Force of Negation
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Force of Negation

Instant

If it's not your turn, you may exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost.

Counter target noncreature spell. If that spell is countered this way, exile it instead of putting it into its owner's graveyard.

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

1 week ago

Sometimes when I'm deckbuilding, I focus less on the commander and more on an interesting concept/combo that I want to use or exploit. This is the case with one of my favorite decks in my profile and actually one of the first commander decks I ever built. This deck began years ago when Magic finally started caring about the EDH format. It was a more simple time then, Rhystic study was $1.27 (exactly the price I paid for mine over 10 years ago), Cyclonic Rift was a bulk rare, and demonic tutor could be found for $10.

The combo that I was interested in was Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator. The latter was my favorite card at the time and is still one of my favorites. It was a great tool and with all the ETB effects that were out around then it was an underrated and uber powerful card. In fact, the entire blink mechanic was and is a very powerful strategy.

When I built this deck, I played a few times in shops and was quickly told that edh is a casual format and interaction of any kind is not fair (was told this by a land destruction deck...) So this deck is definitely more on the competitive side, but it would be the distant fringe of cedh. Alright with that let's get into it.

Initial thoughts

So we have a combo that we like Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator, but we don't even have a commander yet and going mono-blue seems not great, so we want to figure out what color(s) to add and what commander to choose. In a combo deck, there are generally three things that I like to make sure I include beyond the normal ramp, and card draw. That is redundancy, the ability to tutor up my combo pieces, and ways to protect my combo. So when thinking about tutoring up my combo pieces, I generally like to have the best tutors. Those are in black. So things like Wishclaw Talisman, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal (if you have money to burn or your playgroup is fine with you proxying the best cards so you can obliterate their precons j/k I proxy all my expensive cards and put them in a binder in case someone has an issue).

So we have Blue and Black and we can certainly add another color if we wanted to, but at the time I liked Dralnu, Lich Lord because Snapcaster Mage was in standard and flashback was cool. So I stuck with it when I revamped it, but decided that I wanted something that could ensure I can protect my combo from any threat and then also use it to win if I wanted to. The answer came in the form of Ertai Resurrected. He can counter basically anything from spells to activated abilities (which will come in handy) or he can take a threat on the field at the cost of letting your opponent draw a card.

So now that we have our commander, how to build the deck?

Redundancy

Combo decks need redundancy. If you don't get your two cards or one of them gets exiled, you need a backup plan, or scooping is your only option. Fortunately, there are some great redundancies here. We have Ghostly Flicker and Displace. Both of these will blink your creatures (ghostly flicker will also blink artifacts). Displacer Kitten can be helpful too, but I don't own it and it is a little more chaotic than I need it to be. Palinchron is great because you can return it to your hand and potentially play it again and create infinite mana through the use of High Tide, but a similar combo that has added benefits is Peregrine Drake, Archaeomancer, and Ghostly Flicker. This bounces both the drake and the archaeomancer untapping 5 lands, and returning ghostly flicker to your hand. Rinse and repeat for infinite mana. Archaeomancer also will help in returning key counterspells and tutors to your hand. Nothing like doing double duty. Mnemonic Wall and Great Whale also fit here. The great thing about this combo is that each component is useful in and of itself. Bring out your Great Whale early untap some lands and do some other stuff or play out the rest of your combo with the untapped lands. Cast Archaeomancer to grab a used tutor for another combo piece.

One note here, if you get Peregrine Drake (or one of the other two) paired with Deadeye Navigator and you generate infinite mana you can now draw your deck with Ertai as commander: Step 1: Bounce Deadeye, when he enters don't soulbond with anyone.
Step 2: Cast Ertai, don't choose anything or if you want kill one of your opponent's creatures. It doesn't matter.
Step 3: Soulbond ertai and deadeye. Step 4: Bounce Deadeye and while that is on the stack bounce Ertai. Step 5: Ertai enters the battlefield counter the Deadeye bounce on the stack Draw a card Step 6: Soulbond ertai and deadeye again rinse and repeat. Draw as many cards as you need. Which means draw until you find your wincon.

Wincon

Since this is an infinite mana combo we need something to use all that mana. Obviously the activated ability on deadeye is great, but we need something to actually win with. I went with Commander's Insight and Blue Sun's Zenith. Both of these cards are useful even when they aren't being used to force your opponents to draw their cards. Blue Sun's Zenith works nicely because once you cast it goes back into your deck, which I showed above you can draw as many cards as you need so you cast it once, put it in your library draw again until you find it, cast it again on the next opponent, then again. You can also tutor them up or bring them back from the graveyard with the tutors or the archaeomancer/mnemonic wall from earlier. I like this more than straight damage, because if you don't have infinite mana these cards will still draw you cards.

Tutors

This is a fairly simple step, we need some good tutors. There are a number of good choices in black so I won't belabor that too much. I don't have some of the standard ones and feel like the deck performs fine with the ones it currently has. I do have a Tribute Mage in the deck because nearly all my mana rocks are 2 mana and so is Wishclaw Talisman. I found that the consistency with the deck is vastly improved by being able to tutor up my ramp. Also with deadeye I can bounce it multiple times and get more rocks or the talisman.

Protecting the combo

So I needed to figure out how to protect my combo and do so in a way that is flexible or can be used as needed. So Counterspell. Honestly, this part was fairly simple, most blue counter magic is here. Only reason Fierce Guardianship isn't here is because I don't have it. Other than that we have the typical cards here Force of Will, Mana Drain, Cyclonic Rift, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, etc.

I also have a couple other standouts. Venser, Shaper Savant is great here as it can be bounced with Deadeye Navigator to essentially boomerang my opponent's board and all their spells. Ertai Resurrected also protects the combo and with deadeye becomes a nice repeatable counter/removal spell.

glen_elandra_archmage can be bounced when she has her -1/-1 counter allowing her to be used again and again to counter noncreature spells.

Typical stuff

There is a lot of ramp in the deck, so Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and other mana rocks including some larger ones like Gilded Lotus and Basalt Monolith to really get the ramp going, the sooner you can get to 7-8 mana the sooner you can combo out.

For card draw some key performers here are Rhystic Study, Black Market Connections, Phyrexian Arena, The One Ring. Mystic Remora. In my initial hand I want to have 3 lands, and one of these/tutor to find one or I typically mulligan.

Special notes

A couple other cards deserve mention here. Time Stretch and Time Warp. These are both repeatable with Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall and I can honestly say that if I'm able to resolve either of these, it is unlikely that I'm going to lose, especially Time Stretch. With the ramp in the deck or a well timed Dark Ritual/High Tide I can play this fairly early and get a huge advantage.

Lands

Since this deck tends to be fast, you don't want lands that come into play tapped, so this deck uses fetch lands, shock lands, and duals that have the ability to come in untapped. (there are a couple that come into play tapped, but they are fetchable so I fetch them only when I know that I'm not going to be able to use the mana and only on an opponent's turn.)

I've had this deck for a while and it performs far better than any of my other decks. It always presents interesting lines that if followed will lead to surprising victories. As always let me know what you think in the comments and if you have a commander in mind that you want to see me build put it in the chat.

Here is the final decklist: Unlimited Power!

Andramalech on Domain Zoo-Pact

2 months ago

TheRoaringRegisaur while I agree with what you propose, I'm not capable of hitting Domain on turn 2 without the Guildpact if I include basic lands. Besides, Blood Moon and Back to Basics isn't really a concern right now. Path might hurt, but my Force of Negation to the Path is what I'm gonna bet on. Thanks for the feedback though, because I could probably designate a spot or two to basic lands in the sideboard.

capwner on Snowbrawling ((MODERN // Competitive Sultai Snow))

4 months ago

legendofa The manabase generally feels pretty good, sometimes I am unhappy to see a tap land as it can effectively mean losing a turn, but the main concerns I've found are color fixing and maintaining snow perm count, where falling short could mean losing out on several plays or interactions. I cut a Scrying Sheets because of this, might cut Mouth of Ronom too but I like being able to toolbox with Into the North a bit. It was hard for me to add the Breeding Pool+Watery Grave because of snow count but I think it's necessary to be able to find untapped colors with Lorien. It would be nice to run 4 Lorien but the list was getting tight and I wanted to keep at least 3 ofs for some key sideboard cards. The deck does have a lot of 4 drops but 4 of those are Subtlety which is a flexible card and I think a real necessity in this meta. The deck feels like it curves pretty well, you are likely to have at least a couple 1 and 2 drops and the ability to either Blizzard Brawl or Dead of Winter or Subtlety or flash Ice-Fang Coatl to stall the board until your big 4 drops can hit. Or Force of Negation/Subtlety/Commandeer vs THOSE decks. Turn 2 Into the North feels really good, curves into 5/5 Treefolk or Coatl/Brawl with no land drop. I wish it was snow then I would run more. I think in a lot of matchups it ultimately comes down to who can out attrition the other, and the snow scry mechanic REALLY helps with that. Vs Yawgmoth I can aggro/tempo them out with Treefolk and Subtlety, vs Murktide I'm running them out of removal, clearing with Dead of Winter and when the game is stalled Avalanche Caller or a 7/7 Treefolk ends it. I haven't had a Rhinos match come up yet but the plan is to simply outmatch and outcontrol their board with Treefolk + killing/commandeering the rhinos. I'll likely update the description with some more specific matchup and card selection info over the next couple weeks! Thanks for the feed

Balaam__ on Oh, the HORROR! - Fling in the Ice

4 months ago

Great list. I wonder though, would something simpler like Mana Leak be a better Counterspell than Force of Negation? It’s not as good, true, but there are 16 blue cards, less than a third of your total count—less still when you consider that you don’t want to be exiling Thing in the Ice  Flip if at all possible. It would also drastically reduce the total cost if it were replaced.

Azoth2099 on Kess, Graveyard Farm Mage - JJG

5 months ago

Yep, it's a good deck for sure lol.

I guess my only real questions/statements are as follows:

Is there any reason you're not running Entomb? I can understand not running things like Displacer Kitten or Storm-Kiln Artist, but Entomb is a 2nd 1-card wincon alongside Demonic Consultation with this Commander since you're running Intuition. I'd ask the same for Deflecting Swat, especially since it was also reprinted recently.

Consider Tolarian Winds over Thrill of Possibility! It usually draws more cards, is better for Underworld Breach & can be pitched to Force of Will & Force of Negation. Value! Merchant Scroll - being able to Tutor up the almighty Intuition - should probably be tested as well of you haven't already done so.

DMFF on Kellan's Faerie-Blade (WOE)

8 months ago

Okay, so the deck slaps. Found myself in a couple instances where Force of Negation would have been great to see, so I think I'm going to add a second copy, possibly a third.

Barrow-Blade, while interesting, isn't seeing the same utilization as the other Equips and will most likely be cut for the above mentioned second copy of FoN.

Esper Sentinel was definitely nice for early game card draw and even got me card draw later on one game while being equipped with Sword of Fire and Ice. It being two types for Delirium is also very relevant, so it will remain the decks 1-drop of choice over Dragon's Rage Channeler.

Overall, I really like how the deck feels and eagerly await to build it one the set actually drops.

EokLennon on Yuriko (Optimized) Primer

8 months ago

I'm currently on a budget so what do you think on cards like Pact of Negation and Foil to replace Force of Will and Force of Negation, also Baleful Mastery to replace Snuff Out?

legendofa on Modern Horizons 3 Predictions/Wishlist

8 months ago

Going off the previous Modern Horizons, I expect some outside-of-Modern cards to be pulled in (Eladamri's Call, Enchantress's Presence), some lower-tier strategies to be given a push (Cloudshredder Sliver, Unmarked Grave), and some pushed cards (Force of Negation, Fury, and a bunch of generically good filler.

Some cards that could be Modern-ized (and probably keeping my failed prediction streak going):

Eyeballing some possible strategies that could use a bump:

  • weenie

  • or mill

  • something non-Eldrazi non-artifact colorless

  • Big Spells (mana value 5+ instants/sorceries, sorta like Prismatic from Strixhaven).

Some cards that might be pushed and generically good filler: I have no idea. That's for the designers to know.

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