Yeah, but for some reason I couldn't. I don't remember the exact reason but I was left high and dry with it.
So long ago I can't remember the boards state.
I'll test it again and see where we land. I was playing the deck out with skyship weatherlight to myself last night and it seems like it'd be pretty potent with paradox engine underneath it. I'll try it out in practise when I next play
I was stung a few times when skyship weatherlight was on the stack an opponent would destoy a mana rock that meant I couldn't activate it when it had entered, meaning I had to search for something menial that didn't matter if the skyship was destroyed before I could untap and activate it for the 'random card'. Planar portal does cost the additional four more than weatherlight but it's much more versatile. 12 mana for a card it expensive, that's why I no longer run it and ring of three wishes and planar bridgeare included.
I guess when I was using the skyship there wasn't a 'one card that fixes everything' in the deck like paradox engine so whatever I was searching for tended to be the second part of a two card combo. Maybe I need to re-test it an keep aiming it at the engine.
I tested skyship weatherlight back before paradox engine existed.
I used to use it to go and get other como pieces and enablers. I found it a bit on the slow side for the cost, plus there's the risk that you'll lose the exiled cards. I know you'd only ever go for a single card to bypass the 'random' aspect.
If it put the card to the battlefield rather to hand it'd be better but not everything can be a planar bridge!
For the cost I'd rather run planar portal again as a safer way to send cards to hand.
Getting that mana vault untapped for use and losing the tempo would have hurt pretty bad!
Then the countered geode golem would have cost you two cards in total. Ouch.
You guys were right, The Immortal Sun is pretty awkward to cast. The few times I drew it ended up doing something strong so I didn't really have a large sample size I guess. So I cut The Immortal Sun for Grinning Totem. Wow that card is total gas, I highly recommend trying it, stealing someone's Paradox Engine and going off with it is pretty hilarious.
I gave grinning totem a test a long while ago but found it wasn't for me. I did find it brilliant when I had chromatic lantern out and could use it to play anything from a player's library as land would tap for colour (after the rule change obviously).
The colourless tutors tend to be a tricky one to place in the deck literally because you have to play and activate in one movement, or they just get removed.
I used to play planar portal but 12 mana was asking a lot when ring of three wishes did a perfect job at 10 mana.
Speaking of paradox engine, guess who survived the January rules update???
THIS GUY!!!
So happy I still get to run those broken broken card
In my meta I can't afford to use Emrakul politically.
It's the same as when I Mindslaver. I aim for someone with a strong position but with a way I can then wreck that player too.
Token decks with sac outlets for instance.
I smash up my other two opponents and then make the controlled player sac everything they have.
Or that typical Narset, use their infinite attacks to exile their library by attacking the other two players. Then in their next turn right after, draw dead!
Or the standard thing of waste his removal spells on random junk.
If you know your opponents decks well enough (and at this point I do) use their game winning turn to kill everyone apart from you!
Or my number one favorite thing to do. Path their own commander and declare 'it goes to exile' hahahaha
You’re in a slightly different position in that you play distortion and not butcher so repeatedly playing your commander over and over doesn’t really get you anywhere unless you’re playing the cards as you draw them, but even then you’ll eventually just end up with a handful of land and continued casting gets you nowhere.
I run less bomb creatures because my bomb is infinitely repeatable. I would rather play Kozilek in a turn over something like blightsteel colossus or emrakul, the promised end.
The card up that end of the Curve I want are planar bridge (and an activation of it) and ring of three wishes. I don’t count those as a 6 and 5 CMC. I see them as 14 and 10 so they fall into my ‘bomb cost cards’catagory.
You need to hunt the dead card.
When you're playing are there any cards that are in your hand that you can cast, but get pushed back for better ones?
You're looking for the cards that get passed over turn after turn and maybe only see play when you have too much mana to actually spend.
Try to forget 'that time when you cast card X and it made a huge impact and won the game that one time'. That metallity ruins your objectivity.
Or another technique I use.
Shuffle up the nonland cards in your deck and draw five cards. Take the two least effective cards and put it on the table. Put the other three in a separate pile.
Do this over and over putting the worst of five in a pile and the rest separately.
When you've gone through everything do it again with the pile of the worst.
Keep going until your pile gets smaller and smaller until you've weeded your way down to the last five of so cards.
Odds are, the one you should take out is one of those.
This technique only works if you know your deck inside out and know every interaction of those cards with the other cards you have.
Then the last thing you ask yourself when you have the cards you're looking to switch: Is this better or worse than the cards I'm replacing it with?
Geode Golem seems much too important to this deck strategy. Being able to circumvent the casting cost of Kozi seems like a pretty big deal.
Based on my experience in MTG Arena, The Immortal Sun isn't particularly awe-inspiring or impactful enough to even warrant a side-board inclusion anymore. And if the card isn't being played in a 60 card format, I'm hesitant to give it dedicated deck space personally.
I had to test it. Its been on my radar for so long but after actually using it its a dead draw. Completely out of place when the deck focuses on speed to be playing something with such a high cost that nets an extra 2 cards over the course of the game. Geode Golem goes back in!
Can confirm: the Immortal Sunis an awkward cast.
I feel like I’m losing something just by playing it.
Although it’s good I think it might be a touch too slow and 6 is a huge investment, but, at the same time that cost reduction won a game.
I had it three out of seven games and there seems to be only one good time to cast it and that’s the turn after the first Kozilek cast.
Drew it once in the early stages and it was heavy in my hand!
I think Geode Golem may have been the wrong cut while I test
I don't rate mind's eye all that much as I find holding the mana up for it slows down my game plan and normally goes toward a Kozilek draw.
It was in the deck about two years ago but like a lot of tested cards that got the axe, sat in my hand too long and ended up redundant.
I can't see anything else in your build that I would cut over mind's eye apart from maybe the trading post but I realised after my last post that you're running distortion so trading post is actually good with the discard ability.
Nice kyren toy. You won’t be disappointed with it, I promise.
I’ve just had the Immortal Sun turn up today. I’m most likely going to swap out geode golem for testing.
The golem is great in theory but I’m finding it’s slowing the tempo a bit.
Currently finding that the 5 mana going into the golem could be better spent towards a rock and a utility activation and it’s being passed over for other cards and by the time I get around to casting it, the ‘optimal time’ to play it had passed.
As it stands I think that’s where the switch will be.
I don’t think springjack pasture is all that good in terms of cost for effect.
To be honest I don’t love trading post either but the artifact back to hand I appealing with inbuilt theft protection for Kozi at the same time. Shame trading post targets the artifact rather than saying ‘return an artifact’. Means you have to have an artifact to target rather than using it as a free sac outlet
@Forgek I’m at a point where I won’t play the deck unless I’m at the ‘broken table’. I don’t need to announce what it’s like or what it does, just when I’m in a group with certain other players it’s always an anything goes game.
I have 12 other decks that play the long fun games. Kozi’s for the win fast or die games so rarely end up with bad feels at the table.
I want a foil Basalt Monolith so bad it hurts my soul. I’ve no idea in what context they could print one though. It’d have to be a masters set I guess b it they’re not doing those much anymore.
I’m currently testing brittle effigy. I’ve yet to draw it in game though. Seems I only ever get it in hand after it no longer matters and my hand size is at 75 with infinite in the pool.
I like that it’s a low cost artifact to chain with Paradox Engine and makes a nice chain with inspiring statuary.
@Runnin I’ll play a non-foil ward of bones if the feeling takes over. It’s especially strong in my super low creature build.
I need to test the Immortal Sun . Every aspect of it is brilliant apart from the nonbo with our own walkers. I have trouble with daretti, scrap savant completely ruining my board state so it might not be the worst thing to happen.
I also got shot of my haven of the spirit dragon. One land that drags Ugin back wasn’t good enough for me.
Also, how much do you activate springjack pasture? 4 for a 0/1 is a lot!
I’ve tested foundry inspector and although he was good, he’s a little bit fragile as an artifact creature (the easiest card type to remove).
Whenever he hit the field he was the first to go.
Kind of he mentality of the green player dropping a defense of the heart on turn 3. Nobody likes where it’s going and it’s gonna get stopped.
He’s a great drop early game but he’d get destroyed so fast he seemed less and less worth having.
kyren toy even as a 3 for 1 is really good because of that bank effect. It’s a solid card.
spatial contortion is a pass for me. It doesn’t hit anywhere near enough things that I’d end up shooting it at the first viable target. A BOP or something!
scorched ruins is a hard pass for me. In the meta I play this deck in it would set me back too far. Every deck that my Kozi competes against would punish me as soon as it hit the field. Especially with [card][assassin’s trophy/card] being a thing that’s in fashion to throw at my land base!!
Great card in theory but the reality would hurt too much.
I’m not seeing what batterskull is doing for you apart from a paradox engine interaction? Is that just for an extra blocker that can tank up Kozi as well?
I’m very very low on creatures. I throw Kozilek down by himself 90% of the time and have him just go to town. At the point in the game he initially hits the field he’ll recover nearly half of an opponents board so there’s usually not very much blowback from doing it. Nobody wants to destroy him anymore to give me more cards and if they kill him. Brilliant!
Aggro becks can be a pain but all you do is hit them first. Most aggro builds can be shut down in the early game by a turn 4 or 5 annihilator as they tend not to be able to recover. Even voltron aggro tend to have all their eggs in one basket. Just blow the bottom out of the basket with Kozilek!
The only time I feel my lack of creatures is a problem is when facing token strategies but having three or four more creatures won’t help me any. ratchet bomb does though! Sideboard it in with powder keg and get to drawing them up!
ward of bones has had me tempted for ages but I’ve yet to test it. I may give it a try but I’d need a foil one. All my deck is foiled apart from the cards that aren’t available in foil. They’re altered to have either Kozilek in them or to be all bismuthy like Kozilek’s blight.
tabernacle is brilliant. It really really is it does exactly what you want it to do and I too have a pretty convincing proxy.
I have it sideboarded for when I need it but I don’t like playing it because of the bad feels it can bring to a table if someone doesn’t have an answer to it. It usually leads to me getting hated out when I run it.
I completely understand where the hate comes from though. Nothing’s worse than sitting down to play Magic only to find that someone has dropped a card that prevents you from actually playing. I get it.
If you read Tazri's weird Kozilek induced brain future in The Blight We Were Born For it says:
For the first ten thousand years after Kozilek's disappearance, Tazri had used her new powers to attempt the reconstruction. But Kozilek was a poor creator, nothing like his eldest sibling, and Tazri's gifts were a pale, stunted imitation of her master's.
Then you've got the last of the eldritch moon story, got Jace's mind meld with Emrakul:
She paused her writing, considering the scroll. "This is all wrong. I am incomplete, unfulfilled, inchoate. There should be blossoms, not barren resentment. The soil was not receptive. It is not my time. Not yet." The way she said, yet, sent a shiver through Jace's neck.
Then there's something in one of them that I couldn't find that says the two that procede emrakul destroy life, then unmake the plane's demise. Emrakul then sews new life into the soil.
They're saviours of the plane... Not the unhabitents lol
So long ago I can't remember the boards state.
I'll test it again and see where we land. I was playing the deck out with skyship weatherlight to myself last night and it seems like it'd be pretty potent with paradox engine underneath it. I'll try it out in practise when I next play
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Planar portal does cost the additional four more than weatherlight but it's much more versatile. 12 mana for a card it expensive, that's why I no longer run it and ring of three wishes and planar bridge are included.
I guess when I was using the skyship there wasn't a 'one card that fixes everything' in the deck like paradox engine so whatever I was searching for tended to be the second part of a two card combo. Maybe I need to re-test it an keep aiming it at the engine.
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
I used to use it to go and get other como pieces and enablers. I found it a bit on the slow side for the cost, plus there's the risk that you'll lose the exiled cards. I know you'd only ever go for a single card to bypass the 'random' aspect.
If it put the card to the battlefield rather to hand it'd be better but not everything can be a planar bridge!
For the cost I'd rather run planar portal again as a safer way to send cards to hand.
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Then the countered geode golem would have cost you two cards in total. Ouch.
You can't win them all!
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
I gave grinning totem a test a long while ago but found it wasn't for me. I did find it brilliant when I had chromatic lantern out and could use it to play anything from a player's library as land would tap for colour (after the rule change obviously).
The colourless tutors tend to be a tricky one to place in the deck literally because you have to play and activate in one movement, or they just get removed.
I used to play planar portal but 12 mana was asking a lot when ring of three wishes did a perfect job at 10 mana.
Speaking of paradox engine, guess who survived the January rules update???
THIS GUY!!!
So happy I still get to run those broken broken card
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
It's the same as when I Mindslaver. I aim for someone with a strong position but with a way I can then wreck that player too.
Token decks with sac outlets for instance.
I smash up my other two opponents and then make the controlled player sac everything they have.
Or that typical Narset, use their infinite attacks to exile their library by attacking the other two players. Then in their next turn right after, draw dead!
Or the standard thing of waste his removal spells on random junk.
If you know your opponents decks well enough (and at this point I do) use their game winning turn to kill everyone apart from you!
Or my number one favorite thing to do. Path their own commander and declare 'it goes to exile' hahahaha
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
I run less bomb creatures because my bomb is infinitely repeatable. I would rather play Kozilek in a turn over something like blightsteel colossus or emrakul, the promised end.
The card up that end of the Curve I want are planar bridge (and an activation of it) and ring of three wishes. I don’t count those as a 6 and 5 CMC. I see them as 14 and 10 so they fall into my ‘bomb cost cards’catagory.
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
When you're playing are there any cards that are in your hand that you can cast, but get pushed back for better ones?
You're looking for the cards that get passed over turn after turn and maybe only see play when you have too much mana to actually spend.
Try to forget 'that time when you cast card X and it made a huge impact and won the game that one time'. That metallity ruins your objectivity.
Or another technique I use.
Shuffle up the nonland cards in your deck and draw five cards. Take the two least effective cards and put it on the table. Put the other three in a separate pile.
Do this over and over putting the worst of five in a pile and the rest separately.
When you've gone through everything do it again with the pile of the worst.
Keep going until your pile gets smaller and smaller until you've weeded your way down to the last five of so cards.
Odds are, the one you should take out is one of those.
This technique only works if you know your deck inside out and know every interaction of those cards with the other cards you have.
Then the last thing you ask yourself when you have the cards you're looking to switch: Is this better or worse than the cards I'm replacing it with?
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
I had to test it. Its been on my radar for so long but after actually using it its a dead draw. Completely out of place when the deck focuses on speed to be playing something with such a high cost that nets an extra 2 cards over the course of the game.
Geode Golem goes back in!
Thanks dude! We both put in quite a bit of time!
It's gonna sit out until someone throws a superfriends deck into the mix.
Next to test: Myr Welder!
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
I feel like I’m losing something just by playing it.
Although it’s good I think it might be a touch too slow and 6 is a huge investment, but, at the same time that cost reduction won a game.
I had it three out of seven games and there seems to be only one good time to cast it and that’s the turn after the first Kozilek cast.
Drew it once in the early stages and it was heavy in my hand!
I think Geode Golem may have been the wrong cut while I test
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
It was in the deck about two years ago but like a lot of tested cards that got the axe, sat in my hand too long and ended up redundant.
I can't see anything else in your build that I would cut over mind's eye apart from maybe the trading post but I realised after my last post that you're running distortion so trading post is actually good with the discard ability.
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
I’ve just had the Immortal Sun turn up today. I’m most likely going to swap out geode golem for testing.
The golem is great in theory but I’m finding it’s slowing the tempo a bit.
Currently finding that the 5 mana going into the golem could be better spent towards a rock and a utility activation and it’s being passed over for other cards and by the time I get around to casting it, the ‘optimal time’ to play it had passed.
As it stands I think that’s where the switch will be.
I don’t think springjack pasture is all that good in terms of cost for effect.
To be honest I don’t love trading post either but the artifact back to hand I appealing with inbuilt theft protection for Kozi at the same time. Shame trading post targets the artifact rather than saying ‘return an artifact’. Means you have to have an artifact to target rather than using it as a free sac outlet
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
I have 12 other decks that play the long fun games. Kozi’s for the win fast or die games so rarely end up with bad feels at the table.
I want a foil Basalt Monolith so bad it hurts my soul. I’ve no idea in what context they could print one though. It’d have to be a masters set I guess b it they’re not doing those much anymore.
I’m currently testing brittle effigy. I’ve yet to draw it in game though. Seems I only ever get it in hand after it no longer matters and my hand size is at 75 with infinite in the pool.
I like that it’s a low cost artifact to chain with Paradox Engine and makes a nice chain with inspiring statuary.
@Runnin I’ll play a non-foil ward of bones if the feeling takes over. It’s especially strong in my super low creature build.
I need to test the Immortal Sun . Every aspect of it is brilliant apart from the nonbo with our own walkers. I have trouble with daretti, scrap savant completely ruining my board state so it might not be the worst thing to happen.
I also got shot of my haven of the spirit dragon. One land that drags Ugin back wasn’t good enough for me.
Also, how much do you activate springjack pasture? 4 for a 0/1 is a lot!
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
Whenever he hit the field he was the first to go.
Kind of he mentality of the green player dropping a defense of the heart on turn 3. Nobody likes where it’s going and it’s gonna get stopped.
He’s a great drop early game but he’d get destroyed so fast he seemed less and less worth having.
kyren toy even as a 3 for 1 is really good because of that bank effect. It’s a solid card.
spatial contortion is a pass for me. It doesn’t hit anywhere near enough things that I’d end up shooting it at the first viable target. A BOP or something!
scorched ruins is a hard pass for me. In the meta I play this deck in it would set me back too far. Every deck that my Kozi competes against would punish me as soon as it hit the field. Especially with [card][assassin’s trophy/card] being a thing that’s in fashion to throw at my land base!!
Great card in theory but the reality would hurt too much.
I’m not seeing what batterskull is doing for you apart from a paradox engine interaction? Is that just for an extra blocker that can tank up Kozi as well?
I’m very very low on creatures. I throw Kozilek down by himself 90% of the time and have him just go to town. At the point in the game he initially hits the field he’ll recover nearly half of an opponents board so there’s usually not very much blowback from doing it. Nobody wants to destroy him anymore to give me more cards and if they kill him. Brilliant!
Aggro becks can be a pain but all you do is hit them first. Most aggro builds can be shut down in the early game by a turn 4 or 5 annihilator as they tend not to be able to recover. Even voltron aggro tend to have all their eggs in one basket. Just blow the bottom out of the basket with Kozilek!
The only time I feel my lack of creatures is a problem is when facing token strategies but having three or four more creatures won’t help me any. ratchet bomb does though! Sideboard it in with powder keg and get to drawing them up!
ward of bones has had me tempted for ages but I’ve yet to test it. I may give it a try but I’d need a foil one. All my deck is foiled apart from the cards that aren’t available in foil. They’re altered to have either Kozilek in them or to be all bismuthy like Kozilek’s blight.
I have it sideboarded for when I need it but I don’t like playing it because of the bad feels it can bring to a table if someone doesn’t have an answer to it. It usually leads to me getting hated out when I run it.
I completely understand where the hate comes from though. Nothing’s worse than sitting down to play Magic only to find that someone has dropped a card that prevents you from actually playing. I get it.
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR
For the first ten thousand years after Kozilek's disappearance, Tazri had used her new powers to attempt the reconstruction. But Kozilek was a poor creator, nothing like his eldest sibling, and Tazri's gifts were a pale, stunted imitation of her master's.
Then you've got the last of the eldritch moon story, got Jace's mind meld with Emrakul:
She paused her writing, considering the scroll. "This is all wrong. I am incomplete, unfulfilled, inchoate. There should be blossoms, not barren resentment. The soil was not receptive. It is not my time. Not yet." The way she said, yet, sent a shiver through Jace's neck.
Then there's something in one of them that I couldn't find that says the two that procede emrakul destroy life, then unmake the plane's demise. Emrakul then sews new life into the soil.
They're saviours of the plane... Not the unhabitents lol
EDH:
[Primer]C Kozilek, Butcher of Truth C
RGNikya of the Old WaysGR