The Great Aurora + anything???
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on Aug. 17, 2015, 10:55 p.m. by nobodygaming
So I threw The Great Aurora into my C14 Guided By Nature deck that I'm slowly upgrading into an Elf tribal built. Is there anything fun I can do with the card? Would lands stolen by Gilt-Leaf Archdruid count as my own permanents for Aurora's board wipe? Is there a way to save something like Zendikar's Roil from being removed to enjoy multiple landfall triggers?
Or am I trying to make to much of a green board wipe spell?
The Great Aurora says permanents "owned" by, so any control changing effects will not be taken into account.
August 17, 2015 11:11 p.m.
nobu_the_bard says... #4
The Great Aurora specifies cards each player owns, not cards controlled (and each player's hand). It'll benefit whoever has the most permanents on the board (+cards in hand), regardless of who actually controls them. It'll count tokens though; the owner of a token is whoever it came into play originally for, not necessarily who currently controls it.
I don't know how you'd sneak Zendikar's Roil past the board wipe. It's pretty thorough. You'd need to somehow keep it from changing zones, since there's nothing that's going to put it back into play in time to see everything else (since it's the middle of a spell resolving when the land stuff happens, you can't cheat it back into play in the middle or anything).
The only triggered abilities you'd be able to use I think would be leaves play (more a blue/black thing) or lands with triggers, which I don't know any useful ones in mono green.
August 17, 2015 11:18 p.m.
TheNinjaJesus says... #5
Yeah, Oblivion Ring applies, because it does NOT specify that it has to be an opponent.You exile your Zendikar's Roil with Oblivion Ring, you cast Great Aurora, Oblivion Ring gets shuffled in, Roil returns, then you put all your lands into play.
August 18, 2015 12:03 a.m.
brokendwarf says... #6
Great Aurora would have to finish resolving before Oblivion Ring's ability can trigger, so you'll still get all your lands before stuff like Zendikar's Roil comes into play.
August 18, 2015 12:09 a.m.
In blue, you have stuff like Living Lore and Omniscience that can cast it for free, but in mono green you can create a bunch of tokens and ramp to help get you to cast it later in the game.
August 18, 2015 12:13 a.m.
GreenGhost says... #8
That card has the added bonus of killing the token player at the table by milling them out.
August 18, 2015 12:22 a.m.
Whoops, I misread the Aurora a bit. Yeah, the token strategy might not be the strategy.
August 18, 2015 12:26 a.m.
The... issue... with the card is that you don't get to use the extra lands first.
Lets say you build a green ramp deck. You've got 12 mana ramp creatures, a couple The Great Aurora, a couple cheap stall cards like Den Protector and Deathmist Raptor, and some pay off cards like Eldrazi. You flood the board with Deathmist Raptors and Mana Ramp guys, and cast the spell. Your opponent probably gets to draw 2-5 cards, and you probably get to draw 4-7. Seems like a good deal, right? After all, they don't have anymore threats on the board and you've refilled your hand.
Well, ignoring the fact that you aren't getting any mana advantage (after all, you've lost your 2-3 mana ramp creatures and replaced them with random lands off the top of your deck), now your opponent gets to un-tap first. They've got probably 8-12 lands on the board from the 5-8 they had before you cast your spell, while again, you haven't actually gained any mana advantage. And they've got another 2-4 cards to use before you can even do anything.
Sure, you might have some kickass eldrazi in your hand. But that doesn't matter when your opponent has the initiative. And heaven forbid they are playing some blue tempo deck that has creatures AND counter spells in the main board.
The card is cool. The art is absolutely fantastic. But as far as constructed Magic goes, it's a late game EDH spell.
August 18, 2015 12:47 a.m.
nobodygaming says... #11
Oh well, at least I was able to not get my hopes up. And a board wipe spell in Commander is still a board wipe spell. If tokens still count as permanents when the card is cast, that means I still have an outlet for some card value advantage I guess.
August 18, 2015 12:57 a.m.
RoarMaster says... #12
I dont think your reading the card right Kyurm7, or whatever your name is, lol, I cant decipher it, sorry :S For starters, it shuffles your hand and land into the library. So it doesnt matter how many lands your opponent had to begin with, or cards in their hands, as they all go bye bye. Second, the lands come into play untapped, so technically you actually do get to use your cards first, before your opponent, as its still your turn.
August 18, 2015 1:03 a.m.
Oh. It shuffled the lands as well. Yea that changes things a bit, my bad.
It's still an odd spell. I mean, if you have 6 lands and 3 mana creatures and cast it, thats 9 permanents you get to draw. You've got roughly, what, 40% lands in a deck? That means out of those 9 cards, you'll probably draw 2-4 lands to get to put into play, and have a bunch of other stuff just clogging up your hand.
Honestly that seems even worse than I originally thought. Definitely keep this out of constructed magic.
August 18, 2015 1:07 a.m.
TheNinjaJesus says... #14
kyuuri117- Actually, I made a pretty functional Standard deck out of it (maybe it will be playable post-rotation if there's a low-cost "Awaken X Lands with X +1/+1 counters on them" spell). The issue I'm encountering is not things to do with the deck, but what should my wincon be, and what colors should I be in? If you'd like to compare notes, check here-
Darkened Aurora Playtest
Standard*
SCORE: 3 | 0 COMMENTS | 301 VIEWS
. The trick is, you float your mana, and you'll be fine. Your opponent will frequently be tapped out trying to frantically get damage through, and then, when you fire, you can chain Auroras until you're sitting on 30+ mana, your deck is your hand, and all your lands are in play. It's pretty awesome. You just need some sort of wincon to close the game out (that's where I'm hung up).
August 18, 2015 1:07 a.m.
TheNinjaJesus says... #15
Oh, and also- went 3-1-1 at FNM, and I probably could have won both of my matches that I lost and drew on.
August 18, 2015 1:09 a.m.
ComradeJim270 says... #16
It's very much an EDH card. Several things in the set are. In constructed? Very hard to use. In EDH? It's a boardwipe in green. And as Green_Ghost said, this can eliminate token players from the game by myself. I was playing a game with my Trostani deck yesterday with my brother after putting this in his deck and at some point did say "if you use the Great Aurora right now, I lose."
It's a very weird card, all-in-all. But it definitely has its uses as a way in green to change unfavorable board states.
August 18, 2015 1:45 a.m.
The Aurora is basically the green version of Warp World, which is widely played in EDH formats. I definitely see The Great Aurora being played in Riku decks. Being able to copy it creates so much chaos because you are basically resetting the game, but with lands starting in play.
August 18, 2015 1:55 a.m.
nobodygaming says... #18
actually depending on how many sacrifice land outlets my deck runs like Evolving Wilds could I use it in conjunctuion with Titania, Protector of Argoth for easy board presence after blowing everything up? But I suppose then I'm going down a different path for upgrading the deck if Titania is my commander
August 18, 2015 4:07 a.m.
The Great Aurora is one of Green's best "OH SHIT" buttons in EDH, alongside Return to Dust. Aurora allows you to potentially build back a board state quickly after things have gotten out of hand, especially if you have a few tokens to snag a few extra lands.
If you're playing Tribal Elves, there is no reason not to run it. The majority of your creatures are cheap and after casting Aurora you could potentially have 3-6 creatures out while your opponents are struggling, depending on what you hit.
TheNinjaJesus says... #2
Is that deck mono-green? In white, you could play Oblivion Ring, since that targets any non-land permanent, not just ones your opponent controls (which is Banishing Light's dilemma).
August 17, 2015 11:06 p.m.