Fortunes is the most common, and playable of the cycle, although Murmurs milling eight is pretty insane in 'Yard decks. This is fine as far as the scale for colourless removal goes.
Redundancy. Also effect cost reducers. One of them the mana spent is directly tied to the # milled, the other is static. I think they're both pretty niche though, and typically will be outclassed in efficiency by dredge cards. But, they remain an option nonetheless.
Also effect cost reducers. One of them the mana spent is directly tied to the # milled, the other is static.
If you enchanted Tower of Murmurs with Power Artifact, milling 8 cards would cost 6 mana.
If you enchanted Sands of Delirium with Power Artifact, milling 8 cards would cost 6 mana.
When activating Sands of Delerium, you choose the value of X, then determine the cost of activating it. In this case, you choose X=8, and determining the cost is 8 - 2 = 6.
It's not like Prossh, Marath, or Jeleva which care how much mana you actually spent. X-cost spells and abilities care what your choice for X was.
Obviously, green has Seedborn Muse and ramp to make this playable, while blue has Training Grounds and often has mana left open at the end of the guy to your right's turn.
This entire cycle exists as a "what you give to artifacts, you give to everyone" reminder. So, let's go through them.
Jokes aside, Eons doesn't even see play in lifegain decks for many reasons.
Tower of Fortunes is the obvious good one. An Opportunity every turn, even at eight mana, is actually good, especially in colors other than blue and black. The question becomes if you can afford to just spend 8. In red or white, you probably will be able to, just because you won't have much else to do once you get to that point. (Which is where your tower comes in!) In green, the answer is "Yes, I can spend 8. And by the way, have you met my girlfriend, Seedborn Muse?" In black, it compares poorly to Necropotence, but everything does, and even really compares poorly to Greed. Blue has Arcanis the Omnipotent and to a lesser extent Azure Mage and Sphinx of Magosi.
Tower of Murmurs is just bad. There are so many better mill cards out there, even as artifacts. Mesmeric Orb comes to mind. Even something as bad as Keening Stone. Sands of Delirium is strictly better. For milling opponents, Sword of Body and Mind. For milling yourself, dredge, if you're in black or green. Next! (Also, why is this mill, which is normally thought of as a blue effect?)
Tower of Calamities is interesting, in that, as I've mentioned, green is the best color to play towers in, and green's lacking in the removal department. This is also great with Stuffy Doll. (If you play Stuffy and Dictate of the Twin Gods, this lets you one-shot someone.) Blue is the other color that gets this high in mana a lot, just because of blue control's playstyle, and blue is also lacking in the removal department. Beyond that, I guess it's good for when your monoblack deck's having trouble with Akroma's Memorial?
Tower of Champions, the green one, is okay, I guess. Maybe in a Voltron deck. It can also help a token deck deal with troublesome blockers. I'd say it's about third. Sultai has Ana Sanctuary. Another option is Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, but it will cost you. Nissa, Genesis Mage can do this, but not every turn.
It's weird that there's no real green option that quite parallels Champions.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
Also effect cost reducers. One of them the mana spent is directly tied to the # milled, the other is static.
If you enchanted Tower of Murmurs with Power Artifact, milling 8 cards would cost 6 mana.
If you enchanted Sands of Delirium with Power Artifact, milling 8 cards would cost 6 mana.
When activating Sands of Delerium, you choose the value of X, then determine the cost of activating it. In this case, you choose X=8, and determining the cost is 8 - 2 = 6.
It's not like Prossh, Marath, or Jeleva which care how much mana you actually spent. X-cost spells and abilities care what your choice for X was.
Huh. #TheMoreYouKnow.
So tower is just the 2nd, albeit less flexible Sands of Delirium, not the other way around.
Fortunes is the most common, and playable of the cycle, although Murmurs milling eight is pretty insane in 'Yard decks. This is fine as far as the scale for colourless removal goes.
Now see, you've gone and made Putrid Imp so very very sad now. You should apologize to him!
I offer my most sincere and heartfelt apologies to the amazing Putrid Imp. I love the Imp, and still play it in most of my reanimator decks. I have a copy that a friend drew a chalice cape and crown on to turn it into the Pimp Imp that I use in decks.
On topic: I've never seen this Tower in play. It seems like a card to at least consider for mono green since the mana to activate it is pretty easily doable in green. Other posters mentioned playing it with Seedborn Muse which is just wrong.
If I wanted expensive repeatable colourless creature removal, I'd go with Predator, Flagship over this. And given how rarely I'd want that, I don't think I need redundancy.
Creatures that replace themselves with something upon death are always worth looking into, but Driver here is rather picky about what he'll allow back. His stats are also far from impressive and at the same time out of Skullclamp range, severely hampering it's playability.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
I run him in Anowon stax and vamps. He returns a number of good camps and helps break symmetry on mass sacrifice effects while benefitting from tribal effects. I could see him in yahenni vamps as well.
His interaction with Apprentice Necromancer is fairly decent if your in the market for long term grinding with death triggers and etb triggers.
Also, what's the story behind this guy? He's a vampire with a sort of menial job transporting dead bodies, and he gets killed for it. I imagine it went like this:
Be me, an Innistrad peasant.
Catch the eye of a cutie 8/10 vamp chick at a party.
She turns me, granting me eternal life and jumping me up to the upper class.
*****s so cash.
Takes me home to meet her "daddy", he doesn't like me, beats the ***** out of me, berates her for siring a goat Herder, then kicks me out.
No job, no gf, no heartbeat, this sucks.
No other vamps want me, I have to go back to human society.
*****, the church will stake me.
End up going to Nephalia to look for work.
Church isn't as strong there, plus it rains a lot so I can go out during the day.
Get a job bringing bodies to some guy with weird machines with lighting and *****.
I get to suck the bodies dry because he's going to drain their blood anyway.
Don't arouse suspicion because now I don't have to feed on the living, perfect cover.
Doesn't pay great, but it's an unliving.
One day, the boss tells me to pick a special body, and not to drink the blood.
Guess I'm having hobo for dinner.
Nicer coffin than usual, well dressed, must have been someone important.
My boss meets me at the dropoff, immediately cuts my throat.
Can't move, must have been an enchanted blade.
Hooks me to a device that puts my blood into the dead guy.
Explains that my blood will bring his friend back to life.
FMUL
The Meaning of Life: "M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations"
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Whether its blue players countering your spells, red players burning you out, or combo, if you have a problem with an aspect of Magic's gameplay, you can fix it!
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
This has always been a hair too expensive and it's just a little too large for me to play it. If it was (in order of preference) three CMC, two power, or one toughness, I could probably find a place for it somewhere. As is, it doesn't play nicely enough with other small recursion effects and it's not good enough to play on its own merits. It might be worth revisiting with all of the new vampire tribal support in the last few months, though I suspect it's going to be just as clunky.
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[Pr]Jaya | Estrid | A rotating cast of decks built out of my box.
He can be useful with a small number of cheap creatures with ETB triggers or sac triggers. Just minor things like Elvish Visionary. Don't expect too much out of him, though.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
This was in my wife's Mirri the Cursed Vamps Tribal deck at the very start, but it rarely did work. The deck had an artistocrat subtheme but rarely did things die often enough in the right order for this to matter. Now that we have even more extremely powerful Vamps in the 3-5 drop range, it's a tough sell. For a more grindy Vamps deck, however, I can see it, but that's limited to Anowon and sometimes Yehenni. I give it a 4/10 as even in deck where it shines it'll be amongst the weaker cards in the list.
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Sufferer of EDHD
Commander - Currently Playing: RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G) RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B) WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
Renegade rallier is like the better version of Driver of the Dead. Not only you can Sun Titan Rallier but you can also recur stuff like Animate Dead and lands. I think Driver can still slot into non abzan X builds though.
Renegade rallier is like the better version of Driver of the Dead. Not only you can Sun Titan Rallier but you can also recur stuff like Animate Dead and lands. I think Driver can still slot into non abzan X builds though.
It only works if you have a good amount of dragons, though with just 2 dragons on hand once you get this bad boy out, you should have enough power to either spot remove everything you need, or a fat enough flyer to make everyone scared. Problem is, ever since this card's been released we've had many more dragons who can remove other things from the field, most of which better than this, so it falls to the wayside.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Redundancy. Also effect cost reducers. One of them the mana spent is directly tied to the # milled, the other is static. I think they're both pretty niche though, and typically will be outclassed in efficiency by dredge cards. But, they remain an option nonetheless.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
If you enchanted Sands of Delirium with Power Artifact, milling 8 cards would cost 6 mana.
When activating Sands of Delerium, you choose the value of X, then determine the cost of activating it. In this case, you choose X=8, and determining the cost is 8 - 2 = 6.
It's not like Prossh, Marath, or Jeleva which care how much mana you actually spent. X-cost spells and abilities care what your choice for X was.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Obviously, green has Seedborn Muse and ramp to make this playable, while blue has Training Grounds and often has mana left open at the end of the guy to your right's turn.
This entire cycle exists as a "what you give to artifacts, you give to everyone" reminder. So, let's go through them.
Tower of Eons reminds me of an old joke.
Worst Card in the Cycle 2WW
Sorcery
The same as the rest of the cycle, but with lifegain instead of something useful.
(This isn't entirely fair. Lifesmith is green.)
Jokes aside, Eons doesn't even see play in lifegain decks for many reasons.
Tower of Fortunes is the obvious good one. An Opportunity every turn, even at eight mana, is actually good, especially in colors other than blue and black. The question becomes if you can afford to just spend 8. In red or white, you probably will be able to, just because you won't have much else to do once you get to that point. (Which is where your tower comes in!) In green, the answer is "Yes, I can spend 8. And by the way, have you met my girlfriend, Seedborn Muse?" In black, it compares poorly to Necropotence, but everything does, and even really compares poorly to Greed. Blue has Arcanis the Omnipotent and to a lesser extent Azure Mage and Sphinx of Magosi.
Tower of Murmurs is just bad. There are so many better mill cards out there, even as artifacts. Mesmeric Orb comes to mind. Even something as bad as Keening Stone. Sands of Delirium is strictly better. For milling opponents, Sword of Body and Mind. For milling yourself, dredge, if you're in black or green. Next! (Also, why is this mill, which is normally thought of as a blue effect?)
Tower of Calamities is interesting, in that, as I've mentioned, green is the best color to play towers in, and green's lacking in the removal department. This is also great with Stuffy Doll. (If you play Stuffy and Dictate of the Twin Gods, this lets you one-shot someone.) Blue is the other color that gets this high in mana a lot, just because of blue control's playstyle, and blue is also lacking in the removal department. Beyond that, I guess it's good for when your monoblack deck's having trouble with Akroma's Memorial?
Tower of Champions, the green one, is okay, I guess. Maybe in a Voltron deck. It can also help a token deck deal with troublesome blockers. I'd say it's about third. Sultai has Ana Sanctuary. Another option is Kamahl, Fist of Krosa, but it will cost you. Nissa, Genesis Mage can do this, but not every turn.
It's weird that there's no real green option that quite parallels Champions.
On phasing:
I like how they made it work with the flavour text.
Huh. #TheMoreYouKnow.
So tower is just the 2nd, albeit less flexible Sands of Delirium, not the other way around.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I offer my most sincere and heartfelt apologies to the amazing Putrid Imp. I love the Imp, and still play it in most of my reanimator decks. I have a copy that a friend drew a chalice cape and crown on to turn it into the Pimp Imp that I use in decks.
On topic: I've never seen this Tower in play. It seems like a card to at least consider for mono green since the mana to activate it is pretty easily doable in green. Other posters mentioned playing it with Seedborn Muse which is just wrong.
amazingly epic sig courtesy of DarkNightCavalier at Heroes of the Planes.
Creatures that replace themselves with something upon death are always worth looking into, but Driver here is rather picky about what he'll allow back. His stats are also far from impressive and at the same time out of Skullclamp range, severely hampering it's playability.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
His interaction with Apprentice Necromancer is fairly decent if your in the market for long term grinding with death triggers and etb triggers.
Also, what's the story behind this guy? He's a vampire with a sort of menial job transporting dead bodies, and he gets killed for it. I imagine it went like this:
Be me, an Innistrad peasant.
Catch the eye of a cutie 8/10 vamp chick at a party.
She turns me, granting me eternal life and jumping me up to the upper class.
*****s so cash.
Takes me home to meet her "daddy", he doesn't like me, beats the ***** out of me, berates her for siring a goat Herder, then kicks me out.
No job, no gf, no heartbeat, this sucks.
No other vamps want me, I have to go back to human society.
*****, the church will stake me.
End up going to Nephalia to look for work.
Church isn't as strong there, plus it rains a lot so I can go out during the day.
Get a job bringing bodies to some guy with weird machines with lighting and *****.
I get to suck the bodies dry because he's going to drain their blood anyway.
Don't arouse suspicion because now I don't have to feed on the living, perfect cover.
Doesn't pay great, but it's an unliving.
One day, the boss tells me to pick a special body, and not to drink the blood.
Guess I'm having hobo for dinner.
Nicer coffin than usual, well dressed, must have been someone important.
My boss meets me at the dropoff, immediately cuts my throat.
Can't move, must have been an enchanted blade.
Hooks me to a device that puts my blood into the dead guy.
Explains that my blood will bring his friend back to life.
FMUL
Onering's 4 simple steps that let you solve any problem with Magic's gameplay
Step 1: Identify the problem. What aspect of Magic don't you like? Step 2: Find out how others deal with the problem. How do players deal with this aspect of the game when they run into it? Step 3: Do what those players do. Step 4: No more problem. Bonus: You are now better at Magic. Enjoy those extra wins!
(U/B)(U/B)(U/B) JUMP IN THE LINE, ROCK YOUR BODY IN TIME
(R/W)(R/W)(R/W) RISING FROM THE NEON GLOOM, SHINING LIKE A CRAZY MOON
(U/R)(R/G)(G/U) STEALIN' WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN BUYIN'
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
On phasing:
RCRDaretti: Superfriends Forever RCR
WGBDoran: Ent-mootWBG
GGGMultani: Group Bear HugGGG
GB(B/G)The Gitrog Monster: Dredgefall DurdleGB(B/G)
RGWGahiji, the Honored Group Hug MonsterRGW
UB(U/B)Yuriko, Ninja Trinket AggroUB(U/B)
WUBRGAtogatog: Assembling a OHKOWUBRG
Also Bishop of Rebirth for just attacking.
[Primer] Erebos, God of the Dead
HONK HONK
Can also combo with Saffi Eriksdotter, thought it is pretty far down the list of cards that combo with Saffi.
8.RG Green Devotion Ramp/Combo 9.UR Draw Triggers 10.WUR Group stalling 11.WUR Voltron Spellslinger 12.WB Sacrificial Shenanigans
13.BR Creatureless Panharmonicon 14.BR Pingers and Eldrazi 15.URG Untapped Cascading
16.Reyhan, last of the Abzan's WUBG +1/+1 Counter Craziness 17.WUBRG Dragons aka Why did I make this?
Building: The Gitrog Monster lands, Glissa the Traitor stax, Muldrotha, the Gravetide Planeswalker Combo, Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix + Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa Clues, and Tribal Scarecrow Planeswalkers
Kilnmouth Dragon
It only works if you have a good amount of dragons, though with just 2 dragons on hand once you get this bad boy out, you should have enough power to either spot remove everything you need, or a fat enough flyer to make everyone scared. Problem is, ever since this card's been released we've had many more dragons who can remove other things from the field, most of which better than this, so it falls to the wayside.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan
He wouldn't be a bad Ur Dragon target. Draw 3 or 4 cards..pop him down and reveal all the dragons you just drew.
Dragons of Legend, Lead by Scion of the UR-Dragon
The Gitrog Monster
Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Shogun Saskia
Hive World
Atraxa hates fun
Abzan