That's freaking redonkulous. I mean yes, most artifact/enchantment removal sits at 2-3 mana, but cheese and crackers WotC! Knee jerk reaction to Master of the Feasts much?
I'm assuming that this card, I repeat, DOES NOT blank the flying of an Ornithopter. Though I sense an incoming article explaining that cards like this do blank everything else off of creatures they hit now.
OK I've been out of the loop for this set. Can someone answer these questions for me?
-Can you pay the Strive cost to hit the same creature multiple times?
-If yes: I know that Launch the Fleet works by giving a creature the ability "When this attacks, put a 1/1 Soldier out." Do multiple instances of that ability stack? (As in, if if you hit the same creature with Launch the Fleet 3 times, either by paying the Strive cost or by casting 3 of them, does that creature make 3 tokens when it attacks?)
Tell me I'm reading this wrong and WOTC didn't just print a Turn 3 win condition in Standard with Battlefield Thaumaturge+Launch the Fleet.
If you mean Syndic of Tithes, I did consider it. If my whole entire focus was to extort everything ever, I would have included him for sure. He just doesn't do a lot else besides stand there and say "Hey give me money." He doesn't have any sort of evasion, so he can't carry a Cipher reliably. Without some pump or something, he's just sort of a blah 2/2. With a focus on evasion like this, I feel I'm better off with just Basilica Screecher and Blind Obedience at the 2-mana Extort spot.
In addition, initial solo games suggest that I won't be extorting a lot that early anyway, and that the Extort cards I do have will be 1-all I can sustain with the amount of mana I'll have, and 2-all I'll really need to drain upwards of 3-4 life each of my turns once I get a couple of Cipher cards locked in.
On the subject of Crypt Ghast, I think he'll be more useful than I initially believed. There is a noticeable shift into a higher gear once he hits the board, providing enough mana to consistently Extort almost everything I cast. Jury's still out on Vizkopa Guildmage. I'd mostly be using him for his second ability, which is only useful after I give all my flyers lifelink (via something like Azorius Charm or Vault of the Archangel) or just before I pull off a really solid Extort turn. In short, only after I already have a ton of mana to spend (5 at least with Azorius Charm, 7 with Vault of the Archangel, and both of those are contingent on having a sizable flock of attackers I know will get through.) and can likely already finish the job without him. Vault of the Archangel itself seems like a good idea though. Turns a crowd of chump blockers into a swarm of rattlesnakes.
Yeah the sad thing is, there's really only about half a handful of decent Extort cards at the moment. I feel that if I lean on Swamps and Swampy shocklands in my mana base, I might find room for Crypt Ghast and not have to use Realmwright to kick him into overdrive. Other than that, the only other Extort cards I can see myself using are Kingpin's pet as a mid-level flyer or MAYBE Vizkopa Confessor if I feel I need some later game discard action. One interesting note is that I could almost do a "transformative sideboard" deal here, swapping in different Cipher or Extort cards to completely alter my strategy if necessary. I'll do a little fiddling in Magic Workstation, then post up the next draft of the deck.
Yeah right as I posted I started thinking the deck was kinda all over the place. I'll probably drop the Drogskol Reaver song & dance, since that's basically like trying to cram a whole other deck in with the one I'm going for. I think I'll stick with the "AHHH I'M COVERED IN BATS!" approach all things told.
In a very Dimir/Orzhov move, I'm attempting to take advantage of a loophole in Cipher's wording to get freebie Extort triggers.
Cipher (as seen on Call of the Nightwing), unlike many "spell copy" effects, specifies that you are casting the copy, not just dropping it onto the stack.
Extort (as seen on Blind Obedience) allows you, on each spell cast, to pay per extort card to drain 1 life.
Assuming this all works the way I think it does, every time an "encoded" spell fires, it should trigger extort, essentially adding life drain to every triggered cipher, if i so choose. I'd like to build a deck that, in whole or in part, takes advantage of this interaction. I already have some basic idea of what the deck will need to work.
Extort Cards:
Basilica Guards-A resounding meh. Not including. Basilica Screecher- Cheap flyer with extort. Blind Obedience- Useful against some matchups, and a cheap extort sink. Crypt Ghast- More mana from swamps and Godless Shrine, has Extort, and does a pretty neat trick when paired with Realmwright. Kingpin's Pet- Basilica Screecher +1. Knight of Obligation- meh again. Gonna go ahead and say the same for Syndic of Tithes and Syndicate Enforcer, to save space. None included. Treasury Thrull- A large body with Extort and a neat repeating recursion effect, mut maybe too clumsy. Thrull Parasite- In most cases, just a 1/1 with Extort. Vizkopa Confessor- Extort, and kind of a neat EtB effect, but unless I went the blink/recursion route, probably not.
Cipher Cards:
Call of the Nightwing- A Cipher card that makes it's own carrier! If left unchecked, makes a progressively larger mess for my opponent all on it's own. At 4 mana, it might be a touch on the high side for what it does, but it fits with the general idea of the deck. Hands of Binding- Cheap to hard cast, and can tie down a creature for as long as whatever it's coded on survives. Last Thoughts-There are probably cheaper ways to give a creature this effect, but could generate a fair amount of extra cards. Possible Inclusion. Mental Vapors-Iffy. One discard, and turns its carrier into a "specter". Is it not enough for 4 mana? I'll let you tell me. Midnight Recovery- Situationally useful if the final list has a few creatures I'd like to be able to repeatedly dig up, bit I'll probably pass [CARD]on this one.
Paranoid Delusions[/CARD]-Useful only in some manner of mill deck. Shadow Slice- Seems a bit expensive. Stolen Identity- Could be fun later in the game to make a bunch of some large or useful creature, or some useful mana/utility artifact, but again, seems a tad pricey. Undercity Plague-If I can power this out fast enough, it could ruin my opponent's day on replays. Voidwalk- This probably won't be the kind of deck that can really make use of this, but I will note that a fair number of these Cipher cards would be good in a deck that likes to reuse/replay its creatures for their EtB abilities. Whispering Madness-. Might be useful if I work in a graveyard angle (ex. Unburial Rites, Flashback, etc.)
Obviously, if I can make good use of extort, The deck will be really effective at stalling. This, plus the colors it's in are leading me to a control style deck. A couple of strategies and tricks make themselves apparent with a cursory glance at what's available in Standard:
-Extort itself lends to life gain/drain as a tool to keep me afloat and put a subtle ticking clock on my opponent. To make full use of it, most of my spells will need to be on the low end of the mana cost slider, like 2 and lower, so I have enough spare mana left over to Extort as much as possible.
-Crypt Ghast+Realmwright is a fun trick in this case, ramping a ton of mana to fuel Extort or to cast more expensive spells. Realmwright doesn't do much else though, and unless I really want to commit to a lot of Swamps, exactly how much mana Crypt Ghast can net me without Realmwright is up in the air. It'll have to be something I only include if I've got the room for it.
-Small flyers like Basilica Screecher are perfect carriers for Cipher cards, and enough of them piled up can nip away at an opponent's life total in short order. Cards that make evasive tokens are also included here.
-I'm seeing a couple of Cipher cards here that mill or that recover cards from the graveyard. Some self-mill combined with Flashback and recursion means reusing my spells, providing more chances to trigger extort. Unburial Rites on a Drogskol Reaver also sounds like a fun way to put the nails in the coffin. However, trying to lean on self-mill seems like too much of a split in focus here. Some light Flashback or reanimation would probably do me good in the long run though.
-Vizkopa Guildmage seems to be a good potential inclusion. Activating its second ability on a big extort turn, a crowd of flyers hit with Azorius Charm, or just one Drogskol Reaver attack would win me the game or get me very close.
The main reason I favor Pandemonium over something like Warstorm Surge is that it works as part of a curve, especially in light of recent suggestions.
Ideally, incorporating the ideas so far, your turns are something like:
T1-land (and maybe a 1-drop of some kind)
T2-land, Fauna Shaman
T3-land, activate Shaman to get Sekki
T4-land, cast Pandemonium
T5-land, cast the cheat-into-play spell of your choice to put Sekki out and start the combo
Right now I'm thinking RGU with Through the Breach and Body Double as the cheaty spells. Blue offers card filtering, tempo and countermagic if necessary. This setup offers a couple of options with Fauna Shaman as well for when you draw the bits you don't want, and helps set up a little backup plan just in case.
I'm sure everyone already knows this one, but Sekki, Seasons' Guide and Pandemonium are a 2-card combo that can deal infinite damage. For those that don't know, the shenanigans go like this:
1-Cast Sekki with Pandemonium out
2-Have Sekki deal its Pandemonium damage to itself
3-Sekki dies and leaves his 8 tokens behind
4-Send each token's Pandemonium damage to your opponent's dome
5-sac all 8 tokens to bring Sekki back
6-Repeat from step 2
I run a list like this online myself. I've been using Soul Warden and Essence Warden in my build though. One angle is to lean on the Eldrazi tokens by adding Awakening Zone and use the tokens made by it and Nest Invader as emergency ramp. Supply side of Supply//Demand and Wargate are excellent uses of colorless mana in these colors, in my opinion.
And of course any time you've got a ton of little guys, Eldrazi Monument can be good times, especially with Awakening Zone feeding it
I'm looking to have a sig/avatar combo made, and I can think of no better place to find the talent!
This one's a little odd....
>Using the art for Laboratory Maniac (a recently spoiled Innistrad card)
And the Psyduck from my current avatar, I'd like a sig made that replaces Maniac's head with that of the Psyduck (A simple cut/paste will be just fine but bonus points if you can tweak Psyduck's head to fit the lighting/color of Maniac's art. *Extra super bonus points if you can get a steampunk science monocle thing like Maniac wears over one of Psyduck's eyes and make it all work color-wise and such)
>as for text, I'd like it to say "This looks like a job for SCIENCE!" but with "MAD" scrawled near "Science". Or, if that's too much text to look good, just "FOR SCIENCE!" as the main text, but still with the "MAD" in there.
>If possible, I'd like at least enough of the Psyduck-Maniac himself to be visible so that you can see him pulling the lever.
>For the avatar, just the head of Psyduck-Maniac
Psyduck and Maniac are attached to this post.
And of course, be sure to tell me what you want the credit line to say
Is there anything else I need to include here to help you make it as awesome as possible?
I'm running a zombie-based reanimator deck using Zombie Infestation to fuel it.
Suppose I have Zombie Infestation on the board, and I discard both Call to the Netherworld and a black creature to activate Infestation. Can I then "madness" out Call to the Netherworld and get the creature i discarded with it back to my hand?
I'm assuming that this card, I repeat, DOES NOT blank the flying of an Ornithopter. Though I sense an incoming article explaining that cards like this do blank everything else off of creatures they hit now.
-Can you pay the Strive cost to hit the same creature multiple times?
-If yes: I know that Launch the Fleet works by giving a creature the ability "When this attacks, put a 1/1 Soldier out." Do multiple instances of that ability stack? (As in, if if you hit the same creature with Launch the Fleet 3 times, either by paying the Strive cost or by casting 3 of them, does that creature make 3 tokens when it attacks?)
Tell me I'm reading this wrong and WOTC didn't just print a Turn 3 win condition in Standard with Battlefield Thaumaturge+Launch the Fleet.
In addition, initial solo games suggest that I won't be extorting a lot that early anyway, and that the Extort cards I do have will be 1-all I can sustain with the amount of mana I'll have, and 2-all I'll really need to drain upwards of 3-4 life each of my turns once I get a couple of Cipher cards locked in.
On the subject of Crypt Ghast, I think he'll be more useful than I initially believed. There is a noticeable shift into a higher gear once he hits the board, providing enough mana to consistently Extort almost everything I cast. Jury's still out on Vizkopa Guildmage. I'd mostly be using him for his second ability, which is only useful after I give all my flyers lifelink (via something like Azorius Charm or Vault of the Archangel) or just before I pull off a really solid Extort turn. In short, only after I already have a ton of mana to spend (5 at least with Azorius Charm, 7 with Vault of the Archangel, and both of those are contingent on having a sizable flock of attackers I know will get through.) and can likely already finish the job without him.
Vault of the Archangel itself seems like a good idea though. Turns a crowd of chump blockers into a swarm of rattlesnakes.
More coming soon.
Cipher (as seen on Call of the Nightwing), unlike many "spell copy" effects, specifies that you are casting the copy, not just dropping it onto the stack.
Extort (as seen on Blind Obedience) allows you, on each spell cast, to pay
Assuming this all works the way I think it does, every time an "encoded" spell fires, it should trigger extort, essentially adding life drain to every triggered cipher, if i so choose. I'd like to build a deck that, in whole or in part, takes advantage of this interaction. I already have some basic idea of what the deck will need to work.
Extort Cards:
Basilica Screecher- Cheap flyer with extort.
Blind Obedience- Useful against some matchups, and a cheap extort sink.
Crypt Ghast- More mana from swamps and Godless Shrine, has Extort, and does a pretty neat trick when paired with Realmwright.
Kingpin's Pet- Basilica Screecher +1.
Knight of Obligation- meh again. Gonna go ahead and say the same for Syndic of Tithes and Syndicate Enforcer, to save space. None included.
Treasury Thrull- A large body with Extort and a neat repeating recursion effect, mut maybe too clumsy.
Thrull Parasite- In most cases, just a 1/1 with Extort.
Vizkopa Confessor- Extort, and kind of a neat EtB effect, but unless I went the blink/recursion route, probably not.
Hands of Binding- Cheap to hard cast, and can tie down a creature for as long as whatever it's coded on survives.
Last Thoughts-There are probably cheaper ways to give a creature this effect, but could generate a fair amount of extra cards. Possible Inclusion.
Mental Vapors-Iffy. One discard, and turns its carrier into a "specter". Is it not enough for 4 mana? I'll let you tell me.
Midnight Recovery- Situationally useful if the final list has a few creatures I'd like to be able to repeatedly dig up, bit I'll probably pass [CARD]on this one.
Paranoid Delusions[/CARD]-Useful only in some manner of mill deck.
Shadow Slice- Seems a bit expensive.
Stolen Identity- Could be fun later in the game to make a bunch of some large or useful creature, or some useful mana/utility artifact, but again, seems a tad pricey.
Undercity Plague-If I can power this out fast enough, it could ruin my opponent's day on replays.
Voidwalk- This probably won't be the kind of deck that can really make use of this, but I will note that a fair number of these Cipher cards would be good in a deck that likes to reuse/replay its creatures for their EtB abilities.
Whispering Madness-. Might be useful if I work in a graveyard angle (ex. Unburial Rites, Flashback, etc.)
Obviously, if I can make good use of extort, The deck will be really effective at stalling. This, plus the colors it's in are leading me to a control style deck. A couple of strategies and tricks make themselves apparent with a cursory glance at what's available in Standard:
-Extort itself lends to life gain/drain as a tool to keep me afloat and put a subtle ticking clock on my opponent. To make full use of it, most of my spells will need to be on the low end of the mana cost slider, like 2 and lower, so I have enough spare mana left over to Extort as much as possible.
-Crypt Ghast+Realmwright is a fun trick in this case, ramping a ton of mana to fuel Extort or to cast more expensive spells. Realmwright doesn't do much else though, and unless I really want to commit to a lot of Swamps, exactly how much mana Crypt Ghast can net me without Realmwright is up in the air. It'll have to be something I only include if I've got the room for it.
-Small flyers like Basilica Screecher are perfect carriers for Cipher cards, and enough of them piled up can nip away at an opponent's life total in short order. Cards that make evasive tokens are also included here.
-I'm seeing a couple of Cipher cards here that mill or that recover cards from the graveyard. Some self-mill combined with Flashback and recursion means reusing my spells, providing more chances to trigger extort. Unburial Rites on a Drogskol Reaver also sounds like a fun way to put the nails in the coffin. However, trying to lean on self-mill seems like too much of a split in focus here. Some light Flashback or reanimation would probably do me good in the long run though.
-Vizkopa Guildmage seems to be a good potential inclusion. Activating its second ability on a big extort turn, a crowd of flyers hit with Azorius Charm, or just one Drogskol Reaver attack would win me the game or get me very close.
Here's something of a first draft:
4 Basilica Screecher
2 Drogskol Reaver
3 Unburial Rites
3 Lingering Spirits
3 Azorius Charm
2 Call of the Nightwing
3 Hands of Binding
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Orzhov Keyrune
2 Dimir Keyrune
2 Azorius Keyrune
2 Vizkopa Guildmage
Obviously in the alpha stages, so post away with any input you've got!
Ideally, incorporating the ideas so far, your turns are something like:
T1-land (and maybe a 1-drop of some kind)
T2-land, Fauna Shaman
T3-land, activate Shaman to get Sekki
T4-land, cast Pandemonium
T5-land, cast the cheat-into-play spell of your choice to put Sekki out and start the combo
Right now I'm thinking RGU with Through the Breach and Body Double as the cheaty spells. Blue offers card filtering, tempo and countermagic if necessary. This setup offers a couple of options with Fauna Shaman as well for when you draw the bits you don't want, and helps set up a little backup plan just in case.
1-Cast Sekki with Pandemonium out
2-Have Sekki deal its Pandemonium damage to itself
3-Sekki dies and leaves his 8 tokens behind
4-Send each token's Pandemonium damage to your opponent's dome
5-sac all 8 tokens to bring Sekki back
6-Repeat from step 2
LET'S BUILD IT!
And of course any time you've got a ton of little guys, Eldrazi Monument can be good times, especially with Awakening Zone feeding it
This one's a little odd....
>Using the art for Laboratory Maniac (a recently spoiled Innistrad card)
And the Psyduck from my current avatar, I'd like a sig made that replaces Maniac's head with that of the Psyduck (A simple cut/paste will be just fine but bonus points if you can tweak Psyduck's head to fit the lighting/color of Maniac's art. *Extra super bonus points if you can get a steampunk science monocle thing like Maniac wears over one of Psyduck's eyes and make it all work color-wise and such)
>as for text, I'd like it to say "This looks like a job for SCIENCE!" but with "MAD" scrawled near "Science". Or, if that's too much text to look good, just "FOR SCIENCE!" as the main text, but still with the "MAD" in there.
>If possible, I'd like at least enough of the Psyduck-Maniac himself to be visible so that you can see him pulling the lever.
>For the avatar, just the head of Psyduck-Maniac
Psyduck and Maniac are attached to this post.
And of course, be sure to tell me what you want the credit line to say
Is there anything else I need to include here to help you make it as awesome as possible?
Suppose I have Zombie Infestation on the board, and I discard both Call to the Netherworld and a black creature to activate Infestation. Can I then "madness" out Call to the Netherworld and get the creature i discarded with it back to my hand?