Abrupt Decay
Set Price Alerts

Combos Browse all Suggest

Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander 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
Pioneer Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vintage Legal

Abrupt Decay

Instant

This spell can't be countered.

Destroy target nonland permanent with converted mana cost / mana value 3 or less.

Ardees on Gates? Nine Fingers Keene Competitive

1 month ago

If you are aiming at 'competitive' in the technical sense of the term (as in 'cEDH' or 'competitive EDH'), like the title seems to suggest, I see many staples missing that unfortunately make the deck quite far from being competitive.

Artifacts: you should be running at least Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Mana Vault, Jeweled Lotus, maybe even Grim Monolith and Lion's Eye Diamond.,

Tutors: you are missing Vampiric Tutor, Imperial Seal, and Worldly Tutor and Green Sun's Zenith if you run any combo, win, or strategy whatsoever based on creatures. You could also add Wishclaw Talisman and Solve the Equation, and, although not a tutor, Peer into the Abyss, which works quite nicely with Thought Vessel.

Lands: any competitive deck plays true duals, namely Underground Sea, Bayou, and Tropical Island. Same for shocklands and at least 6-7 fetchlands in a 3-color deck like this one. You could also consider lower the number of lands, depending on whether or not you want to keep the Gate strategy

Protection: any competitive deck that plays blue automatically plays top-end counterspells, namely Swan Song, Arcane Denial, Force of Will, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, Fierce Guardianship, Mental Misstep, An Offer You Can't Refuse, and Flusterstorm. You are also missing key cards like Cyclonic Rift or Chain of Vapor. Needless to say, ideally a competitive deck playing blue also plays Timetwister: not a counterspell but a must card (yeah, the price is another topic of conversation).

Creatures: I understand the Gate theme but you are missing some high-value creature cards in here, most notably Dauthi Voidwalker, Malevolent Hermit  Flip, Lotus Cobra, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, Tatyova, Benthic Druid, Ramunap Excavator, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove, Oracle of Mul Daya, Elvish Reclaimer - to name a few. Much depends on the strategy of your deck, although don't let keywords aligned with your strategy (e.g. 'Gate') fool you into thinking some cards are good for that.

Enchantments: a few staples in the current competitive meta: Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, Sylvan Library, Burgeoning, Exploration, maybe Abundance and Necropotence

Removals: you could most definitely swap some of your removals for something better and more competitive, such as Force of Vigor, Nature's Claim, Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, and more.

Now, I totally understand there is a budget situation going on with upgrading to competitive MtG (spoiler alert: MtG is a pay-to-win type of game, research confirms), but generally the term 'competitive' sticks to decks that, to the very least, include most if not all cards mentioned above - without mentioning the fact that any competitive deck needs running at least one winning combo. At this stage, your level is more looking towards casual. This isn't to criticize you or anything of course, pretty interesting build, just not really a competitive deck in its strict sense.

If you want to try the competitive experience, my suggestion is to proxy cards by printing them online - this should cost around 10 bucks on colored and good quality paper, and effectively save you more than 7k worth of cards.

legendofa on

3 months ago

Welcome to the club, JHM921!

For this deck, I see a focus on getting Sarevok, Deathbringer as big as possible, but I also see some bits and pieces that I think can be switched out. Cards like Butcher of Malakir and Grave Betrayal would work better in a more graveyard-focused deck than what I think this deck wants to be. There's some ramp and mana modification, with Nature's Lore, Sakura-Tribe Elder, and similar cards, but I think some more early cards like Elves of Deep Shadow, Golgari Signet, and Elvish Mystic would help accelerate early game into mid game.

Virus Beetle, Ravenous Rats, and Festering Mummy are all kind of underwhelming in this deck. If you want to force discard, you either want to affect every opponent or choose the discard yourself, and Festering Mummy just has too small of an effect that the deck doesn't really have ways to capitalize on. I recommend adding some more targeted permanent destruction. Depending on how much money you're willing to spend, Nature's Claim, Maelstrom Pulse, Abrupt Decay, and Assassin's Trophy are all viable.

Since your commander is a big part of your win condition, you need to be able to protect it. Regenerate effects like Golgari Charm or Wrap in Vigor, indestructibility from Tamiyo's Safekeeping or Heroic Intervention, or simple unkillable-ness from Supernatural Stamina or Undying Malice will help keep Sarevok fresh and deathbringing.

Look through your deck, and for each card, ask yourself, "Why is this card in here? Does it advance my win condition? Does it remove an opponent's specific threat or problem? Does it protect my board?" If the answer to any of these is no, then it can probably be replaced with something more directed to this particular deck.

For some more specific suggestions, I assume Cloak of the Bat is to make Sarevok harder to block. I would switch that for something like Whispersilk Cloak. You don't have a solid Vampire base for Indulgent Aristocrat, and the Vampires you do have don't contribute much to your winning strategy, so I would save the Vampires for another deck.

I think if you tighten up the focus, this deck will become very solid. Happy brewing, and above all, have fun!

wallisface on Golgari attempt one

3 months ago

Some thoughts:

  • Generally speaking you want to aim for most of your deck to be playsets (4-ofs) of cards. Having lots of cards run only as 1-of and 2-of copies will only lead to your deck being super inconsistent, and make it a lot harder to present a coherent plan.

  • Modern decks typically find it hard to justify running more than 4 cards (1 playset) costing 4 mana, and often run nothing above this. I think in particular you're going to really struggle to ever cast Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider or Avabruck Caretaker  Flip in a game and have them provide some kind of meaningful impact. I'd suggest ditching them.

  • Some of your cards are too situational to ever be practically useful in a decks mainboard. In particular i'd suggest ditching Fade into Antiquity (too niche), Tamiyo's Safekeeping (too narrow an application, you have loads of creatures so who cares if one dies?), Coalition Relic (this thing costs too much mana to begin with, by the time you can cast it you're already got enough mana to do most things anyway), and Wrenn and Seven (you don't run nearly enough lands to make use of this, plus its not really what your deck wants to do).

  • Golgari decks (known as "The Rock") thrive off attrition style play. In that vein, you may want to consider adding hand disruption cards (like Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize), as well as some universally good destruction cards (like Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy)

Andramalech on MBD Zombie

3 months ago

Balaam__ I agree about building towards a goal that is non-traditional:

Building to win is so Spike, and I wanna win like Timmy or Johnny. I personally think this deck is more Johnny because at first glance.. you might miss some of these key interactions!

I.e.: things like how Zombie Infestation makes bodies that can be tossed for Scourge of Nel Toth, and then replenish your hand with Shadow of the Grave.

Boneyard Scourge is a cool card, but admittedly it isn't eternal format legal... that doesn't mean I won't use his happy ass anyways!

As far as "going second" as a precedent, I would think things like Serum Powder could help do a thing.. I even really like the idea of "going second" but having a strong "turn zero" presence to throw off your opponents (things like the Leylines or Chancellors).

Unfortunately, in competitive settings we both know it's gonna be typical "lame"/boring stuff like:

You splashed blue:

Or you splashed white:

Or, my personal favorite, if you splash green, you can have access to all my favorite removal, Graveyard staples, etc.:

And I wouldn't leave feedback about "How to" without covering the obvious ones, or at least some cards that immediately cross my mind for improvements:

There is a piece of my heart that wishes older Zombies had a more dangerous presence for this, like (I think) Lord of the Undead or Undead Warchief. Even a little slot for Soulless One.

Hell, I've even considered taking this theme to an EDH setting due to a video I saw of Jimmy Wong on Game Nights where he uses Asmoranomardicadaistinaculdacar as a psuedo-reanimator type build. With the inclusion of , I would especially love to use Bladewing the Risen or his newest iteration from Dominaria United. Initially, what I remembered wanting was "Zombies and Zombie Dragons".

And if we're mentioning that new set, Defiler of Flesh makes this blow up too. So many great "The Rot of the Horde" feeling cards that feed a sensation of an overwhelming wave of Undead minions!

Things like Abomination of Llanowar in a build would also be fun.

Really enjoyed our discussion about this and I'm really curious to see if/what kinda spin you would put on it!

Andramalech on MBD Zombie

3 months ago

Balaam__ I agree about building towards a goal that is non-traditional:

Building to win is so Spike, and I wanna win like Timmy or Johnny. I personally think this deck is more Johnny because at first glance.. you might miss some of these key interactions!

I.e.: things like how Zombie Infestation makes bodies that can be tossed for Scourge of Nel Toth, and then replenish your hand with Shadow of the Grave.

Boneyard Scourge is a cool card, but admittedly it isn't eternal format legal... that doesn't mean I won't use his happy ass anyways!

Rebullet on Counter Deck

3 months ago

yea Fabled Passage is fantastic. now looking at your lands it is much better, you are hard pressed to have a dead land in the beginning as long as you draw more than 1 in the opening hand. though you are running 5 cost creatures and you average mana cost is relatively high i would not go below 23 lands as a rule unless my avg mana cost was below 2.0. your avg mana cost is currently 2.64. there are some things that you can finagle to make lower lands work like cost reducers and mana ramp, but your deck really needs lands and neither of those options fix the issue so i would say cut some things.

second thing. other than lands your non creature cards are unfocused and detrimental. you have too many situational cards that can be dead cards in many matchups. when putting in cards to deal with matchups you want to put things that deal with many things effectively in the mainboard and efficient things that deal with specific decks in the sideboard. you also want to avoid putting too much instant interaction into a creature based deck. doing so can split your focus, sometimes you will have too many instants and no creatures making it so you can only play defensive. you should focus your mainboard to your strategy only and have only a few cards to deal with threats. 4 assassins trophies is more than enough. usually in games getting a single permanent removed is the difference between a win and a loss. you want to focus on putting as many threats onto the board as possible instead of worrying what your opponent has out. in this sense Cremate, Thoughtseize, Gaea's Blessing are purely detrimental to you in the mainboard. cards like Oblivion's Hunger and Inspiring Call do nothing to advance your board state and rely on you having a sufficient board state to function correctly. if you have no creatures out then they are dead cards. Abrupt Decay is really good but you want to cut down on things that do not progress your own board state, same thing with Riveteers Charm. Assassin's Trophy is the most efficient and versatile removal you have access to so you should focus that card and leave the others out.

now on to domri. you only ever want up to 2 legendary anything unless they are your main strategy for the deck or if they have value from being replaced. domri is neither. he is there for utility. this logic also applies for large costed creatures. if you have big mana cost things then you will likely draw more if you have more, making them dead draws until you have the ability to cast them. Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch and Kalonian Hydra are much to costly for an aggro deck to have 4 of them. you should cut them down to 1 or 2 so that your early game doesnt suffer.

now that i look at this closer you have nothing that "produces counters" for your creatures. all your creatures produce a set and then continue, the only one who really produces counters is Kalonian Hydra and that is very inefficent. your board without a kalonian hydra cannot grow beyond their own scope. you should look into putting in some counter producers like Hangarback Walker, Nissa, Voice of Zendikar, The Ozolith (kinda counts), Dreadhorde Butcher etc. things that have a way to continuously get counters without limiting it like with evolve.

DreadKhan on Meren (becoming) cEDH

4 months ago

What do you usually fetch out with Protean Hulk, and am I right in assuming that's usually how you win, dig out Hulk which digs out an infinite combo?

You might take a look at Dawntreader Elk and Diligent Farmhand, maybe Yavimaya Granger, as ways to ramp while generating XP. It's also nice that Meren can recur one of these if you've got nothing strictly better to be recurring, ramp and XP are generally a good thing that will let you do something bigger later.

It's not cheap, but Entomb is pretty helpful for cEDH Meren, as is Veil of Summer and perhaps Autumn's Veil, you want those two often to deal with the endless interaction. There is also Imp's Mischief to help out. In cEDH I think I'd want to run Culling Ritual, both for the big mana and to wipe out most permanents, people don't run a ton of high MV permanents, so even if it will hit some of your stuff it'll hit everyone else harder.

I would definitely cut Putrefy for something better, probably a creature that removes stuff like Plaguecrafter (there are quite a few that are slightly worse), I would even run a couple of these creatures, they are often a very good thing to recur with Meren. I would remove your other spell-based removal for stuff like that and use Caustic Caterpillar or Foundation Breaker, removal that you can repeat feels good when you're not using much/any mana to do it. You can probably run stuff like Abrupt Decay and Assassin's Trophy, they are among the best removal spells ever printed.

For some extra card draw, I like Grim Haruspex and Midnight Reaper, conveniently you can sac them to prevent decking yourself.

420MensRightsActivist on Counter Deck

4 months ago

i'm guessing you're new to modern or even mtg in general? 30 lands is far too many. 24 lands is enough to average 4 by turn 4, and if you have spells with a cost of 5+ you need mana ramp. a personal favorite sideboard card of mine is Return to Nature. good mainboard removal in jund colors would be things like Lightning Bolt, Terminate, Fatal Push, and Abrupt Decay.

Load more