Ambush Viper

Creature — Snake

Flash (You can cast this spell at any time that you could cast an instant.)

Deathtouch (Any amount of damage this would deal to a creature is enough to destroy it.)

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
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

legendofa on Should Color Pie Breaks Be …

8 months ago

I don't think blue land destruction + mass damage or green flying on demand is going to be reprinted any time soon.

Mass banning shouldn't be the way to go. The distinction between almost off-color and actually off-color is very thin and fuzzy. Ambush Viper is a classic example. Every individual part of the card is solidly available in green, but together they become very similar to a mono-black card. Is this a ban-worthy break? Dawn Charm is a hard counterspell in white, but it's a natural extension of the self-protection that white excels at. Is this ban-worthy? Thinking about that, about half of Planar Chaos and Future Sight would be under consideration for banning. Is it worth it to ban big chunks of entire blocks in all formats?

Reprints are okay, in my opinion. Chaos Warp is a good but not great card in a vacuum. The only thing notable about it is that it can temporarily remove a single enchantment. I think the idea that new players will think these are standard and typical effects won't happen as much as these people are claiming. Either a more experienced player can say "Yeah, that's a weird effect and not something that normally happens," or the new player simply collects more cards and notices that, for example, black is much better at forcing discards than white.

If you can pull together a full red-green counterspell deck from reprints, I say go for it. It's going to be less efficient than other red-green decks and other counterspell decks, but if style points are more important than winning, that should be a valid option.

Of course, I don't encourage printing new breaks. But for cards that already exist, I don't see any realistic long-term harm in keeping them in circulation.

Headers13 on

1 year ago

Cheap creatures with deathtouch:

Acidic Slime Ambush Viper Deathbloom Gardener Fang of Shigeki Gnarlwood Dryad Gorgon Flail Greater Basilisk Heir of the Wilds Ichorspit Basilisk Kessig Recluse Mirkwood Spider Moss Viper Narnam Renegade Oakhame Adversary Skullwinder Tajuru Blightblade Thornweald Archer Turntimber Basilisk Underdark Basilisk

Creatures with infect/toxic

Blight Mamba Core Prowler Corpse Cur Cystbearer Ichorclaw Myr Paladin of Predation Plague Myr Rot Wolf Spinebiter Tyrranax Atrocity Venomous Brutalizer Viridian Corrupter Carrion Call

Proliferate:

Adaptive Sporesinger Cankerbloom Carnivorous Canopy Copper Longlegs Courage in Crisis Evolution Sage Expand the Sphere Smell Fear Thirsting Roots Unnatural Restoration Urban Daggertooth

Equipment:

Grafted Exoskeleton Prosthetic Injector Swiftfoot Boots Fireshrieker Bladed Pinions Chariot of Victory Jousting Lance No-Dachi Peregrine Mask Sharpened Pitchfork Surestrike Trident Viridian Claw Livewire Lash Pathway Arrows Rogue's Gloves Sorcerer's Wand Thornbite Staff Viridian Longbow*

Instant kill:

Aggressive Instinct Ambuscade Animist's Might Bite Down Clear Shot Cosmic Hunger Devouring Tendrils Halana, Kessig Ranger Infectious Bite Nature's Way Rabid Bite Spinning Wheel Kick

Unblockable:

Access Tunnel Rogue's Passage Executioner's Hood Prowler's Helm Skeleton Key Wedding Invitation Whispersilk Cloak

legendofa on My cognitive dissonance around multicolor …

1 year ago

wallisface Green is super-anti-flying, but {G}{U} cards with flying and a green ability keep being printed. Why is red first strike + green deathtouch a bend? As far as {B}{G} deathstrike goes, first strike is tertiary in black and a non-ability in green, and this only appears on Glissa, the Traitor and Glissa Sunslayer.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021

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Daveslab2022 Would you consider cards like Recoil, Lightning Helix, the guild charms like Selesnya Charm, or Putrefy bad design, boring, or unintuitive? I understand that {R} + {G} =/= {R}{G}. I'm wondering why that's the case.

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I completely understand that there's an active effort to prevent color pairs from feeling too samey, and in interest of completion, I feel obligated to say that Voracious Cobra exists. But I still have some questions.

Is there an absolute prohibition on red-green deathstrike? If so, what distinguishes red-green deathstrike from black-green flying/vigilance?

Is there simply too much overlap between {B}'s dedicated removal and {R}{G} deathstrike?

With Ambush Viper, Ice-Fang Coatl, Winged Coatl, and Fleetfeather Cockatrice, is instant-speed creature spot removal more acceptable in {G}{U} than in {R}{G}?

What makes Golgari Death Swarm a better creative choice than Warrant / Warden, and why did that get printed if it's an inferior choice?

Is there any potential for a card like Warp World or The Great Aurora to be made in {R}{G}? Why or why not?

SynergyBuild on Mission Briefing

2 years ago

Double blue isn't my issue. Snapcaster is great because it can be an Ambush Viper on turn two, it can save you from two lethal attackers by chumping one and Unholy Heating another. Its a significantly powerful effect.

That being said you can use Briefing as a card in some lists from mill to control variants, but you'd be amiss to think it really compares favorably at all, and for tempo lists that use snap it'd be better to find a wholly different axis to gain an advantage.

Saccox on Flying/First strike/Deathtouch

3 years ago

Hi Thebestnoob,Quandrix Campus,Plaxmanta,Ambush Viper,Winged Coatl,Thornwood Falls?

seshiro_of_the_orochi on What are the best defensive …

3 years ago

Gomazoa is pretty cool. Also Watcher in the Web . And then, there is Ambush Viper .

johjamage on Sisters of Battle

4 years ago

Week 1 Swaps

Opened 6 packs Lorwyn, replacements are in no particular order.

Ambush Viper -> Elvish Harbinger

Phyrexian Rager -> Elvish Eulogist

Opposition Agent -> Gilt-Leaf Seer

Thorn of the Black Rose -> Kithkin Mourncaller

Staff of Domination -> Leaf Gilder

Court of Ambition -> Lys Alana Huntmaster

Brass Herald -> Shriekmaw

Meteor Golem -> Fertile Ground

Pilgrim's Eye -> Lignify

Feast of Succession -> Elvish Promenade

Gift of Paradise -> Ghostly Changeling

Wildsize -> Woodland Changeling

seshiro_of_the_orochi on My snake deck (that title took me two weeks...)

4 years ago

MagicMarc: Thank you for the feedback. I've tweaked the card choices and numbers for years, so I really appreciate the positive opinion about that. In 1v1, it can many times win by grinding. I don't have much interaction, and that might be a weakness. I usually balance this by having very efficient creatures. Many of the big snakes scale very well over the course of a game (pun not intended...). I can't say a lot about multiplayer, though. I could add some Ambush Viper, I guess.

Regarding Oracle: The first iterations of the deck massively overloaded on 2-drops. Snakes have many great 2-drops, but cutting down on these is key to having a functioning mana curve. It's an awesome card, but it doesn't fit the Rest of the gameplan.