Laboratory Maniacs

Our game today features Luke, Sigi, Cameron, and Dan. This episode is our Commander 2017 special, featuring all cEDH decks helmed by Legendary Creatures newly printed in this Commander Precon. Our players are on Taigam, Ojutai Master, Kess, Dissident Mage , a second Kess, Dissident Mage , and Inalla, Archmage Ritualist, respectively.

Decklists:

• Xerox Taigam: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/xerox-taigam/
• Kess High Tide: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kess-high-tide/
• Kess Turns: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/kess-turns-revised/
• Inalla Reanimator: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/budgetless-inalla-reanimator-copy/

Taigam, Ojutai Master is an experiment in the applications of the turbo xerox concepts in competitive EDH. If you aren’t familiar, the primary principle of that philosophy is the application of cantrips as a substitution for lands. By running more than the standard amount of cantrips, Luke can afford to run less lands, increasing his relative quality of draw. Taigam facilitates this deck style quite well by allowing you to double up on those cantrip effects, turning them into raw card advantage. This deck’s primary win condition is to chain infinite turn spells buy using Temporal Manipulation (or a similar Time Walk spell) and redundant effects of Call to Mind .

Sigi’s Kess brew is a High Tide storm deck. While that may sound similar to Jeleva Storm lists that we’ve featured in the past, this is somewhat different. This is pure, uncut, High Tide goodness. There’s no dilution with Doomsday , as this is less of a tweak to Jeleva, and more of a dramatic improvement to Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy style decks. While this is going to be a very low to the ground and fast deck, Kess opens up a variety of late game options, letting you reuse your spent interaction and tutors to reassemble.

Cameron’s Kess deck is a Turns list, brewed and tested by your cEDH Discord benevolent head moderators Shaper and Lerker. They had quite a bit of success with the deck the very day Kess was spoiled. The primary combo here is to use Isochron Scepter with Final Fortune imprinted on it to take an extra turn, and once the “Lose the game” trigger goes on the stack, to end the turn using Sundial of the Infinite .

Finally, Dan’s Inalla deck is nearly identical to the budgetless Inalla Reanimator deck that was featured in our previous video. For more details on that deck, I’d recommend taking a watch of the last two!

In this table, the game is very unlikely to end quickly. Only Sigi aims to really score a quick kill. With three other relatively controlling lists around him, he’ll have his work cut out for him. Once we move past the early game, it turns into a real toss up on who is most favored. Jockeying for card advantage and for board control are going to be key here. If one player can stick an early Mystic Remora , that’ll be crucial. If Dan can reanimate a Jin-Gitaxias to bridge the mid and late game, that will also be backbreaking. Cameron can just as easily start chaining turns the slow way with Kess’s ability. All in all, we’re in for a likely very slow game with a whole slew of interactions.

Will the table get drowned by a High Tide? Will Inalla resurrect a big, bad Jin-Gitaxias? Will Kess spin a sundial into the infinite? Or will Taigam cantrip his way to victory?

Find out in Episode 5 of Season 2 of the Laboratory Maniacs. We’ll see you in game!