Helm of Possession

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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
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Helm of Possession

Artifact

You may choose not to untap Helm of Possession during your untap step.

(2), Tap, Sacrifice a creature: Gain control of target creature as long as you control Helm of Possession and Helm of Possession remains tapped.

Matso on Shirei of the Weak

1 month ago

Sorceress Queen, Disciple of the Vault, and Helm of Possession were in the deck early on; the helm eventually ended up in a clone deck, and the other two were phased out as I tried other things. I like equipment that can be re-used when you suffer a setback and there's some recursion for artifacts if it does end up in the graveyard.

DreadKhan on Shirei of the Weak

1 month ago

It's not new or shiny, but Gift of Doom might be a better source of Indestructible if you have access to Black. Morph isn't an ability as far as stuff like Split Second are concerned, so it's better than Flash arguably (imho it's usually easier to counter an Artifact vs a Morph creature in Commander, so that's a bit more upside). You can also protect non-Legends, not sure if that comes up, but the sacrifice cost can easily be an upside in this deck.

I kind of like the idea of Sorceress Queen, her ability can be used to nerf an opponent's creature, or to protect one of your bigger bodies (that doesn't have +1 counters). I couldn't decide if you have enough of your own bodies that she can protect, but I thought I'd mention it. I'm not sure if anyone plays decks that revolve around big haymakers, but if anyone uses them (or generically good Commanders) you can steal them with Ritual of the Machine or Helm of Possession, both require a creature, a cost you're very able to pay I suspect.

After thinking a bit more, would Disciple of the Vault do anything in here? It's a bit like Blood Artist in that it can punish decks trying to do unfair things (your group doesn't like infinites, but does it like treasures?), but it also lets you pinch people whenever any artifact of your own dies. and you do have a few artifact creatures/token generators. Disciple also works with Grim Hireling, but you need to be getting in consistently, I wasn't sure if your deck achieves that most games.

Great deck idea!

DreadKhan on 100 cards for Meren

5 months ago

One pattern I noticed with Meren is that she's pretty bad if you don't have a creature to get back, she's just a clunky body that does nothing if your graveyard is empty. That's part of why I don't like fast ramp in Meren, even in fairly high power (unless you're in cEDH and barely care about the Commander) all it does it get me a 3/4 on the board, and it's also going to risk being wiped or removed early. Thus, keep an eye out for small creatures that can sacrifice themselves or other creatures. Casual Meren usually wants to farm XP to an extent, using something like Fleshbag Marauder as mentioned, or the various Sakura Tribe Elder knock-offs, will let your Meren start working right from the get go. Another idea is to use self-mill effects, there are quite a few in Golgari, but I think you'd want to run a much high creature count to make self-mill more realistic. My Meren deck presently has 57 creatures in the 99, and that doesn't feel excessive because my Commander only interacts with other creatures. You might also take a look at Evoke creatures like Shriekmaw and Foundation Breaker, these can be evoked more than once with Meren, generating XP while policing the board. There are also weird old cards like Hell's Caretaker that farms XP (but can also reanimate something huge at the cost of a token). I think as your power level goes up the value of farming XP goes down, but this can be offset by including some of the game ending tutors I mentioned previously.

If you want to stick to Casual Meren, I always loved Street Wraith when I drew it early, it doesn't have to hit the battlefield to work with Meren, since getting it back to hand lets you draw another card. I wouldn't use it outside Casual, but it's a fun trick.

Ritual of the Machine and Helm of Possession offer Golgari decks an option they typically lack, that of just stealing something. This is useful vs Commanders of some decks, but it's also good vs big stuff that defies removal somehow. Neither is a really high power card, but both feel pretty good at lower and mid power.

DreadKhan on Merieke Ri Berit, Manipulator of the Stack

8 months ago

Have you considered some sac outlets that stick around? Altar of Bhaal is pretty good recursion if you can consistently steal a creature somehow. Helm of Possession would be pretty funny, it's both a sac outlet and a theft effect. Another one-shot theft effect and sac outlet combination is Ritual of the Machine. I assume Preacher isn't in here because of it's high price? It's more of a 1v1 card, but it can be a really nasty card vs people running few creatures, but it is legit terrible vs token decks, it's a weirder Oppressor. Probably the same for Mind Over Matter, it's pricey but a very good trick to have. Coffin Queen is another nice recursion option, the ability to steal from from other people's graveyard for almost no mana can be really powerful.

You run a reasonable number of very good enchantments of 3 mana or less, have you thought about Zur the Enchanter? Perhaps you don't run tutors in your meta, some groups don't like them in Commander.

DreadKhan on Please help me improve my …

9 months ago

If you like stealing creatures and have access to Blink Thassa, you might like Callous Oppressor. I'd also look at Helm of Possession for the same reasons. TBH I think I'd run Sower of Temptation over Gilded Drake with your Commander (Drake is a great card, but at least if you kill off Sower's creature you can just flicker Sower to get a new creature, at which point you can flicker Sower to steal something else), either way it's also worth a look.

If you're looking for ramp in Blue, I'm a fan of the usually clowned-on Dreamscape Artist, Myriad Landscape and Retraced Image, but I think it's probably a reasonable choice to run stuff like Arcane Signet/Fellwar Stone if you're struggling to get your ramp numbers high enough. A sneaky trick I heard about from The Command Zone (it's a Youtube EDH channel) is that you can use creature lands like Mishra's Factory or Faerie Conclave as a form of Blue ramp if you can copy them when they are creatures, Magic has few issues with cloning/copying lands if they are also creatures. Another unusual form of 'ramp' is to use the odd card like Walking Atlas to cheat extra lands in, but you probably would want a few more lands or card draw.

As one-off theft effects go, I find Bribery, Inevitable Betrayal and Cultural Exchange to all be pretty solid, Exchange does want you to have token generators, but Blue isn't bad at making small tokens. Bribery effects can be a LOT bigger than a theft effect, so Betrayal is deceptively powerful vs the right type of deck, but most decks have a few really strong creatures at least, and you should have multiple opponents to choose from.

It's not a Theft effect, but Rite of Replication is hilarious in practice, getting a single copy for 4 is pretty much market rate, getting 5 copies for 9 is crazy when it happens.

SufferFromEDHD on Hostage Taker (Feldon EDH)

9 months ago

Elegant pile. Excellent use of Helm of Possession! Will be tweaking a few of my decks to utilize that tech.

Blazing Shoal might pull out a surprise win FOR FREE. Whenever I see Greater Gargadon I think of this simple synergy. It should be green but somehow red ended up with the biggest free pump spell.

Illusionist's Bracers double Feldon.

Plaza of Heroes Feldon will be a target.

War Room quality draw for mono color.

Inventors' Fair value.

Sequestered Stash interesting mill that's on theme.

DreadKhan on EDH Merens Reanimator

10 months ago

In my Meren deck, I don't run a lot of bigger creatures, even though the deck has decent odds of ending up with huge amounts of mana, stuff like Beast Whisperer/Grim Haruspex draw cards off of creatures either entering or leaving the battlefield, there are lots of variants of both of those effects, and these will let you play many spells in a turn, rather than play one huge thing. I don't think your MVs are a huge problem, but the 'top of my curve' creatures are Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Protean Hulk, and Sheoldred, Whispering One, the first two can win on the spot or very quickly, while Sheoldred is a bit more questionable, a lot of people find stuff like Sheoldred tends to be too slow in todays game, so even that is a card I'm considering switching out for lower to the ground stuff. I checked and atm I have 14 1 drops, which is a few more, there are plenty of decent 1 drop mana dorks you could throw in to both lower your curve and possibly raise your consistency, though the best is Elves of Deep Shadow, since your deck cares more about Black mana.

As a general rule of thumb for Meren, if you can do a thing with a creature instead, you probably should unless the creature option is truly awful, I run 55 creatures in the 99, and I'm still thinking about sneaking more in by taking out things like Artifacts. Creature payoffs are better than artifact payoffs in Golgari, and Meren can't recur non-creatures.

For sac outlets, you ideally want a selection of 'free' sac outlets, ones that only use a creature and no other input, so stuff like Viscera Seer, Carrion Feeder, Woe Strider, any of the good altars (Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar, and Altar of Dementia are my all very good), Sadistic Hypnotist is insanely useful (it is a 5 drop though), if you have 4 drops that matter you can use Dimir House Guard because Transmute is a good mechanic if you care about the MV and it's also a free sac outlet. I think you can throw in a few sac outlets that are more limited, stuff like Helm of Possession, Phyrexian Tower, Hell's Caretaker, Altar of Bhaal, and Ritual of the Machine are all beefy effects, even if you can only use them once per turn. I really like stuff like Sakura Tribe Elder because the card provides it's own sac outlet (but only for itself), ymmv but I think you're taking a risk by running something like Solemn Simulacrum over Dawntreader Elk or Diligent Farmhand, 4 mana is a ton and it lacks a self destruct feature.

One option some people end up taking is replacing Meren as the Commander, not because she isn't strong enough but because the play patterns are pretty consistent, once you've figured out what your deck is trying to do, Meren is usually very predictable, so some people prefer something like Baba Lysaga, Night Witch. She offers card draw and a sac outlet in the Command zone while caring a lot less about creatures in particular, so you'd have more freedom in terms of card types.

Hope some of this is helpful!

DreadKhan on The Quackening

11 months ago

I have a Quest for Ula's Temple deck which does some similar things, I liked Dreamscape Artist because it can reshuffle your library as needed, incase you don't have a relevant creature to work with on top. It's technically only 1 mana and a card to Harrow (you get back 2 untapped lands, so it can also helping mana fixing) Blue, and I could be wrong but I think your Commander wants the odd Discard outlet too. A worse (but still potentially useful) piece of Blue ramp is Apprentice Wizard, it's not as good as Dreamscape, it's like Worn Powerstone, which is a good rock if you want bigger ramp to potentially cast a big creature a bit sooner. Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus are big ramp rocks with decent ratios. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers are pretty good together, if you have a lot of devotion to a colour Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can help, Deserted Temple can untap any land that makes extra mana. Less rampy and more of a big Scry effect, Soothsaying is a neat card if you care about your deck order. Scroll Rack is better but costs more.

Just a general idea, you might throw in things like Reconnaissance Mission, Bident of Thassa, and Coastal Piracy along with some Unblockable or Shadow creatures (Thalakos and Dauthi are the Blue and Black tribes). You can also throw in stuff like Sword of the Animist, Dowsing Dagger  Flip, Prying Blade, Goldvein Pick, Grim Hireling, and any other attack payoffs you can find to generate more value over time. I understand you want a sea-monster theme, but you might want a way to draw some cards/get in some chip damage to soften people up. The only drawback to Shadows is that they can't chump block. If you really want your evasive creatures to be able to chump, there are some small flyers like Spectral Sailor and Thousand-Faced Shadow that have other upsides, these are risk free but are way less evasive than Shadows.

On that note, if you're worried about getting attacked you might look at Propaganda, War Tax, Flood, and Fatespinner are all great ways to make you hard to attack. Mass Diminish, Polymorphist's Jest, Sudden Spoiling, AEtherize, Aetherspouts are all great cards for people to fear.

Callous Oppressor is a funny repeatable theft effect, Ritual of the Machine and Helm of Possession can both steal stuff and are great with tokens, Thieving Skydiver can steal an artifact creature fwiw, Sower of Temptation is a so-so theft effect that shines bright if you can flicker or bounce it, Thalakos Deceiver is probably way better since he permanently steals whatever and can be reanimated, Inevitable Betrayal and Bribery are both pretty sweet.

The biggest (and perhaps best) theft effects are Mass Manipulation and Cultural Exchange, exchange requires bodies but can also be used aggressively to just ruin two players' boards.

Inkwell Leviathan, Lochmere Serpent, Spawning Kraken, Stormtide Leviathan, and Wrexial, the Risen Deep are some relevant creatures I use, some are better than others but there is nothing as bad as Sea Serpent or Bog Serpent, both cards I love but don't use.

If you like Whelming Wave, you might like Spectral Deluge as well.

Hope some of this helps, Big Dimir is a fun deck!

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