Mages' Contest

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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
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Mages' Contest

Instant

You and target spell's controller bid life. You start the bidding with a bid of 1. In turn order, each player may top the high bid. The bidding ends if the high bid stands. The high bidder loses life equal to the high bid. If you win the bidding, counter that spell.

AwesomeJMS5 on Chandra Tribal (Everyone's Here!)

1 year ago

Padbras, Light Up the Night has done an okay job in the deck. It's done some damage, and has been useful once or twice, but it's more on-theme than anything else. Honestly, I'm considering cutting it from the deck to try something else out instead. Maybe I'll take it out to try Wild Magic Surge?

As for Mages' Contest, it's one of my pet cards, and has worked out pretty well for me so far. The biggest thing for me with that card is that I see it more as a burn spell than a counterspell. One time, I cast it in response to someone's commander, bid up to 26 life, they went to 27, and I let them have it. After that, I used Price of Progress to kill them, since they'd just taken 27 damage. The key is to use it on something you know your opponent wants to resolve. Either it counters one of my opponent's scariest cards, or it deals a ton of damage to them, and I burn them again shortly thereafter.

freezerboy on The Color Pie Must Die

2 years ago

Thanks reddeath68. I actually run Mages' Contest in my chaos deck, Sucker Punch Party and it is hilarious to see how much life some people are willing to spend. Darkness is another one I run in my ninja deck Agents of Darkness which is great as well. I like King Macar, the Gold-Cursed's ability, but with the creature being exiled it sorta screws with my deck abilities since they need the creature to actually die to get buffed. It has "may" in the ability so I at least get a choice, so I'll do some testing and see what comes of it. Thanks for the vote and suggestions.

reddeath68 on The Color Pie Must Die

2 years ago

Mages' Contest might interest you. Also King Macar, the Gold-Cursed might make for an interesting removal and partial mana ramp. Either way love this kind of deck. Breaking the color pie is always fun.

Reliquarian on shatterhulk budget

2 years ago

Okay hear me out, add Mages' Contest for the red counterspell no one will see coming when you're comboing off (if you have the mana, or if you can wait to have enough mana for counterspell backup).

I'm just saying, comboing off can get boring. But dropping a red banger like Mages' Contest when they try to stop your combo? Legendary.

As for a more serious suggestion, you could add Unmask as a way to clear the blue player of any counter magic before going off. It's also free to cast so it doesn't slow you down in that regard.

+1 upvote from me. Jund is sweet.

Mavalava on Unlimited Power

2 years ago

Sorin_Markov_1947 -- Brash Taunter would be fantastic if I ran some kind of ramp, be it rituals or otherwise! I love that card. Just recently got one for my Brion Stoutarm deck.

Browbeat I love. If I had a group to play casual 60 card with, I'd probably be running that more in the main deck instead of keeping it as a "maybeboard" card. It fits the decks theme well in basically every aspect!

Yea, I tried to make the deck a fair and fun deck despite the combo-centric nature of it. It's rather interactive -- burn spells to use as either direct burn or creature removal depending on the board state, and my creatures reflect damage, impacting combat decisions. Saving Grace can be fun to use and for extra silliness, Mages' Contest can be a fun gamble. However, suddenly blasting the opponent for potentially infinite damage out of no where, while the method has fun vibes, is also NOT the most fun. Perhaps taking out Guilty Conscience and adding the two Mages' Contest from the sideboard or maybe Arcbond would be better for more fun play.

Thanks for the feedback!

Reliquarian on Share the Pain

2 years ago

Love it. +1 upvote from me.

As for card suggestions, have you considered Grid Monitor ? It's a similar effect to Steel Golem which I see you have included. Pyromancer's Swath is another great one and can just end the game for whichever poor soul you drop it on since they have to top deck a way to remove it and enchantments can be especially hard to remove. Mindmoil can be similarly difficult to deal with and can disrupt a lot of people's strategies. Additionally, as a piece of red ramp, Alpine Guide can be great because you get the land and your opponent gets nothing (and if they have mountains it gets really good).

Finally I just have to mention a pet card of mine, Mages' Contest . It's a red counterspell that no one sees coming and can lead to some fun games of chicken with your opponents (and gets really good in a deck like this where your opponents will likely have already lost a lot of life to your Blim, Comedic Genius , so even if they bid more life than you it can still leave them dangerously low if they play it wrong).

Hopefully those suggestions are helpful!

Reliquarian on EDH Burn

2 years ago

lol sorry I had to riff off of your description (and lack of lands). As for a real suggestions you should throw in a Mages' Contest to really cheese em'

TheMonOmnath on My hell is mono-red

3 years ago

Is there a good mono-red deck to use Stolen Strategy in ?

The art is awesome and I do love the idea of stealing my opponents stuff.

I wouldn’t mind something that could also include Mindslaver and Emrakul, the Promised End with Mages' Contest like someone pointed out to me.

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