Hey guys! It's me, Lamia. I've been gone for a good long while, I actually took the better part of a year off of Magic after getting frustrated with standard and modern at the time. But now here I am. Mostly just brewing and playing Commander, at least for now!
This could probably be avoided if you use "When you cast" wording instead of "ETB" although that mitigates a lot of the other cool interactions around the card.
I dunno if he's technically broken, but I do feel that Amori could lead to some pretty oppressive deck design. I'm not a huge fan of hexproof commanders.
Although to be fair mono green limits how crazy you can be with it.
That's pretty sweet! I don't think you need to even planeshift Alara to get the flavor, either. Post-mending sees a greater mix of mana in the various shards, see Etherium-Horn Sorcerer.
Yeah, Arsenia... Pack ALL the counterspells. I actually think she'd be fine as like, a 4/6, too, now that I think about it. Her casting cost is steep and you still actually need to invest mana into both countering spells and then casting those spells yourself. Who needs friends when you're countering everything, and then killing or punishing people for everything you don't counter? Arsenia is your friend now... your only friend...
Also, my R/W commander, or a tweaked version (Basically the change was that for RW, T, she would exile an instant under her, then cast all those stored instants at once when she left the battlefield, rather than have the exile be on ETB. More scaling potential on her leaves trigger, but not as much abusability with blink.) might blow up on Tumblr so that's something.
None too taken with any of the Commander decks. To be honest, I still like my double faced commanders better than anything that was previewed (well, the Black/Red and Blue/Black ones I came up with anyway!) except for MAYBE Meren, who is just awesome. Oh, and Arjun, because that seems like a cool ability. I REALLY want them to make a blue/black Sphinx. Because, well, then with Isperia and this blue/black sphinx, I can make "Lieutenants" for Sharuum using two combinations of her colors.
Also, hi! Long time no see!
Anyway, here, since the latest commanders aren't too interesting to me, here's my prospective U/B sphinx, along with a W/R legend since everyone's *****ing about the two options we got. I decided to go a route I'm not sure people would normally think to go, but that is fairly in-color a-la Sunforger
Arsenia, The Bonesphinx3UB
Legendary Creature- Spinx Skeleton
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library and choose one:
-Put that card into your hand.
-Put that card into your graveyard, each opponent loses 2 life. You gain life equal to the life lost this way. Her riddles are answered not with words, but with suffering.
3/4
Originally players lost life equal to the card's converted mana cost on the second option, but since the ability seemed most useful as a way to get a little extra out of your lands, I reigned in the life loss potential, but sweetened the deal by adding scaling lifegain. To be honest, she's not so much of a "build around me" gal as she is a "generic control commander" but hey, I enjoy generic control commanders. I suppose maybe she should get a subtheme, like Sharuum's Artifacts or Isperia's Flyers (As she's meant to be part of an "Esper Commander sphinx" cycle with those two. So if you have suggestions to make her a little more unique (preferably ones that don't involve heavy milling themes, self or otherwise) let me know.
Yasa, Curtain Closer3WR
Legendary Creature- Avatar
When Yasa, Curtain Closer enters the battlefield, search your library for target red or white instant with converted mana cost 3 or less, reveal it, and exile it. Then shuffle your library.
When Yasa leaves the battlefield, you may cast instant cards exiled with it without paying their mana costs. A recurring character in Kolram's works, her exit from the stage signals the climax of the show.
3/3
This design I'm VERY uncertain of but it felt like the right way to make a spellslinger commander in these colors. To be perfectly honest, she probably reduces variance a little too much, but hey, if you wanna play sunforger as your commander, you can. Originally I was gonna have her with an activated ability to cast the instant, but I figured I'd leave room to get creative. She works well in a blink/gating-type deck, which I don't think it something any current Boros commanders support particularly well, and red's got some effects, like Goblin Bombardment, that work well with her, but honestly she might be just a BIT too abusable. 3WR is a pretty steep initial investment for a 3/3 that can only fetch 3 mana instants, though, so maybe that mitigates it. Anyway, she's also got a cool little bit of theater flavor attached to her!
EDIT: Shuffle clause added to Yasa (I forgot!)
EDIT 2:
So... I had another idea for Arsenia, but while I LOVE this one, I'm pretty sure it's SUPER unfun in practice.
Arsenia, the Bonesphinx4UUB
Legendary Creature- Sphinx Skeleton
Flying
Whenever a spell an opponent controls is countered, exile it.
You may cast spells exiled with Arsenia, the Bonesphinx, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast those spells. Her riddle "How many possessions equal the value of a life?" is as much for her as it is for her victims.
4/4
EDIT 3:
Also, because I haven't designed cards in awhile and there's NO way this is broken, why not?
Rotcaster Mage1B
Creature- Zombie Wizard
Deathtouch
When Rotcaster Mage enters the battlefield, target creature card in your graveyard gains unearth until end of turn. The unearth cost is equal to its mana cost.
2/1
Since unearth is only sorcery speed and flash isn't terribly black anyway, no real point in having it here, so I went with deathtouch instead? I feel like flashback is the mechanic with more potential than Unearth in most cases, and creatures, in general, (or at least the ones worth bringing back) are more expensive than spells, so I'm fine with giving this guy the tradeoff of having not only a relevant creature type, but also a mechanic that makes it pretty good in combat. Honestly, I want to see this card whenever unearth comes back (And I REALLY hope it comes back in Shadows over Innistrad.
I really want to play Pale Moon but they're not really relevant as a clan anymore, outside of maybe Silver Thorn, where apparently Luquier has reached Dark Confidant prices.
I still have my old Kagero deck, but that's REALLY REALLY old. Like, from the first few sets. Did okay back in the day but there's no way it can still keep up. This game has gotten complicated.
For modern? Not a ton. I think I have full playsets of B/W, B/G, and B/R shocks still... I have a playset of G/R fetches as well. Besides that, I have a full playset of Scavenging Ooze and a full playset of Thoughtseize plus a full playset of Huntmaster of the Fells (even though I don't think that's a card that sees much play anymore.) along with some random standard stuff.
Colors I like to play:
For the past few years (since Theros-Ravnica Standard) I've been on a Red/Green kick. I'm not particularly partial or impartial to any color, except that I end up playing a TON of black and don't seem to play much white or blue (although I have nothing against either color)
Styles I like to play:
I mainly play midrange, but I've always wanted to try tempo or control. I'm not a huge fan of aggro.
Budget I have:
I have a good selection of trades that I can also use to my advantage, but I probably only want to drop about $100-200 in real money.
Level I want to play at:
Ideally I'd love to go all the way to pro, but really just the local store-run modern tournaments right now are what I'm aiming for.
A possibility I've thought about was running this list more aggressive and adding in Rabblemasters. Whisperwood Elemental might not be a bad card here either.
The first Origins draft I went to impressed in my mind the power of Evolutionary Leap, and since then, I've wanted to find a place for it in standard.
Now, I think that building around death triggers, graveyard interactions, or only have a few creatures is the wrong way to go about building the deck. The deck I've built aims to take advantage of Evolutionary Leap in the same way that midrange decks took advantage of Birthing Pod back in scars standard. While I've named the deck "Leap", it's not completely build around the namesake card.
This is a really rough list that I'd like some help with. Most of our creatures actually synergize pretty well with Leap. Hangarback makes tokens when it dies, and both Ashcloud and Raptor have built in recursion. Woodland Bellower is mostly here to fetch our raptors, but fetching a courser can be fun too.
Hey y'all. Yeah, I can't say I have a good excuse for being gone, like work or school. It's been about half depressive lethargy, about half me being a party girl.
Wow, so, I feel like I'm only in here when I come in and am like "Hey guys, sorry I've been gone so long" but life has been busy-ish lately anyway! Hi! What's up with everyone?
I think that's pretty good for the creature base. Now what about non-creature spells? Since we're running werewolves, we probably want a good portion of our noncreature spells to be artifacts and enchantments with repeatable activated abilities so that we still have something to do that one turn where we flip all our wolves.
My favorite magic card is Hellkite Charger. The first time I saw it, I thought it was a really underpowered dragon with a useless ability. I soon learned how amazing haste is on a beefy enough flyer. While his ability has won me very few games, the games it has won have been memorable (including one where I killed three people over the course of two back to back attack steps) and I've won countless more games on the back of having a 5/5 hasty flyer at my disposal. The art is one of the most gorgeous dragons in magic, and I really want to see it make a proud return in a core set some day.
>^.^<
-Lamia
Although to be fair mono green limits how crazy you can be with it.
Yeah, Arsenia... Pack ALL the counterspells. I actually think she'd be fine as like, a 4/6, too, now that I think about it. Her casting cost is steep and you still actually need to invest mana into both countering spells and then casting those spells yourself. Who needs friends when you're countering everything, and then killing or punishing people for everything you don't counter? Arsenia is your friend now... your only friend...
Also, my R/W commander, or a tweaked version (Basically the change was that for RW, T, she would exile an instant under her, then cast all those stored instants at once when she left the battlefield, rather than have the exile be on ETB. More scaling potential on her leaves trigger, but not as much abusability with blink.) might blow up on Tumblr
Also, hi! Long time no see!
Anyway, here, since the latest commanders aren't too interesting to me, here's my prospective U/B sphinx, along with a W/R legend since everyone's *****ing about the two options we got. I decided to go a route I'm not sure people would normally think to go, but that is fairly in-color a-la Sunforger
Arsenia, The Bonesphinx 3UB
Legendary Creature- Spinx Skeleton
Flying
At the beginning of your upkeep, look at the top card of your library and choose one:
-Put that card into your hand.
-Put that card into your graveyard, each opponent loses 2 life. You gain life equal to the life lost this way.
Her riddles are answered not with words, but with suffering.
3/4
Originally players lost life equal to the card's converted mana cost on the second option, but since the ability seemed most useful as a way to get a little extra out of your lands, I reigned in the life loss potential, but sweetened the deal by adding scaling lifegain. To be honest, she's not so much of a "build around me" gal as she is a "generic control commander" but hey, I enjoy generic control commanders. I suppose maybe she should get a subtheme, like Sharuum's Artifacts or Isperia's Flyers (As she's meant to be part of an "Esper Commander sphinx" cycle with those two. So if you have suggestions to make her a little more unique (preferably ones that don't involve heavy milling themes, self or otherwise) let me know.
Yasa, Curtain Closer 3WR
Legendary Creature- Avatar
When Yasa, Curtain Closer enters the battlefield, search your library for target red or white instant with converted mana cost 3 or less, reveal it, and exile it. Then shuffle your library.
When Yasa leaves the battlefield, you may cast instant cards exiled with it without paying their mana costs.
A recurring character in Kolram's works, her exit from the stage signals the climax of the show.
3/3
This design I'm VERY uncertain of but it felt like the right way to make a spellslinger commander in these colors. To be perfectly honest, she probably reduces variance a little too much, but hey, if you wanna play sunforger as your commander, you can. Originally I was gonna have her with an activated ability to cast the instant, but I figured I'd leave room to get creative. She works well in a blink/gating-type deck, which I don't think it something any current Boros commanders support particularly well, and red's got some effects, like Goblin Bombardment, that work well with her, but honestly she might be just a BIT too abusable. 3WR is a pretty steep initial investment for a 3/3 that can only fetch 3 mana instants, though, so maybe that mitigates it. Anyway, she's also got a cool little bit of theater flavor attached to her!
EDIT: Shuffle clause added to Yasa (I forgot!)
EDIT 2:
So... I had another idea for Arsenia, but while I LOVE this one, I'm pretty sure it's SUPER unfun in practice.
Arsenia, the Bonesphinx 4UUB
Legendary Creature- Sphinx Skeleton
Flying
Whenever a spell an opponent controls is countered, exile it.
You may cast spells exiled with Arsenia, the Bonesphinx, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast those spells.
Her riddle "How many possessions equal the value of a life?" is as much for her as it is for her victims.
4/4
EDIT 3:
Also, because I haven't designed cards in awhile and there's NO way this is broken, why not?
Rotcaster Mage 1B
Creature- Zombie Wizard
Deathtouch
When Rotcaster Mage enters the battlefield, target creature card in your graveyard gains unearth until end of turn. The unearth cost is equal to its mana cost.
2/1
Since unearth is only sorcery speed and flash isn't terribly black anyway, no real point in having it here, so I went with deathtouch instead? I feel like flashback is the mechanic with more potential than Unearth in most cases, and creatures, in general, (or at least the ones worth bringing back) are more expensive than spells, so I'm fine with giving this guy the tradeoff of having not only a relevant creature type, but also a mechanic that makes it pretty good in combat. Honestly, I want to see this card whenever unearth comes back (And I REALLY hope it comes back in Shadows over Innistrad.
I still have my old Kagero deck, but that's REALLY REALLY old. Like, from the first few sets. Did okay back in the day but there's no way it can still keep up. This game has gotten complicated.
For modern? Not a ton. I think I have full playsets of B/W, B/G, and B/R shocks still... I have a playset of G/R fetches as well. Besides that, I have a full playset of Scavenging Ooze and a full playset of Thoughtseize plus a full playset of Huntmaster of the Fells (even though I don't think that's a card that sees much play anymore.) along with some random standard stuff.
Colors I like to play:
For the past few years (since Theros-Ravnica Standard) I've been on a Red/Green kick. I'm not particularly partial or impartial to any color, except that I end up playing a TON of black and don't seem to play much white or blue (although I have nothing against either color)
Styles I like to play:
I mainly play midrange, but I've always wanted to try tempo or control. I'm not a huge fan of aggro.
Budget I have:
I have a good selection of trades that I can also use to my advantage, but I probably only want to drop about $100-200 in real money.
Level I want to play at:
Ideally I'd love to go all the way to pro, but really just the local store-run modern tournaments right now are what I'm aiming for.
A possibility I've thought about was running this list more aggressive and adding in Rabblemasters. Whisperwood Elemental might not be a bad card here either.
Now, I think that building around death triggers, graveyard interactions, or only have a few creatures is the wrong way to go about building the deck. The deck I've built aims to take advantage of Evolutionary Leap in the same way that midrange decks took advantage of Birthing Pod back in scars standard. While I've named the deck "Leap", it's not completely build around the namesake card.
The Deck:
2 Ashcloud Phoenix
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Deathmist Raptor
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Hangarback Walker
2 Polukranos, World Eater
2 Rattleclaw Mystic
2 Woodland Bellower
Instant/Sorcery (9)
4 Commune with the Gods
3 Murderous Cut
2 Ultimate Price
3 Evolutionary Leap
Lands (24)
2 Bloodstained Mire
5 Forest
2 Llanowar Wastes
2 Mountain
4 Swamp
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
3 Ainok Survivalist
3 Back to Nature
1 Murderous Cut
4 Nylea's Disciple
4 Plummet
This is a really rough list that I'd like some help with. Most of our creatures actually synergize pretty well with Leap. Hangarback makes tokens when it dies, and both Ashcloud and Raptor have built in recursion. Woodland Bellower is mostly here to fetch our raptors, but fetching a courser can be fun too.
4 Wolfbitten Captive
2 Young Wolf
4 Timberpack Wolf
4 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Daybreak Ranger
2 Pyreheart Wolf
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Wolfir Silverheart
2 Garruk Relentless
Instant/Sorcery
3 Moonmist
Enchantment
2 Curse of Stalked Prey
Land
2 Kessig Wolf Run
I don't think we need the mana and instead of Rite of Passage, why not Curse of Stalked Prey?
4 Wolfbitten Captive
2 Young Wolf
4 Timberpack Wolf
4 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Daybreak Ranger
2 Pyreheart Wolf
4 Huntmaster of the Fells
2 Wolfir Silverheart
2 Garruk Relentless
Instant/Sorcery
3 Moonmist
Land
2 Kessig Wolf Run
I think that's pretty good for the creature base. Now what about non-creature spells? Since we're running werewolves, we probably want a good portion of our noncreature spells to be artifacts and enchantments with repeatable activated abilities so that we still have something to do that one turn where we flip all our wolves.