Altar of Dementia

Artifact

Sacrifice a creature: Target player puts a number of cards equal to the sacrificed creature's power from the top of his or her library into his or her graveyard.

Discussion (51)

Gadianten on Alesha, Who Wins With Little Buddies

6 hours ago

Seems like a good build and not many recommendations I can make but a couple of swaps that might be good such as Anguished Unmaking instead of Mortify and Vampiric Tutor over Enlightened Tutor . If you were to work in some cards you might consider Altar of Dementia for tasty self mill and Strionic Resonator to capitalize on those triggered abilities.

AKBZ on New to cEDH

4 days ago

Starting with mana base, I would cut any land entering tapped as the only way it enters. You are giving your opponent a Time Walk every time they come into play because it puts you a turn behind. They either should just be basic lands or upgrades, the big ones being City of Brass , Mana Confluence , and Forbidden Orchard . These lands far outweigh things like Bojuka Bog or Murmuring Bosk or Temple of Plenty . Also would cut Razorverge Thicket , Canopy Vista , Fortified Village and High Market . The first three are too conditional and High Market is colorless with no immediate benefit. I would play the pain lands before these lands as they don’t enter tapped and still give you your colors and I would play the fetchlands before the painlands. Keep in mind you can play up too nine fetchlands because they don’t have any color symbols on them. Second, upgrade the tutor package. Vampiric Tutor and Demonic Tutor are the best black tutors in the format, and the reason to be in black. I would consider them higher priority than fast mana rocks. The cuts I would make are Apprentice Necromancer Damnation Day of Judgment Bloodthrone Vampire Qasali Pridemage Altar of Dementia Ashnod's Altar Lotleth Troll Life from the Loam Greater Good and Farseek The sac outlets only come out when you combo, so having excess is deadweight. The board wipes aren’t doing anything to stop fast combo, so they can be cut. The necromancer and pridemage are value, but not enough. I would rather play Assassin's Trophy and Abrupt Decay over those two. Card suggestions Stony Silence Null Rod Abrupt Decay Assassin's Trophy Birthing Pod Nature's Claim Nature's Lore Survival of the Fittest Demonic Tutor Vampiric Tutor Aura Shards Leyline of the Void , Containment Priest and Grafdigger's Cage . If you can’t play fast mana, neither should your opponents. The first two are MUST INCLUDES and the tutors are HIGH PRIORITY. Nature's Lore is a strict upgrade over Farseek . The last three are graveyard hate that hates out the two decks mentioned. I know that you are thinking “but those last two hate out my deck as well”. That is the wrong way to look at them. The first question you should ask is “are the two decks I’m losing too faster than me?” The answer is yes, they are. After that, the next question should be “can I be faster than them?” The answer is no, you can’t be faster than them. Without cards like Gaea's Cradle and Mana Crypt and Mox Diamond and Survival of the Fittest and Demonic Tutor you will never be faster. Even with these cards, this strategy is considered to be slower than the two decks mentioned. Therefore, you have to slow them down at all costs, even if it means you won’t be winning anytime soon. I would say that the hate pieces are MUST INCLUDES. I would cut Hushwing Gryff and Gaddock Teeg as these cards are not helping you fight your meta. The last bit of advice is that you are playing Stax pieces and are playing a Stax deck. The deck needs to fight what you are playing against. Anything that does not do that is unhelpful at best and a game loss at most. Sure, you are playing to a combo finish, but there are multiple turns before that game winning combo, and every card in your opening hand has to slow down your opponent or speed you up. If they are not doing that, they should be cut. Anyhow, this is just my opinion. Hope this helps. Good luck.

Byuante on Raff's Renewal

5 days ago

Arcum Dagsson

Bubbling Cauldron

Burnished Hart

Solemn Simulacrum

Altar of Dementia

Unwinding Clock

Arcum might not be as good because it can't fetch a creature, which is most of your deck, but it could be useless

Cauldron is a sac outlet, though only once per rotation

Hart is ramp, useful in Azorius

Solemn is also ramp, with the upside of draw on death

Altar is free, though mill might not be your thing

Unwinding Clock is amazing in like every artifact deck, it's like seedborn muse but better

bspymaster on I See White People.....

1 week ago

FYI, I don't think Darien, King of Kjeldor + Blasting Station + Soul Warden + Altar of Dementia doesn't work. Altar of Dementia and Blasting Station both require you to sac the creature to it. Therefore, you can't sacrifice a creature to both Altar of Dementia and Blasting Station . Other than that, love the concept!

CyborgAeon on Epic of Daxos

1 week ago

My bad on reanimate; fair enough with prelate - personally I'd view cutting off all 1/3 drops just the best course of action for stopping all removal.

Thinking about it logically, daxos also does "win" with infinite mana. I'm personally biased against combos utilizing mill as a strategy, as I frequently play Gitrog. If an opponent has Altar of the Brood / Altar of Dementia I'm all over the place with happiness, as the card advantage is like running Compost in a heavy black meta. Conversely it's fun to see tears roll down their face at the unplayable card outside of the combo.

I understand that authority is redundant blind obedience- my interest is in its effectiveness. I like your use of other cards though, and tbf using cards like Aegis of the Gods is surprisingly relevant.

After some thought I see Daxos's value. With infinite mana he does a lot - so well argued. I suppose it's just my own prejudice of playing Serra's Sanctum that makes me feel it's great - though beneath a Winter Orb effect the card puts in work.

Have you considered Grasp of Fate ? Despite this not being zur, it's still one of the best removal spells in the format.

Lastly I feel that your build contains a lot of condensed, easily built combos with redundancy. If you were to jazz up the manabase, would you consider Demonic Consultation / Tainted Pact in order to facilitate faster wins? I've mostly seen it used in bomberman lists such as breya/labman, but you'll easily be able to slip daxos & tokens over once you've landed any win condition.

liquid_water on Chumbawamba

1 week ago

Buried Alive , Dread Summons , Altar of Dementia , and Entomb could be good options to help fill graveyards with targets for Scarab or to help find cards that reanimate themselves, like Gravecrawler. Speaking of Gravecrawler, if you wanted an infinite combo, you could run Phyrexian Altar to combo with Gravecrawler and Diregraf Captain/Altar of the Brood/Plaguebelcher.

I'd probably cut Mastermind's Acquisition unless your playgroup is OK with you pulling in cards from outside of the game or a "wishboard".

I'd also cut Doom Blade for Fleshbag Marauder , to help you interact more against hexproof/indestructible creatures. Plus, it's a zombie. You might also want to run a bit more manarocks to ensure you can play your more expensive spells or get more Scarab activations per turn cycle.

Overall, the deck looks pretty good and I've been considering building Scarab for a while, and this is pretty similar to what I'd build.

iAzire on Epic of Daxos

1 week ago

Overall, the Commander choice can be swapped to any Legendary. I don't particularly like Teysa, Orzhov Scion as you need Teysa + Razaketh, the Foulblooded + a creature. Teysa's ability doesn't work on herself and Razaketh can't sacrifice himself. Daxos is the same CMC as Teysa, so they work the same, except Daxos is Pay 2 Life: Search your Library for a card and put that card into your hand. Teysa needs another creature on board, and in order to get a second tutor, the creature that dies needs to be . You could run Darkest Hour but you need to ensure it is on board before you sacrifice. If Darkest Hour is your first tutor, the you still have the issue of needing to sacrifice a creature for the Teysa token to enter.

Daxos + Razaketh + = Tutor.

Teysa + Razaketh + Creature = Tutor.

In both scenarios the Commander can be sacrificed for a second Tutor, but Teysa doesn't provide any value being sacrificed. Teysa doesn't see added value if the first creature sacrificed isn't Black, and won't see value over Daxos with the additional tutor line until the third Tutor. If need be, Daxos can be your second sacrifice, but with Teysa you will want to keep her on board to get any value from her.

Sanctum Prelate is an interesting card. My only concern is what number would we call? 2 seems most likely, to stop Counter magic, but that stops us from casting 2/3 of our Reanimate Auras. You could call 1 in order to stop the single mana Counters and then you only stop your own Altar of the Brood .

Vault of the Archangel is there for no good reason. It is perfectly reasonable to remove it. Strip Mine is the most likely replacement.

Winter Orb is a great idea, I will definitely look into adding it with other stuff like Defense Grid . You should not overvalue Serra's Sanctum though. I have it included in the deck because I own it, but it is rarely game breaking. It is a good land, but most games end before it really starts to show value. I find myself tutoring for Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth more often.

There are 8 cards to win from the LRW combo. A few of these pieces can be removed. Altar of the Brood is not one that should be removed though. It provides a win from LRW or the Bomberman combo. Grim Guardian works with both combos, (as long as you're running Daxos as the Commander), and Underworld Coinsmith is primarily for Bomberman. If you're looking to cut one or more of them, Falkenrath Noble is the most expensive to cast. If you want the universal effect then Cruel Celebrant or Zulaport Cutthroat are likely cuts. Altar of Dementia provides a Mill win if you don't have access to Altar of the Brood. This is a useful piece to keep as it helps you win around Solitary Confinement / Phyrexian Unlife effects.

No, there isn't a particular reason for running Authority of the Consuls alongside Blind Obedience other than redundancy. Bitter Ordeal and Victimize are good cards. Reanimate is already in the deck.

CyborgAeon on Epic of Daxos

1 week ago

I appreciate that he's a reasonable mana sink; but one has to resolve bomberman, wait for an entire turn pass, then it can win. For this reason I believe that he's ineffective.

Whereas Teysa, Orzhov Scion features an interaction package, replaces herself, and feeds razaketh like a proper champ, turning most bodies into 2 bodies. You can even just tutor for Darkest Hour off of the first raza' activation and then you have unbounded raza' fodder.

Personally (though it only sees fringe-play) I like Sanctum Prelate as a hatebear. If you know a card that is likely to stop you from winning, it's very easy to name it's mana cost and have it remain as a continuous hatebear.

Your lands could use some work too; cutting Vault of the Archangel (if you have 5 mana to spare then I feel like something's going wrong) for a card like Lake of the Dead , Strip Mine , Wasteland . Depending on how low your hand gets, some lands which draw are viable too like Sea Gate Wreckage .

Given that you're likely to find all the lands you need thanks to cards like Land Tax , I'd consider running Winter Orb , especially if you can tutor for Serra's Sanctum as it puts you miles ahead.

You currently have 7 cards that win from LRW (not including coinsmith). That seems like a lot for a deck with access to the best tutors; I'd recommend stripping some of the worse ones down like Altar of the Brood and Altar of Dementia and replacing them with more hate. I'd recommend Bitter Ordeal as an alternate win condition, because it's not shut out by null rod, or any single counterspell (except flusterstorm, but screw that card).

Authority of the Consuls is neat, depending on your meta. It stops godo and some other decks, but I'd be hesitant to run it alongside Blind Obedience . Is there a particular reason for this? If it's just a hateful card, I'd recommend trying out Victimize or Reanimate as I'm sure your hateful cards could use another go.