Palinchron

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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
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Palinchron

Creature — Illusion

Flying

When Palinchron enters the battlefield, untap up to seven lands.

: Return Palinchron to its owner's hand.

Last_Laugh on Animar Tyrrhydras

1 month ago

What kind of budget are you working with? A combo Animar list can be a pretty expensive undertaking thanks to things like Palinchron, Cloudstone Curio, Walking Ballista/Purphoros, God of the Forge, etc. More of an aggro build can be done a budget though.

I have an Animar list here on tappedout but it's retired and hasn't been updated for a few sets. It's a combo list built around Ancestral Statue and Cloudstone Curio combos. Animar, Gaea's Hemorrhoid ⫷PRIMER⫸

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

5 months ago

Minor Rev:

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

5 months ago

GHoag Thank you for the good wishes! I intend to record what happens the best I can so I can accurately report on the games. Whatever happens I couldn’t have done as well without you! I do have one big question for you below, if nothing else please help me settle the Palinchron debate.

I got to playtest Tezzeret the Seeker last night and in my limited experience he is VERY good in this deck. I can’t say I would want to see Thran dynamo more than tezzeret in almost any situation. He is an absolute lightning rod. If your opponents know you have dramatic reversal in hand, they have to counter the tezzeret or they will simply lose the game. They can’t wait to see what the ‘-x’ ability grabs (unless they run Stifle or Disallow which isn’t common right now), because the Isochron Scepter just enters the field. If the opponents don’t know you have dramatic reversal in hand it is even more precarious for the opponents, because they don’t know if you are about to win the game or not. Furthermore they should still probably counter it because of the +1 ability alone. Untapping a mana vault every turn is extremely valuable.

Dream Eater performs remarkably well also. It did so well, that it was actually the target of Phantasmal Image at times. Bouncing a Kraum or a Talion to their owners hand feels really good, shutting down their card advantage and setting up my own.

Fabricate is definitely the next tutor to go in if I were to add another one. Still debating what comes out for it. Muddle more likely grabs Isochron Scepter because there is one less artifact tutor than spell tutor. I think I am happy with the tutor base after adding Tezzeret though.

Admittedly submerge is awful against non-green and even 4-5 color decks, because they often don’t run many basic lands except dual-lands. It is definitely a meta choice. Rapid Hybridization is more expensive but meta flexible. Since I don’t know exactly what the meta will be at lotscon and there is no sideboarding allowed I’ll probably go with the more flexible card.

This week my top debate is Palinchron. In the current rev it is starting to feel clunky. Requiring 6 lands on the field seems like a tall order in cEDH, doable only in slower games. He is also clunky because I can’t tutor him or recur him from the graveyard, without exploring the addition of Body Double. Questioning Palinchron also brings Aetherflux Reservoir into question, because Palinchron is the biggest payoff for aetherflux. Without Aetherflux there is no back-up win-con to Thassa’s Oracle which is monumentally important. So taking out Aetherflux is not an option. The Aetherflux/Palinchron wincon is slower than Isoscepter and hard to know when to go for. Though Palinchron is clunky, he is currently the best payoff to aetherflux, and it assists Thoracle. BUT thoracle doesn’t need the help of infinite mana in this deck because I am noticing that I can get to the bottom of the deck before I have 6 lands in play. So I just need a card to be an Aetherflux Reservoir Payoff.

That all said: I posit Shrieking Drake vice Palinchron. This card combos with Defiler of Dreams and Aetherflux Reservoir to have infinite spell casts, life, and damage. Shrieking drake is more innocuous and FAR less expensive therefore making him less risky to run. Shrieking drake also has the versatility of returning a Sphinx to my hand to be cast again. The biggest downside to this choice is that there is less infinite mana combo redundancy than with Palinchron. I think this downside is mitigated by Unesh getting through a lot of the deck very quickly, without needing the help of infinite mana. After briefly exploring the addition of Body Double, I think this course could be doable if we replace Sphinx of Lost Truths. Body double gives me combo safety with Palinchron, makes the combo only require 5 lands in play if I am doing it with Body Double, and has the versatility of copying anything in ANY graveyard. Worth noting, copying things in an opponents graveyard is not often the best choice. The biggest cons here is this makes the deck generally more expensive to play, and body double doesn’t further plan to get through the deck.

I think playtesting is required to know which of the two paths (body double or shrieking drake) is best to take. But with limited time, my gut tells me the Shrieking Drake path is better because it is still lower to the ground, and has synergy with the 20% rule.

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

6 months ago

GHoag thank you for your most critical feedback. I agree with a lot you have to say on this. There are a few things I'd like to discuss further. I'll mirror your format so you know how I am responding to what. Thank you for the praise on the list so far, there is definitely some things to be worked out still. "The pinnacle is a concept only to the unambitious" -flavor text from a card I don't remember lol. (sorry for the novel below)

Regarding Fetchlands, I think the deck thinning is negligible or very hard to notice at most. This aspect of them definitely can't be a bad thing. But playtesting has shown that the negative effects of including them are negligible. I have never been upset about running all 4. Also, the synergy these lands has with Vantress Visions (Virtue of Knowledge) feels reeeally good.

Rite of Replication is expensive mana wise. The purpose of Rite is to get through your whole deck in one go assuming Unesh is on the field, which is not always the case. In my playtesting, it has been very hard to resolve due to mana cost, and when you do meet the mana requirement it is never safe from interaction. Given these flaws, this card might as well say "if you are targetting Unesh and this card resolves, you win the game." With the FOFs, you can pick up all counter magic and free mana rocks on the way down your deck to cast & protect Thassa's Oracle. A non-negligible side effect, this makes choosing piles easier to do because you no longer have to grab sphinxs or other wincons. This wincon is still relevant at this mana cost. I think the jury is still out if this is the best choice though. With inifinite mana you can do something similar, and I'll talk more about this below. Q: Why not add Personal Tutor? Simply because you don't need 3 copies of Rite. I already don't like Mystical Tutor, but the versatility to grab any instant makes it worth it. By the time you meet the mana requirement, you will have seen Rite or Mystical Tutor. Personal Tutor is too narrow to have in a slot, even on the 'Rite' plan.

cEDH meta talk, there is Turbo, midrange, and stax (early win, midgame win, lategame win respectively.) The average win without any interaction is turn 6-7 on this revision. This solidly puts Unesh into midrange. I think he can be sped up a bit with more revisions. Turn 4 is a late win for Turbo, but with enough interaction to stop the turbo player we can get to the midrange and win the game. Unesh suffers against a a few stax pieces. The main ones being Torpor Orb (which doesn't see a ton of play these days), and Null Rod and Collector Ouphe. Collectore Ouphe doesn't feel so bad with our interaction suite, and Null Rod is even more of a nuissance. If both are on the field, it is an absolute nightmare for Unesh.

Creatures: Yes a lot of fat was trimmed, and it took some time to really narrow down the best Sphinxs in these slots. There is still room for improvement here. For instance Vexing Sphinx feels awful. The reason I added it a while back was because he can be played early game for a bit of card draw. The card draw from this is not worth the mana spent, the fact that even with Unesh out he is 2 blue to cast also feels very bad. I will definitely replace him with another Sphinx, probably Argent Sphinx or Metallic Mimic. For 2 blue I am much happier to see the mana sink on Argent Sphinx. And for 2 colorless I am happy to see possibly the next cheapest sphinx not already in the deck. Enigma Thief though high CMC, I can reliably cast him for his prowl cost at 2 cmc, and his removal is top notch. Dream Eater though the removal is not the best, it is still good. The kicker here is honestly the surveil 4. You do Unesh FOF first, then surveil 4 and hopefully you can put all 4 in the graveyard. Still dream eater does feel a bit slower than everything else. Scholar of the Lost Trove, upfront I feel very strongly about this card. It's not because this is a pet card, it's because I think its very powerful in this deck. Even at 5cmc which is what I normally cast it for, it feels like insane value. You get the Unesh trigger, and a wincon from the graveyard that the opponents thought they didn't have to deal with anymore. After doing some math on this, the average cost of an Unesh trigger with Unesh on the field is ~2.25 cmc in the current revision (that is the cmc of a card generating the FOF divided by the total number of things generating FOFs excluding Rite). At 5 cmc, casting the Scholar gives you a 4 cmc game winning artifact and a ~2.25 cmc Unesh trigger. Not to mention, it gives you flexibility in choosing piles. For instance, If an opponent erroneously puts Panharmonicon in a pile by itself, you can shamelessly take the other 3 cards in that FOF. Palinchron is also rather expensive to set up, but not as expensive as Rite. I think it is a good back up win condition. If Rite doesn't resolve, or if Isochron w/ dramatic reversal doesn't resolve, we need at least one other way to combo off. With ways to tutor for High Tide this win condition has been online surprisingly often, and is definitely threatening. That said having this AND Rite feels too heavy mana wise. I think I am pretty much sold on Isoscepter because of how inexpensive it is. With recent mana rock additions as well as Mox Diamond and Grim Monolith (mentioned below) the wincon is online for far cheaper than Rite and effectively does the same job, also dramatic reversal can be used as a one time use now which makes it good on it's own.

Lands: After a day of listening to cEDH podcasts, this is what I came up with. Urza's Saga is nuts. After playtesting with these lands I felt a big power spike. Thank you for mentioning Mystic Sanctuary again. I didn't think about it being able to retrieve a wincon which is pretty relevant. I will consider slipping this one back in there. I also think that losing just one more Island wouldn't be very impactful. What do you think about Command Beacon? After playtesting, I think there is such a niche case when this card is good in cEDH. I think I prefer an Island here given the more recent revisions.

Enchantments: Agreed, all of these are great cards. Not much to change here.

Instants: I don't think there are any cuts to be made here. After playtesting I think I need to add more Instants to more reliably shut off early combo wins. Demonic Consultation and Ad Nauseum are rampant. Even fitting in a Dispel or Spell Pierce to the deck would go a long way.

Artifacts: Work needs to be done here. I agree with a lot of what you are saying. Lightning Greaves feels bad because board interaction is light and stack interaction is high in cEDH. Caged Sun is usually too expensive to play without cheating it in with Scholar. But scholar wants to hit other game winning cards anyway, so Caged sun needs to go. Grim Monolith and Mox Diamond need to go in. I have been reluctant to add them to the list because I don't have paper copies. You are spot on with these two though. I am not high on Moonsilver Key, but I do like Wayfarer's Bauble. The bauble putting a land into play is important to getting palinchron online, and this also sees great synergy with Vantress Visions similar to the fetch lands. Though bauable is definitely worse than mox diamond and grim monolith, it would be my last cut. Mox Amber indeed doesn't power Unesh out, but we don't need it to. I will say that my playtests have really favored this card. Being able to play more mana artifacts after a FOF for free will keep the FOFs rolling. Mox Amber feels very good. Mox diamond is superior, but I won't take out Mox Amber for it.

REVISION: After synthesizing both our viewpoints, here is a revision that I will go ahead and push. I think you will like this mostly, but let me know your doubts.

EXPLANAITION: This rev cuts the Rite wincon and adds the less expensive Isoscepter wincon. There is still backup wincon in Aetherflux. Isoscepter is backed up by Palinchron, and Aetherflux is supported by Palinchron. Obviously, the goal with infinite mana is to play Thassa's eventually. Dramatic Reversal is good enough on its own now because of the artifacts added recently. I honestly think this is the cheapest that the wincon package can be while still being robust enough to not fizzle out. With these wincons, Unesh doesn't have to be on the field, which makes the deck less reliant on him, mitigating one of the deck's biggest flaws. Cutting Lightning Greaves will likely be inconsequential due to low board state interaction. Muddle and Spell pierce add some more stack interaction while Muddle can find combo pieces. I went with Spell pierce over Dispel because it can hit stax pieces as well as stopping an early combo win. Cutting a sphinx now relies on Ghostly Flicker to be part of the 20%. Mystic Sanctuary and Scholar of the Lost Trove are used to retrieve wincons from the grave if necessary.

I heavily considered subbing Dream Eater for Argent Sphinx. I will need to playtest that change before committing to it.

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

6 months ago

BIG REVISION + SIDEBOARD

I will post this comment then make the changes as specified in the list.

I have been studying a lot of cEDH meta, and found a lot of cards that I haven’t been using that are really great in Unesh. After a lot of consideration I have decided to pull the trigger on this revision.

  • Replace Mystic Sanctuary with Otawara, Soaring City. Mystic Sanctuary is used to retrieve interaction and put it on the top of your deck. This is anti-deck thinning which feels really bad in this deck. Instead, lets have the interaction printed on the land itself. What is great about Otawara is that this interaction is an ability, not a spell. So it can be used even while cards like Grand Abolisher are on the field. You can remove the abolisher and then interact with your opponent.
  • Replace Extraplanar Lens with Urza's Saga. The lens feels clunky. Sure it combos with Palinchron, but this combo requires lands to be on the field. Sacrificing a land has anti synergy with this. If the lens gets removed, you are out the double mana AND a land. It feels bad too often which is why it is getting cut. There are still 5 other combo pieces in the deck that you WILL see. You can even tutor for High Tide if you have to. Urza’s Saga is one of the best lands in the format and it isn’t hard to see why. More deck thinning. If its in your opening hand you guarantee Unesh by turn 3. Moonsilver Key seems to perform really well, so keeping this in as redundancy for this effect will turn out well I think.
  • Replace 2 Islands with Mox Opal and Mox Amber. This deck has a lot of lands in it for cEDH. Although Unesh doesn’t mind being mana flooded usually, the count is still a bit high especially after adding Urza’s Saga. Fast mana in these spots feels nice. They aren’t necessarily going to get Unesh on the table faster, BUT they can effectively make your Thassa's Oracle win con cheaper. While you are rolling through your deck after Rite of Replication resolves, you can pick up these pieces to gain mana to cast Thassa’s Oracle.
  • Replace Island with Gemstone Caverns. I goldfished this change a lot and found that Unesh will almost always prefer this in your opening hand over an Island. It makes early Unesh more likely, which is the primary goal of this deck.
  • Replaced Trickbind with Mental Misstep. Mental Misstep is too good in the format. There are a lot of awesome 1 cmc cards. Sol ring, carpet of flowers, swords to plowshares, mental misstep, other 1 cmc counters, mystic remora, and more. Trickbind is a great card against the right opponent(ie Kinnan), so for me this goes in the sideboard.

Sideboard revision 0

This is my first stab at a sideboard. So constructive criticism is very welcomed. The main goals of the sideboard is to change out the interaction package to fit the pod better, and to shift to more of a midrange strat than turbo if necessary.

  • Trickbind. Great interaction with other ability centered decks.
  • Grafdigger's Cage. Unesh can play this card without consequence pretty much, and it is an effective stax piece in the meta. This card might even weasel its way in to the main board.
  • Tormod's Crypt. More graveyard hate, nothing else to explain here.
  • Flusterstorm for a spell heavy pod.
  • An Offer You Can't Refuse also for a spell heavy pod.
  • Pongify for a more creature heavy pod.
  • Lotus Petal for better odds to cast Unesh first, making the deck more turbo. I think this card is possibly better than 1 or more of the mox’s, but I will leave it in sideboard for now.
  • Perplexing Chimera. If you need to grind in the midrange more this guy can be a great option. Combining him with Homeward Path can be a good combo to soft lock your opponents in the mid game while you get to the bottom of your deck.
  • Homeward Path for the above card.
  • Ledger Shredder for making the deck more midrange with another card draw engine, allowing you to more likely get the interaction you need.

Azoth2099 on Mono Blue Bouncers

6 months ago

Feeziks

I would honestly cut some of those chunky 7-drops like Agent of Treachery or Diluvian Primordial along with Storm of Saruman since you're not able to cheat them into play somehow, and they aren't combo pieces (as far as I can see, that is) like Palinchron or Great Whale. You may also wanna consider a few more Tutors like Mystical Tutor & Solve the Equation since you're running a few creatures that can grab them from your graveyard. These are the things that make a deck consistent and win you games!

Also, have you considered Cloudstone Curio here?

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

6 months ago

A controversial substitution perhaps, but deserved

Replacing Omniscience with Moonsilver Key.

Why not Omniscence?

  • Omniscence is too mana intensive in this deck. In your opening hand it is completely a dead card 90% of the time. In the 10% you have a line to play it in your opening hand, you are putting all your eggs into 1 basket. Omniscence is too high risk for the reward. If this spell doesn't resolve (and it likely won't at a cEDH table) you lose the game.
  • Even the times it does resolve in the early game, your hand doesn't always have enough steam to win outright.
  • It is important for all cEDH decks to consider how a card will function in your opening hand as well as later in the game. I'll write more about this topic in the current theory module of the guide. This inconsistency in the opening hand is what makes it bad. It is true that other cards in the deck are similar, but they aren't as mana intensive as omniscience. Omniscence in my opening hand has lost too many games.
  • Omniscence is essentially a combo by itself while Unesh is on the field. It is clunky at best because it doesn't always guarantee you get to the bottom of your deck unlike Rite of Replication. Recent powerful revisions of the deck have led to anti-synergy with this card. Example 1, removal of Long-Term Plans. Example 2, the addition of Palinchron makes infinite mana and storm more attainable than with Omniscence due to the reduced mana cost.

Why Moonsilver Key?

  • I think this card might be as much of a blindside to you as it was to me. I knew Omniscence had to go, so I started researching what I would replace it with. And I found this card. This card is the most opposite of a clunky opening hand card I could find. Rather than having a dead Omniscence in your hand, you can spend your early turns playing this card and getting an important mana rock like Jeweled Lotus & Mana Crypt or an Island.
  • The deck has been short on mana rocks. With a mana rock tutor in this slot combined with Virtue of Knowledge and fetch lands I have noticed a significant uptick in ramp reliability in my opening hands. I have been throwing around ideas like Mox Diamond, Mox Opal, and Mox Amber but none of these cards reliably solve Unesh's problems in the opening hand. I also considered Lion's Eye Diamond which seems a little too high risk IMO, because then your fate relies on the subsequent BFOF from casting Unesh. The runner-up contender was Fellwar Stone, essentially a worse Arcane Signet wouldn't be bad. It is important for Unesh to ramp out ASAP, and having a mana artifact tutor in the early game seems to help with that plan, and it thins the deck.
  • Minor point, it enjoys synergy with the adventure mode of Virtue of Knowledge.

What are your thoughts on this sub? Could I be doing better here?

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

6 months ago

New Unesh Card Printed in Wilds of Eldraine

Virtue of Knowledge to replace Gauntlet of Power. Pros of virtue of knowledge:

  • 2nd copy of Panharmonicon
  • Same CMC as Gauntlet of power, but has a devotion to blue. It benefits from Defiler of Dreams & Sapphire Medallion.
  • The effects are 1-sided. They only benefit you, not your opponents.
  • Still Combos with Palinchron.
  • Adventure modality. Can be used to copy fetch ability early game. Can be used as a one time mana stimulus with Frantic Search, Snap, Palinchron. This is modality not even Panharmonicon has.
  • Triggers when ANY permanent enters the battlefield, not simply creatures and artifacts. This deck doesn't make great use of this text, but it could more so in the future maybe. Mystic Sanctuary is the only additional card that benefits in this deck right now.
  • Pitchable to cards like Force of Will.

Notable Cons:

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