It's been a looooong time since I last did a Deckspotlight. So it's only reasonable to continue where we left of, which are the decks I own the longest. This bad boy of a deck was my first EDH ever, so basically these are my roots when it comes to Commander...
While the two abilities are pretty straight forward, the deck in itself is rather challenging to play since you need to a) make sure you cast your general at the right time to ensure you get the maximum amount of triggers and b) know your decklist very good since you should know beforehand what you will get in order to properly plan your turn.
To optimize Momir's triggers you need to play two types of creatures: The more obvious are just blue-green ones and then stacking the triggers in a way that let you first search for a creature and putting it on top and then revealing the top which is then guaranteed to be a creature meaning you tutored it to your hand. The second type of creatures are green creatures that have "When ~ enters the battlefield, draw a card". What this does is basically search for a creature and put it on top when CAST and once it ENTERS the battlefield you draw a card, which will be the card you just searched for. (NOTE: Before you wonder if these are the only ones I play that work well with Momir... The full decklist can be found here or in the "My EDHs" tab above)
Ok then, finding creatures with Momir Vig is a nice thing to do, but shouldn't we incorporate a plan to work towards?
The original idea was to combo out with a combo that is mainly consistent of creatures.
A very simple combo:
Aluren allows you to cast any one of the three creatures to the right for free, so you repeatedly cast them, bouncing themselfs, which nets you infinite Tidespout Tyrant triggers, bouncing the whole opposing board. And since you can do that at instant speed due to Aluren there is very little counterplay possible... so you just win with Momr Vig beatdown which even wins against infinite life combos due to commander damage.
The only problem I always had with this combo, is that Aluren is very hard to get since Blue-Green has no tutors for enchantments. Except this one but that's kind of a long shot...
Also getting Aluren or Tyrant exiled at any point made it impossible to go off, so I kept looking for a secondary combo that could be incorporated into the deck without much change to how the deck worked at its core:
The solution was Teferi-Pool, a hard-lock which prevents your opponents from casting anything - Teferi allows them only sorcery speed casting and since Knowledge Pool puts a trigger on the stack and has them put the card they cast off of it on top of said trigger they're not able to cast anything because that would be at instant speed. The real beauty of the combo is that all its pieces are tutorable via Momir Vig, even though you have to take the detour of searching Tresure Mage for Knowledge Pool. You'll still need to find a way to win the game and if there are too many creatures on the field you might still die since everyone will attack you but being the only one to be able to cast spells you should be able to deal with everything eventually.
Also Teferi is pretty insane for the deck on its own, so realistically you only have to make room for Mage and Pool since Teferi should be in the 99 anyway.
Now that most of the decks cornerstones have been defined, let's have a look on how I try to build my gameplans.
Starting Hands: I try to get 3-4 Lands, at least one piece of ramp and a cheap "tutor" (aka blue-green creature). Then of course, one "harder to get" piece of any of the two combos would be nice but a 5th land or a more expensive creature will work aswell.
Early-game: The important thing you want to do in the early phase of the game is hitting 7-8 mana as quickly as possible. With that you can then play Momir Vig + a "tutor" in the same turn and go look for whatever it is you need at the moment, be it a combo piece to go for a fast win, a situational answer to prevent someone else from winning or more gas to keep going from there. I tend to like going for value first a little more, since at this stage of the game people still have their hands stuffed with answers so comboing off is very unlikely to work. Try going for Riptide Shapeshifter into Jin-Gitaxias for example. If it works, you'll be in a very good position, you might even be able to assemble a combo with enough back-up to force it through. And if it doesn't work, well one piece of interaction less to worry about, just reload with Momir Vig getting any of the big drawspells (Drift of Phantasms for Blue Sun's Zenith is a thing...) and try something else.
Mid- to Late-game: As the game progresses your opponents will most likely start to run out of spot-removal type interaction. The longer the game goes the more it favors you winning via combo so be patient. That's why I try to delay casting Momir Vig as long as possible since the later the game the more triggers I tend to get out of him and since the deck is so stacked with sweet creatures and spells you'll rarely have to play your general to find something flashy to do. Also drawing a combo piece naturally is getting more likely, so you'll be able to go look for some protection instead of trying to assemble the combo with those juicy triggers.
Chapter 1 - Triggering Momir
To optimize Momir's triggers you need to play two types of creatures: The more obvious are just blue-green ones and then stacking the triggers in a way that let you first search for a creature and putting it on top and then revealing the top which is then guaranteed to be a creature meaning you tutored it to your hand. The second type of creatures are green creatures that have "When ~ enters the battlefield, draw a card". What this does is basically search for a creature and put it on top when CAST and once it ENTERS the battlefield you draw a card, which will be the card you just searched for. (NOTE: Before you wonder if these are the only ones I play that work well with Momir... The full decklist can be found here or in the "My EDHs" tab above)
Ok then, finding creatures with Momir Vig is a nice thing to do, but shouldn't we incorporate a plan to work towards?
Chapter 2 - The "Plan"
The original idea was to combo out with a combo that is mainly consistent of creatures.
A very simple combo:
Aluren allows you to cast any one of the three creatures to the right for free, so you repeatedly cast them, bouncing themselfs, which nets you infinite Tidespout Tyrant triggers, bouncing the whole opposing board. And since you can do that at instant speed due to Aluren there is very little counterplay possible... so you just win with Momr Vig beatdown which even wins against infinite life combos due to commander damage.
The only problem I always had with this combo, is that Aluren is very hard to get since Blue-Green has no tutors for enchantments. Except this one but that's kind of a long shot...
Also getting Aluren or Tyrant exiled at any point made it impossible to go off, so I kept looking for a secondary combo that could be incorporated into the deck without much change to how the deck worked at its core:
The solution was Teferi-Pool, a hard-lock which prevents your opponents from casting anything - Teferi allows them only sorcery speed casting and since Knowledge Pool puts a trigger on the stack and has them put the card they cast off of it on top of said trigger they're not able to cast anything because that would be at instant speed. The real beauty of the combo is that all its pieces are tutorable via Momir Vig, even though you have to take the detour of searching Tresure Mage for Knowledge Pool. You'll still need to find a way to win the game and if there are too many creatures on the field you might still die since everyone will attack you but being the only one to be able to cast spells you should be able to deal with everything eventually.
Also Teferi is pretty insane for the deck on its own, so realistically you only have to make room for Mage and Pool since Teferi should be in the 99 anyway.
Chapter 3 - Back-Up Utility
Of course you can't always rely on Momir Vig to find you things to do. Eventually he would cost too much to be cast so having ways to get to your combo that don't involve him is highly recommended:
Green Sun's Zenith for Fauna Shaman, Riptide Shapshifter naming "Jellyfish" to get Man-o-War or Djinn to get the Tidespout Tyrant, Muddle the Mixture of Dreamstalker or Fauna Shaman, Drift of Phantasms for AEther Adept or Long-Term Plans - you can even search for the Drift via Momir or Fauna Shaman to then get Long-Term Plans for Aluren... The possibilites are endless. Just note that there's almost always a way to get the pieces you still lack. The sky is the limit!
Chapter 4 - Protection
Once we've put ourselfs through the trouble of assembling all the pieces it would be a shame to get interrupted, wouldn't it?! This is why a little protection is good to have, especially if you can tutor for it:
Again pay close attention to CMC and creature types! Spellskite is the only Horror in the deck, Mizzium Meddler the only Vedalken, so you can both search for them via Riptide Shapeshifter, while they additionally are legal targets of a Transmute card. And all three of them are creatures so you can go look for them with Momir, Fauna Shaman or Birthing Pod!
Going for any of he two comboes, Spellskite is the best source of protection if you manage to get through countermagic, since you can redirect creature AND artifact removal to it, and since most enchantment removals sport the "artifact or enchantment" text your Aluren should be save aswell.
Chapter 5 - Gameplay
Now that most of the decks cornerstones have been defined, let's have a look on how I try to build my gameplans.
Starting Hands: I try to get 3-4 Lands, at least one piece of ramp and a cheap "tutor" (aka blue-green creature). Then of course, one "harder to get" piece of any of the two combos would be nice but a 5th land or a more expensive creature will work aswell.
Early-game: The important thing you want to do in the early phase of the game is hitting 7-8 mana as quickly as possible. With that you can then play Momir Vig + a "tutor" in the same turn and go look for whatever it is you need at the moment, be it a combo piece to go for a fast win, a situational answer to prevent someone else from winning or more gas to keep going from there. I tend to like going for value first a little more, since at this stage of the game people still have their hands stuffed with answers so comboing off is very unlikely to work. Try going for Riptide Shapeshifter into Jin-Gitaxias for example. If it works, you'll be in a very good position, you might even be able to assemble a combo with enough back-up to force it through. And if it doesn't work, well one piece of interaction less to worry about, just reload with Momir Vig getting any of the big drawspells (Drift of Phantasms for Blue Sun's Zenith is a thing...) and try something else.
Mid- to Late-game: As the game progresses your opponents will most likely start to run out of spot-removal type interaction. The longer the game goes the more it favors you winning via combo so be patient. That's why I try to delay casting Momir Vig as long as possible since the later the game the more triggers I tend to get out of him and since the deck is so stacked with sweet creatures and spells you'll rarely have to play your general to find something flashy to do. Also drawing a combo piece naturally is getting more likely, so you'll be able to go look for some protection instead of trying to assemble the combo with those juicy triggers.
Bonus Chapter - Riptide Shapeshifter
One of my favourite cards for the deck has become Riptide Shapeshifter. Whenever I look through the deck, I see more possible ways of using him in a specific situation to turn the tides in my favor. Here are a few of them:
Need some more ramp? Why not Golem...?! To be honest though, I would think twice about doing that because you can do so many more dirty things with your Riptide Shapeshifter
An already mentioned "combo" to protect your combo. Also you might be able to disrupt an opponent with it aswell so this is one to definitely keep in mind!
Herpaderp! The reason why I originally put the Shapeshifter into the deck. Sometimes you don't even need to combo straight away. Getting a Jin-Gitaxias first can a) find you the pieces and b) make them discard their answers...
Still need the "Bounce-itself" combo-piece... here you go!
Sometimes you just need to get rid of something in order to combo or even worse in order to survive! Luckily Acidic Slime provides an answer to your problem while leaving behind a valueable blocking body.
In need for some more fuel, but afraid the whole table will kill you when going for Jin-Gitaxias? Mulldirfter might just be right up your ally!
Another tutorable combo-piece! How cohesive can a deck be?!
I did mention that you need to get your spells through countermagic, didn't I? Well, this little Hippo might look a bit awkward, but besides being a Blue-Green creature for Momir Vig, it also is able to tap out opponents at will to prevent them from casting anything mean... Lovely!
Outro
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And with this I'm done for today! I hope you liked my little spotlight on a deck I now play for almost 4 years... Of course I didn't cover all the nice interaction you can pull of in certain situations, but if I did that, this post would come only somewhere in the middle of 2016. So you'll just have to find them out for yourselves...
See y'all 'round!
