Heroic Intervention

Instant

Permanents you control gain hexproof and indestructible until end of turn. (They can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control. Damage and effects that say "destroy" don't destroy them.)

Combos

• Heroic Intervention + Obliterate

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	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
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (51)

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

3 hours ago

First a quick introduction. I've been playing magic off and on for years. When this site first started out, I was super active and then I stopped playing. I recently got back into it and plunged deep into the Commander format. I love building decks around interesting concepts and often trying to break cards.

My slightly ambitious goal is to create a series of threads that show my thought process as I build a commander deck. I figure it will serve two purposes: First, it will aid newer players who have some precon decks and perhaps are looking to upgrade them or they see a commander and want to build it, but aren't sure how. The second is purely self-motivated in that more experienced players can fine tune my own logic and make suggestions for my own improvement.

So with that, the first commander deck I'm going to build here is Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds. This is a card that begs to broken and creates for interesting and powerful decks. There are also several different lines you can choose to go with it. You can make it go infinite if you like degeneracy or don't like the people in your playgroup, or you can decide to go the way of building lots of tokens quickly and then turning them sideways and swinging.

So first things first, we need to think about what the commander actually does and what it is going to need to do that effectively. First, it says allows all nontoken creatures to tap and create tokens that I control that entered the battlefield this turn. So a couple things to point out: First is that it is tokens not creature tokens specifically, so treasures, clues, food, etc. is fair game. Secondly, it doesn't have to be my turn that the tokens came in, you can activate the ability at instant speed if you create a token on your opponent's turn. Now Ghired also is only 3 mana in Naya colors with Haste which means he's going to come down early in the game, so we'll want some other creatures out there when he comes down to start building up tokens right away.

With his abilities in mind, there are a couple things that we want to think about: Cards that create tokens, cards that double tokens, cards that untap things, and cards that do interesting things when they're tapped, example Wylie Duke, Atiin Hero, who comes down early as well, and when she is tapped I gain life and draw a card. We will obviously need to consider interaction, ramp, and card draw, but those are secondary in my thoughts. Every deck needs those, but what items you add of those often depends on what your deck is trying to do. In this case, we want to make tokens, tap creatures, make more tokens.

Token Generators

So a couple really good token generators here to start would be things that keep making them rather than one offs. In my playtesting Oltec Matterweaver is hard to beat. It comes in early (turn 2 if you can get a sol ring). When you cast a creature spell you can copy a target artifact or bring out a 1/1 gnome. Turn 1 you play a plains and a sol ring. Turn 2 you bring this out, turn 3 you bring out Ghired, creating a copy of sol ring, tap your Oltec Matterweaver and create another sol ring. You now have 3 sol rings on the field on turn 3... You are now the archenemy, congrats?

Some other standouts are Emmara, Soul of the Accord who when tapped creates a 1/1 soldier with lifelink. So tapping will actually create two tokens. Thousand Moons Smithy  ^Flip is another beast of a card. It comes down turn 4, Ghired is already out along with any other low cost creatures. Let's say you had a Birds of Paradise and Ghired when this comes down and maybe a mana rock. You create a 5/5 Gnome (2 creatures, 2 artifacts, and the gnome itself). Now you tap the bird and Ghired and create two more Gnomes. You now have 3 7/7s, on turn 4...

Honorable mentions here are things like Smothering Tithe who will create treasures each opponent's turn, tap a creature and create another. Rain of Riches, create some treasures, copy them cast something and get cascade.

Also, populate is a thing, I like Growing Ranks and Nesting Dovehawk for that.

Doublers

Ok, so doublers is a pretty easy topic, there are quite a few out there, they are expensive and honestly for this deck you don't need much. I chose a couple that I particularly like for this and by like I mean I own them and didn't have to go out and spend $50-60. Examples are Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation  ^Flip, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Primal Vigor (careful as this one applies to everyone not just you).

Untapping Abilities

Untapping abilites can make it even worse as time goes on. If you have a Seedborn Muse you untap each upkeep so they draw a card, Smothering Tithe creates a treasure, during their end step you tap your creatures creating more treasures. Untap on the next opponent's untap step, rinse and repeat.

This is also where infinite combos begin to happen. Sunstrike Legionnaire untaps everytime a creature enters the battlefield. Make a creature token, tap sunstrike legionnaire, create another creature token, sunstrike legionnaire untaps, rinse and repeat, gg. Midnight Guard works too for one mor mana. Other options include making copies of your own creatures that untap creatures when they enter the battlefield like Hyrax Tower Scout, Zealous Conscripts, Sparring Mummy. Mix that with notable salty cards like Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Molten Duplication, Splinter Twin, Jaxis, the Troublemaker and you're off to infinite again. (Jaxis uses his ability, sparring mummy comes in untaps him, now Jaxis just taps to make a copy of the sparring mummy token (from Ghired) which has haste, it comes in untaps Jaxis, rinse and repeat, swing with a legion of sparring mummies)

Cards that do cool things when tapped aren't super plentiful, but the two I've mentioned already are great for this deck. (Wylie and Emmara).

Interaction, ramp, card draw

Now for the ramp, interaction, and card draw. Ramp is fairly straightforward, since we have the Oltec Matterweaver, I opted to put in some signets, but left some other stones out. Normally when I'm in green I go heavy on green ramp. I opted for cheap ramp spells like Rampant Growth, Farseek, Three Visits and Birds of Paradise (could maybe use more mana dorks since having a body later will help in producing larger tokens).

Interaction is super important in this one. Board wipes are coming, targeted removal is coming, so need to prepare, but we also need to be flexible in taking out our opponents. So to save us from board wipes, we have Heroic Intervention, the ubiquitous and hopefully soon to be reprinted (one can dream) Teferi's Protection, Boros Charm, and Smuggler's Surprise (which is heroic intervention in disguise).

Getting rid of threats is crucial, so Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares are useful, but not as useful as Beast Within, Generous Gift, and Stroke of Midnight. These obviously target more than just creatures, but also produce tokens. There are situations where a well-timed beast within on your own treasure token to create a 3/3 beast that you can copy a bunch of times is the right play. That make it not just removal, but also a token generator.

Finally, we come to card draw. Since we are producing tokens (hopefully most turns) we can include things like Bennie Bracks, Zoologist and Idol of Oblivion. I also like Welcoming Vampire for this deck. It is creature heavy so Guardian Project is great, so is Beast Whisperer and Garruk's Uprising. Esper Sentinel is always good. We already have Wylie from earlier. Getting card draw is vital to the survival of any deck and particularly this one as we need to be producing tokens regularly and you need cards to produce them. I chose to run about 11 card draw engines in the deck to ensure I'm drawing regularly.

Lands... I mean... make sure you have dual lands in the deck and triomes if you can. One noteworthy utility land is Grove of the Guardian which can have a nice payoff when you create an 8/8 with a few creatures out along with Ghired.

I'll post the deck that I built from this thought process on my page in case you want to see the final product. And if you made it this far thanks for joining me on this, I hope it was helpful. Feel free to comment on how you would do it differently or cards that should have been mentioned.

UltimateRoxas40 on Countdown to Infinity (Counters Primer)

1 day ago

Crow_Umbra Yeah, that's always been a factor when building a Simic deck for me. Too many options kinda paralyzes my thoughts and deck building direction, which is why I decided to lean more towards The Millennium Calendar style shenanigans.

And thank you for the suggestions! I've got Ripples of Potential and Wave Goodbye from the Simic Ixalan precon, but I just haven't gotten around to opening it yet haha. I've never even heard of Ravenous Slime! It could be a contender for something like Scavenging Ooze. I'll look into that.

I thought about Mutational Advantage, but it feels very situational. I'd probably stick with Heroic Intervention for more of a catch-all defensive card.

Like I said, most of the deck was assembled with stuff I've had in my binders for a while. I'll work towards grabbing copies of those soon.

austintayshus on

2 weeks ago

I used to have a fun brawl deck on Arena with Maja as the commander!

With her landfall/token trigger, you will definitely want more land ramp. I'd suggest cards like Rampant Growth and Cultivate and Kodama's Reach and Explore. Ramp is strong in commander, and especially with your commander on the battlefield.

You will also probably want some ways to protect your creatures once you assemble an army of tokens. For that i'd recommend Heroic Intervention and Unbreakable Formation.

You will also probably want a few ways to boost your creatures punching Power, like Intangible Virtue and Craterhoof Behemoth and Glorious Anthem and Gaea's Anthem.

Wesinator69 on Zaddy Yorvo

2 weeks ago

You should get a few upgrades. Invigorating Surge Power Fist Kami of Whispered Hopes Primal Rage Fungal Sprouting Forgotten Ancient Defiler of Vigor Branching Evolution Heroic Intervention

kamarupa on Tails from the Crypt

1 month ago

First off, nice work. It's not easy to build decks such as this - there's just never enough space to pack everything you want in and I think you made a lot of solid choices.

Why Apostle's Blessing instead of Faith's Shield as a budget replacement for Heroic Intervention? Artifacts? Mana?

1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity to the manabase?

I feel like it needs some draw card/filtering/tutors. I like 3-piece combos because they're fun when they work, but they almost always need so much coaxing. I'm fairly certain you're not going to find near duplicates of any of the combo pieces, either, which always makes a brew both riskier and more difficult to pull off.

Another concern I have with this brew is that Fog, Suppression Field, and Authority of the Consuls won't slow down opponents enough. Those spells account for 1/6 of the deck, which sounds like a lot, but odds are you'll only hit one in the opening hand and maybe a second before the game ends. I don't think that's enough.

I don't know that there's a solution per se. I'd experiment with trying tutors and draw engines and also more pillow fort spells like Ghostly Prison in place of Nature's Claim and Tamiyo's Safekeeping. Protection spells are great, but if you can't get the combo, there's nothing really to protect.

For the record, I playtested it about 6 times and never got the entire combo within 10 turns and never had much defense either. I think, yes, given 15+ turns, it would start to look viable, but that's asking a lot from a fast format like Modern.

Profet93 on Kosei Canseco, Modified, Allegedly (MonoG Voltron)

1 month ago

Gattison

Skyshroud Claim > ranger path - Upgrade

Return of the Wildspeaker > Soul's Might - Too expensive for what it does

Eldrazi Conscription - Death to enemies

Conqueror's Flail - Anti-interaction as they can kill your commander in response to enchant/equip/counter

Heroic Intervention > Fog - Protection

Yavimaya Hollow > Forest - Protection

Profet93 on Dopplegangbangers - Historic Flash Convoke Copies

1 month ago

Last_Laugh +1

I hate tokens with a passion, both playing and playing against them so sadly I can't offer much meaningful feedback. I do think that since you're going wide with tokens, a Heroic Intervention > Masako the Humorless - Masako requires a board Prescence and costs 1 more while heroic prevents your deck's weakness of overextending.

For whatever it's worth, I'm unsure if you produce enough tokens in the deck to make full use of convoke. Should you have other token producers you wish to include in the deck, I would swap out K-9, Mark I as it's unnecessary/redundant.

Hope this helps!

Profet93 on Selvala

1 month ago

Elemental Bond/Guardian Project - Draw

Legolas's Quick Reflexes - Utility

Vines of Vastwood - Protection + buff

Heroic Intervention - Protection