Battle of Wits

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, if you have 200 or more cards in your library, you win the game.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

UrzasUnderstudy on Claire Loony

1 year ago

If only Battle of Wits was a 3-mana card. I'm tempted to build a Claire D'Loon commander deck just to play that card.

TypicalTimmy on Can I answer my phone?

1 year ago

You know, it's silly but she could make Battle of Wits viable in EDH. You'd have to create 100+ tokens and get them all shuffled into your library, but as long as you are at or above the 200 card benchmark, you win.

sylvannos on Mana Crypt is bad

1 year ago

@KL185: I'm pointing out some of the obvious applications to having cheap, fast artifact mana. Going land -> Mana Crypt -> Trinisphere means you get to keep playing Magic while your opponent sits around doing nothing for three turns while you set up a Wasteland/Strip Mine + Crucible of Worlds lock. Mana Crypt was a $100 card long before EDH was a thing, where it could only be played in Vintage.

@Tryptic: Honestly, I agree about EDH's banlist being complete garbage. All of the format's problems stem from the availability of fast mana and tutors. Prismatic had the right idea where it banned fast mana like Mana Crypt and Sol Ring, tutors (ranging from Mystical Teachings to Demonic Tutor), and then any other degenerate cards like Memory Jar, Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Will, or Gush.

There's a reason the format was able to have whacky decks with 4x Darksteel Colossus and 4x Akroma, Angel of Wrath be viable. The only cards that were specifically a problem for the format were things like Sundering Titan and Battle of Wits (both banned). Cards like Biorhythm weren't a problem because it played more like conventional Magic. If you can cast an 8 mana spell, you SHOULD be winning the game.

TheoryCrafter on Card creation challenge

1 year ago

{2}{U}{U}

Sorcery

Uncommon

Target player shuffles all creatures they own from the battlefield, their graveyard and their hand into their library.

If ~ was kicked, it has flash.

---

The missing piece to my brilliant plan to use Spawnsire of Ulamog to wish just about every Eldrazi ever printed onto the battlefield, then use this spell, if necessary, to win a Commander game with Battle of Wits.

Your challenge is to create a card you need to pull off a game winning combo.

Kazierts on Pushing Poison

2 years ago

After reading your comment taking another look at your deck, I realized it has 70 cards. While, as I said, I don't intend to change your deckbuilding style, you should basically never go above 60 cards, unless your deck runs Yorion, Sky Nomad or Battle of Wits.

Your deckbuilding guidelines are quite interesting. Here's a few things I'd like to mention regarding them:

• First, a compliment so it doesn't like I'm just criticizing everything. What you mentioned about legendary creatures is basically the correct way to play with them, in most cases. Too many can brick you and too few makes them hard to draw.

• While, in some cases, it's good a backup windocondition, that does not apply to every archetype, Infect included. Because of the Infect keyword, the literally doesn't care about the opponent's life total. So, when you suddenly try to change to hit their life total with one or two creatures that don't have Infect, you're basically starting everything from scratch in the middle of a game. This goes into my next point which is your fear of hate cards.

• I completely understand some cards that can shut your deck down are scary, but I feel like you're letting your fear get in the way of your deck. I'll use my deck as example. My manabase is almost completely made of nonbasic lands, yet Blood Moon doesn't scare me. Why? I have Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek. If that's not enough, then I also have Ratchet Bomb in my sideboard. Melira, Sylvok Outcast? Fatal Push, Damn, Collective Brutality and Liliana of the Veil all deal with it. My point is there multiple ways to deal with threats that don't force you into an extremely narrow path. Also, if you're playing Modern, no one will use Back to Basics because it's not legal. This also goes into my next point, which is the mana effiency.

• Despite you saying you like to be mana effienct, a lot of cards here aren't. As I mentioned, some of them basically do nothing. Some actually do, but are overcoste, even in you examples. Sage's Row Denizen is very inefficient because mill decks like to turbo mill (which is something I personally don't like). This means the best mill creatures are Ruin Crab and Hedron Crab. When we come fo poisoning opponents, that's why Hand of the Praetors sees basically zero play outside of commander. Usually people just cast a Glistener Elf turn 1 and a Scale Up turn 2. Also, you're looking at the ratio, but not the usefulness of the creature. Sure, Cystbearer costs the same, manawise, as a Rot Wolf, but is incredibly worse.

If you want to follow this path of winning bast cast infect creatures with the hand on the field, then:

• Ichor Rats gives one by itself, making it two with the Hand.

• Another option, though a bit expensive, is Phyrexian Metamorph. It doesn't have Infect it self, but it can copy an Ichor Rats and a Hand.

• Plague Myr has Infect itself and allows you to cast a turn 3 Hand of the Praetors.

• Blight Mamba is a two mana creature that protects itself.

• And Whispering Specter is a Plague Stinger with an upside for one more mana.

• If you want to add a huge bomb, Phyrexian Swarmlord is going to capitalize really easily on all the counters your opponent already has.

I understand if the above mentioned are a bit above your budget. A lot of these Infect cards haven't had a reprint yet.

I love when people go for nonstandard builds of decks. I hope you cam improve this without sacrificing too much of your own style.

TypicalTimmy on Kaalie, Seismic Shift

2 years ago

BEDECK (: what playgroup

Lololol

Honestly my coworker fell in love with the idea of proxies (I got him into the game during VOW spoilers). Another friend only has 2 decks left.

So I'm sure proxies are fine, but idk about custom cards. It's hard to not "balance" them in your own personal favor. My personal opinion?

Custom Commander should be fine but the rest of the +99 should be real MTG cards / proxies. Otherwise at that point you're sort of just in a middle school "NUH-UUH, U CAN'T DO THAT" Battle of Wits

Like imagine 10+ custom cards (not proxies). My God you might as well play a sandbox MMORPG at that point.

Magic_Aids on 【252-CARD】▷ INSTANT WIN ◁【Battle of Wits】DECK!

2 years ago

Let me know what you think of our Battle of Wits BUDGET deck! ;)

Scytec on New Format for EDH: Rule …

2 years ago

Ok...hear me out...Battle of Wits at the helm with 300 Islands as the deck list. eh? eh?