#mindmoil

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Post Izzet Niv 3.0 deck list please?

Mebbe when we're up, but it's main deal is using mindmoil/Arjun and/or possibility storm to just draw hella cards also Minds Desire is there. Also like twenty cantrips or something. It's a pretty silly and fun deck.

[dailymtgflavortext]

"My criticism of the Izzet is that their impulse for learning seems too much like impulse and too little like learning." —Trigori, Azorius senator

-Mindmoil

[big-dumb-fish]

What to do when I run out of Big Dumb Fish

As far as I can tell, I'm going to run out of overcosted blue creatures to rate at some point in october or november, but I'm having a lot of fun with this blog and I want to keep it going, but I'm going to need a new theme. Any suggestions?

The best idea I have so far is red "chaos" enchantments (Grip of Chaos, Mindmoil, Yet Another Aether Vortex, etc) but I'm not sure if I can come up with a simple three-axis scale like the Big Dumb Fish scale.

[overgrown-estate]

Arjun, the Shifting Flame = ~$4.00

Mindmoil = ~$3.00

[nehebthewordy]

EDH Budget Picks: Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain

I’ve been playing Commander for a few years now and still Jhoira is one of my favorite generals I’ve ever built, so I’m sharing with you all my key cards for making her work. Now unlike many, my Jhoira isn’t storm; in fact, it’s really just good artifact synergies, but even at that she’s a powerful value engine.  For clarification, budget in this case will mean no cards above $5 and no more than three above $2. I also won’t include any particularly obvious cards like Padeem or Unwinding Clock.

My particular build focuses on her draw aspect, so I run a lot of wheel-benefiting cards. Additionally, cascading also digs deep and increases my draw power.

#1: Psychosis Crawler Yeah, it’s just an all-around good card, but here it’s one of my primary win conditions. Drop this guy immediately after your general and follow up with all your rocks and you’ll be in perfect shape to keep the flow going. Even better, its recent reprinting in last year’s commander set keeps it affordable for all your decks.

#2: Paradoxical Outcome Part 2 of my win condition, Paradoxical Outcome can put probably two-thirds of your deck into your hand at once. Play out some artifact-discounting cards and then this to bounce your rocks and your chain will go crazy. Just be careful not to deck yourself unless you’re running a Lab Man.

#3: Psychic Corrosion While not as powerful as #1, this can buy you loads of time, presuming of course you’re not up against Kess or Muldrotha. If it goes on long enough, it may even steal the game.

#4: Mizzium Transrelinquat One of my personal favorite cards, Transrelinquat is amazing. Clone your best artifact, or an opponent’s, and clone again later if you need it. Need an extra Psychosis Crawler for a quick kill or your Unwinding Clock is about to be destroyed? This is perfect for that situation.

#5: Reckless Fireweaver While he probably won’t win the game single-handed, this friend from Kaladesh will put on some pressure on your opponents. And if he isn’t answered quickly, he might do half the work alone.

#6: Etherium-Horn Sorcerer Cascade is good on its own, but with Jhoira leading the charge this guy turns into cast-two/draw-two. With its activated ability, you can cast it over and over again for immense value.

#7: Saheeli’s Artistry This falls in line with Mizzium Transrelinquat as one of your best clone effects. It can either target the same artifact creature twice, or you can copy your best artifact in addition to a creature.

#8: Mindmoil Bad news: Arjun just slips out of this list’s price limit. Good news: He exists in enchantment form. While it’s just good here on its own, when paired with Psychosis Crawler and Paradoxical Outcome it can kill extremely quickly.

#9: Spellbook An easy inclusion for many decks, Spellbook has the added bonuses for Jhoira of simply drawing a free card and keeping your hand large enough for options.

Unfortunately, I have to cut this list short since the rest are cards you’d put into any artifact deck, but for honorable mentions we have Etherium Sculptor, Foundry Inspector, and Jhoira’s Familiar, all of which empower your artifact-draw shenanigans. If you want to further tune your deck, include many cheap artifacts to keep your dig going.

And that’s the end of our list! Be sure to send in your own budget picks and decks; until then, see you on the battlefield.

[the8x8theory]

Arjun Wincons Package - $19.77

request by @grandios-gamer​

Arjun is a great way to have endless Mindmoils on hand. The only problem is it doesn’t really have a set way to want to win. This can make it hard to determine how to win with Commanders like Arjun. Luckily, we can find a few ways to win with all the cards we’re drawing.

Jace’s Erasure - $0.15 This gives us card advantage by making sure our opponents lose a card for every one we draw. The biggest downside to this is it’s targeted. Just make sure to have ways to get around player hexproof and you should be fine though.

Laboratory Maniac - $7.25 With the premise of an Arjun deck being draw as many cards as possible, how better to win than to deck yourself.

Chasm Skulker - $3.33 This is a two-fold threat. First, you get a creature that just gets bigger with every card you draw. Then, once it finally dies, you get an army of Squids to beat face with.

Diviner’s Wand - $0.29 This can make Arjun into a psuedo-Voltron Commander. It also provides another way to draw additional cards when you need them.

Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind - $0.76 Another way to draw additional cards. The key is you can use the other ability to get rid of nuisance creatures when Arjun triggers. 7 damage should take care of nearly every creature you come up against.

Psychosis Crawler - $0.45 A Colorless Maro with one of the best abilities in the package. Deal 7 damage to each opponent anytime you cast a spell. That’s going to be very powerful. With these two cards out, you put your opponents on a 6 spell clock. That’s where cheap instants/sorceries will come into play perfectly. There’s no reason you shouldn’t have 7 or more cards in your hand.

The Locust God - $5.82 Instead of waiting for your creature to die in order to get an army of tokens, why not gain them along the way? Play a card, draw a new hand, get Insects. You should have no shortage of blockers.

Sphinx’s Tutelage - $1.72 One more Generic mana gets you a much more powerful Jace’s Erasure. One card draw mills two cards at minimum. 6 mana for a loot is a bit steep and overpriced, but late game it be a good mana sink to either find the card you need or help with a Lab Maniac win.

There you go, folks. The fun of always having new spells can be turned into a powerful win. With the added benefit of cheap spells, we can trigger Arjun many times a turn. The more we trigger Arjun, the more powerful we will be. Keep the spells flowing like water and...

Victory shall be yours

--- Jake, @apok-the-combomancer

[blogging-phelddagrif]

EDH Deck Tech: Jhoira Chaos

[you can see every deck tech here]

Hello & welcome to this weekly deck tech! This week it’s time to talk about EDH and we have something a bit different than usual. Let’s just say that it’s a very interesting and crazy deck this week: Jhoira Chaos. Jhoira helps you cast spells that cost a lot for almost free, something that this decks loves a lot; most of the spells have a high CMC and Jhoira makes things much smoother.

While most EDH decks have a straight-forward strategy on how to win, wether it be combos, creature-centric, control etc. this deck relies on something very different, you want to make the game as chaotic as possible. Will you win with this deck? It shouldn’t matter, all you want to do is cause mayhem and screw everything up for everyone. You don't care about the outcome, you just want to spice things up. The deck has a few different ways of doing so and we’ll go over those different ways.

Flip it Up

A good way to add some chaos to the mix is to have things get decided with a 50-50 odd. You’ll want to have quite a few coin flip cards just to make things more interesting. So cards like Chance Encounter, Goblin Bomb, Impulsive Maneuvers, Planar Chaos, Risky Move, Tide of War, Fiery Gambit, Game of Chaos, Mana Clash, Squee’s Revenge, Stitch in Time, Puppet’s Verdict, Goblin Archeologist, Goblin Assassin, Goblin Kaboomist, Karplusan Minotaur, Mogg Assassin, Volatile Rig, Boompile & Krark’s Thumb. Just try to flip a bunch of coins to spice up the game, to do something different than usual.

Messing with the Board

Now that you’re making things exciting with coin flips, it’s time to play with the board state. You want cards that will add some random factor to whatever comes into play or is already in play. Some cards like Confusion in the Ranks, Mana Cache, Pandemonium, Puca’s Mischief, Teferi’s Realm, Cultural Exchange, Goblin Game, Illicit Auction, Indomitable Creativity, Scrambleverse, Thieve’s Auction, Warp World, Whims of the Fates, Chaos Warp, Divergent Transformation, Capricious Efreet, Fatespinner, Perplexing Chimera & Tyrant of Discord. With these you really get to mess up the board state and make things a bit more interesting.

Messing with the Stack

It’s all fun to play with the board but now let’s play with some spells. It’s time to mess with all the control players and make sure everyone is experiencing the chaos! With cards like Curse of Echoes, Eye of the Storm, Grip of Chaos, Hive Mind, Possibility Storm, Psychic Battle, Mages’ Contest, Radiate, Reverberate, Wild Ricochet & Knowledge Pool. With all those cards it’s starting to be a very chaotic game. Also, you’ll want to play Pact of Negation & Pact of the Titan just so you can win the game out of nowhere by forcing players to cap them as well and have to pay for the cost. We’re not done yet though.

Messing with the Libraries

The only thing left to do is play with all the cards that are not in play or on the stack. Start messing with whatever your opponents draw or what they haven’t drew yet. You want to play cards like Mindmoil, Mind’s Dilation, Shared Fate, Sunbird’s Invocation, Wild Evocation, Zur’s Weirding, Humble Defector, Gate to the Aether, Omen Machine, Pyxis of Pandemonium, Teferi’s Puzzle Box & Timesifter. Now we have just enough chaos I think.

Wrap-Up

That’s already it for the deck! It’s quite simple and very chaotic; all you want to do is cause as much mayhem as possible, as fast as possible. That’s why Jhoira is very important, you can just suspend a few expensive chaos spells each turn and keep things interesting for a cheap price CMC-wise. You’ll probably won’t win with this deck, but it’s going to make for some very interesting an unique games; though your opponent’s might not like you for this. In any case, if I missed anything let me know! I’ll see you guys next week for a fishy Standard deck tech!

[dailytopimagic]

Topi’s Daily Card #1172:  The Locust God

When it comes to UR commanders there’s a pretty high penchant for them being combo oriented, and The Locus God is no Exception.  Every card you draw equals one creature token with both flying and haste, which with the right cards can lead to an outright win.  Skullclamp and Ashnod’s Altar makes for a three card combo, and throwing in an Impact Tremors or Purphoros in the mix will make it much faster of a win con.  If you’re worried about drawing out your deck, things like Teferi’s Puzzle Box, Mindmoil and the Whirlpool creatures from Apocalypse can cycle you hand and keep your board full.  Even by himself he’s a fine support creature, but I think more often than not you’ll see him as the commander leading the 99.  

[commandertheory]

So what is your take on the craziness that is The Locust God?

These are awesome colors and a plague of locusts is a sick reward for doing the broken things that Izzet spellslinger decks were already doing. My Locust God list is basically just fast mana, card draw, and anthems to make my bugs beefier; initial testing has shown that this deck is hella fun. Here’re the cards:

Accelerating the End

Fast mana is super important because the deck doesn’t really get rolling until the God’s on the field. I mostly went for stuff that could get him down two or more turns early, with the notable exceptions of Thought Vessel (because having no max hand size is sweet in a deck with this much card draw) and Thran Dynamo/Gilded Lotus (because they’re so useful in the turns after you cast him).

Coalition Relic

Basalt Monolith

Gilded Lotus

Grim Monolith

Mana Crypt

Mana Vault

Sol Ring

Thought Vessel

Thran Dynamo

Worn Powerstone

Ancient Tomb

Myriad Landscape

Temple of the False God

Summoning the Swarm

I tried to stick to effects that drew at least three cards (anything less didn’t seem like it was worth the card slot), with consideration being paid to the ratio of cards drawn to mana cost.

Brainstorm: In this build, it’s not only efficient card selection; it’s also insanely efficient token generation.

Memory Jar: It’s pretty sweet that you can pay the cost in advance and have this ready to fire off as soon as you drop the Locust God.

Teferi’s Puzzle Box

Mindmoil

Whirlpool Rider

Whirlpool Warrior

Whirlpool Drake

Consecrated Sphinx

Oath of Jace

Rhystic Study

Cephalid Coliseum

Blue Sun’s Zenith

Careful Consideration

Fateful Showdown

Pull from Tomorrow

Read the Runes

Stroke of Genius

Thirst for Knowledge

Rush of Knowledge

Chandra, Flamecaller

Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Braingeyser

Cathartic Reunion

Collective Defiance

Compulsive Research

Dream Cache

Faithless Looting

Mind Spring

Recurring Insight

Reforge the Soul

Time Reversal

Time Spiral

Wheel of Fortune

Windfall

Winds of Change

The Plague

There’s a lot of filthy stuff you can do with a bunch of locusts.

Skullclamp: Sac one token, draw two, make two more tokens, etc.

Ashnod’s Altar: Goes infinite with Skullclamp, but it’s not bad on its own, either. Sac all your tokens for mana, spend that mana to cast a “draw X cards” variant to get twice as many tokens as you started with.

Bident of Thassa/Coastal Piracy: Draw a million cards and double your tokens every turn.

Keep Watch: Draw a million cards and double your tokens once.

Coat of Arms/Shared Animosity: Locust power^2.

Purphoros, God of the Forge: Another extremely effective force multiplier.

Obelisk of Urd

Throne of the God-Pharaoh: Good way to help your locusts scale up to the number of opponents.

Gravitational Shift: Not only does it triple your locusts’ power, but it also protects you against all the dirtwalkers cowering beneath your swarm.

Mana Echoes: FYI: each token counts itself when it triggers Mana Echoes; if X locusts enter the battlefield at once, you get X^2 mana.

Battle Hymn: Generate mana off your locusts.

Opposition: If you’re not yet ready to kill your opponents, you can just lock down their mana and creatures.

Miscellaneous

Alhammarret’s Archive

Mizzix’s Mastery: Gives you another use of your draw spells.

Psychosis Crawler: If you were already planning on drawing tons of cards…

Wrapping Up

You can take a look at the full decklist here. Please let me know if there are any important cards you think I’m missing, as the deck is very much a work in progress. Thanks for reading!

[kii-chan-reloaded]

I had kind of a shitty start to my day yesterday, so I bought myself all 15 of these cards for about $25 for my Niv-Mizzet the Firemind EDH deck. I feel like I did a good job in terms of the quality/quantity/cost of these cards, and I'm hopeful it'll be a relatively cheap improvement to my deck, which I've been disappointed in recently. I'm very excited to discard Enter the Infinite, then cast it later using Mizzix's Mastery. That's going to feel good when I do it. Other fun things will be Mindmoil+Arjun+Niv at the same time and having two nearly-infinite combos with Curiosity and Ophidian Eye.

[magicalgirlmindcrank]

Mindmoil and Arjun are so good with locust God

[mtgbracket]

Round of 8192 - Batch 7

You can now vote in Batch 7!

Currently open batches:

Batch 7 Batch 6 Batch 5 Batch 4 Batch 3 Batch 2 Batch 1

Feature match: Rite of Flourishing wants you to play more lands; Overgrown Estate wants you to sacrifice the ones you already have.  Which will you pick?

Full list of matchups:

Renewed Faith vs Spell Snare Skittering Invasion vs Bartel Runeaxe Makindi Sliderunner vs Wall of Lava Ashcloud Phoenix vs Chimeric Egg Paragon of Eternal Wilds vs Rush of Vitality Vastwood Animist vs Spoils of Blood Archers' Parapet vs Curse of Exhaustion Daraja Griffin vs Crosis's Charm Mistbind Clique vs Cemetery Puca Rites of Flourishing vs Overgrown Estate Ballot Broker vs Destructive Revelry Glamer Spinners vs Eldrazi Displacer Epitaph Golem vs Ethereal Armor Aether Adept vs Bull Hippo Beacon of Destruction vs Oriss, Samite Guardian Helm of Possession vs Grizzly Bears Pia and Kiran Nalaar vs Nahiri's Wrath Mindmoil vs Mindwrack Liege Phyrexian Battleflies vs Blood Artist Blanchwood Armor vs Wild Research Ajani Steadfast vs Grand Abolisher Blizzard Specter vs Daghatar the Adamant Scars of the Veteran vs Sphere of the Suns Moggcatcher vs Wrecking Ball Crawlspace vs Launch Seed the Land vs Magus of the Jar Izzet Charm vs Umbral Mantle Bounding Krasis vs Noxious Dragon Cabal Torturer vs Darigaaz, the Igniter Thought Scour vs Decree of Annihilation Sensor Splicer vs Bar the Door Starke of Rath vs Stangg

[overflowchute]

alhammarret’s archive is an awesome card for any color, but it’s particularly impressive in red - it gives a lot more value from tormenting voice and cathartic reunion

this is most important to red because red otherwise struggles pretty hard to not run out of everything

in slow formats like edh it also shines really well with ye olde mindmoil

[the8x8theory]

Izzet Arjun Wincons Package - $19.46

request by @grandios-gamer

For those who like Mindmoil, Arjun, the Shifting Flame is the perfect Commander. It will always guarantee your hand is, hopefully, full of answers. Of course, when we are able to abuse our Commander’s ability, we will do so.

Psychosis Crawler - $0.42 This nightmare of a creature should be a big, dumb creature most of the time. The big kicker is every. single. card. you draw is a point of damage to each opponent. Of course, we can make this bigger with Rath effects.

Sphinx’s Tutelage - $1.61 You may not be playing a mill deck, but it will remove some threats for you. One trigger of Arjun should put quite a few cards into your opponents’ libraries. All you have to do is choose who has angered you the most.

Dream Halls - $8.69 Now you can cast your entire library for free, just so long as you have a good draw engine. There may be the rare occurrence where you won’t have matching colors, but it’s worth the risk. Combo this with Lab Maniac and you’re in business.

Diviner’s Wand - $0.27 This card can easily make Arjun swing in for Commander damage. Just attack with Arjun, play an Instant to grant it Double Strike, trigger Arjun enough to get him +6/+6, lose friends.

Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind - $0.85 Niv is a nice draw engine. More importantly, he is a targeted Crawler that can shoot down creatures too. Combo with Pemmin’s Aura to protect him and get more than one activation per round.

The Locust God - $6.49 It’s surprising this card isn’t the most expensive bug God. Every card you draw is a chump blocker/small army/whatever you need them for.

Words of War - $0.57 Sometimes you don’t want to draw. Maybe you’re playing against Nekusar. Maybe you’re getting milled and you don’t want to mill yourself. This enchantment helps protect against unwanted draws and turns it into damage for a creature or player.

Words of Wind - $0.56 Like Words of War, this enchantment can prevent unwanted draws or make better use of them. Instead of dealing damage, you can clear your opponents’ boardstates.

There you go, folks. Arjun isn’t really a wincon in-and-of itself, but we can definitely use it for a myriad of different wincons all based on drawing cards. Keep shifting the flame (get it? the flame is your hand. *corny dad laugh*) and...

Victory shall be yours.

--- Jake, @apok-the-combomancer​

All cards are priced according to Magiccards.info mid price on the date it was written. These prices are subject to change.

If you have questions, comments or concerns, please head on over to our commentary blog to discuss it.

[housebeleren]

Random Commander Challenge: Arjun, the Shifting Flame

The last monthly deck I built before the pandemic, Arjun the Shifting Flame is one I had considered many times. It’s an interesting design in a vacuum, putting Mindmoil on a creature, but Red/Blue decks so often go in a wheels direction, it didn’t feel all that innovative to do exactly that. That said, it is effective, and it’s an archetype that has continued to get support in recent years, as more cantrips, card draw spells, and wheels are printed in nearly every set. So, with that in mind, I decided to go for it.

Art: Willian Murai

Theme

As mentioned, Red/Blue wheels isn’t exactly innovative, but it’s a strong archetype with tons of support, and Arjun undeniably pushes that direction. For this deck, in trying to build something flavorful and in a 75% power range, the trick wouldn’t be what cards to include, since there are so many. The real challenge would be what cards not to include. So to do that, I put a couple of guardrails on myself.

First, I wanted the deck to really feel “sphinxlike”. By that, I mean I wanted the cards to evoke the theme. So, if I can include a cantrip like Omen, I’m going to do so over a card like Shimmer of Possibility. Both are two mana Blue cantrips, but Omen is so flavorful that it makes the cut where the other doesn’t. 

Second, I decided to make this a “wheels for me” deck, and explicitly not a “wheels for everyone” deck. And the main reason to do that was that I didn’t want to make this a deck that ran lines of play like “Narset, Parter of Veils. Wheel of Fortune. Pass.” That’s such a miserable way to win with this type of deck that I just didn’t want to go there. So, with just a couple exceptions, I kept the wheels to myself, which meant mostly sticking to cantrips, and letting Arjun do the heavy lifting for me.

Card Groups

Cantrips & Draw - This is the big one. This deck wants a pile of cheap cantrips and card draw spells. I included such 24 Instants & Sorceries in my build, the vast majority being one and two drops. And that’s on top of other, more expensive card draw options. You really want to churn through this deck rapidly, and cantrips are the best way to do this. Pick your favorites, but a few noteworthy inclusions I like are Faithless Looting, Desperate Ravings, and Radical Idea (since they all work twice), Fists of Flame (since it’s also a potential win-con), Obsessive Search (since you can discard it to some of your other spells & cast it off Madness), and Gitaxian Probe (since it’s free).

Enablers - These are cards that help you out with your theme, and there are three categories in this build. One are effects that make casting Instants & Sorceries cheaper, which allows you to cast more in one turn. Baral, Chief of Compliance & Goblin Electromancer are good examples here. The second are triggered effects that help you draw extra cards, which is helpful since several of the cantrips don’t actually leave you up a card, but just break even. Alhammarret’s Archive & Jorin En, Ruin Diver are two of my favorites for this group. And the third category are copy effects, that let you double up your spells, such as Expansion/Explosion and Increasing Vengeance. These are useful if you need an extra boost, and can also be combined for an unexpected tertiary win condition with Ral, Storm Conduit.

Ramp - Arjun is a 6 drop who doesn’t do anything until you can drop more mana, and this deck wants to win by casting a large number of spells in one turn (usually after you untap with Arjun). So you need a lot of ramp. Mana rocks are your general best bet, and you’ll want a few that can tap for double mana, as well as some that can be traded in for cards later, like Mind Stone & Commander’s Sphere. A few rituals are also helpful for the endgame, so pick your favorites and add them in.

Disruption - You’ll want a touch of disruption to ensure your win isn’t shut down. Mainly, this will be in the form of counterspells. Given the mana hungry nature of the deck, “free” counters like Force of Will, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, and Fierce Guardianship are all good choices, but they’re not exactly budget. Replace them with cheap counters like Swan Song, Negate, & Arcane Denial as needed. Chaos Warp, Cyclonic Rift, and other ways to turn off hate cards are essential as well. Finally, my other favorite card for this deck is Possibility Storm, which works a lot as proactive disruption. Arjun doesn’t really care what he’s casting, just that something gets cast so he can keep on wheeling. But it’ll disrupt most of your opponent’s carefully laid plans, thwarting their wins and their removal, while letting your plans run unaffected. All you need is Arjun and one win condition out, and Possibility Storm will do work.

Win Conditions - This is the fun part. There are so many ways to win with an Arjun deck. The best and most obvious are cards like Niv-Mizzet, Parun, The Locust God, and Psychosis Crawler, all of which trigger on card draws, and can win in a single turn if given a chance. All of them go in the deck. Niv-Mizzet, Parun is a particular fun combo with Curiosity or Ophidian Eye, letting you burn your opponents directly or allowing you to draw your entire deck, setting you up for a win using Laboratory Maniac, Thassa’s Oracle, or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries, so throw whichever of those three you have into the pile as well. I also included two milling win conditions with Psychic Corrosion & Sphinx’s Tutelage, which feel appropriate given the theme, but be sure to use them judiciously so you don’t accidentally give more gas to graveyard decks.

In addition to these main groups, there are some staple cards for the archetype that are worth including. Talrand is always good in a spell heavy deck and can lead to a slower win. Thousand-Year Storm is costly, but will definitely win you the game if you untap with it and Arjun both on board. Ral, Storm Conduit is all-around useful and can unexpectedly win with two copy spells in hand. And one or two ways to retrieve Instants & Sorceries from your graveyard can also be useful, so pick your favorite staples and go to town. You might opt for some Boots/Greaves style protection for Arjun if that appeals to you, or you can just stick with counterspells.

Play Style

This deck is pretty linear, but isn’t necessarily simple to pilot. Your goal is to untap with Arjun plus one of your main win conditions on board, then rip through your deck as much as you can using cheap cantrips & letting Arjun’s ability just sprint through as many cards as possible.

The first few turns, you’ll just want to ramp as much as you can. Play some mana rocks and keep a low profile. This deck wants to not be perceived as a threat for as long as possible. Cards like Goblin Electromancer are great here, because they’re good setup but are non-threatening.

Once you get to the 6+ mana range, start looking for opportunities to resolve your a win condition (Niv-Mizzet, The Locust God, Psychosis Crawler, etc) or Arjun, ensuring you can protect your investment once it’s down. Maybe this means getting to 8 mana so you can hold up a counterspell, maybe it means digging for Lightning Greaves first, or maybe it means stalling as your enemies use their disruption on each other. This is where it’s critically important to read the table and try to anticipate disruption your opponents may throw at you.

Hopefully your enemies have spent their removal & disruption on other players coming out the gate faster than you, so you can safely land a win con or two and get Arjun on the table. Once you’re there, go to town with cantrips and cheap spells, and watch your opponents cry. Hopefully. That’s the goal.

Conclusion

All told, I had a blast with Arjun. The thing that will almost certainly frustrate you is not having enough mana to do what you need, given how expensive of a commander it is, plus the fact that most of your best win conditions are equally as expensive. But, with enough mana rocks in the build, it should be doable. And when it goes off, it goes off with a bang.

As for budget, there are a few pieces you definitely need to make it work, but the good news is most of them are replaceable and only a few of them are in the $10-$20 range. (The Locust God & Alhammaret’s Archive come to mind.) Of course, you can trick it out with the super expensive free counterspells, which are excellent here, but you can also make do with the cheaper counterspells and a little patience. On my build, I only spent a little over $10 on cards I didn’t already have spare copies of, which is about the best I’ve ever done in this series. Overall, I think it’s definitely possible to make a very fun Arjun deck at a reasonable price.

Of course, you can always go the way of Arjun wheels for the whole table, in which case you’re looking at a much more expensive build. For that much meaner build, you’ll want Narset, Parter of Veils & numerous other cards in the $5-$20 range like Teferi’s Puzzle Box, Echo of Eons, Reforge the Soul, Day’s Undoing, etc, so it’ll be harder to assemble that build on a budget. And of course, you could always add extra turn spells to the mix just to jack the price up even higher.

But on the whole, no matter what your budget, I think there’s an Arjun deck out there for every price point, and I love that. I won 1 out of 4 games played with the deck, so it’s about in-line with most of these builds I’ve done so far. In other words, a pretty good success in my book.

[nouveau-riche-princess]

every time i win with locust god i have like 3 minutes left on my timer jesus fuck please just add an any order button for mindmoil and shit like that