Let's Break Magus of the Mind

Alright so in the new commander decks they reprinted Mind’s Desire… If you didn’t know that card is busted. Well ok it’s not a reprint but still I think them nerfing a card that powerful only leaves us with one option to try and break it. A local player at my store pointed out that Magus of the Mind’s ability doesn’t exile him. Deathrite Shaman aside this means that you can play exponentially growing Mind’s Desires with Shallow Grave or Corpse Dance effects. At the very least I think this should be tested some to see if anything is there. On to the list I’ve came up with:
(Golden Gun) Shallow Desires

Cantrips
4 Brainstorm
4 Ponder
3 Preordain

Disruption
4 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
2 Collective Brutality

Fast Mana
4 Lion’s Eye Diamond
4 Lotus Petal
4 Dark Ritual

Enablers
4 Entomb
4 Shallow Grave
2 Corpse Dance

Action
2 Magus of the Mind
1 Griselbrand
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Lands
4 Polluted Delta
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Underground Sea
1 Bayou
1 Tropical Island
1 Island
1 Swamp

Sideboard
3 Xantid Swarm
3 Ground Seal
3 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Chain of Vapor
1 Duress
1 Tropical Island

Possible Inclusions
1 Dragon Breath

Ok so onto some of the deck specific interactions:
Shallow Grave or Corpse Dance + Lion’s Eye Diamond: Tin Fins has used iterations with Lion’s Eye Diamond before and it’s just not necessary there. The mana doesn’t matter too much for them, but for this deck it’s a straightforward way to get 3 blue. Lion’s Eye Diamond is as much mana as it is an enabler. It’s a discard outlet and since Shallow Grave/Corpse Dance don’t target you get to activate it with one of them on the stack to discard a runner. How relevant this becomes is relative to how many runners you have, but more on that later.

Only 2 Corpse Dance looks kind of bad, but honestly any more than that and it feels just a bit clunky. It begins to move in the direction of increasing the number of runners and going down on cantrips. Given that you primarily want to build storm more business spells doesn’t exactly equal an efficient deck. Rather than find A + B you’re still trying to play an engine based combo deck and find a set of X + Y + Z.

Magus of the Mind: Time for the star of the show. So the way we break this card is because it doesn’t exile on resolution of it’s ability. This means if you hit Shallow Grave or Corpse Dance off your first activation that one gets doubled roughly. Your first activation might be for 5 – 7 the next one will probably be 9 – 13 and so on.

Interestingly when you hit Lion’s Eye Diamond off your desire activation you can use it as Black Lotus since all those cards are exiled. This seems irrelevant since all your cards are free, but when you start weaving desire flips like: Brainstorm + Entomb(shuffle effect) + Ponder having mana from Lion’s Eye Diamond helps to cast whichever enabler you draw. As for the number being 2 that’s mainly because you don’t really want to hit multiples on desire hands. They’re kind of just dead flips.

Dragon Breath: Alright this is a card I’ve toyed with some and think it could make an inclusion. It should be noted if this is in the deck you should call it “Golden Gun Shallow Desires” and if you don’t get that then go watch more vintage. So since Magus of the Mind has cmc 6 this will trigger when it enters. Which goes back to that last bit I said how multiple desires are bad. This card makes multiples good in the sense that you can Entomb as a tutor for it. With even meager desire flips like: 3x land, Magus of the Mind and Entomb become another desire for an additional +3 to storm. This lets you be a more explosive deck similar to something like Tin Fins. As an ANT player this doesn’t really suit my playstyle which I think is shown in this list, but it’s something worth considering in the deck’s development. Note this is vulnerable to Swords to Plowshares in response to the trigger or Dismember.

Alright time for the win condition:
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn: This seems obvious to just Shallow Grave him into play. That is one way to do it. The alternative is to just cast it off of Magus of the Mind. This way you get the extra turn trigger. Which honestly is probably the equivalent of going through the work to Grape Shot your opponent when playing TES, but it’s silly so why not? Emrakul, the Aeons Torn also pairs well with [card]Dragon Breath[/cards].

The weakness that I can see right now just in my gold fishing is Terminus. I’m sure there’s a way to play through it I just haven’t really bothered to try and gold fish that scenario. It does raise an interesting question on whether or not a one off Cabal Therapy deserves a slot. This way there’s no chance you deck yourself. The other slight annoyance is its interaction with Lion’s Eye Diamond and trying to Shallow Grave something from your hand, but that’s kind of a niche scenario.

Now onto the sideboard choices:
Ground Seal: We will start with the real odd ball first. Actually, I guess this is the only card in the sideboard that needs explanation. Unlike Tin Fins which uses Goryo’s Vengeance since all of the enablers don’t target we can use this a defensive card. Some ANT lists have been running it as a 1 – 2 of as a way to turn Deathrite Shaman into Squire and dodge sideboard hate. This deck on paper looks like it would have a lot of trouble with Deathrite Shaman which is why I think this could be a very good sideboard choice. In addition, shutting down opposing reanimator based decks is kind of a bonus.

This is also using the current trend BR Reanimator has caused to our advantage. What I mean by this is that most people are on Surgical Extraction or Faerie Macabre while blanket effects like Grafdigger’s Cage are at an all-time low because they’re too slow. This way Ground Seal becomes a very advantageous, proactive and defensive sideboard choice.

That about sums it up. If you’re going to ask why not just play Tin Fins then you’re kind of missing the point. I’m just trying to see if there’s a way to break Magus of the Mind. If there’s a new and competitive deck that you could build around him why not?

Shouldn't it be novel and not just a worse version of an existing deck?

What I mean by that is that I would almost always rather entomb for emrakul or griselbrand than this guy... even in this deck.

I like the idea, however Show/Telling an Omniscience into play is a much easier way to trigger Emrakul's time walk ability.
If you build a deck in such a way that it's really easy to build up a huge mana pool and a big stormcount (see rituals and diamonds), I suggest you also play Tendrils of Agony.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Cave

I like the idea, however Show/Telling an Omniscience into play is a much easier way to trigger Emrakul's time walk ability.
If you build a deck in such a way that it's really easy to build up a huge mana pool and a big stormcount (see rituals and diamonds), I suggest you also play Tendrils of Agony.

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show and tell omni is still easier than storm to get a W, but I still play storm because I like it. Whether a deck is easy or hard just comes down to preferences and experience right?

As for why no TOA it's similar to why tin fins doesn't use it. You just don't need it. Emrakul is also a bit safer and has some other advantages.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by mistercakes

Shouldn't it be novel and not just a worse version of an existing deck?

What I mean by that is that I would almost always rather entomb for emrakul or griselbrand than this guy... even in this deck.

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Again the point is not to bash the deck or just say why not play tin fins. I have the cards and could play that if I wanted. I'm just trying to see if there's an actual deck you could build around magus of the mind that works.

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I've been goldfishing it.

I took the mono black reanimator storm list. - grisel and Titan, +mind magus and Emrakul.

I think Lab Man may be a decent way to go as well as you can actually cast the entire deck.


Edit- you want cabal bc flash back after a Magus flipped creature let's you reanimate it.

E: Magus activate, flip another Magus, cast it, sac to cabal, Reanimate it, repeat.

Build storm count and mind Magus, will Magus, or grisel whichever makes sense, then loop into tendrils or Emmy cast trigger.

You can kill with tendrils, reanimator combat damage or actually hard casting your fatties off of Magus. All are awesome. Lab man let's you win that way too.