Kozilek, the Great Distortion is going to revolutionize the way that I construct my decks and approach endgame multiplayer Magic. In my wildest dreams I would have never imagined that Wizards would someday print an activated ability as heinously degenerate as "0: Counter target spell." I literally have no idea what the Hell they were thinking but this card is going to forever change the way that I look at creature-based finishers in ultra lategame situations.
As some of you are probably aware I like to build multiplayer decks with card draw in mind. The top 3 colors (Blue/Black/Green) are all exceptionally capable of acquiring large quantities of cards while simultaneously being the best colors at getting expensive creatures into play. They're also the colors with the best tutors, the best fixing, the best ramp, the best combos, the best interactions and well the best everything. Wheres before you would often see Blue mages employ the services of a card like Forbid to eventually shut players out of the game the time is fast approaching where we may no longer see such desperate measures. Once OotG is released the big dogs of the format will now have access to unlimited Force of Wills that trade 1-for-1 and for no life. If you thought cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel were oppressive just you wait until people start fielding that. Not only is the "lock" bleeding to all 5 colors but it's going to hit like a freaking Hurricane when it does. This isn't similar to the move from Shock to Lightning Bolt. This is the jump from Whispers of the Muse to Ancestral Recall. You know that feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach when the Blue Tron mage buys Spell Burst back? Or recurs Cryptic Command with Eternal Witness? Or Forbids with buyback with 7 cards in hand? Well get used to it! This is the first (legitimately powerful) colorless Counterspell engine that we've ever seen and it's going to have an enormous impact on the format as far as I can tell. Whereas in the past it was literally "Blue or bust" if you wanted consistent + powerful permission moving forward that'll no longer be the case. Some people might not think that that's a big deal but let me assure you that it is. Going from "we have nothing" to "we can interact with anything in any quantity" is the biggest leap that Wizards could have provided us.
Now, some people are probably thinking to themselves "yeah but how are you drawing all of these cards?" For starters you have broken artifact options such as Skullclamp, Well of Lost Dreams and Mind's Eye which are freaking busted in the right shells. I do realize that many metas follow some sort of B&R list but in formats such as EDH Skullclamp is perfectly legal and Mind's Eye should generally be a safe bet regardless of your restrictions. It's also extremely relevant to note that Mind's Eye's "drawback" is nonexitent with Kozilek in play. You can afford to pay 1 as much as you want because your Force of Wills are both limitless and free. Blue is also a no brainer. Cards like Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Trade Secrets, Consecrated Sphinx, Recurring Insight and hybrids such as Sire of Stagnation are all perfectly capable of drawing ridiculous amounts of cards. Going back to the Mind's Eye example, Mystic Remora reaps the same rewards. Whereas before paying mana to keep it around was a drawback that stops being the case when your interaction is free. Moreover, Blue has always been a strong Cloudpost color because of its ability to dig/draw cards and tutor/recur Artifacts such as Expedition Map. With Black the main card that you'll want to be looking at is Waste Not but to a lesser extent cards like Phyrexian Arena, Geth's Grimoire and Syphon Mind can also lead to some absurd hand sizes. Going back to EDH, for some reason both Necropotence and Necrologia are legal in the format where you start with 40 life. Why? No idea! Needless to say I'm already drawing 20 cards with these and the prospect of drawing into a zillion Force of Wills has me salivating like a dog. Oh, and don't let that "Necrologia in EDH" statement fool you. The last time that I checked Gray Merchant of Asphodel is still a card so gaining a ton of life and using it to draw a throng of cards isn't an especially arduous ordeal. Moreover, Black is the color with access to powerful forms of recursion such as Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Necromancy and more. Oh, did I also forget to mention Necrotic Ooze? Yeah, you can basically just ignore that 10 CMC casting cost because you're never going to pay it. I foresee a lot of Entombing and/or Buried Aliveing and/or Corpse Connoisseuring for this guy in my immediate future. Still, let's put that thought on hold for now and quickly go over Green. The main card that we'll be pairing with Kozibuns here is Greater Good. All it takes is one Lord of Extinction to draw your entire deck but there's countless ways to skin the cat if needed. Xenagos, God of Revels + Kessig Wolf Run also make the thing absurd and even threats such as Caller of the Pack can draw 24 cards fairly easily. Green is also *the* ramp color and between cards like Gaea's Cradle, Crop Rotation, Sylvan Scrying, Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial hitting the requisite 10 mana is trivial. This is even ignoring cards like Survival of the Fittest, Defense of the Heart and Tooth and Nail. Survival of the Fittest is especially cool in EDH since you can bin Kozilek and tutor up a Necrotic Ooze to start protecting your key combos. The main takeaway here is that Green can also draw millions of cards while producing absurd quantities of mana. Otherwise you're mostly looking at hybrid cards such as Sphinx's Revelation and Deathreap Ritual or specific interactions. Things like Blasphemous Act + Swans of Bryn Argoll or absurd mana generation into Blue Sun's Zenith. The idea here is that drawing tons of cards isn't hard at that most colors can do it. What's difficult is then converting that advantage into a match win as frequently as possible in a multiplayer setting.
The emphasis of this thread is to showcase how trivially easy it is to draw ~20 cards and then convert that advantage into a (nearly) automatic win now that Kozilek has been printed. Not "I'm in a strong spot," actual "I can't lose." This isn't a "Forbid lock" that requires 15 mana and 15 spare cards to handle 5 spells. This is "my 20 cards (with more to come) counter 20 spells for free." There is no counterplay. There is no leveraging politics. There is no skill. There is no decision making. Someone either has some crazy expensive removal spell (such as In Garruk's Wake) or you win. That's it. There's absolutely nothing that you can do to beat this card other than pray that your spells that matter somehow work. I cannot stress how oppressive that's going to be in practice. However good you think Kozilek is I can guarantee you that he's ten times better.
Now, some of you might be wondering "why play Kozilek period? Why not use combos and such?" The answer is that you still will. Kozilek doesn't replace tradition combo kills. Rather, he supports them. Combos are scary things to deploy in a multiplayer setting because your plan is to win the game on the spot and so everyone capable of thwarting you will. It's either that or lose which makes it a forced reaction. Should you attempt and fail you'll lose all semblance of pressure and likely find yourself tapped-out and probably defenseless. With your shields down and your resources expent it becomes significantly less risky for other players to initiate their own gambits. This is why you rarely see the "first mover" win since everyone still has all of their interaction and plenty of resources to work with. Kozilek is the perfect card to pair in combo archetypes because he enables you "clear the path" without expending a lot of resources. You can generally use 1 card to cheat him into play (or cast him the fair way) at which point you now have access to limitless countermagic (assuming that you built your deck properly) to defend your future plays and to thwart the relevant moves from your opponents. Should that fail, no big deal, you're down an Animate Dead or a Necrotic Ooze or whatever. That's fine. You're not blown-out, tapped out, down on cards and/or now missing key combo pieces. He's a lot like Void Winnower in the sense that you don't need him to win the game on the spot nor prevent every spell from every opponent. As long as you can prevent enough of the ones that matter then that's more than enough to secure the win. On a related note, can you imagine games in which you Buried Alive for the Eldrazi bros and a Mikaeus, the Unhallowed only to Victimize/Wake the Dead/Living Death them all into play? 50% of their spells are uncastable, the others are easily counterable. The dream!
Obviously we don't know exactly how this new "Wastes" mana will work. If it's an simple as "<> must be paid with colorless mana" then Kozilek is exactly as oppressive that I think he is. 10 mana is perfectly do-able with Cloudpost ramp and beyond that there's plenty of amazing acceleration such as Basalt Monolith and Thran Dynamo that make it a realistic feat for any deck of any color. Ramp decks can and will be able to reliably jam this guy out on turn ~5-6. If, however, he requires <> mana then he loses most of his luster outside of Black. You've probably also noticed that I haven't even given his cast trigger much attention but make no mistake; the thing is sweet. It doesn't matter if you use 2 or 6 cards to ramp him out because you're shooting back up to 7 either way even if he gets countered. Find yourself having to Force of Will/Misdirection him through permission? Who cares? You draw 2 more card anyways! Moreover, unlike his predecessor he naturally protects himself. I legitimately can't remember the last time that I've seen Kozilek, Butcher of Truth do anything other than draw 4 cards and eat a removal spell. That's fine, there's still some decks that happily play him (Animar, Soul of Elements EDH for example), but he's not exactly a powerhouse. The fact that new Kozilek will sometimes protect himself even if you don't have a stock grip is significant value. With respect to "how do I keep all of those cards?" your best bets are Thought Vessel and Reliquary Tower. They were already decent cards in Blue/Black which were already using things like Blue Sun's Zenith and Recurring Insight to draw "all of the cards" so Kozilek is a natural extension to that gameplan.
Q&A from the comments:
Q: How do you account for every card at every CMC slot? A: You don't! While I used some hyperbolic language to analyze the card the reality is that you'll never be able to account for 100% of all card combinations. On a fundamental level your 40/60/100 card deck is literally incapable of answering every threat 1-for-1. The point isn't that Kozilek answers 100% of potential threats 100% of the time. He simply does an amazing job given what he asks of you (which is virtually nothing as far as I'm concerned).
Q: What's so special about Kozilek then if he's beatable? A: Drawing millions of cards in a multiplayer setting is relatively easy and basically any color do it. The difficulty that we currently face is converting that advantage into a win as frequently as possible. The reason why I think that Kozilek is broken is because he's the best 1-card answer currently available when it comes to converting a full grip of cards into a game win. Remember, we're already playing cards like Forbid that enable us to press our advantage in situations where cards and mana are bountiful resources. I personally believe that Kozilek is not only much more powerful but also significantly more reliable. That isn't to say that he'll "never fail," he's simply the best card for a job that's currently in high demand (especially outside of Blue). When you have a lot of cards in hand (and hopefully a fair amount of mana in play) winning is a foregone conclusion as long as you're capable of preventing anything catastrophic from happening. Kozilek does that for every relevant spell from every player (potentially) while simultaneously protecting your own advances.
Q: Where do you focus your curve? A: You don't.
Q: So you don't warp your deck to support it? A: Powerful cards should influence the way in which you build your decks. Look no further than Vintage where roleplayers such as Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop and Oath of Druids dramatically shape the way in which they're constructed. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is "what wins games" and so "warping your deck" isn't an inherently good or bad thing. If it makes sense to do it then do it! While I'm not telling people to blindly add It that Betrays to their builds so that they can counter Iname as One if needed I do think that you should take the ability into consideration. As a random example, rather than playing 4x Slaughter Pact you may instead consider fielding a mix of spells such as Go for the Throat, Snuff Out and Murderous Cut. Rather than going all-in on Mutilate you might consider fielding some Toxic Deluges and Crux of Fates instead. I'm not suggesting that you play bad cards or perfectly split your curve but it doesn't hurt to consider varying your CMCs slightly if it figures to improve your overall win%. It would be silly for anyone to ignore Kozilek during the deckbuilding process but at the same time you're not required to play X amount of 1 drops, 2 drops, etc. nor hit every area of the curve. Just do your thing and play powerful cards while being mindful of the fact that he's in your deck.
Q: So what happens when someone plays X? A: Your Kozilek dies. Or maybe you lose. Or maybe you still win. Who the Hell knows? It's Magic. You're playing a game against 3 other players. If your default assumption is that you're going to win/lose 100% of the time then you're doing something wrong. If someone kills him with In Garruk's Wake, cool, life goes on. Your card was removed by someone else's card. So what? That's not Earth-shattering news; it's a frequent occurrence in the MTG world. People are way too black-and-white when it comes to these kinds of effects. Everything is either "unbeatable" or "useless" with nothing in between. Wanna hear a secret though? Having a full of Force of Wills is really freaking good. When every card in your size 20 hand is both a spell and a Force of Will you'll usually win. That's what matters. If people want to dismiss Kozilek because some random 8 drop "gets you" once every 20 games, let them. Quietly and casually win 13 of the other 19 and politely humor the people trying to explain to you how they could have still beaten you had they drawn X, Y and Z.
That said, I'd be surprised if the card has an impact on my meta.
Not our style and if it does get played it won't get too degenerate or played more often than one in six games.
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In magic there's Harry Dresden, Fizban, Sethra Lavode, Dorotea Senjak and me...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
This card + Blade of Selves = LOL + scoop.
Yeah I know it's not the broken combo, but I just wanted to state it all the same.
TBH, I don't see this card having a huge impact for my group, given that whenever anyone fields a Post deck, Eye of Ugin or Quicksilver Amulet etc., they tend to cop the wrath of the whole table. I know it's not the biggest threat out there, but people just hate Eldrazi with a vengeance around me, and it's not even my fault!!
If our Post players start fielding this, I'd expect they'll be able to fight back a little but easier given the free counter, but that would depend on how big a game it is I guess.
The big thing for me is that Newzilek is fairly easy to cheat into play, since the graveyard shuffle clause is not there. I know that reanimator strategies are probably even less prevelant than 8 posts, but I'm looking at this card with Surivival of the Fittest in the back of my head as countering anything given you have a creature in your deck with the right cost.
The big thing for me is that Newzilek is fairly easy to cheat into play, since the graveyard shuffle clause is not there. I know that reanimator strategies are probably even less prevelant than 8 posts, but I'm looking at this card with Surivival of the Fittest in the back of my head as countering anything given you have a creature in your deck with the right cost.
The best part is that you can bin him with Survival and then tutor up a Necrotic Ooze to bypass the recursion requirement entirely in addition to being able to "tutor up a Force of Will" for 1 mana :D!
Always love your write-ups but I do not understand your exuberance here.
You must have exactly the right cmc card in your hand for this completely game-changing ability do anything at all. How do you ensure this? CMC's range from 0-15, currently. That's quite a spread.. In a multplayer game, I think that becomes even more of a problem.
I look at this as a deckbuilding challenge and, the more I consider it, the less I want to warp my entire deck around this guy. Do you focus on low curve? Do you focus on high end? What else should the deck be doing besides just supporting a finisher's weird new ability? Or, do you just throw in a variety of CMC's and kinda hope for the best? If not, do you then devote further slots to things like Tops such as Counterbalance decks? Will your opponentS just sit and watch you do this? I know mine won't.
I dunno. He's obviously a MONSTER but I just don't see how Kozilek, Butcher of Truth isn't about 100x more dangerous on the board, let alone, more reliable in just killing them quickly.
You asked some good questions that I'm sure others were also thinking. I'm going to structure my responses in such a way that I can add them to my OP. As such, I might not address your questions verbatum and rather focus on something slightly broader in nature.
You must have exactly the right cmc card in your hand for this completely game-changing ability do anything at all. How do you ensure this? CMC's range from 0-15, currently. That's quite a spread.. In a multplayer game, I think that becomes even more of a problem.
Q: How do you account for every card at every CMC slot? A: You don't! While I used some hyperbolic language to analyze the card the reality is that you'll never be able to account for 100% of all card combinations. On a fundamental level your 40/60/100 card deck is literally incapable of answering every threat 1-for-1. The point isn't that Kozilek answers 100% of potential threats 100% of the time.
Q: What's so special about Kozilek then if he's beatable? A: Drawing millions of cards in a multiplayer setting is easy and basically any color do it. The difficulty that we currently face is converting that advantage into a win as frequently as possible. The reason why I think that Kozilek is broken is because he's the best 1-card answer currently available when it comes to converting a full grip of cards into a game win. Remember, we're already playing cards like Forbid that enable us to press our advantage in situations where cards and mana are bountiful resources. I personally believe that Kozilek is not only much more powerful but also significantly more reliable. That isn't to say that he'll "never fail," he's simply the best card for a job that's currently in high demand (especially outside of Blue). When you have a lot of cards in hand (and hopefully a fair amount of mana in play) winning is a foregone conclusion as long as you're able to prevent anything catastrophic from happening. Kozilek does that for every relevant spell from every player (potentially) while simultaneously protecting your own advances.
I look at this as a deckbuilding challenge and, the more I consider it, the less I want to warp my entire deck around this guy. Do you focus on low curve? Do you focus on high end? What else should the deck be doing besides just supporting a finisher's weird new ability? Or, do you just throw in a variety of CMC's and kinda hope for the best? If not, do you then devote further slots to things like Tops such as Counterbalance decks?
Q: Where do you focus your curve? A: You don't.
Q: So you don't warp your deck to support it? A: Powerful cards should influence how you build your decks. Look no further than Vintage where cards like Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop and Oath of Druids dramatically impact the way in which players construct their lists. The only thing that matters the end of the day is "what wins games" so "warping your deck" isn't an inherently good or bad thing. If it makes sense to do it then do it! While I'm not telling people to blindly add It that Betrays to their builds so that they can counter Iname as One if needed I do think that you should take the ability into consideration. As a random example, rather than playing 4x Slaughter Pact you may instead consider fielding a mix of spells such as Go for the Throat, Snuff Out and Murderous Cut. Rather than going all-in on Mutilate you might consider fielding some Toxic Deluges and Crux of Fates instead. I'm not suggesting that you play bad cards or perfectly split your curve but it doesn't hurt to consider varying your CMCs slightly if it figures to improve your overall win%.
Q: So what happens when someone plays X? A: You Kozilek dies. Or maybe you lose. Or maybe you still win. Who the Hell knows? It's Magic. You're playing a game against 3 other players. If your default assumption is that you're going to win/lose 100% of the time then you're doing something wrong. If someone kills him with In Garruk's Wake, cool, life goes on. Your 1 card was killed by someone else's 1 card. It's not the end of the world. People are way too black-and-white when it comes to these kinds of effects. Everything is either "unbeatable" or "useless" with nothing in between. Having a full of Force of Wills is really freaking good. You can and will still lose you you'll usually win. That's what matters.
Will your opponentS just sit and watch you do this? I know mine won't.
I don't really understand these kinds of concerns. Let's say that I jam an early Waste Not/Geth's Grimoire and follow it up with cards like Smallpox, Pox, Delirium Skeins and Death Cloud while controlling the board with cards like Innocent Blood and Massacre. From there I either hardcast or Animate Dead (or any variation thereof) a Kozilek. How is that me sitting back doing nothing? Is that not a reasonably powerful, interactive gameplan?
How about my Green example. Let's exclude Survival of the Fittest (I won't pick all of the low-hanging fruit) and focus on Greater Good. The vast majority of my Green constructed decks plash Red for Kessig Wolf Run and Xenagos, God of Revels. I've discussed this combo extensively in previous posts because it ensures that you'll have a strong anti-control, anti-removal gameplan. The decks that I build aren't do nothing ramp decks. They're 1 drop -> 3 drop -> 6-7 drop decks that curve things like Utopia Sprawl into Basalt Monolith into Sylvan Primordial. By supporting degenerate ramp with broken draw and broken fatties you can make life a living Hell for control players. Their removal is met with Greater Good activations to net ~3 cards on the low-end which eventually spiral to +10 cards. These decks are already easily producing 10 mana on turn 5 and they're already drawing 20 cards per turn if they want. This isn't me warping my decks; this is what I currently have sleeved-up.
None of this is "sit back and do nothing" Magic. This me doing powerful, interactive things and then closing the game out with Kozilek.
I can't help but get excited when I see such powerful cards being printed. First Blade of Selves, then Grasp of Fate and now Kozilek?! That's awesome! Intentionally or not Wizards has done a lot for the MP community over the past few years and I love the trends that I'm seeing. When S tier staples are being pumped out every set it's hard not to spill your guts about all of the awesome ways that you're going to abuse a card :).
all right, so excluding the reanimating option do we know if we need wastes to actually cast it or will any land that produces colorless mana work?
also, since wastes is a basic land type does that change some things with other decks? not really sure which decks might get affected or how just throwing out a general question here.
all right, so excluding the reanimating option do we know if we need wastes to actually cast it or will any land that produces colorless mana work?
also, since wastes is a basic land type does that change some things with other decks? not really sure which decks might get affected or how just throwing out a general question here.
I hope it means "colorless mana", but note how Mirrorpool taps for <> rather than 1. Worrisome. I used to think that a 6th color would be cool but now I think it would just lead to a bunch of cards that will only ever play well among themselves. Kind of like Arcane.
Agreed. If the card requires Wastes mana then he loses most of his luster outside of Black.
He's totally nuts, no doubt about it. This can be a commander. The MOST significantly reductive understanding of him ALONE is ludicrously good, and is INDEED better than original Kozilek. He draws three more cards. That's a deckbuilding constraint that is eminently workable as a card that just goes, oh, whoops I guess two more next time, eh? Every mana rock and ramper in the world says yes, have some. He ACTUALLY closes out on 21 damage, is why. He is less likely to bite the dust than an eminently targetable original Kozilek who was more "value" oriented thereby. This guy... just kills you. Absolutely correct. Not WAY too good. That's a BIT exuberant, only.
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"Warning: Um, warning. This is going to be a game state violation. And a taking extra turns and drawing extra cards violation, pretty much, a whole bunch of violations. Look at me, I'm the DCI."
As some of you are probably aware I like to build multiplayer decks with card draw in mind. The top 3 colors (Blue/Black/Green) are all exceptionally capable of acquiring large quantities of cards while simultaneously being the best colors at getting expensive creatures into play. They're also the colors with the best tutors, the best fixing, the best ramp, the best combos, the best interactions and well the best everything. Wheres before you would often see Blue mages employ the services of a card like Forbid to eventually shut players out of the game the time is fast approaching where we may no longer see such desperate measures. Once OotG is released the big dogs of the format will now have access to unlimited Force of Wills that trade 1-for-1 and for no life. If you thought cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel were oppressive just you wait until people start fielding that. Not only is the "lock" bleeding to all 5 colors but it's going to hit like a freaking Hurricane when it does. This isn't similar to the move from Shock to Lightning Bolt. This is the jump from Whispers of the Muse to Ancestral Recall. You know that feeling that you get in the pit of your stomach when the Blue Tron mage buys Spell Burst back? Or recurs Cryptic Command with Eternal Witness? Or Forbids with buyback with 7 cards in hand? Well get used to it! This is the first (legitimately powerful) colorless Counterspell engine that we've ever seen and it's going to have an enormous impact on the format as far as I can tell. Whereas in the past it was literally "Blue or bust" if you wanted consistent + powerful permission moving forward that'll no longer be the case. Some people might not think that that's a big deal but let me assure you that it is. Going from "we have nothing" to "we can interact with anything in any quantity" is the biggest leap that Wizards could have provided us.
Now, some people are probably thinking to themselves "yeah but how are you drawing all of these cards?" For starters you have broken artifact options such as Skullclamp, Well of Lost Dreams and Mind's Eye which are freaking busted in the right shells. I do realize that many metas follow some sort of B&R list but in formats such as EDH Skullclamp is perfectly legal and Mind's Eye should generally be a safe bet regardless of your restrictions. It's also extremely relevant to note that Mind's Eye's "drawback" is nonexitent with Kozilek in play. You can afford to pay 1 as much as you want because your Force of Wills are both limitless and free. Blue is also a no brainer. Cards like Mystic Remora, Rhystic Study, Trade Secrets, Consecrated Sphinx, Recurring Insight and hybrids such as Sire of Stagnation are all perfectly capable of drawing ridiculous amounts of cards. Going back to the Mind's Eye example, Mystic Remora reaps the same rewards. Whereas before paying mana to keep it around was a drawback that stops being the case when your interaction is free. Moreover, Blue has always been a strong Cloudpost color because of its ability to dig/draw cards and tutor/recur Artifacts such as Expedition Map. With Black the main card that you'll want to be looking at is Waste Not but to a lesser extent cards like Phyrexian Arena, Geth's Grimoire and Syphon Mind can also lead to some absurd hand sizes. Going back to EDH, for some reason both Necropotence and Necrologia are legal in the format where you start with 40 life. Why? No idea! Needless to say I'm already drawing 20 cards with these and the prospect of drawing into a zillion Force of Wills has me salivating like a dog. Oh, and don't let that "Necrologia in EDH" statement fool you. The last time that I checked Gray Merchant of Asphodel is still a card so gaining a ton of life and using it to draw a throng of cards isn't an especially arduous ordeal. Moreover, Black is the color with access to powerful forms of recursion such as Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Necromancy and more. Oh, did I also forget to mention Necrotic Ooze? Yeah, you can basically just ignore that 10 CMC casting cost because you're never going to pay it. I foresee a lot of Entombing and/or Buried Aliveing and/or Corpse Connoisseuring for this guy in my immediate future. Still, let's put that thought on hold for now and quickly go over Green. The main card that we'll be pairing with Kozibuns here is Greater Good. All it takes is one Lord of Extinction to draw your entire deck but there's countless ways to skin the cat if needed. Xenagos, God of Revels + Kessig Wolf Run also make the thing absurd and even threats such as Caller of the Pack can draw 24 cards fairly easily. Green is also *the* ramp color and between cards like Gaea's Cradle, Crop Rotation, Sylvan Scrying, Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial hitting the requisite 10 mana is trivial. This is even ignoring cards like Survival of the Fittest, Defense of the Heart and Tooth and Nail. Survival of the Fittest is especially cool in EDH since you can bin Kozilek and tutor up a Necrotic Ooze to start protecting your key combos. The main takeaway here is that Green can also draw millions of cards while producing absurd quantities of mana. Otherwise you're mostly looking at hybrid cards such as Sphinx's Revelation and Deathreap Ritual or specific interactions. Things like Blasphemous Act + Swans of Bryn Argoll or absurd mana generation into Blue Sun's Zenith. The idea here is that drawing tons of cards isn't hard at that most colors can do it. What's difficult is then converting that advantage into a match win as frequently as possible in a multiplayer setting.
The emphasis of this thread is to showcase how trivially easy it is to draw ~20 cards and then convert that advantage into a (nearly) automatic win now that Kozilek has been printed. Not "I'm in a strong spot," actual "I can't lose." This isn't a "Forbid lock" that requires 15 mana and 15 spare cards to handle 5 spells. This is "my 20 cards (with more to come) counter 20 spells for free." There is no counterplay. There is no leveraging politics. There is no skill. There is no decision making. Someone either has some crazy expensive removal spell (such as In Garruk's Wake) or you win. That's it. There's absolutely nothing that you can do to beat this card other than pray that your spells that matter somehow work. I cannot stress how oppressive that's going to be in practice. However good you think Kozilek is I can guarantee you that he's ten times better.
Now, some of you might be wondering "why play Kozilek period? Why not use combos and such?" The answer is that you still will. Kozilek doesn't replace tradition combo kills. Rather, he supports them. Combos are scary things to deploy in a multiplayer setting because your plan is to win the game on the spot and so everyone capable of thwarting you will. It's either that or lose which makes it a forced reaction. Should you attempt and fail you'll lose all semblance of pressure and likely find yourself tapped-out and probably defenseless. With your shields down and your resources expent it becomes significantly less risky for other players to initiate their own gambits. This is why you rarely see the "first mover" win since everyone still has all of their interaction and plenty of resources to work with. Kozilek is the perfect card to pair in combo archetypes because he enables you "clear the path" without expending a lot of resources. You can generally use 1 card to cheat him into play (or cast him the fair way) at which point you now have access to limitless countermagic (assuming that you built your deck properly) to defend your future plays and to thwart the relevant moves from your opponents. Should that fail, no big deal, you're down an Animate Dead or a Necrotic Ooze or whatever. That's fine. You're not blown-out, tapped out, down on cards and/or now missing key combo pieces. He's a lot like Void Winnower in the sense that you don't need him to win the game on the spot nor prevent every spell from every opponent. As long as you can prevent enough of the ones that matter then that's more than enough to secure the win. On a related note, can you imagine games in which you Buried Alive for the Eldrazi bros and a Mikaeus, the Unhallowed only to Victimize/Wake the Dead/Living Death them all into play? 50% of their spells are uncastable, the others are easily counterable. The dream!
Obviously we don't know exactly how this new "Wastes" mana will work. If it's an simple as "<> must be paid with colorless mana" then Kozilek is exactly as oppressive that I think he is. 10 mana is perfectly do-able with Cloudpost ramp and beyond that there's plenty of amazing acceleration such as Basalt Monolith and Thran Dynamo that make it a realistic feat for any deck of any color. Ramp decks can and will be able to reliably jam this guy out on turn ~5-6. If, however, he requires <> mana then he loses most of his luster outside of Black. You've probably also noticed that I haven't even given his cast trigger much attention but make no mistake; the thing is sweet. It doesn't matter if you use 2 or 6 cards to ramp him out because you're shooting back up to 7 either way even if he gets countered. Find yourself having to Force of Will/Misdirection him through permission? Who cares? You draw 2 more card anyways! Moreover, unlike his predecessor he naturally protects himself. I legitimately can't remember the last time that I've seen Kozilek, Butcher of Truth do anything other than draw 4 cards and eat a removal spell. That's fine, there's still some decks that happily play him (Animar, Soul of Elements EDH for example), but he's not exactly a powerhouse. The fact that new Kozilek will sometimes protect himself even if you don't have a stock grip is significant value. With respect to "how do I keep all of those cards?" your best bets are Thought Vessel and Reliquary Tower. They were already decent cards in Blue/Black which were already using things like Blue Sun's Zenith and Recurring Insight to draw "all of the cards" so Kozilek is a natural extension to that gameplan.
Q&A from the comments:
Q: How do you account for every card at every CMC slot?
A: You don't! While I used some hyperbolic language to analyze the card the reality is that you'll never be able to account for 100% of all card combinations. On a fundamental level your 40/60/100 card deck is literally incapable of answering every threat 1-for-1. The point isn't that Kozilek answers 100% of potential threats 100% of the time. He simply does an amazing job given what he asks of you (which is virtually nothing as far as I'm concerned).
Q: What's so special about Kozilek then if he's beatable?
A: Drawing millions of cards in a multiplayer setting is relatively easy and basically any color do it. The difficulty that we currently face is converting that advantage into a win as frequently as possible. The reason why I think that Kozilek is broken is because he's the best 1-card answer currently available when it comes to converting a full grip of cards into a game win. Remember, we're already playing cards like Forbid that enable us to press our advantage in situations where cards and mana are bountiful resources. I personally believe that Kozilek is not only much more powerful but also significantly more reliable. That isn't to say that he'll "never fail," he's simply the best card for a job that's currently in high demand (especially outside of Blue). When you have a lot of cards in hand (and hopefully a fair amount of mana in play) winning is a foregone conclusion as long as you're capable of preventing anything catastrophic from happening. Kozilek does that for every relevant spell from every player (potentially) while simultaneously protecting your own advances.
Q: Where do you focus your curve?
A: You don't.
Q: So you don't warp your deck to support it?
A: Powerful cards should influence the way in which you build your decks. Look no further than Vintage where roleplayers such as Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop and Oath of Druids dramatically shape the way in which they're constructed. At the end of the day the only thing that matters is "what wins games" and so "warping your deck" isn't an inherently good or bad thing. If it makes sense to do it then do it! While I'm not telling people to blindly add It that Betrays to their builds so that they can counter Iname as One if needed I do think that you should take the ability into consideration. As a random example, rather than playing 4x Slaughter Pact you may instead consider fielding a mix of spells such as Go for the Throat, Snuff Out and Murderous Cut. Rather than going all-in on Mutilate you might consider fielding some Toxic Deluges and Crux of Fates instead. I'm not suggesting that you play bad cards or perfectly split your curve but it doesn't hurt to consider varying your CMCs slightly if it figures to improve your overall win%. It would be silly for anyone to ignore Kozilek during the deckbuilding process but at the same time you're not required to play X amount of 1 drops, 2 drops, etc. nor hit every area of the curve. Just do your thing and play powerful cards while being mindful of the fact that he's in your deck.
Q: So what happens when someone plays X?
A: Your Kozilek dies. Or maybe you lose. Or maybe you still win. Who the Hell knows? It's Magic. You're playing a game against 3 other players. If your default assumption is that you're going to win/lose 100% of the time then you're doing something wrong. If someone kills him with In Garruk's Wake, cool, life goes on. Your card was removed by someone else's card. So what? That's not Earth-shattering news; it's a frequent occurrence in the MTG world. People are way too black-and-white when it comes to these kinds of effects. Everything is either "unbeatable" or "useless" with nothing in between. Wanna hear a secret though? Having a full of Force of Wills is really freaking good. When every card in your size 20 hand is both a spell and a Force of Will you'll usually win. That's what matters. If people want to dismiss Kozilek because some random 8 drop "gets you" once every 20 games, let them. Quietly and casually win 13 of the other 19 and politely humor the people trying to explain to you how they could have still beaten you had they drawn X, Y and Z.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
That said, I'd be surprised if the card has an impact on my meta.
Not our style and if it does get played it won't get too degenerate or played more often than one in six games.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Yeah I know it's not the broken combo, but I just wanted to state it all the same.
TBH, I don't see this card having a huge impact for my group, given that whenever anyone fields a Post deck, Eye of Ugin or Quicksilver Amulet etc., they tend to cop the wrath of the whole table. I know it's not the biggest threat out there, but people just hate Eldrazi with a vengeance around me, and it's not even my fault!!
If our Post players start fielding this, I'd expect they'll be able to fight back a little but easier given the free counter, but that would depend on how big a game it is I guess.
It's a Legendary creature and the first trigger is "on cast." How does it combo with Blade?
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
The best part is that you can bin him with Survival and then tutor up a Necrotic Ooze to bypass the recursion requirement entirely in addition to being able to "tutor up a Force of Will" for 1 mana :D!
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
You must have exactly the right cmc card in your hand for this completely game-changing ability do anything at all. How do you ensure this? CMC's range from 0-15, currently. That's quite a spread.. In a multplayer game, I think that becomes even more of a problem.
I look at this as a deckbuilding challenge and, the more I consider it, the less I want to warp my entire deck around this guy. Do you focus on low curve? Do you focus on high end? What else should the deck be doing besides just supporting a finisher's weird new ability? Or, do you just throw in a variety of CMC's and kinda hope for the best? If not, do you then devote further slots to things like Tops such as Counterbalance decks? Will your opponentS just sit and watch you do this? I know mine won't.
I dunno. He's obviously a MONSTER but I just don't see how Kozilek, Butcher of Truth isn't about 100x more dangerous on the board, let alone, more reliable in just killing them quickly.
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Q: How do you account for every card at every CMC slot?
A: You don't! While I used some hyperbolic language to analyze the card the reality is that you'll never be able to account for 100% of all card combinations. On a fundamental level your 40/60/100 card deck is literally incapable of answering every threat 1-for-1. The point isn't that Kozilek answers 100% of potential threats 100% of the time.
Q: What's so special about Kozilek then if he's beatable?
A: Drawing millions of cards in a multiplayer setting is easy and basically any color do it. The difficulty that we currently face is converting that advantage into a win as frequently as possible. The reason why I think that Kozilek is broken is because he's the best 1-card answer currently available when it comes to converting a full grip of cards into a game win. Remember, we're already playing cards like Forbid that enable us to press our advantage in situations where cards and mana are bountiful resources. I personally believe that Kozilek is not only much more powerful but also significantly more reliable. That isn't to say that he'll "never fail," he's simply the best card for a job that's currently in high demand (especially outside of Blue). When you have a lot of cards in hand (and hopefully a fair amount of mana in play) winning is a foregone conclusion as long as you're able to prevent anything catastrophic from happening. Kozilek does that for every relevant spell from every player (potentially) while simultaneously protecting your own advances.
Q: Where do you focus your curve?
A: You don't.
Q: So you don't warp your deck to support it?
A: Powerful cards should influence how you build your decks. Look no further than Vintage where cards like Bazaar of Baghdad, Mishra's Workshop and Oath of Druids dramatically impact the way in which players construct their lists. The only thing that matters the end of the day is "what wins games" so "warping your deck" isn't an inherently good or bad thing. If it makes sense to do it then do it! While I'm not telling people to blindly add It that Betrays to their builds so that they can counter Iname as One if needed I do think that you should take the ability into consideration. As a random example, rather than playing 4x Slaughter Pact you may instead consider fielding a mix of spells such as Go for the Throat, Snuff Out and Murderous Cut. Rather than going all-in on Mutilate you might consider fielding some Toxic Deluges and Crux of Fates instead. I'm not suggesting that you play bad cards or perfectly split your curve but it doesn't hurt to consider varying your CMCs slightly if it figures to improve your overall win%.
Q: So what happens when someone plays X?
A: You Kozilek dies. Or maybe you lose. Or maybe you still win. Who the Hell knows? It's Magic. You're playing a game against 3 other players. If your default assumption is that you're going to win/lose 100% of the time then you're doing something wrong. If someone kills him with In Garruk's Wake, cool, life goes on. Your 1 card was killed by someone else's 1 card. It's not the end of the world. People are way too black-and-white when it comes to these kinds of effects. Everything is either "unbeatable" or "useless" with nothing in between. Having a full of Force of Wills is really freaking good. You can and will still lose you you'll usually win. That's what matters.
I don't really understand these kinds of concerns. Let's say that I jam an early Waste Not/Geth's Grimoire and follow it up with cards like Smallpox, Pox, Delirium Skeins and Death Cloud while controlling the board with cards like Innocent Blood and Massacre. From there I either hardcast or Animate Dead (or any variation thereof) a Kozilek. How is that me sitting back doing nothing? Is that not a reasonably powerful, interactive gameplan?
How about my Green example. Let's exclude Survival of the Fittest (I won't pick all of the low-hanging fruit) and focus on Greater Good. The vast majority of my Green constructed decks plash Red for Kessig Wolf Run and Xenagos, God of Revels. I've discussed this combo extensively in previous posts because it ensures that you'll have a strong anti-control, anti-removal gameplan. The decks that I build aren't do nothing ramp decks. They're 1 drop -> 3 drop -> 6-7 drop decks that curve things like Utopia Sprawl into Basalt Monolith into Sylvan Primordial. By supporting degenerate ramp with broken draw and broken fatties you can make life a living Hell for control players. Their removal is met with Greater Good activations to net ~3 cards on the low-end which eventually spiral to +10 cards. These decks are already easily producing 10 mana on turn 5 and they're already drawing 20 cards per turn if they want. This isn't me warping my decks; this is what I currently have sleeved-up.
None of this is "sit back and do nothing" Magic. This me doing powerful, interactive things and then closing the game out with Kozilek.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
I can't help but get excited when I see such powerful cards being printed. First Blade of Selves, then Grasp of Fate and now Kozilek?! That's awesome! Intentionally or not Wizards has done a lot for the MP community over the past few years and I love the trends that I'm seeing. When S tier staples are being pumped out every set it's hard not to spill your guts about all of the awesome ways that you're going to abuse a card :).
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
also, since wastes is a basic land type does that change some things with other decks? not really sure which decks might get affected or how just throwing out a general question here.
1. No one knows for sure.
2. No one knows for sure.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Agreed. If the card requires Wastes mana then he loses most of his luster outside of Black.
You are 100% correct, my bad. I must have still been in the Force of Will/Misdirection mindset when I wrote that.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Ha ha, whoops. Posting while drinking isn't clever people.
Think I'll wait and see what <> means.
Just tweaking your moustache here.
I don't read everything you write but I appreciate a lot of it.
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.