Shadow Slice

Sorcery

Target opponent loses 3 life. Cipher (Then you may exile this spell card encoded on a creature you control. Whenever that creature deals damage to a player, its controller may cast a copy of the encoded card without paying its mana cost.)

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
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (17)

hkhssweiss on zurgo needs your help

5 years ago

hiboiiiiiiii

Zurgo is definitely a fun commander to play, I would recommend going for the aggro/voltron route. Cards that give Zurgo himself double strike or extra combats for set up. Here might be some cards that can be considered: Seize the Day, Sigarda's Aid, Combat Celebrant, Silverblade Paladin, Arashin Foremost, Bruse Tarl, Boorish Herder, Temur Battle Rage, World at War, Duelist's Heritage, Dictate of the Twin Gods, Ajani, Caller of the Pride

Cards I would recommend cutting would be: Resolute Archangel, Plaguecrafter, Opaline Unicorn, Howling Golem, Fleshbag Marauder, Miraculous Recovery, Risk Factor, Smelt, Hazoret's Undying Fury, Impale, Mind Rot, Repeating Barrage, Rise from the Grave, Shadow Slice, Walk the Plank, Arcane Encyclopedia...oh man there is actually quite a bit...

The most important thing to see when deck building is what is your main goal of your deck? After that it's how to achieve you goal or gameplan. Than add cards to support your game plan. For your Zurgo deck, I would recommend adding in more cheap ramp, removal spells, card draw, than protection. The cards I suggested earlier should be under $5 at most and should be affordable to get.

Hope that helps and feel free to ask for any advice!

Lord_Olga on If Do Right, No Can Defense

5 years ago

TheSurgeon Thanks for disecting (heh) this so thoroughly!! Yeah, Invisible Stalker is definitely the best target. the other people here I was really just looking to get the most value out of low CMC, other than Inkfathom Witch who is a win con.

Yes, those spells are a bit high cost for my taste. I basically comfort myself by saying it’s an investment in its indefinite use. I might throw in the extra Shadow Slice, though. Those are fun. You can net a cool 10 damage if you play one just right.

Also, thanks! You have no idea how long it took me to get a good curve for early game. This deck runs its course pretty quickly so I gotta make sure I start strong. I’ll go ahead and adjust my lands and see how that works out. I’m pretty unlucky with land draw, so let’s hope that makes a difference.

Thanks for all the advice!

TheSurgeon on If Do Right, No Can Defense

5 years ago

Your main creature cipher focus is really on Invisible Stalker. Everything else seems like aggressive Fodder.

That being said, Mental Vapors and Undercity Plague ultimately seem a bit high cost for their effects. vapors could easily be replaced with Raven's Crime. And for Plague, I would suggest just throw in another Shadow Slice, and go to town with those on the stalkers.

Looking at your mana curve, (pretty sexy, btw) you may want to consider perhaps adding in a slightly heavier blue mana base. I love your approach here, whether it be intentional or accidental. The first 4 turns are almost guaranteed to be low cost blue spells and you need to make your board presence as soon as possible. To do that, you need to guarantee you're gonna pull blue over black at the start of every game. Just tip the scales to 11x island and 7x Swamp. Then the black mana will be available right when you need it.

Good luck!

Jacobox on Sygg, Ninja Enthusiast

5 years ago

If you have a lot of unblockable, you should add cards with Cipher in them such as Shadow Slice, Hands of Binding or Undercity Plague. The cipher ability goes onto an unblockable creature and then you can always get an additional effect out of attacking. All of the cards that have cipher on them are U/B so check them out!

Tyarmy on combat damage

6 years ago

only_the_finest Thanks for the suggestions. This deck sometimes has trouble dealing lethal damage which is the main reason Shadow Slice is in the deck. Cloak of Confusion seems pretty nice, ill try it out to see how I like it.

xyr0s on Nobody expects the black counterspell (Black Burn)

6 years ago

Why the Will-o'-the-Wisps? Your deck is a burn deck, right? So it hands out damage all the time, and then.... hides behind a somewhat resilient blocker?!? That doesn't really fit. If Shadow Slice had been a lot cheaper, it would make sense, but as it is, you should go for something more aggressive, I think. Otherwise you end up sitting around keeping mana up for counterspells and regeneration, which is not how you win with burn.

Concerning your sideboard: Sorcery speed removal at 4 mana is not the best way to deal with decks that play out of their graveyard. Try Nihil Spellbomb instead, if you can't afford Relic of Progenitus.

nicochulo on Nobody expects the black counterspell (Black Burn)

6 years ago

xyr0s I've been told multiple times that the Wall of Limbs is pointless, so I'll get that out of there asap, and I'll get good removal instead. I might reduce the number of Shadow Slices and the number of Vampiric Links as well. I'll put a Smuggler's Copter or two in there,since that goes pretty well with the Night Market Lookout

xyr0s on Nobody expects the black counterspell (Black Burn)

6 years ago

Playing black, you have a pile of discard effects - 2-for-1's, instant speed, low-cost... anything, really. You have solid removal i huge amounts - for cheap creatures, artifact creatures, non-vampire/zombie/werewolf creatures and so on. And then you have 1 counterspell, which has the "opponent chooses" drawback... and for some reason, the counterspell should be better? It is, but only when your opponent makes the wrong choice (so you can't really rely on that happening too much).

Apart from that: Languish and small creatures aren't really great together. Especially considering that you have no possiblities of recurring the creatures.

Shadow Slice: 5 mana. And you have 20 lands in your deck. Average is that you'll have 5 lands in... hmmm... turn 7/8 or so (when you've drawn 14 cards into your deck). Isn't that a little late for a burn deck? I can see that it's a cool card with your evasive creatures, though.

Wall of Limbs. Ok, at 5 mana, Shadow Slice made little sense. But this one is somehow worse. It's a wall in a burn deck... what's a wall doing there in the first place (you could compare it to Wall of Omens in D&T decks, but that one draws a card, costs a mana less, and has toughness 4 = survives Lightning Bolt)? Second, it's a 3 cmc creature with toughness 3. There are creatures sharing this and being playable, but this one is not really doing anything, other than perhaps eating up 1 Lightning Bolt. The activated ability costs 7 mana. Again in a deck with 20 lands. So that's turn 12 or 13?

Do you play against much deaths shadow? Because otherwise, your 6 enchantments makes no sense. As removal against any other deck, they are pretty poor (Doom Blade and the like is better). But they do hit deaths shadow hard.

Night Market Lookout is an interesting card. Goes well with vehicles and convoke.