Messages

31

Commander Discussion / Re: Combos You Really Want to See Work

« on: August 30, 2023, 09:53:32 pm »

@Okagachi

You're right.  I didn't have a copy of that card, and was playing against someone that I'll assume misread it.  I thought it felt a little overpowered.  That makes more sense.  Either way, even a imaginary combo is a good spark for the discussion.  Thanks for pointing me straight.

32

Commander Discussion / Combos You Really Want to See Work

« on: August 30, 2023, 01:21:37 am »

I just discovered that if you have Mu Yanling in play and a Skyship Plunderer able to attack, it only takes a couple turns of protecting Mu Yanling to go infinite.  Two cards, both blue, and they're both decent on their own, but wouldn't it be cool to see them take infinite turns together?  I'm guessing that I'll probably put both in my superfriends deck, rarely draw into them in the same game, and when I do, I'll get stuck at like 17-19 loyalty, which is not quite enough to go off.

It got me thinking about other combos I've built into decks that just never worked, whether I've built around them or threw them in as if saying "I just hope I get to see this go off one day".  Whether it's Repercussion and Blasphemous act in my creatureless deck, or Aphetto Alchemist and Wake Thrasher in my Wizard Deck, there are a lot of fun combos I'd love to see and haven't.

What about you, have you ever gotten any weird combos to go off, or are there combos you really wish you could see happen someday?

EDIT: Okay, so I was misreading Skyship Plunderer, which is fine.  The topic is still one I'd love to discuss.

33

Commander Discussion / Re: Favorite deck you built just to be silly

« on: August 29, 2023, 12:58:33 am »

A couple fun decks I've built are:

• "Experience Counters Tribal" Deck headed by Kelsien, the Plague which tries to balance all 5 experience counter generators in it's colors
• Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, which uses every way possible to make non-legendary copies of Adrix and Nev (I've been able to make more tokens than there are atoms in the universe in a single upkeep by like turn 7)
• Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner Infect (there is not a lot of infect in red, but there sure are a lot of ways to pump up a creature's power after making it unblockable and giving it haste)
• and a deck that fetches out Skirk Fire Marshal after getting a board of goblins, a hand of untap effects, and a couple enchantments to keep me (or my creatures) from taking any damage.

34

Commander Discussion / Re: Goad as Pillowfort

« on: August 24, 2023, 06:40:37 pm »

The biggest problem with goad as pillow fort is that you have to be able to close out or completely dominate before you get to 1 v 1.  If you're able to goad the board every turn, you are in a pretty great place to just focus on setting up and letting everyone else slug it out, but one board wipe away from getting in some serious deep water.  Propaganda doesn't actively hurt your opponents, but goad often does, so they'll be keen to find the opportunity to tear you down.  It's a bigger draw for removal and, once removed, you become the prime target a lot of the time.

So, in summary, it technically can prevent attacks better than Propaganda, but it also can loose you the game if you aren't able to support it with quite a bit of protection or other pillow fort effects.

35

Commander Discussion / Re: Homeward Path (seems to becoming a must pick over time.)

« on: August 24, 2023, 06:30:51 pm »

I agree that it's not super necessary in most groups right now, and the cost is minimal in a 1 or 2 color deck.  I also agree that it'll likely become more useful in the future just based on what Wizards seems to be favoring right now.  If playing cards off your opponent's library becomes their next thing like treasure tokens has been for the last few years, I can certainly imagine Homeward Path being a must play for a lot of people.  I doubt it'll get quite that ubiquitous, but it will certainly become more common, and getting your cards back for just a single tapped land is pretty good.

Keep in mind, though, that the more this happens, the more Homeward Path helps your opponents as well.  If you get one or two creatures back, but your opponents get five or six collectively, you might be in trouble.  I'd probably only run it in decks that really have a lot of synergy, where getting one or two pieces back will most likely benefit me more than anyone else, like an aristocrats deck where I can combo off once I get that Blood Artist back or something.

36

General Magic / Re: LotR Cube: ideas welcome

« on: August 24, 2023, 06:21:05 pm »

What if, when you have a ring bearer, and you select a new creature to become your ring bearer because the ring temps you, you have to sacrifice the original ring bearer.  There are a lot more instances of people on the relatively same side killing each other over the ring or collecting the ring after a companion died than there are of people on the same side just handing it over willingly.  That would keep you mostly stuck with the same ring bearer once you've chosen one.

37

General Magic / Re: deckstats

« on: August 24, 2023, 06:13:39 pm »

This site's main objective is to help you gain information about decks you've already built.  Once you've put in a deck, it will give you information on your land distribution, mana curve, color ratios, creatures to non-creature spells ratio, essentially whatever you like.  It can also suggest great cards to add automatically, and, if you've got more time, you can submit the deck for others to give feedback.  Even if you don't have a complete deck designed yet, you can submit a partial deck for feedback, or even just ask about an idea you have in the forums.  You have lots of support for building and refining a deck idea, but, the initial idea for the deck will probably have to come from you.  That would be a cool feature, though: put in your collection and see decks that you can build or nearly build.  I bet someone, somewhere has built a site that does that, but I don't know where that would be.

38

General Magic / Re: [Modern] Redirection of damage from an activated ability

« on: August 24, 2023, 12:44:55 am »

I guess another question is whether it matters where the damage is redirected or where it's originally targeted.  Pariah redirects damage to a specific creature, as does Empyrial Archangel and Pariah's Shield.  If the original target is a creature, you can enchant it with Ward of Piety (though I don't think that would be a good solution in any way, but it technically redirects damage).

(Just so you know, it really helps us, as a community if you really explain exactly what the issue is, why it's a problem, and what you want the solution to look like.  There's really nothing in your description that suggests your best solution isn't Lightning Bolt or Path to Exile or something like that.)

39

General Magic / Re: Helm of the Host / Copying rules question

« on: August 24, 2023, 12:32:52 am »

Yeah, from a big fan of Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, I love making copies of everything on my board, especially my commander.  One of the cool things about copying is that even though you don't get to keep any effects on the creature, you can sometimes use that to your advantage.  If you use an act of treason effect and then copy the creature, you get to keep the copies.  If you copy the tokens you make from a myriad effect, the copies don't exile at end of combat.  So, yeah, you don't get all the bonuses, but there are times when only copying the permanent is really cool, too.

Note, Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Anointed Procession and such don't actually make tokens, so the original affect is still making the tokens, so in Blade of Selves' case, the extra copies from Blade of Selves still exile.

40

General Magic / Re: Do you think Wheel as an Equipment, would be too strong?

« on: August 24, 2023, 12:17:57 am »

Wheels are strong.  Being able to wheel every turn is potentially game breaking.  There are enough ways to cheat on equip costs, but, yeah, in general, it's a neat concept.  If you want to make it a little more fair, you could have it draw equal to the most a player discarded (a la Windfall), or have it cost something to get the effect (when creature deals damage, you may pay 2/sacrifice an artifact/whatever cost you like.  If you do, each player discards...).  I personally prefer the more restricted triggered ability over the more restrictive cost.  It's easy to cheat something into play or onto a creature.  It's a lot harder to cheat activation costs.

41

General Magic / Re: Games you've enjoyed

« on: August 24, 2023, 12:11:57 am »

So, I recently decided it would be fun to try to make the largest non-infinite combo I could manage, and it turns out that doubling things can get really out of hand.  I had a Mirror Box and an Adrix and Nev, Twincasters enchanted with Followed Footsteps.  The first turn I made two copies.  The next turn I made 8 copies.  The next turn I made just over 2000 copies.  The next turn, I made more copies than there are atoms in the universe.  I was like, "I don't have enough dice, because there literally aren't enough dice."  That was a really cool way to win.

42

Commander Discussion / Re: I feel like Voltron need another kind of "Masterwork of Ingenuity"

« on: August 23, 2023, 10:04:34 pm »

I have an "ignore the legend rule" tribal deck that is pretty busted.  It's a bit of a glass cannon, at times, though.  Still, I like the idea.  Most legend rule breaks are for creatures (then again, the vast majority of legends are creatures), but there are a few ways to copy legendary artifacts even now, like Mirror Gallery or Mirror Box with any copy spell.  It does beg the question, though, what specific legendary artifact are you trying to copy?  Most that come to mind for me don't really stack anyways, so it doesn't matter.  I feel like the most busted things to copy for voltron aren't even legendary.  Like how just 3 Thran Power Suit gives +9/+9 and ward 6, which seems like a better deal than 3 Shadowspear.  I guess an extra Blackblade Reforged or The Reaver Cleaver is pretty cool.  A copy of Helm of the Host seems pretty cool, but that's just copying one thing to copy something else and takes you further away from the voltron strategy as you go wider.

Anyways, if you are in Boros, run Cadric, Soul Kindler.  It gives a copy of every legendary equipment you play (and more) for just one mana.  I know a lot of equipment decks are in Boros colors, so it should help out.  The token dies at end of turn, but if you can copy the artifact any other way, you can keep them even if they're legendary.

43

Commander Discussion / Re: Politics cards done right.

« on: January 18, 2023, 08:49:11 pm »

I'm a little surprised to not see Fortunate Few on here.  It takes some really great politicking, but it's absolutely amazing when done right.  You can usually get at least someone, if not a couple someones, to agree to pick something you want to keep as long as you promise to deal with a threat on the board.  They may not be happy about getting their boards wiped, but if you make some deals before showing the card, usually, you can really come out ahead.

44

Commander Discussion / Re: Mostly one-sided boardwipes

« on: January 18, 2023, 08:40:37 pm »

There are several like Martial Coup and Kirtar's Wrath and Phyrexian Rebirth that create a creature for you, but I don't really think that's what you're talking about.
There are also a bunch of cards like Novablast Wurm and Mageta The Lion and Myojin of Cleansing Fire that destroy all other creatures, that's a little better, but still probably not what your looking for.
There are a bunch of red spells like Earthquake and Subterranean Tremors that damage all creatures without flying.  They're great in a Dragon Deck, and I've seen them used nicely in Izzet Wizards where there was enough flying to be worthwhile.
Plague Wind and Dread Cacodemon are both really expensive but straight up one-sided board wipes.
There's Wash Out, which isn't really one sided but can usually take out one or two players pretty well.
Fight to the Death is really cool with Lure effects.
Austere Command can slot into high or low costed creature decks.
Kindred Dominance for any tribal decks.
Blood on the Snow or Slash the Ranks if you really just need one creature.
Solar Tide is flexible, high power, low power, or just full on board wipe.
Forced March for high mana value decks.
Mandate of Abaddon for go tall.
Blood Money can sort of be if you can put those treasures to good use (recasting, reanimating, etc.)
Dusk // Dawn for higher powered creatures (plus it gets back your low ones with the other side).
Liliana, Death's Majesty for Zombies.
A couple of the Elspeth planeswalkers do a one sided board wipe if you set them up correctly.
I sometimes use Ritual of Soot in a deck that's a little clunky just to slow everyone else down in the early game and let me catch up.
Hour of Reckoning for tokens.
Extinguish All Hope for decks that have a bunch of enchantment creatures.
Organic Extinction and Their Name is Death and Scourglass and the new Urza, Planeswalker for Artifact Creatures.
Righteous Fury or Sunblast Angel if you're in a combat heavy play group.  Really fun if you can goad everything.
Selfless Glyphweaver can turn any board wipe into a one sided one, but also has a one sided board wipe (Deadly Vanity) on the back if you just care about one creature.
Reiver Demon for artifact or black.
Winds of Rath for Aura heavy decks.
Spreading Plague is especially potent in an artifact deck though it can requires your opponents to wipe themselves, you can usually take out a color or two if you aren't completely colorless.
Fortunate Few can be surprisingly good in the right hands, especially if you're good at making deals and politicing.
Realm-Cloaked Giant for Giant tribal.
Wakening Sun's Avatar for Dino tribal.
Sivitri, Dragon Master for Dragon tribal.
And finnally, Hythonia the Cruel for all those Gorgon Tribal decks out there.

45

Commander Discussion / Re: Surprisingly Good Decks

« on: January 18, 2023, 06:30:03 pm »

I played a Brago, King Eternal tokens themed deck for a long time.  Lots of ETB create a token.  I tossed in Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward when I pulled him from a pack and each time I played him, he seemed really good.  So, I switched him out for Brago and added Candlekeep Sage as a Background.  I swapped out a few other cards, but mostly kept the deck the same.  I figured it would be about the same power level.  NOPE!  Abdel Adrian goes infinite with basically everything!  He's absolutely busted.  He builds an army while protecting from board wipes while being a combo piece while drawing you cards and potentially ramping.  He's just soooooo much better and it caught me completely off guard.