Why Urza struggels 

wow my voice sounds so strange. I have coughing a lot recently. I suddenly gotten Covid. I started to feel better so I decided to make this video, been on a break because I been in bed sleeping for some days now. I feel a bit better. Energy enough to make a video. But damn that voice.

I have found that kitten has helped my Urza deck substantially. Allows for a more reliable beat down engine with an enormous construct army as a back up. I stopped playing poly tyrant some time ago to add in more value creatures. I had exactly the problem you are talking about. I couldn’t draw cards on a consistent basis.

This is by far the most accurate description of the traditional build. I believe the default build is medicore compared to most other cEDH deck. I have been playing the deck for over a year and since I switched from the polymorph build to the more creature variant my winrate has increased slightly. Difficult deck to pilot? Sure, but the inherent problems and challanges go beyond it. The default Urza builds need a reset as it just cannot keep up. I share the sentiment of it sometimes does what it does but most of the time it just stumbles and is easily locked out by other decks. So glad this was posted as it seems hardcore Urza players do not seem to acknowledge these issues and thus there is no avenue for improvements. Utterly outclassed by today's standards.

I started with the stock Urza list and noticed the same issues. What I feel like people fail to recognize is they are being too snobby with their card choices. People think the card draw played in 4-5 color decks is the floor where playable card draw ends. Yes, Recurring Insight has seen widespread adoption, and it is great. There are other cards you can slot in to help keep up, though. A lot of decks don’t play Mnemonic Sphere, which has been genuinely amazing. With Urza out, you can tap it to help pay for it’s sacrifice cost. If there is a Null Rod out, it cycles itself. Same goes for Thoughtcast, the floor with this card is Diviniation, and it’s usually way better. I don’t see why more people aren’t running it. With Midnight Clock, all you need is time, which the deck is built to give you. It’s even a lightning rod, which actually can help when you want to keep Urza or a stax piece around longer. Arcane Denial is a strategic counter that basically cantrips, and you can turn it into a Sift with your 0 mana artifacts. Memory Deluge gives you similar dig as Dig Through Time while also generating more advantage in the long game. Hear me out here; Intellectual Offering is actually good in this deck. Usually there is one player who is borderline locked out of the game with your stax pieces, and one player who has all the mana in the world and no gas. Even if there isn’t, there is usually and archenemy you can politic against and team up with another player to help mitigate the downsides of this card. Most of the time, it’s a free spell to draw 3 cards at instant speed. I can’t say it can never come back to bite you, but it has been only upside when I have played it. To cap all this off, I think people don’t understand Wheels. Timetwister is a combo card, not card draw. Same with Windfall. These cards have fallen off a cliff since Hullbreacher ban, but people still jamming them. Your win % must drop by half when you just cast a wheel and let your opponents go up 14 cards on you. Timetwister and Windfall suck in this deck, they should be cut. The deck needs to evolve, not fall back on old tech. Play 2 polymorph hits so you have redundancy and so you can bounce your opponents boards’ with Trinisphere out. Pass the turn and kill them with 500 constructs. You don’t need Twister loops.

Great Video as usual, Mons! The main problem Urza suffers from is undeniably card draw. That's the bottleneck, as usually you have tons of mana, but Urza doesn't make for a great mana dump like Thrasios. Another issue of course is feeding Dockside. The Power Scepter list has access to card like Ledger Shredder, Phyrexian Metamorph, Gilded Drake, Spinx and notably Reality Chip (which is an insane midrange card advantage engine). Therefore UPS can grind much better through its own stax pieces and a slowed down game. I usually explain it like this: 1. Ramp into Urza 2. Stax / Control the game 3. Grind value 4. Combo off That can be extremely skill intensive as you must read the pod very well, keep track of tutors and make very careful decisions, like what to chose with your Pithing Needle or when to tap an Orb to give an Opponent a chance to interact with another Opponent. So imo, we actually only need more Card Advantage Engines to fuel pur hand more reliably and keep in mind this is not a beginners deck. A skilled pilot can usually accomplish a very competitive winrate whereas a newer player can be kingmaking all the time, because they misread the pod.

I took my Urza apart. It did amazing for some time but cedh has evolved so much over past 2 years. It provided many turn 2s Too much new hate printed and not having the strength & versatility of multiple colors hurts this deck

I play Urza and yes it’s my 2nd best deck and you are 100% correct, I love your take on the extra turn and staxs route

Could you do Niv-Mizzet, Parun next? When playing Niv you realize that building towards playing niv and controlling is actually suprisingly good against alot of decks.

A friend of mine have an Urza deck, and at first it was opressive. Later, once we all figured out Urza's weakness, it became just a moderate deck. Love the analisys!!!

Going with a creature build helps a lot. Spellseeker, gilded drake, consecrated sphinx, spellskite, malevolent hermit, phyrexian metamorph, displacer kitten, wandering archaic all help a lot

I have an Urza deck and I always have keep an opening hand with heavy stax pieces just to keep from getting steamrolled. I also personally prefer Counterbalance and Ice Cave instead of traditional counterspells just to avoid "missing" on an Urza activation

Speaking as purely a viewer, i'd love a series where you look at the problems cEDH decks face and what to account for when bringing them to a table.

My buddy built an Urza Stax deck, he was good at getting his pieces on board but I was always ready for them and was able to win through just knowing which ones presented the greatest threat to my win con.

Someone at wizards must play cedh urza and gave us faerie mastermind

Dockside and Carpet are always happy to see Urza at the table.

I found the same problem with my Vega Control brew. It ends up faltering because I am torn between going for my own combo or gathering cards to stop others

Urza was my first cEDH deck but now I find myself playing my Malcolm//Kediss cEDH deck more for all the reasons announced in the video. Turn 1/2 Urza, couple stax pieces, but then that's it... Top decking hoping to draw into a big draw spell payoff. I definitely will have to try less counter magic and more stax or change from Polymorph all together

Urza is pretty good just depends on the pilot and build.

I agree I had a urza deck for awhile and I also find my self just fiddling around. Not actually winning much.

I played 3 games with Urza today. I had a great time.😄 I feel like you completely neglected the multiple tutors played in Urza Decks. I run nine different tutors in my build. Why focus on card draw when I tutor for what I need? I run multiple card draw spells too. Also, the idea of running a Stax piece that can’t be tapped and inactivated by Urza seems less than optimal.

I am seeing a lot of mid range infinite mana urzas lately, and they win pretty often to my liking :D

Please do more of this series of "struggles"

I haven’t gotten to play cedh much in the last 6 months or so but I had a very high w/r before that with urza poly kraken.

Cant rem. Last time i played urza, been enjoying orvar as my main mono blue deck.

Hey mons! Great video! Is there a way I can submit a deck for you to use? It's not Urza, or any of the typical cEDH decks, but it's one I think is going to shine and has already covered a lot of the problems that Urza struggles with

Wow mon really great insight after follow your thinking yea urza really don’t have consistent with drawing card and really hard to win never noticed this before. Be heathy soon from covid

I’m really glad you made this video. I found out exactly what you’re talking about first hand. You have super explosive starts then you’re literally just top decking and never winning. My first urza build was a casual style where you blink urza and make a lot of constructs and win by creature damage and that played really well but every time I tried to play it with strangers they would get all mad and salty and I’d be trying to explain that it’s not cedh and they would all gang up an kill me. Then when I tried to cedh the deck I found exactly what you’re saying about lack of card draw to get your combos. The problem is 100 cards for urza isn’t enough. You need all your primary win con peices and all your secondary. You need all your counterspells to defend the win con. You need enough Cheerios to get the mana advantage plus you need card draw spells. If you cut one completely the deck falls apart and if you take out too many of each it just doesn’t play right. I had one version that was refined but wasn’t great but my primary cedh deck is a zur the enchanter and With my suite of counterspells they were almost identical which bothered me. My current version uses “x" card draw spells and no counterspells and it plays good but if the win is interrupted like you said it’s game over and with no counterspells there’s no hope lol. You’re video made my realize I’m not the only one struggling with this and I appreciate that.

This video is interesting. There's an Urza player in my meta who plays the polymorph version, and it's VERY good. Easily has a 25% win rate. Sometimes the deck doesn't do much, but most of the time they're always part of the game and threatening wins. Edit: I should add that the meta I play in is super stax/midrange heavy. No one really plays turbo except for the mono black and mono green players we have. Even the Ad Naus decks are midrange lol

Considering that the very top level is literally just Najeela, Tymna farm variants and Malcolm all of which are faster or more flexible and can also run the same blue counters, this is not surprising. if left unchecked, Urza kills you but he's just outright slower

I play Urza but not as the poly kraken version. I play all the stax pieces until I assemble infinite, which is normally t3-5, then I activate Urza to exile it all and play a thoracle or lab man to win. You have access to all of your counter magic at that point, as you have until EOT to use the cards. I don’t understand why none of the other lists run anything similar for Urza

The issue is simply card draw and mono blue stuff like graveyard recursion. Once what they need goes to the GY. They are screwed

W Ledger Shredder and the Reality Chip along w the other powerful creatures you were giving up like the clones and Gilded Drake, it’s getting harder to justify the polymorph plan IMO. You have plenty of infinite mana combos that don’t require a one creature 99 anyway, right? You can just play Hullbreaker in the 99 and if you still felt like you wanted more consistent infinite mana you could stretch a bit and play Rings of Bright-hearth??? Idk, I did a lot of work on Malcom Kediss and am ~ 100% convinced that’s a better deck w creatures in it and that polymorph package is better than urza’s to begin w (having the red versions as well). I also built and played Shorikai in paper and I dropped poly lines in favor of all the good hate bears in that color combo. Maybe Urza just needs to drop poly lines and play value creatures and more stax/hate bears?? I have played against urza a lot and I think it’s had a decent win rate in my little meta but I def see the arguments you made, Mons, about not being the fastest and not being grindy being almost a king making effect. I’d be curious to hear if the Urza players are starting to move away from the poly stuff now. Great video👍👍

I knew years ago when I saw the polymorph strategy on moxfield I didn’t like it. I did give it a chance but it fell short every time. Urza is a midrange commander as stated so I’ve always stuck with my stax first approach. I feel most people resorted to the polymorph approach because you didn’t need “she who should not be named” thassas oracle… so by using a polymorph approach you wouldn’t be hated as much by the group. Luckily my playgroup never had a problem with TO however I still found other ways to win that were as consistent as polymorph and TO My favorite thus far has been wheeling out my opponents with twister loops. Even though it takes abit more preparation it’s perfect for urza as my build is midrange… also not looking like a threat as board states change makes it an effective approach as well.

The reality chip really changed Urza for me. It’s gotten way better since then.

Darn, you nail a lot of strong points. I’m sad because now I have to find another mono-blue commander for a midrange strategy

I’ve never had an issue with my cedh poly urea deck. Fine tuned it little by little and the deck pops off a lot even turn 3-4

Bannings of Hullbreacher and PEnging really messed with Urza. He shined with either of those. Hullbreacher really helped UPS. PEngine was just gross with Urza in general.

Do you think Foresntic gadgeteer powers up urza quite a bit?

*struggles Love

Well you can say that for any deck, can't you? In no deck you always draw your win con. You usually play and get to it or them. Piece the puzzles together and roll. We only play around power level 4-6 though, so no idea how a table with 7+ feels

i've lost against more teferi chain veil decks than urza lmao

The best stax cards to start Urza off with are Trinisphere, Rhystic study and or Mystic remora. If you're going to be playing Mystic Remora you also want to be playing mana rocks as well that way you're either forcing the other players to play out their spells to keep out giving you card draw or for them to fall massively behind. Winter orb and static orb are useless early game since a turn 1 winter orb does nothing for several turns and even more true for static orb they're more for mid game when people have lots more lands that is when you should play out winter orb to choke your opponents off mana. Urza is really good at searching out these stax cards. Another great card to run in Urza Polymorph is Torpor orb, shuts off dockside extortionist, thassa's oracle and any other annoying etb cEDH card that gets played. It does not conflict with the deck since you simply play it after playing out Urza. Urza plays Recurring Insight and that normally draws anywhere from 12-14 cards normally, sometimes it will be less like 8+ but it is typically never less than 10 cards that you draw. Also it is wrong to not spin Urza if you've got nothing else to do, yes you could hit a counterspell but you could also hit your hullbreaker horror and basically it's better to do something than it is to do nothing. Obviously you're not in a winning position but I have won games doing that. With Urza you have to aggressively mulligan to be able to get out Urza out early with some way of winning early or playing a card that will draw you cards like rhystic study or recurring insight, mulliganing like this is possible since you run time twister in the deck.

Hmmmm Off the top of my head I believe urza is a streamlined strategy one in which it can be predictable and effective. Stax Stall the board to assemble your combo And now there are many new cards which can Disrupt the strategy plus ones that can benefit off of this strategy and use it to their advantage.

Urza is probably just a little overhyped. People are just sick of teferi and viewing urza as the "hero" they needed. They're both good but for different things to me.

Where’s my Tazri update?! 🧐

You failed to mention that when you get that infinite mana- which can be done by t3-4 somewhat reliably- you win the game if you have a wincon in the deck. Temple bell/mind over matter, memnarch if you don't run this one specific build that you don't like, the list goes on. And yes you hit the counterspells. You're also going off that turn and it's until end of turn so you simply cast those as necessary that turn. I think you may play against someone who can't pilot Urza properly.

Video won’t play... 😢

We are talking about mono color decks guys. we can identify weaknesses easily, of course. There's always something to improve on mono color decks.

I’ve been trying to tell everyone since Urza dropped that he’s not as good a V-Clique in cEDH. Clique can play more Polymorph spells, and get you intel on your opponent’s hand. You can run cards that place a card of YOIR choice on the bottom of an opponents library, so there’s other spells to win based on that knowledge that are dead cards in Urza. More win cons, more control, same ultimate win con to go for, but can get there sometimes one trim earlier. There’s never been a great case for Urza, yet everyone jumped into him head first before thinking it all out. Urza’s built in ability needs silly setups that Clique just doesn’t need.

Quit urza, go for Kinnan...is that simple, stop suffering, start winning

Nooo not my boy Urza :( This is the first and only deck that I ever will go all out on. I have spent wuite a bit of cheddar on it and I have the PolyKraken build as well and everyone hates it cuz it lol. Urza is easily my favorite Commander ever and I’ll always play him even if he’s bad.

Dockside

Do not agree I've had massive success with the Urza Polymorph deck against other cEDH decks, yes there are pods that are bad but more often than not I win most of my games

New urza is better!

People are playing Urza WRONG. All wrong. PowerScepter is the BEST variant. The only cards that should be in your Urza deck, are lands, mana rocks, tutors, small counter package, small stax package that only benefit you, combo pieces and card draw. Literally build Urza like this, its alot faster than you think. Stop listening to people saying Urza is slow, when they dont even know how to properly build him. Screw polytyrant builds, they suck. Heavy stax builds suck. Mono blue is bad at card draw? Fine. Turbo out infinite mana as fast as possible, time it right, hold back a force of will, and attempt infinite mana. Then cast Urza and they cant stop you. Idk why people dont know how to build him right but it’s frustrating

Urza struggle? One of the strongest decks ever. Haven’t ever seen it struggle in any game

Deck is bad, play Najeela.

😂blue is the best is every format lol 🙄 guess not a limited player?

cEDH is garbage format. Just saying

You obviously haven't seen Erza come out on turn one or go infinite as often as I have, and this is the first I've ever heard of him being involved in any polymorph strategy; not that I'd be using it after listening to this