Deep-Sea Kraken

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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
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Deep-Sea Kraken

Creature — Kraken

Deep-Sea Kraken can't be blocked.

Suspend 9— (Rather than cast this card from your hand, you may pay and exile it with nine time counters on it. At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a time counter. When the last is removed, cast it without paying its mana cost. It has haste.)

Whenever an opponent casts a spell, if Deep-Sea Kraken is suspended, remove a time counter from it.

Licecolony on Goaded With The Sauce

11 months ago

I really like your manifest take on Jon. Consider Dulcet Sirens. It's a clever way to mitigate risk of having those horrible creatures for yourself. I'll definitely be adding Crawlspace and Endless Whispers to my list.

Suggested removals from deck Plague Reaver. While it's a nice card to give away, the turn you play it you'll have to sacrifice Jon Irenicus to Plague Reaver's trigger regardless of which order you put the abilities onto the stack. You'd rather not lose Jon.

Gisa, Glorious Resurrector. It's something you can't give away, which means it's good when you're ahead, but not great when you're behind,. Your mileage may vary, but I think getting something more immediately impactful on the board tends to be best.

Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker. You're not running a mill strategy, you'll only be filling the graveyard of dedicate graveyard decks.

Taniwha. I love this creature and totally understand running it for the memes, but phasing triggers before your upkeep, which means that when you give it away, it'll be phased out for the first turn under your opponent, so they'll keep their lands and you won't draw a card from Jon's ability. The turn cycle has to make two full rounds before Taniwha does anything.

Tergrid, God of Fright  Flip. Unlike Sheoldred, Tergrid doesn't make the opponent do either of its effects. It's another creature you don't want to give away, and Jon makes cards unsacrificeable. It just won't trigger much unless you're against a sacrifice deck.

Ensnaring Bridge. The creatures you donate will often be quite big. Ensnaring bridge will prevent them from attacking your opponents and deny you card draw.

Chromatic Lantern. It's only good if you need the mana fixing. You don't need the mana fixing. Try something like Thought Vessel or Decanter of Endless Water or Midnight Clock instead.

Assault Suit doesn't goad the creatures itself. Often they'll swing at you if possible.

Dissipation Field. Not as good as it looks. Doubles ETB triggers. Anti synergy with cards like Endless Whispers.

No Mercy Jon just has better options for this slot. If you can replace a non-creature with a creature in this deck, you usually want to.

Grave Betrayal. That's 7 mana for a card that could ruin your game by forcing you to revive bad cards you do not want.

Diplomatic Immunity. You want instant speed protection and protection from board wipes. Something like March of Swirling Mist is more versatile offensively and defensively.

Dark Ritual. I'm uncertain what you're trying to ramp into so quickly that you would need this. Maybe I'm wrong.

Countersquall. You may as well play the one mana version in An Offer You Can't Refuse.

Redirect may be bested by Narset's Reversal? That's a matter of opinion.

AEtherize risks bouncing creatures attacking other opponents such as those you've goaded but want them to keep. Try replacing this with a more versatile effect like Reins of Power or a more aggressive effect in Illusionist's Gambit.

Damnation. Jon prefers sacrifice board wipes so that your opponents keep their shit creatures.

Overall I think you could run less counter-magic in favor of more proactive effects.

Cards to Consider Creatures Generally I want to focus on adding creatures that you can give away and then steal back later to win the game.

With Jon, you often want cheap evasive creatures to give out for early card draw with his ability. Right now you have 1 two-drop creature. Throwing in a Changeling Outcast or a Slither Blade can mean you can give a creature away for cheap and still hold up mana for other things. Slither blade wouldn't die to Heartless Summoning too.

In the two-drop slot, you can run creatures that are more defensive like Baleful Strix, or give you card draw like Sygg, River Cutthroat or just more powerful creatures like Flesh Reaver which is a goaded 6/6 that can deal 12 damage a turn or Wretched Anurid. Heck, you can even add a versatile two-drop in Dimir Infiltrator which can be given away in the early game or used as a tutor in the late-game.

In the three drop slot, I think your idea of adding Steel Golem is a great one to make sure the only creatures your opponent has are the ones you're giving them. It's a brutal card. Rotting Regisaur is a card you don't mind giving away early, and can take back later to win. Phyrexian Soulgorger can be donated to an opponent as a goaded 10/10. They won't have to pay the upkeep, but that's a great body to give someone as a political tool. Cephalid Facetaker is also worth consideration though I personally don't run it.

In the four-drop slot, like you mentioned, Grid Monitor is a proactive creature counter. Abyssal Persecutor can save you from death. Archfiend of the Dross is risky but fun (it comes back to your control after the opponent dies).

In the 5-drop slot, both of the evil-eye cards are absolute ALL STARS. They work so well every game I've drawn them. They can also replace some of your weaker defenses like No Mercy and Dissipation Field

As a sidenote, I also like Deep-Sea Kraken as an unblockable 8/8 that can win you the game with homeward path.

Removal I recommend running more sacrifice-based removal since it'll mean your opponents keep the crap you give them. Things like Tergrid's Shadow or Vona's Hunger or All is Dust (one of my favorites) or Killing Wave. I also prefer Toxic Deluge to some of your other removal since it goes through hexproof. Curse of the Swine is also an exile effect that can be selective and works really well. You can also run single-target removal like Reality Shift or Pongify if you'd rather instant speed interaction. Feed the Swarm is quality. If you really don't care about cruelty, you can run Torment of Hailfire, but that card is honestly always too boring for me to want in my decks.

Card Draw Jon has access to some great card draw that most decks can't take advantage of. Fateful Handoff is a card draw spell that also donates (though does not goad). Sygg, River Cutthroat works well with evasive threats you give away (though should not be donated). Verity Circle works great with Jon's ability since it donates the creature first, and then taps it down. Teferi's Ageless Insight allows you to double your draw triggers from Jon.

Equipment Remember that you can donate creatures while they're equipped and you still control the equipment so they can't re-equip it. Pact Weapon makes the attacking creature bigger, while ensuring you can't die, and will draw you another card whenever the donated creature attacks. Dowsing Dagger  Flip works effectively on evasive creature to get you ramped. Vorpal Sword is a win condition on your unblockable evasive creatures.

Goad Dulcet Sirens, Bloodthirsty Blade.

Misc Graveyard removal is king. Throw in a Scavenger Grounds. My favorite card to run is Reality Shift. Make an Avenger of Zendikar spawn a dozen Wretched Anurids. It's not GREAT, but it is always funny. Cultural Exchange is a fun time too with all your manifest and shitty creatures.

That is all. Hope it was helpful.

ladypickleton on Oloro's Gambit

1 year ago

There are some great possibilities here I never considered and others that just remind me what is out there and need to get.

Archaeomancer's Map would be a game changer in these colors and top of my list to modify my own haha.

When initially learning to brew a deck I went for higher CMC cards but now I focus on 1-4 CMC especially when editing and taking out things that don't seem to be working. Other things on my list to use from here: Karlov of the Ghost Council Cleric Class Lone Rider  Flip "don't mind this 2 drop haha" Voice of the Blessed Crested Sunmare (would be fun; probably also a target but omg if they leave it alone...) Paradise Plume (i think this would work especially well if there is a lot of overlap in the colors of your playgroup or playing 1v1)

Suggests: Bolas's Citadel (only because it's fun; it's also a huge target and the price of those cards can add up quickly) & Divinity of Pride (big hits, many lifegain) & Evil Twin or any other copy effect can be useful tactically taking out threats with it's ability but if they let you have Oloro out, you can copy it, sacrifice the real one and send it to the command zone and get double life-gain triggers. On that last note I have seen people instead of building towards pillowfort going for effects to abuse upkeep triggers ala: Paradox Haze with Golden Urn and Copy Enchantment and creatures like Deep-Sea Kraken and Indulgent Tormentor and Jhoira's Timebug and other supports like Clockspinning and can abuse it even more with Strionic Resonator or Mirrormade and similar effects. I like that idea because a lot of those pieces are useful just on their own but synergize quite well.

Good luck!! Thank you for the tag (:

wallisface on

1 year ago

9-lives i’m agreeing with shadow63 that you need more lands. Control decks need to make their land drops quickly & reliably, as they need their resources available to deal with whatever the opponent is doing. If the control deck only has enough lands in play to counter one spell, it’s super easy for their opponent to play around this and get stuff through.

I would suggest you needing 23 lands as an absolute, bare minimum. But realistically 24-25 would put you in a better position.

As a separate note, why play Ugin's Conjurant?? It’s a strictly worse Endless One… but neither really have a place in a control deck - i think you need a better finisher. Even something like Deep-Sea Kraken would serve you better

wallisface on I heard you like bounces...

1 year ago

Some thoughts:

  • There's going to be one big issue this kind of deck is going to face - you're constantly putting yourself at a large card-disadvantage, which will mean in the long run, you'll run out of resources, and your opponent will rebuild.

  • I get that you have Jace's Archivist as a way to get more cards, but with the sheer quantity of 1-mana killspells in modern, it feels like it'll never resolve its ability.

  • Note also, that because of fetchlands, your opponent can play-around what you're doing (i.e. only fetch when the mana is needed, or if targeted) - meaning that most opponents will be able to cast any spell they want in their deck with relative ease.

  • As one final point of problem, you have no current way to close out the game. Without a way to quickly win, your opponent is almost guaranteed to stabilize at some-point, and then beat you.

There's no easy answers to these problems, but here are some thoughts:

  • Bounce cards inherently put the caster at a disadvantage, because they're losing a card, and the opponent by-default isn't losing anything. To provide you some staying power, and a chance at an actual lock, I'd recommend running Isochron Scepter. While this card is fairly risky to play in modern (due to the chance of getting 2-for-1'd), I think its your best bet for being able to set up a continual source of bouncing.

  • You need a reliable way to actually win the game, before your opponent stabilizes (because, they will). I think a good candidate could be Deep-Sea Kraken, as it's very hard to remove (doesn't die to Prismatic Ending, Fatal Push, or Lightning Bolt. Admittedly Unholy Heat does pose an issue, but it's still pretty resilient)

  • I think you need a few more 1cmc cards to prevent getting overwhelmed right at the start of the game. Void Snare is decent, so I'd think you'd want a playset of that, alongside something like Unsummon or Vapor Snag. I do get that you want to focus on lands, but there are a LOT of 1-drop creatures that could blow you out of the water if left unchecked.

  • I think Remand is better than Counterspell here. You don't care that your opponent will get the card back in hand, because you're hoping their hand will be full anyway. And Remand helps you keep cards in your hand, so that you can keep the momentum up.

  • I don't think you need Radiant Fountain. The extra life is never going to swing the game either way imo (if you can't get the lock, you're screwed whatever your life total). I think a bigger threat is drawing too many lands and so running out of options. I'd suggest just playing 20-21 islands, and no Radiant Fountain. You'll be able to do more with the extra 2-3 spells than some lands that offer the wrong colour.

freezerboy on SATORU NINJA 'DRAZIES FROM THE BOTTOM NOW WE HERE

2 years ago

Here are some other recommendations if you like:

Unblockables

Nether Traitor, Thalakos Seer, Blighted Agent

Big Boys that aren't Eldrazi

Deep-Sea Kraken, Ancient Stone Idol, Chancellor of the Spires, Devouring Strossus, Denizen of the Deep, Hullbreaker Horror, Icebreaker Kraken, Inkwell Leviathan, Kederekt Leviathan, Leviathan, Nezahal, Primal Tide, Tidespout Tyrant

Since ninjitsu bypasses attack triggers, then cards like Leviathan can actually be semi-viable. Good luck with the new concept, I know that I'm going to be making a ninja demon/kraken deck that should be absurd.

multimedia on Your Local Aquarium

2 years ago

Hey, well done on a low budget, nice flavor of sea creatures.

Consider expanding on looting? Looting is draw and then discard.

A reason to play more looting is to have more instants or sorceries in your graveyard for Octavia. Another reason is Wonder which is a card you want to discard and when it's in your graveyard and you control an Island gives all your creatures flying especially Octavia. Pair the flying effect of Wonder with Stormtide Leviathan who's a big sea creature upgrade. He makes all nonflying creatures unable to attack, but Wonder gives all your creatures flying.

Whelming Wave will consistently wreck your opponents creatures and not bounce your creatures including Octavia. Sol Ring and Arcane Signet are staple budget mana rocks in Commander. Kefnet's Monument reduces the mana cost all of your blue creatures and each time you cast a blue creature you get to tap an opponent's creature who could be a blocker.

Sea-Dasher Octopus and Thought Sponge are some small sea creature upgrades. Deep-Sea Kraken is another budget big sea creature upgrade. It's ability to remove time counters from itself whenever any opponent cast a spell is good in multiplayer Commander.

Good luck with your deck.

nathanielhebert on $25 Quicken the Kraken

2 years ago

I've been swimming paces like Poseidon with this deck, and enjoying the flavoured removals with Whelming Wave and River's Rebuke . One thing I'm trying out is adding another ticking-time-bomb-kraken, Deep-Sea Kraken , which is a nice addition if found early, ideally tucking another monster in suspended animation on turn 3, just behind a bubbling Ominous Seas .

The "cheap" Cryptic Serpent are also a nice touch, which come in handy to repopulate the board quickly after the graveyard's been filled with the scrys for card draws. Kudos!

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