Dies to Removal

[deck]Commander: 1
1 Arcum Dagsson

Creatures: 22
1 Myr Moonvessel
1 Silver Myr
1 Plague Myr
1 Manakin
1 Millikin
1 Copper Gnomes
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Myr Sire
1 Etherium Sculptor
1 Myr Retriever
1 Spellskite
1 Epochrasite
1 Walking Atlas
1 Cathodion
1 Junk Diver
1 Scarecrone
1 Master Transmuter
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Su-Chi
1 Arcbound Reclaimer
1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
1 Karn, Silver Golem

Artifacts: 33
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mox Opal
1 Expedition Map
1 Mana Vault
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Springleaf Drum
1 Voltaic Key
1 Grim Monolith
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Scroll Rack
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Basalt Monolith
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Blasting Station
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Staff of Domination
1 Thousand-Year Elixir
1 Jester's Cap
1 Null Brooch
1 Helm of Possession
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Unwinding Clock
1 Myr Turbine
1 Coat of Arms
1 Mindslaver
n1 Mycosynth Lattice
1 Spine of Ish Sah
1 Summoning Station
1 Myr Incubator
1 Possessed Portal
1 Darksteel Forge

Spells: 9
1 Power Artifact
1 Artificer's Intuition
1 Reshape
1 Transmute Artifact
1 Fabricate
1 Thirst for Knowledge
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Hinder
1 Spell Crumple

Lands: 35
1 Academy Ruins
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Hall of the Bandit Lord
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Blinkmoth Nexus
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
1 Tolaria West
1 Svyelunite Temple
1 Crystal Vein
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
1 Homeward Path
19 Island
[/deck]

Deck Synergies:

Rings of Brighthearth + Basalt Monolith = Infinite Mana
Power Artifact + Basalt Monolith/Grim Monolith = Infinite Mana
Darksteel Forge + Nev's Disk/Oblivion Stone
= Destroy all your opponent's non-land permanents
Darksteel Forge + Nev's Disk + Mycosynth Lattice = Destroy all your opponent's permanents every turn
Karn, Silver Golem + Mycosynth Lattice = [mana]1[/mana]: Destroy target land
Infinite Mana + Rings of Brighthearth + Sensei's Divining Top = Draw your deck
Infinite Mana + Staff of Dominion = Draw your deck + tap/untap every permanent on the board + gain infinite life
Mindslaver + Academy Ruins + [mana]U[/mana] = Take all your opponent's turns
Unwinding Clock +
Myr Turbine + Possessed Portal = Both players skip their draw step and opponent discards a card/sacs a permanent every turn

Well, that's a lot of ways to make it nearly impossible for you to lose, but how do you win?

Blasting Station + Summoning Station + Mycosynth Lattice = Infinite damage
Myr Incubator + Coat of Arms = X# of X+1/X+1 Myr Tokens
Jester's Cap + Academy Ruins = eventually deck them

Playing the deck:

The first priority is always to put something into play that will either protect Arcum from removal or give him Haste if you think your opponent plays spot removal - things like Swiftfoot Boots, Lightning Greaves, Thousand-Year Elixir, or Hall of the Bandit Lord. If you can't get them out any other way, this
should be your first target for Arcum - I like the Thousand-Year Elixir best for this job assuming you have another mana and creature to reuse Arcum.

Second priority is to make sure you have enough creatures in hand/play to capitalize on Arcum's ability. If not, your first fetch after making sure Arcum's ass is covered should be to grab Myr Turbine so you won't have to worry about running out of gas.

Third priority should be to start assembling one of your combos - I usually base that decision on what I already have in my hand or in play - a combo that you can assemble in 2 turns is better than a more powerful one that you can assemble in 3. That's why I keep Myr Incubator + Coat of Arms in the deck even though it's probably the least powerful win condition - if they can't disrupt it, then going EOT fetch and pop Myr Incubator for 20-ish Myr -> my turn pop one of those Myr for Coat of Arms and attack will win a game and only requires 2 activations.

If at any time
you believe your opponent might be close to "going off" and winning the game, you can always grab a silver bullet like Possessed Portal, Jester's Cap, or Mindslaver to either slow them down, remove their combo, or take control of their combo so you can kill them with it. Nothing's better than your opponent saying "Well, you better kill me this turn or I'm going to win next turn" and grabbing a Mindslaver to turn their own infinite combo into your kill condition.

Update 5/14/13:

So, the previous list wasn't as optimized for 1-on-1 as it could have been since I used it as both my 1-on-1 and multiplayer deck, but I played around with it a little more and made the following changes:

-3 Island
-1 Elixir of Immortality
-1 Neurok Stealthsuit
-1 [
card]Sculpting Steel[/card]
-1 Goblin Cannon
-1 Copy Artifact
+1 Homeward Path
+1 [card]Artificer's Intuition[/card]
+1 Null Brooch
+1 Helm of Possession
+1 Kuldotha Forgemaster
+1 Arcbound Reclaimer
+1 Phyrexian Revoker
+1 Myr Sire

Since the deck will never have to take on more than 1 opponent, I dropped some of the redundancy/resilience: Elixir of Immortality, Goblin Cannon, and the Stealthsuit. Copy Artifact and Sculpting Steel were dropped because there is less likely to be an opponent's artifact I want to copy and I dropped a few land because I felt for a while now that 37 was too much with as many mana rocks as I'm running.

I filled the space with some more creatures:
Kuldotha Forgemaster and Archbound Reclaimer are high cc but both give you relevant abilities, Myr Sire is 2 Dagsson activations in one creature, and Revoker can potentially be an all-star against certain Commanders. In addition, I threw in another tutor effect in Artificer's Intuition, two more silver bullets in Null Brooch and Helm of Possession, and a solid utility land that should have been in the first list: Homeward Path.

Any questions or suggestions?

Nice!!

So much thought put into this list. My only question marks would be whether the tutor package is too extensive for consistency, creating too many combo dead drops, and maybe if more artifact critters would help.

But if you were aiming for versatility, there's so many different powerful interactions and strong card choices here. There's nothing missing or overlooked - just a matter of which direction you feel like taking it.

I'd love to play against this with my Kaalia deck. Blue decks are Kaalia's biggest weakness, but Arcum decks are by far the worst MU. Your list is by far the nastiest I've seen yet- and I mean that in a good way.

On the other hand, as Blue player (in EDH only), I'd love to play with this.

The tutors are nice because every combo piece that you don't have to search out with Arcum represents a turn sooner that you can go off.

There's nothing wrong with more artifact creatures, but these are pretty much the cream of the crop and I've found they're usually plenty to go off with.

Thanks Khaos, the deck is a blast and I don't really know of a bad MU for it.

Thanks Khaos, the deck is a blast and I don't really know of a bad MU for it.

Really, the only time I see a good Arcum deck struggle is against a bomb-ass Kaalia hand (T3 Kaalia swing + Iona or Rakdos, and then applying steady pressure) or the red based decks that pack REB/Pyroblast, Stranglehold, and artifact hate such as Into the Core and Vandalblast (I do play these in my Jaya Ballard deck). But the thing is, Arcum's resiliency is pretty strong and can come back pretty well after a little bit of disruption and hate. And that's just only for one game. A buddy of mine literally traded games back and forth in 1v1 for about 10 games or so - Arcum is that good.

Updated the list a bit to make it strictly 1-on-1.