Apostle's Blessing

Instant

( can be paid with either or 2 life.)

Target artifact or creature you control gains protection from artifacts or from the color of your choice until end of turn.

Discussion (51)

NoopyNolife on Beamsplitter Prowess

4 weeks ago

rjphilla I've been tinkering with Apostle's Blessing and I do think it's a more powerful and versatile replacement for Vapor Snag.

I'll give Kiln Fiend a shot, altough I have a hard time making space. I don't want to lose one drops (even though the 1/2 wizards are objectively bad) because I feel the deck needs them to gain tempo.

I'll try 2 fiends, 3 chasers and 3 splitters and I'll update from there!

rjphilla on Beamsplitter Prowess

4 weeks ago

I actually play a playset of both!

NoopyNolife Kiln Fiend is redonkulous! You can throw in a few Apostle's Blessing for protection

Gattison on Prague-Rock

2 months ago

Giorgiod: First of all, thanks for your interest, and please let me know how playing the deck works out for you. =D I'd love to get feedback on the deck in a different meta.

As for a sideboard. Tbh, eh not really, lol. I play mostly casual/kitchen table, plus I literally have over 50 pauper decks built so I don't get to play them all as much as they deserve.

That being said, were I to bring this deck to a LGS and play it, I would probably swap Stoic Rebuttal for straight-up Counterspell as Daarkest suggested above, and leave maybe one or more Stoic Rebuttals in the sideboard for counter-wars with other blue decks.

I only have the one copy of Welding Jar or else I'd have more in the deck also, so put some of those in the sideboard too.

Apostle's Blessing is one of the best defense spells in pauper imho, so if you face a lot of removal, there's that.

Echoing Truth is versatile enough to hit any permanent, so kind of a board wipe, but can also get rid of Treasure, Food, etc. depending on what you face.

Beyond that, I usually go very general with my sideboards, so creature removal (Searing Light, Smite, Celestial Flare), artifact removal (Fragmentize, Dispeller's Capsule) and enchantment removal (Demystify). And sometimes you can double up the effects on one card to "save space" in your sideboard, as you can see. =)

Finally, there's always the old trick where you Unsummon/Void Snare something, and then Counterspell it when they try to cast it again.

Hopefully that jumble of ideas provides some help to you! =D Have fun, and let me know how you like the deck and if it needs any major adjustments or whatnot! Thanks!

Hynx on Simic can't be blocked!

2 months ago

do you have problems with removal? id suggest Apostle's Blessing if you do. or Vines of Vastwood. if you decided on an infect tweak, Inkmoth Nexus Blighted Agent with Invigorate is beautiful. giving your opponent life means nothing if you are going for the 10 poison counter win. Im also a fan of Groundswell for the landfall trigger.

Caerwyn on The Boros Legion has arrested my wallet

2 months ago

Did some playtesting with the new version against other decks with similar power levels (I assume you're going for a "tuned casual" level, rather than an outright competitive one).

Overall, the deck fared relatively well but had two major issues that should be fairly easy to address.

The first problems was consistency--when I fielded multiple group slug pieces early, the deck did swimmingly. However, if I got only one piece out, or no pieces out early, I started to run into trouble. However, with no pieces or only one piece on the board, the deck ran into a bit of a wall and had trouble closing out games. I think running Enlightened Tutor and/or the (recently reprinted Idyllic Tutor would help ensure you're burning them early and often.

The second major issue was protecting your own pieces from harm. Teferi's Protection and Apostle's Blessing would both be good inclusions.

Suns_Champion mentioned cutting Browbeat earlier, and I wanted to second that. Cards that allow your opponents to make a choice are generally mediocre since the opponent will always be able to make the choice best suited for their victory. With Browbeat, there will almost always be at least one person who is willing to lose life to deny you cards, and dealing 5 damage to the opponent best-situated to soak up the damage (or the player right before you in the rotation if everyone passes forcing the last guy/gal to take the damage) just is not worth 3 mana and a card slot.

PhantomHuscarl on We Love Freebies! *Primer*

2 months ago

Hey there, Cloudius. Got all your argumentation, thou i was thinking of other cards that could fit well.

I don't have many aggro decks to my table, but i saw someone objecting how would you remain alive so, more for them than for you, here it is a little list of things that could be use for protection: the more renowed Ghostly Prison , Propaganda and Ensnaring Bridge , or the less known Koskun Falls , Crawlspace , Web of Inertia , Pendrell Mists , No Mercy . So, aggro it's not really a problem for Esper, including all wraths that the combination have.

Also, why not Enlightened Tutor ? You can always take Goblin Charbelcher or Isochron Scepter , have it for with Yennett and than combo off.

A couple more cards for topdeck manipulation can be Portent or Telling Time , and Silence , Turn Aside or Apostle's Blessing for protecting the combo.

Anyway, i'll surely build this up with a couple of changes (including Soothsaying ) and i'll let you know how it goes.

Cheers, PhantomHuscarl.

Silverdrake on Jeskai monks

3 months ago

This is a cute concept, I like it!

I think you're going in the right direction to optimize this, but I'm questioning the Pacifism, Pariah, and Deflecting Palm. Pacifism should probably be replaced with Path to Exile if it's in your budget, or if not you could look at Condemn . If you're more concerned about getting rid of blockers, you could replace it with Journey to Nowhere . The point being, there's lots of better cards you can look at that do the same job. I'm not sure what your idea with Pariah is - if you're trying to protect your 'important' creatures, there's a million better ways to do it - you could try Apostle's Blessing or Brave the Elements . I think you can actually do better than both of those though if you opt for Boros Charm - it does everything this deck could want on any given turn, I'm surprised you don't have it in already. As for Delfecting Palm, I like it as a card and it's fun to "Gotcha!" people with, but it's a strictly defensive card that you've put in a very aggressive deck. I'd consider swapping it with something like Azorius Charm , which can be defensive if you need it to be (either floating an attacker or giving your team lifelink), or it can be more aggressive (floating a blocker or using the draw card mode to act as a "free" prowess trigger).

Lastly and most importantly, you have WAY too many lands for this deck. Hard control decks that plan on having 10+ lands on the field at once only usually run a maximum of 26, and you're here in an aggro list with your most expensive card at THREE mana running 27 lands. You're going to flood FREQUENTLY if you keep it this way. A list like this one generally runs between 20 and 22 lands - if I were you, I'd go down to 22 and replace the 5 lands you cut with some mix of more creatures (12 is a little low), the spells I mentioned, and the planeswalkers you're looking at.

All of this is just my (well informed) opinion though - if you don't like the changes I suggest then feel free to ignore them! Whatever you decide to do, be sure to have fun with it!

Older20 on Marchesa: Queen of Pain (100% Altered)

3 months ago

Hi cheeseycrackers, I really like it. I might consider changing out Besmirch and Fiery Confluence for a bigger Sunforger package and a little more protection (And style points) with cards like Mana Tithe , Apostle's Blessing , Faith's Shield and Rebuff the Wicked which have all worked great for me. Having said all that, I would be more than happy to play your build, looks fun and strong!