Not at all, man, not at all. The only thing left to do now is hammer out the manabase, but I'll save that discussion for when you finalize the list. Let me know how the testing goes!

I did play one game now with 2x Angelic Edict. I played vs a mono white deck in which I cast 1 Angelic Edict 4 times thanks to 2xArchaeomancer and Cloudshift to remove Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Battlegrace Angel, Baneslayer Angel and Aegis Angel for the win.

Angelic Edict is great but I'm still kind of on the fence with Switcheroo. You're right, that it might be countered by something as simple as Void Snare / Voyage's End but on the other hand it's a solution to a problem. With the example of last game, if I did have Switcheroo in my hand instead of Angelic Edict I could've taken the Baneslayer Angel (I had 2x Wall of Omens on board) and neutralize the threat of the next 2 angels. With Angelic Edict I had to remove all of them by recurring the Angelic Edict a few times. 4x Archaeomancer is definitely worth running!

This deck is FUN

About the mana base, I haven't faced mana problems yet, but any tips are welcome as always!

You just dropped Cultivate, though.....

I do have to wonder what benefit going Green here really adds here. Most of these decks go dual-colour for not only the reliability, but so you can maximise the Plains count for when the combo goes off. Needing triple Green for the Wurms is really a roadblock in that regard.

I'd personally stick with Azorius, or if you really want to add a colour, go Jeskai so you can add Guttersnipes for another combo win-con, and/or Act of Treason for another good Cloudshift interaction.

I think Cloudshift+Pelakka Wurm is too strong to overlook and the Visionaries really help in the early game. Couple that with the fact that War Monks just brick the entire metagame, and I think green is worth it.

That's fine, but then you're essentially making a hybrid deck that plays to neither strength fully. Why not just make a lifegain deck w/ Cloudshift then and abandon the combo elements?

Nothing wrong with hybrid decks per se, but I prefer to commit fully to a theme and maximise specific advantages.

I disagree that this is a hybrid deck. I think that this list has the ultimate goal of comboing off, it just has a much better plan B. One of the best ways to assemble the combo reliably is to gain life and present your opponent with imposing roadblocks and this list will do that better than any other. Gomazoas, Monks, Wurms, and Baneslayer buy so much time to set up that it is ridiculous and they (sans Gomazoa) are capable of winning the game in the absence of the combo.

Sometimes minimizing disadvantage is better than maximizing advantage. I don't see a bad matchup for this deck.

Hey Stevolutionary, I replaced the two Obelisks with two Elixers in your Fog of War deck, and it's working beautifully.

They reshuffle my Fogs and card drawing spells and give me just enough life.

The deck is deadly in the end game with all the cheap spells feeding two Wands.

It's a legit change - I just prefer having a fuller graveyard so I can Archaeomancer specific spells out. The Obelisks are a little clunky though, I admit.

Maybe 1 Obelisk, 1 Elixir would be better? That way you can still shuffle with Kozilek if needed, but can more safely cast him without fear of self-mill or having him exiled either.

The hardest part of that deck I feel is getting the balance on the last 5 cards right.

I know that we have a bit different point of view on the game's fun aspect - you underline it that you make decks with specific purposes, I like to win and if I have fun additionally, then it's even better

I have a bit similar Jeskai steal deck with Act of Treason and it's not very good. Too many dead draws for my liking especially vs control and token decks.

As I stated before, I tried playing this deck as a Jeskai combo deck but it was too unreliable and had some weak spots, one of them being early game (even tho I had Anger of the Gods) that's why I switch it to Bant.

I did play the Azorius version for a few days and I sometimes just didn't have a good enough defense to get to the late game or lacked the lifegain in late game. That's why I started experimenting in the 1st place. I did like the combo aspect, I just wanted to make the deck stronger especially in the early game and up it's speed, that's why I went with Elvish Visionary and Cultivate (at start).

You hit the point. I want to play defensive to assemble the combo. If I can win with a Pelakka Wurm then it's great, but it's just plan B. Sometimes I don't even cast creatures like Baneslayer Angel because I don't need them due to enough strong blockers and just wait for my combo elements.

Additionally the deck has a lot of draw, so you usually have an answer for every problem, a lot of lifegain just in case of "oh ****" + it makes the combo elements easy to acquire.

About going Bant, the lifegain from Pelakka Wurm and card draw + stall from Elvish Visionary both of which combo with Cloudshift (and even Mentor of the Meek) was really worth it and made the deck a lot faster and more reliable.
The later addition of Rhox War Monk just made the deck better. It's really hard now to get any damage through and when I wall in I can just draw cards like crazy and do damage without attacking even once.

Anuuj, you're not spamming at all. It's really interesting to follow your deck's progression and reasoning behind the tweaks. Keep it up. Let me know the record of your deck so far and how strong you think it is. I agree that there are no visible bad match-ups.

No worries Annuj - I'm not suggesting my approach is the better one here necessarily, but just providing a counter view.

Hey Anuuj, I gave your decklist a shot yesterday. I've really enjoyed the U/W version of cloudshift for a while and a bant version is intriguing.

I seem to be doing about the same in win vs loss, but the sample size is small so who knows. The war monks are definitely doing their job and the wurms have been excellent stabilizers. Getting my mana base settled has really been the crux of my testing. I can see why the cultivates were in there at first. I lost at least 2 games because I took a hand hoping for the right mana to show up. This is probably poor play, and I acknowledge I am likely a mediocre player. If I keep having trouble I may try satyr wayfinder in place of visionary or something.

The matchup with dimir aggro has been very poor vs the ai. It seems like they just steamroll right over my defenses. I got super blown out vs a simic aggro deck after they stole my mentor and drew ~5 off the mentor alone. The control matchup seems pretty solid. They give you enough time to gain life and assemble the combo and then you just win at instant speed.

Hey Homarid! Thanks for testing the deck and your opinion!

After a lot more games here are my conclusions:

Without Cultivate the deck loses it's speed and reliability. I got mana screwed 2 or 3 times (1 game I was stuck at 3 mana for 10+ rounds till I finally lost). Another problem is, that without it I can't cast Angelic Edict or my big spells quick enough.
Angelic Edict is defnitely better than Switcheroo as it can also target enchantments which is quite important in this meta. Switcheroo is a lot of fun though

Rhox War Monk is ok and walls aggro, but doesn't help vs huge fliers or pumped-up Chasm Skulkers like Guard Gomazoa does and it's important to last until you get an Angelic Edict.

So far I like the Switcheroo -> Angelic Edict change. I'm testing Rhox War Monk instead of Guard Gomazoa but I'm kinda not decided at the moment. I didn't have problems with aggro so far without it.


I wish I could play this deck with all the changes suggested by Hakeem as I feel both Rhox War Monk and Guard Gomazoa are great but I'd like to keep the Cultivate and don't want to sacrifice Elvish Visionary and Wall of Omens.

The deck is definitely playable with the changes, but I'm not really satisfied with it.

I'll play more games and come back with some feedback.

If you're playing combo as the main plan then Gomazoa > War Monk. You have Wurms for lifegain. If you need the Cultivate then you need it, nothing you can do there.

This deck deserves a bump as perhaps it went a little overlooked, in my opinion it is an extremely strong deck with an enormous win ratio.

It has a very unique style of play that is consistent and with very few downfalls.

Even in a game where my opponent had sanguine bond, suffer the past (on my kozilek among others), this deck still won once wand came out.

I even beat a guy who was at over 70 life with a deck that would seemingly never end, with reclamation sage, suffer the past, kozilek, planar cleansing, I still won.

I can't praise this deck enough. Very tightly wound, you may want to include suffer the past or some other trump card but the deck plays too tightly, which is a good thing I guess.

It is such a joy to not be scared of what permanenets appear on your opponents board. Your opponents creature kill spells are dead cards in their hand. So much fun.

Anyway just a bump for this deck, I may try a sultai or azaban fog deck eventually but by nature these decks are very hard to make and be competitive.

Ok, I got a lot more games in and here are the results:



The deck sometimes had problems vs aggro, especially goblins, so the Rhox War Monk is crucial. I really feel, that Cultivate is needed and I didn't want to cut the Guard Gomazoa, Wall of Omens or Elvish Visionary. I felt, that Dissolve wasn't really needed. It was helpful from time to time in the late game, but usually I had no mana open as I was doing different stuff. For creature removal I have Angelic Edict which I can recurr 10 times with Archaemancer and Cloudshift and for my creature's protection I always try to keep 1 white mana open for Cloudshift.

Meanwhile I started to question if there's really any point outside the fun factor of playing the Sphinx-Bone Wand deck. Yes, it is quite strong, I very rarely loose a game, and that's usually vs goblins + my bad hand. But most of my wins didn't even come from SBW, they were from Baneslayer Angel, Pelakka Wurm or Talrand, Sky Summoner.

I considered adding 2x Planar Cleansing but still didn't decide to do it.

All in all, this deck is a lot of fun, especially if you play Switcheroo instead of Angelic Edict as nothing pisses an opponent more than losing to his own creatures

You should really consider Seance instead of SBW then.

14 of your creatures have ETB effects, and a further 3 (Talrand and Mentor) have excellent triggers you can exploit for a turn, while all your remaining creatures make for excellent single-use blockers by having flying and/or lifelink.

Seance is also great with Switcheroo as you can trade a token that self-exiles. It's especially good with Archaeomancers as they can pull the Switcheroo themselves, letting you steal a creature without any drawback whatsoever. You don't even lose a card as the Archaeomancer gave it you for free.

I'd also add another Talrand personally to offset the loss of combo potential with removing SBW. As you've got 4 Cultivates and would be cutting two 7 mana cards, I think you can afford going down to 23 land to make room.

I tested out Seance instead of Sphinx-Bone Wand and it works well. Adds another layer of complexity to the deck and is very fun to play with Switcheroo. Great tip Stevo!

But to be honest, after facing RDW, Spider Spawning etc. I believe that a deck that wants to win constatly in this crap meta needs Anger of the Gods and Planar Cleansing to take care of all the bloody tokens.