UG Omnitell (w/ Cunning Wish)

The Game Plan

The goal of this deck is simple: get Omniscience into play as fast and safely as possible. From there, most of our deck allows us to look at more cards, which will eventually get us to Cunning Wish, Atraxa, or Emrakul . These 3 cards make up the core win-condition of this deck. Casting any one of these with an Omniscience in play effectively means game over, even if you are facing down defeat (with some notable caveats).

If you cast Emrakul, you’ll get an extra turn. That plus Omniscience is usually enough on its own to win the game. If you also have an Atraxa in play, however, you’ll also have 22 damage swinging in the air on that extra turn, which is very often lethal. If you have Cunning Wish cast when Omniscience is in play, you can use it to find Shared Summons from our sideboard, which can get Atraxa and Emrakul for this kill.

Atraxa, Grand Unifier being cast with Omniscience out gives you a ton of card selection, which should help you find the above with ease. These 3 cards, Emrakul, Atraxa, and Cunning Wish are how we win all our games. The overwhelming majority of times, getting Emrakul cast will be enough to win. Even Omniscience plus card selection is often enough to find one of the above to end the game. However there are some notable exceptions that we have an answer for later!

Card Selection

One of the most powerful additions to this archetype was the release of Stock Up. This deck is a card hungry combo, as it needs three cards to go off, along with enough mana to do so. In a format chalk with countermagic and discard, we need ways to reload easily. Stock Up is the best at this on rate by far, as it allows us to find halves of our combo, whole combos, mana, protection whatever you need!

Notably, Ponder only allows us to find single spells that turn, so it can’t find the whole combo at once. Brainstorm also has the unfortunate side effect of locking us if we get stuck, which is especially problematic for a deck that is simply looking to combo. Stock Up helps alleviate the Brainstorm-lock by acting as a pseudo-shuffle for the top of your library. Both Ponder and Brainstorm also get hosed by Orcish Bowmasters, Narset, and Hullbreacher, while Stock Up does not.

While Ponder and Brainstorm are obviously good, Stock Up really is where our bread is buttered. Try and cast it as much as possible.

The Power of Instants

This version of Omnitell has lines and flexibility powered by Cunning Wish. Cunning Wish on its own is not a very good card. On rate, it is effectively a 3 mana cantrip, though with some unique selection criteria. Cunning Wish grabs instants, which means that deck building becomes a fun mini-game of finding instants that do unique things, simply to help our wishboard.

We’ll get into some of the odd instants we have in our sideboard in a bit, but it’s worth noting that what might seem like random cards in the sideboard always has a niche reason for being there. These niches might vary for you, in which case switching out some things for other silver bullets makes sense.

Why Narset’s Reversal

Another oddity of this decklist is the inclusion of an instant in the main deck that you almost never see in Legacy: Narset’s Reversal. Once again, this card is somewhat unique, but it serves a really important purpose. Narset’s reversal acts as an odd Counterspell when it comes to fighting over large stacks. Because Reversal both copies and returns the original to its owner’s hand, we can do some very cool tricks with it.

Firstly, it allows us to get some more threat density of Show And Tells. If you cast a Show and Tell, it tried to get countered, and then you Reversal targeting your own Show and Tell, not only do they now have to target the counter the copy you just made, even if they do, you’ll still have another one for the next turn.

Next is how it plays with our other spells. If you hold priority, you can double up on your spells. For example, casting Stock Up, then targeting it with your own Reversal gives you the ability to select 4 cards from 10 across two turns. Ponder plus Reversal with 4 mana allows you to look at 8 cards maximum.

More utility comes up when combined with Cunning Wish. With Reversal and Cunning Wish, you have instant speed selection of any two cards in your Wish-board, including the ability to make two copies of anything you’d want. With Omniscience out, this is especially powerful, but it also is useful if you need to get two bullets for a later turn (like Veil of Summer and Flusterstorm for protection). This ability to copy Cunning Wish and grab two things also becomes a kill line that we’ll explain later.

Lastly, Narset’s Reversal notably does not counter. And with the uptick of cards like Veil of Summer and Vexing Squelcher, the word “counter” is getting downgraded. But since Narset’s reversal isn’t countering, it allows to get around what opponents often think is a failsafe. In addition to copying your own spells to get around un-counterable counters from your opponent, you also can return their Force of Will to hand if you don’t think they have another blue spell.

If its a stack war, it also means you're up one counterspell from copying their Force (notably this only works if there's something for the copy to counter, as the original gets removed from the stack). Against discard spells, its effectively a counterspell plus a peek at least (i.e. copy Thoughtseize, look at their hand, likely discard that Thoughtseize). And in extremely fun scenarios, you can even get around Allosaurus Rider controllers trying to get a Natural Order cast, which notably can find your own Atraxa once copied.

The Unorthodox Kill

As I mentioned, our main win condition after casting as many cards as we can from Omniscience does boil down to us swinging with big creatures. However, there are some times where that won’t work. This includes instances where we can’t attack, like if the opponent has an Ensnaring Bridge out, or we’re on the verge of death on our own, like if there is something about to kill us on the stack.

Well fear not, because we do have alternate win conditions! If you use Cunning Wish with Omniscience out, there is a line that allows you an infinite damage kill at instant speed, so long as the opponent does not have a card of 15 mana value or higher in their deck (and even then, you might get lucky).

The line is this:

• cast Cunning Wish, select Firemind’s Foresight
• cast Firemind’s Foresight, select another Cunning Wish, Narset’s Reversal, and Brainstorm
• Cast the new Cunning Wish, hold priority, and cast Narset’s Reversal on it.
• With the copied Cunning Wish, go select Shared Summons
• Cast the Cunning Wish that was returned to hand, select Release the Ants
• Cast Shared Summons, get Emrakul and Atraxa. Note that since this kill is meant to be at instant speed, you won’t be able to cast them.
• Cast Brainstorm, and in your card ordering, make sure Emrakul is the top card of your library
• Then, cast Release the Ants on whatever target you want, likely your opponent. This deals one damage and causes you and your opponent to “clash”.
• The one damage happens first, then you and your opponent reveal the top card of your library. If your card has higher mana value (which will be 15 because of Emrakul), then Release the Ants goes back into your hand. Repeat this process as many times as you like for the kill!

I would be lying if I said that casting Release the Ants as a kill condition isn’t one of the appeals of this deck.

The Backup Plan

While the above is effectively guaranteed kills, sometimes there is value in going for just a baby Show and Tell. Putting Atraxa into play is basically a super Stock Up, and one which often will cause the opponent to scoop.

And of course putting an Emrakul into play can still be good against the right decks. Be wary of Leyline Binding and Solitude against Emrakul, as both these get around her protection ability.

But you do not need Omniscience to have a reason to Show and Tell some times

Protecting the combo (before Omniscience)

Since we are effectively an all in combo deck, we need to protect our combo as much as possible. The most obvious way of doing this is with Force of Will. However, Force of Will does have a downside in that it causes us to go down two cards. This is sometimes necessary, but since we require 3 cards to win (Show and Tell, Omniscience, and one of Cunning Wish, Atraxa, Emrakul), we often will be pitching a critical part of the combo in order to survive.

This is where Veil of Summer comes in, which not only helps protect our spells, but also replaces itself in doing so. This is our main defense against UB decks that run Thoughtseize, as discard and counterspells are our bane.

The other way that opponents can attack the combo is through mana denial. Wasteland is always present in the format, and we run 3 basic Islands to get around this as best we can. For other ways of dealing against the combo, we have our wishboard which can be accessed via Cunning Wish.

For pesky creatures like Lavinia or Thalia, we have Dismember and Into the Flood Maw to clear a path. Into the Flood Maw also works for other annoying things like Trinisphere or Disruptor Flute (though timing is important for battling Flute). Cunning Wish can also grab Veil or Flusterstorm in order to battle on the stack.

In one of my favorite and most used additions to the wishboard, we also have Noxious Revival. This allows us a way to get another Show and Tell after trying and failing, as well as giving us access to our graveyard. Noxious Revival gives us a slow way to get back Show and Tell, and notably gets around discard. This comes up most often when both players are totally spent on resources, and all you have left is something to put into play.

Protecting the combo (after Omniscience)

It’s much harder to get to Omniscience, but once you have it in play, you still need to make sure you are able to win. We mentioned the above line with Release the Ants, but a notable time that doesn’t work is when your opponent is on another version of Show and Tell. One of the strengths of the Cunning Wish package vs. other versions is that we have ways to deal with opponents who also happen to put in something crazy.

Sublime Epiphany is really a catch all to deal with basically everything. You can deal with an opponent’s Omniscience or Atraxa trigger, you can counter a spell, you can counter the trigger of Leyline Binding (or even let it resolve on an Atraxa, return it back to hand to get another full trigger if you’re feeling greedy). I’m not sure if I’ve ever lost after getting to the point of a Sublime Epiphany resolving.

This also goes in line with all of the above protection from before Omniscience is in play. You can do the same things, now just for free!

The Other Parts

There are some other notable things that this decklist has in its bag of tricks. In blue mirrors, Carpet of Flowers, especially two out, becomes a very real way to cast Omniscience or Atraxa (though you’ll either need two or a Lotus Petal in order to get the colors needed for Atraxa). Sometimes it might feel like you need to go fast, but if your opponent isn’t killing you, then you have time to gather up for the big fight.

Speaking of counter wars, one of the most fun ways to get around that, especially with lots of mana, is by using Mistrise Village’s ability to make an uncounterable Veil of Summer, which in turn makes all your following spells uncounterable. In slow Show and Tell mirrors, this is especially helpful because we know we can be faster than them once our Omniscience is in play, and this is basically guaranteed if our spells can’t be countered.

The random Behold the Multiverse is a bad reload on cards, but one that fits nicely into many slots. There aren’t many instant draw two spells that are castable without Omniscience. Older versions I would run Glimmer of Genius specifically because of the scry 2 draw 2. Behold the Multiverse is effectively better because we can Foretell it off of a single Ancient Tomb, and play it for 2 mana later on. Though its not a good card, it can be the difference maker in reloading faster than your opponent can get counterspells.

Conclusion

While there are many versions of Show and Tell, and even specifically Omnitell floating around the metagame at the moment, there is a special place for a deck that can answer a host of problems in unique ways. The ability to react to the whole toolkit of hate is something that helps us more than many of the competitor Show and Tell variants.

And let’s be honest, those decks don’t get to cast Release the Ants, so who’s the real best deck?