As a general "value card" - as opposed to part of a cascade chain in a dedicated deck - this doesn't really impress me in Commander. You spend 3 mana and get a 0-2 mana spell and a 2/2 body. In a 60 card deck, even without heavily building around it, it still provides good value as the body, while not amazing, can still do a decent bit of work. But here, a 2/2 body is effectively meaningless. So you've basically just gotten a (likely random) spell and thinned your deck a bit. Not really that impressive is it?
A deck that could repeatedly bounce and recast this might get some useful value - of course that's harder and less efficient that simply retriggering the ETB on something like Elvish Visionary - but overall, this ain't an EDH card.
Some decks really want this, though as others have said being blue makes this a nonbo with running good counters. In evil Ezuri he's good, and also in edric for similar reasons. He's also a solid choice for decks that aren't heavy in blue and thus less likely to run lots of cheap counters. I personally rum him in an Akiri/Thrasios deck that runs 25 mana rocks (but no border posts lol) because he is an artifact that slams another rock onto the field 90% of the time, and I can curve right into him from Akiri making he immediately hit for an extra 2. Again, it fits the theme with this guy, not essential to the deck but brings value and makes the deck a little better and a little smoother when he show up. In the right deck, he's a bit like Sad Robot was in the early days of the format, just a bit better as he's cheaper and his effect is a bit stronger.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
I personally prefer to go wide with Impact Tremors rather than going big with this, but there's merits to both strategies. The fact that it targets creatures as well as players can be a big plus, and it makes cards like Ezuri's Predation really scary.
I personally prefer to go wide with Impact Tremors rather than going big with this, but there's merits to both strategies. The fact that it targets creatures as well as players can be a big plus, and it makes cards like Ezuri's Predation really scary.
The only things I'd feel particularly bad about hitting from that list are Cyclonic Rift (can't overload) and Shattering Pulse (if I didn't have mana to buyback open).
Warstorm Surge is worthless in competitive groups that tend to end games with a turn-6 combo, but as I'm one of those barbarians who likes to play creatures and sometimes even turn them sideways, I can tell you, Warstorm Surge has won me an awful lot of games. Solid card. And there's little reason to not play both Warstorm Surge and Impact Tremors in a lot of decks that would want either.
Warstorm Surge also goes infinite with Sekki, Seasons' Guide if you're playing a RG stompy deck. Sweet card, and the yin to Vicious Shadows yang. Hit 'em coming in, hit 'em going out. What could be more Gruul?
Warstorm Surge is fun, and I find myself considering it in awful lot of decks. It is of course a straight-up win condition in Thromok.
Something something big creatures that I like.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
X Hope of Ghirapur Swordpile W Ghosty Blinky Anafenza U Nezahal- Big, Blue and HERE! B Gonti Can Afford It R Etali, Primal 'Whatjusthappened?' G Polukranos Wants More Mana WU The Exalted Vizier Temmet WB Home, Athreos WR Basandra, Recursive Aggression WG Karametra, Momma of Lands UB Wrexial Eats Your Brains UR Arjun, the Mad Flame UG The Fable of Prime Speaker BR Hellbent, Malfegor Style BG Jarad, Death is Served RG Running Thromok WUB Varina and ALL the Zombies WUBYennett, the Odd Pain-Train WUR Zedruu the Furyhearted WUG Arcades' Strategy, Shmategy, Sausage and Spam WBR A Case of Mathas' Persistent F*ckery WBRLicia's League of Legendary Lifegain Layabouts WBG The Karador Advantage PackageWRG Gahiji Rattlesnake Collection UBR Jeleva... does... things UBG Damia's Just Deserts URG Yasova's Has More Power Than Sense BRG Wasitora, Bad Kitty WUBRBreya, Eggs, Breya'd Eggs WUBG Tymna and Kydele, Extended Borrowing WURG Kynaios and Tiro, Landfall Impersonations WBRG Saskia Pet Card EnchantressUBRG Yidris of the Chi-Ting Corporation WUBRG Tazri's Amazing Allies
This is much preferable to Electropotence, because I'd rather pay a lot of mana once than a chunk of mana every time I trigger it. They're both a one-sided Pandemonium of sorts. It's kind of inferior to panda if your job is to end the game on the spot with it, I suppose, but it's got better value. Purphoros, god of the forge is preferable for tokens.
We don't know much about Valla as a plane so far, but the Immersturm seems pretty awesome.
The rare combo card that's usually better off being used fair, because its only 5th beat at its combo job, but the best at its fair use job. Extremely mediocre when looping critters, extremely Timmy good times when resolving Genesis Wave or cranking out fatties, token or otherwise.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Yeah I love it in my Horde of Notions 5 color big stuff deck. Kills creatures and wins the game.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My Decks:
Aggro: WUBRGHorde of Notions Goodstuff, RUBCheesy Aggro, GR Xenagod Gruul Goodstuff
Control: GWBGhave, Guru of Adaptability, UBWrexial, Milling Deep UAzami, Lady of No Infinite Combos GWU Derevi, Tempo Beats
Other: URGRiku of Too Much Mana, WUBRG Sliver Queen Enchantress
We can't talk about Warstorm Surge without mentioning the "friend" that play it with Blightsteel Colossus. It would be funny to use Backlash in response to that Warstorm Surge Trigger.
This has an interesting synergy with Panharmonicon. No, seriously. Say you play Hornet Queen (which curves with Warstorm Surge). Now you get Hornet Queen and 8 insect tokens, and the ability to kill 18 creatures.
Saskia the Unyielding is a fan: Either smash face directly, or smash the walls in the way of smashing face.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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!
Repeatable mass removal. It deserves to be seen more often than I see it, but I'm glad that I don't have to deal with this too often. I like my little dudes.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
Pestilence is amazing. If you don't mind losing life and creatures yourself and can reliably have a creature online eot, this is brutal. Bontu the Glorified, Myojin of Night's Reach and Yahenni, Undying Partisan seem obvious.
Until the redirect rules change with Dominaria this is pretty good anti-PW tech, too.
I dropped Pestilence into my mono black big mana deck with Cemetery Gates just because I had them. Pestilence out performed my expectations by lightyears, Cemetery Gates not so much so it came out. Pestilence was in it until I stripped the deck for parts.
Love me some Pesty. It's kind of a shame we weren't presented with a Jund colored legendary dinosaur, I'd have loved making a dino tribal with Pestilence and Pyrohemia to trigger enrage.
Pestilence (and its vaguely related variants) got a powerful new friend in the recent Dominaria spoiler:
Kazarov, Sengir Pureblood 5BB
Legendary Creature — Vampire
Flying
Whenever a creature an opponent controls is dealt damage, put a +1/+1 counter on Kazarov, Sengir Pureblood.
3R: Kazarov deals 2 damage to target creature.
Yeah Kazarov is real slow but man alive is he nasty alongside Pestilence and Last Laugh. The time may finally have come for a Last Laugh commander deck.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
A deck that could repeatedly bounce and recast this might get some useful value - of course that's harder and less efficient that simply retriggering the ETB on something like Elvish Visionary - but overall, this ain't an EDH card.
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!
Since this is a Zedruu card, I must give it Zedruu commentary. This is a 6 mana way to turn your Memnite into a Gut Shot.
Classic aggro card, and gets silly with some of the more fun blue cards like Rite of Replication and Infinite Reflection.
Generally speaking Warstorm Surge is a perfectly fine card. Obvious champ is obvious in Omnath, Locus of Rage.
- Brainstorm
- Exploration
- Mirri's Guile
- Mystical Tutor
- Reclaim
- Sensei's Divining Top
- Sol Ring
- Worldly Tutor
- Coiling Oracle
- Cream of the Crop
- Cyclonic Rift
- Delay
- Nature's Lore
- Remand
- Sakura-Tribe Elder
- Scroll Rack
- Shattering Pulse
- Unsubstantiate
The only things I'd feel particularly bad about hitting from that list are Cyclonic Rift (can't overload) and Shattering Pulse (if I didn't have mana to buyback open).Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Something something big creatures that I like.
We don't know much about Valla as a plane so far, but the Immersturm seems pretty awesome.
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!
Aggro: WUBRGHorde of Notions Goodstuff, RUB Cheesy Aggro, GR Xenagod Gruul Goodstuff
Control: GWBGhave, Guru of Adaptability, UBWrexial, Milling Deep UAzami, Lady of No Infinite Combos GWU Derevi, Tempo Beats
Other: URGRiku of Too Much Mana, WUBRG Sliver Queen Enchantress
The
Necromancer (or Noob)
Cat.
Don't ask, I don't know why ether...
Saskia the Unyielding is a fan: Either smash face directly, or smash the walls in the way of smashing face.
On phasing:
Repeatable mass removal. It deserves to be seen more often than I see it, but I'm glad that I don't have to deal with this too often. I like my little dudes.
Until the redirect rules change with Dominaria this is pretty good anti-PW tech, too.
amazingly epic sig courtesy of DarkNightCavalier at Heroes of the Planes.
I have also been enjoying it with Death Pits of Rath.
Having a God as a commander helps, or having one that can make tokens after you wipe the board.
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
Legendary Creature — Vampire
Flying
Whenever a creature an opponent controls is dealt damage, put a +1/+1 counter on Kazarov, Sengir Pureblood.
3R: Kazarov deals 2 damage to target creature.
Yeah Kazarov is real slow but man alive is he nasty alongside Pestilence and Last Laugh. The time may finally have come for a Last Laugh commander deck.
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