Atraxa, Grand Unifier

Legendary Creature — Phyrexian Angel

Flying, vigilance, deathtouch, lifelink

When Atraxa, Grand Unifier enters the battlefield, reveal the top ten cards of your library. For each card type, you may put a card of that type from among the revealed cards into your hand. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. (Artifact, battle, creature, enchantment, instant, land, planeswalker and sorcery are the card types.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	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
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (12)

legendofa on Why Do Some Players Keep …

2 weeks ago

wallisface I'm not sure comparing the overall best nonlegendary creatures to all creatures is quite the right comparison. Legendary creatures in general tend to be more powerful than non legendary creatures in general. By comparing the average strength of legendaries to the average strength of all creatures (which may actually be impossible to standardize and express numerically), I think it's reasonable to say that legendary creatures as a whole are better than nonlegendary creatures as a whole. Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Griselbrand, Omnath, Locus of Creation, Lurrus of the Dream-Den, Muxus, Goblin Grandee, and Leovold, Emissary of Trest are a small sampling of legendary creatures that have influence (or bans) in multiple formats.

Some individual nonlegendary creatures might break the ceiling of most legendary creatures, but the general floor for legendaries is much higher, and the ceiling is comparable if not also higher. Competitive formats are built around "the best" cards, but there are a lot more nonlegendary creatures by number and proportion that aren't "the best".

legendofa on How Do You Feel About …

1 month ago

Battles are in kind of a weird spot at this point. Battles have shown up in one set, and they all have the same subtype. While that does make it easy to predict that more battles will show up in the future, it makes it hard to guess what they'll look like. Also, I would say they're the most flavor-restricted card type. Any plane that has a physical location will have lands. Planes with some form of biological (or abiological, theoretically--Elemental world?) activity will have creatures. Any plane that has magic, or tactics, or anything that happens will have instants, sorceries, and enchantments, and any plane that has manufactured goods will have artifacts. Planeswalkers show up wherever they want. Not every plane will have battles.

Military conflict is a core part of the game, but some planes and stories aren't as conflict-centric as others. Aside from weird events like the Battle of the Bridge or the Decamillennial, I don't see Kaladesh or Ravnica having many domestic large-scale battles (and the Battle of the Bridge arguably wasn't domestic), and I'm not sure what a Lorwyn battle would be like. A Cenn's Tactician gets antsy and decides the flamekin are being too rambunctious? Elves unite and make a determined assault against eyeblights?

On the production side, the developers are being very careful, testing the waters and seeing what the reaction is. If they wanted feedback before creating any more, and they started to receive mass feedback in the last couple months, it's going to be another 3-4 years before we see another set with battles.

So battles are in kind of an amorphous state right now. One variety has been seen that suggests more will come, no information on what other varieties could look like has been provided, they're not appropriate for all sets or locations, and it's possible there aren't any battles in production at all right now.

Were they necessary in the strictest sense? Honestly, I don't think so. The game could probably continue indefinitely without them, and I don't think anyone specifically requested or expected a new card type before Atraxa, Grand Unifier was previewed. They do, however, represent new innovation and variety. Successful experiments become standards, and unsuccessful experiments become lessons. I think battles are going to finish as successful experiments, but it's going to take several analyses to fully get there. If my eyeballed production timeline is right, I don't expect to see more than two or three more sets with battles before 2030. After that, either they'll start coming in full force or they'll be shelved as a weird footnote.

ViscountVonSausageRoll on Temporary Graveyard

1 month ago

I can tell when you played xD

And hey, don't sell yourself short, casual 60 card is the epitome of magic.

Budget Suggestions (≤ $10): Griselbrand because he's awesome, Dark Ritual because speed, Go for the Throat or alternatively: I see you're running Bone Shredder. Perhaps considering replacing with Shriekmaw? He's less hardcastable, but he does throw himself into your graveyard in a hurry. Consider Buried Alive to fill the GY? Vampire Nighthawk has been replaced with Nighthawk Scavenger I know, the powercreeper has been powercrept.

Non-Budget Suggestions ($10+): Archon of Cruelty. I mean, read what it does. Right? That's ridiculous.
Recurring Nightmare It's pricey, but it's absolutely busted. (It sacs a dude and bounces to your hand as an additional cost) It never goes away.
Atraxa, Grand Unifier Honestly not my cup of tea, but she's very powerful. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth Only because: It's just good in this deck. You're already running Liliana of the Dark Realms x2 and Coffers. Maybe find some heavily played ones?

Make Room: The most unfun part of coming back to any old deck. Well, Liliana Vess is just too expensive now days (even back then she was kinda pricey), but most of the time she ends up being a 5 CMC vampiric tutor at sorcery speed anyways. She never lives long.

Sorin Markov kind of falls under the same boat, at least in this deck imo. Usually by the time you can cast him, opponents aren't at 20 life anymore, so the appeal of "10 dmg" can be somewhat deceptive.

Anyways, welcome back, and I hope you enjoy yourself

legendofa on turn 1 Iona, sheild of …

3 months ago

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no

Casual borgan

SCORE: 1 | 58 VIEWS

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How much money are you willing to spend on this deck? Atraxa, Grand Unifier and Archon of Cruelty are popular reanimator targets right now, and I see Griselbrand already in the decklist.

legendofa on "Meta-less" format?

4 months ago

Okay, I dug a little deeper into the Legacy Reanimator lists on mtgtop8.com, and target cards like Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Archon of Cruelty, Grief, and Griselbrand, and support cards like Dark Ritual and Dauthi Voidwalker show up in almost every deck, but in different proportions. Still, that's a pretty condensed and consistent core. It's easy enough to see which cards get played, but the "meta-similar" rule is going to need more sophistication.

Icbrgr on Naya Burn

8 months ago

BOLD BRAVE decklist!.... 3 colors in pioneer is so so so rough for fast decks in particular... Because of my own personal struggle that why I have shifted to just Mono {R} and embracing the RDW shells... as long as you can stay fast/consistent then more power to you!

I really think Roiling Vortex is almost worth being a mainboard card... besides going 2nd in the mirror match it always feels good and there are so many control builds I run into that end on resolving something like Atraxa, Grand Unifier and just taking the damage is almost a non issue but if they gain 7 life just there isn't a way to win.

Squee, Dubious Monarch is an interesting thought... but I think banking on the opponent not having a blocker in the late game just isnt worth the investment and something like Ramunap Ruins would be better served for just a little more desperate reach.

Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor on Atraxa's Egg Cracking Awakening

11 months ago

This is a pretty awesome list and a fresh new way to take a well trodden (and unfortunately stale), but forever cool commander. +1 from me.

Here are some suggestions:

An immediate thought I had for inclusion is Inspiring Call. It won't protect most of your non-token creatures unfortunately (unless you are going ham with Ozolith, the Shattered Spire, but it will protect all of your incubate tokens and draw you cards. Clever Concealment is another great protection spell for token based strategies.

I've personally never been a fan of Primal Vigor since it can backfire spectacularly. You might consider replacing it with a simple ramp spell since 8 true ramps spells is a little low IMO.

Also, for flavor, you could throw in Atraxa, Grand Unifier, but I know it doesn't really play with your strategy here.

Other than that you already have a few of my potential suggestions in your "maybeboard": Eyes of Gitaxias, Compleated Huntmaster, and Blighted Burgeoning.

nbarry223 on Viga-BOOM! (better mana)

11 months ago

I don't know, 3 Azusa's is a bit much, you'd be surprised how often that legendary rule comes up. Even with 2, I saw the second copy more often than I wanted to. Dead / Gone also seems a bit strange instead of Dismember. Relying on an early red so much seems odd, especially since the 3 CMC of the split isn't even permanent removal. You're weakening your position against a multitude of decks to have a slightly better edge against things like Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines that are unable to be removed otherwise. If you are going for an off-color answer anyway, there's definitely better options. Sure you can still answer Magus of the Moon with it's front, but almost any form of creature removal kills that.

Anyway, Altered Ego sees play in quite a few top 8 decks already, just in their sideboards. It is a fetchable answer to Archon of Cruelty and an uncounterable threat you can dump excess mana into (you can also copy an opponent's hexproof/shroud creature if that ever comes up). However, I like it mainly because you can copy your own Primeval Titan to chain into 2 titans with a singular amulet (can still usually only haste 1) or pretty often 3+ titans with double amulet. Being able to make a second titan so easily is really nice, and it happens to help with 2 of the deck's weaknesses. In fact, it is so powerful, that it devalues Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion quite a bit, essentially making it unnecessary in a lot of situations you would lean on it otherwise - to the point where I cut the win-more card.

It is possible to play into removal with the clone, but you shouldn't be playing that aggressive against an unknown deck, decks where you suspect Solitude or an opponent with open mana for removal. Always play for an actual second Primeval Titan first before trying to copy against those types of decks. Playing into something you shouldn't is what I would call a misplay, not a bad card.

Atraxa, Grand Unifier is a bit situational, but it is similar to Cultivator Colossus in what it does for the deck. It's recently seen top 8 play (which is what inspired the recent changes), albeit alongside Dramatic Entrance to cheat it into play. Instead of that, I am playing Timeless Lotus which I feel has arguably more synergy with the deck and the way I want to play it (as more of a midrange deck). It is capable of fixing our mana to cast Atraxa, Grand Unifier, and we also have Eldritch Evolution or Scapeshift to bring it or the land dependant Cultivator Colossus into play, depending on which is best.

Elvish Reclaimer is admittedly a bit slow, but it does almost everything you could possibly want (albeit slightly worse than other options). If you are capable of paying an extra mana at some point in the game, it is worth it as turns go on, being a psuedo-extra land card, mana fixing, better Expedition Map which puts the target into play, or a decent sized body (can even threaten pumping it and never actually investing mana into it to deter attacks). Hell, you can even pact for it when missing a bounce and unable to pay for pact, using its ability in response, returning that bounce to hand) provided you can actually pay for the pact AFTER the ability resolves).

The inclusions make the deck far less linear and complicate the lines a lot more (because amulet titan isn't complicated enough already...) I'm not saying they are a strictly better upgrade, as I am trading a little bit of consistency for resilience/explosiveness.

That being said, I think just dismissing all of the changes as "bad" because it "isn't what the pros are doing" is a little laughable. Am I stretching the limits of the deck a little right now? Absolutely. Is every new card you've never seen in an amulet shell automatically bad? Absolutely not. We'd still be playing with Hive Mind if that was the case (never liked the concept of combo pieces which do nothing on their own - so glad people moved away from that archetype).