Skullwinder

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena 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
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Skullwinder

Creature — Snake

Deathtouch (Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.)

When Skullwinder enters the battlefield, return target card from your graveyard to your hand, then choose an opponent. That player returns a card from their graveyard to their hand.

DreadKhan on Goose Mother Voltron

3 months ago

Mark of Sakiko or Bear Umbra might do some work, mostly to enable you to play a lot more stuff? Belt of Giant Strength seems synergistic, it stacks with your +1 counters. Crystal Shard is a pretty good way to get your Commander back in hand, but it can also be used to punish any player who dares use all their mana up (some players are really bad at tracking stuff like this, depending on the playgroup). Rogue's Passage is an interesting way to guarantee the survival of your Goose. If you want more mass removal I have had some luck with Mass Manipulation, it's hard to cast but the effect is pretty strong if you steal more than 1 thing.

I'm not sure if your Goose gets big enough or not, but Tempting Licid is a decent Lure effect, and you can technically attach it to an opponent's creature that attacks (and remove it after blockers are declared) to either wipe out blockers (letting you/others get in) or get a creature killed, you can also use it to put a Lure on something you don't care about so The Goose can get in unblocked (you can save the Licid).

When it comes to ramp and fixing, I find 2 colour decks are extremely forgiving, and having one of those colours be Green makes it even easier to build. One of the annoyances of Enemy Pair decks (like Simic) is that their aren't as many dual lands to choose from, but their are still a few budget range dual lands that come with basic land types, these really pop with stuff like Nature's Lore, which can find a non-Basic Forest, enabling you to get your colours quickly and consistently, but IMHO it's really hard to not hit your colours in a Simic deck. It's really annoying that the only 'budget' typed dual I can think of is Breeding Pool, but that's a long way from budget, and you're only in 2 colours.

If you like +1 counters and drawing cards you might enjoy Generous Patron, if you're desperate you can give your own stuff the counters, but if you want cards you can do so (and still have a body). Another card that might be generally useful is Skullwinder, you can use this to generate political leverage, possibly getting to choose what the opponent will actually get back. Cultural Exchange is an obscure card that can very much take over a game if you time it right, ideally you use it after people have already wiped and hopefully don't have another at the ready. Mass Diminish might be better than Frogify, note that it lasts until your next turn and affects all of a player's creature, yet still comes with Flashback to boot. This is very good with something like Tempting Licid. Transmogrifying Wand might not look very good, but being able to remove the 3 most annoying creatures for a grand total of only 6 mana is pretty sweet, it's also a great deterrent piece once it's out and still has counters, people can't play key creatures until it's dealt with or out of counters. Return of the Wildspeaker is a good way to refill your hand, it's among the best of it's kind, but Momentous Fall is better if you're being wiped or something.

Darb_the_Bard on Buttercup: Princess Bride

4 months ago

rwn1971 Your criticism of Skullwinder is fair. I agree that in a 1-on-1 situation it can feel bad. However, with 2 or more opponents it becomes a political card and you have the potential to make a beneficial deal with whichever opponent gets the card. Of course, if you are the archenemy then it may be that no opponent will cooperate, but even in that situation it's possible (depending on your meta, likely?) that at least one opponent has nothing threatening in their graveyard. I am hesitant to remove any graveyard recursion as I'm afraid we may often be a target for removal (since tutors tend to be pretty good...) and I think it may be important to be able to replay some of our key cards like Jegantha, Odric, or Jodah. Of course, I can't get a feel for how often this will come up until getting in a bunch of games with actual opponents.

Other ways to get stuff from our graveyard include: Bala Ged Recovery  Flip, Kethis, the Hidden Hand, Nashi, Moon's Legacy, and Kenrith, the Returned King. Three of these sources can even be tutored for with Buttercup, so perhaps you're right that Skullwinder is unnecessary. For now, I'll put in Jhoira for Skullwinder. This means losing another deathtouch creature, but perhaps at this point we just find other ways to give all our creatures deathtouch.

That brings us to Ankle Shanker. If it were legendary, I think it would be an auto-include. As is, we can't tutor for it and the three colored pips in the mana cost are all downside since they won't buff Buttercup at all. It might still be worth it as an alternative way to give everything deathtouch for Westley, but I'll have to think about it. Again, it's getting harder for me to make cuts...

As for Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, I like that card and have even thought about creating another deck with it as my commander, but I'm not sure it has enough synergy for what I want to do. Yes, it's legendary and two colors and has deathtouch, but its other effects won't really do much in this deck.

Would you take out Mirkwood Spider, Wasteland Viper, or Tidehollow Strix for one or both of those cards? Or is there another card that should be on the chopping block?

rwn1971 on Buttercup: Princess Bride

4 months ago

If any card i think it should be Skullwinder as this does benefit your opponent and i would rather have the card draw and pump up my commander from Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain than give my opponent a regrowth.

Lycheex on Lycheex

7 months ago

Hi beebles_elbow, thanks for the comment.

I completely agree with your take that the strength of the deck is the turn 1 win likelihood, however I don't want to be content with defeating non-blue players. The fact that the deck doesn't do numbers is because the "typical" lists don't work in the current Legacy meta. Most (all?) storm decks forgo some explosiveness to run some protection. I hope to find the right build that allows The Spanish Inquisition to do so as well. It's obviously easier said than done.

I think that I would've agreed with your take before, but the inclusion of Grief really changed my perspective. It's an incredible card for the deck as it provides a ton of mana in combination with Culling the Weak and Burnt Offering and you also happen to be able to discard a card from your opponents hand. If we could run 2-4 extra interactive cards, it could really elevate the deck. Again, finding the right build is proving to be a challenge.

I do partially agree with your take that Aeve, Progenitor Ooze is not good. While I don't think it's actively bad, it falls into a category of cards that I've tried before that are serviceable tech cards. And I would label Aeve as the best of these tech cards. I would include Skullwinder in the category as well. These cards are only good in certain situations, but mostly tend to be dead draws. I would like to replace these cards and run better cards, but I haven't been able to find.

I've actually recently built a new version of the deck called The Burning Inquition in which I tried to alleviate this exact problem. I feel that it has potential, here's a link if you're interested: The Burning Inquisition.

Anyways, that's my 2 cents. I just want to try and make the best as it can be, but I could be completely wrong about my takes.

beebles_elbow on Lycheex

7 months ago

Personally I see no value in hedging your bets against Force of Will or counterspells when brewing SI, particularly when it is unlikely your answers will be available when you need them and work _exactly _the way you want them to. The strength of the deck is the turn 1 win likelihood, otherwise you'd better be served with simply a different storm deck if you want consistency and resiliency. Why dilute your deck with interactive spells that can clutter up your lines of play? Perhaps just being content with defeating non-blue players and the occasional blue player is enough?

Anyway, my two cents for the psychology.

My actual constructive criticism is Aeve not good, you really need the right combo of mana to make work being as expensive as it is. And of course you can't Pact for it so it basically sits as a dead card until you manually draw it, or intuition for it off of double LED. Also being a critter doesn't guarantee a win either so its a pretty heavy investment for that guy that doesn't immediately win the game. Skullwinder might be more useful in its place.

JAEK on Shrine on you crazy diamond

7 months ago

Thank you for your comment and suggestions mtgplayer903, I've got an explanation for a few of my choices here:

  1. Birds of Paradise over Ornithopter of Paradise is purely a preference of mine. I adore BoP and it finds its way into all multi-colour decks that I make. OoP is a great choice too and budget friendly, but I went with the birds this time round.
  2. Eternal Witness is just a much better card than Skullwinder if I don't have to give my opponent the recursion but can get it myself with E-Wit then it's a no brainer for me personally.
  3. Riftsweeper is in the deck to retrieve Maze's End for me. I have had people blow up Maze's End a few times on me and then Bojuka Bog my graveyard, so I needed a way to make sure I could get it back from exile. Admittedly, Rift does need some support from tutors to make it properly effective at this.
  4. Nature's Claim vs Assassin's Trophy is a great suggestion. I'm not sure I have an A'sT to hand, but I will check and update that.
  5. Vindicate is in over Beast Within because I already run Generous Gift and I find that I don't really like giving my opponents a 3/3 beater to come back at me with. The sorc speed hasn't really bothered me yet, but maybe BW will come back eventually after more playtesting.
  6. Explore is dirt cheap and Exploration is a little pricey. I know it just got a reprint and I am hoping to get one soon, once I do it will be back in the list. I do use Exploration on MTGO though.
  7. Tolaria West is a great tutor for Maze's End, Maze of Ith and Reliquary Tower depending on what I need from it. I find that a card like Ash Barrens is nice, but I don't think it's quite right for my list as it stands.
  8. Gatecreeper Vine is out of the list now and Open the Gates is just a neat lil gate tutor so it'll stay in as the Gates theme is key to what I like about this deck.
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