Caverns of Despair

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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
Oldschool 93/94 Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Caverns of Despair

World Enchantment

No more than two creatures can attack each combat.

No more than two creatures can block each combat.

Idoneity on Tresserhorn’s Awesome Squad of Cool People

1 year ago

betomindslav - Thank you for the upvote and adulation! I toil much for uniquity amongst my strategies. As for this deck's draw, 'twould ideally be either a heinously quick Torpor Orb and Embercleave start to efface one of my foes, or a Caverns of Despair and any threatening walker. A board at parity is one in my favour.

The rest of the deck is either planeswalkers I enjoy, creature obliteration, or token production.

Thanks again and have a great day!

chilbi on X gon' give it to ya' [Xantcha EDH]

2 years ago

@freezerboy: Actually I had the Shiny Impetus in in here before but eventually cutting it alongside Vow of Malice to reduce the cards that set me up for 2:1 downtrades. Total War seems sweet, especially combined with Caverns of Despair. I'll have to check the rules on that interaction though. Thanks a lot for the input!

Kemokyle on Kala-to-the-Max

3 years ago

As much as I love the idea of a creatureless Voltron commander, take it from one my many Omnath iterations, it becomes a silver bullet situation more often than not.

If you do want to keep creature count to a minimum, I'd recommend a suite of things that make creatures for your instants like Young Pyromancer, Shark Typhoon, Metallurgic Summonings, Murmuring Mystic.

Alternatively, can answer token decks with stuff like Silent Arbiter, Caverns of Despair, Crawlspace.

Also, since he gets his +1/+1 counters from copying instants, I would be remiss not to recommend Primal Amulet  Flip and Swarm Intelligence. And if you do decide to include a token package, Zada, Hedron Grinder becomes an extra bonkers addition.

carlmoores on Mairsil's Jail for Combos

5 years ago

Hey, been playing Mairsil for a few months now and here to offer some suggestions. But I also have some questions.

1: Are you married to infinite mana combos? MY experience is that they are ineffective because they require perfect hands. And due to your budget limit I would imagine Demonic and Vampiric Tutors are out of the question. Ditto Intuition. It's too bad because these three would really enable artifact based combos to be assembled easier. Of course there's Fabricate or Whir of Invention but these are sub-optimal to Black tutors which fetch anything you want. Board wipes for example, which are SO important in a Mairsil build. You should also run Mystical Tutor as it's within your budget and fetches maybe the most important card in the deck (Buried Alive) Also, DEFINITELY play Gamble is you're not running the black tutors. If there that doesn't care about the discard, this is it.

2: Pillowforts and Board Wipes. Which do you prefer? My personal experience is that pillowfort cards like Smoke Crawlspace and Caverns of Despair (or in your deck, Propaganda) are not only not always effective, they are prone to removal. Both from other players and from you caging Nev's Disk with Mairsil and establishing a soft lock. I would take the Last One Standing and mainboard it immediately along with the excellent Chandra's Ignition and if you're willing to go overbudget Toxic Deluge is also a must. Though cheaper $$$, but higher CMC, alternatives exist. You might also want to consider Fire Covenant as a mix between targeted and mass removal. Crypt Rats is also a good walking boardwipe and cage target. Though it is best when Chromatic Lanterns is on board or if you're running Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Card Draw: First off: Fact or Fiction is your best friend. This is literally the best card draw card in Magic for this Commander. The reasons for which are pretty easy to see. As another commenter on Reddit said: Wheels. Wheels. Wheels. Windfall , Magus of the Wheel , but Jace's Archivist and Whispering Madness most of all since they can be stapled to Mairsil for further wheeling. You want to be POWERING through your deck. Especially since you are not/ cannot get the high end, low CMC tutors. For additional evil, add Legacy All Star Notion Thief . "Flash in Notion Thief at the end of your turn. My turn. Windfall. We all discard your hands. I draw 28 cards...you guys draw none" A few of the loot effects are fine for the extremely early game but I'd keep 3 max and replace the rest with FoF's and wheels.

Haste enablers: I am just going to assume you don't know about Hanweir Battlements and Flamekin Village you can lose Urabrask for sure and free up a slot for something else and also lose either Fervor or Thousand Year (which, as established, die to Disk...though despite dying to Disk I would recommend Lightning Greaves for the Shroud just as much as the Haste)

Counters: I would lose anything with 2 Blue in the casting cost in favor of things like Intervene . Keeping as much Blue open as possible for Aetherling and Quicksilver Elemental's abilities to be activated when needed. Negate is also a strong pick as, largely, your opponents creatures shouldn't be of much concern to you. You are mostly concerned with countering instants that try to kill Mairsil in response to an ability activation or, frustratingly, people attempting to counter Mairsil. To be specific put in the two cards I suggested and take out Counterspell and Wizard's Retort.

Cage Targets/ Creatures: Personally, I would lose the infinite mana stuff as it is convoluted in several ways, but to each their own. I'll try to keep my advice away from that issue save to say that: Your combos should really be two cards and preferably creatures so they and Aetherling can be dumped in one go with Buried Alive. (It's getting late here so I'm not going to offer any reasons from here on out but if you have questions I'll respond to them tomorrow) Out: Deadeye Nav, Duskmantle Guildmage, Knacksaw Clique, Mischievious Poltergeist, Oona, Soul of New Phyrexia, Urabrask, Walking Ballista. Maybe out: Geth, Memnarch, The Locust God (he may be worth keeping if you follow through on running a tonne of wheels). (I will suggest cards to run and wrap up this comment tomorrow, though feel more than free to hit me up in the meantime)

carlmoores on Should I Pretend This Or That?

5 years ago

Hey there. Working on my own Mairsil build and have been using your build as inspiration and a reference point since Mair is a completely different type of build than any other Commander. I have some questions about your build and statements about my own that I hope you can provide some insights on as I haven't piloted Mairsil yet.

How does Mairsil's ability to run on board removal like Avater of Woe and the Disk effect your need to run wipes and removal in the deck? I'm running 5 Crawlspace like effects including Silent Arbiter and Caverns of Despair and was thinking along with the disk maybe I wouldn't have to run board wipes because of it. Or is the fact that often your board state will just be Mairsil and some mana rocks offset this and create a need for the same or more wipes as most decks?

It seems to me that you would want to be untapping Mairsil as often as possible. Would you suggest running Horseshoe Crab on top of School and Morphling?

I was thinking of running Traumatize to play on myself thus giving me instant access to have my deck to cage. Thoughts?

Also considering Archeomancer to recur Buried Alive and Entomb (also, let me recommend Final Parting ) or is this unneccessary over kill?

xander11 on Marchesa-sama

6 years ago

I, like the other two saw what happened and decided to comment on your deck and not the person who skipped you

I think that you could have fun with Reassembling Skeleton and using it to bug people a lot. Koskun Falls is just like Ghostly Prison but black and no one really seems to know it exists.

This is rather expensive but Caverns of Despair is a great way to stop people even when they have a lot of mana

Rhadamanthus on War's Toll and Caverns of …

6 years ago

@Neotrup: If you meant to say "attacking with only 1 or 2 creatures violates a requirement", that's not how it works. You're supposed to maximize the number of requirements being fulfilled without violating any restrictions. That maximum could be anywhere between 0 and the total number of requirements. You just have to find it. If the opponent wants to attack with any creatures at all in this example then the legal number is 2, since it doesn't violate the Caverns of Despair restriction and maximizes the requirements from War's Toll.

Tyrant-Thanatos on War's Toll and Caverns of …

6 years ago

Your opponent gets to pick which two of their creatures attack, but they must attack with exactly two, or none at all.

This is because War's Toll requires each of their creatures to attack "if able", and Caverns of Despair makes any creatures beyond two unable.

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