When you think of combo in EDH, you probably think of either Druid or some deck whose end game is a two card combination that it assembles after fighting with attrition. Druid is the more interesting case, for me, because of its raw consistency and power, but heavy susceptibility to hate, if opponents are prepared. It is the quintessential glass cannon and bogeyman of EDH, but against prepared opponents it can be difficult to win with it. It has a tough time interacting with hate like Grafdigger’s Cage and Leyline of the Void, both commonly played, and as soon as people realize what you’re doing, they will dedicate their turns towards stopping you. Since the deck is extremely linear, this results in it not being the best deck in the format, similar to how no-land combo in Legacy is extremely fast, but too vulnerable. The biggest problem with Druid is that in most cases it must play Druid then pass, which affords opponents time to prepare a proper solution, be it Cursed Totem, Grafdigger’s Cage, Torpor Orb, Terminus, or even Blind Obedience can seriously through a wrench in the deck’s plans.
However, Druid teaches us some very valuable lessons. Between the generous mulliganing rules and the sheer quantity and quality of tutors in the format, it is very easy to find specific cards that you want in a deck. This means that combo, even if it requires two specific cards, works much better than one might intuit in a 99 card highlander format.
The main problem with Druid is that the nature of the combo requires an all-in approach. You have to run a necessary number of cards to facilitate Druid being a game win that you seriously decrease the expected quality of a given drawn card. This means that as a game goes on, it becomes essentially impossible for you to win. Beyond that, it requires dedication to the Druid rout, which, as I mentioned, is easy for four people, who are aware of your intention, and have properly constructed decks, to deal with.
Evolution from jank to a well-oiled machine.
I have always liked Rector, but until M13, there wasn't anything in EDH that was seriously worth finding with it. Clearly Rector is a massive tempo boost, being essentially free mana and a tutor all in one, but with Yawgmoth's Bargain out of the format, the best you could do was Necropotence, which wasn’t very exciting. And then, M13 gave us Omniscience.
My initial versions of this deck used Omniscience to play expensive threats, since that seemed intuitive. I included Rector with several sac outlets, including Flash. Accidentally, by my inclusion of Tooth and Nail, Eternal Witness, and Clones (I was new to the format and still thought that clone effects were good), I was able to go infinite. Lack of pressure to improve the strategy had me leave it as is for several months until Enter the Infinite was spoiled early. Immediately I realized that this severely trumped my Tooth and Nail plays. It would be much easier to run more cheap draw spells to find Enter, draw spells that also operated to help me find Rector and kill it.
I had also found that it was far easier to find Flash and Rector than I had assumed, and was able to cut the weaker sac outlets from the deck, since just flashing it was so much more reliable and easy. This lead me to restructure the deck entirely, to give me something close to the version we have right now.
While I was testing the deck, my friend suggested that I could use Conflux, a card that hadn’t occurred to me for some reason, in place of Enter the Infinite. Conflux is actually better than Enter, though, for a few (relatively minor) reasons. It isn't vulnerable to hate like Chains of Mephistopheles or Notion Thief, its easier to cast if it ever actually comes to that (I’ve never had it come to that), and it makes for a better Chrome Mox imprint. So, while Enter the Infinite is very truthfully the inspiration for this deck, it’s not actually in the list anymore.
While working on streamlining the deck, several other discoveries have greatly improved its quality. Laboratory Maniac provides the most efficient kill, and it works with both Demonic Consultation and Tainted Pact as an “Oh, I win”. Maniac truly is the Time Vault of EDH. Once that was in place, it occurred to me that I actually had most of what makes Doomsday good, and included that, which has vastly improved the decks consistency and versatility. I consider Doomsday to be a massively underplayed card in the format.
And now, without further adieu, let me present to you the deck itself.
The cards are organized roughly by function, and then by the actual (rather than converted) mana cost of the card. For instance, I am counting Force of Will as costing zero mana.
Commander Child of Alara
Really, in most cases, any five color general will do, since the most important ability Child has is being five colors. However, this deck includes several sac outlets, and so Child provides an important way to remove an unfavorable field on occasion. More subtly, people tend to play out threats less aggressively against Child since that can result in a blow out, which can buy you time as well.
Omni package Omniscience
The namesake of the deck. This is a one card infinite mana generator, and finally the enchantment truly worthy of Flash-Rectoring. It costs 10 mana, so its essentially uncastable, but in a properly built deck, this card in play is game over. The primary goal of this deck is to get this card into play as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, unlike some other builds, this deck is also built to operate even without Omniscience, and operate well without it. By having this as a primary goal, but having it being dealt with as not being game over, the deck gains a lot of resilience over the more all in Druid, which, if it’s namesake is dealt with, is dead in the water.
Academy Rector
Rector’s trigger does all your work for you. It both finds Omni and then puts it into play for free, serving as a tutor and 10 free mana all in one.
Oh my god... it's full of stars...
Flash
And this card affords the cheapest, safest, and easiest way to get that trigger. For only two mana, at instant speed, and leaving Rector safe in your hand even if its countered.
Dark Triumph
This may seem like an odd choice, but all this card says is 0, instant, as an additional cost to play this, sacrifice a creature. You can play Rector, get priority back, and then cast this before your opponent can even cast a spell that could target Rector. They also can’t counter it, and the sacrifice can’t be responded to. Often you can cast Rector and players might assume you’re going to use it as a blocker, and they’ll let it resolve, intending to Terminus it or something instead. This card is the only truly free sacrifice effect in the game, and its important to have that effect in this deck to be tutored for if you need it.
Necromancy
On its face, Necromancy is one of two pieces of reanimation in this deck, which is good both for intuition and to diversify the card types and thus searchability of reanimation (which can play a valuable role). Necromancy is so much more though. If Rector is in your graveyard, either because someone made you discard it or you discarded it intentionally, you can cast Necromancy at instant speed, and then Necromancy will not only bring back Rector, but sac it for you on the next end step. Waiting for your last opponent’s 2nd main, and then casting Frantic Search into Necromancy is a very good way to get omniscience. Not only that, though, Necromancy’s instant speed allows this deck to actually combo off at instant speed, which I will get into later, and lets you save Maniac if someone kills it, hoping to deck you. And if that wasn’t enough, Necromancy incidentally gives you an answer to Hermit Druid by responding to his Dread Return with Necromancy.
Show and Tell
Sometimes Omniscience is in your hand. While Brainstorm can put it back and then you can shuffle it away, why not just play it for three mana at that point? Slightly dangerous, since your opponent may put out a Sylvan Primordial or something similar, this deck can win in response to triggered abilities, so it isn’t as risky as you might assume.
Conflux
This card is the worst card in the deck, but it consolidates worst cards into a single card that isn’t very good. After you omniscience, Conflux in a single card wins you the game, meaning that every tutor in your deck can win you the game, and you can turn your digging towards the purpose of finding it. I mentioned in the preamble why this card is better than Enter the Infinite.
Win Conditions Laboratory Maniac
The best and easiest win condition in EDH, used in a variety of decks. It is here because it’s cheap, redundant, and powerful.
Demonic Consultation
Exiles your deck for Maniac. In a tight spot, you can use it as a particularly dangerous, if efficient, tutor. Use cautiously for that purpose.
Tainted Pact
Consult 2, and the much stronger of the two. Not only can this exile your deck, it’ll always get you a card while doing that, and it’s a pretty powerful half-cantrip half-tutor in its own right, letting you rifle through cards for only two mana. There are no cards with the same name in this deck.
Doomsday
Another card that can win the game on the spot, if notoriously difficult to use properly. See below for some piles and explanation of strategy with this card.
Tutors Vampiric Tutor
Anything you want, one mana, ‘nuf said.
Enlightened Tutor
Sets up a turn two Library, gets acceleration or fixing, finds necromancy when you want it, necropotence when you want it, and Omni when you’re sitting on Show and Tell.
Worldly Tutor
Finds Rector. It can also search for Eternal Witness for combo purposes and Consecrated Sphinx for a variety of purposes.
Merchant Scroll
Usually just gets Flash, but it can also get several other important spells.
Lim-Dûl's Vault
Oddly underrated in EDH, since I don’t see it much. This is an extremely powerful topdeck tutor that sets up a full top five for you.
Eladamri's Call
Usually just finds Rector, but having an instant speed in-hand tutor for creatures is very good when you need to win at instant speed.
Grim Tutor
Three mana is getting pretty expensive for this deck, but it’s worth it for another unrestricted tutor.
Intuition
Essentially this can get anything you want, if you play it correctly. Instant speed is very important, and this card is quite powerful here.
Draw Gitaxian Probe
Free card, free information, and invaluable for Doomsday purposes.
Gush
Two cards for free in any case, this card can, similar to probe, turn a topdeck tutor into a real tutor. Gush is also absurdly powerful with Doomsday, and on its own can even generate mana while drawing at times.
Brainstorm
Cantrips, filters, puts unwanted cards back to be shuffled. Usually this isn’t good enough in EDH, but this deck is so hypertempo focused that this kind of card is invaluable.
Sensei’s Divining Top
Usually not great in EDH, this card functions here very similarly to how it does in Legacy Doomsday decks, as a one mana down cantrip that you activate later, and with minor filtering purposes if you have the mana spare.
Thought Scour
Mostly here for Doomsday purposes, this card is quite strong beyond that. You can counter opponent’s topdeck tutors with it, you can use it to throw away brainstormed cards, and lets you bin creatures even with Necrotpotence out. It’s also an element in a secondary combo. Early on, it’s a cantrip, which is fine, as well.
Night's Whisper
Probably one of the weakest cards in this deck, this could be Impulse or something like that instead. Having draw twos is important for Doomsday though, and does its job fine.
Frantic Search
A draw two for Doomsday, filters, untaps mana, sometimes even generating mana. This is very flexible and a very good card in this deck.
Thirst for Knowledge
Digs three deep, making it pretty cost effective at the high end of our curve.
Timetwister
A draw 7, which allows for restocking and recouping discarded cards. Draw 7s are also very good to have in hand post Omni. Beyond that, this is an element in a secondary combo.
Wheel of Fortune
Another draw 7. Being red is good for Conflux purposes as well.
Ad Nauseam
Draw 20. At least. At instant speed, this lets you essentially just win the game by casting it end of last opponent’s turn, post omni, or even on your own turn with sufficient resources.
Incremental Draw
You have 40 life, you might as well use it.
Dark Confidant
A strong turn 1/2 play that helps you dig into what you need over the next few turns. It also helps you recover if an initial flash is countered or something similar. Cheaper and easier to cast than Arena, which is too slow, and deals very little damage in this deck.
Sylvan Library
Best green card in EDH. This has the same purpose as Confidant, except drawing two extra cards, usually drawing 2 to 6 cards a game and giving you recovery options after that.
Necropotence
Either play it and draw 30 cards or so, either winning on your end step or setting up a next turn win, or you play it post omni, draw 30, and win on your end step. The raw card drawing of this is absurd, and well known.
Rhystic Study
This may seem odd here, but the power of this card in a multiplayer format is relevant here as well. As an early play, it’ll draw you a good amount of cards, but more important it serves as a kind of Defense Grid, making it harder for opponents to interfere with your turn without drawing you into answers, and lets you play control with your counters more liberally prior to comboing. This also lets you disrupt other combo players, since if they don’t treat this as a one-sided sphere, you’ll probably draw into counters to stop them.
Consecrated Sphinx
The inclusion of Sphinx may also seem out of place, but it has several purposes. It gives you a creature that you can realistically accelerate into, but one that is of such a power level that it is easily worth it to reanimate it. The deck includes several reanimation elements, so this is a decent secondary strategy. Once you have Sphinx up, you have enough control spells that you can manage a table pretty well with the sphinx alone, while drawing a ton of cards. Sphinx’s final purpose is to smooth over the looping combo by turning your timetwisters and wheel of fortunes into draw 49s. Beyond that, if this is the only card you can play off Omni, its a pretty fine play, since it’ll draw you into answers or into a combo on opponent’s turns, usually.
Recursion Reanimate
The second reanimation effect, which is important for intuition to have two, this card is also crucially important for several Doomsday piles, and affords you enough reanimation to realistically have that as a side plan.
Snapcaster Mage
Not amazing post omni, but usually you can still make mana to use it in that event, I find. More importantly, this lets you double your tutors, recast Flash, etc, and all at instant speed. Almost the entire deck costs one and two mana, so Snapcaster is easy to use.
Regrowth
Gets anything you used back. Usually this lets you double up on tutors, using a vampiric to find both Rector and then Flash. Being a green card is important for Conflux.
Eternal Witness
A second regrowth makes Intuition into a true tutor, with enough mana. Beyond that, Eternal Witness is essential for this deck’s ability to win at instant speed, while adding redundancy.
Yawgmoth's Will
Gives this deck a good endgame, and just very flexible and powerful, if expensive to make it work for you.
Disruption Nihil Spellbomb
Gives you some yard hate against Druid and similar decks, it cantrips, although not terribly efficiently, and is essential for a secondary kill condition. Any one of these on their own wouldn’t be good enough, but together its justified.
Thoughtseize
Targeted discard isn’t great in general, but it’s useful here for several reasons. It lets you clear one player before casting Show and Tell, it gives you the potential to blow people out by Thoughtseizing an expensive creature and then reanimating it, and it gives you information about game state. All in all I think it’s justified, if not fantastic.
Silence
The best ‘counter’ in the deck, casting this before going off is a guaranteed win.
Cyclonic Rift
Originally this was Repeal, and then Into the Roil, Rift is one of the worst cards in the deck, but you really want access to cheap bounce in the deck. Unlike most decks, you usually just play it for 1U on relevant targets to clear the way, but overloading it isn’t impossible and is a good way to set yourself up for a win. Still, this is definitely a card that might be cut.
You say "No", I say "Yes".
You say "Stop" and I say "Go, go, go".
Negate
Two mana is rough, but 1U is manageable. This can counter anything that’s relevant, which is good if someone tries to Strangelhold you. Weakest counter in the deck, but it does its job.
Izzet Charm
Counter, removal, and filtering all in one. You can even use it to kill Rector, in a pinch. Or it can kill Hermit Druid. Or it can kill Aven Mindcensor. Or it can be a draw two and win with Doomsday. Oh, and it’s red, so Conflux finds it. Just a surprisingly fantastic card in this deck.
Muddle the Mixture
Primarily another tutor, usually for Flash or Demonic, this doubles as a protective counter, at a reasonable cost.
Mana Drain
Primarily a tempo play, Draining something mid-sized or big early and then finding Consecrated Sphinx or just plaing a ton of spells off the mana is a very good play.
Cryptic Command
This card does a lot, but given how expensive it is, its inclusion may come as a surprise. While this card is a totally reasonable counter, bounce, and dig spell on its own right, which is good for clearing a troublesome enchantment or countering something before going off, its primary purpose is facilitating the instant speed win. The fact that it doesn't do the above jobs poorly (in fact it does them pretty well) means its inclusion is strong.
Acceleration Dark Ritual
Turn one Necromancy, turn one Doomsday, powerful plays later, this is strong acceleration.
Mana Vault
Essentially another ritual, where you slow-play the mana. This is the top end of what you want, since everything in the deck basically costs between one and three, you don’t have any need for acceleration that costs more than 1 mana.
This land is so good in a format where you rarely go first.
Gemstone Caverns is the best underplayed land in EDH. It’s basically a Mox if in your opening hand 75 percent of the time, which can pitch anything. Being able to Vampiric tutor before you’ve even taken a turn is insane.
Cavern of Souls
Aside Sphinx, your creatures are all Humans. Being able to cast an uncounterable Rector into Dark Triumph past opponents representing counters is fantastic.
Phyrexian Tower
I wanted a sacrifice land, although I wanted to minimize colorless lands. Tower over High Market because the BB is produces isn’t irrelevant, while the 1 life of Market usually is.
One of the advantages of being five colors
is you have access to one of the strongest
mana bases in commander, outside of
monocolored decks. Here we have all
of the best five colored lands.
This deck gets to make good use of
otherwise poor five color lands
Gemstone Mine and Undiscovered Paradise
because it only needs a few turns worth
of mana. Underground River isn't a five
color land, but it reliably produces your
two primary colors, so I've included it
here.
The deck
is essentially a UB deck,
with the other colors as the most
minor of splashes. As a result,
every land should produce blue
or black, with Watery Grave
doubling Underground Sea.
By using only the blue and
black fetches in conjunction,
your fetches can always get
either blue or black mana,
or they can always get one of
any other color that you need,
making this very flexible.
A basic island and swamp are
included so that you can fetch
your way out of a Blood Moon
or Back to Basics.
The general construction of this deck is to maximize the first few turns of the game to find and assemble a game winning combo. Since most other decks spend this time setting up mana or searching for more general purpose spells, this affords you some time where people will be tapping out for mana rocks or tutors of their own. Because many of your tutors are instants or don't show players what you got, its often difficult for them to know which combo to prepare for and adequately prevent it. Further, they can't afford to not start setting up mana and wait to respond to you.
The best ability any Commander can have:
Being five colors.
The average converted mana cost of the deck right now is 1.55. When you remove the spells we intend to play for free, Omniscience and Conflux (since you never intend to actually cast them), the average drops to a mere 1.15. This is a lower curve than many Legacy decks, and we have better, if more inconsistent, acceleration. This lets us get away with a mere 32 lands, we only need to draw two to be running on all cylinders. Beyond that, our cheap draw spells and the generous partial paris mulliganing rules let us correct for inconsistency in early mana very easily. Just make sure you have at least one land in your hand, and you're essentially set for the whole game.
This also lets us maximize the percentage of our hands that are gas, since you don't need the normal 2 to 4 lands in your opener to have a 'good start'. Ideally, however, you have a land and an accelerant.
Beyond the mana, the general purpose of this deck is to locate our combo. To that end, we run a full 12 tutors, and 13 draw spells. That's a quarter of the deck dedicated to cheaply digging through itself, and not even counting the incremental draw spells which, when cast early, greatly increase the gas you'll draw into, returning immediately on their investment usually.
The actual combo food accounts for 12 slots in the deck, which gives you pretty good odds of seeing one in your opening hand, if you don't get a double tutor draw or tutor and dig. This makes most possible starting hands a winning combination. If one of your cards is a combo element, you know what to tutor for with any tutor you find. The worst of these is Conflux, and you can always mull Conflux away if you draw it right away. With only one card to worry about, you have exceedingly low odds of actually starting with it, which is much better than Druid, which has to take mulls merely to get rid of things from its hand, and can die to drawing the wrong cards early on.
15 percent of the deck is disruption, or more aptly, counter-disruption. You can expect to see at least one or two in your opening hands to protect your combo, which is what we want. Beyond that, you draw them at a reasonable rate, and there's only a few spells you actually care about coming from opponents, so you can control the game past turn 4 if you have a particularly slow hand, which implies a hand where you drew an unusual amount of disruption anyway, until you hit gas again.
Recursion only occupies 5 slots, so you won't see it very frequently, but its role is more to be tutored for, or double tutors/combo elements, so when you do draw it, it tends to only add to consistency.
7, and really 8 with Caverns accelerants with at least a 7 percent chance of any given one being in your opening hand means that you have solid odds of starting with fast mana, although you can't necessarily rely on this. Still, this is about what we want from the deck, and it's the best we can ask for. Usually the reason you want these so badly is that they let you cast two mana tutors right away, or do things like Ponder and tutor, or turn one Necropotence, which are the kinds of plays that opponents tend to really just have no way to deal with. Not to mention the occasional turn one land, lotus petal, Flash, Rector plays that do happen!
This deck is not simple to play. Generally, you want to use tutors to find the fastest win you can get out of a given hand, but it may not always be obvious what that win should be. More often than not, if your opponents aren't interfering with it, getting Flash and Academy REctor into your hand is the fastest way to go about it, but remember that every hand is a different case and keep your mind open when playing this.
You also have Maniac and twospells that win the game with it, so if you have an opener with a fast Maniac, you can just run him out and Consult on your upkeep for the game.
The instant speed win is, depending on what’s in your hand, and with Omni in play, find Eternal Witness and get it into your graveyard, Nercomancy it, Cryptic CommandNecromancy, replay Necromancy on Witness returning Command, and repeat this, choosing draw as the 2nd mode until you've drawn your deck, or your deck minus a few cards, depending on what’s available. Then you have to get Laboratory Maniac into your yard, then you switch Necromancy to Maniac and cast a draw spell for the game. If this is off a Necropotence, you’ll need to either bounceNecropotence before using a looting card to get Witness into the grave, or you can use Flash, or you can topdeck tutor or Brainstorm it and Thought Scour yourself. Remember that Necropotence triggers at your end step, and you can cast spells before discarding, which is a principle way you can win the game post Omniscience.
Sometimes you have to get a little creative...
If Maniac is not an option, such as having been exiled by some effect, or if you have to Tainted Pact past it, or pitch it to Force or Misdirection, you still can win the game using the secondary Omniscience kill. You may have already guessed how it works. With Omniscience out, our goal is to essentially find Sphinx and cast it, with a draw seven in hand, and playing as many permanents as you can while doing this. Conflux does this directly, or you may use cantrips to use your deck as an engine. This also works without Sphinx, but Sphinx makes it more reliable. Using Consultation and Pact, you want to exile useless sections of your deck, draw as many cards as possible, and Silence as soon as possible. Then you Timetwister, which will draw you 49 cards if you have sphinx, or only 7 without. In either case, you then use your deck to find Regrowth, again playing as much as you can, which lets you RegrowthTwister. Once you get your deck down to 50 cards and sphinx in play, you can then just directly loop Twister and Regrowth, playing anything else you want in the process. What you want to do then is Cryptic Command every permanent they have. Next, each loop you cast Nihil Spellbomb, Thought Scour an opponent, then exile those cards. You then continue to repeat this process until you’ve exiled each opponent’s deck, and then Timetwister will kill them.
Doomsday can be tricky to work with if you’re not used to it. Here are some piles that come up more frequently to give you an idea of how to use it.
It may not be the end of the world,
but it's definitely the end of the game.
Doomsday, cast your draw two (gush is the best, since it’s free), drawing probe and scour, scour yourself, cast reanimate on Maniac, Gitaxian Probe to win.
You can also use Doomsday to set up Omniscience, by getting Rector/Flash with Omniscience and Maniac and some draw spell in the deck, in some circumstances. Doomsday can also be lethal with Necropotence and the right cards in hand, allowing you to win on your end step. Really, the possibilities with Doomsday are so numerous and varied its hard if not impossible to explain them all here, but this should give you a rough working idea of how Doomsday allows you to win.
This little birdie can seriously ruin your day.
This deck doesn't have to be vulnerable to grave hate, since you have Show and Tell as an option, and the grave hate that hurts this deck is much less in quantity when compared to what gets Druid (Grafdigger’s Cage doesn't do anything, Blind Obedience doesn't do anything, Torpor Orb doesn't do anything, etc). However, grave hate can still be a problem, since Rector can be exiled from the yard in response to its ability, and that's probably one of the biggest weak points. We have a lot of countermagic, and there’s not really enough played that its a huge problem, but it hurts the deck.
This deck is composed almost entirely of tutors, so stopping that is a huge problem. One of the main reasons I want to include cheap maindeck bounce is so that if someone casts Stranglehold, I can tutor in response to find it, potentially, and to give me an out.
Tax effects can sometimes be played around, since you have some acceleration that will let you cast essential spells through an [CARD-Omniscience]Omni[/CARD], and Omniscience even when slowed down by tax effects still nets you so much mana that you should be okay. Nether Void is another story, and that card can be game over for you unless you can get up to 8 mana for Child (which is hard for a deck running as little mana as this).
Arcane Laboratory is kind of a two way street for you. It hurts you a lot, since you want to chain spells, but it also means that all of your counters are the final word, and you run a fair number of them. In the face of Lab, I recommend switching strategies to finding Consecrated Sphinx, as that will let you control the board until you can either slow roll a win or deal with Lab.
The major advantages this deck has to Druid is two fold. The kind of hate that hurts it is more expensive and less common, and in the face of hate, you can switch strategies. Since there are several ways to win, you can be much more reactionary than Druid can be.
For example, I played a game where I had tutored for rector and Flash by turn 2, waiting for my turn 3 to go off. Another player used a bunch of targeted discard and made me discard both Flash and Rector. Now, if I was playing Druid, this might be game over, since a discarded Druid is hard for that deck to come back from, but I found another tutor, found Necromancy, and went off out of my graveyard, in response to a Bojuka Bog.
Beyond all that, this deck is just a lot of fun to play. It is very tight, and highly tempo oriented, so you have to win fast, but your average card quality is much higher than Druid’s, and you can shift play styles and goals much more freely than most dedicated combo decks.
And you still have an expected turn 3/4 win. Reliably. And by reliably, I mean 80 percent of the time, you can win by turn four or earlier. This deck also has several turn one wins, and turn two wins, which are much more common in occurrence than most decks that sport combos.
If you enjoy playing a deck where every game is a puzzle, and a puzzle that you have to solve under the gun, try this deck out. It's very rewarding and high powered, but mistakes can kill you, so every game is pretty intense.
2
However, Druid teaches us some very valuable lessons. Between the generous mulliganing rules and the sheer quantity and quality of tutors in the format, it is very easy to find specific cards that you want in a deck. This means that combo, even if it requires two specific cards, works much better than one might intuit in a 99 card highlander format.
The main problem with Druid is that the nature of the combo requires an all-in approach. You have to run a necessary number of cards to facilitate Druid being a game win that you seriously decrease the expected quality of a given drawn card. This means that as a game goes on, it becomes essentially impossible for you to win. Beyond that, it requires dedication to the Druid rout, which, as I mentioned, is easy for four people, who are aware of your intention, and have properly constructed decks, to deal with.
My initial versions of this deck used Omniscience to play expensive threats, since that seemed intuitive. I included Rector with several sac outlets, including Flash. Accidentally, by my inclusion of Tooth and Nail, Eternal Witness, and Clones (I was new to the format and still thought that clone effects were good), I was able to go infinite. Lack of pressure to improve the strategy had me leave it as is for several months until Enter the Infinite was spoiled early. Immediately I realized that this severely trumped my Tooth and Nail plays. It would be much easier to run more cheap draw spells to find Enter, draw spells that also operated to help me find Rector and kill it.
I had also found that it was far easier to find Flash and Rector than I had assumed, and was able to cut the weaker sac outlets from the deck, since just flashing it was so much more reliable and easy. This lead me to restructure the deck entirely, to give me something close to the version we have right now.
While I was testing the deck, my friend suggested that I could use Conflux, a card that hadn’t occurred to me for some reason, in place of Enter the Infinite. Conflux is actually better than Enter, though, for a few (relatively minor) reasons. It isn't vulnerable to hate like Chains of Mephistopheles or Notion Thief, its easier to cast if it ever actually comes to that (I’ve never had it come to that), and it makes for a better Chrome Mox imprint. So, while Enter the Infinite is very truthfully the inspiration for this deck, it’s not actually in the list anymore.
While working on streamlining the deck, several other discoveries have greatly improved its quality. Laboratory Maniac provides the most efficient kill, and it works with both Demonic Consultation and Tainted Pact as an “Oh, I win”. Maniac truly is the Time Vault of EDH. Once that was in place, it occurred to me that I actually had most of what makes Doomsday good, and included that, which has vastly improved the decks consistency and versatility. I consider Doomsday to be a massively underplayed card in the format.
And now, without further adieu, let me present to you the deck itself.
Child of AlaraMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
1 Omniscience
1 Academy Rector
1 Flash
1 Dark Triumph
1 Necromancy
1 Show and Tell
1 Conflux
Win Conditions
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Demonic Consultation
1 Tainted Pact
1 Doomsday
Tutors
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Imperial Seal
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Personal Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Worldly Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Lim-Dûl's Vault
1 Eladamri's Call
1 Grim Tutor
1 Intuition
Draw
1 Gitaxian Probe
1 Gush
1 Brainstorm
1 Ponder
1 Preordain
1 Sensei’s Divining Top
1 Thought Scour
1 Night's Whisper
1 Frantic Search
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Timetwister
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Ad Nauseam
Incremental Draw
1 Dark Confidant
1 Sylvan Library
1 Necropotence
1 Rhystic Study
1 Consecrated Sphinx
Recursion
1 Reanimate
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Regrowth
1 Eternal Witness
1 Yawgmoth's Will
Disruption
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Thoughtseize
1 Silence
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Pact of Negation
1 Force of Will
1 Misdirection
1 Spell Pierce
1 Flusterstorm
1 Negate
1 Izzet Charm
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Mana Drain
1 Cryptic Command
1 Dark Ritual
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mox Diamond
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mana Crypt
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
Land
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Phyrexian Tower
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Command Tower
1 City of Brass
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Tarnished Citadel
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Underground River
1 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Watery Grave
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Child of Alara
The cards are organized roughly by function, and then by the actual (rather than converted) mana cost of the card. For instance, I am counting Force of Will as costing zero mana.
Commander
Child of Alara
Really, in most cases, any five color general will do, since the most important ability Child has is being five colors. However, this deck includes several sac outlets, and so Child provides an important way to remove an unfavorable field on occasion. More subtly, people tend to play out threats less aggressively against Child since that can result in a blow out, which can buy you time as well.
Omni package
Omniscience
The namesake of the deck. This is a one card infinite mana generator, and finally the enchantment truly worthy of Flash-Rectoring. It costs 10 mana, so its essentially uncastable, but in a properly built deck, this card in play is game over. The primary goal of this deck is to get this card into play as quickly and efficiently as possible. However, unlike some other builds, this deck is also built to operate even without Omniscience, and operate well without it. By having this as a primary goal, but having it being dealt with as not being game over, the deck gains a lot of resilience over the more all in Druid, which, if it’s namesake is dealt with, is dead in the water.
Academy Rector
Rector’s trigger does all your work for you. It both finds Omni and then puts it into play for free, serving as a tutor and 10 free mana all in one.
Flash
And this card affords the cheapest, safest, and easiest way to get that trigger. For only two mana, at instant speed, and leaving Rector safe in your hand even if its countered.
Dark Triumph
This may seem like an odd choice, but all this card says is 0, instant, as an additional cost to play this, sacrifice a creature. You can play Rector, get priority back, and then cast this before your opponent can even cast a spell that could target Rector. They also can’t counter it, and the sacrifice can’t be responded to. Often you can cast Rector and players might assume you’re going to use it as a blocker, and they’ll let it resolve, intending to Terminus it or something instead. This card is the only truly free sacrifice effect in the game, and its important to have that effect in this deck to be tutored for if you need it.
Necromancy
On its face, Necromancy is one of two pieces of reanimation in this deck, which is good both for intuition and to diversify the card types and thus searchability of reanimation (which can play a valuable role). Necromancy is so much more though. If Rector is in your graveyard, either because someone made you discard it or you discarded it intentionally, you can cast Necromancy at instant speed, and then Necromancy will not only bring back Rector, but sac it for you on the next end step. Waiting for your last opponent’s 2nd main, and then casting Frantic Search into Necromancy is a very good way to get omniscience. Not only that, though, Necromancy’s instant speed allows this deck to actually combo off at instant speed, which I will get into later, and lets you save Maniac if someone kills it, hoping to deck you. And if that wasn’t enough, Necromancy incidentally gives you an answer to Hermit Druid by responding to his Dread Return with Necromancy.
Show and Tell
Sometimes Omniscience is in your hand. While Brainstorm can put it back and then you can shuffle it away, why not just play it for three mana at that point? Slightly dangerous, since your opponent may put out a Sylvan Primordial or something similar, this deck can win in response to triggered abilities, so it isn’t as risky as you might assume.
Conflux
This card is the worst card in the deck, but it consolidates worst cards into a single card that isn’t very good. After you omniscience, Conflux in a single card wins you the game, meaning that every tutor in your deck can win you the game, and you can turn your digging towards the purpose of finding it. I mentioned in the preamble why this card is better than Enter the Infinite.
Win Conditions
Laboratory Maniac
The best and easiest win condition in EDH, used in a variety of decks. It is here because it’s cheap, redundant, and powerful.
Demonic Consultation
Exiles your deck for Maniac. In a tight spot, you can use it as a particularly dangerous, if efficient, tutor. Use cautiously for that purpose.
Tainted Pact
Consult 2, and the much stronger of the two. Not only can this exile your deck, it’ll always get you a card while doing that, and it’s a pretty powerful half-cantrip half-tutor in its own right, letting you rifle through cards for only two mana. There are no cards with the same name in this deck.
Doomsday
Another card that can win the game on the spot, if notoriously difficult to use properly. See below for some piles and explanation of strategy with this card.
Tutors
Vampiric Tutor
Anything you want, one mana, ‘nuf said.
Imperial Seal
Slow vampiric is still fantastic.
Mystical Tutor
Finds a large number of cards in the deck, at the expense of revealing what you get.
Personal Tutor
Slow, usually tutors for Demonic or Doomsday, but has a variety of other uses.
Sets up a turn two Library, gets acceleration or fixing, finds necromancy when you want it, necropotence when you want it, and Omni when you’re sitting on Show and Tell.
Worldly Tutor
Finds Rector. It can also search for Eternal Witness for combo purposes and Consecrated Sphinx for a variety of purposes.
Demonic Tutor
Best tutor in the game.
Merchant Scroll
Usually just gets Flash, but it can also get several other important spells.
Lim-Dûl's Vault
Oddly underrated in EDH, since I don’t see it much. This is an extremely powerful topdeck tutor that sets up a full top five for you.
Eladamri's Call
Usually just finds Rector, but having an instant speed in-hand tutor for creatures is very good when you need to win at instant speed.
Grim Tutor
Three mana is getting pretty expensive for this deck, but it’s worth it for another unrestricted tutor.
Intuition
Essentially this can get anything you want, if you play it correctly. Instant speed is very important, and this card is quite powerful here.
Draw
Gitaxian Probe
Free card, free information, and invaluable for Doomsday purposes.
Gush
Two cards for free in any case, this card can, similar to probe, turn a topdeck tutor into a real tutor. Gush is also absurdly powerful with Doomsday, and on its own can even generate mana while drawing at times.
Brainstorm
Cantrips, filters, puts unwanted cards back to be shuffled. Usually this isn’t good enough in EDH, but this deck is so hypertempo focused that this kind of card is invaluable.
Ponder
Preordain
Solid dig, see above.
Sensei’s Divining Top
Usually not great in EDH, this card functions here very similarly to how it does in Legacy Doomsday decks, as a one mana down cantrip that you activate later, and with minor filtering purposes if you have the mana spare.
Thought Scour
Mostly here for Doomsday purposes, this card is quite strong beyond that. You can counter opponent’s topdeck tutors with it, you can use it to throw away brainstormed cards, and lets you bin creatures even with Necrotpotence out. It’s also an element in a secondary combo. Early on, it’s a cantrip, which is fine, as well.
Night's Whisper
Probably one of the weakest cards in this deck, this could be Impulse or something like that instead. Having draw twos is important for Doomsday though, and does its job fine.
Frantic Search
A draw two for Doomsday, filters, untaps mana, sometimes even generating mana. This is very flexible and a very good card in this deck.
Thirst for Knowledge
Digs three deep, making it pretty cost effective at the high end of our curve.
Timetwister
A draw 7, which allows for restocking and recouping discarded cards. Draw 7s are also very good to have in hand post Omni. Beyond that, this is an element in a secondary combo.
Wheel of Fortune
Another draw 7. Being red is good for Conflux purposes as well.
Ad Nauseam
Draw 20. At least. At instant speed, this lets you essentially just win the game by casting it end of last opponent’s turn, post omni, or even on your own turn with sufficient resources.
Incremental Draw
A strong turn 1/2 play that helps you dig into what you need over the next few turns. It also helps you recover if an initial flash is countered or something similar. Cheaper and easier to cast than Arena, which is too slow, and deals very little damage in this deck.
Sylvan Library
Best green card in EDH. This has the same purpose as Confidant, except drawing two extra cards, usually drawing 2 to 6 cards a game and giving you recovery options after that.
Necropotence
Either play it and draw 30 cards or so, either winning on your end step or setting up a next turn win, or you play it post omni, draw 30, and win on your end step. The raw card drawing of this is absurd, and well known.
Rhystic Study
This may seem odd here, but the power of this card in a multiplayer format is relevant here as well. As an early play, it’ll draw you a good amount of cards, but more important it serves as a kind of Defense Grid, making it harder for opponents to interfere with your turn without drawing you into answers, and lets you play control with your counters more liberally prior to comboing. This also lets you disrupt other combo players, since if they don’t treat this as a one-sided sphere, you’ll probably draw into counters to stop them.
Consecrated Sphinx
The inclusion of Sphinx may also seem out of place, but it has several purposes. It gives you a creature that you can realistically accelerate into, but one that is of such a power level that it is easily worth it to reanimate it. The deck includes several reanimation elements, so this is a decent secondary strategy. Once you have Sphinx up, you have enough control spells that you can manage a table pretty well with the sphinx alone, while drawing a ton of cards. Sphinx’s final purpose is to smooth over the looping combo by turning your timetwisters and wheel of fortunes into draw 49s. Beyond that, if this is the only card you can play off Omni, its a pretty fine play, since it’ll draw you into answers or into a combo on opponent’s turns, usually.
Recursion
Reanimate
The second reanimation effect, which is important for intuition to have two, this card is also crucially important for several Doomsday piles, and affords you enough reanimation to realistically have that as a side plan.
Snapcaster Mage
Not amazing post omni, but usually you can still make mana to use it in that event, I find. More importantly, this lets you double your tutors, recast Flash, etc, and all at instant speed. Almost the entire deck costs one and two mana, so Snapcaster is easy to use.
Regrowth
Gets anything you used back. Usually this lets you double up on tutors, using a vampiric to find both Rector and then Flash. Being a green card is important for Conflux.
Eternal Witness
A second regrowth makes Intuition into a true tutor, with enough mana. Beyond that, Eternal Witness is essential for this deck’s ability to win at instant speed, while adding redundancy.
Yawgmoth's Will
Gives this deck a good endgame, and just very flexible and powerful, if expensive to make it work for you.
Disruption
Nihil Spellbomb
Gives you some yard hate against Druid and similar decks, it cantrips, although not terribly efficiently, and is essential for a secondary kill condition. Any one of these on their own wouldn’t be good enough, but together its justified.
Thoughtseize
Targeted discard isn’t great in general, but it’s useful here for several reasons. It lets you clear one player before casting Show and Tell, it gives you the potential to blow people out by Thoughtseizing an expensive creature and then reanimating it, and it gives you information about game state. All in all I think it’s justified, if not fantastic.
Silence
The best ‘counter’ in the deck, casting this before going off is a guaranteed win.
Cyclonic Rift
Originally this was Repeal, and then Into the Roil, Rift is one of the worst cards in the deck, but you really want access to cheap bounce in the deck. Unlike most decks, you usually just play it for 1U on relevant targets to clear the way, but overloading it isn’t impossible and is a good way to set yourself up for a win. Still, this is definitely a card that might be cut.
You say "Stop" and I say "Go, go, go".
Free counter.
Force of Will
Free counter.
Misdirection
Free ‘counter’.
Spell Pierce
One mana counter.
Flusterstorm
One mana counter.
Negate
Two mana is rough, but 1U is manageable. This can counter anything that’s relevant, which is good if someone tries to Strangelhold you. Weakest counter in the deck, but it does its job.
Izzet Charm
Counter, removal, and filtering all in one. You can even use it to kill Rector, in a pinch. Or it can kill Hermit Druid. Or it can kill Aven Mindcensor. Or it can be a draw two and win with Doomsday. Oh, and it’s red, so Conflux finds it. Just a surprisingly fantastic card in this deck.
Muddle the Mixture
Primarily another tutor, usually for Flash or Demonic, this doubles as a protective counter, at a reasonable cost.
Mana Drain
Primarily a tempo play, Draining something mid-sized or big early and then finding Consecrated Sphinx or just plaing a ton of spells off the mana is a very good play.
Cryptic Command
This card does a lot, but given how expensive it is, its inclusion may come as a surprise. While this card is a totally reasonable counter, bounce, and dig spell on its own right, which is good for clearing a troublesome enchantment or countering something before going off, its primary purpose is facilitating the instant speed win. The fact that it doesn't do the above jobs poorly (in fact it does them pretty well) means its inclusion is strong.
Acceleration
Dark Ritual
Turn one Necromancy, turn one Doomsday, powerful plays later, this is strong acceleration.
Lotus Petal
One mana of any color for free
Mox Diamond
Acceleration of any color
Chrome Mox
Usually blue or black mana, which is all you care about.
Mana Crypt
Best acceleration in EDH.
Sol Ring
Second best acceleration in EDH.
Mana Vault
Essentially another ritual, where you slow-play the mana. This is the top end of what you want, since everything in the deck basically costs between one and three, you don’t have any need for acceleration that costs more than 1 mana.
Land
Gemstone Caverns
Ancient Tomb
Acceleration in a land.
Boseiju, Who Shelters All
Shelters Flash, and potentially other important spells.
Cavern of Souls
Aside Sphinx, your creatures are all Humans. Being able to cast an uncounterable Rector into Dark Triumph past opponents representing counters is fantastic.
Phyrexian Tower
I wanted a sacrifice land, although I wanted to minimize colorless lands. Tower over High Market because the BB is produces isn’t irrelevant, while the 1 life of Market usually is.
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Mana fixing in land form.
1 City of Brass
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Gemstone Mine
1 Tarnished Citadel
1 Undiscovered Paradise
1 Exotic Orchard
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Underground River
is you have access to one of the strongest
mana bases in commander, outside of
monocolored decks. Here we have all
of the best five colored lands.
This deck gets to make good use of
otherwise poor five color lands
Gemstone Mine and Undiscovered Paradise
because it only needs a few turns worth
of mana. Underground River isn't a five
color land, but it reliably produces your
two primary colors, so I've included it
here.
1 Flooded Strand
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Marsh Flats
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Badlands
1 Volcanic Island
1 Tropical Island
1 Bayou
1 Scrubland
1 Watery Grave
1 Island
1 Swamp
is essentially a UB deck,
with the other colors as the most
minor of splashes. As a result,
every land should produce blue
or black, with Watery Grave
doubling Underground Sea.
By using only the blue and
black fetches in conjunction,
your fetches can always get
either blue or black mana,
or they can always get one of
any other color that you need,
making this very flexible.
A basic island and swamp are
included so that you can fetch
your way out of a Blood Moon
or Back to Basics.
Being five colors.
This also lets us maximize the percentage of our hands that are gas, since you don't need the normal 2 to 4 lands in your opener to have a 'good start'. Ideally, however, you have a land and an accelerant.
Beyond the mana, the general purpose of this deck is to locate our combo. To that end, we run a full 12 tutors, and 13 draw spells. That's a quarter of the deck dedicated to cheaply digging through itself, and not even counting the incremental draw spells which, when cast early, greatly increase the gas you'll draw into, returning immediately on their investment usually.
The actual combo food accounts for 12 slots in the deck, which gives you pretty good odds of seeing one in your opening hand, if you don't get a double tutor draw or tutor and dig. This makes most possible starting hands a winning combination. If one of your cards is a combo element, you know what to tutor for with any tutor you find. The worst of these is Conflux, and you can always mull Conflux away if you draw it right away. With only one card to worry about, you have exceedingly low odds of actually starting with it, which is much better than Druid, which has to take mulls merely to get rid of things from its hand, and can die to drawing the wrong cards early on.
15 percent of the deck is disruption, or more aptly, counter-disruption. You can expect to see at least one or two in your opening hands to protect your combo, which is what we want. Beyond that, you draw them at a reasonable rate, and there's only a few spells you actually care about coming from opponents, so you can control the game past turn 4 if you have a particularly slow hand, which implies a hand where you drew an unusual amount of disruption anyway, until you hit gas again.
Recursion only occupies 5 slots, so you won't see it very frequently, but its role is more to be tutored for, or double tutors/combo elements, so when you do draw it, it tends to only add to consistency.
7, and really 8 with Caverns accelerants with at least a 7 percent chance of any given one being in your opening hand means that you have solid odds of starting with fast mana, although you can't necessarily rely on this. Still, this is about what we want from the deck, and it's the best we can ask for. Usually the reason you want these so badly is that they let you cast two mana tutors right away, or do things like Ponder and tutor, or turn one Necropotence, which are the kinds of plays that opponents tend to really just have no way to deal with. Not to mention the occasional turn one land, lotus petal, Flash, Rector plays that do happen!
You also have Maniac and two spells that win the game with it, so if you have an opener with a fast Maniac, you can just run him out and Consult on your upkeep for the game.
The instant speed win is, depending on what’s in your hand, and with Omni in play, find Eternal Witness and get it into your graveyard, Nercomancy it, Cryptic Command Necromancy, replay Necromancy on Witness returning Command, and repeat this, choosing draw as the 2nd mode until you've drawn your deck, or your deck minus a few cards, depending on what’s available. Then you have to get Laboratory Maniac into your yard, then you switch Necromancy to Maniac and cast a draw spell for the game. If this is off a Necropotence, you’ll need to either bounce Necropotence before using a looting card to get Witness into the grave, or you can use Flash, or you can topdeck tutor or Brainstorm it and Thought Scour yourself. Remember that Necropotence triggers at your end step, and you can cast spells before discarding, which is a principle way you can win the game post Omniscience.
Doomsday can be tricky to work with if you’re not used to it. Here are some piles that come up more frequently to give you an idea of how to use it.
but it's definitely the end of the game.
Doomsday, cast your draw two (gush is the best, since it’s free), drawing probe and scour, scour yourself, cast reanimate on Maniac, Gitaxian Probe to win.
Doomsday with Sensei’s Divining Top
Doomsday, tap Top to draw Gush, cast Gush for free, draw top and scour, scour yourself, reanimate Maniac, cast top, activate top to win.
You can try to make your own piles with Doomsday and Thought Scour or Doomsday and Brainstorm, as they are similar.
You can also use Doomsday to set up Omniscience, by getting Rector/Flash with Omniscience and Maniac and some draw spell in the deck, in some circumstances. Doomsday can also be lethal with Necropotence and the right cards in hand, allowing you to win on your end step. Really, the possibilities with Doomsday are so numerous and varied its hard if not impossible to explain them all here, but this should give you a rough working idea of how Doomsday allows you to win.
The biggest problem this deck has is with any effect that prevents searching (Mindlock Orb, Stranglehold, Aven Mindcensor), and effects like Sphere of Resistance and Arcane Laboratory.
This deck is composed almost entirely of tutors, so stopping that is a huge problem. One of the main reasons I want to include cheap maindeck bounce is so that if someone casts Stranglehold, I can tutor in response to find it, potentially, and to give me an out.
Tax effects can sometimes be played around, since you have some acceleration that will let you cast essential spells through an [CARD-Omniscience]Omni[/CARD], and Omniscience even when slowed down by tax effects still nets you so much mana that you should be okay. Nether Void is another story, and that card can be game over for you unless you can get up to 8 mana for Child (which is hard for a deck running as little mana as this).
Arcane Laboratory is kind of a two way street for you. It hurts you a lot, since you want to chain spells, but it also means that all of your counters are the final word, and you run a fair number of them. In the face of Lab, I recommend switching strategies to finding Consecrated Sphinx, as that will let you control the board until you can either slow roll a win or deal with Lab.
For example, I played a game where I had tutored for rector and Flash by turn 2, waiting for my turn 3 to go off. Another player used a bunch of targeted discard and made me discard both Flash and Rector. Now, if I was playing Druid, this might be game over, since a discarded Druid is hard for that deck to come back from, but I found another tutor, found Necromancy, and went off out of my graveyard, in response to a Bojuka Bog.
Beyond all that, this deck is just a lot of fun to play. It is very tight, and highly tempo oriented, so you have to win fast, but your average card quality is much higher than Druid’s, and you can shift play styles and goals much more freely than most dedicated combo decks.
And you still have an expected turn 3/4 win. Reliably. And by reliably, I mean 80 percent of the time, you can win by turn four or earlier. This deck also has several turn one wins, and turn two wins, which are much more common in occurrence than most decks that sport combos.
If you enjoy playing a deck where every game is a puzzle, and a puzzle that you have to solve under the gun, try this deck out. It's very rewarding and high powered, but mistakes can kill you, so every game is pretty intense.
Try it out, let me know what you think.