MTG Salvation

Howdy!

I just recently constructed a deck centered around the same theme: casting my opponents' spells, except instead of Mishra, I have Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge at the helm. I thought she would be the best candidate for commanding a deck with this theme because she can actually cast opponents' spells entirely on her own. I'm glad I stumbled across your thread though because I never actually considered Mishra at all! The way you intend to use his ability is really creative and I wanted to thank you for posting your list because I find it quite inspirational. I've only played a handful of games with Jeleva so far, but I'm not so certain I'm fond of her. She seems to play in a very linear and predictable way, which can make games stale, especially since it's the only deck I own. I may just switch over to Mishra, Artificer Prodigy.

Although I have a number of thoughts regarding your decklist, one question I would like to ask is whether or not you've ever considered playing Steel Sabotage or another similar card? You list Guile as one of your key Mishra enablers, but Mishra only actually triggers off of casting artifact spells. If that's the case, why cast expensive blanket countermagic (other than simply just being strong with Guile in general) when you could alternatively cast inexpensive, but narrow countermagic that affects artifacts? Personally, I've never been a fan of expensive countermagic because it often comes with the opportunity cost of having to decide between holding mana open to counter a potentially dangerous spell or tapping out and not casting my countermagic in order to proactively advance my board. My best guess is that you wanted all of your countermagic to target any kind of spell because you didn't want to take any chances with your Possibility Storm.

Quote from Sinis »

Quote from arrogantAxolotl »

Quote from Sinis »

This is heartening; I have a Zedruu deck also, and was wondering if I could make up for the card disadvantage with it. Would you consider playing Mox Diamond and/or Chrome Mox also? Or is the no-card disadvantage of Gemstone Caverns more acceptable to you later in the game?

If I owned the cards, I would play all three. The "no-card disadvantage" of drawing the Caverns late into the game is meaningless to me. I'm playing Gemstone Caverns because I value it's ability when it works. Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond have the benefit of "always working" so to speak, and I would include them in my decklist before I would include the Caverns.

I'll test out all three and let you know if it's too much, haha. Without wanting to hijack this thread, what kind of donate mechanisms are you running, or is strictly casting Zedruu and using his activated ability? Do you run much other card draw?

I'll send you a pm so we can continue the conversation there.

Quote from RedGauntlet »

What makes Hermit Druid problamatic?Just want to know what is the thing makes this card been sugested here(no sarcarsm is that i don't know his combo)

It allows the user to mill all or most of their entire library with a single activation by deliberately including only or mostly nonbasic lands. It's currently banned in Legacy.

Silence the Believers is too expensive. I want all of my reactive cards to be inexpensive (roughly 1 or 2 mana) because I don't want to have to pay an opportunity cost between developing my board with proactive plays or having enough mana to use my reactive cards. The more expensive my reactive cards become, the greater chance I risk having to make an opportunity cost. While I agree that exiling creatures is invaluable when it comes to spot removal, there is a cost at which it isn't worth it.

Quote from Sinis »

Quote from arrogantAxolotl »

After visiting this thread over a month ago I became enticed by the card and decided to include it into my Zedruu the Greathearted deck. I've been very pleased with it since it's inclusion.

This is heartening; I have a Zedruu deck also, and was wondering if I could make up for the card disadvantage with it. Would you consider playing Mox Diamond and/or Chrome Mox also? Or is the no-card disadvantage of Gemstone Caverns more acceptable to you later in the game?

If I owned the cards, I would play all three. The "no-card disadvantage" of drawing the Caverns late into the game is meaningless to me. I'm playing Gemstone Caverns because I value it's ability when it works. Chrome Mox and Mox Diamond have the benefit of "always working" so to speak, and I would include them in my decklist before I would include the Caverns.

Oh jeez. This is a great disappointment. I was hoping that the new Chandra might be potent enough to build a new mono-red deck around. With these abilities... I'll have to look elsewhere.

I understand where you're coming from. One player at my LGS uses Prossh, Skyraider of Kher as his Commander. This would be fine if he didn't threaten to outright murder a player whenever he cast it, but due to the combination of cards that he chooses to play it with, a resolved Prossh in most instances immediately leads to lethal. As such, I feel compelled to answer Prossh every time it gets played. It feels cruel to deny my opponent the ability to play with his own Commander since nearly his entire deck revolves around it, but when the only other alternative means dying to it, I don't have much of a choice. Fortunately, this player is a good sport and bears no ill feelings about the situation.

If I were in your circumstances, I would continue to play in the way that you feel is most appropriate. If answering Bruna is necessary because it's always Phage the Untouchable on wings, then it's a strategically sound decision. The best you can do to appease the accusations of the Bruna player is by letting them know why you are choosing to make the decisions that you do. It may (or may not) also help to ask what the Bruna player would do if he were in your shoes. His response may shed further light on what philosophical or strategic grounds you each disagree on, leading to a resolution. It may, alternatively, lead to the Bruna player's realization that his expectations are unrealistic.

Right now I want to test and tweak my newly built Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge deck. It's built entirely around the idea of stealing my opponents' cards or otherwise casting them from one of their zones. So far I like it a good deal, but I know that it will take a fair chunk of time to refine it to the point where I'm comfortable with all 99 slots.

I'm also interested in building a second deck, a mono-red goodstuff. I'm holding out for the new red legends in Magic Origins. So far, I'm not too amped about the existing red legends because they are either too weak, too uninteresting, or incentivize me to build a deck in a direction that I don't want to take (Daretti, Scrap Savant with artifacts, Purphoros, God of the Forge with creature tokens.)

I don't have much experience playing with Library of Alexandria. Would every deck capable of playing the card choose to do so if it was available to them?

Quote from cryogen »

Insignificant to you, but not without its own set of issues. As I stated before, domain gets a whole lot better if I can include every single shock and dual land in my deck. I'm sure there are other scenarios as well, but the issue with what you propose is the usual issue with any proposed rules change - you make one small adjustment to the game in order to accomplish a niche thing, but the change opens up the door for new unintended interactions which do not benefit the game.

What issues? That domain is improved outside of pentacolored decks? I'd hardly consider that an issue. This rule change is really straightforward and the consequences apparent. The only baggage that seemingly comes with it (and ultimately why it won't be considered) is that it isn't intuitive that basic lands have a colorless color identity and thus creates a lot of confusion regarding possible card legality in decks.

Quote from cryogen »

Easier how? You would have to alter the rule such that mana symbols count for CI except when they don't, and then alter domain so that it works except when it shouldn't. There has always been a drawback to playing a certain general. Play a 5 color and you get access to every color at the expense of a very difficult mana base to balance/afford. Play a 1 or 2 color and get a more manageable manabase at the expense of fewer colors to draw from. Play one of the few colorless generals and accept the fact that until Wizards prints a colorless basic land you're going to get blown out by Ruination effects. Oh, and don't forget Shatterstorm because that'll wreck you too. But these are all choices you make when you go into deckbuilding.

I think that there is actually an easy solution to the problem of colorless Commander decks being unable to put basic lands into their decks: remove the rule that states that lands with basic land types have a color identity.

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-rulings/609473-color-identity-and-basic-land-types

This thread prompted me to create a new one in the Magic Rulings section (link above) where I ask what the color identity of lands with basic land types are. It turns out that there are seemingly two different rules that prohibit off-color lands with basic land types in decks where you would typically not expect to find them, but there is also a bit of contention regarding which of the two rules is legitimate. By eradicating whichever rule you believe is the legitimate one, you open up the possibility for colorless Commander decks to use basic lands (and some others) by virtue of basic lands having a colorless color identity.

EDIT: To further elaborate on what I've already said, the consequences of removing this rule appear to be insignificant. Yes, it would allow players to put Islands in their Purphoros, God of the Forge deck, but outside of extremely unusual circumstances, this change doesn't impact the way players deckbuild with the primary exception of colorless Commander decks.

Quote from Dilithium »

If the OP had clicked "Details" for the rule they quoted, they would have found this:

Quote from mtgcommander.net »

Lands whose type includes swamp, island, plains, forest and/or mountain (e.g.: basic lands, shocklands, dual lands, Shadowmoor special-basics, etc) DO contain the corresponding mana symbol(s) as per CR 305.6. As such, while they are "colourless" they do have a colour identity and may not appear in a deck unless the Commander is of the appropriate identity.

Well, that's... embarrassing. Thanks for pointing this out to me.

Quote from PlayerKent »

Quote from arrogantAxolotl »

Wait. I'm a bit confused.

Doesn't the basic land type allow lands to tap for colored mana? This is why cards like Sacred Foundry and Murmuring Bosk have mana abilities that are written in reminder text, rather than rules text, right? If so, then Forest Cave doesn't function well as a design because it would tap for green mana.

It would tap for either, which actually seems pretty elegant to me.

It enters the battlefield untapped and taps to produce green at no penalty, in addition to having an additional upside. That makes it strictly better than basic Forest, which is dangerous territory when it comes to designing lands.

Chandra. I'm looking for a Commander to build a goodstuff mono red deck around. I find the existing red Commanders to be weak, uninteresting, or incentivize me to build a deck in a certain direction that I'm not interested in (artifacts for Daretti, Scrap Savant; creature tokens for Purphoros, God of the Forge)

What is the color identity of Forest?

I've always assumed that because Forest can tap for green mana, that its color identity is green. Upon further reflection, I'm beginning to doubt that assumption.

Quote from Official Commander Rules »

A card's colour identity is its colour plus the colour of any mana symbols in the card's rules text.

As far as I am aware, this is the only criteria for determining the color identity of a card. I've bolded the "rules text" portion of the rule above for emphasis because I am aware that cards with colored symbols in their reminder text do not affect color identity. This is why Crypt Ghast is a legal card in the Sworn to Darkness preconstructed deck; the hybrid mana symbol doesn't influence color identity while it's between parentheses. By the same token, wouldn't cards like Badlands also have no color identity? Even though the examples listed on the official Commander rules page explicitly state that Badlands is an illegal inclusion in a Phelddagrif deck, the Gatherer page for Badlands reveals its mana ability to rest between two parentheses, implying that it is reminder text and not actually rules text, thus not influencing its color identity. A Gatherer search for Forest reveals its rules text to be "G," whatever that means.

Badlands isn't the only land written this way though. Overgrown Tomb, Sapseep Forest, and Murmuring Bosk all have mana abilities written in reminder text. Murmuring Bosk is especially interesting to look at because its other mana ability (T: Add W or B...) isn't written in reminder text, only the ability which taps for green is. From these cards I deduced that lands with basic land types tap for colors not because they explicitly state "T: Add color to your mana pool," but because they contain the basic land type. This also helps explain why Prismatic Omen allows a player's lands to tap for any color of mana. If such is the case though, shouldn't Forest and its ilk technically have no color identity?