Thought Monitor

Artifact Creature — Construct

Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs {1} less to cast for each artifact you control.)

Flying

When Thought Monitor enters the battlefield, draw two cards.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	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
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (40)

wallisface on Arcbound Scales

2 months ago

Some thoughts:

• your land count is very low, especially when you’re running 3 copies of a legendary land. For reference, the meta hardened scales runs around 24 lands and has an average mana-cost of only 1.5 (treating cards like Walking Ballista as worth {2}). You’ve only got 19 lands and your average mana-cost is a much higher 1.9 (assuming Thought Monitor and Thoughtcast only ever cost {U}).

• Shadowspear is generally only ever good because it can be grabbed with Urza's Saga - without Saga it’s much harder to justify.

• 4 mana is very steep, especially considering your land count, and I don’t see either Arcbound Crusher or Vannifar, Evolved Enigma doing nearly-enough to justify their cost.

• Fabricate feels very slow/clunky when Ancient Stirrings exists.

leon_bulminot on Animar Horde 4

3 months ago

GeminiSpartanX

I mostly kept Armillary because colorless. I contemplated Shard Convergence as a replacement but it didn't work out as well.

For Cultivate, I used to run Tempt with Discovery. I am actually pondering replacing Armillary with Sword of Hearth and Home. Land drop and bouncing. I'd like to get a reliable creature that searches each turn but I'm riding Armillary after readding to test. Then swap to Cultivate for games and see which feels better. I went for more mana filters for now, until I can really nail down which searchers I like and regularly use. The major part of why Cultivate got cut was I always drew it mainly mid game and by that point, animar is like 14 counters deep and Selvala is out. But cost wise, I did like the 3 mana early game.

I honestly didn't even know Roaming existed and being colorless means free summons with enough counters. I am REALLY liking Hormagaunt. Aberrant would bring back some sorely needed removal.

I am trying to figure out how to squeeze Muldrifter in. Or at even Thought Monitor.

All suggestions are awesome. Just need to figure out what's become a stale draw since the update!! But I think I know which card I can cut first for Aberrant. Rootpath Purifier was useful when i had more ramp in the deck. Now she sort of just sits in my hand.

DreadKhan on Tempered Steel/Starlight Spectacular

5 months ago

In my experience if you use this for multiplayer their is one key difference between Humiliator and Diminish; Diminish lasts an entire turn cycle (each player gets a turn with that player have 1/1s), while Humiliator only helps you. If you target someone with Mass Diminish (and you get 2 casts per copy due to Flashback) you will probably eliminate them due to everyone piling on the easy target, Humiliator is a much smaller effect, including letting the opponent attack on their own turn (instead of them still having 1/1s). If you're looking for something you could pull, I think Myr Sire might be your weakest link atm, especially with so few lands. Knight of the Kitchen Sink A is relatively hard to cast, needing WW could be awkward, but Knight is a more useful card than Sire. Another card that I think that's on the weak side is Servo Exhibition, hopefully this gives you some food for thought!

That seems reasonable enough, I must have misunderstood your previous post about Protection. If you're worried about Enchantments being targeted it's a bit harder to solve, there is Devoted Caretaker and Greater Auramancy, I'm not sure either would be worth it. Enchantments are much harder to protect than creatures because it's really easy to kill creatures, do you find your enchantments get targeted? My only other idea worth mentioning is Dispel, but you'd probably be better served by Thoughtcast and Thought Monitor to just draw into replacements for your Enchantments.

Rhyno52 on Manaless Affinity

8 months ago

greenweird i know what you mean Barricade Breaker is strong but you need at least two draws to hardcast him and most of the time you wont have enough artifacts in play for that. I may play him as 1 of just to tutor with sanctum.

Thought Monitor is super powerful but for manaless affinity its too dependant on colored mana and most of the time you wont have it. Zuran Orb seems like deadwight. it doesnt do mch other than gaining some life and eating away slots. iam more a fan of saccing three for a power 6 creature like Salvage Titan preferably turn one.

Scale of Chiss-Goria is indeed better than Tormod's Crypt but its also more expensive i could try to reduce my "free" artifact spell count but i feel like it would be too slow after that.

i ran a huge amount of goldfisch playtests with this deck and i found out i can kill on turn 4 about 60-70% of the time. Thats okayish. I would want it to be faster and sometimes i can get those turn 3 kills but its too rare for now. in this state i rarely have to go more than turn 5 to kill the goldfish.

greenweird on Manaless Affinity

8 months ago

I don't terribly like using Salvage Titan, since while it can be casted for free, it eats your affinities, preventing you to play Myr Enforcer and the likes if you later draws them, so I kept only one. I'm surprised yours neither have Scale of Chiss-Goria or Barricade Breaker, the former being a free artifact that's actually useful, and the latter being the thing you ideally curve out on during your turn 1 with the help of the ugin land. Vault Skirge looks funny, I might try that on my own deck. I'm also toying with having Thought Monitor and Power Depot in my deck, and possibly also Zuran Orb, but I haven't decided how I'm feeling with them.

Nemesis on Sharuum's Salvaged Strikeforce

8 months ago

Flawless Maneuver

Tezzeret, Betrayer of Flesh

Thoughtcast

Thought Monitor

Vedalken Archmage

Dimir Signet

Talisman of Dominance

Talisman of Hierarchy

Talisman of Progress

Icbrgr on Modern Horizons Light

8 months ago

I am curious if players would be interested in a Modern format which included cards that Modern horizons sets have retroactively made old standard cards legal into the format but excluded cards that were created out of the aether.

• Solitary Confinement

• Counterspell

• Braids, Cabal Minion

• Flame Rift

• Quirion Ranger

These would be example of cards that would be legal because they were previously existing cards that went through standard at some point.

• The One Ring

• Thought Monitor

• Solitude

• Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer

• Ignoble Hierarch

• Persist

would be examples of cards that would not be allowed because they never went through standard.

The follow-up question would be does Magic the Gathering have a preexisting cardpool that is not on the reserved list to create such a format and keep it healthy/diverse? And could this be done while keeping Modern and Legacy/vintage separate identities? In theory in such a format we would certainly lose Force of Negation but could possibly get access to Force of Will if it were to be printed or made legal.

Origins of My Intentions

I have always loved the idea of Modern because it was a non rotating format that I could find a home for both old and new cards... but at the same time I wasnt an active player/investor in the very beginnings of magic... I always felt gatekept from paper legacy play because I would never be able to in a fiscally responible way get access to all the tools available to me due to the reserved list... and I respect that for what it is.... for a longtime I felt gatekept from Entering Modern simply because of the price of Fetchlands and thank god they have been meaningfully reprinted so now are far more accesible.

But With Modern horizons it just feels sad knowing that Modern is ultimatly a soft rotating format based on the whims of whatever comes in the next Modern Horizons set....or some set like the Lord of the rings set whichj just comes into modern for some reason.

This is kinda what is pushing me towards Pioneer.... but I just cant help but feel frustrated.... Dont get me wrong I honestly don't hate Modern Horizons in its entirety I was really happy about getting access to old magic cards and that felt fun and cool to me...like a taste of getting into legacy or something.... but something about legacy I NEVER had interest in was random spinoff product entering the format.... Commander cards...Universes beyond cards... Planchase cards ect ect.

Currently the top 3 deck in Modern

• The One Ring Tron

• Crashing footfalls Cascade

• Rakdos Scam

DreadKhan on

11 months ago

Have you thought about using some 0 mana artifacts? Ornithopter will still have flying when they make it a creature. If you add Ornithopter, you could probably throw in Cranial Plating (it doesn't need Black, it just gets better with it), and that card also likes Vault Skirge, which sounds pretty sweet if you can make it big, it'll still have Flying and Lifelink. If you care about toughness a lot, there is also Nettlecyst, which I think just got a reprint. It's openly not very janky, but if you think you'll need cards there is also Thought Monitor, it's usually considered much better than Thoughtcast, but many want more than 4 of the effect.

Final thought, if you end up using 0 or 1 mana creatures, you can throw in stuff like Springleaf Drum or Moonsnare Prototype, some artifact decks use them for ramp.