Barrin's Codex
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy 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
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Barrin's Codex

Artifact

At the beginning of your upkeep, you may put a page counter on Barrin's Codex.

(4), Tap, Sacrifice Barrin's Codex: Draw X cards, where X is the number of page counters on Barrin's Codex.

StopShot on Which Card Should Replace Temple …

3 years ago

@DemonDragonJ, on that basis you should run the Otherworld Atlas as the other two fail pretty hard to draw you more than one card per turn. With Culling Dais you can proliferate once per turn, but that only amounts to drawing one card per turn. If you want to effectively draw two cards per turn you'd need to be sacrificing a creature to it every turn while proliferating too. I noticed you have other proliferate sources in your deck, but if you don't have them on the battlefield with your commander out the card draw will fall below your standards. You also can't draw the cards right away either as you have to let it sit for as long as you'd need it to. If I had to pick a delayed build-up draw effect I would rather run Barrin's Codex or Pursuit of Knowledge even though they cost more mana.

Mindless Automaton I think is also the worst of the three as you'd need to put 4 counters on it every turn just to meet your card draw standards. While you can get the card draw right away without losing the Automaton it seems like much more work than running the Culling Dais.

I would run Otherworld Atlas, however; if the Atlas turns out to not meet up with your liking I would instead switch it out for Soul Diviner as I feel it would reliably draw you more cards in an average game than Culling Dais or Mindless Automaton would. Perhaps I might run Pursuit of Knowledge over the Diviner, but having something that doesn't draw you the cards right away can make it feel slow and clunky. That said if you compare Pursuit of Knowledge and Otherworld Atlas they both would draw you 5 cards after two turns being on the battlefield. (Keep in mind skipping two draws makes Pursuit of Knowledge provide a pay off of 5 cards drawn.) So the downside to one is you let your opponents draw extra cards along with you and the downside to the other is you can't draw anymore cards afterwards.

PaperMachette on

5 years ago

Some more cards are Era of Innovation (might want to look into cards that give energy counters as Atraxa can proliferate those), Barrin's Codex , Etched Oracle .

HalbrechtHalbrecht on Fun Book/Library Theme Deck

5 years ago

This is such a fun deck idea! I love seeing creative decks like this — I would never have thought of this myself.

While not a book or "librarian" himself, Skilled Animator prominently features books in the artwork, and he might complement your high amount of non-creature artifacts pretty well.

Similarly, Artificer's Assistant is portrayed as being in a library, and would complement the large amount of artifacts (including the Artifact Creatures) being cast.

As to books, Mangara's Tome is an interesting effect. If you find that there's specific cards you generally want to be casting in this deck, then this might be a way to set up that win-con. A similarly interesting effect is Tunnel Vision. I could see this fetching the missing piece between Learn from the Past and Animate Library, if you have one and need the other.

You'll be casting mostly non-creature spells, so you should be able to put quite a few Lore counters on Scroll of the Masters. Combined with Suspicious Bookcase, this might be another way to push some damage through.

You draw a lot of cards, so you may not find a card like Index to be that useful, but just in case, figured it was worth mentioning!

Some other card draw options for your consideration, all featuring books:

ardilly on Dan Brown: EDH Edition

8 years ago

@ektoe253 Interesting. A quick Gatherer search brings up Barrin's Codex and Codex Shredder, of which I can see Barrin's Codex fitting the theme...

sonnet666 on Commanders by Power Level [EDH Tier List]

8 years ago

You really want me to hunt through all the cards in Urza block, huh?

Fine, Barrin's Codex.

Also, as someone who's played Bruna, I've really been wondering what about her is putting her in tier 2. That deck is extremely hard to optimize. Bruna has no natural protective abilities or even haste, so she'll usually sit there looking extremely threatening but also vulnerable for a whole turn because you didn't have enough mana to cast her and put Protective Bubble on her in the same turn. You wind up having to devote more card slots to keeping her alive long enough to attack then you have for auras. As far as voltron commanders I'd much rather be playing Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon or Sigarda, Host of Herons.