Sower of Temptation

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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
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Sower of Temptation

Creature — Faerie Wizard

Flying

When Sower of Temptation enters the battlefield, gain control of target creature as long as Sower of Temptation remains on the battlefield.

DreadKhan on Please help me improve my …

10 months ago

If you like stealing creatures and have access to Blink Thassa, you might like Callous Oppressor. I'd also look at Helm of Possession for the same reasons. TBH I think I'd run Sower of Temptation over Gilded Drake with your Commander (Drake is a great card, but at least if you kill off Sower's creature you can just flicker Sower to get a new creature, at which point you can flicker Sower to steal something else), either way it's also worth a look.

If you're looking for ramp in Blue, I'm a fan of the usually clowned-on Dreamscape Artist, Myriad Landscape and Retraced Image, but I think it's probably a reasonable choice to run stuff like Arcane Signet/Fellwar Stone if you're struggling to get your ramp numbers high enough. A sneaky trick I heard about from The Command Zone (it's a Youtube EDH channel) is that you can use creature lands like Mishra's Factory or Faerie Conclave as a form of Blue ramp if you can copy them when they are creatures, Magic has few issues with cloning/copying lands if they are also creatures. Another unusual form of 'ramp' is to use the odd card like Walking Atlas to cheat extra lands in, but you probably would want a few more lands or card draw.

As one-off theft effects go, I find Bribery, Inevitable Betrayal and Cultural Exchange to all be pretty solid, Exchange does want you to have token generators, but Blue isn't bad at making small tokens. Bribery effects can be a LOT bigger than a theft effect, so Betrayal is deceptively powerful vs the right type of deck, but most decks have a few really strong creatures at least, and you should have multiple opponents to choose from.

It's not a Theft effect, but Rite of Replication is hilarious in practice, getting a single copy for 4 is pretty much market rate, getting 5 copies for 9 is crazy when it happens.

DreadKhan on The Quackening

1 year ago

I have a Quest for Ula's Temple deck which does some similar things, I liked Dreamscape Artist because it can reshuffle your library as needed, incase you don't have a relevant creature to work with on top. It's technically only 1 mana and a card to Harrow (you get back 2 untapped lands, so it can also helping mana fixing) Blue, and I could be wrong but I think your Commander wants the odd Discard outlet too. A worse (but still potentially useful) piece of Blue ramp is Apprentice Wizard, it's not as good as Dreamscape, it's like Worn Powerstone, which is a good rock if you want bigger ramp to potentially cast a big creature a bit sooner. Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus are big ramp rocks with decent ratios. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers are pretty good together, if you have a lot of devotion to a colour Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can help, Deserted Temple can untap any land that makes extra mana. Less rampy and more of a big Scry effect, Soothsaying is a neat card if you care about your deck order. Scroll Rack is better but costs more.

Just a general idea, you might throw in things like Reconnaissance Mission, Bident of Thassa, and Coastal Piracy along with some Unblockable or Shadow creatures (Thalakos and Dauthi are the Blue and Black tribes). You can also throw in stuff like Sword of the Animist, Dowsing Dagger  Flip, Prying Blade, Goldvein Pick, Grim Hireling, and any other attack payoffs you can find to generate more value over time. I understand you want a sea-monster theme, but you might want a way to draw some cards/get in some chip damage to soften people up. The only drawback to Shadows is that they can't chump block. If you really want your evasive creatures to be able to chump, there are some small flyers like Spectral Sailor and Thousand-Faced Shadow that have other upsides, these are risk free but are way less evasive than Shadows.

On that note, if you're worried about getting attacked you might look at Propaganda, War Tax, Flood, and Fatespinner are all great ways to make you hard to attack. Mass Diminish, Polymorphist's Jest, Sudden Spoiling, AEtherize, Aetherspouts are all great cards for people to fear.

Callous Oppressor is a funny repeatable theft effect, Ritual of the Machine and Helm of Possession can both steal stuff and are great with tokens, Thieving Skydiver can steal an artifact creature fwiw, Sower of Temptation is a so-so theft effect that shines bright if you can flicker or bounce it, Thalakos Deceiver is probably way better since he permanently steals whatever and can be reanimated, Inevitable Betrayal and Bribery are both pretty sweet.

The biggest (and perhaps best) theft effects are Mass Manipulation and Cultural Exchange, exchange requires bodies but can also be used aggressively to just ruin two players' boards.

Inkwell Leviathan, Lochmere Serpent, Spawning Kraken, Stormtide Leviathan, and Wrexial, the Risen Deep are some relevant creatures I use, some are better than others but there is nothing as bad as Sea Serpent or Bog Serpent, both cards I love but don't use.

If you like Whelming Wave, you might like Spectral Deluge as well.

Hope some of this helps, Big Dimir is a fun deck!

keizerbuns on Sea of Attrition [Physical] [Beta]

1 year ago

This is a very cool concept, however it seems a little scattered. With lifegain, mill, tokens, tap/bounce control, stat manipulation, and creature stealing, it seems like your deck is being pulled in too many different directions without enough focus on any one thing in particular to give it a clear identity. Mill especially is kind of an all or nothing strategy that requires the entire deck to be built around it in order to work. Unless you have a really good mill/graveyard payoff to justify splashing in some mill spells, milling your opponent for just a few cards here and there won’t do anything except take up slots in your deck.

The best advice I think I could give you, and probably the same advice most other people will give you too, is to find your favourite element or two of the deck, and make that the focus. However, if you don’t want to do that, and you do want to keep the deck as a little bit of everything, I do have some suggestions that I think you might like.

My first suggestion would be to replace Dreadwaters with a lower CMC mill spell, because spending 4 mana to make one opponent mill for what I assume averages to be around 4-6 cards isn't a great rate. For just 2 mana you could use Maddening Cacophony and make each opponent mill 8 cards, and for an extra 4 you could make them mill half of their decks. You could also replace a couple of Islands with a couple copies of Ipnu Rivulet for some added milling consistency, although activating its mill ability would cause you to lose a land.

Talrand's Invocation also suffers from the same issue as Dreadwaters of just being too mana intensive for such a small effect. Paying 4 mana just to get 2 2/2 flyers is a little slow. I think Murmuring Mystic would suit you better as a long term token generator.

Ichthyomorphosis and Time of Ice both kind of get in the way of your plan to steal your opponent's creatures. Ichthyomorphosis turns your opponent's creatures into something not worth stealing and Time of Ice could potentially cause a creature you just stole from your opponent to be sent back to their hand. Instead of using Time of Ice to tap your opponents creatures, you could use an instant or a sorcery such as Downpour, Impede Momentum, Choking Tethers, or Sleep to achieve the same result. And instead of Ichthyomorphosis to permanently turn your opponents creatures into something small, you could use Turn to Frog which you can use to catch your opponents by surprise during the combat stage. Swapping both Ichthyomorphosis and Time of Ice for instants and sorceries would also synergize great with Murmuring Mystic to spam tokens.

You could replace Staff of the Mind Magus with Diamond Mare, which is admittedly a weaker life gain spell since it can't gain life off of your lands entering the battlefield, plus it's more susceptible to removal. However it is a cheaper CMC card and another creature to beat your opponents down with.

I think Niblis of Frost is better than Dragon Turtle at keeping your opponent's creatures tapped if you go with the previously mentioned replacements for Ichthyomorphosis and Time of Ice, plus with the Prowess ability, it can get pretty big with all of the instants and sorceries. And Sower of Temptation is a lower CMC version of Mind Flayer.

I also realized as I was looking back through my suggestions, that if you do end up going with all of them, then that would mean your deck would meet the deck requirements to add Gyruda, Doom of Depths as a companion, which would serve as a pretty good payoff for your mill cards!

Hopefully this was helpful!

DreadKhan on A Vast Network of Spies

1 year ago

I'm going to suggest a few evasive creatures I use in decks that care about that feature, they're generally higher MV, which I gather is an asset to you! Hope they're not too high budget for your plan! Thieving Skydiver is an evasive creature that can steal a mana rock or Sword, it can even scale up from there. Another I truly love is Sower of Temptation, which steals a body until it dies. If the stolen creature dies you can maybe flicker it (you can also upgrade what it's stolen that way), but it's also a 2/2 flyer. Not necessarily good enough (but strong enough that I feel they're worth a look), Thalakos Deceiver can steal a creature if there is something worrisome (and it's just an evasive 1/1 if not), Thalakos Dreamsower can lock down a problem creature (less useful if people are big on Haste or Craterhoof, very good if they don't), and Thousand-Faced Shadow can copy a creature while offering an evasive attacker in a pinch.

I like Sporefrog a lot, I even run it alongside Dawnstrider in a Meren deck that tends to get targeted. You can easily afford to discard the card in Edric, and the ability can happen each turn.

Edric is a cool deck, interesting choice to build on a budget!

multimedia on Muldrotha: Budget Elemental Tribe!

1 year ago

Hey, it sucks when opponents gang up on you, Disk and Deed unfortunately have that negative effect. At least you got to see Urza eliminated before you lost :)

If playing Disk and Deed then think of everything else in your deck as expendable, doesn't matter if all your stuff dies because all opponents will too. Muldrotha gives you this flexibility and by adding totem armor effects then Muldrotha can be saved from Disk or Deed if she's enchanted before they pop.

You're slowly removing Elementals making your deck Elementals in flavor, but not much else for the tribe or game play. Risen Reef is the only reason here be Elemental tribal and while it's a good card, it's not good enough to stick to Elementals.

  • Cavalier of Night, Cavalier of Gales, Cavalier of Thorns
  • Risen Reef
  • Mulldrifter, Foundation Breaker, Shriekmaw

These Elementals are good because for what they do there's not other better budget cards that are not an Elemental that could replace them. Playing an Elemental because it's an Elemental instead of a better budget card is not worth it when you don't have much Elemental tribal synergy. Some examples:

Sac outlets are how you can abuse Muldrotha ability with creatures, casting the same creature from your graveyard over many turns. Sac outlets can do more for Muldrotha strategy then some Elementals.


If you're against Eldrazi Titans then consider an exile creature effect because indestructible doesn't stop it and the Titan is gone for good, doesn't ever enter the graveyard after it's removed.

These are three options, Tear is best because kicked it can exile any nonland permanent. Resculpt and Shift are only two mana to exile a creature. The drawback of your opponent getting a creature afterwards is minimal because you'll be removing something much better. Pair any of these instants with Eternal Witness for a repeatable effect with Muldrotha. Either one of these could replace Return to Nature?

Another budget way to deal with an Eldrazi Titan is to it steal from your opponent and then wreck that player with annihilator. Steal a player's Commander and keep control it until Sower is removed. Stealing Sheoldred can be nasty since reanimation is quite good with Muldrotha. Sower is better because with any sac outlet that can sac a creature you can sac your opponent's creature you stole, it dies goes back to that player's graveyard or Command Zone and then you can sac Sower to repeat with Muldrotha. Sower could replace Forgotten Ancient?

Fauna adds a creature toolbox repeatable effect that can also fuel graveyard strategies for Muldrotha. The toolbox can be helpful because you have several creatures who are much better than the others. Fuana is also good with Wonder and Brawn as creatures to discard who want to be in your graveyard. Fauna could replace Icon of Ancestry?

Really consider cutting some basic Forests for more budget dual lands that have interaction with Forests or lots of basic lands? The allied Check lands have been reprinted in latest set Dominaria Remastered, now is the best time to get them since each are down to less than $4.

DreadKhan on unthinkable apocalypse

1 year ago

There is Kaervek the Merciless, this might work well with your fairly high MV. Also with the higher MV, you could look at Protection Racket, which is mostly a problem if your deck cares about specific cards, as long as your deck is just a bunch of cards that are all good together it's one of the best cards in Black, it can draw you more cards than Rhystic Study in some metas, or just drain everyone of life if they're really, really responsible and always pay. Finally, Timesifter is hilarious if your opponents have a deck with a noticeably lower MV, or a lot of lands compared to you. You could toss in some really high MV spells like Blasphemous Act and/or Reckless Endeavor, wipes are handy I find, even in a deck that usually is ahead, sometimes you face a faster deck, or a deck that has one sided wipes. I think if your MV is over 3.75 you probably could look at all but Timesifter, for that you might want to go even higher. Another way to raise your average MV is MDFs like Hagra Mauling  Flip, as a spell you would never run it, but in place of a land it is both versatile and has it's MV for any effect that cares about it, the only question is if you can afford a tapped land (or want to pay for the Mythics, can enter untapped in a pinch). Some of these cards are just incredible value IMHO, like Valakut Awakening  Flip, but some seem bad, afaik the best way to rate these is to consider if the effect is valuable period in Commander (is it worth a card in theory), not to worry as much about the cost because the alternative of hitting a land drop is almost never a terrible thing.

If you run a lot of creatures, I like Court of Cunning and Court of Ambition, both are annoying cards that can also draw you cards, and Cunning is a great source of repeated mill vs something like Glimpse. Also if you run a lot of creatures, Bident of Thassa is perhaps the best non-Frostfang version of this effect, the forced attack can be backbreaking to some decks. Another decent one is Reconnaissance Mission, the worst of the lot is Coastal Piracy. Grim Hireling and Professional Face-Breaker are also nice cards. Thalakos Deceiver and Thalakos Dreamsower are nice Blue Shadows, Dauthi Voidwalker is a really good Black one, each of these is really hard to block and comes with a substantial upside. It's a bit janky in Commander, but Sower of Temptation isn't a terrible card, you just can't count on stealing anything too game breaking, as long as you steal something not worth spending another card on you'll get an evasive 2/2 that can sneak damage in for triggers.

If you want a one-sided nearly-Wrath, you might consider Make an Example or Phyrexian Purge. Example is able to pinpoint remove the best creature of each opponent, by any metric, and it's almost impossible to get around with present day cards (it's a chosen, not targeted sacrifice effect), while Purge lets you clear out the best 4 or 5 creatures so you can just take over, Purge likes having access to some life gain, it's especially good with something like Sangromancer, but if you want life gain in Grixis it's hard to do better than Exquisite Blood, but I'm almost never unhappy with Mask of Griselbrand, I think that card is slept on somewhat in Commander.

If you do go with Kraum or some other beefy Commander for your deck, Agitator Ant is a pretty strong card, but you either need the biggest thing on board already or to be able to remove stuff as needed. Kraum having evasion means you'll usually be able to get in against someone, so +2 power is great, and you being Goaded wears off before your next attack step anyways, so it only matters if someone steals it I guess (at which point it can't attack you I suppose??), Agitator Ant also works with any super-evasive creatures, so if your deck has lots of Flying or Shadow it

Hope some of these ideas are helpful!

nbarry223 on Viga-BOOM! (better mana)

1 year ago

This is the best I could come up with. Bring to Light is a little awkward game 1, but in games 2/3 when I can find a silver bullet of some kind, it is much better. I wish it worked with Mosswort Bridge, but we can't have everything. I ended up cutting Karn's Sylex + Chalice of the Void to make space for the "Bring to Light silver bullets" as they were my two weakest links in the sideboard.

Surprisingly, with Threats Undetected I've found myself going for:

Elvish Reclaimer
Omnath, Locus of Creation
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
Primeval Titan

instead of Cultivator Colossus in a lot of situations, since Elvish Reclaimer almost always manafixes me into Omnath, Locus of Creation with something like Boros Garrison when I know they are going to avoid Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Primeval Titan.

Honestly, I think I am trying to accomplish too much and should pick Bring to Light or Threats Undetected to run, but I like the idea of both and they have decent enough synergy with the other cards I need to include.

I did come up with some other "options" for Bring to Light, the best of which is The Gitrog Monster, followed closely by Nicol Bolas, the Ravager  Flip (Phyrexian Obliterator + Arena or sneaky tech like Sower of Temptation being honorable mentions).

I'm a little lighter on basic Forests than I would like, so I'll probably end up cutting something to add them back in a little, as 2 is the bare minimum I am comfortable with.

I think Omnath, Locus of Creation with Threats Undetected or The Gitrog Monster with Bring to Light is the correct answer, but I'm going to keep trying to squeeze in both paths for now.

meecht on How does donating a creature …

1 year ago

I'm building an EDH deck for Jon Irenicus, Shattered One and I want to make sure I understand how donation and mind control effects interact.

Situation A: I use Sower of Temptation to steal a creature from Player A.
1. If I use Jon's ability to donate the creature to Player B then Sower leaves the battlefield, does Player A get their creature back?
2. If I donate both Sower and the effected creature to Player B, then Sower leaves the battlefield, does Player A get their creature back?

Situation B: I use Reins of Power to trade creatures with Player C.
1. If I donate one of the creatures to Player A, does Player C get their creature back at the end of turn?

Situation C: I use Shield Broker to steal a creature from Player B.
1. If I donate the creature to Player C who then removes the shield counter, does Player B get their creature back?

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