Deserted temple gets you untaps on nykthos and cradle and lodge. And yavimays hollow and and and. It's very good.
Outside of Cabal Coffers in a tutor-heavy mono-black deck, I haven't had much luck with it. I acknowledge this is possibly because I run Reliquary Tower instead of a land with an egregious tap ability, but.
But you know what stands out for me there is how good high market is
I would have never picked a fight about High Market. I've been playing EDH since 2008-9ish, and most of my decks have used High Market, haha
Are you sure it was right to immediately draw there tho? In either scenario really but esp zegana sequence.
If I have a 40/40 toothy and a 20/20 prime speaker I think I maybe just start bashing and keep market up. At least get yourself fully untapped before drawing 40.
Yes. My opponent's deck goes wide (he plays Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest), and he had something on the table to keep chump blocking (I think it was Mycoloth with a a few +1/+1 counters). Not drawing was a losing proposition; eventually he'll draw a sac outlet, sacrifice anything he chump blocks with, depositing some +1/+1 counters on Mycoloth and making the next turn even wider (which translates into going even taller). I was trying to draw either a way to give the newly minted Prime Speaker evasion (not in your list of colourless lands is Rogue's Passage, btw), or an answer for Mycoloth before it got out of hand. My buddy's deck can spin out a formidable army in very little time, and I was more than happy to try and dig for a Reality Shift or similar before his next upkeep that made more tokens.
For the second scenario, I kinda left out that when I played Toothy and legend-ruled out the token copy, when I drew 20+ cards, that put 40+ counters on the Fresh Toothy (because of Hardened Scales; I think he was a 57/57). The gameplan (since I had drawn something like 75 cards, total) was to find Lightning Greaves and any kind of evasion; Rogue's Passage (before equipping Greaves), or in the actual event, Herald of Secret Streams. It was a risk though; if he had removed Toothy, I would have drawn out and lost.
I've listed passage before, didn't list it again cos I forgot:)
I would have to know the whole board state but I think it's right to wait there still. You're likely drawing more live to a win than he is so at the very least can wait til his end step so you're loaded on mana.
I agree with your assessment that rqt had nothing to do with victory of course.
Regarding deserted temple, if you're not running nykthos and lodge in selvala if suggest them. I don't know that there is room for temple without scrying map and crop rotation at the least but I think those are probably reasonable tbh. Being able to tutor for land answers opens a lot of doors in mono green.
Edit: I will say your description has me hankering to swap my mostly UG Atraxa into Pir & Toothy
Deserted Temple + Rings of Brighthearth is an infinite mana combo with any land that produces 4+ mana. For example, Liliana of the Dark Realms ultimate means any swamp can go infinite. Gaea's Cradle with 4+ creatures and so forth. Cabal Coffers needs to produce 6 black to also pay for its activation cost, as well as Crypt of Agadeem, but you get the point by now.
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Deserted Temple + Rings of Brighthearth is an infinite mana combo with any land that produces 4+ mana. For example, Liliana of the Dark Realms ultimate means any swamp can go infinite. Gaea's Cradle with 4+ creatures and so forth. Cabal Coffers needs to produce 6 black to also pay for its activation cost, as well as Crypt of Agadeem, but you get the point by now.
We generally shy away from infinite combos in my group. We always have, and lately, we've been putting it in certain terms and excluding them from our decks. We're pretty casual that way.
Edit: I will say your description has me hankering to swap my mostly UG Atraxa into Pir & Toothy
It's funny, because I was thinking of moving it over to Atraxa, because I want to play with some of the Abzan cards, especially janky stuff like Retribution of the Ancients. I'm probably going to keep it as Pir & Toothy for now; there are cards I want to play that I have no room for, and moving to 4 colour is just going to hedge out a lot of the stuff I like.
Edit: I will say your description has me hankering to swap my mostly UG Atraxa into Pir & Toothy
It's funny, because I was thinking of moving it over to Atraxa, because I want to play with some of the Abzan cards, especially janky stuff like Retribution of the Ancients. I'm probably going to keep it as Pir & Toothy for now; there are cards I want to play that I have no room for, and moving to 4 colour is just going to hedge out a lot of the stuff I like.
The issue I keep running into with Atraxa is she's just way too powerful by herself for playing with casuals. Sometimes she's representing +5 ramp and +2 cards in a turn just by standing there and proliferating and gaining life. And this is in my Atraxa deck which is mostly focused on proliferating counter lands and +1/+1 counters, no walkers, just full derp.
On the upside, there's really no call to be using a reliquary tower in atraxa Not room for much more than Karn's Bastion and maybe a sac outlet or homeward path in the land slot.
Ironically I just saw someone lose a game yesterday because they had cut Reliquary Tower from their deck. They'd forgotten and cracked an expedition map to go find it. Didn't have it, and had to discard their hand because of Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. Thus death. In fact, I've seen Jin-Gitaxias so much recently I've considered adding Reliquary Tower back into my decks out of sheer annoyance. Admittedly, this is an extremely niche personal metagame situation.
Another strong point in favor of running Reliquary Tower is because if you do happen to randomly draw 18+ cards, the rest of the table doesn't have to wait for 5 minutes while you carefully decide what to discard at the end of your turn... which also happened to me yesterday.
the rest of the table doesn't have to wait for 5 minutes while you carefully decide what to discard at the end of your turn.
Alright, real talk right here. This is, quite honestly, the biggest pro for running this card.
man, people need to play faster, even if it's wrong The way you learn to play faster is by playing faster and suffering the consequences. That's probably its own thread but if your turn is taking more than a few minutes you need to practice more.
re: jin gitaxias
The bigger problem with Jin Gitaxias is them drawing 7 cards. Keeping your hand isn't going to save you from that most likely.
Better to tutor up a removal spell rather than tutor up a land, or better yet tutor up a removal spell for whatever they're using to get to 10 mana, or some graveyard hate.
For like 75% of the times I've seen Jin in my life a scavenger grounds would have done the trick too.
ive taken out reliquary tower out of most of the decks that need to be streamlined, more often than not, i would rather see a basic to make coloured mana because i have enough rocks to provide the colourless.
additionally if you are drawing +10 cards and not winning on the turn then there is something wrong with the play, as most people in my playgroup would point to kill you as you have too much resources. also the graveyard should be second hand for most decks so discarding should even be an issue.
personally outside of highly utility lands, an example for a tri-colour deck my mana base:
x3 Duals
x3 shocks
x8 fetchlands which can search for any of the commander colours
x1 cycle land with the main colour and secondary colour
x1 strip mine
x3-4 utility lands which do not produce colour
12-16 basics (dependent of curve)
the reason why i almost always have a stripmine is for gimping any other utility lands that others may play as well as denying colours from certain decks, additionally its what i always grab if anyone plays tempt with discovery to remove the largest threat people would fetch.
Thought Vessel is more of an auto-include, I think.
In decks that draw a ton of cards, and if you run cards like Necropotence... yes, play it. I run it in 4/17 decks.
But if you can benefit from discarding cards, or if you don't have a ton of card draw, then I don't see the point.
Like I said in the OP, Reliquary Tower isn't as prevalent in my decks as it once was, but there are plenty of arguments in its favor.
1. Cyclonic Rift is the most played card in the format. Or second to maybe Sol Ring.
2. Re: Ancient Tomb. Tomb is better, and has come down in price, but it's still 1000% more expensive than the Tower.
3. Don't most of you design your decks to draw cards? Wouldn't you like to keep them?
4. For those of you who would argue that the graveyard is a second hand, do your metas not run graveyard hate? I have one graveyard deck that is forced to run Orbs of Warding and Witchbane Orb just to protect my yard.
It bears repeating that I'm still not arguing for Tower as an auto-include, and there have been plenty of sound arguments against it in this thread, but I don't think I'd ever call it wrong unless it actively hurt a deck's game plan.
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Like I said in the OP, Reliquary Tower isn't as prevalent in my decks as it once was, but there are plenty of arguments in its favor.
1. Cyclonic Rift is the most played card in the format. Or second to maybe Sol Ring.
2. Re: Ancient Tomb. Tomb is better, and has come down in price, but it's still 1000% more expensive than the Tower.
3. Don't most of you design your decks to draw cards? Wouldn't you like to keep them?
4. For those of you who would argue that the graveyard is a second hand, do your metas not run graveyard hate? I have one graveyard deck that is forced to run Orbs of Warding and Witchbane Orb just to protect my yard.
It bears repeating that I'm still not arguing for Tower as an auto-include, and there have been plenty of sound arguments against it in this thread, but I don't think I'd ever call it wrong unless it actively hurt a deck's game plan.
And of course, playing this right after dropping MLD is fun.
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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 am one who has always found Reliquary Tower to be overrated. That isn't to say that it doesn't have its place... Just that if you're drawing enough cards to make Reliquary Tower useful, then enough of those cards are typically low value enough to drop by the wayside. You don't need to hold 5 lands in hand at all times.
Also, because I like consistent draw engines, I also typically find that discarding down is never a problem, since I'll inevitably refill, especially since one or two of the cards I'm keeping will also be refills/draw related.
Finally, I often treat my GY as a second resource, so dropping things in there is never a complete loss, and can sometimes be a boon. If I have a Nezumi Graverobber on the field, I might just want to drop some of those creatures in the yard - even if it will be more expensive, just so that I have the option of utilizing them at instant speed.
---
I suppose my approach to deck construction plays into it as well. I typically like to ramp a lot, so I keep a fairly decent number of basic lands in my deck, anywhere from 12-20, except for special circumstances. From there, between dual lands, fetch lands, and the huge amount of utility lands that now exist - I have issues justifying Reliquary over other more proactive options.
Now, like all the others, Reliquary Tower has a time and place. I've included it in one of my decks that tends to draw in very large, but more infrequent bursts. I'd also designed the deck for a younger nephew, who might feel bad about discarding all those cards, or might not be quite as good at discarding quickly, or effectively. Perhaps a bit of a crutch, but there are other things to focus on for him before that.
I also like Reliquary in decks that play towards handsize matters, or some storm variants that use up wheels and damage per draw, etc.
In short, I think it's definitely useful... but in the right place. I don't think I see it used effectively in a lot of situations.
Ironically I just saw someone lose a game yesterday because they had cut Reliquary Tower from their deck. They'd forgotten and cracked an expedition map to go find it. Didn't have it, and had to discard their hand because of Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur. Thus death. In fact, I've seen Jin-Gitaxias so much recently I've considered adding Reliquary Tower back into my decks out of sheer annoyance. Admittedly, this is an extremely niche personal metagame situation.
I find this to be a very unique situation to play around. Having an opponent play Jin-Gitaxias, having the means to find and play the tower prior to losing your hand, having that opponent not have Strip Mine or similar to foil your plans, while also having you be unable to find and use a removal on Jin Gitaxias.
Maybe I'm over-analyzing it, but it's a very specific scenario to me, which I would rather respond to in a number of ways. That said, if Jin Gitaxias is that big of a meta-include, it seems a tower for emergency use might be a good idea. I'd probably still hold up a Swords or Path instead though, or even in addition...
Another strong point in favor of running Reliquary Tower is because if you do happen to randomly draw 18+ cards, the rest of the table doesn't have to wait for 5 minutes while you carefully decide what to discard at the end of your turn... which also happened to me yesterday.
Why does it take people so long to choose cards, or why do people really need to wait for you to make those decisions at that exact moment in a social game.
I know each playgroup handles such things differently, but my LGS (fairly casual end, for the record) typically has no issue proceeding forward with play while the person discards down.
I'm usually the one who also draws upteen million cards as well, and discarding usually isn't that hard. I typically keep the top 2 instant speed removals/answers, one or two board wipes, one or two card draws/refills/recursion engines, and a land. Maybe one decent threat - but usually that threat is getting everything back. If you're drawing 18 cards; you're in a commanding position. All you really need to keep are the cards that help you cement that position, protect it, or recover it. Alternatively, cards to destroy it, should someone turn the tables against you.
Doesn't prove me wrong about the rest, though. Makes it a meta call.
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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 will say that if you counted the number of times that Reliquary Tower has helped me, and the number of times, say, Ghost Quarter or Tectonic Edgehas helped me, it's probably the former. That's not to say target land destruction isn't worth putting in your deck or that the Tower isn't overrated, but I think I can count the number of times I've used it to decent effect can be counted on one hand.
Unfortunately the decks you need to use it most against often have more than enough ways of getting around it, neutralizing it, or even profiting off of it with Gitrog decks.
(No I ain't paying the $$$ for Wasteland or Strip Mine I'm on a budget here)
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I would have never picked a fight about High Market. I've been playing EDH since 2008-9ish, and most of my decks have used High Market, haha
Yes. My opponent's deck goes wide (he plays Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest), and he had something on the table to keep chump blocking (I think it was Mycoloth with a a few +1/+1 counters). Not drawing was a losing proposition; eventually he'll draw a sac outlet, sacrifice anything he chump blocks with, depositing some +1/+1 counters on Mycoloth and making the next turn even wider (which translates into going even taller). I was trying to draw either a way to give the newly minted Prime Speaker evasion (not in your list of colourless lands is Rogue's Passage, btw), or an answer for Mycoloth before it got out of hand. My buddy's deck can spin out a formidable army in very little time, and I was more than happy to try and dig for a Reality Shift or similar before his next upkeep that made more tokens.
For the second scenario, I kinda left out that when I played Toothy and legend-ruled out the token copy, when I drew 20+ cards, that put 40+ counters on the Fresh Toothy (because of Hardened Scales; I think he was a 57/57). The gameplan (since I had drawn something like 75 cards, total) was to find Lightning Greaves and any kind of evasion; Rogue's Passage (before equipping Greaves), or in the actual event, Herald of Secret Streams. It was a risk though; if he had removed Toothy, I would have drawn out and lost.
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I would have to know the whole board state but I think it's right to wait there still. You're likely drawing more live to a win than he is so at the very least can wait til his end step so you're loaded on mana.
I agree with your assessment that rqt had nothing to do with victory of course.
Regarding deserted temple, if you're not running nykthos and lodge in selvala if suggest them. I don't know that there is room for temple without scrying map and crop rotation at the least but I think those are probably reasonable tbh. Being able to tutor for land answers opens a lot of doors in mono green.
Edit: I will say your description has me hankering to swap my mostly UG Atraxa into Pir & Toothy
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Deserted Temple + Rings of Brighthearth is an infinite mana combo with any land that produces 4+ mana. For example, Liliana of the Dark Realms ultimate means any swamp can go infinite. Gaea's Cradle with 4+ creatures and so forth. Cabal Coffers needs to produce 6 black to also pay for its activation cost, as well as Crypt of Agadeem, but you get the point by now.
It's funny, because I was thinking of moving it over to Atraxa, because I want to play with some of the Abzan cards, especially janky stuff like Retribution of the Ancients. I'm probably going to keep it as Pir & Toothy for now; there are cards I want to play that I have no room for, and moving to 4 colour is just going to hedge out a lot of the stuff I like.
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The issue I keep running into with Atraxa is she's just way too powerful by herself for playing with casuals. Sometimes she's representing +5 ramp and +2 cards in a turn just by standing there and proliferating and gaining life. And this is in my Atraxa deck which is mostly focused on proliferating counter lands and +1/+1 counters, no walkers, just full derp.
On the upside, there's really no call to be using a reliquary tower in atraxa Not room for much more than Karn's Bastion and maybe a sac outlet or homeward path in the land slot.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
Another strong point in favor of running Reliquary Tower is because if you do happen to randomly draw 18+ cards, the rest of the table doesn't have to wait for 5 minutes while you carefully decide what to discard at the end of your turn... which also happened to me yesterday.
The Ur-Dragon (WUBRG) - Changeling Combo Tribal
Chromium (WUB) - Artifact Beats
Progenitus (WUBRG) - Dredge
Damia, Sage of Stone (GBU) - Elf-storm Tendrils
My Cube Unpowered
My Peasant-ish/Tribal-ish Cube
Alright, real talk right here. This is, quite honestly, the biggest pro for running this card.
man, people need to play faster, even if it's wrong The way you learn to play faster is by playing faster and suffering the consequences. That's probably its own thread but if your turn is taking more than a few minutes you need to practice more.
re: jin gitaxias
The bigger problem with Jin Gitaxias is them drawing 7 cards. Keeping your hand isn't going to save you from that most likely.
Better to tutor up a removal spell rather than tutor up a land, or better yet tutor up a removal spell for whatever they're using to get to 10 mana, or some graveyard hate.
For like 75% of the times I've seen Jin in my life a scavenger grounds would have done the trick too.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
additionally if you are drawing +10 cards and not winning on the turn then there is something wrong with the play, as most people in my playgroup would point to kill you as you have too much resources. also the graveyard should be second hand for most decks so discarding should even be an issue.
personally outside of highly utility lands, an example for a tri-colour deck my mana base:
x3 Duals
x3 shocks
x8 fetchlands which can search for any of the commander colours
x1 cycle land with the main colour and secondary colour
x1 strip mine
x3-4 utility lands which do not produce colour
12-16 basics (dependent of curve)
the reason why i almost always have a stripmine is for gimping any other utility lands that others may play as well as denying colours from certain decks, additionally its what i always grab if anyone plays tempt with discovery to remove the largest threat people would fetch.
In decks that draw a ton of cards, and if you run cards like Necropotence... yes, play it. I run it in 4/17 decks.
But if you can benefit from discarding cards, or if you don't have a ton of card draw, then I don't see the point.
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
1. Cyclonic Rift is the most played card in the format. Or second to maybe Sol Ring.
2. Re: Ancient Tomb. Tomb is better, and has come down in price, but it's still 1000% more expensive than the Tower.
3. Don't most of you design your decks to draw cards? Wouldn't you like to keep them?
4. For those of you who would argue that the graveyard is a second hand, do your metas not run graveyard hate? I have one graveyard deck that is forced to run Orbs of Warding and Witchbane Orb just to protect my yard.
It bears repeating that I'm still not arguing for Tower as an auto-include, and there have been plenty of sound arguments against it in this thread, but I don't think I'd ever call it wrong unless it actively hurt a deck's game plan.
My 720 Peasant Cube
It has its benefits of course but there're just too many other options. Just my opinion of course.
If you like it cool. That's what commander is about really. You need to like what you're doing. But I'd question it vigorously.
UW Ephara Hatebears [Primer], GB Gitrog Lands, BRU Inalla Combo-Control, URG Maelstrom Wanderer Landfall
There's also the "cheap" Rifts, Evacuation, Sunder, Reduce to Dreams, Hurkyl's Recall, Upheaval, Whelming Wave, Inundate, Coastal Breach, Crush of Tentacles...
And of course, playing this right after dropping MLD is fun.
On phasing:
Worth noting, Upheaval is still banned.
Steel Sabotage'ng Orbs of Mellowness since 2011.
Also, because I like consistent draw engines, I also typically find that discarding down is never a problem, since I'll inevitably refill, especially since one or two of the cards I'm keeping will also be refills/draw related.
Finally, I often treat my GY as a second resource, so dropping things in there is never a complete loss, and can sometimes be a boon. If I have a Nezumi Graverobber on the field, I might just want to drop some of those creatures in the yard - even if it will be more expensive, just so that I have the option of utilizing them at instant speed.
---
I suppose my approach to deck construction plays into it as well. I typically like to ramp a lot, so I keep a fairly decent number of basic lands in my deck, anywhere from 12-20, except for special circumstances. From there, between dual lands, fetch lands, and the huge amount of utility lands that now exist - I have issues justifying Reliquary over other more proactive options.
For example, I typically like to have about 3 Strip Mine variants to be sure I'll have one if needed. I also am a large fan of Scavenger Grounds as another emergency outlet. Many lands are deck dependent, but Mirrorpool is highly flexible, while Winding Canyons, Emergence Zone, Blast Zone, Buried Ruin, Homeward Path, Arcane Lighthouse, High Market, Inventor's Fair, etc all play into various strategies and needs.
This is before even landing onto options that have colored activations, such as Blighted Fen, Gavony Township, Hanweir Battlements, Hall of Heliod's Generosity, Mistveil Plains, Kher Keep, Alchemist's Refuge... etc.
---
Now, like all the others, Reliquary Tower has a time and place. I've included it in one of my decks that tends to draw in very large, but more infrequent bursts. I'd also designed the deck for a younger nephew, who might feel bad about discarding all those cards, or might not be quite as good at discarding quickly, or effectively. Perhaps a bit of a crutch, but there are other things to focus on for him before that.
I also like Reliquary in decks that play towards handsize matters, or some storm variants that use up wheels and damage per draw, etc.
In short, I think it's definitely useful... but in the right place. I don't think I see it used effectively in a lot of situations.
I find this to be a very unique situation to play around. Having an opponent play Jin-Gitaxias, having the means to find and play the tower prior to losing your hand, having that opponent not have Strip Mine or similar to foil your plans, while also having you be unable to find and use a removal on Jin Gitaxias.
Maybe I'm over-analyzing it, but it's a very specific scenario to me, which I would rather respond to in a number of ways. That said, if Jin Gitaxias is that big of a meta-include, it seems a tower for emergency use might be a good idea. I'd probably still hold up a Swords or Path instead though, or even in addition...
Why does it take people so long to choose cards, or why do people really need to wait for you to make those decisions at that exact moment in a social game.
I know each playgroup handles such things differently, but my LGS (fairly casual end, for the record) typically has no issue proceeding forward with play while the person discards down.
I'm usually the one who also draws upteen million cards as well, and discarding usually isn't that hard. I typically keep the top 2 instant speed removals/answers, one or two board wipes, one or two card draws/refills/recursion engines, and a land. Maybe one decent threat - but usually that threat is getting everything back. If you're drawing 18 cards; you're in a commanding position. All you really need to keep are the cards that help you cement that position, protect it, or recover it. Alternatively, cards to destroy it, should someone turn the tables against you.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
Doesn't prove me wrong about the rest, though. Makes it a meta call.
On phasing:
Unfortunately the decks you need to use it most against often have more than enough ways of getting around it, neutralizing it, or even profiting off of it with Gitrog decks.
(No I ain't paying the $$$ for Wasteland or Strip Mine I'm on a budget here)