I spent all night building this, combo's off turn 6 frequently, was play testing today with proxies, if my opponents didn't have lethal by turn 6 I usually won while playing today, very redundant and consistent, here's what I was testing as a standard format list:
Prophetic Prism
Battle Hymn
Infernal Plunge
Burning-Tree Emissary
Grisly Savage
Mulch
Faithless Looting
Gilded Lotus
Harvester of Souls
Illusionist's Bracers
Treacherous Pit-Dweller
High Priest of Penance
Undying Evil
Angelic Wall
Thrill-Kill Assassin
Deadly Recluse
Exquisite Blood
Syndic of Tithes
Basilica Screecher
Snapcaster Mage+Supreme Verdict
I dont see why this deck would ever need four immortal servitude. The card's good, but it's not -that- good for standard. Most epic experiment decks don't even play 4x EE, and it's their only wincon!
How about "You may discard your hand, pay 5 life, rip this card, remove 3 digits from any number of target fingers you control, and concede at the end of the next end step rather than pay It Will Go Through!!'s mana cost.
Esper/Orzhov humans with Blood Artist seems the most viable to me. Tons of drain. A field full of Blood Artist, at least 1 cartel aristocrat and a bunch of humans seems like a good win condition. The only question I have is what good cards do we have to fill the grave? With Snapcaster we don't need to worry if IS ends up in the grave.
In Modern we also have Golgari Thug to consider
Why do people keep thinking this is CMC 2? It's 3.
What? No. I was saying that if you build a deck around a particular casting cost (for example, 2-drops) you are inviting your opponent to blow you out with cards like Chalice or, in the case of 2-drops, Spell Snare.
I thought it was pretty good at "X or less". After seeing it was X only it seems completely awful outside of a weird combo deck (which will probably be confined to FNM hijinks, but hey).
I thought it was pretty good at "X or less". After seeing it was X only it seems completely awful outside of a weird combo deck (which will probably be confined to FNM hijinks, but hey).
"X or less" would be *way* too strong-
your average aggro deck could get almost their entire army back for 5-6 mana.
I'm betting it still sees play. Ratchet Bomb wasn't overlooked because it wasn't "X or less"
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
How about "You may discard your hand, pay 5 life, rip this card, remove 3 digits from any number of target fingers you control, and concede at the end of the next end step rather than pay It Will Go Through!!'s mana cost.
I think 2 cmc is the way to go with this card. 2 mana gives you access to burning tree emissary, gyre sage, lotleth troll... EVERYTHING I WANT BACK IS IN GREEN! T_T
So yeah, about that frites deck variant. i think that's where this card could potentially shine. Between Gyre Sage and the emissary, you're going to generate a LOT of mana/really good line of defense, and it gives another you another play against aggro on turn 4/5. I personally love the card, but I can understand why it's underhyped. I just wish you didn't have to fine tune your deck to get a lot of value out of the card, but spending 4-5 mana to get a bunch of guys back from your yard yields a lot of value, even in this grave hating environment.
I dont see why this deck would ever need four immortal servitude. The card's good, but it's not -that- good for standard. Most epic experiment decks don't even play 4x EE, and it's their only wincon!
Because it's a combo deck, redundancy means consistentsy, consistentsy is good. 7 return to play effects, 7 blood artist effects, 7 sac outlets, and 6 tutors helps it always go off by turn 6 or 7.
"X or less" would be *way* too strong-
your average aggro deck could get almost their entire army back for 5-6 mana.
I'm betting it still sees play. Ratchet Bomb wasn't overlooked because it wasn't "X or less"
Ratchet Bomb didn't cost X mana to do its thing. You know how awful Pernicious Deed would be if it required the mana up front AND said "CMC of X" instead of "X or less"?
Let's find out: Forced March- This reads "X or less" for a sweeper effect. Costing XBBB. It's beyond unplayable.
Reanimating only two drops for 5 mana is bad outside of a dedicated combo around it, and that strikes me as all-in on a narrow and weak gameplan. Regular rites can actually just reanimate good creatures for good value instead of comboing, and has an actual curve because it's not forced to shove a third of its deck full of two drops.
I don't think decks based around this need to have strict CMC "sweet spot" for their servitude. As long as you keep the creatures within a certain range (1-3 probs), you can self mill and do whatever, then look at your yard when it's relevant and just go with what you got.
Why would you do that over Frites? Instead of reanimating two 2-mana dorks, you can reanimate an expensive Angel that reanimates all the dorks for you, or an expensive Demon that draws 7 cards for 7 life, and so on.
I'm just milling and reanimating, why go out of my way to reanimate chumps instead of high-end stuff? I can even cast Rites from the yard when I mill it. That's why i mention a dedicated combo deck based on a particular CMC. If you're a deck like that, you can't just "go with what you got".
I can see this fitting in a white weenie deck, but the question is, is it better than just running a bomb?
Let's take Boros for example. Let's say that the 2 drop is our primary focus here. We have some combination of Thalia, Ash Zealot, Precinct Captain, Truefire Paladin, Knight of Glory, and Elite Inquisitor in the deck. What are the chances that on turn 5 we would rather have Immortal Servitude in our hands, or Thundermaw Hellkite?
Casting this at X=2 when there is one target in the graveyard. Worse
Casting this at X=2 when there are 2 targets in the graveyard. Generally worse, arguably equal.
Casting this at X=2 when there are 3 targets in the graveyard. Generally better, arguably worse.
Casting Thundermaw Hellkite while the GY is empty is obviously better than casting this when the GY is empty.
We would have to playtest many different matchups to see how to see how often this card has 3 targets in the GY on turn 5. I would imagine, however, that 2 would be the average number. In an aggro deck, something like Thundermaw would be better on average.
Now I'm just looking at this from the angle of aggro. Weenie decks used to run Reveillark , and this can be similar. The difference is that when Reviallark wanted to be, it could be a 4/3 with flying and a backup plan. As for combo decks, that is yet to be seen. I feel like reanimating big targets is an overall better strategy, but who knows.
Thinking of going deep with CMC 7 Immortal Servitude lol plus Unburial Rites, reanimating 1 Griselbrand, Angel of Serenity, 1 Gisela Blade of Goldnight, Moldgraf Monstrosity, the some of the new Primordials. Getting there with farseek, Gilded Lotus, and whatnot, maybe using Lotleth Troll, hell, Heartless Summoning too, seems fun.
The one time you put ALL the bombs in play at once would be worth it lol
I think the Timmy in me is getting the better of me lol
Thinking of going deep with CMC 7 Immortal Servitude lol plus Unburial Rites, reanimating 1 Griselbrand, Angel of Serenity, 1 Gisela Blade of Goldnight, Moldgraf Monstrosity, the some of the new Primordials. Getting there with farseek, Gilded Lotus, and whatnot, maybe using Lotleth Troll, hell, Heartless Summoning too, seems fun.
The one time you put ALL the bombs in play at once would be worth it lol
I think the Timmy in me is getting the better of me lol
Pretty sure griselbrand is 8, so you're casting it for 11 mana total, 10 if you're focusing on 7-drops.
I'm not sure whatever 4-drops there is, but IMO, 4-drops might be the best just for Hellrider and Falkenrath Arostocrat alone.
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About Mindslaver rulings:
Quote from ebcubs03 »
so if i am that player do i get to sleep with his girlfriend ?
Plan: Mill yourself with Mulch, Salvage, Alchemy and Looting until you get a Hellraiser and enough other (Human) creatures to burn out your opponent with Malcontents and/or attack for unblockable lots with Champion.
Roughly based off of Frites, so needs work and tuning.
Plan: Mill yourself with Mulch, Salvage, Alchemy and Looting until you get a Hellraiser and enough other (Human) creatures to burn out your opponent with Malcontents and/or attack for unblockable lots with Champion.
Roughly based off of Frites, so needs work and tuning.
Hellraiser Goblin is a more important win-con here than Malcontents. I'd switch their numbers.
What worries me about this deck is that, unlike Unburial Rites, if you mill your Immortal Servitude, you can't simply flash it back. The deck hinges on Immortal Servitude so much, and Mulch and Grisly Salvage just throw them into the GY every time. Hell, maybe you could throw in blue just to Spapcaster them back.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but Rites is a hellagood card. Can you believe that people actually said it was "bad" at the time? They complained that Wizards was gimping reanimator strategies by making it 5CMC.
I see your point, but Hellraiser isn't as useful in multiples as Malcontents. Also, since Hellraiser isn't a Human, it doesn't interact as well with Malcontents, which is why I have the numbers the way they are.
The sideboard isn't a thing yet, but I would assume Naturalize is a given to deal with Grafdigger's Cage and Rest In Peace, and possibly Negate or something similar. The rest would depend on the meta.
For a card that requires you to build a deck around it, it's surprisingly flexible. Any CMC works, as long as most of your creatures are the same. Any mana combinations work, as long as you're running White or Black.
While I liked swculve's deck, for the 2 mana option, I like a golgari slant leaning heavily on blood artist and bloodthrone vampire:
Honorable mentions - burning tree emmissary and lotleth troll looked promising, but didn't seem to work that well when I tried testing them.
Yea, you can mill your Immortal Servitude, but the sign in bloods help a little with that. You'll be churning through cards but run out of things to do turn 6-7, and then you hopefully have have seen blood artists and Bloodthrone vampires and you can sac/reanimate everything, then do it again...
For the three mana option I definitely want Hellraiser Goblin and Kessig Malcontents. Riot Ringleader looks decent if we're going to have humans. I suppose a good second color would be White both for the Immortal Servitude and because there's a million white humans... So something like this?
I feel like this card is popping up more and more. SCG just had an article on a sub optimal (IMO) version of the deck.
I have been running a super aggro version of the deck in RGB that is doing very well in my local group.
The idea behind mine is get a Troll out. Discard all creatures in your hand to the Troll. Start mulching and salvaging. Treasured find the mulched servitude. Main phase servitude for a massive haste attack.
I realize this is an old thread but fairly new to magic haven't quite grasped the X concept. With this card if I have 6 shadowborn apostles (their mana is 1) would i declare on Servitude card X=6, tap 6 mana and bring the 6 Shadowborn Apostles on to the battlefield?
Please don't necro old threads, and make a new thread for a new topic in the correct place. Rules questions go in the Rulings forum.
X is a cost that you can pay any amount of mana of any type for, and that then sets the X variable in the text of the spell or ability to the total amount you paid. Shadowborn Apostle has a converted mana cost of 1. If you have one, six, or six hundred copies of this card in your graveyard and you cast Immortal Servitude for X = 1 - paying 1(W/B)(W/B)(W/B) - they would all be returned to the battlefield since the X variable in the spell is set as 1.
I dont see why this deck would ever need four immortal servitude. The card's good, but it's not -that- good for standard. Most epic experiment decks don't even play 4x EE, and it's their only wincon!
About Mindslaver rulings:
In Modern we also have Golgari Thug to consider
What? No. I was saying that if you build a deck around a particular casting cost (for example, 2-drops) you are inviting your opponent to blow you out with cards like Chalice or, in the case of 2-drops, Spell Snare.
0 Karn
W Darien
U Arcanis
B Geth
R Norin
G Yeva
UW Hanna
RB Olivia
WB Obzedat
UR Melek
BG Glissa
WR Aurelia
GU Kraj
BRU Nicol Bolas
RGB Prossh
BGW Ghave
GUB Mimeoplasm
WUBRG Sliver Overlord
GWU Treva, the Renewer
EDH Spike:
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Trades
"X or less" would be *way* too strong-
your average aggro deck could get almost their entire army back for 5-6 mana.
I'm betting it still sees play.
Ratchet Bomb wasn't overlooked because it wasn't "X or less"
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
Absolutely. It's going to take more tuning to the deck, but I'm sure some type of combo can come out of it.
So yeah, about that frites deck variant. i think that's where this card could potentially shine. Between Gyre Sage and the emissary, you're going to generate a LOT of mana/really good line of defense, and it gives another you another play against aggro on turn 4/5. I personally love the card, but I can understand why it's underhyped. I just wish you didn't have to fine tune your deck to get a lot of value out of the card, but spending 4-5 mana to get a bunch of guys back from your yard yields a lot of value, even in this grave hating environment.
Because it's a combo deck, redundancy means consistentsy, consistentsy is good. 7 return to play effects, 7 blood artist effects, 7 sac outlets, and 6 tutors helps it always go off by turn 6 or 7.
Ratchet Bomb didn't cost X mana to do its thing. You know how awful Pernicious Deed would be if it required the mana up front AND said "CMC of X" instead of "X or less"?
Let's find out:
Forced March- This reads "X or less" for a sweeper effect. Costing XBBB. It's beyond unplayable.
Reanimating only two drops for 5 mana is bad outside of a dedicated combo around it, and that strikes me as all-in on a narrow and weak gameplan. Regular rites can actually just reanimate good creatures for good value instead of comboing, and has an actual curve because it's not forced to shove a third of its deck full of two drops.
0 Karn
W Darien
U Arcanis
B Geth
R Norin
G Yeva
UW Hanna
RB Olivia
WB Obzedat
UR Melek
BG Glissa
WR Aurelia
GU Kraj
BRU Nicol Bolas
RGB Prossh
BGW Ghave
GUB Mimeoplasm
WUBRG Sliver Overlord
GWU Treva, the Renewer
EDH Spike:
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Trades
Why would you do that over Frites? Instead of reanimating two 2-mana dorks, you can reanimate an expensive Angel that reanimates all the dorks for you, or an expensive Demon that draws 7 cards for 7 life, and so on.
I'm just milling and reanimating, why go out of my way to reanimate chumps instead of high-end stuff? I can even cast Rites from the yard when I mill it. That's why i mention a dedicated combo deck based on a particular CMC. If you're a deck like that, you can't just "go with what you got".
0 Karn
W Darien
U Arcanis
B Geth
R Norin
G Yeva
UW Hanna
RB Olivia
WB Obzedat
UR Melek
BG Glissa
WR Aurelia
GU Kraj
BRU Nicol Bolas
RGB Prossh
BGW Ghave
GUB Mimeoplasm
WUBRG Sliver Overlord
GWU Treva, the Renewer
EDH Spike:
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Trades
Let's take Boros for example. Let's say that the 2 drop is our primary focus here. We have some combination of Thalia, Ash Zealot, Precinct Captain, Truefire Paladin, Knight of Glory, and Elite Inquisitor in the deck. What are the chances that on turn 5 we would rather have Immortal Servitude in our hands, or Thundermaw Hellkite?
Casting this at X=2 when there is one target in the graveyard. Worse
Casting this at X=2 when there are 2 targets in the graveyard. Generally worse, arguably equal.
Casting this at X=2 when there are 3 targets in the graveyard. Generally better, arguably worse.
Casting Thundermaw Hellkite while the GY is empty is obviously better than casting this when the GY is empty.
We would have to playtest many different matchups to see how to see how often this card has 3 targets in the GY on turn 5. I would imagine, however, that 2 would be the average number. In an aggro deck, something like Thundermaw would be better on average.
Now I'm just looking at this from the angle of aggro. Weenie decks used to run Reveillark , and this can be similar. The difference is that when Reviallark wanted to be, it could be a 4/3 with flying and a backup plan. As for combo decks, that is yet to be seen. I feel like reanimating big targets is an overall better strategy, but who knows.
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The one time you put ALL the bombs in play at once would be worth it lol
I think the Timmy in me is getting the better of me lol
Pretty sure griselbrand is 8, so you're casting it for 11 mana total, 10 if you're focusing on 7-drops.
I'm not sure whatever 4-drops there is, but IMO, 4-drops might be the best just for Hellrider and Falkenrath Arostocrat alone.
About Mindslaver rulings:
My bad, for some reason thought he was CMC 7, was mostly joking anyways
4 Mulch
4 Grisly Salvage
3 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Faithless Looting
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Sever the Bloodline
3 Champion of Lambholt
3 Hellraiser Goblin
3 Crusader of Odric
4 Kessig Malcontents
Plan: Mill yourself with Mulch, Salvage, Alchemy and Looting until you get a Hellraiser and enough other (Human) creatures to burn out your opponent with Malcontents and/or attack for unblockable lots with Champion.
Roughly based off of Frites, so needs work and tuning.
Hellraiser Goblin is a more important win-con here than Malcontents. I'd switch their numbers.
What worries me about this deck is that, unlike Unburial Rites, if you mill your Immortal Servitude, you can't simply flash it back. The deck hinges on Immortal Servitude so much, and Mulch and Grisly Salvage just throw them into the GY every time. Hell, maybe you could throw in blue just to Spapcaster them back.
Don't get me wrong, I like the idea, but Rites is a hellagood card. Can you believe that people actually said it was "bad" at the time? They complained that Wizards was gimping reanimator strategies by making it 5CMC.
PucaTrade Invite. Sign up and enjoy the first 500 points ($5) free!
The sideboard isn't a thing yet, but I would assume Naturalize is a given to deal with Grafdigger's Cage and Rest In Peace, and possibly Negate or something similar. The rest would depend on the meta.
While I liked swculve's deck, for the 2 mana option, I like a golgari slant leaning heavily on blood artist and bloodthrone vampire:
4x Grisly Salvage
4x Mulch
4x Sign in Blood
2x Golgari Charm
4x Bloodthrone Vampire
4x Elvish Visionary
4x Pack Rat
4x Ravenous Rats
Honorable mentions - burning tree emmissary and lotleth troll looked promising, but didn't seem to work that well when I tried testing them.
Yea, you can mill your Immortal Servitude, but the sign in bloods help a little with that. You'll be churning through cards but run out of things to do turn 6-7, and then you hopefully have have seen blood artists and Bloodthrone vampires and you can sac/reanimate everything, then do it again...
For the three mana option I definitely want Hellraiser Goblin and Kessig Malcontents. Riot Ringleader looks decent if we're going to have humans. I suppose a good second color would be White both for the Immortal Servitude and because there's a million white humans... So something like this?
4 Faithless Looting
4 Wild Guess
2 Pillar of Flame
2 Searing Spear
1 Boros Charm
3 Hellraiser Goblin
3 Frontline Medic
2 Mentor of the Meek
3 Silverblade Paladin
4 Riot Ringleader
1 Angel of Glory's rise
People will assume you're some sort of strange boros deck until you get to turn 6 or 7 and then reanimate everything.
I have been running a super aggro version of the deck in RGB that is doing very well in my local group.
The idea behind mine is get a Troll out. Discard all creatures in your hand to the Troll. Start mulching and salvaging. Treasured find the mulched servitude. Main phase servitude for a massive haste attack.
Has anyone started a standard thread about this?
4 Ash Zealot
3 Blood Artist
4 Flinthoof Boar
4 Lightning Mauler
4 Lotleth Troll
3 Mogg Flunkies
4 Spike Jester
Instants
4 Grisly Salvage
4 Immortal Servitude
4 Mulch
2 Treasured Find
Land
4 Blood Crypt
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground
4 Woodland Cemetery
4 Abrupt Decay
2 Duress
4 Golgari Charm
2 Rakdos Charm
3 Tragic Slip
X is a cost that you can pay any amount of mana of any type for, and that then sets the X variable in the text of the spell or ability to the total amount you paid. Shadowborn Apostle has a converted mana cost of 1. If you have one, six, or six hundred copies of this card in your graveyard and you cast Immortal Servitude for X = 1 - paying 1(W/B)(W/B)(W/B) - they would all be returned to the battlefield since the X variable in the spell is set as 1.
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝