Quote from DirkGently
well, except that one time.
What is legitimately annoying is how many of the legends are expensive, though. At least they're getting cheaper now. Boros has the two most weenie-centric colors, and for a while all its generals were 5+ cmc.
I would love to see a boros legendary with something like:
3WR
Solaire,The Sunforger
Legendary Creature - Knight
Haste
First Strike
When ~ is attacking, you may discard a card. If you do, search your library for
an instant or a card with flash and put it into your hand.
"Praise the sun!" - Solaire
2/2
I would make that a commander so fast.
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This is a list of spells that players using Sunforger may find useful. It is current up to M14. Not all of these cards will be powerful, but some of them will be neat little surprises.
Why isn't ***** on the list?
Pick one:
How many of these should I be playing if I'm playing Sunforger?
About 10, as appropriate for your colors. Because Sunforger needs a minimum of RW, you may have a lot of comptetition between the colors. In general, try pick cards that are useful without Sunforger to capitalize on times when you won't have it on the board..
For reference: Sunforger.
Keep the following in mind when playing with Sunforger:
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This is yet another one of my guides; this time it's to a pair of really boss creatures called Trinket Mage and Treasure Mage.
Why did you make this?
The average player looks at these two creatures with a little bit of suspicion. A large number of targets for both of these creatures are things that just don't help out (Panic Spellbomb isn't very good, nor is Aladin's Ring). But the simple fact is both of the Mages have excellent targets for just about every situation you'll find yourself in.
It's really easy to build around Trinket Mage (the Pauper Players can back me up on this), since no one is going to suspect your 1-drops. Also, you can include Artificer's Intuition to have a backup Trinket Mage if you need it.
Treasure Mage is a bit more difficult; His targets are largely finishers that you wouldn't want to draw every other turn, so packing your deck to the brim with them is just bad deck design. However, he's still worth using because he can fetch such powerful beaters.
Ok, but why not just link us to an advanced search for both of them?
Because I feel like being nice. Having a quick-reference list is wonderful, and I like helping out the community.
How many of these should I use?
For Trinket Mage you can get away with a dozen or more targets since you can cast some of those targets in the same turn, but Treasure Mage is more difficult. Treasure Mage can hit the table far faster than any of his fetch targets, making him a mid-game spell. For him, I recommend around 5 or 6, although you can include more if you'd like. Just be careful because you'll draw them when you can't cast them every so often.
What about XXXXX? Why didn't you list it?
Largely because this isn't meant to be a full-blown list, it's just a list of targets that are worth looking into. Listing the full 10 Spellbombs would just be a waste of space since most people only run Nihil Spellbomb (and the occasional Origin Spellbomb), and I've never seen someone use Aladin's Ring in EDH (especially not with Tower of Calamities being better than it).
Anyway, here's the lists (sorted by CMC):
What I like about this part of the list is how surprisingly versatile it is. 0-drops can be played the same turn you cast Trinket Mage, and some of them provide an immediate boost. The Moxen are if you need a quick ramp spell, the Artifact Lands are there if you want to ensure a land drop, Shield Sphere is a wonderful blocker, Orochi Hatchery is great later on when you can funnel out an army of tokens, Tormod's Crypt is there for when you need to get rid of someone's graveyard ASAP, and Paradise Mantle can turn Trinket Mage into a Bird. You also have LED and Lotus Bloom if needed, which turns Trinket Mage into a combo tutor.
And this is why Trinket Mage is amazingly powerful: You have everything you need to kill someone right here. From innocuous spells like Slagwurm Armor to game-breakers like Candelabra, to the ubiquitous Sensei's Top, you have the definition of Toolbox. Barring a select few cards, these cards are ones you wouldn't care about having in your opening hand.
And this list alone is why Treasure Mage is a boss. You have powerful options here, ranging from mana fixing to a game-ender to a super tutor. You also have Mindslaver.
I hate Mindslaver.
And here you have a huge arsenal of finishers. There's a couple of utility toys here (Forge, Spine, Station), but for the most part this is where the game-enders are.
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This is a mini-guide to using one of the best 2-drops there is: Isochron Scepter. Included in this thread is a list of cards that not only fit on the stick, they work well with it.
Why did you make this?
When it comes to Commander, most people look at Isochron Scepter and immediately compare it to it's banned relative: Panoptic Mirror. And then they read the stick and see that it is limited to Instants with a CMC of 2 or less, and it costs 2 to activate. Some players will remember the dreaded No Stick (Stick+Counterspell/Mana Drain), the bane of all noobs everywhere. Experienced players will see it as a secondary Yosei-lock via Silence/Orim's Chant. Very few look past these traits, to the stick's hidden potential.
Isochron Scepter is like it's distant cousin, Sunforger (which I also have a guide for). With close to 800 cards capable of fitting under it, there's quite a few options that people overlook in favor of more competitive options like the afore-mentioned No Stick. However, there is a problem: Stick is limited in uses/turn. This is a huge drawback in a format based around multiplayer, especially when the bomb spells start dropping left and right past a certain turn. For this reason the Stick is often tested but quickly removed. Stick also has the drawback of Imprinting the spell you want to use, thus exiling it.
This doesn't do it justice, as there is a plethora of spells out there that can not only be good on the Stick, but can slide under most players' radar. That's what this guide is for: The forgotten spells that make Stick a potent resource.
Ok, but why not just list everything that goes under it?
There's a lot of Limited chaff and a handful of X spells. Realistically, no one is going to put Aggressive Urge under the Stick when you have other options of equal or greater value, and very few people are going to prefer Emerge Unscathed over Brave the Elements. But most people are also going to miss spells like Test of Faith because of how small their effects see. These spells are terrible as a one-shot effect, but being able to reuse them via Stick can turn the game around without tripping your opponents' panic button.
This is the Stick's potential: Small effects that accumulate quickly over a short period of time. Even better, Isochron Scepter was errata'ed in M10 to say "cast the copy". This means it triggers Storm and allows for Kicker costs to be paid. It takes experience to recognize just how quickly those cards generate tempo or other resources.
A card this versatile should never be underestimated, as it can change the flow of a game within a few turns.
How many of these should I use?
Only as many as you feel will be useful. Loading a deck top to bottom with 1/2-drop Instants isn't going to help much when you don't have the Stick in hand, but some of those Instants are going to be useful anyway (Tragic Slip, Path to Exile). Obviously running only 3 or 4 means you often won't have the spells in hand when you want to put them on the Stick, but running 15+ would mean you will have a lot of dead draws from time to time. I recommend between 7 and 12 cards for the Stick itself, and maybe 2 or 3 effects to tutor it up.
Word of advice: If you were going to include the card anyway don't count it against the afore-mentioned recommended number. But if you wouldn't run the card without Stick, think carefully about it. It's easy to get carried away, but some spells just aren't going to fit.
What about XXXXX? Why didn't you list it?
I'm very particular about certain things. Notably, color-hate spells are something I almost never consider. Spells like Pyroblast are things I avoid like the plague largely because they play off of the metagame. Because the metagame varies so wildly from playgroup to playgroup, I avoid even listing these cards without a very good reason. Because of this factor, I leave most cards like that to your judgement. But there are a few hate spells that caught my eye.
The List
W
There is a lot of overlap as well. I personally wouldn't run either Test of Faith or Ethereal Haze if I was using Pollen Lullaby simply so I can cut down on the odds of a low Clash, and between Razor Barrier and Shelter it's a matter of if I can protect my non-Creatures or if I need the extra draw effect. Then you get spells like Vengeful Dreams, which I wouldn't even consider unless I ran Black or Blue as well. And then you have Disempower/Disenchant, which is a can of worms (both may not be worth running, but both can do some real damage on the Stick).
A noteworthy exception to my hatred of color restrictions is Celestial Purge. Exiling is good, but being able to hit any RB is back-breaking for either color. It gets even better if you have a way to change the color of a permanent.
U
And then you have your No Stick. With a Mana Drain on it. In 1v1, resolving that combo means game over. You also have a decent tutor, and access to every Clone effect that can target the Stick. If your deck runs Blue, consider using the Stick heavily.
B
Make no mistake, the B Stick has options galore.
R
When it comes to Stick, Lightning Bolt is a rather mediocre choice. Every time you use StickBolt you will be wishing you had Incinerate instead. Then you get Lash Out and Magma Jet. Why run either? Deck manipulation. Red has even less of it than White does, so Clash and Scry are welcome abilities for Stick. The fact that they come attached to burn spells is gravy. Galvanic Blast seems worse than Lightning Bolt, but the difference between 3 and 4 damage is worth the effort it takes to set up G.Blast. And then there's Spawning Breath, which seems out of place. The purpose is twofold: Pick off weakened beaters or chump tokens while churning out mana/chump blockers at the same time. This single trait put Spawning Breath on similar grounds to Raise the Alarm.
But even as limited as Red is, the color has some startling spells. Final Fortune seems risky to even run, much less put on Stick. But proper abuse (read: Platinum Angel) means you now have infinite turns. Fork, Increasing Vengeance, and Reverberate serve the same purpose as Twincast (although IV is a little bit less useful on Stick than any of it's relatives). Magnetic Theft is amusing against Voltron generals, as you can steal a vital piece of equipment temporarily, or just deny them that equipment whenever they try to swing. Ignorant Bliss and Crimson Wisps are valuable card draw, each with a different purpose (although the Wisps is less useful than Bliss)
The rituals are a bit mixed. Desperate and Pyretic are inferior to Cabal outright because they lack the Threshold benefit, but even Brightstone is risky. It turns Stick into a Red Gaea's Cradle, but goblins are about as fragile as it gets, so the effort to use Brightstone would be even higher risk than Cradle normally is (largely because Stick is an Artifact and Red has little in the way of protecting either Artifacts or Creatures)
Lastly, we have Price of Progress, Firestorm, Fling, and Unstable Footing. Price is easily the most reliable, but FlingStick and Firestorm are dangerous toys capable of tipping the entire game in your favor if used right (Memory Jar or some beatsticks backed by recursion). And while Unstable Footing looks bad, it's actually a great mid-game burn effect for Stick (you can kick the copy, unlike other effects that copy the spell).
All-in-all, Red has useful toys for the Stick. Not many, but enough to get by.
G
Sprout and Vitality Charm are two odd cases. Both of these effects are narrow, low-powered, and easily ignored. But both of them serve a huge purpose. The Charm can be used in Tribal on some deadly creatures, like saving some of Mayael's horde from a Murder or granting trample. But the tokens produced by Sprout and Charm can fuel Skullclamp almost endlessly, and can help improve Might of the Massess and Strength in Numbers dramatically.
Then we have the 2 color hate spells: Reap and Seedtime. Seedtime is obviously powerful, effectively putting the threat of a Lighthouse Chronologist on an Artifact, something Blue traditionally has issues destroying (although bounce effects suck). Resolving SeedStick turn 2 (or turn 1 with Sol Ring) means you can put the Blue players in a delicate predicament: Either they hold counterspells to prevent you from taking extra turns, or they never cast a Blue spell at all until Stick is gone.
Reap is an unusual spell in that it's the only one capable of returning more than 1 card (of any type) from your graveyard to your hand without exiling itself. It combos with Darkest Hour, Dralnu's Crusade (if there's a Goblin player opposite you), Nightcreep (another Stick target), and the Kormus Bell+Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth combo. This turns Reap from a Regrowth or Restock into a Praetor's Counsel. And if you happen to be playing a Kingmaker-stye deck with a Black player as your ally, the card because a nigh-limitless recycling factory.
While Green is limited, it's tricks are down-right terrifying.
Multicolor Cards
Charms are, without a doubt, the cream of the crop. A CharmStick means you have 3 spells instead of one, and your opponents now have to play around that versatility. Add in Copy Artifact, Sculpting Steel, and Phyrexian Metamorph and you have a set of Swiss Army Knives waiting to solve your every problem.
Shadow of Doubt is a poor-man's Stranglehold, but put it on a Stick and you now have one of the best anti-toolbox combos you can get, punishing those foolish enough to tutor in your presence while improving your own position. Combining it with something like New Horizons and you can cripple an opponent without actually hitting them.
Reknit and Manamorphose are odd ones. Reknit actually protects Stick (how many spells out there say "Destroy target Artifact, it can't be regenerated"?), while Manamorphose filters your mana and cantrips. Most people will ignore these spells until they realize that both effects are vastly more annoying than they should be.
Multicolored decks have far more options than a mono-colored one does, so exploit the hell out of Stick while you have the chance!
Split Cards
I say they cheat because you can cast either side of a Split card each time you use Stick. SplitStick is incredible, being able to churn out quick 3/1s or recovering your graveyard, or even recovering expended Stick targets. If ever there were a reason to do 5-color Stick, it's because of multicolor spells.
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This is something I wanted to bring up: Virtus mentioned the unbanning in Duel Commander, but that format has a different mindset than multiplayer EDH. Spot removal is king in Duel, while significantly less useful in multiplayer. Decks are designed differently in multiplayer than they are in Duel because you have to be aware of what every opponent is doing and have as many solutions to their threats as you can afford (that is, run without compromising your deck's strategy).
Duel Commander isn't a valid measuring stick for multiplayer bannings because of how different the metagames of the two variants are.
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Actually any Time Walk effect is game-breaking on PM. Imagine imprinting a simple Savor the Moment at your upkeep (in response to the trigger), and then building up to a Turnabout loop. Or Armageddon each turn. Or Identity Crisis. Or just about any other mid-range Instant/Sorcery.
The problem with PM is that you can respond to the upkeep trigger by imprinting, meaning no one knows what you're going to imprint until you try it. They have to answer it before your next upkeep, or you win on the spot. It may require a second spell, but it's a win condition and enabler rolled into one.
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He won't always have Privileged Position out, and when he does you can blow it up before the combo comes online. It is a silver bullet, but it won't always happen. Don't discount an answer because a single card gets in the way.
Martyr's Bond bypasses Position completely with the added bonus of clearing his creatures off the board (along with everyone else's, incidentally).
The instants do in fact undo the damage, but it happens again immediately unless Natural Affinity/Elesh Norn gets destroyed. If someone kills one of those two, Faith's Reward is the best answer you'll have.
4 mana is not expensive, and you can easily cast+activate it in the same turn if you have even one of those mana doublers out. Your complaint here makes no sense.
To make things short: You're chicken littling our responses to your problem. Try them out before you decry them.
Beast Within, Chaos Warp, and Oblation can all deal with Natural Affinity or Elesh Norn separately.
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While it is, I don't think leaving 7 mana open during an opponent's turn is a feasible play unless you have an incredible surplus; at the point where I'd be comfortable passing turn with 4BBB open I'm usually using Nykthos/Coffers or have Caged Sun+Crypt Ghast.
It's instant speed availability is more relevant for my Toshiro deck because I can reanimate something I just killed during my combat phase, but I would never consider using it during an opponent's turn unless someone just dumped Kozilek or Ulamog and I had the mana to snag it before it shuffled back in.
Fated Return is cool and splashy, but not practical as graveyard hate or as a reanimator spell. It's a Timmy card, and that's it.