Archon of the Triumvirate

Creature — Archon

Flying

Whenever Archon of the Triumvirate attacks, detain up to two target nonland permanents your opponents control. (Until your next turn, those permanents can't attack or block and their activated abilities can't be activated.)

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
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (19)

DemonDragonJ on Mind Over Matter

8 months ago

I have replaced Archon of the Triumvirate, Drogskol Reaver, and Nemesis of Reason with Azor, the Lawbringer, Duskmantle Seer, and Queza, Augur of Agonies, which reduced this deck's average converted mana cost from 4.02 to 3.94, which is very nice, as the previous creatures were simply too expensive.

DemonDragonJ on Patriotic Pride

8 months ago

I have replaced Archon of the Triumvirate and Drogskol Reaver with Azor, the Lawbringer and Zurgo and Ojutai, which reduced this deck's average converted mana cost from 3.76 to 3.71, which is very nice, since the former two creatures were too expensive, and Zurgo and Ojutai have nice synergy with Numot, as well.

DemonDragonJ on Utopian Prosperity

8 months ago

I have replaced Archon of the Triumvirate with Shanna, Purifying Blade, which reduced this deck's average converted mana cost from 3.77 to 3.71, which is very nice, since the archon was simply too expensive, whereas Shanna works well with this deck's lifegaining sub-theme.

ClockworkSwordfish on Mind Over Matter

8 months ago

Sen Triplets is a lot of fun, and it's always good to see the gals still kicking in a world where some might argue better alternatives might exist to fit the same niche.

The control shell definitely fits the Triplets well, but I feel like a good chunk of your deck is gummed up with giant creatures who maybe don't play too well with your strategy! Sure, a number of them can bring home the bacon, but... what's Nemesis of Reason doing? You'll never mill your opponent out, and a number of decks would actually benefit from having ten cards placed in the bin more often than not. Thistledown Liege and Glen Elendra Liege are best in an aggressive deck with lots of cheap multicoloured creatures, not a slower control deck that aims to take its time. Archon of the Triumvirate and Drogskol Reaver have fine abilities, but how often will they be stuck in your hand while you're struggling to hit seven mana? I think cheaper cards that support your main strategy might be wiser in their place.

One thing that's easy to miss about the Triplets is that they stop your opponent from activating any abilities - even mana abilities, so that means your chosen patsy is prevented from tapping lands on your turn! An easy way to capitalize on that is with cheap taxing effects on your own turn, such as Crystal Shard or Erratic Portal - your foe won't be able to resist your cheap bounce effects, and hey presto, the Triplets mean you can play whatever creature you returned to his hand. Nice! Fade Away can be another real killer, ensuring your opponent is ditching a ton of permanents if he has a sizable number of creatures.

Some more classic pairings I think you left out are Exotic Orchard/Fellwar Stone - it's easy to forget that you need to actually be able to pay for the cards you steal from your opponent, including off-colour mana. Taking his lands is definitely a possibility, but the Orchard/Stone guarantees you'll have your opponent's colours on hand (and will more often than not give you a colour you can use anyway since you're running three colours!)

The last wicked piece of tech I had success with was Jester's Mask/Head Games. You can hand-pick a custom shopping list of whatever you like from your opponent's deck to play - or at the very least, pick out some stuff that won't come back to haunt you when their turn rolls around.

Good luck and hope this helps!

AstroAA on Should I Keep Luminarch Ascension …

1 year ago

Luminarch Ascension is just slow. I used to run it in my Sythis, Harvest's Hand enchantress prison deck as a backup method to get beaters out, and most of the time I'd play it and it'd just sit there as I'd use my mana for other things. It's not worth it most of the time.

I do not know why you aren't already running Esper Sentinel. In your deck you're running a bunch of anthems, and Esper Sentinel can easily draw you a ridiculous amount of cards rather quickly if his tax gets up to 4~5 mana. He's easily one of the best white cards in Magic, and your deck seems likely to support him. Plus he's only one mana, and you have an absolutely ridiculous CMC of 3.87 with only seven mana rocks - two of which are 4+ CMC.

My advice? Fuck Smothering Tithe. I personally think the card is overrated and is one of the most "kill on sight" cards in Magic. A quarter of the time you play it and it's countered. Another quarter of the time you play it and it gets blown up immediately. Another quarter of the time you play it and it does nothing. The last quarter of the time it does something. If you wanted to play some cheaper "kill on sight" cards to bait out counter magic and kill spells, Food Chain, Survival of the Fittest, and even something like Grafdigger's Cage against certain decks. But, take what I say here with a grain of salt - I just don't like Smothering Tithe, and I think the CMC of it won't help you that much since you don't run a lot of ramp. I'd honestly rather run Yasharn, Implacable Earth over Smothering Tithe in your deck right now.

Now, you asked for feedback and suggestions, so here are my main suggestions. I'm not sure your budget, but considering you're asking us to decide between two $20~$30 cards, I'll assume it's higher than the average Magic player's. Here is a basic list of things you can do to improve your deck:

• Go through your deck and individually look at every card in it. Think to yourself "How often do I play this card? Does this card make an impact whenever I play it? Is it just immediately answered? How does this fit into my game plan?" etc. Cut cards that you think aren't up to par or properly fit into your deck.
• Your deck seems to lack a proper direction. You say you want to pillowfort and focus on building up an army. Cards like Windborn Muse and Ghostly Prison can help you prevent people from swinging at you. If you wanted to prevent people from swinging at all, Crawlspace and Dueling Grounds can work, and you can just pop them with a Nature's Claim or something before you want to start attacking. If you wanted to focus more on the army aspect, you could go with stuff like Avenger of Zendikar, Rhys the Redeemed, or Tendershoot Dryad.
• Lower your Converted Mana Cost. You currently have a CMC of 3.87, which is rather high. In addition, you are only running seven pieces of ramp - all mana rocks - and two of them are four or more CMC, which does not help you much. Cut cards that don't do much and replace them with either cheaper mana rocks or mana dorks. A few that I immediately see that I would cut are cards like Treva, the Renewer, Skyward Eye Prophets, Empyrial Archangel, and Archon of the Triumvirate. Cards you should add are like Avacyn's Pilgrim, Birds of Paradise, Sylvan Caryatid, and Noble Hierarch. This will lower your CMC and provide additional mana ramp.
• Lands. You are currently running 38 lands, which is definitely on the high end. However, I think this is a product of having a CMC of 3.87. I think should you end up reducing your CMC to around 2.75 to 3.00 while adding in at least ~7 sources of mana acceleration you can go down to 32~33 lands, which is much more reasonable. However, I also want to talk about your land choices. You aren't running any fetches and many of your lands have a chance to enter tapped. I would look at adding in more fetches such as Prismatic Vista, Windswept Heath, Misty Rainforest, and Flooded Strand at least. In addition, I'd also look at lands such as City of Brass, Mystic Confluence, and the Battlebond lands such as Bountiful Promenade, Rejuvenating Springs, and Sea of Clouds should you reliably play with 3+ people pods. Cut cards like Seaside Citadel and the check lands, as they're kind of feelsbad turn one plays.
• Removal. You aren't running much removal to deal with threats. Cheap removal such as Nature's Claim, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Return to Nature, and On Thin Ice are all super good in EDH. I would definitely look at improving your removal suite outside of 3+ mana counterspells. Also, look at cheaper counterspells. Cards like Mana Drain would be super good here as it provides you mana acceleration while stopping your opponents.

There is more I would like to add, such as talking more about card advantage, but I've spent damn near close to an hour typing this so I'm gonna call it here. Now, take what I've said with a grain of salt. I'm a high-powered player; I like to optimize my decks, and with optimization comes homogenization. I.e; your decks become less unique. You've got a pretty unique deck here, and if you like it then you like it. Ultimately it's up to you on making that call of whether or not you want to optimize and change everything. If you need more help, feel free to ask. Good luck, and sorry for the wall of text.

Idoneity on Brago, Budget Eternal

3 years ago

I haven't delved upon the blink strategy myself for quite some time, though I may be of aid.

There is a budget constraint, wherethrough I shall keep all of my suggestions under two dollars.

So this should go in nearly every deck, and this one seems perfect, and— (okay I'm done jesting).

Upon actual suggestions are a couple categories worth bolstering.

Some flickering and blinking:

Yorion can do quite a bit, and it begins looping with effects such as Charming Prince. Ephemerate is an overperformer whiles Ghostly Flicker, though more to cast, gets the job done. Combined with a counterspell in the graveyard, it can be a soft-lock with Archaeomancer (run that, too). Flickerwisp is just potent. Soulherder is oft the very best card to resolve.

A multitude of card draw:

Arcanist's Owl just keeps digging. Augur of Bolas could be fun. Barrin, Tolarian Archmage is able to bounce your own utility creatures or pester the opponent's board. Elsewhere Flask does its job. Wall of Omens draws many cards and serves as defense for those pesky aggro decks. Champion of Wits loots through the deck until life's end. Fblthp, the Lost is just greater. Golden Egg cycles and draws more cards.

Some removal effects:

Angel of Finality is an efficient flyer with a relevant trigger. Every deck needs graveyard hate! Dream Eater goes through a lot of cards and bounces important targets. Elspeth Conquers Death is as powerful here as it is in Standard. Leonin Relic-Warder serves a similar purpose. Frost Titan locks down important threats.

Snow basics would be a nice addition for Arcum's Astrolabe. It cycles, fixes, and is banned in Modern so you know it's powerful.

And some cards that don't really fit in tother categories:

Angel of Serenity deals with threats and can recur creatures from your own graveyard. Angelic Chorus gains far too much life for the opponent's comfort. Annex is nice, for you can switch it around as better lands come into play. Nevermore can keep changing card names to prevent anyone from casting their commanders.

Fall of the Thran is really mean and I love it.

Now for a few non-budget options:

Cavalier of Gales is an absolute power house, Ephara draws a meiny of cards, and Solemn Simulacrum offers a lot of advantage.

Just on one to note, Conjurer's Closet is going to be reprinted in Double Masters, thus it may drop to within budget.

There are quite a few things I would recommend cutting.

AEther Adept is lacking, Archaeomender doesn't seem to be retrieving much of worth, Archon of the Triumvirate is overcosted, Aven Surveyor is as well, Artisan of Kozilek triggers off of cast and is thus useless to blink, Your artifact tutors do not search for much of relevance, Subjugator Angel is a worse Tempest Caller, Hoverguard Sweeper is EIGHT MANA (what?!), Dispel is too narrow, and Aether Tunnel is lacking in power.

Let me drive this one in. Eon Frolicker just loses you the game. Giving someone a turn is ceding far too much time for them to gather resources and defenses. The "protection from that player" really doesn't do that much.

I suppose that is to be all from me. Happy blinking!

elfric on Augustin's $t4ks (cEDH Primer)

6 years ago

hey winterblast i like your deck - especially because you use gaaIV not with the orbs but the sacrifice while (since braids is gone) azorious is in the best shape with the most sac-cards.

thank you for mechanized production as a great find.

when going for sac-stax imo green can be a problem as it is the color that has the fastest ramp and is often permanent based. have you ever tried Hibernation? maybe its not a problem for you but for me it was always worth it to have silver bullets against the own decks biggest weakness even if those cards are dead against everything else

in the same vein i wonder why you do not run Null Rod and/or Stony Silence as rockramp is the next dangerous thing besides elves.

i dont like ugin in a stax deck as its too much mana for my likes. also cutting Cataclysm is a sin in my eyes.if you want another finisher (that has no built in wipe to take over the game bu anyway)you could try Archon of the Triumvirate as its castable with gaaVI discount.

XD

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sry being offtopic - i dont get how to implement a link in my deckdescription - any help?

Vhyne on You're under arrest and Yes it does make me Happy

7 years ago

Thanks for the suggestions MoGoose831.

Archon of the Triumvirate i think this card is too much mana for so little effect... Only 2 creatures, and besides he as too attack, in most of times it ll be a suicide attack. For that i would prefer : Blazing Archon but its easely targeted so its on my maybeboard.

Mystic Decree+Magus of the Moat: you lock yourself with this card (combo), i rather have global effects that dont punnish me.