1x Talrand, Sky Summoner
//Lands
1x Riptide Laboratory
1x Halimar Depths
26x Island
1x Lonely Sandbar
1x Maze of Ith
1x Reliquary Tower
1x Strip Mine
1x Terrain Generator
1x Tolaria West
//Instants
1x Anticipate
1x Arcane Denial
1x Boomerang
1x Brainstorm
1x Counterspell
1x Cunning Wish
1x Cyclonic Rift
1x Daze
1x Dig Through Time
1x Dissolve
1x Force of Will
1x Force Spike
1x Frantic Search
1x Gush
1x High Tide
1x Impulse
1x Long-Term Plans
1x Memory Lapse
1x Mental Note
1x Mystical Tutor
1x Negate
1x Opt
1x Pact of Negation
1x Peek
1x Peer Through Depths
1x Perilous Research
1x Quicken
1x Reach Through Mists
1x Spell Pierce
1x Swan Song
1x Thought Scour
1x Thwart
1x Vapor Snag
1x Visions of Beyond
1x Whispers of the Muse
1x Wipe Away
//Sorceries
1x Bribery
1x Call to Mind
1x Careful Study
1x Day's Undoing
1x Fabricate
1x Gitaxian Probe
1x Ideas Unbound
1x Merchant Scroll
1x Personal Tutor
1x Ponder
1x Portent
1x Preordain
1x Serum Visions
1x Sleight of Hand
1x Strategic Planning
1x Temporal Mastery
1x Temporal Trespass
1x Time Reversal
1x Time Spiral
1x Time Warp
1x Treasure Cruise
//Artifacts
1x Gauntlet of Power
1x Sapphire Medallion
1x Isochron Scepter
1x Lightning Greaves
1x Proteus Staff
1x Sol Ring
//Enchantment
1x Jace's Sanctum
//Creature
1x Tidespout Tyrant
//Wishboard
1x Sunder
1x Capsize
1x Echoing Truth
1x Foil
1x Hurkyl's Recall
1x Mindbreak Trap
1x Misdirection
1x Repeal
1x Plagiarize
1x Trickbind
Updated the List.
This is my second EDH Deck after Daretti, Scrap Savant in a Stax shell.
Tidespout Tyrant is the only Creature next to Talrand himself, since you mostly want to chain cantrips to generate an insane army of Drakes, defended by Countermagic - which will generate even more Drakes.
The Deck plays a TON of cantrips - the Idea is, that most cards you play replace themselves, to keep fuel in the Hand at all Time.
The Deck can generally be played in two ways - aggressive, slamming down Talrand on turn 2-4, covered by Free Counterspells like Force of Will or Thwart or Protection in Form of Lightning Greaves, generating a ton of Drakes and ending the game quick by tutoring Time Walks in Form of Time Warp, Temporal Mastery and Temporal Trespass, knocking out one opponnent after another, finishing off your evil plans by slamming down Sunder, which will end the game most on the time on the spot.
Or, the Controllish Way - waiting a bit longer to resolve your General, since being too aggressive will turn all your enemies against you. Countering Cards that can be too annoying for you, while just having a few Drakes that mostly serve as blocker. You don't want to be too aggressive with attacking here, but keeping the board in a position that is good for you. Proteus Staff tutors your only Creature, Tidespout Tyrant. Staff and your other artifacts can be tutored by Fabricate, which can be found pretty fast while digging through your Deck by casting alot of cheap cantrips.
Cunning Wish is bonkers, since it allows you to have acess to your Sideboard, helping you out in slippery situations. I am not 100% sure about my Sideboard tho.
Personal Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Long-Term Plans and Merchant Scroll will find you the things you want to have, while your Timewalks in form of Time Warp, Temporal Mastery and Temporal Trespass grant you the time you need to set up the big swing. And casting Time Spiral in this Deck is just... yummy.
Last edited by kryllex; 09-23-2015 at 01:49 PM.
Is Opposition a thing here? Seems like your drakes could do quite a bit of work on that front, especially the ones that are summoning sick.
Didn't see Arcane Denial in there either.
Is Reality Shift worth running despite the fact that it doesn't cantrip? Seems better than Vapor Snag in the very least.
Opposition seems nice, i'll probably pick that one up.
For the rest of the Deck, I put it together quite fast with the things I had, so upgrades will probably gonna follow soon, since it's kinda far from perfect right now.
Control Magic, Treachery and things like Phantasmal Image/Metamorph are extremely good. I also think Ghostly Flicker, Repulse, and Crystal Shard are great functional for protecting or removing annoying things. I'd also throw in Lightning Greaves, don't recall seeing it there but I'd run both with Swiftboots.
I don't have experience running Talrand, but I'd almost think you're committing too much into cantrip draw, I understand it goes well with your general but like the other guy mentioned, I'd rather have Arcane Denial/Repulse over 2x more Ponders, for example. Rest looks pretty good... only thing I'd be worried about would be annoying enchantments, like if opponent drops a Humility or something like that, you wouldn't have a lot of ways of dealing besides counter or capsize I guess, not that that would come up that often.
May your suffering equal your weakness--Ihsan's Shade
I have a Talrand list, lots of similar choices. I originally also ran Tidespout Tyrant. I've since upgrades to Jin-Gitaxis, which is almsot unbeatable in this list. Add a Proteus Staff, Polymorph and Reweave and you can get it into play off drakes absurdly easilly.
I agree with the above poster re: cantrip draw. After a year I've found only a few to be worth it - you're usually better off running more incidental cantrips (stuff like Exclude and Cryptic Command), and then a few good draw engines (I particularly like Bident of Thassa).
Sapphire Medalion is really really good in this deck, as is extraplanar lens with snow lands.
I've been playing a "powered" version of Talrand for about eight months and it has an absurd winning record of over 90% against powerful, standard commanders like Ghave, Sen Triplets, Sharuum, Zur, and Teferi.
You're missing some powerful spells that could add some percentage points to your deck.
First, max out on your cheaper cantrips. This deck plays aggro-control really well and you want to constantly be cycling through the top of your deck to find answers. The one-mana Brainstorm variants are all pretty good. Predict is hilarious against top-of-library tutors. You have Bident of Thassa, Coastal Piracy does virtually the same thing and allows you to operate like an Edric deck late-game.
Long-Term Plans is a nice tutor and you should be able to dig into the card pretty quickly. Personal Tutor is a more restrictive Mystical Tutor but is still very good.
Pact of Negation is Force #2. Unified Will is good later in the game.
Mana Drain is extraordinarily good as you always have a use for the mana. It will often allow you to drop Gauntlet of Power or Caged Sun for "free" and get immediate use out of it. Mana Crypt is expensive (money-wise) but fits beautifully with thein Talrand's mana cost.
Proteus Staff is bonkers and you can reduce your creatures to Tidespout Tyrant and Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur, both of which crush the board. You can also tuck problematic commanders to give you some breathing room.
Finally, time magic is Talrand's best friend and is relatively easy to find. Walk the Aeons and Temporal Mastery are easy to pick up. Time Warp is more expensive, but has been reprinted a few times. Temporal Manipulation and Capture of Jingzhou complete the set and give you a solid set of ways to drop another land, swing for more damage, and produce more drakes. They are also the primary win condition after ensuring the board is safe.
@Baumeister
Do you mind posting your list?
Here you go:
27 Island
Flooded Strand
Polluted Delta
Misty Rainforest
Scalding Tarn
Riptide Laboratory
Academy Ruins
Reliquary Tower
Tidespout Tyrant
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Mana Crypt
Sol Ring
Sapphire Medallion
Gauntlet of Power
Caged Sun
Mystical Tutor
Personal Tutor
Merchant Scroll
Long-Term Plans
Fabricate
Gitaxian Probe
Portent
Sleight of Hand
Serum Visions
Ponder
Preordain
Opt
Thought Scour
Whispers of the Muse
Brainstorm
Think Twice
Telling Time
Perilous Research
Predict
Impulse
Frantic Search
Keep Watch
Rhystic Study
Stroke of Genius
Blue Sun’s Zenith
Fact or Fiction
Coastal Piracy
Bident of Thassa
Gush
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time
Pact of Negation
Swan Song
Memory Lapse
Negate
Unified Will
Arcane Denial
Counterspell
Mana Drain
Cryptic Command
Force of Will
Repeal
Into the Roil
Snap
Cyclonic Rift
Boomerang
Repulse
Capsize
Wipe Away
Wash Out
Aetherspouts
Opposition
Time Warp
Temporal Manipulation
Capture of Jingzhou
Walk the Aeons
Temporal Mastery
Proteus Staff
So after some long thought on Baumeister's post and list I made some changes last night and played a few games. A few thoughts:
Some of the cantrips are really bad, and 10 counterspells seems like too few. I had initally dropped to 18 from my high of 26 and came back up to 20. You really want to cast Talrand on 5 or 6 with counterspell back-up.
Jin-Git and Tidespout is the way to. Geez that combination of dudes is gross with Proteus Staff. I also like Reweave, which has other interesting applications.
Misdirection is actually pretty good in this list. Even if you're protecting Talrand on an empty board the drake trigger resolves first so you can send the removal spell at the drake.
Long Term Plans is shockingly good. Shockingly. It's practically demonic tutor in this deck.
It's pretty easy to set up a combo with this list and end the game on the spot. I run a Timetwister and a Call to Mind - there are lots of ways to loop drawing your entire deck, with proteus staff in play to stack it, and cast any spell you want as many times as you want. The nice part is there are no dead cards - the combo is completely incidential but lets you put it away instead of playing tempo.
I love this deck.
Some of the cantrips are indeed terrible, but even the worst ones are astoundingly good when you get to put a 2/2 Drake into play. You should always assume you will be functioning with Talrand in play because if he's not, you will be doing everything possible to get him in play. Not to mention chaining cantrips allows you to craft a perfect hand. I started building the deck with fewer cantrips and more meaty draw, but the cutting the lower cost spells really decreases the consistency of the deck. All of the instant-speed cantrips are worth playing, but you can probably cut some of the sorcery-speed cruft.Originally Posted by Killane
I've actually considered dropping down below 10 counterspells because I often find them dead in my hand. I pretty much save my counterspells for must-counter things that will either win the game right then, or stop me from winning on my turn. Counterspells don't really advance your board state, they just prevent it from unraveling. I'm just assuming here, but you're probably countering haymakers like Planeswalkers and fatties like Avenger of Zendikar just because it's good form. Talrand just doesn't care about that kind of stuff.
They crush dreams like nobody's business. I've had decks spiked at me after Tidespout Tyrant triggered a few times targeting lands.Jin-Git and Tidespout is the way to. Geez that combination of dudes is gross with Proteus Staff. I also like Reweave, which has other interesting applications.
And it's instant-speed!Long Term Plans is shockingly good. Shockingly. It's practically demonic tutor in this deck.
It's fun to play and rewards tight play, but it will not make you any friends. The first game is always interesting because everyone sees you casting cantrips and thinks nothing of it but somehow you just craft this army of attackers with a full grip to back them up. The deck wins games it really has no business winning and I have no idea why. I guess blue really is just brutally efficient at what it does.I love this deck.
Updated the list by A LOT. In this form it is abolutely insane for me, especially the inclusion of Cunning Wish makes the deck handle alot more tricky situations.
The update looks pretty good and I really like the wish-board. Hurkyl's Recall is so close to making it in my deck and this kind of solves that issue while giving you some more options for specific threats.
I'm happy to see more time magic, although you're missing Walk the Aeons. That should be fairly easy and inexpensive to find and it has buyback for late game shenanigans.
I didn't see Capsize in your list. Have you not had very much success with that card?
Is Bribery really that good for you in this deck? What kind of targets are you finding that would make it better over more card manipulation and drakes?
Capsize is in my wishboard; i mostly casted it for three during the earlier game to remove potential problems, since in the lategame i am mostly able to do super stupid things anyways; therefore, i put Boomerang in its place while still having access to it with Cunning Wish and i am very satisfied with it!
Bribery is... absolutely... stupid. It gets me a Blightsteel Colossus or some combo engines for 5 mana, heavily disrupting my opponents gameplan. I would never ever cut it! Extremely satisfied with it, i can only recommend it to test it out!
The thing with Walk the Aeons for me is its cmc6. The timewalks i play are potentially pretty cheap; and i dont want to push the average cmc too high in my deck, allowing me to chain spells easier. Also, i made the experience, that whenever i cast any timewalk, i am abvle to cast the other both right away with it, by using tutors or other stuff like Time Spiral, which mostly grants me to kill one opponent per turn; since i mostly cast it in the lategame, having a huge Drake army present.
But i might get me a copy and test it, since the "free" Buyback is pretty attractive.
UPDATES:
I cut Arcane Lighthouse for Riptide Laboratory. I never used the Lighthouse, and Laboratory saves my Talrand and is also tutorable with Tolaria West.
Thinking about cutting Blue Sun's Zenith for Brain Freeze in the Wishboard, for some funny combowombo kills!
Not sure if it was worth making a new thread for, so I decided to Necro this one with my list:
Talrand, Sky Summoner
Sol Ring
Gitaxian Probe
Brainstorm
High Tide
Mystical Tutor
Opt
Ponder
Pongify
Preordain
Rapid Hybridization
Serum Visions
Swan Song
Isochron Scepter
Lightning Greaves
Runechanter's Pike
Sapphire Medallion
Anticipate
Arcane Denial
Cyclonic Rift
Disdainful Stroke
Favorable Winds
Impulse
Into the Roil
Mana Leak
Merchant Scroll
Negate
Reality Shift
Snap
Telling Time
Think Twice
Counterspell
Muddle the Mixture
Twincast
Proteus Staff
Call to Mind
Exclude
Fabricate
Rhystic Study
Cancel
Capsize
Dissipate
Dissolve
Dream Fracture
Forbid
Hinder
Polymorphist's Jest
Spell Crumple
Fact or Fiction
Jace's Sanctum
Wash Out
Archaeomancer
Bident of Thassa
Dismiss
Foil
Rewind
Rite of Replication
Talent of the Telepath
Caged Sun
Stolen Identity
Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time
Stormtide Leviathan
Curse of the Swine
Blue Sun's Zenith
Arcane Lighthouse
Halimar Depths
Lonely Sandbar
Myriad Landscape
Reliquary Tower
Temple of the False God
29 Island
GamErgonomics: The Science of Gaming Performance
Life Coaching for Gamers
Personal Gaming Blog UPDATED 1/13
"Everyone is a hero. Even if you've only saved yourself."
Very nice List!
As I see, you play more Counterspells than I do, but less Timewalks. I guess that is a matter of taste :)
Some Updates:
Jace's Sanctum is... so.. good...in this deck! Holy crap, after I tested a few rounds i couldn't believe how stupidly good it is when it sticks for a few turns. Also, added High Tide in the Maindeck, because i dont wan't to wish for the High Tide + Time Spiral combo all the time.
Additionally, i added Day's Undoing and Time Reversal for some fun stuff. On the other Hand, i cut Sunder from the Maindeck and added it to the wishboard, because it's not good when it comes too early. Changed Caged Sun with Gauntlet of Power, because its just better (well, cheaper). Also, Gilded Lotus got the Axe for Sapphire Medallion, 5 Mana for a Mana-Stone is too much I think, and the Medallion lets me chain cantrips better. Mental Misstep also went out - it's just too situational, and the other softcounters are still better, because they still generate free drakes.
I am flip-flopping Desertion, i am not sure if i want to play it.
Thanks! I totally agree with pretty much everything you said. I'm starting to realize Time Walks are our answer to Cultivates and the like, but I'm okay with not depending on them. I'd rather slow other people down and maximize my flexibility.
GamErgonomics: The Science of Gaming Performance
Life Coaching for Gamers
Personal Gaming Blog UPDATED 1/13
"Everyone is a hero. Even if you've only saved yourself."
Are these1v1 games that you're winning 90%
Also does this list need Snow Lands and Extraplanar lens?
No. The list is set up for multiplayer games as it includes Sol Ring and Mana Crypt. The deck generally doesn't combo out as quickly as some of the other faster decks in the format so it can take advantage of not having to fight through the strongest hate in the first few turns. Kuma has talked about this in a few of his threads but, generally, the decks that win most consistently in high powered groups are slightly slower to make sure to try and be the third to win. Talrand can also accumulate an absurd amount of protection in hand while winning so once the cogs start to churn, it can be difficult to stop.
It's also important to know how to stop combos by removing key pieces. That will make your win rate go up pretty quickly.
The list is essentially a testament to how ridiculously powerful blue is in this game. The cards by themselves are pretty low-powered, but you just see so many cards over the course of the game that you can overwhelm multiple opponents with card advantage.
Normally, I try and stay away from Extraplanar Lens. People have an unnatural amount of hate for that card and I've rarely had it stick around for enough time to generate mana advantage. That said, you do have a lot of protection in the deck but countering Acidic Slimes and Nature's Claims kind of sucks. Feel free to try it out and let us know how it goes.Also does this list need Snow Lands and Extraplanar lens?
Valid points, also what is the "combo" here?
It's the various time walks in the list (Time Warp, Temporal Manipulation, etc.) plus any amount of card draw. Not a true combo, but the pieces are all live throughout the game which grants flexibility.
The best options are Coastal Piracy, Bident of Thassa, and Keep Watch. You essentially become an Edric deck mid to late game. It's pretty easy to seal the game when you can attack, draw 5 to 10 cards, play those cards from your hand to make more drakes, and then pass the turn to yourself to repeat.
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