Welcome to my first of what I hope to be many articles here at ManaNation. For those who don't know me, my name is Dr. Jeebus, and I'm kind of a dick. But don't take my word for it! Let me tell you about my newest EDH deck and you can decide for yourself.

I have always been of the school of thought that Magic should be fun. It's a game, and designing decks is a large portion of the fun, which is why I gravitate towards casual play. The first EDH deck I built since my new playgroup formed a little over a year ago was a Reaper King deck. I built it because I thought a scarecrow tribal deck would be hilarious, especially since I was only running three real scarecrows and the other creatures were changelings. Also, I happened to own Straw Soldiers, and damned if I wasn't going to find an excuse to play them!

The Reaper King deck was a rousing success. The concept was goofy, and it was also all foils except for Straw Soldiers, so it was pretty pimp as well. As it turns out, however, I could consistently cast Reaper King on turn 3 or 4, followed by turn after turn of Vindicating land. It became the deck to beat in the metagame, and games ended very quickly for me if I didn't draw the nuts. Since then, the overall quality of the decks has improved and Reaper King has fallen back into the role of a humourous deck that I'll play on occasion in the hopes of chaining Nissa Revane's ultimate ability into Sarkhan the Mad's ultimate to eliminate one player and use twenty Vindicate triggers to knock anyone remaining back into the Stone Age. So far I have only done one or the other, but never both.

The deck had a good run, but its days in the limelight are long since past. I mentioned that the game should be fun, but part of the fun is actually winning a game here and there. I don't need to win every game, but I get pretty angry if we have a full day EDH marathon and I can't pull out a single victory. For this reason, I have always felt the need to have a deck on hand that, without my friends severely metagaming, just can't lose. In the past this role was filled by a deck that would cast turn 1 Oath of Druids, turn 2 mill about 100 cards until I hit one of two Eternal Witnesses, recur either Replenish or mana accel, and cast Replenish turn 2 with Opalescence and about 60 enchantments in the yard to easily take out at least 40 opponents if need be. If Replenish resolved, the deck literally could not lose. That brings me to the goal of my new EDH deck, and what I hope to be my playgroup's new "deck to beat."

The first thing you'll notice about the deck is that nearly 1/3 of the non-land cards are dedicated to flipping Erayo. This number feels a little low to me, especially as Palinchron and Great Whale are late game options, but oh well. Another important element of the deck is the extremely low amount of counter magic involved. If all goes according to plan, Erayo should be flipped earlier, making counters largely obsolete (Or in the case of Arcane Laboratory getting cast, completely obsolete). The Time Walk effects I don't think require any explaination; extra turns are good. Boesium Strip is a great way to get extra use out of those Time Walk effects, counterspells, and card draw spells if the opportunity presents itself. In the case of Time Walk effects, it will most certainly present itself.

This brings us to one simple question: how is this deck actually supposed to win? So far all we've covered is how to lose friends and alienate people, but there seems to be little end game beyond some rogue faeries. One of the great things about EDH is that the highlander format makes your deck play differently each time you shuffle it. I wanted to extend this variance a little further by not actually including a win condition, just including ways to steal other people's win conditions. It creates kind of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" feel to actually winning the game. I also included one of my favourite combos of all time that I legitimately ran in Kamigawa/Ravnica standard to a 3-1 finish at FNM. Eternal Dominion + Uyo, Silent Prophet = epic rage quits. The copies of Eternal Dominion you get during your upkeep may not have the epic keyword, but if you have the mana to fork it a couple times when the spell is first cast, those copies in fact are epic. As an added bonus, you can continue to fork the epic copies during your upkeep with Uyo for even more Blatant Thievery! Just make sure that when you fork Eternal Dominion that you target a different player with each copy. Otherwise, the targeted player can just jump on the grenade by conceding, leaving you helpless. For extra fun, I've included Reins of Power in the deck for those games when Erayo just doesn't get off the ground. The deck runs seven creatures beyond the general, so there's a good chance you're giving up nothing in an exchange for an army that just may kill its owner.

Admittedly, the deck could really use some more acceleration, but this is somewhat of a rough draft, if you will. Afterall, who plays EDH so they can just copy a polished decklist? Oh yeah, there's also some utility cards in here. They do stuff. Enjoy!

[cardlist]

[General]

1 Erayo, Soratami Ascendant

[/General]

[Erayo Enablers]

1 Cloud of Faeries

1 Snap

1 Peregrine Drake

1 Palinchron

1 Great Whale

1 Frantic Search

1 Time Spiral

1 Turnabout

1 Urza's Bauble

1 Mishra's Bauble

1 Lodestone Bauble

1 Tormod's Crypt

1 Zuran Orb

1 Lotus Petal

1 Mana Crypt

1 Treachery

[/Erayo Enablers]

[Mine Mine Mine!]

1 Dominating Licid

1 Bribery

1 Eternal Dominion

1 Dominate

1 Legacy's Allure

1 Desertion

1 Spelljack

1 Gather Specimens

1 Vedalken Shackles

1 Reins of Power

1 Commandeer

1 Blatant Thievery

[/Mine Mine Mine!]

[Did I Say You Could Talk?]

1 Counterspell

1 Arcane Denial

1 Forbid

1 Hinder

1 Cryptic Command

1 Rewind

1 Force of Will

1 Pact of Negation

1 Misdirection

1 Arcane Laboratory

[/Did I Say You Could Talk?]

[Plenty of Time Like the Present]

1 Time Warp

1 Time Manipulation

1 Capture of Jingzhou

1 Walk the Aeons

1 Time Stretch

[/Plenty of Time Like the Present]

[Utility/Card Draw]

1 Ancestral Visions

1 Leyline of Anticipation

1 Stroke of Genius

1 Venser, Shaper Savant

1 Evacuation

1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor

1 Jace Beleren

1 Sensei's Divining Top

1 Scroll Rack

1 Mystical Tutor

1 Fact or Fiction

1 Memory Jar

1 Boesium Strip

1 Uyo, Silent Prophet

1 Twincast

1 Time Twister

[/Utility/Card Draw]

[Land]

1 Strip Mine

1 Wasteland

1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea

1 Tolaria West

1 Maze of Ith

1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge

1 Temple of the False God

1 Soldevi Excavations

1 Dust Bowl

30 Island

[/Land]

[/cardlist]