Ancient Ziggurat

Land

: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast creature spells.

Discussion (50)

Ebro on Five color elementals

1 week ago

Those are awesome suggestions. Expensive orders though since I don’t have any on hand, either way I put Ancient Ziggurat in as a 2 of because it is a worthy addition. Thanks man

gingerthewritingdog on Five color elementals

1 week ago

Try Primal Beyond , Mana Confluence , Ancient Ziggurat , or City of Brass to fix your mana.

lagotripha on Sliver of Eternity

1 month ago

Traditional sliver aggro basically mandates Aether Vial , which is anything but budget, but sliver combo gives options.

If you are looking at a Basal Sliver deck, its worth looking at Adaptive Automaton / Changeling Outcast / Haakon, Stromgald Scourge . Torment of Hailfire gives another 'I win the game' card, and Bitter Ordeal gives another, but frankly any storm card will work. Even Ignite Memories . Changeling also lets you run different 'ramp sac' options in Skirk Prospector . Weather the Storm will be spectacular sideboard.

Lands are where it gets tricky. You want green for gemhides etc, and multicolour to fix for other slivers. Sliver Hive will fix most problems, but it got expensive at some point. Ancient Ziggurat doesn't fuel your spells, but when trying to combo into them with basal, that matters less. Playing mostly green/black and leaning into Llanowar Wastes and friends is likely the best option.

LordBlackblade on

1 month ago

Alright, let's get down to it! Anje Falkenrath is relatively new and I'm not yet sold on her validity as a vampire commander. My primary hang up is the overall weakness of madness as a mechanic. It is still critically underrepresented on cards, and of those that do exist only a handful are actually any good. I'm not saying it can't be done, just that I am skeptical that it can compete with existing vampire archetypes.

Mana Base Show

I like to start with the mana base in any deck I look at as it is (in my opinion) most crucial in the smooth operation of a deck. To start, your land count looks good, right about the sweet spot for a deck of this type. That said, there are a few sub-optimal choices in lands I would like to point out.

Cut

• Bloodfell Caves
• Cinder Barrens
• Great Furnace
• Vault of Whispers

I try and avoid tap lands at all costs if possible. When running a low-to-the-ground deck like this, the loss of tempo from a tap land can be more damaging than the loss of color availability. In addition, I would discourage the use of artifact lands unless you are going for a specific artifact theme. This is simply because artifact lands are easier to destroy than regular lands and aren't worth the risk with literally no benefit in this particular list.

Add

• Ancient Ziggurat
• Blood Crypt
• Bloodstained Mire
• Graven Cairns
• Luxury Suite
• Path of Ancestry
• Unclaimed Territory
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

I feel that any of these lands would be strong adds to your list. While some of the cards are a bit on the pricey side, I do feel they would improve the flow and power level of the deck.

Creatures Show

Vampires are usually pretty aggressively costed and there are a literal bevy of them to choose from. The key is choosing the cream of the crop to run in a singleton format.

Cut

• Bloodcrazed Neonate
• Bloodhall Priest
• Bloodsworn Steward
• Erdwal Ripper
• Falkenrath Reaver
• Heir of Falkenrath  ^Flip
• Incorrigible Youths
• Markov Crusader
• Stromkirk Mentor

Many of these creatures are either too costly or too under-powered for this format. It is important to remember that in EDH, efficiency is key. I would discourage playing any creature that falls short of the formula (Power+Toughness)/2=Converted Mana Cost (e.g. A 2/2 for two mana or better) unless it is especially crucial for your deck to function.

In addition impact is crucial. Bloodhall Priest for example is fairly costed, but doesn't do enough to advance your board state for the cost.

In

• Champion of Dusk
• Cordial Vampire
• Dusk Legion Zealot
• Malakir Bloodwitch
• Stromkirk Occultist
• Twilight Prophet
• Vicious Conquistador

These creatures are all what I would describe as impactful or highly efficient. When I mean impactful, cards like Malakir Bloodwitch make a big splash when they hit and are still relevant after the fact due to their efficient bodies. In terms of efficiency, Vicious Conquistador can put in a lot of work in the early game as a cheap, go-wide card.

Instants Show

In general 1-1 removal and "small" damage are not that great in EDH. Shoot for cards that are either modal a la Rakdos Charm or hit multiple targets such as Anger of the Gods or any board wipe (obviously most of these effects are sorceries rather than instants). Vampiric Fury seems just okay. Again in EDH these are just okay and are usually superseded by repeatable and/or static effects.

Out

• Fatal Push
• Fiery Temper
• Lightning Axe
• Lightning Bolt
• Sorin's Thirst

I don't have any good tips for adds here, but I would encourage you to look for modal or mass effect type cards for this category.

Sorceries Show

Honestly, these seem fine. I would urge you to add some more card draw. Things like Night's Whisper and Read the Bones are pretty solid choices.

In

• Burning Inquiry
• Cathartic Reunion
• Night's Whisper
• Read the Bones
• Tormenting Voice

These all seem like good choices to me and many of them double as potential madness triggers essentially negating their downsides.

Artifacts Show

Most of these are pretty standard; however, there are a couple that don't really fit your plan that I would personally cut.

Out

• Basilisk Collar
• Eldrazi Monument
• Rakdos Cluestone

Basilisk Collar is a solid equipment, but this is neither a voltron nor combo build that can effectively utilize it. I like Eldrazi Monument for its power; however, you lack the ability to produce enough fodder to sustain it long-term. Finally, Rakdos Cluestone is simply outclassed by other mana rocks, most notably my suggestion Talisman of Indulgence .

In

• Herald's Horn
• Talisman of Indulgence

Herald's Horn is just a good card in any tribal deck and I would highly recommend it!

My overall impression is that you've got a decent base here, but have made several choices that I see a lot of new EDH players make in their early decks. In general, you could use more card draw and I would encourage you to take a look at EDHREC or other vampire decks on here for inspiration in terms of what kinds of effects truly shine in EDH versus other formats.

Malsorn on RainbowSliver (Vintersorg Cover, Slivers ov Metal)

2 months ago

Frenetic Sliver works well as (sorta) protection from boardwipes and spot removal, you've only got a 50% chance per sliver, but it guarantees that they'll at least go to the graveyard, which tends to be better than exile.

Unclaimed Territory is just better than Ancient Ziggurat in Tribal decks, lets you still cast non-creatures.

Heroic Intervention and Teferi's Protection works well against boardwipes, but they'll depend on how many wipes are in your playgroup.

I'm personally a fan of redundancy in these sorts of decks, don't want to risk really important effects like haste and mana generation getting exiled completely and slowing you down.

trennykravitz on The Best Possible Sliver Deck.

3 months ago

querfquake personally, I use Ancient Ziggurat and Descendants' Path

DashJovis1 on

3 months ago

Thanks for the comments, and the advice. I was genuinely surprised to see I'd taken the Meddling Mages out of the sideboard, so I put them back in. I've seen humans before. The idea was to steal their broken opening, but to attack the format from a different angle. That was mostly a joke about how fast Modern is getting, what with all the turn 2 kills out there now.

I put Aether Vial in. I genuinely blanked on it, an earlier version of this list included Shriekmaw because I wanted everything to come with a body in the deck (and thus be castable off of Ancient Ziggurat . But I've found Path to Exile totally playable so of course Vial would be too.

Plague Engineer is alive more often than it is dead. It is a blowout in tribal matchups, but even outside of them you can kill any 1 toughness creatures. That's a surprisingly relevant kill spell. Like for instance, imagine killing multiple Snapcaster Mage s and Vendilion Clique s by naming wizard vs control. Against burn you can name Goblin or Human depending on the creatures they drop, and goblins can now be easily blocked by most of your creatures. Goblins is probably better in most situations. You definitely pull him out in matchups where he's low impact in game 2. But I think he's sound in low numbers in the main, and I might run more of him if things get really tribal ever.

I like Tomik for his sweet, efficient body. Same with Gruul Spellbreaker . They're threats. It's hard to know what to call this list, since its really centered on dork - 3 drop, with Mantis Rider being the all star, but its held together by running main deck hate pieces from every colour.

Qasali Pridemage is good. The deck kind of has an exalted thing going on, so even though it doesn't snipe a lot of things, it's a big card where artifacts and enchantments show up, and it does just enough to pull its weight when they don't. I considered Knight of Autumn over Gruul Spellbreaker , but the Spellbreaker has a better body. It's fun playing a hasty tramply 7/7 with hexproof.

Piccoli_ on I Really need help to ...

3 months ago

Hi everyone, ive always wanted to build the Humans deck but, as you know, its very expensive so i came out with differents variations of this deck but they never convinced me. Finally i came out with this variation that is, i think better tha the others, or at least more interesting. This is part of it:

//Creatures

4 Champion of the Parish

4 Harabaz Druid

4 Kazandu Blademaster

3 Kitesail Freebooter

4 Mantis Rider

4 Phantasmal Image

4 Reflector Mage

4 Thalia's Lieutenant

//Spells

2 Nevermore

2 Runed Halo

https://deckstats.net/decks/128240/1332493-allies-of-humans

As you can see, i just changed 3 cards. Noble Heriarch >> Harabaz Druid . Thalia, Guardian of Thraben >> Kazandu Blademaster . And Meddling Mage >> Nevermore / Runed Halo .

The thing is that i dont know if its good enough to start. Im still searching for a substitude for Phantasmal Image , cuz here were i live its at least 15 euros each one. I dont know if i should go with only two or three Aether Vial , cuz its expensive too. Lands are another problem, Cavern of souls its really really expensive so i need a substitude. i guess ill go with Ancient Ziggurat and Unclaimed Territory but i dont know which other lands should i take.

This is my maybeboard: Kabira Evangel , Ondu Cleric , Oran-Rief Survivalist & Hardened Scales .

Thanks!!!