Court of Cunning

Enchantment

When Court of Cunning enters the battlefield, you become the monarch.

At the beginning of your upkeep, any number of target players each mill two cards. If you're the monarch, each of those players mills ten cards instead. (To mill a card, a player puts the top card of their library into their graveyard.)

Tokens

• The Monarch

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
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (37)

HeyImVegan on [Zellix] Kill with Mill (unlikely)

3 months ago

UltimateRoxas40 thank you for your comment!

Appreciate your information on mill; Im aware that not all effects count as "mill" and have no synergies with Zellix or Bruvac. There is also Consuming Aberration which wont work unfortunately..

Court of Cunning is a really nice addittion to the deck and i have that card laying around. Now i just need to find out what to cut for it

UltimateRoxas40 on [Zellix] Kill with Mill (unlikely)

3 months ago

Fun looking deck! I've got a similar Mill deck too.

Something to note though. Tasha's Hideous Laughter exiles those cards, so if you're trying to capitalize on the Mill keyword to work with Zellix, Sanity Flayer, that won't work. Same with Mind Grind, it technically isn't Mill, so Zellix, Sanity Flayer won't trigger.

I'd suggest Court of Cunning. It's a good way to hit multiple opponents at the same time, potentially getting you three to four Horror tokens each upkeep. And it introduces Monarch, which can cause all kinds of shenanigans haha.

DreadKhan on Zur the Enchanter

7 months ago

Zur has access to a lot of ways to lock people, and some of them are fairly cheap. If you want a fairly slow but inexorable way to win games with Zur, you could try Court of Cunning and Solitary Confinement. Court will give you Monarch, and Solitary Confinement makes you pretty safe while you mill opponent's for 10 each upkeep. There are things like Greater Auramancy (which is getting reprinted I understand, it's a niche card that went a very long time without a reprint so who knows where the price will settle), and you can use any copy enchantment effect to speed up the mill plan, or to copy stuff like Phyrexian Arena to draw more cards. Those Copy Enchantment effects are also very good with stuff like Second Chance (which also loves Necropotence obviously), it's possible to set up infinite extra turns where you juggle Estrid's Invocation and another Copy Enchantment, both copying Estrid's Invocation. It's weird but extra turns are cool enough to be worth a bit of work I think.

If your deck can set up a strong pillowfort scenario then you might like Luminarch Ascension, getting a 4/4 flyer for 1W is really good value IMHO, and if nobody can target or attack you it's pretty hard to damage you, so it'll be online very quickly, at which point you have better creatures than most Green decks.

If you use Stasis, you might keep an eye on Black Market Connections, the two are very good together, especially if you use something like Brave the Sands as your Vigilance source, BMC both pays for Stasis, can draw a card each turn and can make you a 3/2, it's a huge amount of value on a Stasis board.

If you use All That Glitters it is pretty easy to make Zur big with Copy Enchantment effects duplicating All That Glitters. I find it's a surprisingly fast aggro option, and Zur can quickly end up a 1-shot. Ethereal Armor is another useful option.

This is just a personal preference, but I would either run more lands or run more 2 mana mana rocks (you could even do both, Zur is hard to get out early). If you run very few artifacts you should definitely run Energy Flux. If you run more lands you could have enough Basic lands that Back to Basics is worth a look. I had a deck that used both of them and Rule of Law as a way to oppress the board.

Hope you're having some fun games!

DreadKhan on Zurza's Saga

9 months ago

I love Urza's Saga in my Zur deck, but I don't really max out it's value, it's just another good card and a way for Zur to ramp me. It's nice to see someone take the time to lean into this! I have a few ideas for you, but most of them don't really use sagas, but I am a big fan of Zur decks and studied up on them a bit, most of the ideas are to increase the power level/offer backup plans that I think are thematically similar. If you're totally happy with this as is feel free to ignore, it's easy to make a Zur deck too strong and end up the archenemey

If you're going to be running Sensei's Divining Top, you might like Counterbalance, which Zur can find. Similarly, I feel like if you use Out Of Time you should consider Vanishing, this lets Zur wipe the board of creatures with safety, it also gives him useful protection. If you don't need Zur to keep swinging you can use some copy enchantments to lock creatures off the board, I think if you used Mirrormade (which I'm pretty sure you should run either way) and Estrid's Invocation, have Estrid's copy Out Of Time, then use Vanishing to protect Zur so you can swing next turn and get Mirrormade, copying the Estrid's Out Of Time, now you can just lock creatures off the board indefinitely, not sure if this is worth it or not, but I think all of the cards are good includes. I think since you can always choose to not return the Out Of Time creatures and then advance your board state with Zur it's probably worth a look vs pretty aggressive metas. There is also Copy Enchantment, I found in my competitive Zur list that having all 3 wasn't a problem very often, they're great to draw if someone has a Rhystic Study/Tithe, there are lots of splashy enchantments out there that are worth grabbing. If you do run a bunch of copy enchantment effects they are really good with All That Glitters as a fall back plan, ATG and a copy is sometimes enough to 1 shot people with Commander damage, I liked it because I already wanted the copy effects and I gained access to impressively large voltron at the cost of including only 1 card.

If Urza's Saga gets exiled somehow (or vs Proliferate maybe?), Luminarch Ascension can generate a ton of bodies, and while they'll be smaller they have flying, be 1 mana cheaper, and dodge Vandalblast. The Ascension is pretty easy to make work if you get it out early, and once it's online it's often the best thing you can do with your mana. If your meta is pretty harsh, you might toss in Solitary Confinement as a way to delay your demise, and if you're worried about sustaining Confinement all you need to add is Court of Cunning, this will pay for Confinement until you deck yourself, meaning you can use spare mana to make tokens while your opponent's can't do anything to you, they get swarmed by super cheap 4/4 Flyers.

Do you need to target your artifacts themselves for any of your interactions? I ask because I'm not sure if Hanna's Custody would be useful, it also protects your opponent's stuff, but when I play Zur I loved facing an artifact deck because you can just dig out Energy Flux and they either remove it or pretty much scoop. Flux can be a dead card, but when you run into a busted artifact deck this will punish them quite effectively, and Zur can dig it out whenever it's going to be relevant.

It's a pretty spicy card, but have you considered Hall of the Bandit Lord for Haste? Zur really wants Haste in my experience, but I built for cEDH and needed to move fast.

It's potentially pretty unfun, but if your Zur deck isn't often casting multiple spells you should consider Rule of Law/Arcane Laboratory if your opponents won't revolt, Zur already cheats out an enchantment and you can make tokens with mana, how many spells do you really end up casting compared to people playing more traditional decks? Lots of people like to run really low curve decks these days, Rule of Law effects (I'd also consider Archon of Emeria maybe, since those decks also love untapped lands) really make life hard for those decks. If your area has players that like small draw spells then Rule of Law is going to feel pretty good.

DreadKhan on Zur is head of this prison

10 months ago

My Zur Prison was inspired by the little synergy pile of Solitary Confinement and Court of Cunning, Court pays for Solitary, so it's very hard for you to lose your Monarch status, so everyone else just keeps getting Milled for 10. You'll need another effect to draw, but Zur can find lots, and Zur can also find Greater Auramancy, it's not as pricey as it once was, but it might get reprinted at any point. Not sure if all that's fast/strong enough, but Zur can find the pieces (and if you get the Court second you are automatically Monarch, so it's a pretty solid set up).

Have you thought about running Hall of Heliod's Generosity over Auramancer? I've tried to use Auramancer, and it is so hard for it to be in the right situation I find, maybe your mileage varies. If you do use the Hall, Zur can find Necropotence and Second Chance, which will give you turns (but it can be hard to draw more cards without life gain), but since Zur can still attack you just Voltron up first, this is a nice way to finish a game so they don't drag on forever, there are lots of ways to find Hall when you're ready to set up the combo, it also works as long as your life is low enough on your upkeep to trigger Second Chance, you can then use Hall to let you draw Chance and replay it, cast it and have Zur find a Voltron piece, a nasty surprise if people thought you were almost finished. Second Chance can also be perpetuated with Estrid's Invocation and either Copy Enchantment or Mirrormade, recently found out about it.

If you're ever looking for a Prison feeling creature I have a lot of fun with Fatespinner, this holds one of your opponent's phases hostage each turn. Spurnmage Advocate is pretty hilarious if people like to attack often, you can give any one opponent 2 cards back to blow up potentially another attacker's creature, it's a sneaky card that plays well with prison type effects (lots of cards become situationally very bad with Rule of Law, you can give these back to them).

DreadKhan on Evil Wheel

1 year ago

Just curious, but do you pronounce your Commander's first letter as more of a 'z', or more of an 'sh' sound, or something else entirely?

It's a bit slower than other options, but Font of Mythos is a ton of snakes each cycle. Court of Cunning is a bigger mill effect than Hedron Crab, and it can also create more card draw (and it's really easy for you to get the monarchy back with your wide board). Ohran Frostfang or Toski, Bearer of Secrets are good with lots of tokens out, especially Frostfang because nobody wants to block a 1/1 Deathtouch. There is also Bow of Nylea to give them Deathtouch. Coat of Arms is a big dumb wincon if you've got a bunch of snakes, though you might need Trample. There is also Shared Animosity. Thunderfoot Baloth can make your snakes hit harder, as can Blossoming Bogbeast if you've got some random life gain in the deck. With all the card draw I wonder if Venser's Journal might fit.

DreadKhan on unthinkable apocalypse

1 year ago

If you're big on creatures, Sedris, the Traitor King can reanimate them for you. Any discard/mill effects become quite a bit better in such a deck. Stuff like Buried Alive, Entomb and Final Parting all become much better in Sedris, as do stuff like Vile Entomber or Oriq Loremage, even Dreamscape Artist becomes really interesting. Self-mill is much better too, as long as you're not on a combo. Sedris is great with a higher MV deck, since you can reanimate big creatures to swing the one time, and stuff like Court of Cunning can resupply you with creatures as needed, and there are lots of cards that care about a higher MV (Protection Racket is incredible if you aren't on a combo and you just want people to either take damage or give you tons of cards, it's hilarious with Esquisite Blood as you gain what they lose) as I already mentioned. With Sedris I feel like you'd want to look for creatures that have good ETB effects, and build less around combo and more around either attacking with Unearthed bodies or using ETBs like Callous Bloodmage to generate value.

Thraximundar is also a reasonably interesting choice if you want an older Commander and don't mind being slower, and Sol'kanar the Swamp King is great if you run lots of black spells and everyone you play against runs black, Swampwalk and lifegain are small but neat abilities to have. Keep in mind I tend to skew older when I look for Commanders, and like less heavily played ones, but the new Xander is very strong (might attract a lot of attention), Crosis is strong without attracting as much attention right away, Bolas is always a good pick if you like the character, Garza Zol, Plague Queen can get bigger and draws the odd card, it's a bit harder to find good Commanders for creature driven decks in Grixis, most of the Commanders care about instants/sorceries/artifacts, hopefully some of these will be helpful.

loonman on Milliam Fancyson III

1 year ago

Based on the inevitable is here with more cards like Hedron Crab and Court of Cunning to feed N'ghathrod's engine