Mesmeric Orb

Artifact

Whenever a permanent becomes untapped, that permanent's controller puts the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard.

Discussion (51)

cm1806 on "The Many-Faced God" - [[Primer]]

15 hours ago

Hey!

I guess I'm in love with your primer and your deck :D I'm also a huge fan of the "new" Lazav and I've tried different builds from surveil, to pure combo and now I'm trying the more control build. In my opinion it is the most efficient build for my meta. Since I'm playing Lazav, the amount of graveyard hate is increasing, so I guess countermagic is key. Your decklist was a big inspiration for me. Thanks a lot!

Do you have any tips for piloting this kind of Lazav deck? Do you use politics to survive the early/midgame? Every time I play Lazav, I become target no.1 :(

What is your opinion about running Laboratory Maniac / Jace, Wielder of Mysteries as a second win con in case the voltron strategy doesn't work? I'm also running cards like Mirror-Mad Phantasm and Mesmeric Orb + Basalt Monolith for the self-mill strategy. Have you ever considered such "combo" win cons for your deck?

I've also noticed that you are running only a few mana rocks. Do you always have enough mana available to change Lazav to the creature you need?

Have you ever tried Perplex as a counterspell? This card looks pretty interesting and I'll playtest it as soon as my playgroup can meet again.

Do you have some advices for my build? I'm always up for improvements and tips :) http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/lazav-with-the-many-faces/

Metroid_Hybrid on Ladies & Gentlemen, Mister Konrad Twitty..

16 hours ago

Thanks, me too.. Konrad has outperformed in unexpected & hilarious ways..

Speaking of bombs, I was also considering Basalt Monolith as it can go Infinite w/ Mesmeric Orb..

I would also agree with your assessment of the lack of draw, and the first two you mentioned are good..

As far as mass reanimation is concerned, I was contimpating Rise of the Dark Realms. But what I haven’t ever thought about is Heartless Summoning!

However, the big question is: what to cut?

cubemaster123 on Syr Konrad Mill

1 week ago

If you are playing Mesmeric Orb there's no reason not to throw in a Basalt Monolith.

korlicday on Syr Konrad the Grind (by Sequeira)

2 weeks ago

Love the show! And this is a cool list. Some items I have included:

• Tortured Existence instead of Phyrexian Reclamation. With only 10 mana, you can already do 20 points of damage.

• Deserted Temple (doubling Nykthos or Cabal Coffers is just too good!) and Cavern of Souls, just to protect Syr Konrad. You could also go for: Rings of Brighthearth + Deserted Temple + Cabal Coffers/Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to reach infinite black mana and utilize the ability of our good Syr Konrad

• Undead Gladiator because you can cycle it for card draw and it pings your opponents. You can even recur it. Reassembling Skeleton is good yes. But this one also gives you a card draw.

• Mana Web is just too good. Most of the time people will be fully tapped out by this card; Also it is a rock star when Mesmeric Orb is out on the table.

• some more card draw as well, like: Dark Confidant, Arterial Flow, Sign in Blood If you want to go a slower route: Phyrexian Arena

• Protect Morality Shift with Imp's Mischief

I Hope you like these ideas.

Thatguy1425 on Feather to the stax

2 weeks ago

smilodex sure! It uses Mesmeric Orb and Basalt Monolith to create a self mill loop. Desecrated Tomb creates a 1/1 whenever 1 or more creatures leave your graveyard. So everytime you mill Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre you make a bat. Anger grants them haste if you have a mountain. I didn't fully write it out as this is more to keep track of the deck than the combo. Also will likely become a bomberman combo if I get a LED, as thats more compact.

jaymc1130 on Emry, Lurker of the loch cEDH

3 weeks ago

firrlo

For me, it wasn't that Mesmeric Orb couldn't perform it's job function. Rather it was that the Orb lent more to a slow, grindier approach that was far more vulnerable to counterplay that's common in the format in competitive settings. The first time I got Faerie Macabred for my combo piece I didn't mind it. The second time I got hit with an Ashiok, Dream Render activation for a combo piece I was annoyed. But when I got hit with a Rest in Peace for a third combo piece I lost all hope as that iteration of the deck just didn't have the means to consistently gas up to find ways to combat these types of issues effectively. That was an extreme example, but it really highlighted a point of concern for me. I realized that part of the problem was the approach, over reliance on tutors to find specific combo elements, lack of consistency getting Emry out on turn 1 due to card choices for higher cmc artifact combo elements, and a slow game plan that naturally had difficulty competing against the best decks in the format. I worked through a couple of other approaches to see which performed most consistently at a high level given the type of competing strategies and decks being faced and really felt enthused when the "just run a ton of low cmc artifacts and turn them all into combo pieces" performed well for a half dozen or so games in a row. The approach came with new issues, so it's not like it solves all problems even if the deck's overall performance was more consistent.

I was curious about High Tide. Didn't strike me as the type of line the deck really wanted to pursue. Just seems like it doesn't really mesh with the overall game plan.

Minamo is something I'm going to have to give a try. That one seems nifty enough to warrant some testing as sometimes I've been in situations where if I could just get one more efficient Emry activation I could go off that turn rather than wait another. The potential to generate value activations before that point seems nice as well. Probably give it a shot in my next play test session.

I'm definitely not a fan of the Dramatic/Scepter or other infinite mana combos for an Emry deck, however. They just did not perform well in the early iterations. No command zone outlet makes the combos too inefficient to employ I think, it's just too much to ask to also find a specific outlet in addition to these combo pieces before anything relevant can be done to engage a combo win line. When I made the switch to prioritize infinite draw over infinite mana I noticed a considerable improvement in performance from game to game and kind of stuck with that approach since.

Still so many ideas to test out though before I settle on a final version and it's nice to be able to find interesting options floating around.

firrlo on Emry, Lurker of the loch cEDH

3 weeks ago

jaymc1130 Thats intresting. Im in love with Mesmeric Orb. I think its fantastic as an early play to start digging through the deck at each upkeep. It wins the game with Basalt Monolith, and Emry. It also wins the game together with Mirran Spy + Lotus Petal or Lion's Eye Diamond. Scepter combo also wins the game with the orb.

I ended up cutting Candelabra of Tawnos as I felt that it diddnt provide enough utility when I drew it. I believe the posibility of a strong hightide turn is not worth the downside of drawing a card that untaps Mishra's Workshop or Bazaar of Baghdad and other utility lands as you mentioned.

Minamo, School at Water's Edge has no downside other than not having synnergy with hightide and being hit by Blood Moon once every x games. It's ability may also be copied with Rings of Brighthearth. Definetly worth the slot!

jaymc1130 on Emry, Lurker of the loch cEDH

3 weeks ago

firrlo

I played a half dozen more games with Emry last night testing some iterations. Ultimately I just didn't like the performance of Freed from the Real either. Both of the aura's are a lot more narrow than the Spy, but this is a mono colored deck and we won't have access to Jeskai Ascendancy that is the absolute best combo piece, gotta work with what's available. Pemmin's is staying in though, the protection and utility it offers made for better performance and one piece that works with Lion's Eye Diamond or KCI/Eye of Ramos/Commander's Sphere/Implements of Sacrifice and cost reducers to go infinite is worthwhile as it dramatically increases the consistency of going off the turn or two after casting Emry due to dramatically increased chances of Emry mill hitting relevant pieces to recur.

Mesmeric Orb was actually something I gave a try in my initial incarnations and it's performance was atrocious. Too vulnerable a line to any form of graveyard hate, too clunky, to narrow. The deck still needs some form of ability to make use of repeated Emry activations and draw out though, and in fact the drawing out part is significantly more important than the creation of infinite mana part. Infinite draw always leads to infinite mana, while infinite mana with no command zone outlet is largely useless the majority of the time.

Riddlesmith and Vedalken Archmage did not cut it in the handful of games I played with them in, too slow, inconsistent, clunky, easy to remove. Nor does Rhystic Study in my group, just not competitive enough in terms of the value it tends to generate (drawing typically 2 cards and mostly taxing players' excess mana that isn't needed, in which case cards like Thirst for Knowledge offer better value despite not being competitive enough itself). So somehow Emry needs a way to consistently draw, both for value and to combo out, and moving to Chromatic Sphere/Conjurer's Bauble//Mind Stone type cards with 5 or 6 artifact cost reducers seemed logical. Turns out this has been dramatically more consistent while still fast, though a bit wasteful in terms of card slot efficiency.

Krark-Clan Ironworks should likely be a staple for an Emry deck. It's ability to turn any artifact into an infinite mana generator seriously widens the decks scope and allows more focus to be given to the draw aspect. The additional consistency it's inclusion allows cannot really be understated. I actually have yet to try Phyrexian Altar or Ashnod's Altar though I considered them initially. Ultimately those 2 sacrifice outlets are just too narrow in scope and the combo lines to go infinite are way too convoluted and clunky. It seems to make more sense to use a sacrifice outlet that's going to enable 40% of the deck to become combo pieces. Won't be the combo the deck really wants to look for, but KCI will often be the one it finds with very little effort.

I gave both Magewright's Stone and TYE a look last night in the slot previously held by Freed from the Real and found them interesting. With an active Emry, KCI, and cost reduction pieces to play for 0 mana they generate infinite mana quite nicely. I don't know if the "haste" clause is more valuable than needing one less cost reduction piece to enable the line, but I do like the utility of a hasty Emry in the event my first Emry cast got killed off. It might be worthwhile to run both, but I kind of doubt it. I'm sticking with TYE at the moment.

Scrap Trawler is on my radar as my next idea to test out. Seems like an interesting piece to have around with KCI (I'd initially thought of it as a piece for the Altar pair). Would open up some interesting lines, for example: Tap Mana Vault for , sac it for , sac a tapped Magewright's Stone for , bring Mana Vault back to hand, tap Commander's Sphere for , sac Commander's Sphere to draw a card, bring Magewright's Stone back to hand. With the loop can be repeated with Emry recurring Commander's Sphere infinitely to draw infinite cards and generate infinite blue mana. With a single cost reduction piece in play a dozen other lines open up. With 2 in play basically every card in the deck would generate infinite mana and card draw with only a single untap of Emry required. These lines seemed too convoluted to me at first, but after playing around with the deck some and seeing how often it comes by combos incidentally off a single Emry activation given the dearth of fodder I'm starting to think Scrap Trawler might have a place in the deck (in which case I'd definitely run Magewright's Stone in addition to TYE).

Man, Emry is hella fun to theory craft. Just talking about the possibilities gets my juices going.

As a point of inquiry, how are you liking High Tide and is a line with Candelabra of Tawnos+Minamo, School at Water's Edge worth inclusion in your mind? Is Minamo, School at Water's Edge worth inclusion as just a value piece and if so, what kind of artifact density do you feel is needed to justify it as a value developmental piece?