Ancient Stirrings

Sorcery

Look at the top five cards of your library. You may reveal a colourless card from among them and put it into your hand. Then put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order. (Cards with no coloured mana in their mana costs are colourless. Lands are also colourless.)

Discussion (46)

wallisface on Lobotomy

1 week ago

Wabbajacke a typical Lanturn control list would look something like this:

Typical Decklist

• 1x Nihil Spellbomb

• 1x The Underworld Cookbook

• 1x Grafdigger's Cage

• 1x Pyrite Spellbomb

• 2x Pyxis of Pandemonium

• 2x Pithing Needle

• 4x Codex Shredder

• 4x Ensnaring Bridge

• 4x Lantern of Insight

• 4x Mishra's Bauble

• 3x Thoughtseize

• 4x Inquisition of Kozilek

• 4x Prismatic Ending

• 4x Ancient Stirrings

• 4x Urza's Saga

• 1x Swamp

• 2x Razorverge Thicket

• 3x Concealed Courtyard

• 3x Blooming Marsh

• 4x Spire of Industry

• 4x Glimmervoid

So, if you're wanting to keep to just blue and black, and include Circu, Dimir Lobotomist, then I would suggest a list that looks something like this (you'll note the deck can be a lot more tool-boxy than the above because Whir of Invention lets us search for whatever we want, so for example we only need 2 bridges):

Suggested Decklist

• 1x Nihil Spellbomb

• 1x Witchbane Orb

• 2x Circu, Dimir Lobotomist

• 2x Pyxis of Pandemonium

• 1x Pithing Needle

• 1x Torpor Orb

• 4x Codex Shredder

• 2x Ensnaring Bridge

• 2x Talisman of Dominance

• 4x Lantern of Insight

• 4x Mishra's Bauble

• 2x Thoughtseize

• 3x Inquisition of Kozilek

• 1x Welding Jar

• 1x Relic of Progenitus

• 2x Collective Brutality

• 1x Sword of the Meek

• 1x Thopter Foundry

• 4x Whir of Invention

• 2x Urza's Saga

• 19x other lands

MortisAngelus on Forged Execution (Gruul Land-Hate)

1 month ago

@wallisface

Hey! Thank you so much for the extensive feedback! You make a lot of good points!

However, I think you underestimate the power Splinter brings. Being able to remove all win cons from a combo deck or removing all basic lands of one type is what really makes ppl hate it. But I have been considering bringing the count down to 3.

I am surprised about you also not liking Smash to Smithereens; I see your point with always having a destruction card, but ultimately, the end goal is to kill the opponent, not just control them. So killing a permanent and pinging them 3 seems like a win-win imho. Or?

Ancient Stirrings is definitely something I must try to insert here. I have played against it; how have I not realized how good it would be here?..

And Barrier Breach I have already considered for side board. :) Gotta deal with those pesky God-creatures.

Ultimately, 4x Rootbound Crag is what I want for this deck. I am considering switching the Kazandu Refuge cards for the scry-equivalent cards instead. But we'll see.

But we never solved the original question, if you left the deck as it is for now, and only thought about Sunder Shaman vs Rust Scarab , which one would you insert?

Anyway, thanks a lot for all the feedback! Have a lot to think about now.

wallisface on Forged Execution (Gruul Land-Hate)

1 month ago

Nice build! Very juicy!

Some thoughts from looking through the list:

• As you already mentioned, Shenanigans looks really good here. But I wouldn't necessarily drop Ancient Grudge for it, as Grudge will almost always be a 2-for-1, where as Shenanigans will always be a 1-for-1 (it's just you can have it in hand whenever you want it). Shenanigans is better than all of Destructive Revelry, Smash to Smithereens, and Splinter, so I'd suggest ditching one of them (if it were me, it'd be Splinter.

• Your land count is really low. A bunch of your cards need for you to be at 3 mana, which you're going to only reach unreliably at 20 lands. I'd suggest going to 22 personally. This will also help you actually get Rust Scarab out too (which I personally think works good as a 1-or-2-of)

• I'm really unconvinced by Splinter. If you're hosing your opponents boardstate, it usually won't matter whether they have more copies of a particular card in-deck. More often than not, it'll be the instants/sorceries giving you grief rather than the permanents (and Splinter can't hit those). This'd be the card i'd be ditching for Shenanigans as mentioned above. Splinter is a sideboard card at-best.

• You mentioned on the forum-thread potentially using Voltaic Key, but I don't think this is necessary, as once the engine is going, the untap of the Key is just overkill. Something like Ancient Stirrings might be better suited though, as it gives you a turn 1 play, and lets you grab either additional lands, or grab additional Liquimetal cards (I would suggest staying at 20 lands if you added a playset of Ancient Stirrings).

• Barrier Breach feels really strong here, though probably just as a 2-of. The cycling is nice if you're in a bad spot, but it's also going to end the game on-the-spot if you have multiple Liquimetal cards in play.

• I reeaallly don't rate taplands (Kazandu Refuge). They're going to trip you up more often than they're going to help you colour-fix. Personally I'd sooner be running all your lands as basics, than include the Refuge. Only running 2 colours, and nothing needing multiple of a particular-pip you're very likely to be fine just running all basics anyway.

If it were me, I'd be ditching 4x Splinter, 4x Tin Street Hooligan, and 1x Smash to Smithereens, for 3x Shenanigans, 4x Ancient Stirrings, 2x Barrier Breach - but that's just me. You'll have a better idea of whether this sounds viable or nonsense.

Icbrgr on T-1000 Saheeli Rai

1 month ago

I actually think you might really be onto something with Ancient Stirrings... split my current shock lands with Stomping Ground/Breeding Pool/Temple Garden to still be fetched...I am gonna playtest that thank you for the idea!

nbarry223 on T-1000 Saheeli Rai

1 month ago

I mean those are valid points, but Karn would serve as more of a distraction/enabler in my opinion. It would also give you access to "silver bullets" in game one.

I know 4 CMC is a bit high, especially considering it wouldn't help you until the turn after in most cases. I didn't actually notice how low your land count is, so I see how he wouldn't help you much currently.

Phyrexian Metamorph may be a solid option as a replacement for missing combo pieces, as it can basically act as a few different ones depending on what you are copying, since it also makes itself an artifact.

My only other thought would be to potentially splash green for cards to find your artifacts easier, since your combo relies on having 2. Ancient Stirrings would help with that a lot (also finds lands worst case). It would also help find artifacts you side in, if you decide to change up your sideboard a bit more.

-Orvos- on I Brought a Sword to a Magic Fight

3 months ago

Peoyogon adding another color would compromise the deck as its built right now. Both those cards are good, they just don't fit this build in my opinion. If I could I would build this deck 100% colorless but I cant find anything colorless similar to Ancient Stirrings.

-Orvos- on I Brought a Sword to a Magic Fight

3 months ago

rb701 the whole point of this deck is to fish out World Slayer and blow everything up. A lot of my stuff is indestructible because it would survive that.

Magnetic Theft is a combat trick. Allows me to throw worldslayer on any unblocked creature before combat damage, either my opponents or my own.

Darksteel Juggernaut is basically the same thing as cranial plating.

The red green colors are specifically only for magnetic theft and Ancient Stirrings.

The deck plays very defensive, T1 and T2 are 90% of the time spent prepping for a big drop on T3 or 4.

I also think you may have been looking at an outdated version. I updated the list today and removed all of the "sword of" cards... I came to the same conclusion you did.

wallisface on Colorless Etched Tron 2021

4 months ago

PoisonLexy I had a look on MtgGoldfish to see what the other tron decks are running for lands. Green-Tron is running 17 lands, but they make up for it with over 1/3rd of their deck dedicated to digging for lands ( Ancient Stirrings , Sylvan Scrying , Chromatic Sphere , Chromatic Star , Expedition Map ). Eldrazi-Tron, on the other hand, runs 24 lands - and that archtype much more closely resembles your gameplan (they just run Expedition Map ).

The problem with the “Etched people” is that most of them do almost nothing unless you can generate 5 colors of mana, which your deck is going to really struggle to do. You can’t rely on Steel Overseer because the opponent will often kill it well before it gets a chance to tap. Also the only creature that needs the counters is Etched Oracle , so feels like its synergy is low.

It just really feels like the Etched creatures require a massive amount of setup for very little gain…

I think a strong potential avenue for you to go down would be a mono-blue tron-artifact build. That would let you still run Etched Champion , and actually make it threatening using Cranial Plating or Ghostfire Blade . You’d be able to grab whatever you needed with Whir of Invention which’d mean you could run a single copies of Blightsteel Colossus and Platinum Emperion . You’d keep the planeswalkers, but be better suited for providing a consistent creature-threat, with blue providing value cards like Sai, Master Thopterist , and Master of Etherium , while the tron lands can create large Hangarback Walker and Walking Ballista . You wouldn’t need to be messing around for 5 colors, and the deck can additionally function alright if you missed assembling tron