"What do you have, that I cannot obtain?"
- Mairsil, the Pretender
This flavor text from Fellwar Stone pretty much encompasses, what this deck is about. It's the question the deck is asking the opponent. This is a rather old deck of mine, built around Puca's Mischief. It's one of my favorite casual decks, but I haven't gotten to update it in recent years. Many more sets came out since the last time I tried to improve it, and I'm looking for some help in that regard. I'm not bound by any format, but I want the deck to stay monoblue, and I don't intend to buy many expensive cards. I may purchase a few cards for an idividual price of up to one shockland, but overall the cards shouldn't be too expensive.
First and foremost, I need to get the deck down to 60 cards as at the moment it stands at 62. I have a few ideas about what to cut, but want to hear some other opinions first. The deck is full of synergies, but starts out rather slow, which makes for a hard time against aggressive decks. I need some improvements in that regard, I think. Once the deck gets rolling, though, it can grab pretty much any creature the opponent has and also many other permanents while generating more and more card advantage. But I'm highly relying on PM to do its thing, so I need to get that card out quickly and either keep it on the battlefield or quickly replace it if it gets removed. (That's where Put Away and Junktroller come in, they virtually make me have more copies of the card to draw into while providing other utility as well.)
Angelic Purge exiles permanently and can hit artifacts and enchantments, too. Even the cost of sacrificing a permanent can be abused, or you could just sac a superflous land to it.
You will draw two cards. Alhammarret's Archive' exception to its effect only applies to the first card drawn in your draw step. Cards drawn in other parts of the turn will benefit from the replecement effect, as will any other cards drawn in the draw step. Since you draw a card in your upkeep, you get to draw two cards. In your draw step you then draw one card as per the turn based action of that step, for three cards total drawn that turn up until then.
Yes, you can do this. Just put Bruna's trigger on the stack first, and the Ordeal's trigger on top of it. The sacrifice will happen first, so the aura is in the graveyard ready to be returned by Bruna's trigger.
Note, that this only works, because Bruna's trigger doesn't target the cards it returns. If a trigger needs a target, that target is chosen when the trigger is put on the stack. Any object not in the right zone or otherwise illegal at that time cannot be chosen as the target regardless of the order of other triggers that would make it legal when they resolve.
It comes down to time stamps. Since both ability granting and ability removing effects are applied in the same layer, the one created later wins out. Continous effects of permanents have the same time stamps as those permanents (so the time when they entered the battlefield), effects of equipment and auras have the time stamp of when they were attached. Continous effects of resolving spells and abilities have the time stamps of their creation during the resolution of those spells/abilities.
So since the Bow is a permanent, and it's not an attached aura or equipment, its deathtouch granting effect has the same time stamp as itself. Your Jest's ability removing effect has the time stamp as the resolving spell, which is later, so your spell wins out.
Edit:
In some cases, time stamp order is overwritten by dependency. For depedndency, a) both effects have to come from characteristic defining abilities (CDA) or have to both not come from CDA, b) both have to be applied in the same layer, and c) applying one would change the text or the existence of the other effect, what it applies to, or what it does to the things it applies to.
Example: Mycosynth Lattice is on the field making every permanent an artifact. March of the Machines is also out, making every artifact a creature. In this case, if there is at least one usually nonartifact permanent on the field, no matter what time stamps those effects have, they are applied Lattice first, then MotM. Because the Lattice changes what the March applies to. If there are only natural artifacts out, there's no dependency and the effects are applied via time stamps (though the Lattice's effect doesn't do anything then really).
You'll have to target something else. The Soilshaper's triggered abilty hasn't even made it to the stack yet when you have to choose the target for your spell, which is during its casting. The trigger will go on top of your spell once you've finished the casting process.
If you have a way to change a spell's target (e.g. Redirect, Willbender), you can wait until after the trigger has resolved and animated the land, and then use it to change the target before the spell resolves to kill the land.
A card that would fit really well in your deck is Phyrexian Altar. It serves as a sac outlet and also fixes your colors. Imagine this variant of your inital scenario:
Turn 1: Land
Turn 2: Land, Dripping-Tongue Zubera
Turn 3: Land, Phyrexian Altar
Turn 4: Land, Silent-Chant Zubera, Floating-Dream Zubera. Sac all three Zuberas to get 3 mana, let their triggers resolve and you get 3 tokens, 6 life, and 3 cards. Sac 2 of the tokens to get another 2 mana for a total of 5 and cast Immortal Servitude for 2 to bring back your Zuberas. Sac then again to get 3 mana, let their triggers resolve (now for 6 of each!), sac one token for another mana and cast Devouring Greed saccing 6 tokens. During that turn (turn 4!) you've drained your opponent for 12 life, got an additioal 18 life, and drew an additional 9 cards.
If instead you wait until turn 5, you get to play even more Zuberas, and that single Devouring Greed can easily be lethal. Or if you had a second Dripping-Tongue Zubera.
Another fitting card, and one that complements Immortal Servitude well, is Cauldron Haze. With that your Zuberas can come back right away as 0/1s, ready to die and trigger again for only 2 mana.
EDIT:
If you substitute Immortal Servitude with Cauldron Haze in my above scenario, you can get to two Zuberas on turn 4, give them both persist, sac them stacking the triggers so that both persist back first, then sac them again still in response to their triggers. Each trigger will thus count 4 dead Zuberas for the turn, two of which were Dripping-Tongue Zuberas, so you'll have 8 tokens (plus whatever the other Zubera provides x4) and the 4 mana for Devouring Greed, which can drain the opponent for 16 life! If both Zuberas were the green version, you could drain for up to 32 life. That's game.
EDIT2:
You want to use your first turn productively, which in this case means mana fixing. Some cards that may be useful here are Springleaf Drum, Search for Tomorrow, and Utopia Sprawl, all of which could get you to 4 mana on turn 3.
You could also just play a 1 mana spirit as extra fodder for Devouring Greed. Things like Plagued Rusalka, Hana Kami, or Disowned Ancestor are useful in their own right. Imagine my first scenario with a Mausoleum Wanderer played on turn 1. Even though you only drained for 12 life with Devouring Greed, you get to swing with a 15/15 flyer afterwards! In my Cauldron Haze scenario it's still a 12/12 flyer, also on turn 4.
The white Zubera is the least useful, its main purpose is to be another Zubera to be counted for having died. You can more easily achive that by adding a changeling (which is a Zubera and a spirit). There are quite a few cheap ones. You could use Mothdust Changeling as your 1-drop, for example, and use it to increase the value of your later Zubera deaths, resulting in a lethal Devouring Greed in both of my scenarios. Phantasmal Image can also serve as a cheap Zubera.
EDIT3:
It may be a good idea to cut down on your colors. I think, three colors would suffice and seeing as blue, black and green are the most important, I'd cut white and red entirely (even though losing the red Zubera does hurt quite a bit, but maybe keep a few copies). This allows you to fix your colors with a single triland (Opulent Palace) on your first turn.
Play full sets of the blue, black, and green Zubera, complement them with cheap changelings in those colors, add Phyrexian Altar and Cauldron Haze plus a few Immortal Servitudes, with Devouring Greed as the big gun, and you may very well go through your entire deck thanks to the blue Zubera before you drain multiple opponents to death on turn 4.
EDIT4:
I just remembered an old white card, that could totally justify playing white: Remembrance! With that, you get another copy of any Zubera you kill from your deck, easily assembling complete sets, further fueling the Zubera genocide.
Discarding Ugin's Nexus does not give you an extra turn. The replacement effect only applies to the event of it moving from the battlefield to the graveyard. If that event would happen, the ability changes it into the Nexus going to exile instead, it never touches the graveyard. Neither abililty of the Nexus is a triggered one, both are static abilities and create replacement effects. As such, Strionic Resonator cannot be used on it, because replacement effects don't use the stack, and static abilities aren't triggers.
If through any means you get an exra turn (like by sacrificing the Nexus for something), unless otherwise specified by the effeect, the extra turn happens right after the current turn ends. If several exra turns are created during a single turn, the last one to be created will be taken first.
Let's pretend Nyx Weaver is my commander and it is on the battlefield. If I were to use his 3 mana ability to exile him to return one card from my graveyard to my hand what would happen?
Would I get the card in my hand and then Nyx Weaver would be sent back to the command zone?
The other way around, but yes. You first would exile the Weaver, but as the Commander you can choose to send it to the command zone instead. when its ability resolves, you get to return the targetd card to your hand.
Another question:
Let's say I have Royal Herbalist on the battlefield. If I have no cards in my deck, can I use his 2 mana ability to gain life? I think I cannot because I do not have any cards to exile from my library as part of the cost? Is this right?
Correct. You cannot fully pay the ability's cost so you cannot legally activate it.
Undying is a leaves-the-battlefield trigger and those are treated specially by the game in that it looks back in time to right before the event happened in order to determine wether it triggers or not. Since all your opponent's creatures except Mikaeus had undying at their very last moment on the field, they all get to return (provided they also had no +1/+1 counters on them).
All combat damage is assigned at the same time (barring first strike or double strike). Assigning combat damage from an attacking creature with trample allows you to take into account other creatures' assignment of combat damage. So since Ancient Silverback has to assign all its combat damage to the Lagac, and it is already lethal, all combat damage from the Stomper can be assigned to the player ("trample over")
You're reading the card wrong. It doesn't say that the creature doesn't untap until your next untap step, but during your next untap step. You're free to untap it by any means you got before that time. Just the normal untap that happens during your next turn's untap won't happen for the creature. In essence, the affected creatures will skip the untap of your next turn, they get to untap normally a turn later.
The blinked SQ has to legally target a spell if possible. The only legal target is Nahiri's Wrath. And since this trigger resolves first, it gets to exile the spell (which can be recast when this SQ leaves the battlefield). The former recast trigger does nothing becasue there is no spell to recast for it. And the former exile trigger is countered by the game rules when it tries to resolve, because its only target is already gone.
There are 7 lands on the field after the Stomping Grounds got destroyed, five of which are Mountains. The triggers for each of those Mountains see only the other four remaining Mountains and thus the intervening-if clause is false and the triggers do nothing. None of the five Mountains on the field, however, are the destroyed Stomping Grounds. So they are other Mountains regarding that destroyed land and the intervening-if clause for the correcponding triggers thus is still true.
- Mairsil, the Pretender
This flavor text from Fellwar Stone pretty much encompasses, what this deck is about. It's the question the deck is asking the opponent. This is a rather old deck of mine, built around Puca's Mischief. It's one of my favorite casual decks, but I haven't gotten to update it in recent years. Many more sets came out since the last time I tried to improve it, and I'm looking for some help in that regard. I'm not bound by any format, but I want the deck to stay monoblue, and I don't intend to buy many expensive cards. I may purchase a few cards for an idividual price of up to one shockland, but overall the cards shouldn't be too expensive.
The deck:
21 Island
1 Moonring Island
2 Quicksand
Creatures (18)
2 Junktroller
2 Sakashima the Impostor
4 Mulldrifter
4 Riftwing Cloudskate
2 Nucklavee
4 Spire Golem
4 Fellwar Stone
4 Turn to Mist
4 Puca's Mischief
4 Mystic Restraints
4 Put Away
First and foremost, I need to get the deck down to 60 cards as at the moment it stands at 62. I have a few ideas about what to cut, but want to hear some other opinions first. The deck is full of synergies, but starts out rather slow, which makes for a hard time against aggressive decks. I need some improvements in that regard, I think. Once the deck gets rolling, though, it can grab pretty much any creature the opponent has and also many other permanents while generating more and more card advantage. But I'm highly relying on PM to do its thing, so I need to get that card out quickly and either keep it on the battlefield or quickly replace it if it gets removed. (That's where Put Away and Junktroller come in, they virtually make me have more copies of the card to draw into while providing other utility as well.)
Thanks in advance for any suggestions
Note, that this only works, because Bruna's trigger doesn't target the cards it returns. If a trigger needs a target, that target is chosen when the trigger is put on the stack. Any object not in the right zone or otherwise illegal at that time cannot be chosen as the target regardless of the order of other triggers that would make it legal when they resolve.
So since the Bow is a permanent, and it's not an attached aura or equipment, its deathtouch granting effect has the same time stamp as itself. Your Jest's ability removing effect has the time stamp as the resolving spell, which is later, so your spell wins out.
Edit:
In some cases, time stamp order is overwritten by dependency. For depedndency, a) both effects have to come from characteristic defining abilities (CDA) or have to both not come from CDA, b) both have to be applied in the same layer, and c) applying one would change the text or the existence of the other effect, what it applies to, or what it does to the things it applies to.
Example:
Mycosynth Lattice is on the field making every permanent an artifact. March of the Machines is also out, making every artifact a creature. In this case, if there is at least one usually nonartifact permanent on the field, no matter what time stamps those effects have, they are applied Lattice first, then MotM. Because the Lattice changes what the March applies to. If there are only natural artifacts out, there's no dependency and the effects are applied via time stamps (though the Lattice's effect doesn't do anything then really).
If you have a way to change a spell's target (e.g. Redirect, Willbender), you can wait until after the trigger has resolved and animated the land, and then use it to change the target before the spell resolves to kill the land.
Turn 1: Land
Turn 2: Land, Dripping-Tongue Zubera
Turn 3: Land, Phyrexian Altar
Turn 4: Land, Silent-Chant Zubera, Floating-Dream Zubera. Sac all three Zuberas to get 3 mana, let their triggers resolve and you get 3 tokens, 6 life, and 3 cards. Sac 2 of the tokens to get another 2 mana for a total of 5 and cast Immortal Servitude for 2 to bring back your Zuberas. Sac then again to get 3 mana, let their triggers resolve (now for 6 of each!), sac one token for another mana and cast Devouring Greed saccing 6 tokens. During that turn (turn 4!) you've drained your opponent for 12 life, got an additioal 18 life, and drew an additional 9 cards.
If instead you wait until turn 5, you get to play even more Zuberas, and that single Devouring Greed can easily be lethal. Or if you had a second Dripping-Tongue Zubera.
Another fitting card, and one that complements Immortal Servitude well, is Cauldron Haze. With that your Zuberas can come back right away as 0/1s, ready to die and trigger again for only 2 mana.
EDIT:
If you substitute Immortal Servitude with Cauldron Haze in my above scenario, you can get to two Zuberas on turn 4, give them both persist, sac them stacking the triggers so that both persist back first, then sac them again still in response to their triggers. Each trigger will thus count 4 dead Zuberas for the turn, two of which were Dripping-Tongue Zuberas, so you'll have 8 tokens (plus whatever the other Zubera provides x4) and the 4 mana for Devouring Greed, which can drain the opponent for 16 life! If both Zuberas were the green version, you could drain for up to 32 life. That's game.
EDIT2:
You want to use your first turn productively, which in this case means mana fixing. Some cards that may be useful here are Springleaf Drum, Search for Tomorrow, and Utopia Sprawl, all of which could get you to 4 mana on turn 3.
You could also just play a 1 mana spirit as extra fodder for Devouring Greed. Things like Plagued Rusalka, Hana Kami, or Disowned Ancestor are useful in their own right. Imagine my first scenario with a Mausoleum Wanderer played on turn 1. Even though you only drained for 12 life with Devouring Greed, you get to swing with a 15/15 flyer afterwards! In my Cauldron Haze scenario it's still a 12/12 flyer, also on turn 4.
The white Zubera is the least useful, its main purpose is to be another Zubera to be counted for having died. You can more easily achive that by adding a changeling (which is a Zubera and a spirit). There are quite a few cheap ones. You could use Mothdust Changeling as your 1-drop, for example, and use it to increase the value of your later Zubera deaths, resulting in a lethal Devouring Greed in both of my scenarios. Phantasmal Image can also serve as a cheap Zubera.
EDIT3:
It may be a good idea to cut down on your colors. I think, three colors would suffice and seeing as blue, black and green are the most important, I'd cut white and red entirely (even though losing the red Zubera does hurt quite a bit, but maybe keep a few copies). This allows you to fix your colors with a single triland (Opulent Palace) on your first turn.
Play full sets of the blue, black, and green Zubera, complement them with cheap changelings in those colors, add Phyrexian Altar and Cauldron Haze plus a few Immortal Servitudes, with Devouring Greed as the big gun, and you may very well go through your entire deck thanks to the blue Zubera before you drain multiple opponents to death on turn 4.
EDIT4:
I just remembered an old white card, that could totally justify playing white: Remembrance! With that, you get another copy of any Zubera you kill from your deck, easily assembling complete sets, further fueling the Zubera genocide.
If through any means you get an exra turn (like by sacrificing the Nexus for something), unless otherwise specified by the effeect, the extra turn happens right after the current turn ends. If several exra turns are created during a single turn, the last one to be created will be taken first.
The other way around, but yes. You first would exile the Weaver, but as the Commander you can choose to send it to the command zone instead. when its ability resolves, you get to return the targetd card to your hand.
Correct. You cannot fully pay the ability's cost so you cannot legally activate it.
You're reading the card wrong. It doesn't say that the creature doesn't untap until your next untap step, but during your next untap step. You're free to untap it by any means you got before that time. Just the normal untap that happens during your next turn's untap won't happen for the creature. In essence, the affected creatures will skip the untap of your next turn, they get to untap normally a turn later.