Beast Hunt

Sorcery

Reveal the top three cards of your library. Put all creature cards revealed this way into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	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
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (3)

Tzefick on Sword of X and Y …

4 years ago

MindAblaze Thank you for the praise and your own suggestions.

If I may offer a bit of feedback;

Green-White Show

I avoided the +1/+1 counters on the Green-White one because it's already present on Sword of Truth and Justice, and that one is a guaranteed 2 counters on one target plus whatever more you can proliferate.

I think getting all the creatures from the revealed cards is maybe a bit strong on the card advantage side. More so the closest spell I find that does the same is Beast Hunt or Lead the Stampede - a 3 CMC (well, there is Winding Way as a 2 CMC). Whereas selecting one out of a mass is more like Commune with the Gods - a 2 CMC.

I would replace the counters with another effect and tone the creature-grabs a bit down. Otherwise, very nice idea.

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Blue-Black Show

I think the trigger is way too much. Lands are effectively free for the opponent to discard but any higher CMC is causing a lot of damage or free card draws. Sword of Fire and Ice is already considered one of the best Swords because it provides unconditional card draw in colorless. This one is easily better on average.

Turning it around so you choose to pay the life just makes it into a 3-copied Dark Confidant with an opt-out for the life loss. And Dark Confidant is already considered one of the stronger cards in Magic, even when it is enforced draw.

I don't even think there's a way to tone this particular effect down without either still having it way stronger than Sword of Fire and Ice or having the cost be so minimal that it effectively just has increased damage on-hit and the card draw portion is non existent while exiling your own library.

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If you were to keep the card advantage aspect of it, I would rather suggest a very different approach to this particular Sword than what is done with the rest, which is not unlike how that color pairing has previously been treated - something that is a bit stranger than usual. Figure something like this:

"Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, exile up to seven cards from the top of target player's library. For each card less than seven exiled this way, put a Shadow counter on ~. Then you may remove X Shadow counters from ~, and cast a card exiled with ~ with converted mana cost X or less without paying its mana cost."

It's something akin to Villainous Wealth but on a much slower scale, but obviously repeatable. You need to choose between getting more options and getting resources to play those cards. If you first exile a bunch of cards and later need the resources to play them, you can opt to not exile any more cards but instead generate resources for the Sword and immediately cast the wanted card. You can also choose a mix, to exile top 3 and generate 4 counters to cast up to a 4 CMC spell.

The effect is also still practically milling, so it can work in tandem with blue-black's mill strategies if need be, but it provides an alternative value for other strategies by granting access to pseudo card draw and pseudo ramp.

This version could also be changed to be very restricted to only creatures or only instants & sorceries to lower the power level, as this version is still very strong. It could also be changed to only be able to exile cards from target opponent's library, so you cannot ensure the outcome through manipulating your own library - think Vampiric Tutor, Brainstorm.

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I think your idea needs more work and balance, as it is very strong.

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Red-Green Show

It's a neat little design. Not much to say, but it feels a bit underwhelming. Also that the Fight is conditioned on discarding specifically a creature means you need a critical mass of creature cards in your deck to take advantage of half the triggered effect. Not that that is too unfamiliar for the Swords when considering Sword of Sinew and Steel, Sword of Light and Shadow, Sword of War and Peace.

It's cool.

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Self reflection and consideration for the Swords Show

I think you need to craft the Swords from a mindset that all colors should find it useful and properly valuable and not be too niche. One of the worst Swords is Sword of Body and Mind because milling is such a niche parameter for all colors but blue and blue/black and the odd Altar of Dementia deck, and the token is so small value that it doesn't change much. Add on top that the protections are not as valuable, as green and blue have the least amount of targeted removal on the board, and while pro-green makes you unblockable or a nice wall against green's massive creatures, it's still overshadowed by trample.

I think for my Selesnya Sword I should give the option to grab a land as well - not in addition but as a choice. I think more off-colors (than green & white) could appreciate fetching a land more so than an aura or equipment.

Spell_Slam on

4 years ago

Cool idea for a deck! I think you could try to build around your commander even more.

In your mana base, a very easy inclusion would be all the cycling lands. Desert of the Fervent , Desert of the Indomitable, Tranquil Thicket , Slippery Karst and Smoldering Crater are great for Gruul decks to have anyways because of the lack of card draw and they work super well with your commander.

All the Dredge stuff would be great in the deck. You already have Brownscale, but you could use Shenanigans (there's always a target), Moldervine Cloak and Greater Mossdog all give you consistent action in the late game that will also power up your damage.

There are tons of self-mill cards that are worth running for card advantage. Lead the Stampede , Beast Hunt , Benefaction of Rhonas , Commune with the Gods , Kruphix's Insight , Scout the Borders all work at varying degrees of efficiency. If you ran a few more enchantments (which wouldn't be hard to do), this could actually be a great way to stock your graveyard and give you tons of action throughout the game.

With that in mind, almost every Flashback card is probably worth running. Same goes with Retrace and Jump-Start. These will give you so many options over the course of the game and be an extension to your hand.

Book Burning Targeting yourself is a pretty good way to stock the graveyard quickly, unless an opponent wants to take 6, which is also nice.

Chainflinger is decent in PDH and would fit nicely in a deck like yours.

Firebolt is very good in general and gets even better if you're milling it into your graveyard.

Fortitude can make a big creature a bigger problem and feed your graveyard lands.

Mother Bear seems like a good fit, like most cards that generate value in the graveyard.

Elven Cache is a great card to have in green PDH. It doesn't cost you a draw like Reclaim does, which justifies the mana cost, in my opinion.

Is Renewal to janky? Cantripping and fixing your mana might not be worth 3 mana, but it does move your gameplan forward somewhat.

A lot of the cards in your maybeboard are cards I think you should actually play. Excavating Anurid is quite strong. A 5/5 vigilance that cantrips at almost no downside for you is really good. Igneous Elemental is comparable to Flametongue Kavu in many scenarios. All your burn and removal that requires sacrificing creatures or lands is also good for your game plan. Quicksand has no downside in your mana base.

In general, I think having more creature-based ramp might be better than sorcery or artifact ones, unless they sac lands. Rampant Growth, Land Grant, Search for Tomorrow, Renegade Map and Armillary Sphere seem like they would be stronger as mana dorks. Zhur-Taa Druid and Silhana Starfletcher are both cards that do a lot of work in PDH, plus all the typical 1-mana ramp creatures in Green.

Otherwise, I think Diligent Farmhand and Muscle Burst is cute, but not very effective overall.

Relic of Progenitus is powerful, but very risky for you. Something like Night Soil could be a stronger choice, or just plain old Tormod's Crypt .

Chain Lightning and Lightning Bolt are oddly enough not impactful enough to play in PDH, in my opinion. I would vastly prefer Staggershock over either one for the better damage output or card advantage potential. These could be easy subsitutes for some of your maybeboard spells.

A lot of your creatures are aggressive, but not enough to really be pertinent in a game with 30-40 life (depending on how you play). Borderland Marauder, Burning-Tree Emissary, Moldgraf Scavenger, Zectar Shrine Expedition and to a certain extent even Scythe Tiger could be better as more resilient, synergistic or more powerful threats that scale better with all the ramping you're doing. Something like Sprout Swarm is a classic game-winning card that is good across the entirety of the game and works well with sac effects you're running.

Last thing: I think you should run more lands. I get that you're trying to be low to the ground and aggressive, but running a low land count hurts you in a lot of ways. It makes less opening hands keepable, it restricts the breadth of finishers you can use, it lowers the efficiency of your commander and cards like Winding Way and can even result in you running out of basics to fetch in the mid-to-late game. I think 38-40 lands would be a more appropriate number.

Again, great idea for a deck and I'm looking forward to hearing more about how you do with it. Is it more for 1-on-1 play or multiplayer?

Raging_Squiggle on Charging Badgers only! (Sort of)

6 years ago

Before I start, I just want to confirm you're aware that there is a 4 card limit for all non basic land cards in a deck.

That being said, as for draw power, it depends on the colors of the deck. If it's mono-green, Fecundity works well, as does Shamanic Revelation and Collective Unconscious. Pseudo-draw would be Collected Company,Lead the Stampede, Seek the Wilds, Commune with Nature, Beast Hunt, Enshrined Memories, and Mwonvuli Beast Tracker.