Countermand

Instant

Counter target spell. Its controller mills four cards. (To mill a card, put the top card of your library into your graveyard.)

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
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (45)

TheoryCrafter on Mill

3 months ago

From the looks of this deck you've done a good job with mana efficiency.

Also, its important to remember the color identity rule. I'm a little spotty on multi-colored lands, but Nihil Spellbomb and Simic Locket could be seen as a violation of the rule.

With Bruvac as your commander, redundancy in instant win plays is important. Which is why I recommend adding Cut Your Losses and Fleet Swallower.

You've done good putting in cards that mill each opponent. This will help get around spells and abilities that give your opponents hexproof. With all the draw spells, may I recommend adding Psychic Corrosion? This will mill each opponent as you draw. In fact, if you add Jace's Archivist it will not only feed into Psychic Corrosion, but Fraying Sanity as well. In which case you may also want to consider adding Mystic Redaction to your deck.

Also, with your desire for Counter spells, you may want to look for spots for Countermand, Didn't Say Please, and Thought Collapse. While you cannot counter a card like Carnage Tyrant, you can still target the spell and force the spell's controller to mill.

At this stage keep Into the Roil in your deck for as long as you can. Outside of counter spells, this will be your best defense against Wheel of Sun and Moon. May I also suggest Nevinyrral's Disk? Not only is it another way to deal with Wheel of Sun and Moon, but also serves as a board wipe.

Also, I'd highly recommend Drowned Secrets since you're running a mono blue deck.

If at some point you choose to shift some of your deck towards more creatures, may I recommend Persistent Petitioners? With Bruvac also being an advisor, you can give him something to do other than sit around and be a target. And at 3 toughness, each copy can buy you some time against a battlefield of 4/4 tramplers. It would also give you the added bonus of giving your commander some protection from spells that would cause it to goad.

I hope this helps. Thank you for reading me out. Happy Hunting!

SniperFrog on Oona

1 year ago

Alright. So there's a couple things I would change, but I don't want you to think it's better or anything, just what I would do. I'll give budget suggestions and non budget suggestions so you have a variety of choices without hurting the wallet.

I think I would go for mono blue so I can get Bruvac the Grandiloquent's effect in my command zone. It seems actually nutty to just be able to get this guy going. That being said, I like a lot of the black spells you have here, namely Mind Grind and Nightscape Familiar, so I would consider something like Phenax, God of Deception or maybe Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker to stay in dimir. Not really sure the red is helping much at all, though. Only four red cards is a bit of a bad look, though they seem cool in theory. I've never played any of them, so I don't really know how good they actually are.

So there are a few optimizations I would consider as well. Three mana rocks are a bit slow for my tastes and there are a lot of decent options at two mana, I'd recommend Fellwar Stone, Mind Stone and Arcane Signet to name a few cheaper options. There's also Sapphire Medallion, Chrome Mox and Mana Vault, though those are strictly non budget.

More optimizations for interaction seems good here as well. Maybe drop some of your three mana counterspells for some one or two mana spells. Counterspell is a mainstay and at very good price as well. I like Swan Song, An Offer You Can't Refuse and Drown in the Loch in this slot. There are a plethora of non budget options as well, particularly free counters like Force of Will and Force of Negation or other heavy hitters like Mana Drain and Cryptic Command. Plenty of cool things to do with this, however, so you have options.

Your lands look rough. I personally will always go with untapped lands with so many options, but that can get really pricy, really fast. Of course, if you didn't have to worry about a red splash, your landbase gets A LOT better.

If you're having trouble with hitting enough lands, consider lowering the curve a bit or even adding a couple more to try to smooth things out. I generally try to have around forty-two to forty-five mana sources, though my curves are usually around 2-2.5, so you might want a little more than that, maybe. I don't know. That's something you can figure out with playtesting.

Now comes the fun part. As it stands, including the above mentioned cards, I would try to find room for these:

Into the Story for some card draw.

Leyline of the Void or something similar like Planar Void along with Helm of Obedience mills infinitely. Also pretty good to beat the eldrazi triggers if you see these things regularly.

Rhystic Study and its baby brother Mystic Remora are both excellent card draw spells with humongous upside, though they are both getting a little on the expensive side now, with Rhystic pushing forty or fifty bucks.

I like Bitter Ordeal, but I think this is kind of a pet card that I want to make work, so I might be projecting here. lol

Reanimate effects seem VERY strong here. I like the ones that target opponent's graveyards the most, so I would stick with Animate Dead and Dance with the Dead along with the aforementioned reanimate. Didn't think about this at first. Could be really sweet.

Mesmeric Orb is money in these decks. Gives mad inevitability.

Altar of the Brood and Altar of Dementia are both combo pieces, but I feel like they're more build arounds than good on their own.

Folio of Fancies. I've never seen this card before, but I love it. Seems like it would fit nicely.

Tome Scour and Brain Freeze are insane with Underworld Breach but this is another build around that pulls you more into storm than mill, I think. Still maybe worth thinking about.

Sands of Delirium seems sweet.

A few draw X spells could be just what you need. Stroke of Genius, Pull from Tomorrow, Fascination and Prosperity come to mind. Skyscribing also seems sweet, but I'm not sure how good it is.

Some cards I would just outright cut:

Gravepurge, not positive what this is doing for you, beside gumming up your draws. I guess it can get something back but not sure it's relevant. Hard to say without playing the deck.

All three mana rocks. Darksteel Ingot, Dimir Cluestone, Ur-Golem's Eye, Hedron Archive are a few. There are actually a few more than I thought, so maybe cutting all of them isn't the right thing to do unless you are cutting like for like for cheaper rocks.

Grisly Spectacle, I feel like you can get a better removal spell. I see the appeal, but I feel like it will get at most six cards milled maybe. Something like Feed the Swarm is probably just better or Drown in the Loch which hits two birds with one stone.

Countermand. Four mana counterspell seems like a really hard ask. I know it's on theme, but something cheaper is probably just better. See above for suggestions on cheap counters.

I would maybe cut some other, stuff, but I feel like I've already given you a lot to think about. Love the list. I'm excited to see it once you've had a chance to keep tuning it. Follow for sure. :)

T_Dog345 on T_Dog345

4 years ago

Alright, let's see if maybe this will help. I'm really new to everything on here sorry. //Lands 2 Dismal Backwater 1 Dimir Guildgate 2 Submerged Boneyard 4 Evolving Wilds 2 Desert of the Mindful 1 Arcane Lighthouse 1 Reliquary Tower 1 Temple of the False God

//Spells 4 Duress 2 Ghoulcaller's Chant 3 Macabre Waltz 3 Sleep 4 Slip Through Space 2 Taigam's Scheming 4 Tome Scour 4 Lich's Caress 4 Sovereign's Bite 4 Resourceful Return 3 March of the Returned 1 In Garruk's Wake 1 Army of the Damned 1 Dutiful Return 1 Decompose 1 Worst Fears 1 Rise of the Dark Realms 4 Hubris 4 Countermand 1 Tezzeret's Touch 1 Paranoid Delusions 1 Coerced Confession 2 Mind Sculpt 1 Compelling Argument 1 Index 1 Redirect 1 Dream Twist 2 Gift of Tusks 2 Rewind 3 Thought Scour 2 Psychic Spiral 1 Gigadrowse 4 Negate 1 Overwhelming Denial 1 Dramatic Reversal 1 Impulse 2 Cremate 3 Crypt Incursion 2 Grim Harvest 1 Scarab Feast 1 Grim Return 1 Gravepurge 1 Dark Ritual 4 Font of Return 3 Death's Approach 2 Cast into Darkness 1 Triskaidekaphobia 1 Grave Betrayal 1 Endless Ranks of the Dead 3 Invisibility 2 Curiosity 4 Curse of the Bloody Tome 3 Illusory Wrappings 3 Ice Over 1 Chronic Flooding 1 Navigator's Ruin 1 Chant of the Skifsang 3 Bone Saw 3 Millstone 3 Tormod's Crypt 2 Trepanation Blade 1 Ghoulcaller's Bell 1 Masterwork of Ingenuity 1 Sol Ring 1 Nihil Spellbomb 1 Illusionist's Bracers 1 Codex Shredder 1 Profane Memento 1 Loxodon Warhammer 1 Bonehoard 1 Trusty Machete 1 Mirari 1 Argentum Armor

//Creatures 1 Archetype of Finality 1 Overeager Apprentice 1 Agent of Erebos 1 Butcher Ghoul 1 Risen Executioner 1 Dutiful Attendant 1 Sly Requisitioner 1 Sepulchral Primordial 2 Zombie Assassin 1 Nightmare 1 Marshmist Titan 3 Graven Abomination 4 Workshop Assistant 4 Guardians of Meletis 2 Phyrexian Revoker 2 Ornithopter 1 Juggernaut 2 Veilborn Ghoul 2 Minotaur Abomination 4 Undead Servant 3 Gravedigger 2 Mogis's Marauder 2 Bogstomper 4 Walking Corpse 3 Corpse Hauler 4 Gravewaker 2 Returned Phalanx 3 Faerie Miscreant 1 Master of Predicaments 2 Benthic Giant 1 Stormtide Leviathan 4 Screeching Skaab 2 Seer of the Last Tomorrow 1 Floating-Dream Zubera 3 Fog Bank 1 Possessed Skaab 3 Armored Skaab 2 Murmuring Phantasm 1 Wall of Frost 4 Doorkeeper 1 Clever Impersonator 1 Jace's Mindseeker 1 Oculus 1 Mindshrieker 1 Willbreaker 1 Spellweaver Eternal 1 Wall of Mist 1 Sultai Skullkeeper 1 Diregraf Captain

Ziusdra on Card creation challenge

4 years ago

Domri, Force of Unrestrained Vengeance

Legendary Planeswalker - Domri

Creatures you control enter the battlefield with haste and +1/-1 until end of turn.

+1 Exile the top two cards of your library. You may put one of those cards into your hand. If you do, pay life equal to its converted mana cost.

-3 Destroy target creature or artifact. If that creature or artifact was a token, you may destroy another token that shares a name with it.

-7 Exile the top three cards of your graveyard, then return all cards you own in exile to your hand. Until the end of your next turn, you have no maximum hand size.

4

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Yeah he's mad. At everyone. I want to play this with Risk Factor and other jump-start cards that get themselves exiled while doing damage. (I still think Risk Factor is underestimated) He is also friendly with Rakdos-flavored Delve.

I'm a fan of counterspells that have additional effects, such as the dimir Psychic Strike and the simic Plasm Capture and the azorius Absorb . We even have some mill counterspells ( Thought Collapse and Countermand ). They're not as efficient as a good ol' Counterspell , which may never get reprinted into standard (thank the stars), but they do let us fit counterspells into decks that we want to do other things with (like I put Absorb into my standard deck with Resplendent Angel in order to help protect it and trigger its ability on my opponent's end step). So the next challenge is to create for me a counterspell that has an additional ability, made for a specific deck archetype, the way mill is made for mill and Plasm Capture is made for ramping up to big sick simic things.

Kjartan on Common Mill

5 years ago

I think Countermand and Think Twice are about the only suggestions I can think of.

Darkshadow327 on Baral Ultra Budget Hate

5 years ago

Mana Leak, Last Word, Wizard's Retort, Overwhelming Denial, Devious Cover-Up, Desertion, Countervailing Winds, Bone to Ash, and Countermand are all some counterspells you don't have in here if you want more counters.

Alchemix on Dab on Your Enemies (Cards You Can Dab To)

5 years ago

Countermand

Pieguy396 on Miller Walls

5 years ago

Even with your mill theme, Counterspell seems much better than Countermand. I'd also recommend playing removal of some sort, like Chainer's Edict, Disfigure, etc.