Shardless Agent

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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
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Shardless Agent

Artifact Creature — Human Rogue

Cascade (When you cast this spell, exile cards from the top of your library until you exile a nonland card that costs less. You may cast it without paying its mana cost. Put the exiled cards on the bottom of your library in a random order.)

Dani3377 on I got to Tomorrow

8 months ago

You have so much token creation that I just worry that whether or not to cascade in the late game might become a hard decision because tokens can't be shuffled back into your library but are permanents, meaning they just die.

Goblin dark dwellers only works on instants and sorceries, you can't use it to play seasoned pyromancer from the grave. Pyromancer is a creature.

What if you did Collected Company with things like Sylvan Caryatid and cascade creatures.

Some sort of singular pay-off creature like maybe Elder Deep-Fiend, where you could play cards like Sylvan Caryatid and the 2-mana cascade creature instead of Shardless Agent. Anything that ramps you on turn 2 into turn 3 company means your chances of hitting a cascade on turn 3 are enhanced from normal because you're only running 4 copies of cascade creature.

Whatever pay-off creature you choose, the alternate path to victory could be just ramping normally into casting it.... There are better cards than deep fiend but I was just thinking off the top of my head. The deck would work in different ways depending on the draw. With more 2-3 drops you could likely play more creatures before you cascade, leading to a bigger resulting boardstate. Ramp and card draw creatures. Nissa, Vastwood Seer  Flip and Reckoner Bankbuster and Tireless Tracker come to mind. Im sure there are others, I've been out of modern for a while.

Andromedus on Progress and Poverty

8 months ago

wallisface I agree regarding Fury, it can be a bit hairy. We do run 3x Dromoka's Commands (the fight mechanic ignores double strike) and chump-blocking a non-flyer isn't generally a challenge for this deck, so on the whole I usually prefer the ETB-less Fury. Tossing a red spell to get it out is a major downside for the opponent, and if we're trading hits then we only need to get a couple +1/+1's onto our Hushbringer before we're breaking even with it. But I do agree there's a potential risk depending on board state.

What I've found is that, whenever Hushbringer is weak, Archon of Emeria is strong. So much so that I'm thinking of replacing the one-off Kozilek, Butcher of Truth in the sideboard with a fourth Archon of Emeria (I don't really think this deck needs the Kozilek anyways).

For example, against Crashing Footfalls, Archon of Emeria completely hoses all cascade effects since they can't cast their "free" spell, which includes 4xShardless Agents and 4xViolent Outbursts, and means that when Crashing Footfalls finally casts off suspend they also can't do anything else that turn but sit on their hands. And without Fury's ETB, it's very hard for them to remove the Archon of Emeria.

It also hoses Murktide as mentioned before, I think that's pretty common knowledge.

For Underworld Breach it hoses Ledger Shredder, Underworld Breach (since escape counts as a cast, they can't use it), Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer's dash is pretty well hosed since it counts as a cast, Expressive Iteration while not totally hosed is definitely hampered, Mishra's Bauble becomes pretty much a dead draw. Only Teferi, Time Raveler really helps the deck but imo it's not enough.

Domain Zoo is one of my tougher match-ups. We do run 3xBoseiju, Who Endures to destroy the triomes, and we have a lot of vigilance which is helpful against aggro. Still I'd probably swap in our Runed Halos in that matchup, in addition to our Hopeful Initiates and Burrenton Forge-Tenders.

Anyways I appreciate the constructive criticisms. Hopefully with time I'll get the list tightened up more.

Delphen7 on How does Ice Cauldron interact …

10 months ago

Ice Cauldron

Ice Cauldron mana can only be used on spells exiled by Ice Cauldron. When casting an adventure card, you can cast either half.

715.3: "As a player casts an adventurer card, the player chooses whether they cast the card normally or as an Adventure."

So if you paid and exiled Bonecrusher Giant, you could later activate Ice Cauldron and use the to cast Bonecrusher OR Stomp.

If you cast Stomp this way, the spell will go to exile. Ice Cauldron did not exile it; the rules of adventure spells did, so Ice Cauldron will no longer interact with it (but you can still cast it as the creature).


Precognition Field

Say you look at the top card of your library and see Bonecrusher Giant. First thing you do as part of casting a spell is put it onto the stack. As part of the casting a spell (a very long process covered here) you will need to declare how you are casting the spell. In this case you are using Precognition Field to cast it off the top of your library

If you put Bonecrusher Giant onto the stack, the game will protest because it's not an instant or sorcery; it's a creature (The game will then backtrack to put everything back how it was)

If you put Stomp onto the stack, the game will see that it's only an instant

715.3b: "While on the stack as an Adventure, the spell has only its alternative characteristics."

Since everything checks out, the game allows you to proceed with paying costs and casting the adventure spell (And then it'll resolve into exile).


Serra Paragon

Same idea here as Precognition Field. When you try to cast Stomp out of the graveyard, Serra will say "That's not a permanent!" and not let you cast it.

Bonecrusher is a permanent and so can be cast. When it goes to exile because it died, you cannot cast it as a creature, because it did not go to exile as a result of its adventure ability.


Cascade

When you cascade into Bonecrusher Giant, you have to choose if you're putting Stomp or Bonecrusher on the stack. The game then checks if the spell you are now casting is less than spell with the cascade trigger.

ie if you Shardless Agent into Bonecrusher, you can only cast Stomp, because only Stomp costs less. If you Deny Reality into Bonecrusher, you can cast either part, as both cost less.

wallisface on Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty equivalent?!

1 year ago

If you’re just looking for cascade then stuff like Shardless Agent and Violent Outburst are probably what you’re after - they’re the “tried and true” enablers for cheating out manaless cards like Living End.

If you’re instead referring to a combo effect that lets you win the game on the spot, The First Sliver might be what you’re after. The deck is quite gimmicky but seems reasonably powered - though its not cheap and there’s almost no wiggle room as far as a lot if these cards are required for it to function. Article/list here

Side note: I don’t think Imoti is even close to viable/playable even if it were modern legal. Even decks with dedicated ramp can’t justify more than a few high-mana cards (and you’d just be cascading into more ramp, which by that stage you don’t need, so its pointless). Card seems super weak/bad imo.

Andramalech on Cascading Footfalls

1 year ago

Dead_Blue_ that's a great recommendation. I should certainly find a spot to slide that in, and potentially could just outright replace Shardless Agent.

wallisface on Green White Counters

1 year ago

I also think maybe you want to aim for a deck that uses 22-23 lands, just so you can more reliably apply pressure early

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