I don't really see how that would solve my issue with her as a commander? If anything it would make it worse.
Also all the creatures with that ability are p bad.
I was just curious, being able to dome someone for 40 Commander damage sounds pretty deadly.
Not really necessary if you can set their life total to 1 with an unblockable unkillable commander (with aetherling).
At any rate making the commander MORE deadly isn't really what I'm interested in. I'm mostly thinking about when to get different abilities to avoid becoming the archenemy too quickly. That may not be something Mairsil can really do, though, maybe she's just too gross. Not really being helped by the combos people are finding either, outside of the already nasty repeatable boardwipes, unkillability, and life-total-setting.
Also I don't even know what to do with this but here it is: Dominating Licid - So we turn our commander into an aura and put him on someone. But he only loses that one ability so I think we still get to keep all the others, we're just not a creature anymore? If we have exiled an equipment, can we move ourselves around with the equip cost now that we aren't an creature anymore?
There's a bunch of old licids. Dominating is definitely the best. Idk how the rules work yet but it seems intriguing lol.
He would become an aura, but not gain control of the enchanted creature. The licid text is a static ability on the licid and not part of its ability. Stops being a creature and can still tap to do things though if it can untap.
Also I don't even know what to do with this but here it is: Dominating Licid - So we turn our commander into an aura and put him on someone. But he only loses that one ability so I think we still get to keep all the others, we're just not a creature anymore? If we have exiled an equipment, can we move ourselves around with the equip cost now that we aren't an creature anymore?
There's a bunch of old licids. Dominating is definitely the best. Idk how the rules work yet but it seems intriguing lol.
He would become an aura, but not gain control of the enchanted creature. The licid text is a static ability on the licid and not part of its ability. Stops being a creature and can still tap to do things though if it can untap.
Ah good call, it was errata'ed like that in the oracle text. Ok licids are a no-go then.
I think aethering is too versatile not to use, but it does kind of paint a target on your head because killing you is the only real way to deal with Mairsil short of sudden death into forbid or something. And then stuff like disk and tree are really strong but also really target-painty. Which is fine if you're into that thing, but I don't love decks that immediately force an archenemy situation, I'd rather play politics and exhaust my opponents' resources a bit.
Or Containment Priest, a card which pretty much every white deck plays. Or Linvala, Keeper of Silence. Or lay down a Torpor Orb/Hushwing Gryff before Marsail gets underway. Or Trickbind. Or just having two removal spells/abilities, any two will do, as long as you can respond to him activating the ability the first time.
I seriously doubt the problem with mairsil will be that he is too strong. All these tricks are cool but the fact of the matter is mairsil by himself is a vanilla 4/4 with absolutely no protection. He requires other cards to be anything more then that. And he pretty much demands a deck built around himself and his ability which means your achilles heel is staring your opponents in the face. Deal with him and the deck is dead.
To me the biggest issue reading all this is just how much work it takes to get mairsil to be anything other then a vanilla 4/4. I mean even the aetherling suggestion means that for the price of 6 mana (mairsil + Demonic Tutor) and a card you've managed to get him to impactful state. He now has protection (assuming you can always keep a stock of blue mana handy and none of those other cards are in play) and can put someone on a 3 turn clock for 4 mana a turn. The reality is that with 8 or so mana and a demonic tutor many strong commanders would be winning the game, or at least knocking off a player that turn.
And then yea the archenemy effect does make it even worse. People will absolutely see this state and react unreasonably strongly against it. And worse they will continue to react unreasonably strongly even once they successfully get rid of mairsil because they know that caging a card is forever. So they will continue to treat you like an archenemy until you are dead, even though your position isn't actually as strong as their impression.
Idk I really am struggling with how to build this deck in a way that is actually fun for me and my opponents.
I got to play a couple games with Mairsil and here's my takeaways.
The thing I dislike about Mairsil is that he (she? everyone's saying he but frankly I'm not sure) wears his power on his sleeve. For my build, I tutored up aetherling ASAP, which already means he's almost unkillable. Then you add in something like disk combo or tree of perdition or whatever, and suddenly you're #1 threat very quickly.
That seems inevitable, no? Any creature with combo potential at the same time difficult to kill is going to be a hate target, much like Derevi with hers. I kinda accepted that Mairsil will draw hate even if I build him purely for commander damage, because people will expect combo from his deck no matter what, and expect to see cards like Necrotic Ooze close behind. People can always sub in Containment Priest and Pithing Needle to ease the pain.
I am trying now to figure if there is a good way to get Energy going with him because there are some interesting activated energy cards, however most of the ways to gain energy is through ETB which kinda backfires the whole enterprise.
I am thinking of a lean Voltron control build for Marisil. Cards I want to try:
Defense: Aetherling – Obvious, ramps up caged cards, protects, and gives unblockable. Argent Sphinx – Mini aetherling without unblockable. Rainbow Efreet – Phasing has its advantages also, depending on equips and auras.
Pumps: Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief – Nice fire-breathing ability mixed with a control effect, where usual fire-breathing typically doesn’t work. Hoard-Smelter Dragon – Similar ability for artifact destruction. Volrath the Fallen – Another strong pump, helps fuel the graveyard. Wine of Blood and Iron – Strong uncaged due to multiple activations, then is ok caged afterwards if you have a blink effect.
Removal: Spikeshot Elder – About the most mana-efficient I have found that doesn’t require tapping, but limited. Memnarch – Really strong for board control. Olivia Voldaren – Creature-only version of the above.
Misc Facilitating Cards: Illusionist’s Bracers – Solid inclusion for when things get going. Training Grounds – I always love this card for generals with activated abilities.
So far pretty obvious, but the idea is that you can get very resilient commander with very little deck-space commitment, then leverage that into keeping stuff off your back.
I can see where the target-painting considerations some from also. But, I have never really found a satisfactory way to predict or deflect the bad threat assessment of other players, which is really what this boils down to. If they think you are going to combo off just because you have a [c]Aetherling[c] in your graveyard, then they didn’t read the card. And if game after game they wrongly see your deck as one that will win on untap, then you’ve got a playgroup issue.
But if they rightly assess the threat level of the deck and you don’t like playing from ahead, then that’s just playing the game. Maybe a Commander that gradually increases in power and can be difficult to kill isn’t your style.
According to Eli Shiffrin (rules manager), the Quicksilver Elemental trick doesn't work. I'd like to know the reasoning behind the ruling because it doesn't seem like the way that interaction should work, but he's the final word on the matter.
You can still go infinite because activating the Elemental's ability gives you another use of the ability, but you need a way to produce an additional U with each loop. It cuts down on the possible mana abilities drastically.
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According to Eli Shiffrin (rules manager), the Quicksilver Elemental trick doesn't work. I'd like to know the reasoning behind the ruling because it doesn't seem like the way that interaction should work, but he's the final word on the matter.
You can still go infinite because activating the Elemental's ability gives you another use of the ability, but you need a way to produce an additional U with each loop. It cuts down on the possible mana abilities drastically.
Can someone point to the part of the Comp Rules that makes this clear? Or is this another case of "Oh wait, Marath's X can't be zero!" syndrome?
10/4/2004 If you make two copies of an ability that can be activated once a turn, you can activate each of them once a turn.
Might have something to do with it that no one really looked into?
This is referring to abilities who already have "once per turn" text embedded into them. For example, Steel Hellkite would be a card affected by this ruling. However, keep in mind that Mairsil does not give each caged ability the "once per turn" limitation. Mairsil's static ability is what creates the restriction.
The copied set with simply the abilities as read on the caged cards. Since the static ability references only abilities sourced from cards with cage counters, the copied set is exempt.
According to Eli Shiffrin (rules manager), the Quicksilver Elemental trick doesn't work. I'd like to know the reasoning behind the ruling because it doesn't seem like the way that interaction should work, but he's the final word on the matter.
You can still go infinite because activating the Elemental's ability gives you another use of the ability, but you need a way to produce an additional U with each loop. It cuts down on the possible mana abilities drastically.
Or let a living Elemental copies Mairsil, that way the restriction would not be there.
Apparently, according to the rules manager of MTG, Quicksilver doesn't work the way we want it to.
It provides a new set of abilities, but those abilities still have the once per turn clause.
In order to get multiple activations, we'd need to blue Mana to refresh each ability
Yeah, this sucks, card would have been great without that.
The claim is that "The restrictions are part of the abilities that are gained. The static ability makes that so." Which doesn't actually make sense in the rules as written (or the card's wording), but I guess that is what was "intended."
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Apparently, according to the rules manager of MTG, Quicksilver doesn't work the way we want it to.
It provides a new set of abilities, but those abilities still have the once per turn clause.
In order to get multiple activations, we'd need to blue Mana to refresh each ability
Yeah, this sucks, card would have been great without that.
The claim is that "The restrictions are part of the abilities that are gained. The static ability makes that so." Which doesn't actually make sense in the rules as written (or the card's wording), but I guess that is what was "intended."
So it pretty much is a subtle case of Marath, Will of the Wild. That's fine, I'm still building the deck, but here's a piece of apparent cognitive dissonance that is going to bother me, lol.
For what it is worth, this interaction is generating some interesting discussion in the rules forum, and it seems the M:tG rules manager is getting just a little pushback on Twitter.
Acc. to this ruling, Mairsil can go infinite provided you can float 3 mana (1 blue) per each tap?
If I copy Mairsil's abilities with a 'live' Elemental, will that elemental still suffer from the once per turn rule?
If you're trying to go truly infinite this probably doesn't matter but it's better then that. Lets say Marsail has only Quicksilver Elemental caged for simplicity sake, nothing else. When you activate the ability the marsail has another instance of the activated ability copying ability. Essentially he now says: U: ~ gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn U: ~ gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn
If you then activate the second one then you get a copy of both of those abilities, so now marsail has 4 copies of that activated ability, two of which are used up. Next time he gets 8, then 16, etc. etc.
This same logic applies to all the other activated abilities on the card as well. So you don't actually have to activate the quicksilver ability once per usage of another activated ability. The rate he copies any activated abilities he has is exponential. You can probably be functionally infinite after like 5 or 6 activations, 7 or 8 tops.
10/4/2004 If you make two copies of an ability that can be activated once a turn, you can activate each of them once a turn.
Might have something to do with it that no one really looked into?
This is referring to abilities who already have "once per turn" text embedded into them. For example, Steel Hellkite would be a card affected by this ruling. However, keep in mind that Mairsil does not give each caged ability the "once per turn" limitation. Mairsil's static ability is what creates the restriction.
The copied set with simply the abilities as read on the caged cards. Since the static ability references only abilities sourced from cards with cage counters, the copied set is exempt.
The static ability is what puts those abilities on the card at all. In order to copy those abilities, just like copying a cloned creature, we copy them as they exist as modified by any copy effects. Marsil's static ability is a copy effect being applied to the those abilities, so any cloning of those abilities will necessarily have the same restriction.
There's a reason I brought up the concern that it might not work that way a bit ago. It's similar to how Experiment Kraj copying a Quicksilver Elemental's activated abilities gets the "can spend blue mana as though it were of any color" clause. Yes, it was previously a corner case interaction, but it does still work consistently with how the rules have been applied to this point. There's no emergency errata involved.
Edit: The exponential copies of the abilities trick does work, though. putting 7 blue mana into it gets you 128 copies of your abilities, which is at the very least a very good rate of return. Hmm... assuming we have some way to make Marsil tap for U, how much initial investment would we need to have him go infinite? I'm thinking it would only be 2-3 initial blue, before you started producing enough mana/untaps to break even, and then start profiting. In fact, I think it might be 2 blue, as then you'd have 4 copies of the abilities, two unused, so you could tap for 2, use half of that to untap, tap for a U, untap with the other half, and then use the blue to create 4 more abilities.
I am actually more pleased by this ruling than disappointed. I would have played this general even if it had been just a Morphling in Grixis, and didn’t need all the extra hate from being labeled a “combo” general. Besides, doing the combo enough times gets tired, and then dialing back from there never seems like something I want to do.
Heck, it might get boring just tutoring for Aetherling every game, but at least there is more to it after that.
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At any rate making the commander MORE deadly isn't really what I'm interested in. I'm mostly thinking about when to get different abilities to avoid becoming the archenemy too quickly. That may not be something Mairsil can really do, though, maybe she's just too gross. Not really being helped by the combos people are finding either, outside of the already nasty repeatable boardwipes, unkillability, and life-total-setting.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
He would become an aura, but not gain control of the enchanted creature. The licid text is a static ability on the licid and not part of its ability. Stops being a creature and can still tap to do things though if it can untap.
Ah good call, it was errata'ed like that in the oracle text. Ok licids are a no-go then.
Or Containment Priest, a card which pretty much every white deck plays. Or Linvala, Keeper of Silence. Or lay down a Torpor Orb/Hushwing Gryff before Marsail gets underway. Or Trickbind. Or just having two removal spells/abilities, any two will do, as long as you can respond to him activating the ability the first time.
I seriously doubt the problem with mairsil will be that he is too strong. All these tricks are cool but the fact of the matter is mairsil by himself is a vanilla 4/4 with absolutely no protection. He requires other cards to be anything more then that. And he pretty much demands a deck built around himself and his ability which means your achilles heel is staring your opponents in the face. Deal with him and the deck is dead.
To me the biggest issue reading all this is just how much work it takes to get mairsil to be anything other then a vanilla 4/4. I mean even the aetherling suggestion means that for the price of 6 mana (mairsil + Demonic Tutor) and a card you've managed to get him to impactful state. He now has protection (assuming you can always keep a stock of blue mana handy and none of those other cards are in play) and can put someone on a 3 turn clock for 4 mana a turn. The reality is that with 8 or so mana and a demonic tutor many strong commanders would be winning the game, or at least knocking off a player that turn.
And then yea the archenemy effect does make it even worse. People will absolutely see this state and react unreasonably strongly against it. And worse they will continue to react unreasonably strongly even once they successfully get rid of mairsil because they know that caging a card is forever. So they will continue to treat you like an archenemy until you are dead, even though your position isn't actually as strong as their impression.
Idk I really am struggling with how to build this deck in a way that is actually fun for me and my opponents.
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That seems inevitable, no? Any creature with combo potential at the same time difficult to kill is going to be a hate target, much like Derevi with hers. I kinda accepted that Mairsil will draw hate even if I build him purely for commander damage, because people will expect combo from his deck no matter what, and expect to see cards like Necrotic Ooze close behind. People can always sub in Containment Priest and Pithing Needle to ease the pain.
Mairsil is he, btw. :3
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
If you are running a lot of counterspells, the blue requirement gets heavy. I like Cavern Harpy more because it only requires life to save Mairsil.
Aetherling's upside is that the ability does allow for more cages. My list is fairly tight, so I took out Aetherling in favor of Harpy.
Defense:
Aetherling – Obvious, ramps up caged cards, protects, and gives unblockable.
Argent Sphinx – Mini aetherling without unblockable.
Rainbow Efreet – Phasing has its advantages also, depending on equips and auras.
Pumps:
Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief – Nice fire-breathing ability mixed with a control effect, where usual fire-breathing typically doesn’t work.
Hoard-Smelter Dragon – Similar ability for artifact destruction.
Volrath the Fallen – Another strong pump, helps fuel the graveyard.
Wine of Blood and Iron – Strong uncaged due to multiple activations, then is ok caged afterwards if you have a blink effect.
Spell Interaction:
Nivix Guildmage – a Reiterate in the Command Zone is great, also Izzet Guildmage as a limited version.
Uyo, Silent Prophet – On the fence about it, but looks good.
Pyromancer’s Goggles – Can do a lot of work, depending on build.
Removal:
Spikeshot Elder – About the most mana-efficient I have found that doesn’t require tapping, but limited.
Memnarch – Really strong for board control.
Olivia Voldaren – Creature-only version of the above.
Misc Facilitating Cards:
Illusionist’s Bracers – Solid inclusion for when things get going.
Training Grounds – I always love this card for generals with activated abilities.
So far pretty obvious, but the idea is that you can get very resilient commander with very little deck-space commitment, then leverage that into keeping stuff off your back.
I can see where the target-painting considerations some from also. But, I have never really found a satisfactory way to predict or deflect the bad threat assessment of other players, which is really what this boils down to. If they think you are going to combo off just because you have a [c]Aetherling[c] in your graveyard, then they didn’t read the card. And if game after game they wrongly see your deck as one that will win on untap, then you’ve got a playgroup issue.
But if they rightly assess the threat level of the deck and you don’t like playing from ahead, then that’s just playing the game. Maybe a Commander that gradually increases in power and can be difficult to kill isn’t your style.
You can still go infinite because activating the Elemental's ability gives you another use of the ability, but you need a way to produce an additional U with each loop. It cuts down on the possible mana abilities drastically.
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Might have something to do with it that no one really looked into?
This is referring to abilities who already have "once per turn" text embedded into them. For example, Steel Hellkite would be a card affected by this ruling. However, keep in mind that Mairsil does not give each caged ability the "once per turn" limitation. Mairsil's static ability is what creates the restriction.
The copied set with simply the abilities as read on the caged cards. Since the static ability references only abilities sourced from cards with cage counters, the copied set is exempt.
Or let a living Elemental copies Mairsil, that way the restriction would not be there.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
It provides a new set of abilities, but those abilities still have the once per turn clause.
In order to get multiple activations, we'd need to blue Mana to refresh each ability
Yeah, this sucks, card would have been great without that.
The claim is that "The restrictions are part of the abilities that are gained. The static ability makes that so." Which doesn't actually make sense in the rules as written (or the card's wording), but I guess that is what was "intended."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
For what it is worth, this interaction is generating some interesting discussion in the rules forum, and it seems the M:tG rules manager is getting just a little pushback on Twitter.
Draft my Mono-Blue Cube!
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Acc. to this ruling, Mairsil can go infinite provided you can float 3 mana (1 blue) per each tap?
If I copy Mairsil's abilities with a 'live' Elemental, will that elemental still suffer from the once per turn rule?
If you're trying to go truly infinite this probably doesn't matter but it's better then that. Lets say Marsail has only Quicksilver Elemental caged for simplicity sake, nothing else. When you activate the ability the marsail has another instance of the activated ability copying ability. Essentially he now says:
U: ~ gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn
U: ~ gains all activated abilities of target creature until end of turn
If you then activate the second one then you get a copy of both of those abilities, so now marsail has 4 copies of that activated ability, two of which are used up. Next time he gets 8, then 16, etc. etc.
This same logic applies to all the other activated abilities on the card as well. So you don't actually have to activate the quicksilver ability once per usage of another activated ability. The rate he copies any activated abilities he has is exponential. You can probably be functionally infinite after like 5 or 6 activations, 7 or 8 tops.
There's a reason I brought up the concern that it might not work that way a bit ago. It's similar to how Experiment Kraj copying a Quicksilver Elemental's activated abilities gets the "can spend blue mana as though it were of any color" clause. Yes, it was previously a corner case interaction, but it does still work consistently with how the rules have been applied to this point. There's no emergency errata involved.
Edit: The exponential copies of the abilities trick does work, though. putting 7 blue mana into it gets you 128 copies of your abilities, which is at the very least a very good rate of return. Hmm... assuming we have some way to make Marsil tap for U, how much initial investment would we need to have him go infinite? I'm thinking it would only be 2-3 initial blue, before you started producing enough mana/untaps to break even, and then start profiting. In fact, I think it might be 2 blue, as then you'd have 4 copies of the abilities, two unused, so you could tap for 2, use half of that to untap, tap for a U, untap with the other half, and then use the blue to create 4 more abilities.
This interaction is very weird so I am trying to learn something from it.
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Heck, it might get boring just tutoring for Aetherling every game, but at least there is more to it after that.