Sight, Top, Helm of Awakening with counter-backup, and proceeded to win.

Round 2: I played against another 5-color control deck. This match wasn't very close. I flipped Erayo on T2 with Chrome Mox and Repeal, and then played Back to Basics on T3. After a few hits off soldier tokens from a cycled Decree, I drew/tutored into a combo win.

Round 3: I played against my friend's WB Ghost Council of Orzhova deck. I know his deck works as a combo deck that uses Reveillark, Karmic Guide, and a sac outlet like Carrion Feeder to do things. I was pretty lucky because he stalled on lands after I flipped Erayo T3, with the 4th spell being a windfall for me drawing 7 cards. He discarded Reveillark and Karmic Guide, so I was feeling relatively safe. I had to watch out for the Reanimate or whatever, so I held counter magic, but eventually I drew Arcane Lab and he conceded.

Round 4: I ID'd with a friend of mine who plays Artifact/Blue Teferi/Stax. This matchup is entirely dependent on whether or not he gets a Sphere effect, otherwise he runs no counter magic and I can flip Erayo faster than he can set up lots of artifact mana (usually).

It was a fun tournament, and it demonstrated some weaknesses in this deck. I'm going to try out Ensnaring Bridge instead of Cloud Key. I can't handle any resolved Eldrazi, and I think I should be prepared for those. I'm also going to add in Rebuild (replacing Snap). It's great vs. most of the big mana artifact decks (which can be problematic if they get going and start casting multiple spells in a turn), and it lets me flip Erayo out of nowhere. With these additions I'm going to consider running Drift of Phantasms instead of Reshape. I've never needed 2 Reshapes, and Transmute Artifact is technically marginally better (in that it can put an artifact from your library to your graveyard). Drift tutors for a pretty substantial number of effects, including the previously un-tutorable Arcane Laboratory. Drift is slow, but I've found that there are lots of times where this deck is just sitting there having set up a soft lock, waiting until it draws a win. In this time, if an opponent can make land drops, the soft lock goes away, and I can lose. Making the deck win faster, even if it is technically a card that is "a turn slower", seems worth it to me. A friend of mine suggested I try out Zuran Orb, because it's 0cc, and combos with Land Equilibrium and Crucible/Stasis. I'll cut Desertion for it, for now.

Any suggestions are always appreciated! Hopefully this deck list will continue to adapt, and prove itself. Thanks!

[Vacrix]

I like this deck a lot, and I don't even really play EDH.

I have a question though. Why do you play Hinder over Counterspell?

Also, Shrieking Drake looks pretty dam good with Erayo. If you draw it, you can just play it, bounce itself until you get to the spell count you need to flip Erayo. Is it worth running?

[fusionshogun]

I'm happy you like the deck. Hinder is played over Counterspell because of it's capability to more permanently deal with troublesome generals like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, or (previously) Rofellos. I hate sounding like a broken record, but my only problem with Shrieking Drake is that it is a pretty useless card aside from flipping Erayo. That said, it's basically a sorcery that says: UUU: Flip Erayo. The problem I can see with this, is that that is a hefty blue mana cost requirement. This means that it wouldn't help me flip Erayo sooner, but rather more consistently in the late game. That does have applications, so I'll test it out, but I'm not impressed with it yet. Thanks for the suggestion though! Who knows, it could play out very well.

[kinda]

You play 10 cards that cost 1 colorless or less so I think drake is worth it (you'll get one in your opener about 50% of the time). Also cloud of faeries cycles...I would play that too.

[fusionshogun]

Ward of Bones is out, Land Equilibrium is back in. The cost mattered, also the fact that Land Equilibrium is blue mattered.

I tried out Shrieking Drake and wasn't too impressed. If it was in my opener, it sometimes let me flip Erayo a turn sooner, which is certainly significant. However, there were also many times where I didn't have enough blue mana for the drake to significantly contribute to Erayo flipping. In the first two turns, i might have access to UUU, maybe, and that's relatively rare. In the situations where I would have that kind of colored mana, I would also already have enough spells to flip Erayo, and so Shrieking Drake is unnecessary. Late game, yes, Shrieking Drake made flipping Erayo much easier. However, by that point, it's not too difficult to get around a flipped Erayo anyways.

I've tried out Cloud of Faeries a few times before, and it's been both decent and useless. I'll keep experimenting with it.

Finally, Sapphire Medallion is in over Arena of the Ancients. I've also replaced Ensnaring Bridge with Meekstone.

[whienot]

Ward of Bones is out, Land Equilibrium is back in. The cost mattered, also the fact that Land Equilibrium is blue mattered.

Being tutorable, seems more important to consistantly establish a lock outside of Lab. Fabricate, Transmute Artifact, Reshape and occasionally Tezzeret can find it in my build. Admittedly, we have slightly different takes on Erayo. Mine is more artifact prison with Smokestack, Mana Vortex, etc.

[RexFTW]

if this is a multiplayer deck everyone is going to gang #$%& you in the first 5 turns after they figure out what your deck is doing. Good luck winning 4v1.