Moonsilver Key

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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
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Moonsilver Key

Artifact

, , Sacrifice Moonsilver Key: Search your library for a basic land card or an artifact card with a mana ability, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

7 months ago

More actual playtesting coming, but just from goldfishing I can tell Lithoform is too slow. Sometimes I notice Isoscepter isn't online due to not having the mana rocks, so I am going to put Moonsilver Key back in there to mitigate that problem. It's possible some interaction is better here.

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

7 months ago

GHoag thank you for your most critical feedback. I agree with a lot you have to say on this. There are a few things I'd like to discuss further. I'll mirror your format so you know how I am responding to what. Thank you for the praise on the list so far, there is definitely some things to be worked out still. "The pinnacle is a concept only to the unambitious" -flavor text from a card I don't remember lol. (sorry for the novel below)

Regarding Fetchlands, I think the deck thinning is negligible or very hard to notice at most. This aspect of them definitely can't be a bad thing. But playtesting has shown that the negative effects of including them are negligible. I have never been upset about running all 4. Also, the synergy these lands has with Vantress Visions (Virtue of Knowledge) feels reeeally good.

Rite of Replication is expensive mana wise. The purpose of Rite is to get through your whole deck in one go assuming Unesh is on the field, which is not always the case. In my playtesting, it has been very hard to resolve due to mana cost, and when you do meet the mana requirement it is never safe from interaction. Given these flaws, this card might as well say "if you are targetting Unesh and this card resolves, you win the game." With the FOFs, you can pick up all counter magic and free mana rocks on the way down your deck to cast & protect Thassa's Oracle. A non-negligible side effect, this makes choosing piles easier to do because you no longer have to grab sphinxs or other wincons. This wincon is still relevant at this mana cost. I think the jury is still out if this is the best choice though. With inifinite mana you can do something similar, and I'll talk more about this below. Q: Why not add Personal Tutor? Simply because you don't need 3 copies of Rite. I already don't like Mystical Tutor, but the versatility to grab any instant makes it worth it. By the time you meet the mana requirement, you will have seen Rite or Mystical Tutor. Personal Tutor is too narrow to have in a slot, even on the 'Rite' plan.

cEDH meta talk, there is Turbo, midrange, and stax (early win, midgame win, lategame win respectively.) The average win without any interaction is turn 6-7 on this revision. This solidly puts Unesh into midrange. I think he can be sped up a bit with more revisions. Turn 4 is a late win for Turbo, but with enough interaction to stop the turbo player we can get to the midrange and win the game. Unesh suffers against a a few stax pieces. The main ones being Torpor Orb (which doesn't see a ton of play these days), and Null Rod and Collector Ouphe. Collectore Ouphe doesn't feel so bad with our interaction suite, and Null Rod is even more of a nuissance. If both are on the field, it is an absolute nightmare for Unesh.

Creatures: Yes a lot of fat was trimmed, and it took some time to really narrow down the best Sphinxs in these slots. There is still room for improvement here. For instance Vexing Sphinx feels awful. The reason I added it a while back was because he can be played early game for a bit of card draw. The card draw from this is not worth the mana spent, the fact that even with Unesh out he is 2 blue to cast also feels very bad. I will definitely replace him with another Sphinx, probably Argent Sphinx or Metallic Mimic. For 2 blue I am much happier to see the mana sink on Argent Sphinx. And for 2 colorless I am happy to see possibly the next cheapest sphinx not already in the deck. Enigma Thief though high CMC, I can reliably cast him for his prowl cost at 2 cmc, and his removal is top notch. Dream Eater though the removal is not the best, it is still good. The kicker here is honestly the surveil 4. You do Unesh FOF first, then surveil 4 and hopefully you can put all 4 in the graveyard. Still dream eater does feel a bit slower than everything else. Scholar of the Lost Trove, upfront I feel very strongly about this card. It's not because this is a pet card, it's because I think its very powerful in this deck. Even at 5cmc which is what I normally cast it for, it feels like insane value. You get the Unesh trigger, and a wincon from the graveyard that the opponents thought they didn't have to deal with anymore. After doing some math on this, the average cost of an Unesh trigger with Unesh on the field is ~2.25 cmc in the current revision (that is the cmc of a card generating the FOF divided by the total number of things generating FOFs excluding Rite). At 5 cmc, casting the Scholar gives you a 4 cmc game winning artifact and a ~2.25 cmc Unesh trigger. Not to mention, it gives you flexibility in choosing piles. For instance, If an opponent erroneously puts Panharmonicon in a pile by itself, you can shamelessly take the other 3 cards in that FOF. Palinchron is also rather expensive to set up, but not as expensive as Rite. I think it is a good back up win condition. If Rite doesn't resolve, or if Isochron w/ dramatic reversal doesn't resolve, we need at least one other way to combo off. With ways to tutor for High Tide this win condition has been online surprisingly often, and is definitely threatening. That said having this AND Rite feels too heavy mana wise. I think I am pretty much sold on Isoscepter because of how inexpensive it is. With recent mana rock additions as well as Mox Diamond and Grim Monolith (mentioned below) the wincon is online for far cheaper than Rite and effectively does the same job, also dramatic reversal can be used as a one time use now which makes it good on it's own.

Lands: After a day of listening to cEDH podcasts, this is what I came up with. Urza's Saga is nuts. After playtesting with these lands I felt a big power spike. Thank you for mentioning Mystic Sanctuary again. I didn't think about it being able to retrieve a wincon which is pretty relevant. I will consider slipping this one back in there. I also think that losing just one more Island wouldn't be very impactful. What do you think about Command Beacon? After playtesting, I think there is such a niche case when this card is good in cEDH. I think I prefer an Island here given the more recent revisions.

Enchantments: Agreed, all of these are great cards. Not much to change here.

Instants: I don't think there are any cuts to be made here. After playtesting I think I need to add more Instants to more reliably shut off early combo wins. Demonic Consultation and Ad Nauseum are rampant. Even fitting in a Dispel or Spell Pierce to the deck would go a long way.

Artifacts: Work needs to be done here. I agree with a lot of what you are saying. Lightning Greaves feels bad because board interaction is light and stack interaction is high in cEDH. Caged Sun is usually too expensive to play without cheating it in with Scholar. But scholar wants to hit other game winning cards anyway, so Caged sun needs to go. Grim Monolith and Mox Diamond need to go in. I have been reluctant to add them to the list because I don't have paper copies. You are spot on with these two though. I am not high on Moonsilver Key, but I do like Wayfarer's Bauble. The bauble putting a land into play is important to getting palinchron online, and this also sees great synergy with Vantress Visions similar to the fetch lands. Though bauable is definitely worse than mox diamond and grim monolith, it would be my last cut. Mox Amber indeed doesn't power Unesh out, but we don't need it to. I will say that my playtests have really favored this card. Being able to play more mana artifacts after a FOF for free will keep the FOFs rolling. Mox Amber feels very good. Mox diamond is superior, but I won't take out Mox Amber for it.

REVISION: After synthesizing both our viewpoints, here is a revision that I will go ahead and push. I think you will like this mostly, but let me know your doubts.

EXPLANAITION: This rev cuts the Rite wincon and adds the less expensive Isoscepter wincon. There is still backup wincon in Aetherflux. Isoscepter is backed up by Palinchron, and Aetherflux is supported by Palinchron. Obviously, the goal with infinite mana is to play Thassa's eventually. Dramatic Reversal is good enough on its own now because of the artifacts added recently. I honestly think this is the cheapest that the wincon package can be while still being robust enough to not fizzle out. With these wincons, Unesh doesn't have to be on the field, which makes the deck less reliant on him, mitigating one of the deck's biggest flaws. Cutting Lightning Greaves will likely be inconsequential due to low board state interaction. Muddle and Spell pierce add some more stack interaction while Muddle can find combo pieces. I went with Spell pierce over Dispel because it can hit stax pieces as well as stopping an early combo win. Cutting a sphinx now relies on Ghostly Flicker to be part of the 20%. Mystic Sanctuary and Scholar of the Lost Trove are used to retrieve wincons from the grave if necessary.

I heavily considered subbing Dream Eater for Argent Sphinx. I will need to playtest that change before committing to it.

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

7 months ago

A controversial substitution perhaps, but deserved

Replacing Omniscience with Moonsilver Key.

Why not Omniscence?

  • Omniscence is too mana intensive in this deck. In your opening hand it is completely a dead card 90% of the time. In the 10% you have a line to play it in your opening hand, you are putting all your eggs into 1 basket. Omniscence is too high risk for the reward. If this spell doesn't resolve (and it likely won't at a cEDH table) you lose the game.
  • Even the times it does resolve in the early game, your hand doesn't always have enough steam to win outright.
  • It is important for all cEDH decks to consider how a card will function in your opening hand as well as later in the game. I'll write more about this topic in the current theory module of the guide. This inconsistency in the opening hand is what makes it bad. It is true that other cards in the deck are similar, but they aren't as mana intensive as omniscience. Omniscence in my opening hand has lost too many games.
  • Omniscence is essentially a combo by itself while Unesh is on the field. It is clunky at best because it doesn't always guarantee you get to the bottom of your deck unlike Rite of Replication. Recent powerful revisions of the deck have led to anti-synergy with this card. Example 1, removal of Long-Term Plans. Example 2, the addition of Palinchron makes infinite mana and storm more attainable than with Omniscence due to the reduced mana cost.

Why Moonsilver Key?

  • I think this card might be as much of a blindside to you as it was to me. I knew Omniscence had to go, so I started researching what I would replace it with. And I found this card. This card is the most opposite of a clunky opening hand card I could find. Rather than having a dead Omniscence in your hand, you can spend your early turns playing this card and getting an important mana rock like Jeweled Lotus & Mana Crypt or an Island.
  • The deck has been short on mana rocks. With a mana rock tutor in this slot combined with Virtue of Knowledge and fetch lands I have noticed a significant uptick in ramp reliability in my opening hands. I have been throwing around ideas like Mox Diamond, Mox Opal, and Mox Amber but none of these cards reliably solve Unesh's problems in the opening hand. I also considered Lion's Eye Diamond which seems a little too high risk IMO, because then your fate relies on the subsequent BFOF from casting Unesh. The runner-up contender was Fellwar Stone, essentially a worse Arcane Signet wouldn't be bad. It is important for Unesh to ramp out ASAP, and having a mana artifact tutor in the early game seems to help with that plan, and it thins the deck.
  • Minor point, it enjoys synergy with the adventure mode of Virtue of Knowledge.

What are your thoughts on this sub? Could I be doing better here?

TheBestMagicCard on Emrakul, the Promised End

7 months ago

Hey Profet93, thanks for the comment!

I do think Rings of Brighthearth is a great card, but I've excluded it mostly because, on it's own, it doesn't do anything...

Forsaken Monument, for example, = infinite mana with Basalt Monolith, but is also an incredible ramp card on it's own. This is basically the same reason that I've also excluded it from my Atraxa - Planeswalkers-Poison-Proliferate-Turns, even though it seems like an auto-include in that deck as well, in my opinion. I like Rings of Brighthearth a lot, but I really don't like looking at it on the battlefield without a combo piece, it's just a dead card then.

Aside from infinite mana, there are a bunch of other abilities that it could copy, like Planar Bridge, etc... However, the Rings only copies activated abilities, and I would sooner include cards like Lithoform Engine or Abstruse Archaic, as these cards also copy triggered abilities, like the cast triggers on Eldrazi, specifically Ulamog and Emrakrul, or Unwinding Clock's untap. Lithoform Engine and Abtruse Archaic both have somewhat more utility than the Rings, but as of yet, I still haven't squeezed them in either, again because I still feel like they just aren't good enough on their own without another combo piece.

Voltaic Construct fits into this "doesn't really do anything on it's own" category as well, and arguably is an even worse include than the Rings, Engine, or Archaic, but it's a lot easier to tutor up with cards like Eye of Ugin, Sanctum of Ugin, and especially Scrapyard Recombiner. Voltaic Construct + Metalworker and two artifacts in hand = infinite mana, which is pretty easy to assemble, and Metalworker is just a house on it's own. Voltaic Construct can also count for towards Emrakrul's casting cost in the graveyard...

Ultimately, I would like to include any of these copy-an-ability cards, if not all of them, but when I have, it just feels bad to have them sitting around doing nothing. Also, I kind of don't really need to copy abilities like that, as it turns out. I've found this deck to be pretty strong, and copying abilities often seems kind of win-more and win-less at the same time. Copying doesn't always make as big of an effect as it might seem... although copying a Planar Bridge ability could put two combo pieces in, the Bridge can also chain out anyways that with Clock of Omens, which is also a really powerful card, even though it also fits into the "doesn't really do anything on it's own" category, but I think is still better than any of the afore mentioned cards ...

I haven't included Voltaic Key either, for the same reasons basically, although I think this is really a card that should be in here. I guess I've also partly not included Rings of Brighthearth because I haven't included Voltaic Key either. I would put the Key in before the Rings, but I'm still not sure about the Rings. I think I decided to include Unwinding Clock instead of Voltaic Key, because, even though it's more expensive, it is really really REALLY powerful!!! With Liberator, Urza's Battlethopter and mana rocks, this mimics Prophet of Kruphix, which I think is rightfully banned becuase it's way too powerful for one card...

The Top trick with the Rings is cool, and more card draw is definitely welcome in this deck. This combo ultimately reads, ": Draw a card", but... I guess I've just come to the conclusion that there are already kind of a lot of "doesn't do anything on it's own" cards in here, so I've had to really pick the most powerful ones, and I guess I feel like the Rings just aren't powerful enough even when they do work, as they can only be activated once per ability. Clock of Omens, for example, can untap something a bunch of times, effectively "copying" abilities by just untapping something and activating it again. Also, Sensei's Divining Top + Jhoira's Familiar and Mystic Forge combo to draw the deck out for no mana once assembled, and these two cards are powerful on their own.

I like Wayfarer's Bauble a lot, and still want to include it. I think it is ultimately much better than Wanderer's Twig and Traveler's Amulet, which are both admittedly kind of bad cards.
The only reason I really include these at all is to get an artifact in the graveyard for Emrakrul's mana cost reduction, and to ensure land drops. Notably, multiple cards of one type still only count for , so often times it's redundant anyways. I think the reason I kept the Twig and Amulet in instead of Wayfarer's Bauble, is I kind of see the Bauble as a mana rock that adds but costs, which I do not think is acceptable. The only rock that cost and makes which is included is The Celestus because it also has card draw attached to it, and it can be tutored for with Moonsilver Key, for the card draw.

Even though the Twig and Bauble aren't technically ramp, they do help ensure a land drop every turn, which is think is important. There's already 36 lands in the deck, which is a lot for how many mana rocks are included, but I really want a land drop every turn if I can help it. I've tried to minimize high mana cost cards, even though there's so much mana in here, because it's still possible to get mana screwed if you have just a bunch of expensive cards in hand and not enought mana! Technically there's 38 lands in here currently, but I've put Eye of Ugin and City of Traitors in their own "Special" category, as I consider them to act more like artifacts then lands, as they don't always do what just a land that taps for mana does. They're unreliable for just basic mana, I guess. I'm thinking of putting Temple of the False God in, and I would also include this in the "Special" category for the same reason, being that it can't always be relied upon for mana like a regular land...

The most recent addition has been The Irencrag, which I myself think is funny to fit in over any of these other cards, but the consistency of early ramp is too important. Assuming that mana rocks will continued to be printed, I wonder what the limit to include will be! I actually took out Foundry Inspector to do this, which I don't like doing, and I might try to fit the Inspector in again first. But I think Karn, Legacy Reforged is on the top of the list for inclusions. Even though the mana he makes can't be used to cast Eldrazi, he'll be a huge beater, and will help cast and activate all those expensive artifacts.

My ideas are just what I've found to work playing the deck, and are by no means like, the way the deck should be built though!

Thanks for the comment!!! Very relevant, and totally valid. I will definitely try to fit Voltaic Key in again though, and reconsider Rings of Brighthearth, but actually I'll try Manifold Key first!

I hope that provided some interesting insight into my cards choices...

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