Thalakos Deceiver

Creature — Thalakos Wizard

Shadow (This creature can block or be blocked by only creatures with shadow.)

When Thalakos Deceiver attacks and isn't blocked, you may sacrifice it. If you do, gain control of target creature. (This effect doesn't end at end of turn.)

Combos

• Marchesa, the Black Rose + Thalakos Deceiver
• MImic Vat + Thalakos Deceiver

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	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
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

Optimator on Roses of May -- (Marchesa Threaten)

5 months ago

I'm glad you love the deck elliotmward97!! I've had her for many years and I love her dearly. I even love Marchesa enough to have a five-color "Secret Marchesa" deck: Special Snowflakes. My playgroup ranges from precons and upgraded precons to "powerful casual" and this deck seems to hang with their stronger decks very well. It's certainly not cEDH, nor would I really want it to be. One of the reasons I kept the Threaten subtheme going string from it's budget days.

As far as "very little" card draw...

Bloodtracker, Braids, Arisen Nightmare, Grim Haruspex, River Kelpie, Sage of Fables, Scorn-Blade Berserker, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Phyrexian Arena, Jeska's Will, Syphon Mind, and Skullclamp are all card draw. That's eleven.

Phyrexian Reclamation is big-time card advantage if my goons keep getting whacked, Viscera Seer is decent card selection when the engine is running, and the non-Treaten theft cards could even be viewed as card-advantage if you squint (looping Thalakos Deceiver and Puppeteer Clique and Keiga, the Tide Star, Zara, Renegade Recruiter getting lucky a few times, Grave Betrayal sticking, etc).

Actually seems above-average to me, elliotmward97.

Perhaps it's light in more pure Concentrate- and Tidings-style draw, but I like the creature-based draw that synergizes with Marchesa. Makes the deck feel like it has more character, and the ceiling is quite high when the engine is rolling. Lower floor, perhaps. I've thought about including more draw effects like Bident of Thassa, Reconnaissance Mission, and Coastal Piracy since the deck swings out so much, but I like where things are right now.

Caeruleus on Murders and Acquisitions (Marchesa Superiority)

9 months ago

Hiya! I played a Black Rose deck for 6 and half years, and here are some of my observations:

(1) If you want to run some more unusual creatures, Thalakos Deceiver is exceptional, as is Goblin Grenadiers.

(2) you can spike the power and create significant annoyance with Dauthi Voidwalker. Remember the void counters track between instances, so you can really can just smack with it until you need it, and then it remembers all the cards its exiled over its whole life span.

(3) In your land base, take out some of the slower lands for Threshold Cycle Cabal Pit, Cephalid Coliseum and Barbarian Ring. The neat trick is you wait til you've filled up your bin with stuff (before her Ladyship brings them back), and activate them then. Otherwise they are painlands which enter untapped and add coloured mana.

(4) The last cute trick is Trinket Mage. Now, if the Ozolith and the Skull Clamp weren't good enough reasons... Consider Myr Scrapling and Hope of Ghirapur, both of which are exceptional utility creatures of the deck. If you want to be extra spicy, you can even add some artifact lands so you use the mage to mana fix

DreadKhan on The Quackening

1 year ago

I have a Quest for Ula's Temple deck which does some similar things, I liked Dreamscape Artist because it can reshuffle your library as needed, incase you don't have a relevant creature to work with on top. It's technically only 1 mana and a card to Harrow (you get back 2 untapped lands, so it can also helping mana fixing) Blue, and I could be wrong but I think your Commander wants the odd Discard outlet too. A worse (but still potentially useful) piece of Blue ramp is Apprentice Wizard, it's not as good as Dreamscape, it's like Worn Powerstone, which is a good rock if you want bigger ramp to potentially cast a big creature a bit sooner. Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus are big ramp rocks with decent ratios. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers are pretty good together, if you have a lot of devotion to a colour Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can help, Deserted Temple can untap any land that makes extra mana. Less rampy and more of a big Scry effect, Soothsaying is a neat card if you care about your deck order. Scroll Rack is better but costs more.

Just a general idea, you might throw in things like Reconnaissance Mission, Bident of Thassa, and Coastal Piracy along with some Unblockable or Shadow creatures (Thalakos and Dauthi are the Blue and Black tribes). You can also throw in stuff like Sword of the Animist, Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip, Prying Blade, Goldvein Pick, Grim Hireling, and any other attack payoffs you can find to generate more value over time. I understand you want a sea-monster theme, but you might want a way to draw some cards/get in some chip damage to soften people up. The only drawback to Shadows is that they can't chump block. If you really want your evasive creatures to be able to chump, there are some small flyers like Spectral Sailor and Thousand-Faced Shadow that have other upsides, these are risk free but are way less evasive than Shadows.

On that note, if you're worried about getting attacked you might look at Propaganda, War Tax, Flood, and Fatespinner are all great ways to make you hard to attack. Mass Diminish, Polymorphist's Jest, Sudden Spoiling, AEtherize, Aetherspouts are all great cards for people to fear.

Callous Oppressor is a funny repeatable theft effect, Ritual of the Machine and Helm of Possession can both steal stuff and are great with tokens, Thieving Skydiver can steal an artifact creature fwiw, Sower of Temptation is a so-so theft effect that shines bright if you can flicker or bounce it, Thalakos Deceiver is probably way better since he permanently steals whatever and can be reanimated, Inevitable Betrayal and Bribery are both pretty sweet.

The biggest (and perhaps best) theft effects are Mass Manipulation and Cultural Exchange, exchange requires bodies but can also be used aggressively to just ruin two players' boards.

Inkwell Leviathan, Lochmere Serpent, Spawning Kraken, Stormtide Leviathan, and Wrexial, the Risen Deep are some relevant creatures I use, some are better than others but there is nothing as bad as Sea Serpent or Bog Serpent, both cards I love but don't use.

If you like Whelming Wave, you might like Spectral Deluge as well.

Hope some of this helps, Big Dimir is a fun deck!

DreadKhan on A Vast Network of Spies

1 year ago

I'm going to suggest a few evasive creatures I use in decks that care about that feature, they're generally higher MV, which I gather is an asset to you! Hope they're not too high budget for your plan! Thieving Skydiver is an evasive creature that can steal a mana rock or Sword, it can even scale up from there. Another I truly love is Sower of Temptation, which steals a body until it dies. If the stolen creature dies you can maybe flicker it (you can also upgrade what it's stolen that way), but it's also a 2/2 flyer. Not necessarily good enough (but strong enough that I feel they're worth a look), Thalakos Deceiver can steal a creature if there is something worrisome (and it's just an evasive 1/1 if not), Thalakos Dreamsower can lock down a problem creature (less useful if people are big on Haste or Craterhoof, very good if they don't), and Thousand-Faced Shadow can copy a creature while offering an evasive attacker in a pinch.

I like Sporefrog a lot, I even run it alongside Dawnstrider in a Meren deck that tends to get targeted. You can easily afford to discard the card in Edric, and the ability can happen each turn.

Edric is a cool deck, interesting choice to build on a budget!

Strangelove on The Black Rose Grand Theft

1 year ago

Np marco-online, you got me brewing! I definitely leaned into the aristocrats.

For more thievery, I think you might like Callous Oppressor or Thalakos Deceiver.

I also thought Volcano Hellion was really cool, but I did end up cutting it.

DreadKhan on unthinkable apocalypse

1 year ago

There is Kaervek the Merciless, this might work well with your fairly high MV. Also with the higher MV, you could look at Protection Racket, which is mostly a problem if your deck cares about specific cards, as long as your deck is just a bunch of cards that are all good together it's one of the best cards in Black, it can draw you more cards than Rhystic Study in some metas, or just drain everyone of life if they're really, really responsible and always pay. Finally, Timesifter is hilarious if your opponents have a deck with a noticeably lower MV, or a lot of lands compared to you. You could toss in some really high MV spells like Blasphemous Act and/or Reckless Endeavor, wipes are handy I find, even in a deck that usually is ahead, sometimes you face a faster deck, or a deck that has one sided wipes. I think if your MV is over 3.75 you probably could look at all but Timesifter, for that you might want to go even higher. Another way to raise your average MV is MDFs like Hagra Mauling  ^Flip, as a spell you would never run it, but in place of a land it is both versatile and has it's MV for any effect that cares about it, the only question is if you can afford a tapped land (or want to pay for the Mythics, can enter untapped in a pinch). Some of these cards are just incredible value IMHO, like Valakut Awakening  ^Flip, but some seem bad, afaik the best way to rate these is to consider if the effect is valuable period in Commander (is it worth a card in theory), not to worry as much about the cost because the alternative of hitting a land drop is almost never a terrible thing.

If you run a lot of creatures, I like Court of Cunning and Court of Ambition, both are annoying cards that can also draw you cards, and Cunning is a great source of repeated mill vs something like Glimpse. Also if you run a lot of creatures, Bident of Thassa is perhaps the best non-Frostfang version of this effect, the forced attack can be backbreaking to some decks. Another decent one is Reconnaissance Mission, the worst of the lot is Coastal Piracy. Grim Hireling and Professional Face-Breaker are also nice cards. Thalakos Deceiver and Thalakos Dreamsower are nice Blue Shadows, Dauthi Voidwalker is a really good Black one, each of these is really hard to block and comes with a substantial upside. It's a bit janky in Commander, but Sower of Temptation isn't a terrible card, you just can't count on stealing anything too game breaking, as long as you steal something not worth spending another card on you'll get an evasive 2/2 that can sneak damage in for triggers.

If you want a one-sided nearly-Wrath, you might consider Make an Example or Phyrexian Purge. Example is able to pinpoint remove the best creature of each opponent, by any metric, and it's almost impossible to get around with present day cards (it's a chosen, not targeted sacrifice effect), while Purge lets you clear out the best 4 or 5 creatures so you can just take over, Purge likes having access to some life gain, it's especially good with something like Sangromancer, but if you want life gain in Grixis it's hard to do better than Exquisite Blood, but I'm almost never unhappy with Mask of Griselbrand, I think that card is slept on somewhat in Commander.

If you do go with Kraum or some other beefy Commander for your deck, Agitator Ant is a pretty strong card, but you either need the biggest thing on board already or to be able to remove stuff as needed. Kraum having evasion means you'll usually be able to get in against someone, so +2 power is great, and you being Goaded wears off before your next attack step anyways, so it only matters if someone steals it I guess (at which point it can't attack you I suppose??), Agitator Ant also works with any super-evasive creatures, so if your deck has lots of Flying or Shadow it

Hope some of these ideas are helpful!

DreadKhan on Ghyrson Calamity

1 year ago

Not sure if you've got them kicking around, but good old Arc Mage could do some work in here, and could Flame Jab, which can turn extra lands drawn into more damage spells. I always liked the idea of using Flame Jab with Scrying Sheets to keep digging out lands, but you need to run only Snow lands, so you're budget would have to go up, but at least Sheets got reprinted.

If you want evasive attackers in Izzet, the old Thalakos Deceiver and Thalakos Dreamsower are very hard to block usually, maybe good as 1 of, harder to cast but they both do something pretty massive in some games.

Brian-123 on ImNora

1 year ago

ignore the 3.3K price of your deck I'm working on, that was a good competitive one and I'm taking the other 1 and merging then gonna see where to perfectly mana flow it and see what needs to be done, I did find 2 very mean cards

Dauthi Mindripper Thalakos Deceiver