Static Orb

Artifact

If Static Orb is untapped, players can't untap more than two permanents during their untap steps.

Discussion (51)

dingusdingo on Staxing and Taxing: Glissa cEDH

2 days ago

Very nice deck. I have a paper Alesha, Who Smiles at Death list, so I can appreciate another paper non-blue stax deck.

Things I enjoy

Hope of Ghirapur is a very saucy include and is a strong Glissa recursion target

Grim Flayer is like Dark Confidant #2

Tainted Wood and the other tainted lands are EXTREMELY under rated

Ulvenwald Tracker has some crazy strong synergy with Glissa (first strike and deathtouch)

Areas I can see improvement

First, Tree of Tales and Vault of Whispers raise risk while providing extremely marginal benefit (Mox Opal metalcraft). While it is recurrable with Glissa, you risk the chance of things like ETB tapped, get sniped on a land drop on turn 1 or 2, having it turned into a Mountain, or just having it not untap. Having 2 more basics will allow your Crucible of Worlds to be a BEAST with fetchlands and makes games against other stax decks easier. Similarly, you can ease off a touch with the non-standard dual color producers, because its only a two color deck. While these cards are certainly nice, cutting another 2-4 for various utility lands I bet you won't notice a drop in color consistency because of the high fetch density. I would also consider Wasteland and Ghost Quarter, which conveniently work extremely well with Crucible of Worlds in a stax deck. Green also has access to Ramunap Excavator, as well as the highly cancerous Exploration and Burgeoning and Azusa, Lost but Seeking. Blowing up a couple lands a turn makes players scoop pretty fast.

I think you should run the elf squad. Turn 1 elves make mana faster which helps A LOT. Stax decks needs to have strong starts, to get ahead of players so you can bury them with symmetrical and asymmetrical effects. Llanowar Elves Fyndhorn Elves Elvish Mystic Elves of Deep Shadow. I think these will help your consistency and speed. Also consider Priest of Titania. These are also great mid and late game targets for Skullclamp.

Dark Tutelage should be Phyrexian Arena. A 2 color deck shouldn't struggle too much with the extra B in the cost.

Artifact based draw that graveyards itself provides huge incidental value with Glissa. Specifically, Chromatic Star and Chromatic Sphere are worthy of includes. You could even grab Barbed Sextant if you strongly liked the chromatic effects.

Mana Web is a great effect when it goes, but I have personally found this card to be lackluster in color identities that lack White or Blue. It needs supporting cards to make it go, like Winter Orb and Static Orb. Blue and white get the benefit of having further extensions with Hokori, Dust Drinker and Stasis, and I really believe this card belongs mostly in decks.

Smallpox and Innocent Blood are synergy inclusions, but they are rather marginal if drawn later in the game. You could consider swapping one of them into Damnation. I don't think Sickening Dreams is worthwhile if you aren't running a combo to draw 50 cards and kill the table with it.

Tormod's Crypt could be worth running. Ezpz recursion target that you can always pop for value if someone has a creature about to die on the stack. Helps against fish hulk which you think is a bad match up. Also every deck has some way to gas from the GY.

You run some creatures that seem value oriented, but I think should be replaced. Wurmcoil Engine Ravenous Slime Scrap Trawler. I don't think you're getting enough meaningful action on combat for wurmcoil, I think ravenous is pretty marginal at beats as well as GY patrol, and scrap trawler is redundant with your commander and doesn't really advance your game plan.

Similarly, I don't think Sword of Fire and Ice is doing enough. Although Sword of Feast and Famine could be a worthy include.

SynergyBuild on The Ice Queen

6 days ago

Heidar, Rimewind Master is what you are looking for. Don't worry about bouncing your opponent's threats and countering them. Go for broke: Cast Stasis , then on the end-step before your turn, bounce it. Untap and recast it for the lock. Winter Orb and Static Orb also work!

What else to bounce? Perplexing Chimera can be a beast. Use Heidar in response to Mulldrifter 's sacrifice clause and bam! Two extra cards a turn. Solemn Simulacrum works with it too!

Abuse these cards with other copies like Tradewind Riders or with Aphetto Alchemist effects for more value! Magewright's Stone , Thousand-Year Elixir , Rings of Brighthearth , Illusionist's Bracers , Pemmin's Aura , Freed from the Reel, etc.!

dingusdingo on Commanders that create an interesting ...

1 week ago

Fumiko the Lowblood . Creates an interesting dynamic on the board every time your commander is out. Lots of neat effects to pair it with, whether you go for untap restrictions like Smoke or Static Orb , or just want to cause games to end quickly with things like Furnace of Rath

Also a big fan of Horobi, Death's Wail . Pack it full of every single death black effect you can find, like Death Match Death Pits of Rath , Mindslicer Pestilence and whatever else you can find. You'll win far more games than you imagine as you create a board state so toxic no one can develop properly. You don't even need free target effects, but it helps.

Kaervek the Merciless is another general that allows some unique building imo. Stuff yourself full of board wipes like Pyroclasm Anger of the Gods Toxic Deluge Earthquake and similar to keep the board clear while you build up to 7 mana. Stuff your deck full of fatties who can survive small red sweeper effects, and punish players with the Kaervek trigger and your fatties.

For a serious competitive answer, look at Tasigur, the Golden Fang . Highly political deck with a strong color identity, and lots of different infinite combos available as your means of winning. The GY recursion allows you to play control in a format that is traditionally hard to play control in.

dingusdingo on Fish Hulk might be a ...

2 weeks ago

Do you guys even play in competitive pods? Stax is a very easy match up for flash hulk players. Just hold removal before you combo if one of the 6 pieces that shuts you off is actually in play.

With the exception of stax pieces that shut off the flash hulk combo, almost every other stax piece actually helps the flash hulk player, because it lowers interaction from other players and allows them to combo in peace. Yes, the stax will hurt the flash hulk player, but its hurting the other players even more. You're creating an advantage for them by deficit, because the deficit is bigger for other players.

• Rule of Law and variants don't hamper the finding or executing of flash hulk
• Sphere of Resistance , Trinisphere , Winter Orb , Static Orb , and similar lower the amount of interaction other players are able to meaningfully hold against the flash hulk. Flash hulk must only assemble 2 mana to execute the combo, so even with tax or slow down pieces it doesn't take long for them to assemble the mana, even under Trinisphere
• Creature wipes or other board wipes don't really slow the flash hulk game plan, unless your wipe is at instant speed. The new fish hulk allows players to hold priority and fully execute the library flip into GY and stack the trigger before passing priority, negating instant speed wipes as a method for interacting
• Grave hate pieces are now irrelevant unless they stop the death trigger, as fish hulk can execute without reliance on GY
• Artifact hate like Stony Silence hits back up lines or fast mana for flash hulk, but doesn't stop the actual hulk
• Handstax are too slow unless you get a great play like Entomb into Reanimate on a Sire Of Insanity . Incremental handstax like Oppression or Necrogen Mists are certainly strong, but don't dump player hands fast enough to fully stop the flash hulk, but they do whittle away interaction from opponents trying to stop flash hulk

There's only a small handful of cards that stop the flash hulk combo outside of counterspells. We're looking at Pithing Needle Phyrexian Revoker or Sorcerous Spyglass naming Nomads en-Kor . There is also tutor hate with Aven Mindcensor or Stranglehold (and Leonin Arbiter , but thats just a delay, not a hard stop). Finally, you have big creature hate effects like Cursed Totem , Linvala, Keeper of Silence , or Suppression Field . Finally, you have creature hate that removes small dorks, like Plague Engineer , Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite , or Night of Souls' Betrayal

Not all of those pieces are good enough to warrant slotting. Also slotting all of these pieces would lower your card quality significantly, which causes more losses against all decks that AREN'T running hulk (read: the two other players in the pod)

Part of the reason why its such a big slice of the meta and pretty much the deck to beat is because it is highly efficient, there is strong layering, it plays around stax, and the color identity gives it access to big draw engines, the most efficient tutors, and the most efficient removal.

So you land your Linvala against the T&T fishhulk player. All they have to do is continue to draw cards or tutor up a Path to Exile or any other piece of removal before jamming their combo.

So you land your Cursed Totem against T&T fishhulk. They just have to Chain of Vapor at EOT before theirs and they're golden to combo off.

Even if you decide to run Extract and pull the hulk from their deck, the deck isn't dead. You can Thrasios + infinite mana (dramatic scepter most likely) as a win-con. You get labman + consult as a wincon. The deck has very good layering. Even when you shut down the primary goal, it has still been advancing towards the second combo too. The Sylvan Library that was played turn 1 is now digging for consult pieces instead of hulk pieces. The tutors can be used to find those pieces instead. The best part, is that the stax pieces which shut off hulk combo don't shut off the other combos, which is why those combos in specific are layered underneath the hulk package.

I'm going to level with you Megalomania. You have told me you play flash hulk. Then you suggest the solution to fish hulk is to build a deck that makes it easier for fish hulk in pods. Then you say you have limited experience, but "just build the right archetype bro". So my question now is, are you just an extremely bad player who bought a $4000 deck, or are you an angle shooting dickhead trying to spread bad information to help avoid a ban for your $4000 deck?

Honestly, I kind of expect both sides out of flash hulk players. While I do suspect you're a competent dickhead spreading bad info, it wouldn't surprise me in the least if you're a dummy who looked up the most popular tier 1 deck and bought it. Either way, I really need you to stop spreading your garbage information by posting. There are already enough bad players on tappedout, we really don't need any more help in that department.

StopShot The effects from Faerie Macabre and Ghost-Lit Raider are activated abilities from a creature, and are thus turned off from Grand Abolisher . Similarly, Simian Spirit Guide is shut off as well. Similarly, Linvala and Cursed Totem also turn off all three of these creature abilities.

Besides that, you do state succinctly why hulk should be banned over flash in response to the article. I agree. Hulk being legal forces specific and jank deckbuilding requirements.

0rc on Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

3 weeks ago

I’ve been playing your build for about a year now and I have made some changes to update the list and make it more adaptable to various meta’s. The added cards include the following: Collector Ouphe ; Faeburrow Elder ; Arcane Signet ; Thalia, Heretic Cathar ; Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite ; Static Orb ; Jace, the Mind Sculptor ; Oko, Thief of Crowns ; and Opposition . Your build is very adaptable and interesting. Thanks. -0rc

Mortlocke on Trying to focus my Atraxa ...

3 weeks ago

Decklist: The Song of Phyresis

I've created a Vorthos Atraxa, Praetors' Voice Infect/Stax/Counters deck that focuses on Soft Locking opponents while proliferating infect counters to seal the win. I've had some limited success, but I feel like i'm stuck in terms of how to further push the deck toward being consistent in locking the board/limiting opponent options. To mitigate that i'm considering Static Orb . It's effect is similar to a card already in the deck - Tangle Wire and to circumvent it's effects on my mana production the deck has cards like Astral Cornucopia and Storage Lands that take full advantage of proliferation triggers, and not necessarily needing to always be untapped.

But what to cut? Currently, what's highest on the chopping block is Volrath, the Shapestealer Regrettably, it feels more like a win-more than something that directly contributes to a cohesive strategy (it is rather good when I can copy an infect creature though!) For such an iconic character I feel the card has a lot of big limitations - namely the limitation on the shapes it can steal. If it could steal the form of a legendary - then it would be always be a 2nd Atraxa. But alas, that is simply not the case - giving it very limited use. I feel like cutting Volrath is definitely the way to go...but should Static Orb take it's place? Also, what other cards would you cut? What would you slot in?

p.s. My friends/meta and I don't subscribe to the silly notion of "fair" magic. All magic is fair magic.

PookandPie on Urza

4 weeks ago

Saw this on the deck cycled list. Thought I'd offer my critique, as I also play Urza. My list for reference:

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Urza, Annoying Artificer

Commander / EDH PookandPie

SCORE: 1 | 89 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

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So there's a Selvala deck that outspeeds you? Let's see what we can do to fix that.

There are some cards that currently have some upgrades that can be made. Impulse over Anticipate , for example. Preordain is better in a deck without fetchlands than Ponder .

Release to the Wind is not a good card; I know it makes them pay double for whatever you exile, but that's usually a pittance and means this can never truly stop a game-winning permanent as they'll just get it right back. Imprisoned in the Moon isn't an instant, but it at least gets whatever it is out of the way for a moment (if placed on Selvala, that stops them dead for at least a couple turns, whereas 3 mana is just easy for them to generate otherwise). Reality Shift is cheaper than Gilded Drake and most of the time people don't get anything good off the manifest (only once have I exiled a Tymna for them to show some scary top deck like Notion Thief. Usually it's a land, a mana rock, or something else that they can't use now that it's on the board manifested). Or just run Rapid Hybridization to deal with early Selvalas to effectively double your chance at Pongify.

Static Orb would throw a wrench in a lot of player's plans. You simply tap them with Urza on the end step of your last opponent before you untap, and then you untap all of your permaments as normal. It's primarily one of the reasons why Urza is considered a good Commander (and I see you have Winter Orb in the deck already, but this one also shuts down dorks. Run both!). Since you're also having trouble with creature decks, I also recommend Tangle Wire , as it never hurts you as bad as your opponents.

You don't have many tutors (I count Mystical, Scroll, and Whir), so I imagine you have difficulty finding what you need. Cards like Fabricate , while inefficient, are still solid at finding the artifacts you need. Reshape is strong, and Muddle the Mixture pulls double duty at protecting your combo turn or allowing you to find your combo pieces (this is among the few cards in mono U that finds both Scepter and Reversal. This card's a big deal- run it). Outside of that, having big ways to draw cards can be hugely advantageous- Recurring Insight can be pretty strong as you generate tons of mana with Urza out (casting a 6cmc spell while everyone's tapped down and stuck with full hands due to Static Orb is a wonderful feeling), Blue Sun's Zenith isn't the greatest but it can draw when you need it to, or possibly even kill a player when you get Dramatic Scepter (if you don't like BSZ, Pull from Tomorrow is also very strong). Fact or Fiction and Dig Through Time are solid options as well, and you should totally be running Windfall or Echo of Eons with Narset, Parter of Veils in the deck (what's better than shutting off your opponent's draw? Stripping their hands to 1 card to make it hard for them to fight back).

Outside of that.... I see that you run Deadeye to win with Urza by making constructs, but why not Peregrine Drake over Myr Battlesphere? Battlesphere is also going to need Deadeye to close out a game, pretty much, but Drake generates infinite mana with Deadeye so you can just win via Urza and Jace. I'm not going to recommend the big pricey combo cards for the deck, but maybe something like that could give you a slight edge as you only have one method for infinite mana right now so if it gets destroyed you're basically done.

Suggestions on cards to cut for some of the above:

Ichor Wellspring- this card is playable in Daretti or Breya, but pretty bad elsewhere as you don't have a reliable way to sacrifice it, so it's basically 2 mana to cantrip/mana ramp. You could do that more efficiently with Arcum's Astrolabe and by swapping to Snow Covered Islands, but that's unnecessary when what you need is big draw or tutors to find combo pieces (that and Preordain and Ponder are just outright better at filtering through cards, let's be real).
Jhoira's Familiar- you don't need this. It's expensive and Sculptor is just flat out better at this effect.
Efficient Construction- you have Sai, Sai is better at this.
Riddlesmith- one of the tutors mentioned above would be better.
Trophy Mage- Is this a holdover from a previous build of the deck? Because it only finds Scrap Trawler and Worn Powerstone right now- both are cards I don't think you're going to jump at opportunities to tutor for.

Hopefully that helps figure out some cuts, and hopefully this long ass post helped.

TheMazter13 on Urza EDH

1 month ago

There are quite a few 0 Mana equipment cards that do more than Paradise Mantle .

Accorder's Shield , Cathar's Shield , Spidersilk Net , and Bone Saw all cost 0 to play while also having the possibility to help out Urza. Especially with the shields; if we want Urza to be efficient, he's gotta stay on the board.

Also, these artifacts can tap for mana while equipped and they do a lot more than the other 0 mana artifacts you have. Darksteel Relic does literal nothing, Fountain of Youth is awful in any format I'd say, and cards like Spellbook cost 0 but don't expect them to do much else.

Tormod's Crypt is probably fine, especially with some kind of recursion, same with Herbal Poultice and Mishra's Bauble . The only recursion I see is Emry though, so maybe add some. Also with recursion, you get access to Mindslaver which, with just 1 activation, can be back-breaking for your opponent. Getting to loop Mind Slaver also just wins the game because if your opponent can't stop it, they can't play anymore

Winter Orb and Static Orb is interesting. I'm trying to think of a way to make it so it only affects your opponents. Maybe I don't see it, but the only way I can think is to tap it on the previous player's end-step, then, at the end of your turn, untap it with something. That something, from what I see, is Unwinding Clock . That's only one card, maybe add Voltaic Key because even outside of this synergy it's pretty good.

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Apart from Urza's ability, you don't have much payoff for turning everything into a Mox Sapphire. The top of your curve has so few cards, and some of them don't just win on the spot. Time Stretch is a good one, but Darksteel Forge , while good, isn't something we want to pay 9 for and it just keeps the game going, not actually winning on its own. I do see Arcum Dagsson , but, again, 1 in 99 cards and blue has 0 creature tutors. Blightsteel Colossus is the only easy win card, but it still has to get through and attack and it could get exiled

Maybe Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur to draw into more spells. A part of dumping your hand of 0 mana artifacts is that you need to draw more cards to play off all these supposed Mox Sapphires. Bunch of mana and nothing to do with it. Jin-Gitaxias helps this by drawing 7 every turn

You could even play Eldrazi. All the Titans, or even It That Betrays or Desolation Twin , can win games easily. Getting to Mindslaver someone with a 13/13 in play, drawing cards just for fun, exiling and destroying permanents, or just stealing your opponent's board can all win games very easily. Annihilator is also just a busted mechanic on its own.