For getting Sphinxes out faster, there's cards like Herald's Horn, Pillar of Origins, or Urza's Incubator.

Andramalech That's like half a solid Modern deck right there! I might try that list as a different deck--I'm always down for a good Stax list. But as capwner said, I'm trying something in Premodern. If you come up with something else, let me know, and I'll check it out.

Rhadamanthus Thank you! The most recent reference I saw was Balaam__'s Get The F Out. If you saw it somewhere else, please let me know! I'd love to see it out in the wild.

Andramalech and capwner I'll take any thoughts you have--this is right at the beginning of the planning stage. Definitely going to take a good look at the toolbox stuff and tutors. Parallax Wave + Opalescence looks good, but I'm a little worried about overbalancing the 4 MV slot. Leaning toward a couple of Necra Sanctuary as the finisher.

Andramalech Apologies for the misspelling.

Andramelech The plan here is to return Solitary Confinement to your hand on your upkeep with Umbilicus. The discard-or-sac ability will already be on the stack, but you don't have to sacrifice a card that's not there anymore. You get your draw step normally, then recast Confinement on your main phase, where it protects you until Umbilicus bounces it again.

Basically, you're ignoring Solitary Confinement's discard-or-sac, in return for a small window of vulnerability and paying every turn.

I don't know if this is any good, but that's what playtesting's for.

This deck looks like a lot of fun. I should experiment with Premodern a little bit.

Monster-Proof Blanket

Artifact - Equipment

Equipped creature has protection from creatures with greater power.

Equip

Equip Child

What happens if you throw it over a monster?

Create something that represents a stash of emergency money or supplies.

For the Archon's Glory combo, I'm going agree with your opponent and the bystander. As I understand, ramp shouldn't be included in the turn calculation. The intent is to prevent Tainted Pact + Thassa's OracleGC, Helm of Obedience + Leyline of the Void , that sort of combo, where the cards can be played on a normal curve and lead directly to a kill effect before turn 6. There are ways to drag someone down from a trillion life, or just bypass life totals, so I don't consider that a lockout (but I might concede if someone did that, depending on the matchup).

But I would not consider Sol Ring as part of the combo, because it's such a loose requirement. I'd compare it to something like Gravecrawler + Phyrexian Altar. Technically, you need a third effect and another Zombie for this to mean anything. But that's so easy to get to, it doesn't even really need a dedicated deck. Yes, you need a token, enchantment, or artifact to sacrifice, but that can happen incidentally during normal play. If a combo needs a third card, but that card can be any (insert category here) or a basic land, it shouldn't count toward the combo requirements.

Ultimately, my call is that this was a lucky play with a combo that's legal in Bracket 3.

Could you please give my Nath of the Gilt-Leaf deck, Arrogant. Ruthless. Oppressive. Victorious. a look? I'm not experienced in higher-power builds, and I'd like to get the list to a clean Bracket 4 before I start spending lots of money. It feels like it's more focused on pure discard than your Dobby is a free elf 2.0, less reanimation and stax pieces. I'd like to get some more feedback, especially about win cons.

Thanks for the upvote and folder add, and welcome to the club!

I don't know anything about Urzagatherer, but wanted to say welcome to the club!

Are you looking for ideas, or just making a list? Any format preference?

Anvil of Bogardan has an updated rules text, making it clearer it's a triggered ability: "At the beginning of each player’s draw step, that player draws an additional card, then discards a card."

The opponent would only search once. Here's how I see it breaking down:

1. Opponent's draw step, Mornsong Aria and Anvil trigger. You choose the order they resolve in.

2 (a). If Aria resolves first, they search for a card, get hit by Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, and get their card. Aria prevents the draw from Anvil.

2 (b). If Anvil resolves first, the draw is prevented by Aria. Aria resolves, they search for a card, get hit by Ob Nixilis, Unshackled, and get their card.

Either way, Aria prevents the draw from Anvil from happening.

How about my personal favorite toy for the 'Hawk, Thornbite Staff? It got pretty pricy, and it's slightly less efficient with the Scavenger since that's a Rogue, but the synergy's great

Desperate Hunting

Enchantment

When this enchantment enters, create a 0/1 black Insect creature token with flying and a Food token.

Whenever you sacrifice a creature, you may pay . If you do, create a Food token.

Sacrifice an Insect: Create a 1/1 green Spider creature token.

Sacrifice a Spider: Create a 1/1 blue Bird token with flying.

Sacrifice a Bird: Create a 1/2 green Cat creature token.

Sacrifice a Cat: Create a 1/2 white Dog creature token with vigilance.

Sacrifice a Dog: Create a 2/2 red Goat creature token.

Sacrifice a Goat: Create a 2/3 green Ox creature token.

Sacrifice an Ox: Create a 3/3 white Horse creature token.

Whenever a Horse you control dies, sacrifice this enchantment, all creatures you control, and all Food you control.

Too wordy?

Same challenge.

wallisface I think the problem here is that people are using Commander to teach the game, which in my opinion is a really bad idea. Pretty much every point of confusion there is because people are using an advanced-level, very complicated and deep format to teach the basics and fundamentals--what colors mean, how cards interact, how damage works, strategy overviews, etc.

People should learn with a simple, casual 60 x 4 deck before trying Commander. Just because it's popular doesn't mean it's appropriate for new players. WotC has dropped most of the product lines designed for intro-level, but I would use Jumpstart over Commander as a teaching tool every time.

I'm going to defend commander damage, though. It's one of the main things keeping and viable in the format, especially together. Without it, Voltron would virtually disappear as a strategy, and aggro in general would be cut way down. If a group doesn't track it, I assume that's because they don't have any aggro decks in their group. And this is coming from a player who just ignores the combat step half the time.

Antsquisher Yeah, I was kind of conflating the two ideas. "Mana of a color outside of your commander's color identity can only be used to pay for generic mana costs" was pretty much exactly the same as "colored mana outside of your commander's color identity became colorless instead" before Oath of the Gatewatch in 2016. I could have been clearer. The distinction between colorless and generic happened ten years ago, after all.

Antsquisher I don't know if you were around at the time, but that used to be a rule. I think it changed when Ixalan introduced Treasure, actually. In fact, even earlier back in 2009 (I don't remember when this rule changed), you could only produce mana in your commander's mana cost, not color identity.

Once Treasures came on, it changed, but at the time, the main effect of these rules was to make cards like Memnarch, Bosh, Iron Golem, and Sen Triplets effectively, or actually, unusable as commanders. So blame it all on Treasures, I guess.

Dagobah Training

Enchantment

Whenever a creature you control is dealt damage, put a +1/+1 counter on it.

At the beginning of your end step, if no creatures you control were dealt damage, you may discard two cards. If you do, draw a card.

Create a lightsaber.