#Grazilaxx Moonfolk Turns deck deep dive

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dreamy lantern
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Started a thread for my deck collection and didn’t really like how it was going, so I’m gonna try something new. I’m gonna start with this deck:

https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Pm2OnR2wA0W2id9OZAWDxg

This deck is both my pride and joy and my biggest failure. My pride because it’s easily the strongest EDH deck I’ve ever built, and my failure because I build for what I consider the “Battlecruiser meta” and this deck violates that meta more than any deck I’ve built. There’s a story behind this deck. I looked at the card Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar and I noticed the second part, that you could return blocked creatures to your hand. While his draw feature is a weaker version of Edric though you can draw 3 by attacking different opponents and your opponents get nothing, it’s that second part that piqued my interest. Why not pair that with Ninjas and ETB creatures to create disruptive lose-lose choices for your opponent, where I would win if I got the draw or the bounce. I built an aggressive version of this deck that tried to win with combat damage but it failed utterly. It just didn’t have the firepower and there weren’t enough good cards in mono-blue to break parity. The deck couldn’t win but the draw and disruption engine was a work of art, so I decided to salvage that and find a different way to win.

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Moxfield
Grazilaxx Moonfolk Turns - Commander (Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar)

A deck created using the deck building website, Moxfield.

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The win I decided on was infinite turns, powered by [[Mystic Sanctuary]]. That land is the centerpiece of the entire deck, and it’s an Island. It being an Island is key, because Fetchlands can go get it. This gives me essentially five ways of getting it into play, with a sixth in Tolaria West. With all the draw in this deck, I shouldn’t have a problem playing it when I need it.

The second part of Infinite turns is the turns. I’m running four extra turn spells in Walk the Eons, Alrund’s Epiphany, Temporal Manipulation, and Time Walk. I’ve also got a Mystical Tutor that can grab one of those or protection for the combo if I don’t need turns. Since the plan is using Mystic Sanctuary to replay these cards, I can afford to cast them as they are drawn for immediate value and that is generally the plan with them.

The final part of this 3 part combo is Moonfolk. When I was talking online after the first version of the deck failed, somebody suggested Moonfolk and it occurred to me that I could use the Moonfolk bounce land to hand effects to recur Mystic Sanctuary. I added a Moonfolk package to the deck, to both re-use Mystic Sanctuary and get further value out of lands. The package consists of:

Floodbringer
Soratami Cloudskater
Oboro Breezecaller
Soratami Rainshaper
Meloku the Clouded Mirror
Patron of the Moon
Walking Atlas—between the card draw of this deck and Mystic Sanctuary costing a land play, the deck wants this effect
Scaretiller & Crucible of Worlds—these two allow a way to come back if Mystic Sanctuary gets blown up, and also allows replay of all the lands I sacrifice in this deck
Amulet of Vigor

The win strategy of the deck is to get Mystic Sanctuary, a Moonfolk that can bounce it, and an extra turn spell. There are multiple copies of the turns and Moonfolk, and a bunch of tutors from the Sanctuary. All that needs to be done is to build the mana base and draw cards, and this deck excels at drawing cards.

austere muskBOT
dreamy lantern
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The next piece of the puzzle is the engine. Grazilaxx himself says that my unblocked creatures draw one card per opponent attacked, and creatures blocked can be returned to hand. In addition to the commander, I’m also running the following cards to build out the engine:

Coastal Piracy, Reconnaissance Mission, and Bident of Thassa for drawing cards on attacks

Kefnet’s Monument(also disruption), Sapphire Medallion, and Defiler of Dreams(also draw) to make playing and re-playing creatures cheaper while adding value, with Defiler making some of my creatures free to cast

Retreat to Coralhelm—more value from all the land drops the deck makes
Ethereal Investigator—just does a lot, ETB trigger, extra evasive dudes, extra draw
Crystal Shard—If they won’t let me bounce my stuff I’ll do it myself
Sword of Hearth and Home—blinking an ETB while adding mana, thanks!
Triskaidekaphile—This deck can build a 13 card hand, this is a real alt win condition

dreamy lantern
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The deck includes a number of creatures that have ETBs that disrupt my opponents or give me value, which I can bounce or blink for value with the decks engine and set up a lose-lose with Grazilaxx in play. Some of them are also evasive attackers themselves.

Trinket Mage, Tribute Mage, and Trophy Mage—the deck is filled with 0-3 cost artifacts to fetch, these can be cast several times without running out of cards to fetch

I run a few for disruption/interaction:
Merfolk Trickster
Glen Elendra Archmage(bouncing this is sick)
Subtlety
Veneer, Shaper Savant

I run three creatures for value ETBs in addition to the artifact mages:
Watcher for Tomorrow(bounce/blink gets the hideaway)
Fblthp, the Lost
Thieving Skydiver

And two cards that can be both interaction and value

Barrin, Tolarian Archmage—with this deck he can draw cards
Aether Channeler—draw, bounce or dude, whichever I need most

Beyond the ETB cards I’m also running Ninjas, both to bounce my ETB stuff when opponents don’t block it, and to connect when I’m attacking with flying or unblockable dudes..

Thousand Faced Shadow—copies creatures on Ninjitsu, flying 1mv dude by itself
Ninja of the Deep Hours—draw
Moon-Circuit Hacker—draw
Mistblade Shinobi—bounce on combat damage to player
Prosperous Thief—Rogues(several in this deck) create treasures on combat damage against players

Rounding out the creature package are cheap dudes that either fly or can’t be blocked at all, some with extra value. The Moonfolk listed in the above section also double in this role, they’re all flyers, three of them at 2mv:
Signal Pest
Hope of Ghirapur—also interaction
Siren Stormtamer—also interaction
Triton Shorestalker
Faerie Seer—Scry 2, value for bounce
Slither Blade
Network Disruptor—minor disruption, nice to bounce this
Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive—makes a lot of this deck unblockable

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In addition to the cost reducers and playing extra lands effects, I’m also running a few ramp pieces. Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and Thought Vessel are pretty obvious. Heraldic Banner is a relic of when the deck still wanted to win with attack damage, but I think it still has value. Sword of the Animist plays nice with the lands aspect of the deck, and Dowsing Dagger is powerful in a deck filled with evasive cheap attackers. Other than these and the cost reducers, once this deck gets going it stops missing land drops ever and has the ability to play multiple lands per turn.

Beyond the ETB disruption, I’m running a few sparse pieces of interaction
Fierce Guardianship—Mystical Tutor for this to protect the combo
Disdainful Stroke
Arcane Denial
Pongify
Reality Shift
Coastal Breach—board wipe
Spectral Deluge—Foretell, one-sided wipe
Engulf the Shore—one sided wipe

Last, the lands. In addition to 19 basic Islands I’m running the following utility lands:

MDFCs—Scaretiller and Crucible can play these from the GY as lands, Moonfolk can bounce while lands
Glasspool Mimic
Sea Gate Restoration
Silundi Vision

Utility Lands
Demolition Field(intentionally not running Stip Mine with Crucible)
Seat of the Synod(Trinket Mage grabs this)
Urza’s Saga(lots of targets in this deck)
Terrain Generator(deck draws so much playing extra lands matters)
Reliquary Tower
Lotus Field(A fair amount of ways to get value from this, worth having)

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That’s the whole deck. In practice it draws a scary amount of cards while being really disruptive, and builds towards its goal in a very linear fashion. In closing, the deck is hard to find a table for. The deck is too linear, too strong and too resilient for most Battlecruiser tables. With all the cheap spells and draw it builds back lightning fast after board wipes and is difficult to fully stop. My Battlecruiser biases have also left the deck just a little too slow for higher power games, this is still for the most part a turn 8 deck since I need 7+ mana, preferably more to go off. I end up saving it for the highest power games at mid tables and for playing games at the murky borderline of mid/high power convergence.

ebon latch
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Interesting. I guess blue just can't really "exist" in battlecruiser then.

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But also battlecruiser metas just ends up being people trying to out resource each other anyways

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If they're not either going under them (agression) or denying them the resources (Stax/control)

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my [[minn wily]] deck started as a way to try and cheat big guys like Jin-gitaxas out but It was too fragile for that

austere muskBOT
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https://scryfall.com/card/afc/16/minn-wily-illusionist

Minn, Wily Illusionist <:mana1:292901508373282827><:manau:292901508754702338><:manau:292901508754702338>

Legendary Creature — Gnome Wizard
Whenever you draw your second card each turn, create a 1/1 blue Illusion creature token with "This creature gets +1/+0 for each other Illusion you control."
Whenever an Illusion you control dies, you may put a permanent card with mana value less than or equal to that creature's power from your hand onto the battlefield.
1/3

dreamy lantern
ebon latch
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I learned that quickly

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Besides talrand

dreamy lantern
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Even Talrand struggles