sonnet666 Deckspert

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Making all cards one color has a variety of niche combos that do busted things:

1. Painter's Servant + Iona, Shield of Emeria was a spell lock. One of the reasons it was banned in the first place.
2. Painter's Servant + Grindstone is effectively, ": Target player loses the game," and can go in any deck.
3. Painter's Servant + Hibernation is basically Upheaval , another card banned in EDH. Since this version is so cheap and an instant you can cast Hibernation in response to your own spell, and then win the game with whatever problem creature you have on an empty field. It's also as easy to tutor as Dramatic Scepter.
4. Painter's Servant + Deathgrip = Off color repeatable counterspells (there's a green version of this enchantment I can't remember).
5. Painter's Servant + Compost = Makes you draw anytime any card touches your opponent's yard.
6. Painter's Servant + Animar = Protection from everything.
7. Painter's Servant + Teysa, Orzhov Scion = Extra Darkest Hour for sac loops.

Anyway, none of those were the reason Flash Hulk has become more powerful. It's just that Paradox Engine decks were one of the few things in the cEDH meta that could compete with Flash Hulk, so now that it's banned Flash Hulk decks are basically uncontested.

The ability resolves as normal:

1. You don't have an artifact to sac, so you don't.

2. The "if you do" part of the ability checks to see if you sacrificed an artifact.

3. You didn't, so the second part of the ability doesn't happen. You don't return anything.

You could get around this by having an artifact land like Great Furnace in play. Cyclonic Rift on bounces non-land permanents, so you'd be able to sacrifice Great Furnace to satisfy the ability's condition.

A better way to crush affinity decks would be to play Karn and Mycosynth Lattice together. Or any deck really ... ;)

Enduring Renewal + Phyrexian Altar + Insolent Neonate doesn't work. You can't sacrifice Neonate to Altar and it's own ability.

You're right about Enduring Renewal though. It's got a lot of uses and is often overlooked. You can get infinite mana off of 0-drops like Ornithopter as well.

I'm not really sold on the cycling stuff though. if you have a blink engine on board ( Skybind would go well with the enchantress stuff), there are a lot of creatures that will just put cards into your hand instead of filtering them.

I'm pretty sure they banned it for being a 1 card lock with Iona, Shield of Emeria .

That's why it's coming back as Iona is being banned.

Honestly it's just a slightly cheaper Helm of Obedience + Rest in Peace , and nobody really runs that combo. Cool that it can go in every deck though.

Mindcrank + Bloodchief Ascension is even better since you can hit everyone, and nobody runs that either. (Probably because of the quest counters, but w/e.)

The Sphinx's Tutelage version doesn't work sadly.

Rzepkanut, Sunforger + Mistveil Plains is seven mana a turn. At that point, why not just run Chandra, Flamecaller ? There probably something more useful than Heartwarming Redemption to recur every turn.

Honestly? I don't really like any of these except for Clock + Key, and that's only in a deck that's heavily artifact based.

1. This is largely dependent on how much functionality Clock of Omens and Key to the City already have in your deck. If there are a lot of splashy artifacts you want to untap and a lot of scary creatures you want to connect with, then I'd say play it, but that sounds like it's two different decks. If you have to hunt around for two different artifacts that don't do much on their own just to spend 2 or more mana per card (you have better things to do with your rocks usually), then this is kind of meh.

2. The per card really kills this one. Paradox Engine + Rummaging Goblin will let you rummage forever pretty much for free. There are several other untap effects in red you could work with. Aura versions of creature effects are much less versatile than just running the creature version, and Pili-Pala has very limited usefulness in these colors.

3. I'm always a critic of group hug effects. Giving your opponent cards in EDH is like handing the enemy ammunition in war. It's just a bad idea. If your opponent is running green and has a ton of mana, you won't be outpacing them in draws no matter how many treasures they give you. ( Smothering Tithe is, of course, still a great card.)

4. This might be : draw a card if your opponent exists, but Mind's Eye is also : draw a card if your opponent exists, and Mind's Eye is a single card. What reason do most decks have to run Norin the Wary ? I've never played him in anything outside of Purphoros, God of the Forge .

I don't really see how any of these come close to Skullclamp + creatures, and Red/White is the best color identity to tutor an equipment.

This section isn't really for "why" questions, btw. This is specifically a section for how the rules work and mechanical questions on how to play the game.

In the future, you'd be better off asking something like this in one of the forums.

Don't forget tapdown effects. If you're in green, Root Maze will slow colorless decks down to a crawl.

I was going to point it out myself but Arby_Q beat me to it.

All the infinite speculation around Kethis is dead wrong. Once a card changes zones in Magic, the game no longer considers it the same "card." It's a new object with no memory of it's previous existence. In order to loop with Kethis you'd need to continuously exile 2 new legendary cards from your graveyard, which is obviously infeasible for an infinite combo.

Since he reanimates so many things at once, you could probably enable other infinite combos pretty well by dumping your deck in your yard with Hermit Druid , Mesmeric Orb , and the like, but Kethis as a combo piece just can't happen.

I'm surprised so many people missed that. New objects is like MTG rules advice 101.

To add:

When in doubt, look up the card on gatherer.wizards.com. That will have the updated Oracle text, so you don't have to figure out whether it's talking about exile or not.

You didn't answer his question. The real answer is yes AND no.

Cards that give you cards work by giving you cards from "outside the game" ( Burning Wish ) work as cdkime described. They are actually taking cards not in any zone of the game, and giving you access to them. As stated before me, in competitive play you can only grab cards from your sideboard, while in casual play you can bring any card you own into the game (that you can get without leaving the building, obviously).

Most cards with this effect use the phrasing: "Choose a (type) card you own from outside the game, and put into (X zone)." It is sometimes phrased different for multiple cards, like on Spawnsire of Ulamog .

However, there are a lot of old cards that were printed saying things like "remove target creature from the game." (Old Swords to Plowshares) This "removed from the game" was replaced with the Exile zone, and all cards that were printed with this text have been errata'ed to say Exile ( Swords to Plowshares ).

Since you asked about "removed from the game" rather than "outside the game" I take it that that was your question, so, yes, "removed from the game" is the same as exile, even though exile is now part of the game.