Garna, the Bloodflame seems like a fun build-around commander, so let's go ahead and get started with thinking about how to get the most value out of it.
An in-depth breakdown of the card:
Garna, the Bloodflame
I like the title "The Bloodflame", but I don't think we know anything about the character or have the art yet. Can't really say anything about the flavor here.
3BR
A fairly middle-of-the-road casting cost; you should be able to cast it a few times over the course of the game. It is a little bit on the expensive side if you plan on abusing sac effects, though, but I'll cover that in more depth later.
Legendary Creature — Human Warrior
With the size and CIP effect I'd kinda expect a Wizard/Cleric/Shaman instead of Warrior (especially with Flash), but whatever. Both tribes have some support, but Garna doesn't seem like an especially good fit as a leader for Tribal Humans/Warriors.
3/3
A 3/3 for 5 mana (with no evasion) is pretty abysmal, so I wouldn't expect to get into the red zone too often. Definitely not the kind of card you play to smash face with.
Flash
Instant-speed certainly helps more when Garna is in the 99 than in the Command zone, since I can't imagine you're going to have too many people Wrath you if you have the mana open for Garna unless there's no other choice or you weren't the primary target. And Flash doesn't play particularly well with Haste, either, though you may be able to catch someone off guard with a tap ability from a creature they thought was summoning sick on rare occasions.
When Garna, the Bloodflame enters the battlefield,
The most notable thing here is that this isn't a cast trigger, so Garna will already be on the field by the time this is put on the stack. As the release notes point out, this means that Garna could already be in the graveyard by the time the ability resolves and thus be returned. Being able to re-use that ETB as often as you want seems pretty powerful, so sac outlets will definitely be a big part of abusing Garna.
Also, since Garna will be on the field while the trigger is on the stack, you can use the tap abilities of any summoning sick creatures in response to the trigger before sacrificing them, which you couldn't do if it were a cast trigger. You also can get the trigger from reanimation, though that's counterbalanced somewhat by not getting the trigger at all if Garna is countered.
return to your hand all creature cards in your graveyard that were put there from anywhere this turn.
The most obvious way to abuse this would be with cheap self-sacrificing utility creatures - you don't want these to cost too much mana, since you'll need to be able to re-cast them on top of the 3BR for Garna. But since you're going to want a sac outlet anyways for Garna, you can get abuse ETB/Dies triggers as well, or even just use 0-cost creatures for more free sacrifice fodder.
Moreover, since the effect applies to creature cards put into the graveyard from anywhere, you can get a lot of mileage out of self-mill, graveyard tutoring, and discard effects. Discard outlets in particular are going to be handy in conjunction with Dredge, which is one of the better options for self-mill available.
Other creatures you control have haste.
I wish this weren't only other creatures, as Haste would help make Garna feel a little more Warrior-y. I assume the intention here is to make it so that the creatures you re-cast after using Garna to negate a board wipe are back online immediately, but to me it's mostly just a welcome little addition to get your sac effects that require a tap online immediately.
- Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar seem particularly good to get the cost of casting Garna down; indeed, PA + 5 free creatures + Garna = infinite mana
Overall, I'm pretty pumped to see Garna in action, though I suspect that the deck could easily become too durdly if you aren't careful. Anyone else have any clever ideas or particularly strong synergies worth mentioning?
I think you have the right idea - durdle all the way to value town and just drown people. As a win condition, I think discard-punisher could definitely be an angle - all those little The Rack effects add up over a game, but in my experience people don't feel like disenchanting that Liliana's Caress until they've already lost 20 life from it over a game or suspect you playing wheels. Lot of cheap black creatures that create etb/dies based discard, after all - and for any creature-based discard-punisher(Lavaborn Muse etc.) effects you have the extra possibility of Garna (maybe) getting them back should people wrath at a bad time.
Such small creatures create a board that people don't generally feel they want to use a wrath for even outside of having mana up for Garna, let alone if you do.
Of course, for such a deck Garna would be the panic button more than the main engine, but I think it could be interesting.
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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
I'm fond of Conjurer's Closet. Now you can sac or discard creatures each turn and have Garna return them to your hand at EOT.
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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!
I don't think they feed any agendas, but bloodrush is a mechanic that gets creatures from your hand to the grave quickly.
Oooh, hadn't thought of Bloodrush. Pity the mono-R Bloodrush critters are a bit underwhelming. Getting a Giant Growth every turn from Rubblebelt Maaka doesn't seem too terrible, at least. Wrecking Ogre is pretty pricey, but could add up to a lot of extra damage after a couple of turns.
I'm surprised I forgot about Sneak Attack. You can get a lot more out of your creatures when you're only spending R for Garna each iteration instead of 3BR. Sneak Attack with Phyrexian Altar is absolutely perfect.
If we're sacrificing our own d00dz, no reason not to include Dictate of Erebos.
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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!
I don't think they feed any agendas, but bloodrush is a mechanic that gets creatures from your hand to the grave quickly.
Oooh, hadn't thought of Bloodrush. Pity the mono-R Bloodrush critters are a bit underwhelming. Getting a Giant Growth every turn from Rubblebelt Maaka doesn't seem too terrible, at least. Wrecking Ogre is pretty pricey, but could add up to a lot of extra damage after a couple of turns.
I'm surprised I forgot about Sneak Attack. You can get a lot more out of your creatures when you're only spending R for Garna each iteration instead of 3BR. Sneak Attack with Phyrexian Altar is absolutely perfect.
mix in impact tremors, purphoros, blood artist, zulaport cutthroat, or falkenrath noble and isn't that game?
I do plan on testing this in My creature/ empty the warrens based storm deck, which is still piloted by dragonlord kolaghan. It gives the haste if I can't use purph/tremors to burn, and it can return magus of the wheel/skirk prospector and may open the door for more creatures like priest of gix/urabrask and blood pet.
As far as a sac-outlet goes Thermopod should be included with the Red ones. Undying and Persist creatures, à la Murderous Redcap, are a must. Nim Deathmantle seems potentially abusable with saccing Garna. Probably something like Cloud Key to drop the cost of creatures, or maybe Aether Vial.
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My List of Current Decks: -Modern- WMartyrProcB BBurnR -Commander-
If you really want to get mean, you can sacrifice a Mindslicer to make everyone discard their hand, then play Garna to put all the cards you discarded back into your hand.
Does this deck want Heartless Summoning since you have to cast the creatures from your hand?
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An in-depth breakdown of the card:
I like the title "The Bloodflame", but I don't think we know anything about the character or have the art yet. Can't really say anything about the flavor here.
A fairly middle-of-the-road casting cost; you should be able to cast it a few times over the course of the game. It is a little bit on the expensive side if you plan on abusing sac effects, though, but I'll cover that in more depth later.
With the size and CIP effect I'd kinda expect a Wizard/Cleric/Shaman instead of Warrior (especially with Flash), but whatever. Both tribes have some support, but Garna doesn't seem like an especially good fit as a leader for Tribal Humans/Warriors.
A 3/3 for 5 mana (with no evasion) is pretty abysmal, so I wouldn't expect to get into the red zone too often. Definitely not the kind of card you play to smash face with.
Instant-speed certainly helps more when Garna is in the 99 than in the Command zone, since I can't imagine you're going to have too many people Wrath you if you have the mana open for Garna unless there's no other choice or you weren't the primary target. And Flash doesn't play particularly well with Haste, either, though you may be able to catch someone off guard with a tap ability from a creature they thought was summoning sick on rare occasions.
The most notable thing here is that this isn't a cast trigger, so Garna will already be on the field by the time this is put on the stack. As the release notes point out, this means that Garna could already be in the graveyard by the time the ability resolves and thus be returned. Being able to re-use that ETB as often as you want seems pretty powerful, so sac outlets will definitely be a big part of abusing Garna.
Also, since Garna will be on the field while the trigger is on the stack, you can use the tap abilities of any summoning sick creatures in response to the trigger before sacrificing them, which you couldn't do if it were a cast trigger. You also can get the trigger from reanimation, though that's counterbalanced somewhat by not getting the trigger at all if Garna is countered.
The most obvious way to abuse this would be with cheap self-sacrificing utility creatures - you don't want these to cost too much mana, since you'll need to be able to re-cast them on top of the 3BR for Garna. But since you're going to want a sac outlet anyways for Garna, you can get abuse ETB/Dies triggers as well, or even just use 0-cost creatures for more free sacrifice fodder.
Moreover, since the effect applies to creature cards put into the graveyard from anywhere, you can get a lot of mileage out of self-mill, graveyard tutoring, and discard effects. Discard outlets in particular are going to be handy in conjunction with Dredge, which is one of the better options for self-mill available.
I wish this weren't only other creatures, as Haste would help make Garna feel a little more Warrior-y. I assume the intention here is to make it so that the creatures you re-cast after using Garna to negate a board wipe are back online immediately, but to me it's mostly just a welcome little addition to get your sac effects that require a tap online immediately.
In summary, Garna seems to work well with:
- Sac Outlets
- Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar seem particularly good to get the cost of casting Garna down; indeed, PA + 5 free creatures + Garna = infinite mana
- Free Creatures
- Since we're in Red and Black, this includes stuff like Priest of Gix, Priest of Urabrask, Basal Thrull, Blood Pet, Skirk Prospector, and even (if you have a crap ton of mana) Soulbright Flamekin
- Self-Mill
- Graveyard Tutors
- ETB/Dies Triggers
- Cycling
- Discard Outlets
- Tomb Robber might actually be pretty good here, as you can bin any creatures you reveal for even more value
- Utility Critters
- Wheel Effects
Overall, I'm pretty pumped to see Garna in action, though I suspect that the deck could easily become too durdly if you aren't careful. Anyone else have any clever ideas or particularly strong synergies worth mentioning?stuff
Such small creatures create a board that people don't generally feel they want to use a wrath for even outside of having mana up for Garna, let alone if you do.
Of course, for such a deck Garna would be the panic button more than the main engine, but I think it could be interesting.
(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'
On phasing:
i really like the cycling angle
I'm surprised I forgot about Sneak Attack. You can get a lot more out of your creatures when you're only spending R for Garna each iteration instead of 3BR. Sneak Attack with Phyrexian Altar is absolutely perfect.
If we're sacrificing our own d00dz, no reason not to include Dictate of Erebos.
On phasing:
mix in impact tremors, purphoros, blood artist, zulaport cutthroat, or falkenrath noble and isn't that game?
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EDH kept at home; Ruzzian Isset & Rakdos LoR!
EDH (nostalgic/pimp/retired) in storage;
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Legacy Showanimator and High Tide!
Garna + Panharmonicon + Sac Outlet + Priest of Gix&Priest of Urabrask is infinite mana
-Modern-
WMartyrProcB
BBurnR
-Commander-
If you really want to get mean, you can sacrifice a Mindslicer to make everyone discard their hand, then play Garna to put all the cards you discarded back into your hand.
The other place I see this with some potential is in a BR Goblin Tribal deck as a way to recur Goblins sacrificed to Skirk Prospector, Siege-Gang Commander, Goblin Sledder, etc.
It's in the OP, hover over "Discard Outlets."
Price of Knowledge, Reliquary Tower, Spellbook, Thought Vessel, and Venser's Journal to have no maximum hand size.
Whoops.
Anyways, uh, Morality Shift?
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oh hey, thats a decent use for that card
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