Aggressive Mining

Enchantment

You can't play lands.

Sacrifice a land: Draw two cards. Activate this ability only once each turn.

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
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

SteelSentry on Bad gifts commanders

1 year ago

I've had a Zedruu deck for years, and there's 2 important deck building things I've learned about her specifically:

1) Like an ordinary control deck, staying alive is the primary game plan. Pack more removal than normal, especially synergistic cards like Grasp of Fate that you can give away later. Incidental life gain is also really good; sometimes her life gain is more powerful than her card draw.

2) I only pack gifts that won't shut me down if I'm stuck with them: no Aggressive Mining which will just end up killing me when Zedruu is killed in response. Fires of Invention is a great card, especially when you give it to the Storm or Counterspell player. Statecraft is a good wall that keeps alpha strikes in check when you can threaten to hand it off. My favorite wincon, Delaying Shield, often puts people in a position where any attacks coming at me suddenly allow me to delete a player if I feel like it, as well as some other niche upsides.

Of course, symmetrical effects and Auras are some of your best picks since it doesn't matter who controls them.

marco-piatti on Bad gifts commanders

1 year ago

Hello everyone, I want your opinion on EDH decks based on commanders that are focused on giving "bad gifts" to your opponents. I think the most rapresentative of this category are (and maybe the only ones? I don't know for sure, wouldn't like to be missing someone): Blim, Comedic Genius, Lynde, Cheerful Tormentor and, of course, Zedruu the Greathearted.

I own a Blim deck and i must say that building around him was really complex because it's pretty clear you can't go easy on gifts since are the only weapon of the deck basically but, at the same time, once you start spreading your fantastic gifts, your opponents will start targeting you like crazy.

Since you can't restart the board every other turn (probably you could, but i don't think i could afford loosing my commander so often and there aren't enough asymmetrical boardwipes) and the deck can't be 50% removal (then again, technically it could be but the point of the deck is trying to win according to a specific strategy and not to just survive) other kind of precautions have to be made.

The first one that came into my mind are pillowfort cards like Crawlspace and Marchesa's Decree. They look good on paper, but after you have given an opponent an end stage Demonic Pact or "simply" an Aggressive Mining they are more then willingly to be paying 1 life for each attacking creature (and yes, sometimes the numerical restriction of Crawlspace isn't a factor either when an opponent can swing with huge creatures).

Another "solution" is using token generators like Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs since they give us the resource to block some creatures.

The last strategy to survive that came to my mind is filling the deck with "goad effects": this way our opponents' creatures can stay alive and are forced to attack the other players embracing the group slug theme i actually had in mind when building the deck.

Long story short, the deck has to be a delicate balance of all these strategies to be funcioning as it should and, at the same time, letting us survive till the endgame.

This is all in theory. In the actual games what's your experience when piloting/facing theese kind of decks? And what seem to be the most efficient tacticts?

thefiresoflurve on Staxdrop! (Snowdrop Vorthos Deck)

1 year ago

I just want to say that the Meekstone with vigilance is clever, I'm really intrigued to see that card used in something that isn't, like, Esper control (LOL).

One thing that jumps out at me is Kor Spiritdancer with only 8 auras in the entire deck. Usually, decks I see that use the spiritdancer have like... 20 auras or so.

Similarly, Glacial Crevasses (8) and Sram, Senior Edificer (9) also have relatively few cards that they actually interact with. Additionally, unless I missed one, none of your land tutors can actually find the mountains that Glacial Crevasses requires?

I get the feeling that the deck is trying to do too many things all at once, if that makes sense.

For the draw issue...

Magus of the Wheel and Wheel of Fate would be good cards to help, although the latter requires a bit of planning/foresight. Aerial Extortionist could work, too, since it also triggers when commanders are cast, and says "Whenever" with no X-per-turn restriction. Aggressive Mining would help you lean into the asymmetrical lands thing, but I wouldn't run it with fewer than 36 land. Battle Angels of Tyr are a bit more on the expensive side, but also great.

lagotripha on Grixis Cat Pact

2 years ago

Going into grixis without fetches needs a little tweaking to be reliable - missing your mana is a major issue. You have the card selection to help offset it, but a few tweaks would really help things, even on a serious budget.

Try to plan for the mana you need, right now its blue/red/black straight from the start. If instead you always needed blue turn one, blue turn two, then eventually black or red, you could plan your manabase to reflect that, with more blue lands then fixing for the final part. Its sometimes worth using 'worse spells' and delaying wincons just for the sake of easing mana concerns.

If you only ever need to cast 1 non black spell, Aether Hub is almost a perfect land. Field of Ruin is cheap hate that lets you do something when your mana is off that also fixes your mana. You won't be able to run more than three or so utility lands without making your mana even worse, but this one is worth it.

Mirrodin's Core is fine if you are happy taking a turn off, or playing at instant speed (like with say, blue cantrips and counterspells), while also being a second mana for Mana Leak etc.

This is the next part of the plan ;'pseudo' fixing - if you see a land of the right colour and put it in your hand, thats almost the same.

The rule of thumb is that for every 2 Serum Visions/Opt type 1 mana cantrip, you can cut a land. If you combine this with the earlier idea about planning your lands, you can go to mostly islands and dip into other colours later in the game far easier.

Finally, pact/harmless is a combo, which has a few other options - Aggressive Mining does a lot by giving backup combo options all in red, while some of the traditional combo setups are also ramp/fixing - I love Pentad Prism wherever a deck might go 'I pay 7 mana to win'. If you have a little artifact synergy, Chromatic Star, Sphere of the Suns or Prismatic Lens can work.

The rest is testing and experimenting. Good luck!

Liam77 on Zedru Semo Optimised

2 years ago

Nice big Update:

Minds Aglow, Aggressive Mining, Jeskai Banner, Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Terminus, Jinxed Idol, Island Sanctuary, Delusions of Mediocrity, Crown of Doom and Psychosis Crawler

For:

Narset, Parter of Veils, Imprisoned in the Moon, Land Tax, Niv-Mizzet, Parun, Day of Judgment, Mystical Tutor, Solitary Confinement, Transcendence, Gamble, and Alhammarret's Archive

Lands Swap: Meandering River, Izzet Guildgate, Wind-Scarred Crag, Tranquil Cove, Swiftwater Cliffs, Terramorphic Expanse, Evolving Wilds, Temple of Triumph, Vivid Creek

For: Hallowed Fountain, Steam Vents, Clifftop Retreat, Sea of Clouds, Frostboil Snarl, Fabled Passage, Hall of Heliod's Generosity, Arid Mesa, Command Beacon

zapyourtumor on Jinx time!!!

2 years ago

It feels like you're trying to do too many things here: 1) trying to give your opponent Jinxed stuff with Bazaar and Offering, 2) trying to make opponent's stuff into artifacts with Liquimetal Coating and blowing it up with artifact destruction, and 3) trying to assemble tron with Expedition Map. And then there's some Confusion in the Ranks , which, well, makes the deck even more confusing.

I'd cut the tron lands and Expedition map altogether, since having tron isn't worth it unless you have 7+ mana value colorless spells to cast off of it. Then I'd either focus on the "give opponents greek gifts" theme or the "turn opponents stuff into artifacts and blow it up" theme. If you choose the first there are a lot of funny ones like Aggressive Mining and Steel Golem . For the second there's Liquimetal Torque .

Note: Reroute doesn't work with any of the "target opponent" things since there's only one opponent to target. Not sure why it's in the deck.

KongMing on Land of Confusion

3 years ago

This deck is a beautiful thing. It already seems tight, but I'll make a couple recommendations anyhow.

Aggressive Mining and Experimental Frenzy might be usuable options, depending on the opponent. Perhaps sideboard material.

Argy on Goad effects

3 years ago

The OP might have a cunning plan that we can't see.

I know that I once built a deck that used Aggressive Mining to good effect.