Mindwrack Harpy

Enchantment Creature — Harpy

Flying

At the beginning of combat on your turn, each player mills three cards. (To mill a card, put the top card of your library into your graveyard.)

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
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (13)

RufusTheGrufus on Anikthea's Enchanting Recycling Plant [Primer]

5 months ago

"That's just my 2cents, would love your thoughts.”

Oh boy, well I definitely have some thoughts!

“Creeping Ren - Yeah, it's definitely not as good as replenish. I suppose it depends on the amount of interaction/wipes in the meta and if you have enough card draw to bypass the grindy attrition.”

Yeah definitely, and on second thought it may be more appropriate to compare it to Phyrexian Reclamation. I'll probably have to playtest with Creeping Renaissance swapped in over it; I'm not sure yet which will be more cost intensive in the long run, and being able to hit different card types with Creeping Renaissance is really nice. I'm a bit hesitant though because it would dilute the enchantment count further and Phyrexian Reclamation is relevant way earlier in the game.

“Archon of Sun's Grace - It's nice, it makes tokens. For 4 mana, is there something better?”

Oh man, Archon of Sun's Grace is so much more than just a creature that makes tokens for four mana! Just In looking at it's stats, it's a ¾ with flying and lifelink, for four mana; which is an amazing cost rate. This list is pretty vulnerable to faster decks and/or decks with a lot of flying, so both the lifelink and the flying help keep me around till the mid/late game. On that same note, the tokens produced do the same exact thing. Because Archon of Sun's Grace triggers off of enchantments entering the battlefield, it's surprisingly easy to organically generate a game-winning number of tokens (either through combat damage or ping effects).

“Mindwrack Harpy - 4 mana, mill cards. I feel that there are other cards that can mill. I get it's an enchantment creature, I just wonder how impactful it is.”

Maybe it's just my playgroup in particular, but having flying creatures in a deck feels incredibly impactful on it's own. Like you've pointed out, it's an enchantment, so it will trigger the significant number of cards that care about enchantments that are built into this list. Additionally, it doesn't just mill yourself and provide you with more card selection for Anikthea's ability, it also mills each opponent. With just one Mindwrack Harpy, your opponents will likely be irritated and disrupted, but with a plethora of Mindwrack Harpy copies (which this deck is capable of doing!) you're also threatening to take players out of the game. It definitely has downsides in that it can assist other players who are also playing with their graveyard; but the fact that it happens on your turn helps balance that out a bit.

If I were to cut Mindwrack Harpy I'd want to slot in a similarly efficient, enchantment-based piece of card advantage. Flickering Ward could be interesting since it also doubles dips and acts as protection, but the card advantage efficiency is nowhere close unfortunately.

“I feel like in EDH, you are going to have a lot of stuff in your GY regardless."

Sometimes you will, sometimes you won't! There's so much variance just within a single deck, let alone across 4, that I wouldn't say it's guaranteed. And even then, I would rather be reliant on my own methods of getting cards into my graveyard, during my turn, rather than waiting for my opponents to interact with me in some way. For decks that rely on using their graveyard it's really important to be able to control when cards are put into the yard, rather than just passively waiting for your graveyard to fill, since graveyard hate is plentiful and easily accessible.

“Mirkwood Bats - As a finisher, do you need the redundancy? It cost a lot and without the setup doesn't seem too impactful.”

Mirkwood Bats I don't feel as passionate about but man, you really don't want me to have any flyers lol! The setup for this card is literally baked into the deck’s packages; and you wouldn't play any wincon cards before you're set up anyways (e.g., casting Craterhoof Behemoth with no other creatures)! Mirkwood Bats wasn't originally on my radar but eventually got added to this list back when I was more heavily playtesting it.

Because this list allows for a ton of tokens to be produced, oftentimes my turns would get obnoxiously long without being able to close out the game. Mirkwood Bats allows me to capitalize on tokens the second they're produced, as well as when I sacrifice them (which is way more rare, but definitely comes up).

In terms of redundancy I'm actually worried I may not have enough of these effects, but I also don't want to convert the list fully to an aristocrat build. I would not say that having four ping effects is redundant in a 100 card deck and, while I have various tutors to help mitigate that; I haven't found myself with an excess of pingers when playing this list (so far at least!).

Kcin on Anikthea, Hand of Erebos is Graverobbing

1 year ago

-1 Oblivion Ring

-1 Mindwrack Harpy

-1 Font of Fertility

king-saproling on The OPM of Hightower

4 years ago

Cool deck. You might like these: Ill-Gotten Gains , Mesmeric Orb , Shared Trauma , Dread Summons , Eye Collector , Mindwrack Harpy , Vicious Rumors , Syphon Mind , Geth's Grimoire , Memory Jar , Fleshbag Marauder , Demon's Disciple , Merciless Executioner , Mire in Misery , Awaken the Erstwhile , Cabal Conditioning

ConsumingKiribo on Mindwrack harpy's wrath

4 years ago

inker6405

This definitely looks like a Dimir Mill deck. First off, since you're focused around Mindwrack Harpy , I'm going to recommend Ruin Crab or Hedron Crab . I'm going to keep recommending this because they're staples in mill for a reason.

It looks like you're going for a beat-stick with Relic Golem . I'd say replace it with Jace's Phantasm which is instead a 1 mana beat-stick that gets you a 5/5. However, most mill decks opt out of using a beat-stick since they're trying to deck out their opponent.

Fruit of Tizerus is a bit wasteful to put in this deck. Glimpse the Unthinkable for a more aggressive deck or Maddening Cacophony if you're going for a slower, yet more controlling, and less aggressive mill deck.

Finally, Drown in the Loch can be a good card in this deck. It's basically a Doom Blade and Counterspell glued together. What makes it even better is that Counterspell isn't even legal for modern.

Overall: This lacks focus... kind of. The edits are certainly an improvement, though there are some questionable card choices. This looks like a decent standard deck save for the sideboard. If you're planning on using this deck in modern, for higher-level play groups you want your average CMC to be around 2 or 3, especially in an aggressive deck.

Since this is a mill deck, I'd recommend going for a much more controlling approach vs an aggressive approach, since you have the advantage of your opponent's graveyard. Magic is a game of resources, probability, and the stack. Your opponent's graveyard is a resource. USE IT.

In the end, it's certainly a decent deck for a new player. Despite questionable card choices, it looks decent.

ConsumingKiribo on Mindwrack harpy's wrath

4 years ago

inker6405 Great! Well, I have a couple of suggestions if you want a mill deck:

Mindwrack Harpy isn't the best. Reducing it to 2 or 3 copies is a bit better as you want it later in the game but you'll still be happy getting it when you need it. Instead, Ruin Crab or Hedron Crab is a much better idea as you can trigger it multiple times through fetchlands, such as Bad River, Evolving Wilds, Fabled Passage, or Polluted Delta if you got the money.

Glimpse the Unthinkable. 10 cards for 2 mana is a great deal. You can't get that kind of value anywhere else.

Maddening Cacophony adds flexibility. Add Fraying Sanity to increase effectiveness, though if games are going a bit faster than you think, Traumatize.

Next, some cards that fit your description found on gatherer. For a full comprehensive list, here's a large link: gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text=|[%22mill%20one%20or%20more%20cards%22]|[%22card%20is%20put%20into%20an%20opponent%27s%20graveyard%20from%20anywhere%22] But here are my (budget) recommendations:

Duskmantle Guildmage is good in a mill deck as it helps your opponent lose life more and more easily as an alternate win condition.

Profane Memento is worth sideboarding if you absolutely eat it in the 4rth turn because your opponent was playing burn.

Finally, the best non-budget recommendation that pulls everything together would be a great addition to the deck (the deck is 15 bucks, you can relatively keep this deck at like 30, 40 bucks by adding 1 or 2 of this card)

Bloodchief Ascension. This can be your win con. This deck isn't getting anywhere however unless you'll drop 80 bucks on this card. But the number of cards that are unblockable pull this card together, this entire deck together, yeah you'll stall for 2 or 3 turns, and the deck will only work if this is your first card, but if you are going to break the restrictions and make your budget go wack, this is the card that pulls everything together. All you have to do is drop Swimmer in Nightmares and a Sol Ring since you have no Ashiok, and Sol Ring is restricted in every format it isn't banned in.

Sorry, but you're going to have to drop the Sol Ring.

Next, some useless cards in the deck are:

Boot Nipper, it doesn't do anything except being defensive. You aren't going to need it. You have Murder if the opponent has a really big and intimidating creature well, you can just kill it.

Departed Deckhand, Farbog Revenant it does nothing in this deck. You're attacking your opponent's deck, not their life, so focusing on that contributes nothing and wastes resources for precious deck space for better cards.

Filigree Familiar. Honestly, Divination is better. ANYTHING is better. Visions of Beyond is also a suggestion for mill decks.

Kjeldoran Dead. This does nothing. You'll pass someone's attacks anyway because the average game plays out for 6.5 turns. You'll have enough time to play out your strategy. No one is getting out Emrakul, the Promised End. In fact, not many will actually win by getting out some really big creature. Some will create a value engine, others will spam tokens, or just put pressure on you, in which they've already won once they got their win-con out. A chump blocker isn't going to do anything in this format, but it can do something in commander. This isn't commander.

Lurking Deadeye. How are you going to deal damage in the first place? 2 murders are more mana efficient.

Wall of Frost. A better option for this is Wall of Lost Thoughts.

Swimmer in Nightmares, you need an Ashiok Planeswalker. You have more than enough space for Ashiok, Dream Render as some decks focus on resurrecting the dead. However, this might conflict with what you're going for, but it's a recommendation. (Cling to Dust can do it as well if you come across Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, which hasn't eaten a ban in ANY eternal formats. Not even in Brawl).

tl;dr Again, a lot of cards in here either do nothing or almost do nothing, and without Bloodchief Ascension this deck isn't going to be good. It's a mill deck, but a mill deck isn't good without mill cards. And when only a sixth of the deck is mill cards, that isn't good.

If you're ever confused about deck building, Here's a tip: 25 lands, 20 synergistic (cards that count towards winning) cards, 15 cards that let you do things, draw more cards, destroy inconvenient creatures, or counter Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath. Or Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, and/or the rest of the Eldrazi titans that haven't eaten a ban.

And also ditch one of your Sol Rings, again they are restricted in vintage and banned in every format that isn't commander.

inker6405 on Mindwrack harpy's wrath

4 years ago

TLDR at bottom

Consumingkeribo sorry it took so long was looking for cards that you suggested and taking in what you said. this deck was based on the cards in the Theros: Beyond Death Ashiok, Sculptor of Fears plansewalker deck so my main goal in this deck is to make them lose thru mill hence why it's named after Mindwrack Harpy and to change that strategy would mean I would have to scrap the whole deck so even though you don't recommend it that's the win condition I'm going for

I like your idea of Sadistic Sacrament or Unmoored Ego but I don't think that cards like Curiosity or Rogue's Gloves will help with the mill strategy unless I put in more cards that allow me to "bring back the dead"

In the end thanks for the recommendations and advice I'm thankful that even thou I'm new you were willing to help and if you have anymore you like to share I'm always here.

TLDR

deck focus/win condition: mill

liked ideas:Sadistic Sacrament, Unmoored Ego

thanks for the recommendations and advice and if you have anymore you like to share I'm always checking in

backdoorbonus on Jarad vod Savo

4 years ago

Mindwrack Harpy makes lord of extinction bigger quicker.

CypherusX on

4 years ago

Pretty good deck you have here. I feel like Painful Quandary and Propaganda are some pretty good deterrents to go with your walls. Silent Arbiter and Crawlspace aren't too bad either. Since your using mill you could get away with Scheming Symmetry since you can mill whatever your opponent chooses. In terms of more mill focused creatures there are Gyruda, Doom of Depths, Mindwrack Harpy and Geth, Lord of the Vault. If you want Planeswalkers you could go with Jace, Memory Adept, Ashiok, Sculptor of Fears and Liliana, Death Mage for her last ability.

I feel like you could replace a few of your defenders with some of my recommended creatures and/or Planeswalkers and you probably don't need that many tap spells. However since it is a casual deck you'll know your playgroups meta better than me so only you can really judge if my recommendations work for you and which of your cards perform better than others.