Deck Help: Glacial Chasm?
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on Oct. 19, 2016, 3:19 p.m. by Dimir-Acolyte
I have a Phenax, God of Deception deck I have been running for a long while now. A common joke among my play group is that the deck never attacks, normally I just wait until the endstep before my turn to mill so I always have blockers. Recently I have learned of the card Glacial Chasm which seems like a nice fit in the deck since one of it's "draw backs" is irrelevant for me. So the question is have any of you used Glacial Chasm in EDH? Is it good? And do you think it's better then Royal Assassin? Royal assassin I tend to use as a card to dissuade people from attacking me, and Glacial chasm might be much better replacement. Thank you.
I run Glacial Chasm in one of my EDH decks. Let me tell you, it's mileage may very. That their is a "Cumulative upkeep". That land will be kicking your teeth in with 10+ life payments after 5 turns. So unless you have a way to off set the life payment part by either replaying it or copying it or having crazy good life gain to off set the life payment, then it will not last long on the board untill you'll have to sac it.
If you have nun of the above, then I'd say you are better off with the Royal Assassin.
October 19, 2016 3:32 p.m.
Sim_Will_CMcantfindmehopefully says... #4
If you expect to take MORE than the following
2 combat damage one turn
4 combat damage the next
6 combat damage the next
8 combat damage the next etc.
Then it's still not worth it. You REALLY need recursion to make the card work, sorry.
October 19, 2016 5:10 p.m.
Typically you want to play Glacial Chasm in land.dec builds. The idea of the card is that you're not actually going to have it sit in play for more than 1-2 turns at any one time. It's more there so you can use things like Crop Rotation to prevent blowout from say a Craterhoof Behemoth.
The fact theat you're runnign a Phenax deck means that you're running a lot of toughness heavy creatures. Honestly, just leaving creatures open to block and then milling just before your turn is there right move, so I would recommend to keep doing that.
October 19, 2016 7:43 p.m.
andymaul123 says... #6
If you're looking for a rattlesnake card, try out No Mercy. If you're looking for a fog effect, try Darkness instead. I run Glacial Chasm in my lands deck and even then it can get unwieldy.
October 19, 2016 8 p.m.
Aggro-Blaster says... #7
andymaul123, Glacial Chasm isn't really a rattlesnake. How good is no mercy when you are taking lethal damage? Glacial Chasm stops all damage so that lethal is useless.
That goes with the pillow fort effects too. Glacial Chasm is a constant Fog type effect. It keeps you alive until either you can't pay the life anymore, you win (since you don't attack), or your opponent deals with it.
It outshines Darkness in my opinion too. Darkness prevents combat damage, not all damage like Glacial Chasm does.
I agree it's not as abusable as it would be in a land deck but if you want to be safe well you set up a kill it will sure as hell do that.
October 20, 2016 11:25 a.m.
andymaul123 says... #8
Aggro-Blaster I never said Glacial Chasm was a rattlesnake. My points were to illustrate the Chasm was probably overkill for what OP wants, and so I suggested two alternate ideas. Sorry if I was confusing! Your points are all salient, and as someone who runs Chasm I'm very aware of its strengths and weaknesses. I still don't think it's the right card for OP, since he/she is comparing it to Royal Assassin (which they're using as a rattlesnake in this scenario).
October 20, 2016 12:15 p.m.
Dimir-Acolyte says... #9
andymaul123 sorry I should have explained better, Royal Assassin is great against combat oriented decks, but not a whole lot else. I mentioned Royal Assassin in my post because thats what I would cut, which seemed like relevant information when I posed the question.
The main reason I want to switch to something like glacial chasms, which I should have mentioned before, is because my meta has many burn/combo finishers that royal assassin and my blockers do nothing against. Glacial Chasms does.
From what I have heard though Glacial Chasms also has down sides just like Royal Assassin, so I may just have to do some testing. I really appreciate the help from everyone.
October 20, 2016 1:46 p.m.
Tyrant-Thanatos says... #10
I'm kind of surprised there's no mention of Eon Hub in here. That's how I always used to keep the chasm online. With the bonus of interrupting upkeep-based effects. If you can get both out consistently, and manage to protect it, you'll have no life to pay and it creates a hell of a pillow-fort effect for a two card combo.
October 20, 2016 2:54 p.m.
andymaul123 says... #11
Dimir-Acolyte no problem at all. When you say "burn/combo" finishers, what are you referring to? Glacial Chasm will work wonders against the likes of Purphoros, but you also have to be proactive with it since you don't have the aforementioned Crop Rotation to turn it into a blowout. If your opponents are storming into Tendrils of Agony, Chasm won't do much for you anyway.
If we know your meta, we might be able to offer meta-specific solutions that will fit better :)
October 20, 2016 3:56 p.m.
Dimir-Acolyte says... #12
andymaul123 My meta consists of Omnath, Locus of Rage, Sydri, Galvanic Genius which has been using Aetherflux Reservoir quite often recently, Marchesa, the Black Rose which tends to end in mass burn, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher which doesn't have Purphoros yet, thank god. After that it's a lot of voltron or midrange archetypes.
I'm not looking to put in silver bullet cards, I'm not a fan of that kind of deck building. When it comes down to it, Royal Assassin is a okay/dead card a lot of the time, especially if I have Heartless Summoning out, since Royal Assassin is the only 1/1 in the deck.
I can see now Glacial Chasm isn't going to be the most synergistic card in that deck, even though I still think it could have it's uses. I am very open to other suggestions, No Mercy could work, but like Aggro-Blaster said it wont stop lethal damage, especially non-creature. What about Surgespanner? One reason I liked Assassin is that I have many untap effects in the deck, which Surgespanner might be also able to abuse.
October 20, 2016 5:25 p.m.
andymaul123 says... #13
Dimir-Acolyte it sounds like, between Omnath and Sydri's Aetherflux Resevoir, that there are a lot of targeted abilities. Maybe Orbs of Warding will help? It will prevent you from getting shotgunned down by the reservoir, prevent Omnath lightning-bolts from targeting you, and mitigate creature-swarm combat damage.
October 20, 2016 6:03 p.m.
Crucible of Worlds that is what land retrieval really is
October 20, 2016 8:34 p.m.
Herald of Leshrac and Eon Hub when there is not enough lands to get. That will win you the game most likely with phenax.
October 20, 2016 8:44 p.m.
Aggro-Blaster says... #16
Wouldn't Eon Hub make Herald of Leshrac useless?
I like the hexproof idea though. However it still doesn't stop someone from swinging lethal with one creature or a commander.
October 20, 2016 9:03 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #18
Moat. Cause we all know creatures and planeswalkers can't swim.
October 21, 2016 3:23 a.m.
Aggro-Blaster says... #19
Moat isn't even in color... And well Maze of Ith is a damn good land and the other being a fairer version, they don't stop burn or sydri's deathbeam.
October 21, 2016 9:18 a.m.
Personally, I think it depends on whether or not you like to go for infinite mill. If you are basically waiting until you can get everybody at once, then Glacial Chasm is very good, especially since you can bounce it via Capsize, Wipe Away, or Trade Routes. Thespian's Stage and Vesuva will reset it as well. It's a great card - some decks simply have no answer for it at all.
Raging_Squiggle says... #2
If your deck is not built to specifically incorporate Glacial Chasm, its cumulative upkeep will wreck you rather quickly. Even in an edh game. Usually, decks run Life from the Loam and circumvent the upkeep cost by sac'cing it then returning it with Life from the Loam along with the other land they sacrificed to bring it into play.
It you want people to not attack you, run cards like Propaganda, Lethal Vapors, Koskun Falls, Tainted AEther, War Tax, No Mercy, etc.
October 19, 2016 3:32 p.m.