Ambition's Cost

Sorcery

You draw three cards and you lose 3 life.

Discussion (50)

WhiteTrashMagic on Teysa Karlov’s Double D's

4 weeks ago

it seems to me that you could get better card draw with value if instead of Ancient Craving and Ambition's Cost you ran the ones like Village Rites , Altar's Reap , Costly Plunder , or Bankrupt in Blood

Nyxbloom_Ancient on Licia Bank of life

1 month ago

So here's what I'm noticing. The average converted mana cost in this deck is really high, and your deck will likely feel a bit sluggish because of it. You also aren't running a lot of ramp. I'd recommend cutting some higher CMC cards in place of signets or other sources of ramp. A few more card draw spells wouldn't hurt either, as it would just smooth out your experience running the deck. I'd personally recommend Ambition's Cost and Ancient Craving and other effects like it - it's efficient and you won't notice the life loss with this deck. Try it out, it should help. Happy brewing!! :)

multimedia on Fear the Swarm

1 month ago

Hey, nice budget version of Edgar.

You have the right idea with wanting to cast Vamps quick to take advantage of eminence, but the manabase also needs to match this strategy. There's too many lands that will always ETB tapped which reduces the consistency of casting Vamps quick. More dual lands that can ETB untapped would speed up game play.

Some budget land upgrades to consider:

• Caves of Koilos --> Forsaken Sanctuary
• Unclaimed Territory --> Gateway Plaza
• Exotic Orchard --> Idyllic Grange
• Battlefield Forge --> Stone Quarry
• Tainted Field --> Boros Guildgate
• Smoldering Marsh --> Cinder Barrens
• Ash Barrens --> Evolving Wilds
• Temple of Silence --> Akoum Refuge
• Temple of Triumph --> Bloodfell Caves

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Some other budget cards to consider adding:

• Knight of the Ebon Legion
• Forerunner of the Legion : Vamp tutor and it can repeatable pump
• Pact of the Serpent : from Kaldheim Commander and it's a powerful draw spell with Vamp tokens.
• Shadow Alley Denizen : repeatable evasion
• Rakish Heir : grows each Vamp who does combat damage to a player including itself.
• Necropolis Regent
• Etchings of the Chosen : anthem and can be repeatable protection for Vamps from board wipes by sacing tokens to protect nontoken Vamps.
• Scapegoat can save all nontoken Vamps from a board wipe by sacing one token and you get to cast the Vamps again to recover as well as trigger more eminence.
• Bloodline Pretender : it can get huge because it triggers whenever a Vamp token is created.
• Raise the Draugr : can recur two Vamps for two mana at instant speed.

Higher CMC Vamps as less needed because you have Edgar who's the six drop you want to cast more than the others, but Necropolis Regent is a budget second. Like Edgar, Regent is also good with a Vamp swam as well as with Edgar and other flying Vamps.

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Some cards to consider cutting:

• Price of Knowledge
• Sengir, the Dark Baron
• Crimson Honor Guard
• Arvad the Cursed
• Bishop of Binding
• Bloodbond Vampire
• Malakir Cullblade
• Disentomb
• Bone Splinters
• Ambition's Cost

Good luck with your deck.

Grind on Discarding with Windgrace

1 month ago

I would cut arcane encyclopedia in favor of Syphon Mind , Harmonize , Night's Whisper , or Ambition's Cost , or Rummaging Goblin .
And i might run Geier Reach Sanitarium over rix maadi.

DadHumanPraetor on Well Equipped Mardu Knights

2 months ago

Night's Whisper Ancient Craving Ambition's Cost Mask of Memory Sign in Blood Sevinne's Reclamation Wheel of Misfortune Magus of the Wheel Reforge the Soul

Grind on Athreos Aristoken

3 months ago

hey absolutely, happy to help!
i have a couple more thoughts if you are interested...
Orzhov Basilica and Command Tower could jump right into your manabase, those are good cards.

Looks like you have lots of effects that want to have creatures to sacrifice. this makes me want repeatable recursion, such as Phyrexian Reclamation and Reassembling Skeleton . personally I would run the skeleton over famished paladin - a vanilla 3/3 with a downside is not very appealing to me.
I would consider Generous Gift over high priest of penance... removal is good, but instant speed, non-conditional removal is better.
also twilight panther looks pretty underwhelming to me. I would run pretty much anything over it - card draw Syphon Mind or Ambition's Cost , ramp Commander's Sphere , Solemn Simulacrum , Gift of Estates , boardwipe like Crux of Fate or Fumigate .
the more commander you play, the more you will realise that 1-drop creatures that can only swing or block will probably have little impact on the game in a 4-player game with starting life total of 40. but drawing cards, ramping, and having removal that is better than 1-to-1 is almost always useful. sorry if i am telling you things you already know but just trying to help out!
cheers and have fun!!!

RinceRaven on Kaalia

4 months ago

suggestions right now are to get out all the low-impact 4-5 costed 'big' creatures that sit in your hand as a 1/turn spell even when you have 8 mana available and replace them with stuff that either has an actual impact or that helps big stuff come out faster and better.

in: Angel of Serenity, Kaalia of the Vast, Rakshasa Debaser, Dragon Tempest, Lightning Greaves, Rakdos, Lord of Riots, Angel of Condemnation, Worn Powerstone, Thran Dynamo, Herald of War, literally any land.

out: Bloodgift Demon, Demanding Dragon, Desecration Demon, Taurean Mauler, Nesting Dragon, Hoarding Dragon, Ambition's Cost, Conjurer's Closet, Idyllic Tutor, Memorial to Folly.

Also update the list so it has Graveshifter and not Gravedigger.

enpc on Greed or Erebos, God of …

4 months ago

TriusMalarky: Night's Whisper gets used in Doomsday lines as well, since it is mana efficient (in the cEDH scene). So it doesn't always come down to the money card cost of a card.

Peligrad: EDHREC is not the best argument. Sure, a lot of people run a card, but I see a lot of really trash cards run in a lot of decks, so that's not always a good argument.

As for the case for Phyrexian Arena, nobody is saying it's bad - it'sa greawt card. The problem is that there are a lot of scenarios where you just want the cards now and you're happy to pay a bit more life for a one shot to draw some cards, since a lot can happen in two-three turns. Arena is great for drawn out games, where you see six-seven cards from it. But the more competitive you go, the more you value cards in hand immediately, which is why you don't see Phyrexian Arena in higher end decks. You see more Dark Confidant as A) it's less mana and B) there's no double black casting cost.

As for Necropotence, that's a tricky one. The card is definitely powerful and it has made a name for itself in hte history of MtG. but in a casual mono black deck, I don't think it's that good if I'm being honest. Most casual mono black decks run pretty high mana curves and from a lot of the ones I've seen on T/O don't run enough ramp. Which means that you're potentially only casting one-two cards a turn if you're being proactive (less if you have removal in hand you're holding onto). Which means that you may be drawing one-two cards a turn off of it. Sure, it's great when you cast it a then draw five cards, but after that you can be back to drawing not much, which you would have just gotten at the beginning of your draw step anyway.

I've played Necropotence in both a casual mono black deck that ran a crapload of ramp and I've also run it in a <2 average CMC cEDH combo control deck and I've found it to have mixed results for both. I actually cut it in the cEDH deck, since I wasn't running the Angel's Grace + Windfall line, which is where you see the most value from it.

@everyone: I think the key here is that while you can have some hard and fast rules about cards, you need to be willing to break the rules to suit the actual meta you're playing in. Phyrexian Arena is an awesome card, but if it doesn't suit the deck or how most games are played (over in 10 turns, lots of removal, etc.) then you may be able to do more consistent work with that slot.

Same thing goes for Greed (my preference) and Erebos, God of the Dead. If your games go long and you have lots of mana, I'm sure either is fine. But if the games are shorter and mana is an issue, you might get more value from Ambition's Cost or Ancient Craving. But the worst thing you can do is just say "this card needs to go in every deck" or "EDHREC says this card is good".