Deck Primer: Legacy Azorius Omnitell

Deck Style

Legacy Omnitell is a Blue based combo deck that typically splashes White or Green for protection. Azorius Omnitell is better than Simic because Orim's Chant is better than Veil of Summer because it stops everything, not just counterspells. White also has access to better removal and opposing combo hate in the sideboard.

Omnitell wins by cheating Omniscience into play with Show and Tell and then casting all your spells for free. Show and Tell is a supposedly balanced card; both players get to put cards into play for free, but with the way Omnitell is designed, when you resolve Show and Tell and put in Omniscience, you typically win the game immediately.

The Combo

Show and Tell + Omniscience allows you to cast all your spells in hand without paying their mana costs. The 3 card combo of Show and Tell + Omniscience + Cunning Wish awards you the win. Cunning Wish finds Shared Summons out of your sideboard to search for Emrakul, the Aeons Torn + Venser, Shaper Savant. This grants you 2 extra turns with 17 power on board and annihilator 6 each attack.

Another cool combo is Show and Tell + Omniscience + Emrakul, the Aeons Torn + Karakas which gifts you infinite extra turns. Each extra turn, you can cantrip and find answers to whatever may be stopping you from winning quicker.

Cantrips

Omnitell lists vary from 12-16 cantrips. It is correct to always play 4 of each of Preordain, Ponder and Brainstorm. In addition to those 12, this list also features 4 Impulse to help insure you find exactly what you need when you need it.

It is generally correct to lead your first turn on Preordain first if you have it, or Ponder if you do not have Preordain in your opener.

It is ideal to always keep a hand with Preordain or Ponder unless you have most or all of the combo already. Unlike faster combo decks in Legacy, Brainstorm is rarely used on your opponent’s turn unless you are desperate.

On later turns, it is generally optimal to lead on Brainstorm to attempt to find a fetch to clear the cards you put back. Then you may continue digging with other cantrips.

Once you have Omniscience in play, it is normally optimal to lead on all sorceries first, to allow yourself to response to your opponent actions with with your instants. Cantrips are what keeps Omni consistent.

Protection

Omnitell typically plays at least 7-8 pieces of protection in the main deck, with 2-7 addition in the sideboard. In the current iteration of Azorius Omnitell, it plays 4 Force of Will along with 4 Orim's Chant. Force of Will allows you to counter anything that would disrupt your combo.

Orim's Chant is most commonly used to prevent your opponents from countering Show and Tell or destroying Omniscience. Orim's Chant is primarily played before you cast Show and Tell to prevent any spell based responses to your combo. Orim's Chant is better than playing the Green version of this deck with Veil of Summer because Orim's Chant beats Pyroblast or Force of Vigor on your Omniscience after Show and Tell resolves. This is comes up a lot more commonly than most would expect.

Mana

Omnitell needs 22 mana sources to best function and be consistent. Azorius builds regularly run 4 Lotus Petal in place of land slots to both speed up your combo and play around Legacy staple Daze better. The other major use of Lotus Petal is too allow your turn 3’s to combo with protection of Orim's Chant.

Sideboard

Azorius Omnitell plays the minimal 2 cards required for a Cunning Wish wishboard; Shared Summons, and Sublime Epiphany. Omnitell is all about consistency and efficiency. Both Shared Summons, and Sublime Epiphany are the best options for those much needed slots.

Shared Summons is used to find your 2 creatures to take 2 turns to win the game or bounce a problematic permanent with Venser, Shaper Savant, and then cast Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to win the game.

Sublime Epiphany is often fetched in response to detrimental enter the battlefield triggers of your opponents cards played off Show and Tell. Sublime Epiphany is extremely flexible. The most common modes are: Stifle + Draw a card + Bounce a non-land permanent and occasionally you can also copy your Venser, Shaper Savant to bounce an additional permanent.

The rest of the sideboard contains cards that are for specific matchups.

• 4 Swords to Plowshares for creature decks.
• 2 Flusterstorm for opposing combo or Blue tempo decks.
• 3 Defense Grid walls up Izzet Delver.
• 2 Meddling Mage to beat Doomsday and Oops All Spells.
• 1 Disenchant which acts as an additional Cunning Wish fetchable game 1 that can be cast without Omniscience as well as being able to be brought in vs artifact or enchantment based hate such as Chalice of the Void or Deafening Silence.
• Lastly, 1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All to beat out heavy counterspell based control decks that don’t play Wasteland.

You can find my full sideboard guide as well as additional useful information here: https://tinyurl.com/uwomni

Matchups

Azorius Omnitell currently has a lot of relatively even matchups. Your worst matchup by far is Reanimator as there is no real hate for it in this list, second worst would be Doomsday. Your best matchups are Death and Taxes and Lands which are both top decks in the current meta.

Additional Resources

The best place to discuss Omnitell will be in the discord I help manage. There, you can also find active discussions about the other Show and Tell deck; Sneak and Show. Please feel free to join by clicking the invite link: https://tinyurl.com/LegacyShowandtelldiscord

---

Lastly, I want to thank you all for reading and also thank https://mtgmeta.io/ for providing me a platform to share awesome content.