Grandpa Urza (cEDH) (EDH / Commander)

The main strategy of deck is assembling a combo of infinite mana in order to win the game in several different ways.

The infinite mana combo can be assembled in four ways.

The four ways to assemble infinite mana combo are the following:
1) Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal;
2) Isochron Scepter + Narset's Reversal + Dramatic Reversal (in this case you imprint Narset's Reversal with the scepter and then you cast Dramatic Reversal to copy and bounce it in the hand);
3) Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal + Copy Artifact + Narset's Reversal (it works as the second condition, but here you "duplicate" the scepter with Copy Artifact and imprint Narset's Reversal);
4) Grim Monolith/Mana Vault + Power Artifact.

After setting the combo, you can win inserting one of the following card:
1) Walking Ballista: infinite damages wherever you want;
2) Codex Shredder: mill every opponents tapping and untapping the codex;
3) Urza, Lord High Artificer: you can activate the ability of Urza in order to find one of the two aforementioned cards;
4) Sensei's Divining Top: if you activate the second ability of Sensei's Divining Top, on the stack you can activate infinite mana combo to untap all permanents and produce (always on the stack) an sufficient amount of mana to activate the ability of Sensei's Divining Top nth times in order to draw entire deck.

This version of the deck is quite performing. I avoided adding Thassa's Oracle combos (auto-mill strategy as win condition) because I think that it adds nothing to the previous described combos and the lack of the black color can make it more difficult to assemble. Regarding the combo with Capsize (a card that you use with Isochron Scepter combos to bounce everything on the board except your permanents), I excluded it because a 3 manas card increases the mana curve significantly (from 1.87 to 1.90-1.93). Finally, I cut off another interesting combo composed of Sensei's Divining Top + Future Sight + Etherium Sculptor: with the three cards on battlefield, you can switch Sensei's Divining Top with the first card of your deck, re-cast it gratis for the effect of both Future Sight (you can cast the first card of your deck) and Etherium Sculptor (artifacts you cast cost 1 generic mana less), and draw entire deck in order to find combo pieces. The reason is twofold: firstly, the increment of mana curve for the presence of Future Sight (that is also useless out of the combo); secondly, tutoring an enchantment is very difficult because the only suitable tutor is Intuition. I preferred to substitute Future Sight and Etherium Sculptor with Walking Ballista and Trinisphere: the first is an alternative win condition and the second is an additional stax piece.

The power level of deck is cEDH: it also justifies some expensive choices and the low level of mana curve.

LATEST UPDATES

• (29/06/2021) I removed Dig Through Time and I added Brainstone. The new artifact of Modern Horizon 2 is more synergic with deck strategy. Brainstone can be a "mana rock" with Urza, Lord High Artificer and cab be useful starting from first turns. The second change was the remotion of Walking Ballista for Thassa's Oracle. I noticed that tutoring Walking Ballista is hard due to its XX cost requiring mana necessarily. Furthermore, you cannot cast it with ability of Urza, Lord High Artificer (while Thassa's Oracle does). Finally, I removed Mystic Sanctuary and set Snow-Covered Island at 20: putting on top of library an instant or sorcery often means missing a draw. I am still testing Urza's Saga.
• (30/10/2021) After a series of tests, I decided to not play Urza's saga. The main strength of the card is the third triggered ability that allows tutoring an artifact with cmc 0 or 1. Considering how the deck works combos assembled for the win require artifacts with cmc 2 (Grim Monolith, Isochron Scepter) and tutoring a mana rock (Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault) is almost useless to gain the game. Regarding the other two abilities they are not so strong as I thought. Adding colorless mana for 2-3 turns could be convenient in order to cast artifacts, but in many cases it is better to have blue manas to cast counters or card advantage spells. Finally, the possibility to create an Urza's token would be awesome if my commander was on the battlefield. Otherwise, the token is a "vanilla" piece that does not take any impacting advantage on the board. For all these reasons, I preferred to remove Urza's Saga not considering it a suitable card in my deck.
• (06/08/2022) I revised my cEDH Urza deck after a year, during which I consistently played the same deck in Centurion format (see here: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/4iKlT0-t3U6VVAgiI_q9Ww . WATCH OUT! In Centurion Urza, Lord High Artificer and Emry, Lurker of the Loch are banned as commanders, therefore I have been forced to play Sai, Master Thopterist changing deck strategy and adapting it to 1vs1 Italian format). I discovered the enormous power of Moonsnare Prototype, that allows me to create a one-side stax effect similar to Urza, Lord High Artificer in combination with Static Orb, Trinisphere and Winter Orb. The real strength of the card is its activated ability, better than Springleaf Drum because it gives the choice to tap either creature or artifact. For this reason I cut out Witching Well having several other draw engines and not losing artifacts synergy in the deck.
• (13/02/2023) In order to make the deck more consistent during counter wars, I cut off Brainstone preferring An Offer You Can’t Refuse. The counter of Street of New Capenna has been a cEDH staple in few months and this let me trying the new card in several games. I was surprised of its power, although I was afraid of the opponents’ threats that would be casted with the two treasure tokens. However, I realized that at the end of a counter war opponents don’t have any cards in hands and so two treasure tokens are a bit useless. Additionally, An Offer You Can’t Refuse stops both counters and instants/sorceries crucial for the win. Bearing in mind all these considerations, I absolutely added it to my deck.
• (05/03/2023) I am trying The Mycosynth Gardens. I think that it is a very synergic card for the deck because of ability to copy an artifact. This opens the possibility to copy mana rocks in order to ramp more aggressively or have two combo pieces and avoid losing one of them. The premises seem good. Let's see how it works!
• (02/06/2023) I changed Narset, Parter of Veils with Faerie Mastermind. I suppose the second is a more consistent draw engine due to the possibility to trigger its ability more than twice comparing to planeswalker. In addition I cut out Trail of Evidence in favor of Mindbreak Trap, which I found a real powerful response in counter wars, similar to Flusterstorm, or in order to contrast LED storm combos.