There does seem to be a lot of hate towards the grey cards so with any luck they'll give us something with some real strength.
With any luck with Modern Horizons will have at least one or two decent artifacts to abuse.
I'm hoping the new Ugin is going to be a decent walker too, hopefully with another board wipe. Can always use the sweepers!
I'm very excited for the new Karn... if he's not a fake. Karn, the Great Creator (for when the card goes live)
Karn, the Great Creator4 Legendary Planeswalker - Karn
Artifact abilities of artifacts your opponents control can't be activated
[+1]: Until your next turn, up to one target noncreature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to its converted mana cost.
[-2]: You may choose an artifact card you own from outside the game or in exile, reveal that card and add it to your hand.
This dude is a one card, 10 mana win.
Cast Karn, activate his -2 and dip into your sideboard for Mycosynth Lattice.
Cast it.
Your opponents are dead in the water because they can't even use their lands.
His +1 could turn something like relic of progenitus into a chump blocker is a crisis as it's then a creature until your next turn, or after the mycosynth lattice resolves you could animate your opponents lands making them 0/0's which go straight to the yard.
Time to build a proper sideboard full of answers to the deck's problems.
I'm thinking cards like ratchet bomb for when the token strategies are getting on top and threatening a win.
Or just more removal: Unstable Obelisk, Meteor Golem and the like.
My worry is because the MycoSynth lattice combo is so obvious and anyone can play it as it's colourless, Karn might get banned. But then that's my fear with all strong cards we get.
EDIT: here's me thinking its a great card because we can play it... But didn't even think what would happen if an opponent played their own copy... No! Completely hoses the deck!
Burn every copy and never let it see the light of day
I think blinkmoth urn took me so long to cut was mainly because most of the times when I got it it was at a more or less decent time in the game. There were a few times when I drew it and it wasn't impactful but I must have been clinging onto memories of 'that time it won me the game'.
It's out now and it's unlikely to ever go back in at this point.
I'm actually going to test chaos wand that @SirSimic gave feedback on. My meta is rife with top deck tutors and decent green ramp spells that are asking to put wastes onto the field.
I don't usually go for card that yield unknown results but if the result is a player not getting to draw that bitter ordeal they went for with mystical tutor then it's definitely worth a punt. Don't know how I feel about holding 4 open though
I'm not a huge fan of Spawnsire.
If you sideboard a ton of threats and it gets taken out, you then have a sideboard full of useless.
But, on the same note as before at least you haven't just got bombs in your hand that don't pose as sufficient counters for Kozi2.0.
If you're playing a Timmy deck full of Craterhoof Behemoths and the like they might just work but more than likely you're going to be up against synergy builds who's curves are lower to the ground.
It serves you better to be sitting in the 1,2,3 drops to act as counters.
Scavenger Grounds is one I've been considering for a while. I'm thinking of taking out one of the weaker utility lands for it. Maybe Thespian's Stage because I rarely ever use the ability unless I'm copying a Strip Mine of the occasional Eldrazi Temple.
I tested Void Winnower and ran it in the deck for a few months after its release but I found it to just cause the table to have laser focus on my field and it generated far more hate than I was willing to deal with.
The problem with running that many high cost cards in your deck is that what're the chances of an opponent playing a 9 drop for you to pitch it to the Great Distortion? It doesn't pose that double use for you.
Blightsteel is another dude I pulled ages ago. He's a good substitute for Kozi with how oppressive it is and I used to run it with a janky infinite combo with Mirrorworks but I took out the infect monster. I can't remember my reasoning other than maybe taking it out for something more reactive or that offered filtering.
back to basics is a painful one to see across the table. I'd rather see a blood moon!
Because we don't have access to very many removal spells that can deal with it.
Make sure that player is punished for it next game (which I think a T2 Kozi would have easily done).
I find a lot of games end in a scoop win if I play Kozilek early enough.
Stax can be tough if you don't have an explosive start. If you do, Kill the stax player!
So grafdigger's cage prevents creatures entering the battlefield from libraries and graveyards.
That means you can use planar bridge but you can't go and get a creature which usually isn't a big deal.
Reanimator stretegies or cards that stock the graveyard also hate this card. Generals likegrenzo, dungeon warden use the graveyard then ping to the battlefield but the cage stops that completely.
It's second rules text says spells can't be cast from graveyards.
Lands are played, not cast. Casting is the act of putting a spell with a cost on the stack, paying mana for that spell and have it resolve.
Lands don't use the stack when they're played or tapped for mana so grafdigger's cage doesn't care what you do with lands.
It'll hose a general like Muldrotha the Gravetide because although they can still play a land, they can't play permanent spells.
Anything with the flashback mechanic is rendered useless when in the graveyard.
If you can get a decent Butcher draw engine going then distortion works well because you can keep those pseudo counterspells coming. It's circumstantial but its a hard stop. defense grid just forces the counter player to keep far more mana open and makes their counters much less viable if they want to establish their board. A talrand, sky summoner however will work through the mana cost and still counter your spells because they want those drakes!
Do you play with sideboards?
Because all these cards can be sideboarded for when you play these specific archetypes. Yeah, you might not see them coming game one but you cam swit H them in for game 2
So chaos wand really took advantage of that black player hahaha
Might have to play test it. Top deck tutors are very common in my meta. Being able to take that away from my opponents would be really useful.
welding jar is great. There's always something worth saving and just by having it on the field deters your opponents from wasting a removal spell knowing it likely won't resolve (unless the table turns on you (and playing Kozi they often do)
I also find geode golem struggles to see a combat phase. He's absolutely amazing but our opponents know that. It's 5 cost makes that sting pretty bad when it gets destroyed. Losing a Metalworker at 3 hurts a lot less than the five mana and I find Metalworker gets allowed more times than a geode golem.
Check out this post and check out the card tags section which gives detail on tagging cards. Probably explains it better than I did lol.
Yeah, anything that plays with lands is amazing with winter orb.
I used to play with both static orb and trinisphere with clock of omens and icy manipulator but I just found myself messing about with my own board trying to fight my own effects!
I know! I'm waiting for the ban hammer to break the engine!
Been waiting since it was spoiled. The funny thing is we only abuse it to such a small level compared to the decks that have one or more colours.
It's a ridiculous card!
Everyone foils their Kozi deck. It's so strange. Mine is all foil (apart from those that aren't available obviously), it's taken me years to track down all the judge promos and alternate arts to really pimp it out!
Let me know where you land on chaos wand. I can't say I've ever seen it which is rare, I've play tested so many colourless cards in this deck but that wand has slipped my notice.
mana web is a fairly decent card but I find a lot of players just play around it.
The only player it stops is the blue dude at the table and his handful of counters. I ran it for a little while and found it to be worse than I had hoped.
I definitely see conduit of ruin as one of your weakest cards, that and void winnower but void winnower has some serious stopping power on the board. The only reason I see it as weak is because of the cost vs what it does to progress the game plan. The best thing it has going for it is stopping kozilek getting chumped by tokens.
What sort of decks are in your meta? Are you facing a lot of token strategies or graveyard plays? If so I recommend cards like ratchet bomb or grafdigger's cage. Or if you are having trouble with the counters and removal maybe defense grid?
The card tag is the little mtg card on the right of the toolbar in the comment box, 4th from the right. You can either highlight the name you typed out and click it or click it and type the same between the html it brings up.
Wow, a slow clap exit. You're playing the deck right then!
How long have you been playing it?
No, you're right on chaos wand, that's what you get from reading cards at midnight and trying to make an informed decision on them hahaha.
Yes, no mana to pay so the wand will throw out the instant or sorcery for free if you want it to.
I like the interaction and I suppose if your opponent is in green with a decent ramp package you'll be able to dig out your wastes pretty easily too.
If it left those cards in exile I'd prefer it more but it only really take out maybe a third of their deck best case scenario. If it's working for you keep it but I would try and take note of how many times it swings and misses. If you had staff of domination instead of the staff you will 100% win the game if you had paradox engine and a few mana rocks.
lotus bloom in an opening hand is good because as you said, you've got the same effect of LED without the downside but I often find LED doesn't have that bad of a downside. I've never had to discard more than 3 cards to it and they were cards I was happy to chuck anyway given what's usually in front of me.
The two downsides of lotus bloom is that late game it's tricky to get into play to have a use when you need it.
If you've dropped most, if not all of your hand into getting Kozi out and you draw up lotus bloom and another rock, lotus bloom isn't gonna give you the reach to the next Kozi cast unless the other rock taps for more than 2, you've got to wait 3 turns and the game may not even last that much further. LED would come in and be used and more than likely you'll have no cards in hand when you activate it.
The other problem I have is that lotus bloom is an easy counter. Your opponents have all the information they need in front of them from your board state to see whether that 3 mana will put you in a position to cast your commander. They have three turns to hold up a counter to prevent it happening.
I get why you would run it and you make a decent case for the card but personally I think there are more downsides to lotus bloom than there are LED.
Nevinyrral's disk will wreck your creatures but it'll also wreck your opponents creatures too. If they have none and you have none, then you cast your commander you'll have about the same amount of creatures you started with! Plus you get to draw up and carry on. They'll struggle to keep up the pace and will fall behind every time you activate the disk.
I run it as a board wipe. My meta is heavy with artifact removal just from this deck being in the pool, I activate the disk when I've been set so far back it no longer matters and puts me back on the same level field as my opponents.
Im not a fan of conduit of ruin. It's a card that comes in and doesn't really improve the board state all that much, and guarantees that our next card isn't ramp. He's an extra body yes, but I don't feel he's worth his mana cost. If it put that creature it searched for to our hand, different story!
Hey, welcome to the forum.
Glad the thread has been useful to you!
Nice list, I can see why your opponents would hate sitting across from you.
When you say "make it better", are you looking to tune it further or make it more fun for your opponents to play against? Or make them hate it less?
Any reason Nevinyrral's Disk isn't on your list?
It's a great board wipe for when everything's against you plus you can lock out the table with darksteel forge which you already have.
lotus bloom is a weird one for me. Too slow in my opinion but can be good if you're running a salvaging station package.
Im just not a fan of something that comes in 3 turns later.
I assume you're running chaos wand to take out top deck tutors your opponents are running?
Or are you hitting that regularly with chromatic lantern in play to cast them?
Yeah, anything with a huge colourless mana cost works well with kruphix, he's a cool commander.
Still. Playing with lands that tap for colour seems a bit complicated to me!
Even outside of colourless decks, pretty much every deck is running the staples: Sol Ring, Sensei's Divining Top, Gilded Lotus, Thran Dynamo, Ashnod's Altar... all rendered useless.
There does seem to be a lot of hate towards the grey cards so with any luck they'll give us something with some real strength.
With any luck with Modern Horizons will have at least one or two decent artifacts to abuse.
I'm hoping the new Ugin is going to be a decent walker too, hopefully with another board wipe. Can always use the sweepers!
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Combats all those artifact hate cards like energy flux and kataki, war's wage.
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Karn, the Great Creator (for when the card goes live)
Legendary Planeswalker - Karn
Artifact abilities of artifacts your opponents control can't be activated
[+1]: Until your next turn, up to one target noncreature artifact becomes an artifact creature with power and toughness each equal to its converted mana cost.
[-2]: You may choose an artifact card you own from outside the game or in exile, reveal that card and add it to your hand.
This dude is a one card, 10 mana win.
Cast Karn, activate his -2 and dip into your sideboard for Mycosynth Lattice.
Cast it.
Your opponents are dead in the water because they can't even use their lands.
His +1 could turn something like relic of progenitus into a chump blocker is a crisis as it's then a creature until your next turn, or after the mycosynth lattice resolves you could animate your opponents lands making them 0/0's which go straight to the yard.
Time to build a proper sideboard full of answers to the deck's problems.
I'm thinking cards like ratchet bomb for when the token strategies are getting on top and threatening a win.
Or just more removal: Unstable Obelisk, Meteor Golem and the like.
My worry is because the MycoSynth lattice combo is so obvious and anyone can play it as it's colourless, Karn might get banned. But then that's my fear with all strong cards we get.
EDIT: here's me thinking its a great card because we can play it... But didn't even think what would happen if an opponent played their own copy... No! Completely hoses the deck!
Burn every copy and never let it see the light of day
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
It's out now and it's unlikely to ever go back in at this point.
I'm actually going to test chaos wand that @SirSimic gave feedback on. My meta is rife with top deck tutors and decent green ramp spells that are asking to put wastes onto the field.
I don't usually go for card that yield unknown results but if the result is a player not getting to draw that bitter ordeal they went for with mystical tutor then it's definitely worth a punt. Don't know how I feel about holding 4 open though
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Main decklist changed.
Blinkmoth Urn out, Kozilek, the Great Distortion in.
Details in Changelog and card selection.
No updates from Guild of Ravnica (No new toys, BOOOO).
Hopefully Modern Horizons will bring bombs!
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
If you sideboard a ton of threats and it gets taken out, you then have a sideboard full of useless.
But, on the same note as before at least you haven't just got bombs in your hand that don't pose as sufficient counters for Kozi2.0.
If you're playing a Timmy deck full of Craterhoof Behemoths and the like they might just work but more than likely you're going to be up against synergy builds who's curves are lower to the ground.
It serves you better to be sitting in the 1,2,3 drops to act as counters.
Play Butcher!!!!
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
I tested Void Winnower and ran it in the deck for a few months after its release but I found it to just cause the table to have laser focus on my field and it generated far more hate than I was willing to deal with.
The problem with running that many high cost cards in your deck is that what're the chances of an opponent playing a 9 drop for you to pitch it to the Great Distortion? It doesn't pose that double use for you.
Blightsteel is another dude I pulled ages ago. He's a good substitute for Kozi with how oppressive it is and I used to run it with a janky infinite combo with Mirrorworks but I took out the infect monster. I can't remember my reasoning other than maybe taking it out for something more reactive or that offered filtering.
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
back to basics is a painful one to see across the table. I'd rather see a blood moon!
Because we don't have access to very many removal spells that can deal with it.
Make sure that player is punished for it next game (which I think a T2 Kozi would have easily done).
I find a lot of games end in a scoop win if I play Kozilek early enough.
Stax can be tough if you don't have an explosive start. If you do, Kill the stax player!
So grafdigger's cage prevents creatures entering the battlefield from libraries and graveyards.
That means you can use planar bridge but you can't go and get a creature which usually isn't a big deal.
Reanimator stretegies or cards that stock the graveyard also hate this card. Generals likegrenzo, dungeon warden use the graveyard then ping to the battlefield but the cage stops that completely.
It's second rules text says spells can't be cast from graveyards.
Lands are played, not cast. Casting is the act of putting a spell with a cost on the stack, paying mana for that spell and have it resolve.
Lands don't use the stack when they're played or tapped for mana so grafdigger's cage doesn't care what you do with lands.
It'll hose a general like Muldrotha the Gravetide because although they can still play a land, they can't play permanent spells.
Anything with the flashback mechanic is rendered useless when in the graveyard.
If you can get a decent Butcher draw engine going then distortion works well because you can keep those pseudo counterspells coming. It's circumstantial but its a hard stop.
defense grid just forces the counter player to keep far more mana open and makes their counters much less viable if they want to establish their board. A talrand, sky summoner however will work through the mana cost and still counter your spells because they want those drakes!
Do you play with sideboards?
Because all these cards can be sideboarded for when you play these specific archetypes. Yeah, you might not see them coming game one but you cam swit H them in for game 2
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Might have to play test it. Top deck tutors are very common in my meta. Being able to take that away from my opponents would be really useful.
welding jar is great. There's always something worth saving and just by having it on the field deters your opponents from wasting a removal spell knowing it likely won't resolve (unless the table turns on you (and playing Kozi they often do)
grafdigger's cage doesn't shut down Planar bridge. The bridge doesn't cast, it literally takes a permenant and put it on the field.
Also, crucible of worlds doesn't target so silent gravestone will still let you play lands from your graveyard.
relic of progenitus is good and with rings of brighthearth you can draw up a few cards with the trigger.
I also find geode golem struggles to see a combat phase. He's absolutely amazing but our opponents know that. It's 5 cost makes that sting pretty bad when it gets destroyed. Losing a Metalworker at 3 hurts a lot less than the five mana and I find Metalworker gets allowed more times than a geode golem.
Check out this post and check out the card tags section which gives detail on tagging cards. Probably explains it better than I did lol.
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Yeah, anything that plays with lands is amazing with winter orb.
I used to play with both static orb and trinisphere with clock of omens and icy manipulator but I just found myself messing about with my own board trying to fight my own effects!
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Been waiting since it was spoiled. The funny thing is we only abuse it to such a small level compared to the decks that have one or more colours.
It's a ridiculous card!
Everyone foils their Kozi deck. It's so strange. Mine is all foil (apart from those that aren't available obviously), it's taken me years to track down all the judge promos and alternate arts to really pimp it out!
Let me know where you land on chaos wand. I can't say I've ever seen it which is rare, I've play tested so many colourless cards in this deck but that wand has slipped my notice.
mana web is a fairly decent card but I find a lot of players just play around it.
The only player it stops is the blue dude at the table and his handful of counters. I ran it for a little while and found it to be worse than I had hoped.
I definitely see conduit of ruin as one of your weakest cards, that and void winnower but void winnower has some serious stopping power on the board. The only reason I see it as weak is because of the cost vs what it does to progress the game plan. The best thing it has going for it is stopping kozilek getting chumped by tokens.
What sort of decks are in your meta? Are you facing a lot of token strategies or graveyard plays? If so I recommend cards like ratchet bomb or grafdigger's cage. Or if you are having trouble with the counters and removal maybe defense grid?
The card tag is the little mtg card on the right of the toolbar in the comment box, 4th from the right. You can either highlight the name you typed out and click it or click it and type the same between the html it brings up.
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
How long have you been playing it?
No, you're right on chaos wand, that's what you get from reading cards at midnight and trying to make an informed decision on them hahaha.
Yes, no mana to pay so the wand will throw out the instant or sorcery for free if you want it to.
I like the interaction and I suppose if your opponent is in green with a decent ramp package you'll be able to dig out your wastes pretty easily too.
If it left those cards in exile I'd prefer it more but it only really take out maybe a third of their deck best case scenario. If it's working for you keep it but I would try and take note of how many times it swings and misses. If you had staff of domination instead of the staff you will 100% win the game if you had paradox engine and a few mana rocks.
lotus bloom in an opening hand is good because as you said, you've got the same effect of LED without the downside but I often find LED doesn't have that bad of a downside. I've never had to discard more than 3 cards to it and they were cards I was happy to chuck anyway given what's usually in front of me.
The two downsides of lotus bloom is that late game it's tricky to get into play to have a use when you need it.
If you've dropped most, if not all of your hand into getting Kozi out and you draw up lotus bloom and another rock, lotus bloom isn't gonna give you the reach to the next Kozi cast unless the other rock taps for more than 2, you've got to wait 3 turns and the game may not even last that much further. LED would come in and be used and more than likely you'll have no cards in hand when you activate it.
The other problem I have is that lotus bloom is an easy counter. Your opponents have all the information they need in front of them from your board state to see whether that 3 mana will put you in a position to cast your commander. They have three turns to hold up a counter to prevent it happening.
I get why you would run it and you make a decent case for the card but personally I think there are more downsides to lotus bloom than there are LED.
Nevinyrral's disk will wreck your creatures but it'll also wreck your opponents creatures too. If they have none and you have none, then you cast your commander you'll have about the same amount of creatures you started with! Plus you get to draw up and carry on. They'll struggle to keep up the pace and will fall behind every time you activate the disk.
I run it as a board wipe. My meta is heavy with artifact removal just from this deck being in the pool, I activate the disk when I've been set so far back it no longer matters and puts me back on the same level field as my opponents.
Im not a fan of conduit of ruin. It's a card that comes in and doesn't really improve the board state all that much, and guarantees that our next card isn't ramp. He's an extra body yes, but I don't feel he's worth his mana cost. If it put that creature it searched for to our hand, different story!
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Glad the thread has been useful to you!
Nice list, I can see why your opponents would hate sitting across from you.
When you say "make it better", are you looking to tune it further or make it more fun for your opponents to play against? Or make them hate it less?
Any reason Nevinyrral's Disk isn't on your list?
It's a great board wipe for when everything's against you plus you can lock out the table with darksteel forge which you already have.
lotus bloom is a weird one for me. Too slow in my opinion but can be good if you're running a salvaging station package.
Im just not a fan of something that comes in 3 turns later.
I assume you're running chaos wand to take out top deck tutors your opponents are running?
Or are you hitting that regularly with chromatic lantern in play to cast them?
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Still. Playing with lands that tap for colour seems a bit complicated to me!
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR