Baleful Mastery

Instant

You may pay {1}{B} rather than pay this spell's mana cost.

If the {1}{B} cost was paid, an opponent draws a card.

Exile target creature or planeswalker.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

Optimator on Mermaider

3 days ago

Infernal Grasp and Baleful Mastery are worth noting. Some of the best removal to come out lately

legendofa on no hand ever

1 month ago

Once you get your opponent's hand empty, they're probably going to be drawing and playing one cards a turn, so there's no actual discard for Liliana's Caress. Caress wants your opponent to be discarding a lot, which means your opponent needs to refill their hand once in a while. Since this deck looks like it's trying to get the opponents hand empty, rather than constantly discarding, The Rack or Shrieking Affliction would probably be more reliable. If you want to build around Caress, cards like Dark Deal or Baleful Mastery might help here.

Acquisitions Expert is slightly better than Corrupt Court Official, if you want to keep the creature base the same.

Depending on budget, Liliana of the Veil is more reliable discard than Dreamstealer here, and the Orcish Bowmasters in the maybeboard are a good deterrent for, hmm, pretty much everything. Still $60+ each, though.

SufferFromEDHD on Caaaaards

4 months ago

Baleful Mastery on theme removal

Memory Jar!

Crow_Umbra on Totentanz, Kazoo Kid

7 months ago

I agree with lhetrick13, that you could likely focus the majority of your cuts in your creature section. I think another area of focus for potential cuts would lower impact reanimation effects, mostly because this deck wants to make lots of rat tokens. Since you will be making lots of disposable bodies, you don't really need to invest much in single-target reanimation effects.

Also, I think you might want to swap Talisman of Impulse for Talisman of Indulgence. Probably just a mix up in the card selection menu.

Suggestions for potential cuts:

• Gnat Miser - Reducing opponents' hand size by 1 isn't super impactful in the grand scheme of a game, especially with how commonly (over)played Reliquary Tower & Thought Vessel can be, depending on metas.

• Persistent Specimen - Basically another Reassembling Skeleton, which it looks like you might've also removed from the list.

• Burnished Hart - Yes, it can self sac to grab you 2 basics, but that costs 6 mana total to cast & activate. Could maybe even be replaced with another 2 mana rock like Mind Stone, or maybe even Cursed Mirror, which can copy one of your rats for additional utility.

• Murderous Rider - Doesn't really fit the theme of the deck beyond being a removal spell. Could likely be replaced with another instant like Infernal Grasp or Baleful Mastery if you needed the additional removal.

• Unearth - Single target reanimation. Doesn't seem like it will do too much, especially since you want to mostly sac rat tokens, and already have a fairly high creature count.

• Phyrexian Reclamation - Similar line of reasoning as Unearth. It feels like you have more than enough creatures to keep casting, so trying to reanimate doesn't make as much sense here.

• Grave Pact - Great card, but feels overly redundant with Dictate of Erebos, which has the benefit of surprising opponents with Flash.

• Diabolic Tutor - I think you can probably replace this with Pact of the Serpent

Those are the most obvious cuts I can suggest at the moment. I think it would be helpful if you take some time to tag the cards in your deck, and what roles they play. Tagging helps me better visualize my categories and helps me decide on cuts and swaps.

If you want to aggro swarm your opponents with Rats, I'd suggest considering Rising of the Day as a haste anthem so your swarms can, well, swarm ASAP. I'd also recommend checking out Cover of Darkness to give all of your little Rats some Evasion, otherwise they will get chump-blocked to death. Ogre Battledriver might also be worth a look, especially since it can buff up your 1/1 rats, and give them haste. Ogre Battledriver has made itself at home in a couple of my aggro token decks for that reason.

My final suggestion is to hone in on if you want this to be an Aggro deck first, with the option to combo out, or if you want this to primarily be a combo deck with Aggro as a "Plan B" to fall back on. Determining that primary focus for yourself will also help guide some of the cuts you make.

Best of luck!

EokLennon on Yuriko (Optimized) Primer

7 months ago

I'm currently on a budget so what do you think on cards like Pact of Negation and Foil to replace Force of Will and Force of Negation, also Baleful Mastery to replace Snuff Out?

eliakimras on Jund Dragons

11 months ago

Forgot to say what to take out for the three cards above: Green Sun's Twilight, Hull Breach, Lukka, Bound to Ruin. The Twilight is unrealiable until you spend a lot of mana into it. The Breach is sorcery-speed. The planeswalker does not do much here.

Now some small upgrades you can make:

• Assassin's Trophy and Tear Asunder are more versatile than Artifact Mutation and Putrefy.

• If graveyard decks are rampant on your playgroup, Baleful Mastery works better than Terminate.

• If you run fetchable lands (Ziatora's Proving Ground, Blood Crypt, Stomping Ground, Overgrown Tomb, Canyon Slough, Woodland Chasm, Sulfurous Mire, Highland Forest, Haunted Mire, Geothermal Bog, Wooded Ridgeline), consider running Three Visits, Farseek, Into the North and Skyshroud Claim instead of Sakura-Tribe Elder, Rampant Growth, Explosive Vegetation and Thran Dynamo.

• Since you run Crux of Fate, it might be better not depend on non-dragon creature ramp: Courser of Kruphix, Shaman of Forgotten Ways and Solemn Simulacrum could instead be Scaled Nurturer, Fellwar Stone and Coalition Relic.

• Garruk, Primal Hunter and Return of the Wildspeaker draw way more cards than Read the Bones and Dragonmaster Outcast (this last one is too slow to get going).

• You probably want to run Ash Barrens, Blighted Woodland and Myriad Landscape for more fixing and ramp. Exotic Orchard and Secluded Courtyard wouldn't hurt, either.

jbump75 on

1 year ago

wallisface I tested the Maddening Cacophony; I LOVE IT! Not requiring the black mana cost like Glimpse the Unthinkable helps and it works almost as well, plus the added kicker (not that you get to use it much but it's an added benefit). I increased the lands to 22 by adding a few Misty Rainforest and took out the Shipwreck Marsh. I decreased Surgical Extraction to 3 copies (I may consider going back to 4 and removing a Baleful Mastery (could even replace this with Damnation). I'm still not loving Tasha's Hideous Laughter. I know it's a good card, but between THL and Fractured Sanity, I like Fractured Sanity. I know most people run at least one Crypt Incursion but I feel like in the people I've been playing against I would rather have the extra creature/planeswalker removal of Baleful Mastery. For now, I think this is how the deck is going to look. Thanks for all your help!

NV_1980 on Pain Is In Your Mind! *PRIMER*

1 year ago

That replacement would make sense; I'll see if I can get my hands on a Baleful Mastery; thanks!