Murder

Instant

Destroy target creature.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	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
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (44)

DemonDragonJ on Why Was Murder Investigation Not …

2 months ago

WotC reprinted Murder in Murders at Karlov Manor, because it was only too appropriate for that set, so I find it to be very weird that Murder Investigation was not reprinted, as well, considering that the central story of the set involves solving a murder; or was that the actual reason, because that card suggests that the murder and investigation are only a minor part of the story, while this set has those as the main events? If that is the case, surely, WotC could have reprinted that card in one of the Commander decks?

What does everyone else say about this? Why did WotC not reprint Murder Investigation in Murders at Karlov Manor?

solarem on Smeagol will guide you | **Primer v2.0**

3 months ago

Hey dnthymamai, thanks for the suggestions. Right now I'm working on a new list, which is nearly finished. There won't be a Murder in it anymore (;

It will soon(tm) be finished to my liking and will be updated here along the new Version of the Primer I'm writing for it.

dnthymamai on Smeagol will guide you | **Primer v2.0**

3 months ago

Some cards to consider that can replace Murder: Poison the Cup , Murderous Rider , Putrefy, and the strictly better Hero's Downfall.

Love the LotR theme of the Deck!

Rhadamanthus on What happens when Vapor Snag …

3 months ago

The land will be returned to your hand, you will lose 1 life, and Harmonious Emergence will go to your graveyard. Here's why:

• Because Harmonious emergence turns the land into a creature, that makes the land a legal target for Vapor Snag
• Harmonious Emergence's last ability only applies if something would actually "destroy" the enchanted land, meaning an effect that specifically says "destroy" (Murder, etc.) or a lethal amount of damage being dealt to it (the rules of the game say lethal damage "destroys" a creature). That isn't what's happening here
• If an Aura is on the battlefield but somehow not attached to a legal object as defined by its "Enchant [something]" ability, then it's put into its owner's graveyard

wallisface on

4 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.

vinylghost on Leveling Up like a Pro(liferate)

7 months ago

Made an account just to say I really like this, was looking for a relaxed pre-made to play with some friends and it looks good! To try and give some consistency (and knowing who I'm playing against lol), I took some of the recommendations from wallisface and fully dropped Experimental Augury for the three recommended, in varying quantities, as well as Murder. I dropped a handful of the level ups (specifically, three of Beastbreaker of Bala Ged and two of Joraga Treespeaker, and a couple other changes like moving Echo Mage up from the Maybeboard), and added Sheoldred, Whispering One for a bit of pressure that doesn't require a bunch of mana dumping after-the-fact. Will be testing it here shortly in a multiplayer game, and would love to know any changes you've made that may give me some more insight, as a casual player who tends to miss seemingly obvious cards.

wallisface on Grinding like a pepper mill

7 months ago

Things i would suggest focusing on:

• figure out what your deck wants to do, and refine down your cards to achieve that goal. If your goal is to mill the opponent out, you only ever want Hedron Crab and Ruin Crab as creatures - everything else is pointless as you’re not trying to win through damage. Conversely, if you’re trying to mill cards to give your creatures some kind of combative edge, you only want cards that mill the opponent incidentally… there’s no point including spells that only mill, as you end up losing the game to self-inflicted card disadvantage.

• work towards lowering your mana curve. Modern decks typically struggle to run more than 4 cards costing 4-or-more mana, you’ve got a whopping 10, which will make your turns a bit clumsy.

• there’s never a good reason for running more than 60 cards, so while 64 might not seem much over, its still weakening your hands and draws - make some cuts!

• you have a lot of cards being run as 1-ofs and 2-ofs at the moment, which will lead to the deck being less consistent and overall harder to present a coherent plan. It’s not too bad here, but i’d suggest trying to run more of the cards you care about as playsets (4-ofs).

• a lot of cards here are just worse versions of other cards. For example, i’d suggest Fatal Push or Infernal Grasp instead of Murder, and Glimpse the Unthinkable over Mind Sculpt

legendofa on Why is Black Now Allowed …

7 months ago

While Shatter the Oath doesn't have any drawbacks, it's also more than double the cost of an equivalent enchantment removal effect in {G} or {W}. So while it is unconditional and unrestricted, I would say it's very mana-inefficient. In fact, let's compare it to Hero's Downfall, which seems to be the current baseline for black removal.

Let's say that destroying a planeswalker is equivalent to destroying an enchantment plus creating a small Aura. Assuming that to be the case, it's barely half as efficient as Hero's Downfall. I would further argue that outside of an enchantment-heavy draft setting, the option to destroy a planeswalker is the more valuable choice. (There are, of course, plenty of destroy-on-sight enchantments and underwhelming planeswalkers, but as a broad and general rule, planeswalkers tend to demand more attention.)

Even comparing it to Murder, it needs a massive mana cost increase to match what {G} or especially {W} can do for 2-3 mana (Banishing Slash, Destroy Evil). There are more limiters than adding drawbacks and restrictions. Mana efficiency is the next big one, and Shatter the Oath is far from efficient. This is a draft common, and I suspect it will see next to no Constructed play.

It's worth keeping an eye on to see if it turns into a long-term trend, but my current position is that it's an appropriate effect.