Relic of Sauron

Artifact

{T}: Add two mana in any combination of {U}, {B} and/or {R}.

{3}, {T}: Draw two cards, then discard a card.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	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
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (5)

DreadKhan on Sauron, The Dark Lord Commander Deck

3 months ago

I feel like this deck should look pretty hard at Relic of Sauron, it's one of the best mana rocks for a Grixis deck, it also offers card draw and a discard outlet when you don't need the mana. I also feel like you might want more ramp, but I'm not sure I'd shave the land count too much further. I do have much higher average MV decks with similar land counts, they tend to run a lot of ramp though!

I've always liked the idea of evasive Changelings in this deck, the best being Changeling Outcast, but Mistwalker is also good, Mothdust Changeling less so but still interesting, evasion is really good on an Army in here. Taurean Mauler might be worth throwing in too, any of these is infinitely better than trying to use a token as the base for your army. Amoeboid Changeling can make any creature an army (to trigger Sauron). You might even try Maskwood Nexus, you can always choose not to wheel your hand away if you're happy with it (could be an issue if you're getting in with several armies in a turn).

Since Sauron discards your hand before he draws a new one you might want to look into some recursion effects, Black is very good at that kind of thing. Sheoldred, Whispering One is a nice easy-button recursion card that also hassles your opponents, but she is slow and a ton of mana, but you can reanimate her with something like Animate Dead or Reanimate. Since Sauron can make you a new token whenever someone casts a spell (if you don't already have one) you could use sacrifice based recursion effectively, Hell's Caretaker could do some work. These are just a few low hanging fruit, if you need a bunch more (or cheaper ones) I could probably rattle off more.

With this much built in discard you might look at the better Delve cards, Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time come to mind immediately, both are pretty good card draw if you don't have to pay any generic mana in.

Mask of Griselbrand can work well as a draw source, it also gives two useful abilities for an Army. Not sure if this is too out there, but you could try Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep and Shizo, Death's Storehouse, if you make an Army your Ringbearer it becomes Legendary, meaning these lands don't just help Sauron (but making Sauron unblockable is inherently good in a deck like this because he has 7 power and he's a 3 hit kill). Fear from Shizo is probably better than First Strike in most metas, but First Strike is a very useful effect. Rogue's Passage is a nice budget card that can let Sauron or an Army get in each turn. I really have enjoyed using Scavenged Brawler, it would be very good with your Commander (if he can get in twice he can kill someone, regardless of their life total), but it'll also be useful with a good sized Army token, those key word abilities are pretty sweet in my experience. Dauthi Embrace is a nifty old card that can be very sneaky, you can use it to help opponents get in, not just to protect your creature from blockers. If you plan to attack and are in Red you might benefit from Berserkers' Onslaught, double strike on your entire board can be a very powerful effect.

If you want a way to protect Sauron from most board wipes, I really love Gift of Doom, this gem of a card can be cast as a Morph for 3 mana, after which you can sacrifice a creature to attach the aura to a creature (note that this method doesn't target the creature it attaches to, so you can get around Shroud on your creature) at literally any time you have priority iirc. It's also not a spell or ability, so you can use it in response to something with Split Second. Indestructible is very good, but if you can get Deathtouch on a creature with trample it only takes 1 point of damage to 'destroy' any creature (regardless of whether or not it dies), the rest goes over, so it has great synergy with Scavenged Brawler (and other Trample sources). You can always cast it for 5 mana, and it's not a terrible card in that form, but the Morph effect is one of the best ways to protect an individual creature (or to turn your opponent's block attempt into a blood bath).

Finally, Mercadian Bazaar, Subterranean Hangar, and Saprazzan Cove are my spiciest ideas for a deck like this, I will take no offense if you laugh at them, but you might be surprised by what they can do in a deck with a 6 mana Commander. I use the first two as well as two Fallen Empires storage lands (which I wouldn't encourage you to use unless you want gray hair) in my Rakdos deck, I play them as ramp cards, and it's openly hilarious how useful they can be if you really want to cheese out a big Commander (or recast them repeatedly).

Hope some of this brainstorming is helpful, Sauron is a pretty strong Commander that attracts a fair bit of attention afaik.

DreadKhan on Lil' Shit

5 months ago

IMHO their are few bigger 'lil shit' type cards than Rite of the Raging Storm, if their is an opponent who can't handle 5/1 Tramplers they are dead meat very quickly, it's a very chaotic atmosphere with Rite out. It's also very good with many cards that would work well with your Commander, such as Mask of Griselbrand, and I can point out a bunch of other options. Relic of Sauron is a very good Grixis mana rock that can also draw a card now and then. I think copy effects are probably pretty good with your Commander, if you cast Rite of Replication on your Commander you still get 5 copies ETBing and dying, which should clear out hands and serve as a huge board wipe (you get 5 triggers each of the ETB and death trigger, if you have 3 opponents left 2 of them have 1/4 of their permanents and one has half left, similar for their hands. Irenicus's Vile Duplication is another fun copy effect, this one doesn't die right away and has flying. If you like annoying creatures you might like some of the specters out their, Hypnotic Specter is an old classic that will always take away a card from whomever you hit, and Stronghold Rats can take one from each player fwiw.

I can't decide if MImic Vat would be worth it with your Commander, if you can get him into the Vat you can make a copy each turn for very little mana, but it doesn't get sacrificed unfortunately, it gets exiled at end of turn, so you'd need sac outlets to get his Death Triggers (but on the upside nobody is going to block you).

Their are a few Chaos type cards that might help with your plans to annoy the table, I've always enjoyed Teferi's Puzzle Box, but any effect that cares about your opponent drawing cards really loves the effect, if you can get Box and a Notion Thief out your opponents each lose their hand and you draw cards equal to how many they had when they lost them. Grip of Chaos can help keep your Commander (or another key permanent) alive longer, and you don't run a ton of targeted interaction yourself. Omen Machine is pretty funny, it's especially useful if you use a high average MV, same with Timesifter. Some people will try to flip the table if you resolve a Possibility Storm, especially if your deck isn't trying to abuse the effect. If you leaned harder into your spell plan, or into permanents that work regardless of who controls them you could try Thieves' Auction, a card many that is so obnoxious that some people consider scooping rather than resolving the effect.

I hope some of these ideas aren't too disruptive, it's fun to have a deck that can troll your playgroup a bit!

ldvatwa on

6 months ago

I was wondering why you've got both Leyline of the Void and Rise of the Dark Realms. Do you get one out consistently more than the other? Seems counterproductive, but if you're not reanimating much, Leyline is great for shutting down a lot of decks!

I don't know about you, but every time I run Bloodchief Ascension, it puts the biggest target on my back. Bigger than running a mill deck lol.

I'm for sure going to look for a Sheoldred  ^Flip for my deck after reading the back part of the card. Thanks for letting me know about it.

Also, I'd recommend adding in some more ramp since the mana count is on the lower end. Relic of Sauron is great for getting colored mana AND can let you draw too. Commander's Sphere might be worthwhile for manafixing and a potential draw option later on.

DreadKhan on Sauron The Grixis Lord

6 months ago

If you want to keep your budget fairly low, there are the signets (Rakdos Signet, Izzet Signet, and Dimir Signet) and the talismans (Talisman of Dominance, Talisman of Indulgence, and Talisman of Creativity) to start with, but Grixis has access to a really good new option, Relic of Sauron, which I think is great. I'm not sure if it's really a good card, but Firemind Vessel exists. There is also Myriad Landscape, which can find a colour you don't have yet (and gets 2 of that colour). An option if you keep your fairly high (which is fine btw) land count would be to replace a land with Temple of the False God.

Since you actually need to ramp a few times from 3 mana to cast Sauron, you might run something weird like Dreamscape Artist, that can help get you to Sauron mana to get your deck online, including fixing your mana. It's incredibly janky, but Apprentice Wizard can help cast Sauron's colourless cost.

I could be wrong, but I think Arcane Adaptation is usually better than Xenograft. I think Maskwood Nexus is also better. I think you could find much better cards than Ugluk, including many that are lower to the ground. Foray of Orcs is not very high impact for the mana when there are cards that can just remove any creature for less mana, or cards like Fateful Showdown for similar. I would even play Fire Covenant over it. Torment of Golum sounds to me like an outright bad card, ymmv, but I think you can find something that works similar for less. I'm also unsure if Surrounded by Orcs is worth casting, adding only 3 power isn't very impressive, and if the army dies you lose the buff forever.

You can certainly shave some lands if you add more ramp sources, though I wouldn't go below 36 lands with a 6 mana Commander that needs 3 colours to cast. You can sneak that lower with a better mana base, but that increases the cost. If you lower your land count to 36, you could also look at the Guild Bounce lands, Dimir Aqueduct, Rakdos Carnarium and Izzet Boilerworks, each of these is a dual land that is cheap and helps you hit more land drops. They aren't great if you have lots of 'Enters tapped' lands, but without mostly Basics they are solid in a 3 colour deck. Guildless Commons also exists, but in a 3 colour deck I'd be more leery of it.

DreadKhan on I Put a Spell On You // Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor

7 months ago

Have you ever thought about getting Lynde a nice pet? I'm thinking something like a cute little kitten? With this out you can move around your Curses I think, which could be useful to get them off of you sooner when you save them. It also refreshes any of your non-aura enchantments that benefit from it (who doesn't want to use Captive Audience vs all three opponents?). It's also good with ramp rocks that tap for more than 1 mana that ETB untapped (Relic of Sauron seems generally good in Grixis, but it's 2 free mana in Grixis each time you cast a non-creature, obviously Chromatic Orrery is even funnier), it can offer a huge amount of ramp that way.