Amulet of Safekeeping

Artifact

Whenever you become the target of a spell or ability and opponent controls, counter that spell or ability unless its controller pays {1}.

Creature tokens get -1/-0.

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
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (41)

BirdieGirlie on Spiteful Avatar

7 months ago

Intrigued by the new turn into blue/black/green! I think this is shaping up really well!!!

A few thoughts:

I think you might speed up the deck a lot by getting rid of the two Avatar of Might and just running 4 copies of Hunted Phantasm. That's the best card in the deck! Avatar is the only card on the list that can't just be played when drawn. There's a condition that needs to be met. The rest have no condition and should come out on the field ASAP.

Swan Song and Strix Serenade are both fantastic for the deck and strictly better than Into the Flood Maw which you have in right now. Amulet of Safekeeping is also kind of a dead/do nothing card, because it sits on the field and provides passive support. I think you should swap those pairs of cards.

Blood Seeker is a worse Blood Artist in exchange for 1 power and I don't think that's worth it to you. I think you should replace that with one of the blue 1 mana instant draw spells -- Brainstorm, Opt, something like that. It will get more cards into your hand and make your play faster! The more card draw you have, the more likely you are to hit Blood Artist at all to get her onto the field!

Also those two legendary lands are awesome, but not worthwhile in this deck. You're running 3 Prismatic Vista with exactly 3 basic lands in the deck. You draw those lands and all three vistas become a dead draw. You need basic lands. You need fetchable lands at least. There are basic dual lands out there! Put in some Swamp/Islands, Swamp/Forests, and Forest/Islands instead. I still think you should take out the Cavern of Souls in favor of colored mana-generating lands as well. So many of your cards require 2 colored mana, after all!

Excited to see where you take the deck from here!!!

BirdieGirlie on Spiteful Avatar

7 months ago

This is such an interesting deck omfg I love it!!!! I have many thoughts!!!

First of all, you need more lands. You need colored mana, you shouldn't be running Field of Ruin. And, Cavern of Souls is so so powerful, but what creature type are you naming? The only type you have more than one of is Vampire, and that's not the type you really want to be defending with the uncounterable ability. So do you play the land and name, like, Avatar or Spirit, the two cards you really want to defend when they come in, even if you don't have one in hand, telegraphing to your opponent what you want to do? It's not worth it. I would take all those out and replace them with dual Islands and Plains. Or Islands and Swamps, since you have disproportionate amounts of black. I think you should add in more white, as you will see.

Three creatures all do the same things and in this case I think that's detrimental to the deck. I think Suture Priest is the best of the bunch and we can work on replacing the other two. Some options: Hunted Troll, Grismold, the Dreadsower, Slaughter Specialist, and Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor. They all give you more tokens. Speaking of which, a fourth Hunted Phantasm will probably also help you a lot. I'd also reduce your number of Avatar of Might by one or two, I think. It's a wincon, but doesn't give you tokens.

I also think you might want to find a place for Authority of the Consuls. Maybe instead of two Amulet of Safekeeping? Idk. A card more like Ghostly Prison forces the opponent to pay a steeper price. And it's an enchantment, I feel like enchantment removal is much more rare than artifact.

Mercy Killing and Sylvan Offering both get you more tokens without being a creature. To me Spiteful Banditry feels really bad in this deck. You have so many things that rely on having all of those tokens on your opponent's field, and you wipe them all out for...a single Treasure token? Feels bad, man. The Meathook Massacre is a wincon, and Golgari Charm can be your token removal and it's cheaper. If I had all three of those cards in hand, I would never choose Banditry. Rakdos Charm is also a wincon imo so maybe add more of those.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't suggest you add some ramp and card draw. Sylvan Scrying, Opt, something similar. There are many.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Optimization. If you really want to optimize colors and stuff, it would be possible to take out blue altogether. Hunted Phantasm is an amazing card, but Hunted Troll is almost as good, and your mana situation will be a lot less complicated. You can switch that one island to something else. Take out Banditry and you have only a little bit of red left in the deck, so you can really focus on black, white, and green. But that's not as fun! Just figured I'd mention it.

...I've been having so much fun writing all this out and I just looked at your format again and I'd totally forgotten it! I think most of these cards should be ok for Modern! This deck concept is just so much fun I think I went a little overboard here. Sorry!

nuperokaso on Better Not to Block

1 year ago

Cool deck idea, but needs slight adjustments! - Deathcap Cultivator isn't really working - your deck can get into the graveyard an Instant, a Sorcery and a Creature, but you don't have any way how to get other type into your graveyard, so you'll never have Delirium. Considering that you are lacking any one mana drop, play Ignoble Hierarch instead. - Tear Asunder is great, but it's obvious that your 2 and 4 mana slots are quite full, and 1 mana is rather empty. I suggest looking up ways how to lower it a little. Maybe play only 2, and some mix of Fatal Push, Tragic Slip and Cut Down. - Worldly Tutor is a card disadvantage. I understand that this is a "combo deck", but it's simply easier to play additional combo cards instead. Blood Artist and Slaughter Specialist have great interaction with tokens and cost only 2 mana. - Engulfing Slagwurm is way outside of your mana curve, and has summoning sickness. I would cut it. Your mana curve effectively ends on 4. If you really insist on playing one expensive finisher just as a Worldly Tutor target, play Massacre Wurm instead. - Benefactor's Draught is questionable. Without Vicious Battlerager, it's bad. Maybe just play 1 as a random surprise. - A second Amulet of Safekeeping is a blank draw. I suggest you go down to 2 copies, and instead play a few Trespasser's Curse. - Restless Cottage is pretty much useless as your opponents will likely have tokens for blocking. - It's always best to play a robust mana base. Why play just 10 non-basic lands? Check some modern mana bases for better fixing.

slasherturtle on Equip Me Daddy

2 years ago

This will be long, probably.

The first thing I notice is your land base. It's pretty important for this deck to reliably get Jor out on turn 2 consistently, and you may be a bit short on lands for that. To that point, you also want to limit lands that tap for colorless or enter tapped to only the ones you absolutely need. While the lands that tap for both and enter tapped (like Alpine Meadow or Sacred Peaks) are nice for fixing, they are slow and ultimately it's up to you whether to run those or not. The biggest one that pokes out to me is Reliquary Tower. Not only does it only tap for colorless, I'm also not sure you're going to be drawing enough cards for it to be any better than a basic Plains or Mountain. I'd keep an eye out for Slayers' Stronghold and Sandstone Bridge in playtesting, depending on how often they go off they might also be worse than a basic. All in all though, land base is pretty good, you just need more. Maybe 2-3 more of each basic to get started and tweak from there.

I really like the amount of nonland cards that grab you lands you have (like Wayfarer's Bauble and Navigation Orb). They're better than Evolving Wilds and cheaper than fetch lands, but if you ever do get the chance to pack some fetches in here, I think you could take one or two of those out and replace them with some more equipment or creatures that like them. You can also never go wrong with adding a Solemn Simulacrum.

I really like almost all of your nonland cards and can think of very few cards I'd want to swap for better alternatives, but I think some are pretty safe cuts if you're trying to trim down to 100 cards.

• Some of your Living Weapon cards are really expensive and don't do much other than make an equipped creature, but their cost is so high that you should already have enough to trigger Jor by the time you can even cast them. Others just feel like they won't impact the board enough to warrant a spot in the 99. The ones that stick out to me are:

• Mortarpod, which takes up a 2 drop spot and conflicts with casting Jor

• Sickleslicer, which just feels a bit underwhelming
• Skinwing, which feels exceptionally steeply priced, even for an equipment that grants flying

• Strandwalker, which is also very steep

• There are also some cards which I think either hurt more than they help or don't do you much at all:

• Prophetic Prism doesn't offer you any ramp and takes up a 2-drop spot. As someone with a 2-drop commander, you want to minimize the amount of other 2CMC cards in the deck because they get really awkward, especially in the first four turns. Turn two you're forced to choose between playing your 2-drop and your commander, and then turn 3 you have to decide between whichever you didn't choose and whatever good 3-drops you may have access to. It fucks up your whole curve.

• Shuko equips for free but basically does nothing else after that. The same is true for Leather Armor. It may or may not be worth it, up to you.
• Invulnerability may be slightly overcosted with buyback and you may be better running retroactive protection like Norn's Annex or Ghostly Prison.
• Keen-Eared Sentry may not do as much as it seems. Having Hexproof is nice and makes you feel safe, but I ran Aegis of the Gods in Azor for years and it almost never saved me from anything, not only because having hexproof isn't as strong as it seems but also because people will want to kill it very quickly if they do need to target you.
• I love the amount of repeatable combat effects in this deck, but they are worse than nothing if you don't have a board state that can take advantage of it. Some of those slots may be better used on other equipment or cards that care about them. If I were to cut any, it'd probably be Relentless Assault because it's not repeatable like Akki Battle Squad, Aurelia, and Waves of Aggression. This may also apply to Response / Resurgence since you can't fetch it with Sunforger and it's other half isn't super great.
• As wonderful as Lightning Greaves is for commander protection, it also prevents you from being able to attach any more auras or equipment to whichever creature it's attached to due to Shroud and I tend to not recommend it in Voltron decks. It's also a 2-drop. That one is just personal choice though.
• You may have one or two too many cards that reduce the cost of your artifacts. Yours are all so cheap and you may find yourself better off having something that draws you cards or cares about equipment than a card that only helps if you're trying to cast expensive artifacts. Since it's easy to kill and doesn't do much else, Starnheim Courser may at least be worth a cut, if not also Jhoira's Familiar due to mana cost alone.
• Quietus Spike and Scytheclaw have the same effect, which also isn't good enough to win the game on it's own since the damage cut happens after you deal damage, meaning you can literally never kill someone off of that trigger alone unless you leave them with exactly one life. Since Scytheclaw at least has Living Weapon, you may want to consider cutting Quietus Spike.
• Sword of Feast and Famine is good, but it isn't insane. If you don't already have one it's probably not worth spending 50 bucks on.
• The Ward you get from Amulet of Safekeeping in your Maybeboard might not be worth making all of your living weapon and Assemble the Legion tokens weaker.
• I love Assemble the Legion so much. It is one of my favorite cards in Magic. It may be my favorite enchantment period. It is also balls ass slow, expensive to cast, and doesn't synergize with your strategy. That one is up to you. I'd run it just because I like it, but it'd be the first card I cut if I needed to trim some fat.
• Mask of Immolation gives you an equipped creature, but it doesn't do much else for 2 mana. If it equipped for free it'd be different, but it's equip cost isn't cheap given how weak it's effect is. It's also a 2 drop.
• Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith is much better when you can throw his rocks, which you don't want to do in this deck because you want to keep them attached to things for Jor - meaning you're spending three mana for a guy who gives you one equipment that does nothing a turn.
• Leonin Shikari isn't something I'd say you should take out immediately, but you should keep an eye on it during playtesting. If you find you aren't taking advantage of her ability enough, cut her and replace her with something that isn't a 2-drop.
• Wrath of God may be better than Vanquish the Horde. That's just my opinion though.

All in all, what you keep and what you cut is up to you, this is just what sticks out to me personally. The closer you get to 100, the better. If you're able to cut it down to at least 104 or 105, try just playing without 4 or 5 of the cards you aren't sure about and playtest from there, then use those 4 or 5 as your maybeboard. Also this deck is really cool and I like it a lot.

darkdexterminate on 5 Color Avatar of Might

5 years ago

Hi, What about Dovescape? It could be truly useful and Amulet of Safekeeping hold it well

SirQuixano on Card creation challenge

5 years ago

Xryzyxyz, Ephermeral Invader

Legendary Creature - Weird Alien

Haste, Flying, First Strike

Xryzyxyz has base power and toughness equal to the amount of lands you control

When an opponent loses the game, if Xryzyxyz is attacking, you gain control of all non-land permanent that player controls

/

Amulet of Safekeeping rotated out of standard, so I don't have a budget option against the popular Cavalcade of Calamity deck (especially with Torbran, Thane of Red Fell just releasing, so create a spell that really hurts a Cavalcade deck and certain counter decks.

MagicalStudies on Blood Brothers

5 years ago

Amulet of Safekeeping is a fantastic suggestion!! Thanks!!

I had Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip in here originally, and it was okay because Hunted Phantasm is unblockable but it was just too slow. I ended up swapping it out for Hunted Horror .

Kutsu on Blood Brothers

5 years ago

I think this one is a successful build you can refer to Forbidden Hunted Path (http://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/instant-deck-tech-forbidden-hunted-path-modern). Aside from that, my personal favorites are Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip and Amulet of Safekeeping I couldn't figure out a way to link the deck. Sorry.