Vega the Watcher brew

[Dunharrow]

I really want to build Vega, the Watcher

There are a lot of mechanics that works well.
- flashback
- disturb
- foretell
- jumpstart
- suspend
- retrace
- cascade
- adventure
- rebound
- escape

There are one-of cards that synergizer well
- Diluvian Primordial
- Chaos Wand
etc.

The card that seems the most broken is Future Sight. It lends itself to an easy combo - future sight + Sensei's Divining Top + cost reducer to draw the deck.

I am writing this to get ideas for how to play the deck.

Is Vega a controlly deck that draws extra cards to help play the control game?
Is Vega a combo deck? Are there other combos to play?
Do you try to keep Vega in play for long periods to draw cards every turn, or do you play Vega when you are ready to draw a lot of cards?

I can see so many potential ways to build the deck and just wondering what people see as being the best build.

[Toshi]

I'm oh so intrigued by Vega, the Watcher from day 1!

As far as i can tell the most obvious build would be a spellslinger control one. For one, lots of mechanics that synergize well are usually found on noncreature cards and also, most of the engines i'd include are noncreature ones as well.
You already mentioned Future Sight, so Magus of the Future, Precognition Field and God-Eternal Kefnet would give you great redundancy and constant draw.
Mind's Dilation would be fun, if it sticks around, as it gives you cast triggers and only costs you mana once. I've always been super curious about a deck that could run Spellweaver Volute and this could be a deck for it! Since it can enchant instants in opponents graveyards it looks really fun and versatile.

And if you don't mind running that sort of effect there's always Knowledge Pool...

Overall i'd prioritize constant CA over splashy one ofs. Diluvian Primordial, Spelltwine and the likes are cute and all, but i'd much rather drop Precognition Field the turn after i played my commander.

[DirkGently]

The future sight top combo works without Vega pretty sure.

Madness would be interesting. Not a lot available though.

[Dunharrow]

The future sight top combo works without Vega pretty sure.

Madness would be interesting. Not a lot available though.

You're right, oops

[Dunharrow]

I'm oh so intrigued by Vega, the Watcher from day 1!

As far as i can tell the most obvious build would be a spellslinger control one. For one, lots of mechanics that synergize well are usually found on noncreature cards and also, most of the engines i'd include are noncreature ones as well.
You already mentioned Future Sight, so Magus of the Future, Precognition Field and God-Eternal Kefnet would give you great redundancy and constant draw.
Mind's Dilation would be fun, if it sticks around, as it gives you cast triggers and only costs you mana once. I've always been super curious about a deck that could run Spellweaver Volute and this could be a deck for it! Since it can enchant instants in opponents graveyards it looks really fun and versatile.

And if you don't mind running that sort of effect there's always Knowledge Pool...

Overall i'd prioritize constant CA over splashy one ofs. Diluvian Primordial, Spelltwine and the likes are cute and all, but i'd much rather drop Precognition Field the turn after i played my commander.

I don't have a UW deck and have very few spellslinger decks, so maybe that's where I should go with this.

[pokken]

I think that top of the library, flashback, and casting from the bin would be a nice tight focus that you could get critical mass of effects for. Play all the good flashback spells, snappy. Torrential Gearhulk, etc., and all the top of library effects (Cemetery Illuminator, Future Sight, etc.). Mind's Dilation is fine.

If you go with a big enough Artifact theme you could play Mystic Forge as another outlet for top I guess though.

With that you probably want a small subtheme of looting stuff like Frantic Search so you can dump huge spells in the bin for Spelltwine which I think is a slam dunk personally. It's "splashy" but it's also a cheap way to really dunk the table most of the time.

There are a number of decent foretell cards so I'd probably play those - Stoic Farmer weirdly has been an absolute beast for me. 3/3 that fixes 2 land hands does a lot to preserve my life total and such.

Getting to play stuff like Counterbalance is the icing on the cake

Good solid bombs like Recurring Insight are also available

--

I don't think you need a "combo" to finish the game with Future Sight + Sensei's Divining Top, that should just be time for opponents to scoop it up if you got the lock that hard, but it is a fairly tight win condition.

As far as winning the game, you could consider including enough high impact spells and gambling on storming out with Mind's Desire which also triggers Vega which is pretty nice

(I'm not normally a huge storm advocate but with vega it'd probably be pretty deterministic if you got up to 6 or 7 since you'd cast a bunch of good cards and draw 6 or 7)

--

Cards that support the whole Mind's Desire plan

• frantic search
• high tide
• turnabout
• peregrine drake
• palinchron
• dramatic reversal
• isochron scepter
• time spiral
• sword of feast and famine

requires more setup

• reset

I'm not really sure that's going to be the most fun way to win tbh as I think on it But it is funny how scepter/reversal combo draws your deck even mana neutral with Vega. Not super tasteful but, yeah And that does lean hard into the whole artifact mana + Future Sight / Sensei's Divining Top stuff.

[Sinis]

I think Vega, the Watcher is really cool. I think it's best as a control pile that just accumulates advantage from its control mechanisms or squeezes more out of every piece.

There are a bunch of cards that don't conform to a mechanic but really like Vega: Spelltwine, Chancellor of the Spires, Rod of Absorption, etc.

Maybe a nice piece of tech could be Spellweaver Volute?

[Outcryqq]

I built mine with a lot of the "obvious" stuff listed already, but as a way to finish the game, I'm going with a small equipment package with Stoneforge Mystic and a few swords. A number of the creatures in the deck have evasion, so slapping a sword or two on them seems like a decent way to put a clock on someone.

[Dunharrow]

I built mine with a lot of the "obvious" stuff listed already, but as a way to finish the game, I'm going with a small equipment package with Stoneforge Mystic and a few swords. A number of the creatures in the deck have evasion, so slapping a sword or two on them seems like a decent way to put a clock on someone.

I think this is my biggest problem with 'traditional' control decks in Commander. If I am not locking people with Grave Pact effects and hate, or if I am not comboing off after slowing people down with control, then how is my control deck supposed to beat 3 opponents.
Swords fit with the inherent CA theme, but they are slow ways to win.

I think I want to avoid infinite combos, just because I don't see any that are specifically synergistic with Vega, and I like to focus on synergy rather than good stuff.

Maybe I can just win off of Chaos Wand lol

[Outcryqq]

I built mine with a lot of the "obvious" stuff listed already, but as a way to finish the game, I'm going with a small equipment package with Stoneforge Mystic and a few swords. A number of the creatures in the deck have evasion, so slapping a sword or two on them seems like a decent way to put a clock on someone.

I think this is my biggest problem with 'traditional' control decks in Commander. If I am not locking people with Grave Pact effects and hate, or if I am not comboing off after slowing people down with control, then how is my control deck supposed to beat 3 opponents.
Swords fit with the inherent CA theme, but they are slow ways to win.

I think I want to avoid infinite combos, just because I don't see any that are specifically synergistic with Vega, and I like to focus on synergy rather than good stuff.

Maybe I can just win off of Chaos Wand lol

Approach of the Second Sun is a good win con in the deck, since you're drawing lots of cards and you have some topdeck manipulation, you should get back to it quickly.