I'm building a sea monster themed Taniwa deck and as a marine biologist I absolutely love the card; spiny starfish. The flavor of this card is just perfect, for those of you who didn't realise this card was designed to function in the same way as a real world spiny starfish which when cut in half could lead to each half regenerating and becoming their own starfish. So, this card is awesome, from my totally unbiased point of view.
So how do I abuse it?
I know there are many ways to make this card just silly (like blessing of leeches) but I'm struggling to come up with something in mono blue besides day of the dragons but without spiny starfish dragon day is doing nothing in my deck.
While not the best use of the card there are a couple on theme blue pingers, Stinging Barrier and Pirate Ship come to mind, that would let you make more starfish as well.
I know there are many ways to make this card just silly (like blessing of leeches)
From what it sounds like, you might be misinterpreting how the card works. Even though the abilities that say "regenerate [Spiny Starfish]" make it sound like simply resolving them counts toward the number of times the Starfish "regenerated this turn," the nuances of the phrase mean that the number of times it "regenerated this turn" only means the number of times you applied a regeneration shield (the regenerate abilities only create a regeneration shield, despite the wording); that is, the number of times it would have been destroyed but was 'regenerated' instead.
Anyway, that makes it pretty difficult to use, let alone abuse, since you'd probably need to include ways to destroy it on your own (like Prodigal Sorcerer) as well as things to make use of the tokens (e.g. Hall of Triumph), and that's a lot of buildaround for one card that's not your commander.
I used to play Spiny Starfish a long time ago when the regeneration rules were different. Maybe you could try it with Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind as your commander? Maybe pump your tokens with Sunken City? I struggle making the starfish work these days.
You can run Prodigal Sorcerer to ping it. If you're willing to splash red, Nin, the Pain Artist can draw you cards while you're at it. You can probably end up with a pillow fort build since attacking through an army of starfish and Propaganda would be hard to do.
Forget Day of the Dragons, you could Mass Polymorph into bigger sea monsters!
Still into a sea monster theme, Wrexial is a commander that allows you to go U/B.
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Commander:GB Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord (list) - U Talrand, Sky Summoner - GRU Maelstrom Wanderer
The obvious is skullclamp. Well, I mean that's the first thing I think of when I see X/1 tokens. If you want to create an army and go in the red zone with them, Gauntlet of Power, Caged Sun, Adaptive Automaton and Obelisk of Urd are good anthem effects for mono-blue. Also, if you're going aggro with an army of tokens, equipments are generally good (various swords and jitte). Pariah's shield and the various pingers (might I add staff of Nin) were good suggestions.
Blue has any number of effects which force creatures to attack and damn near anything in EDH is going to induce regeneration. Norritt would work over-time in that deck; forcing creatures to attack into the Starfish or untapping it after it regenerates so it can play more defense on the next player's turn.
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You would never guess, at the terrifying sight of the man, that Hunding was as charming a companion as one could wish for.
What .... uh ... what would be on a Starfish coat of arms?
Oh god, please please please find someone to draw a full on Crest for your Starfish deck. Like a genuine coat of arms, except as a starfish. Maybe include a totally legit pineapple.
So how do I abuse it?
I know there are many ways to make this card just silly (like blessing of leeches) but I'm struggling to come up with something in mono blue besides day of the dragons but without spiny starfish dragon day is doing nothing in my deck.
Thoughts?
|One Red Mountain - A adventure in MTG Trading|
From what it sounds like, you might be misinterpreting how the card works. Even though the abilities that say "regenerate [Spiny Starfish]" make it sound like simply resolving them counts toward the number of times the Starfish "regenerated this turn," the nuances of the phrase mean that the number of times it "regenerated this turn" only means the number of times you applied a regeneration shield (the regenerate abilities only create a regeneration shield, despite the wording); that is, the number of times it would have been destroyed but was 'regenerated' instead.
Anyway, that makes it pretty difficult to use, let alone abuse, since you'd probably need to include ways to destroy it on your own (like Prodigal Sorcerer) as well as things to make use of the tokens (e.g. Hall of Triumph), and that's a lot of buildaround for one card that's not your commander.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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PET PEEVES
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Still into a sea monster theme, Wrexial is a commander that allows you to go U/B.
Pauper: UR some horrible homebrew izzet deck
o.O that card is just silly. I like it but it is silly
|One Red Mountain - A adventure in MTG Trading|
otherwise it is far too easy to abuse the tokens.
UB Vela the Night-Clad BUDecklist
WBG Ghave, Guru of Spores GBW
WUBRGThe Ur-DragonWUBRGDecklist
Duh. My bad. Damn errata.
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[edit]: Damn, it says at the end of any turn. Ah well.
Oh god, please please please find someone to draw a full on Crest for your Starfish deck. Like a genuine coat of arms, except as a starfish. Maybe include a totally legit pineapple.