Hypnotic Specter

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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
Oldschool 93/94 Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Hypnotic Specter

Creature — Specter

Flying

Whenever Hypnotic Specter deals damage to an opponent, that player discards a card at random.

SufferFromEDHD on Tinybones, The Pickpocket

3 weeks ago

I agree with your assessment 100%. I liked this spoiler and am optimistic MH3 will be full of EDH goodies.

Noggin Whack tribal Hymn.

Unmask Grief #2.

Tourach, Dread Cantor potential upgrade to one of your common 2 drops.

Mindslicer full bins.

Hypnotic Specter and/or Scythe Specter fill the bin up in style.

wallisface on

3 months ago

Some thoughts:

  • don’t include either of those sideboard cards into your deck, they’re bad.

  • Profane Tutor is much better than both Grim Tutor and Diabolic Tutor. I’d just run the Profane Tutor and ditch both of these other tutors entirely in favour of more early game interaction (killspells).

  • your land count of 28 seems good, especially as Cabal Coffers ”isn’t a land” and won’t be helping you at-all until you have 3 other lands in play anyway. However, you could replace some swamps with Troll of Khazad-dum, as they can act both as land-fetches early game, and large creatures late game.

  • if you’re planning on making big mana, Tainted Adversary is going to be a lot more useful than Gifted Aetherborn.

  • you never want to be paying more than 2 mana for a killspell. In that vein i’d recommend either Infernal Grasp, Bloodchief's Thirst, or Sheoldred's Edict instead of Murder.

  • I don’t think Hypnotic Specter is very useful - a lot of decks will already be empty handed by their own play-patterns before this thing swings. I’d swap it for one of the before-mentioned killspells (or Damnation),… if you really want a creature, maybe something like Tourach, Dread Cantor.

I think the biggest hurdle to this deck is that while you’re probably going to be able to play a land every turn, that’s still pretty slow ramp-wise, so you should be investing a lot more resources into ensuring you can slow the game down in those early turns (by killing your opponents threats) so that you can reliably do stuff with your big spells in the late game.

DreadKhan on Lil' Shit

4 months ago

IMHO their are few bigger 'lil shit' type cards than Rite of the Raging Storm, if their is an opponent who can't handle 5/1 Tramplers they are dead meat very quickly, it's a very chaotic atmosphere with Rite out. It's also very good with many cards that would work well with your Commander, such as Mask of Griselbrand, and I can point out a bunch of other options. Relic of Sauron is a very good Grixis mana rock that can also draw a card now and then. I think copy effects are probably pretty good with your Commander, if you cast Rite of Replication on your Commander you still get 5 copies ETBing and dying, which should clear out hands and serve as a huge board wipe (you get 5 triggers each of the ETB and death trigger, if you have 3 opponents left 2 of them have 1/4 of their permanents and one has half left, similar for their hands. Irenicus's Vile Duplication is another fun copy effect, this one doesn't die right away and has flying. If you like annoying creatures you might like some of the specters out their, Hypnotic Specter is an old classic that will always take away a card from whomever you hit, and Stronghold Rats can take one from each player fwiw.

I can't decide if MImic Vat would be worth it with your Commander, if you can get him into the Vat you can make a copy each turn for very little mana, but it doesn't get sacrificed unfortunately, it gets exiled at end of turn, so you'd need sac outlets to get his Death Triggers (but on the upside nobody is going to block you).

Their are a few Chaos type cards that might help with your plans to annoy the table, I've always enjoyed Teferi's Puzzle Box, but any effect that cares about your opponent drawing cards really loves the effect, if you can get Box and a Notion Thief out your opponents each lose their hand and you draw cards equal to how many they had when they lost them. Grip of Chaos can help keep your Commander (or another key permanent) alive longer, and you don't run a ton of targeted interaction yourself. Omen Machine is pretty funny, it's especially useful if you use a high average MV, same with Timesifter. Some people will try to flip the table if you resolve a Possibility Storm, especially if your deck isn't trying to abuse the effect. If you leaned harder into your spell plan, or into permanents that work regardless of who controls them you could try Thieves' Auction, a card many that is so obnoxious that some people consider scooping rather than resolving the effect.

I hope some of these ideas aren't too disruptive, it's fun to have a deck that can troll your playgroup a bit!

Niko9 on What's your favorite mechanic, and …

10 months ago

How about spectering? My first deck was a Hypnotic Specter deck, and my last deck will probably be one too : )

Also, I do love flash just because of how versatile it is as a mechanic that fundamentally changes permanent cards. Though, it's also a slippery slope when there are a ton of flash, dash, evoke, and channel cards in a format because it power creeps out things that are just regular speed.

wallisface on

10 months ago

Some thoughts:

  • 20 lands feels really low for a deck running Smallpox, that also needs 3 mana reliably, and ideally 4 mana for Tourach, Dread Cantor. Personally, i'd go up to 24 lands, and then run a playset of Raven's Crime so that you can still make use of any excess lands you might draw later in the game. (i'd drop the Hypnotic Specter for those extra lands, as the card just validates your opponents killspells too much)

  • I'd suggest running the full playset of Smallpox as it can just prove soo valuable for messing with your opponent, particularly if you're on the draw (which 8rack decks often want to be).

  • I'd ditch Megrim in place of some kind of killspell. between Shrieking Affliction, The Rack, and Davriel, Rogue Shadowmage you already have enough ways to punish an empty hand - and the opponent might not even have any cards in hand to discard after turn 3 anyway. You also want to be able to killspell the opponents board to force them into having to play more cards and get lower on resources. I think Fatal Push would be a lot more useful than Megrim here.

  • Duress can be really problematic in that it might not find a card to discard. I'd suggest running 3x Blackmail instead, and then 1 copy of Bontu's Last Reckoning. Blackmail is a lot stronger in that it will at least be guaranteed to force a discard, and the single copy of Bontu's Last Reckoning can come in clutch for getting out of gross situations (though I don't think you want to be running more than 1 copy because drawing 2 in a game is probably not helpful)

legendofa on Tourach, Dread Cantor

1 year ago

Welcome to the club, Thefrench!

How about some repeatable discard? Disrupting Scepter is kind of the low end, specter creatures like Abyssal Specter or Hypnotic Specter provide damage-based discard, and triggered discard like Bottomless Pit through Cunning Lethemancer and Necrogen Mists to Anvil of Bogardan provide reliable counters for your commander, depending on how much money you're willing to spend. Liliana's Caress gets a one-mana discount off Megrim for a very similar effect.

DrukenReaps on Irenicus' Experimental "Donations"

1 year ago

Acidarc safe was running creatures like Hypnotic Specter instead of Desecration Elemental. It gives a way to win regardless of the number of opponents but also feels lame and uninspired and doesn't really take advantage of donating them. Bouncing is a solid plan though. I was considering just more normal board wipes myself. Use something like Revel in Riches or Mortal Combat to win but I don't want to be overly reliant on just those either...

ClockworkSwordfish on Creature Discomforts

2 years ago

Hey, discard can be a solid strategy now that there are so many cards to support it being a win condition, but there are a few aspects of your deck that stand out to me as maybe needing work!

The biggest problem is bound to be Ashiok's Adept - he only makes your opponent discard a card if you target him with a spell, and you currently have zero ways to do that. As is, he's just a 1/3 for three mana... not too exciting. Probably it's better to just cut him out rather than try to remake the deck to support him!

Another odd inclusion is Bridge From Below, which only has an ability so long as it's in your graveyard. How do you plan to get it there? Target yourself with Liliana? Probably this isn't the right home for it, either!

For your creatures, there are a couple upgrades I can think of that wouldn't be very expensive. Hypnotic Specter has got to be the best specter in the game, and I'd strongly recommend him over Abyssal Specter. Guul Draz Specter is a good alternative, too. If you're running to run a cheap guaranteed-discard critter like Ravenous Rats, then Burglar Rat is a small upgrade!

Mind Rot is also a card with lots of solid alternatives. Stupor, Unburden, Heartless Pillage and Demogorgon's Clutches are all just flat-out better!

Overall you have a solid chassis here. My main advice is to get the deck down to 60 cards and cut out anything that doesn't support your main strategy!

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