I am going to echo how good it is in Glissa, the traitor. Its infinite lock out with mindslaver, i have been in games where I end up just giving one player spirits over and over only to slam a massacre wurm and kill them.
I have in the past played cards like curse of death's hold and just have this death trigger engine fueling my deck, cute but fun.
I did a quick search for "whenever a creatures enters the battlefield" and there is a ton of really fun things you can do that don't involve creating death triggers. e.g Trespasser's curse, mana echoes and intruder alarm.
I did a quick search for "whenever a creatures enters the battlefield" and there is a ton of really fun things you can do that don't involve creating death triggers. e.g Trespasser's curse, mana echoes and intruder alarm.
Intruder Alarm plus Living Plane plus Orchard is infinite Mana.
This is why I can't say Command Tower is just better. Commander Tower is better solely at Mana fixing, but there are so many things this land does with it's "drawback" the added value beyond fixing is immense. Even using it straight up it plays the Phleddagriff game of politics, trading spirits for favors.
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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!
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!
I did a quick search for "whenever a creatures enters the battlefield" and there is a ton of really fun things you can do that don't involve creating death triggers. e.g Trespasser's curse, mana echoes and intruder alarm.
Versatile in a way of protecting a creature from removal, stopping one attacker, removing a potential blocker, or just remove an annoying creature with an effect out of the way.
That is an interesting, and more versatile, take on the "creature that cancels out a creature for mana" card type.
I've always loved this guy as a shield for key creatures. And it combos with Sun Titan too. That said, I can't imagine it ever makes the cut in anything but the most casual of ninety-nines.
Essentially, what this card wants to do is give you a "build your own AEtherling", if AEtherling were three to activate and require a tap. So...Talrand or Baral, to dodge a timely removal pointed at them? Something like that (and even then, Mizzium Skin would just be the superior choice in regards to those two, typically speaking). You'd need something to justify the increased cost, hmm, maybe Sygg since this is a fish and you can play all the fish lords. Then it's at least on type with a reasonable-but-desirable, if overcosted, effect.
Essentially, what this card wants to do is give you a "build your own AEtherling", if AEtherling were three to activate and require a tap. So...Talrand or Baral, to dodge a timely removal pointed at them? Something like that (and even then, Mizzium Skin would just be the superior choice in regards to those two, typically speaking). You'd need something to justify the increased cost, hmm, maybe Sygg since this is a fish and you can play all the fish lords. Then it's at least on type with a reasonable-but-desirable, if overcosted, effect.
I did say maybe. I made no indication that I thought it was a shoe in whatsoever.
That's pretty unfair, as manually phasing Taniwha out lets you attack with it every turn. (If you have UU from artifacts, anyway. Whoo, that drawback.)
I suspect Forbidden Orchard may be so good that virtually every deck should run it, but I'm too scared to give it a try.
An aside, your name wants me to build a deck based around bouncing and damage other than combat.
Anyway, Vodalian Illusionist, the name strikes me as weird now that I know the flavor, but I guess this was when the Vodalians emerged from the time warp, and the homarids basically control the temperate seas of the southern hemisphere.
It does have some value to make group hug cards less huggy. Braids, Conjurer Adept, Magus of the Vineyard, Humble Defector (existential paradoxes FTW), that sort of thing. But after that, it becomes less useful. Blink cards at least let you reuse enter triggers.
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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!
All 5 of the elemental incarnations have tantalizingly high ceilings on what they can do to the game state, but very, very rarely actually get there. Which basically means they're perfect for this format.
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
This card used to be ~$20. Now it is much cheaper because of Battlebond. I am happy for that.
Anyway, I think it was a Stonebrow staple before Xenagod. Probably great there. Goreclaw likely loves it. Not a green staple, but a good card all around. And look at how nicely it plays with others!
My favourite of these incarnations was always Guile. It rarely achieved the lofty status I dreamed of for it.
This guy is pretty solid, though. I can see it being a solid inclusion for combo Ghave.
Guile + Dovescape is a soft lock, as reclimation sage type creatures break it.
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"Whatever style you wish to play, be it fast and frenzied or slow and tactical, the surest way to defeat your opponent consistently is by dominating him or her in the war of card advantage." - Brian Wiseman, April 1996
Vigor is the best in the cycle, very easy to abuse and just straight up good without any tricks.
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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 have fond memories of a 60 card casual deck that ran lots of mana dorks, Vigor and Blasphemous Act. Nothing quite like beating people to death with 14/14 Fyndhorn Elves.
Never really managed to get it to work in EDH though. Creatures just seem to get destroyed far more often than take damage and the consistency isn't really there for building around this card the way you can in 60s (well, you can get consistent, but if you're playing at the kind of level you need to achieve it, you're probably not going to be interested in Vigor shenanigans).
I'm sure it's good with Pestilence, except for the fact that it costs 3GGG, and Pestilence wants you to have a lot of black mana available. If only there were someway to have your cake and eat it too.
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!
Mana Flare is such a silly design, I love it. As with all symmetrical effects, the goal is to benefit the most. But the kind of deck that's going to win off of mana flare is so splashy, playing this and passing is like staring down the table and saying "you have 1 turn. do your worst."
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Zedruu: "This deck is not only able to go crazy - it also needs to do so."
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I have in the past played cards like curse of death's hold and just have this death trigger engine fueling my deck, cute but fun.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Tainted Aether is one of the best ones for this.
The art on the spirit tokens that Forbidden Orchard makes are super cool.
Night of Souls' betrayal and illness in the ranks and Lethal vapors. The curse is just the one that least effects your own gameplan. It also randomly hate tokens deck was so good against Prosh.
I did a quick search for "whenever a creatures enters the battlefield" and there is a ton of really fun things you can do that don't involve creating death triggers. e.g Trespasser's curse, mana echoes and intruder alarm.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Intruder Alarm plus Living Plane plus Orchard is infinite Mana.
This is why I can't say Command Tower is just better. Commander Tower is better solely at Mana fixing, but there are so many things this land does with it's "drawback" the added value beyond fixing is immense. Even using it straight up it plays the Phleddagriff game of politics, trading spirits for favors.
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!
On phasing:
I built a deck around these interactions, with the main purpose getting Burning Sands and Tainted Aether in play with a -1/-1 effect (or Aether Flash).
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
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
That is an interesting, and more versatile, take on the "creature that cancels out a creature for mana" card type.
I've always loved this guy as a shield for key creatures. And it combos with Sun Titan too. That said, I can't imagine it ever makes the cut in anything but the most casual of ninety-nines.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
That's like saying "let's play these cards together because they both have phasing". Doesn't really make any sense tbh...
"Let's all play War Mammoth with our Carnage Tyrants because they both have trample."
Essentially, what this card wants to do is give you a "build your own AEtherling", if AEtherling were three to activate and require a tap. So...Talrand or Baral, to dodge a timely removal pointed at them? Something like that (and even then, Mizzium Skin would just be the superior choice in regards to those two, typically speaking). You'd need something to justify the increased cost, hmm, maybe Sygg since this is a fish and you can play all the fish lords. Then it's at least on type with a reasonable-but-desirable, if overcosted, effect.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
I did say maybe. I made no indication that I thought it was a shoe in whatsoever.
That's pretty unfair, as manually phasing Taniwha out lets you attack with it every turn. (If you have UU from artifacts, anyway. Whoo, that drawback.)
An aside, your name wants me to build a deck based around bouncing and damage other than combat.
Anyway, Vodalian Illusionist, the name strikes me as weird now that I know the flavor, but I guess this was when the Vodalians emerged from the time warp, and the homarids basically control the temperate seas of the southern hemisphere.
It does have some value to make group hug cards less huggy. Braids, Conjurer Adept, Magus of the Vineyard, Humble Defector (existential paradoxes FTW), that sort of thing. But after that, it becomes less useful. Blink cards at least let you reuse enter triggers.
On phasing:
All 5 of the elemental incarnations have tantalizingly high ceilings on what they can do to the game state, but very, very rarely actually get there. Which basically means they're perfect for this format.
Anyway, I think it was a Stonebrow staple before Xenagod. Probably great there. Goreclaw likely loves it. Not a green staple, but a good card all around. And look at how nicely it plays with others!
(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'
This guy is pretty solid, though. I can see it being a solid inclusion for combo Ghave.
Guile + Dovescape is a soft lock, as reclimation sage type creatures break it.
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!
Never really managed to get it to work in EDH though. Creatures just seem to get destroyed far more often than take damage and the consistency isn't really there for building around this card the way you can in 60s (well, you can get consistent, but if you're playing at the kind of level you need to achieve it, you're probably not going to be interested in Vigor shenanigans).
The other option is Pyrohemia or, um, I guess Warmonger?
On phasing:
Vigor paired up with a Grothama, All-Devouring... lets Grothama and all your non-Vigor creatures get stupid huge.
I do both of these things in a Goreclaw deck. It's fun.
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Mana Flare is such a silly design, I love it. As with all symmetrical effects, the goal is to benefit the most. But the kind of deck that's going to win off of mana flare is so splashy, playing this and passing is like staring down the table and saying "you have 1 turn. do your worst."