Ashnod's Altar

Artifact

Sacrifice a creature: Add {C}{C} to your mana pool.

Discussion (51)

Gadianten on Never Doubt the Pilgrim

1 day ago

Some considerations for your deck, first being Lifeline for turning your commander into an exile and life gain machine and Ayli exile limits your opponents benefit greatly. Second is Gift of Immortality with Heliod's Pilgrim and or Moon-Blessed Cleric to search it up while being in tribe. Gift essentially gives you a free creature for Ayli to use once on every players turn, and it makes Sun Titan usable for sacrifice costs an unlimited times a turn, like perhaps with Ashnod's Altar.

DukeBazaar on Tools of the Trade

1 week ago

Viscera Seer,

Altar of Dementia,

Altar of the Brood,

Ashnod's Altar,

Phyrexian Altar,

Gruul Signet, Golgari Signet, Rakdos Signet, Mind Stone, Chromatic Lantern,

Guerric on Dealing with politics as an …

2 weeks ago

Hi Dazard! What a great question! I avoided aggro strategies for awhile for this reason, but as my sneaky combo strategies are hard for some groups I play with to decode, I decided to make some good old honest aggro decks, and I think I've figured out a good balance.

To begin with, don't play like in a 60 card, 1v1 format. In those games you have little incentive not to go for broke all the time, and to commit all of your resources right away. In EDH there are several key principles of good aggro play.

One of them is controlled growth. Even if you can commit all of your resources to powerful plays early you shouldn't do so. You need to make sure that you set up card draw engines and other things to keep your tank full in the long run. You should be attacking, but keep in mind you don't need to attack with everything. Chip away at peoples' life totals rather than hitting one person hard. Once you slam one person you will be the archenemy of all, so don't do that till you are a turn or two from winning or they will destroy you. Knocking out an opponent early doesn't necessarily help as that person is a target for someone else and can help keep someone else under control.

A second principle is try to win all at once via pump effects. Its almost better to keep your tokens as 1/1s as long as possible and then suddenly in a single turn make them gamewinning with Coat of Arms, Shared Animosity, Jazal Goldmane, or Mirror Entity. Don't play these cards early either! Your opponents will just kill them, so play them the turn that you can win. Surprise is one of the most powerful things in EDH. If they know you can kill them you are a threat, if they don't see it coming you will win.

Thirdly is politics via threat assessment, not deals. Sometimes people just think of politics as bribery, but its better to simply point out what other opponents are doing. "Hmm..he just played Ashnod's Altar. That's a combo piece. What's he up to?" is far more powerful than promising not to attack someone. This is self-interested, but it is also helping your opponents play better by noticing more than obvious threats. When I play against aggro I might have a board wipe, and yet hold off if I'm not afraid of imminently dying to let the aggro player do some of my dirty work for me and keep attention away from the combo I am putting together. My one friend who has been quite good at aggro has become adept at pointing out what I am doing and keeping things honest. It's also a good idea with early attacks to take turns attacking different opponents for only a small amount of damage, or even rolling the dice to see who you'll attack first. If your opponents wonder why you're holding back you can just say somewhat honestly that you're trying to spread the love around and keep blockers and critical pieces in play.

A fourth principle is board state protection. Others mentioned Unbreakable Formation and Teferi's Protection as helpful cards. Don't forget also about Make a Stand, Flawless Maneuver, and Cosmic Intervention. The latter won't save your tokens, but it will save other pieces. The same is true with Eerie Interlude and Semester's End which can also dodge even a Cyclonic Rift. Lapse of Certainty can also delay a board wipe for a turn and waste your opponents' investment, and is good tech as well. Eldrazi Monument is also a good card, because you'll have endless tokens to fuel it, and all of your stuff will be flying and indestructible, keeping your opponents from easily stopping you. One final way in your deck is just by making board wipes painful, which you can do with aristocrats. Blood Artist and Syr Konrad, the Grim will make your opponent think twice about wiping the board. Again, don't commit too many resources at once, and hold up mana for protection. This helps with controlled growth and helps you rest easy during your opponents' turns.

A fifth principle that is great is to always have a backup plane for when things go wrong. One way to do this is to have a single infinite combo to win out of nowhere when things are down. When you're playing aggro opponents are always looking at your board state, but they can be taken by surprise when you combo the win. For Markov the best one is probably Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond. If your opponents can win with this stuff then its only fair that you can in a pinch too! This also fulfills the old idea talked about on MtgGoldfish that you should always have a way to win out of nowhere. The other and more honest way to do this is just to have a way to recover your board state. Patriarch's Bidding and Haunting Voyage can help you recover all of your creatures in a single turn. Having these backup plans will make life easier.

Don't get discouraged, aggro is better than ever in EDH today due to new board protection and recovery tech Wizards has printed and reprinted in the past couple of years. All you need to do is master the playstyle and you'll have a lot more fun and success!

DreadKhan on Its Just a Flesh Wound (Budget cEDH Meren)

2 weeks ago

It's an infinite combo engine in my Meren deck, but I will say you need 2 or more cards to actually go infinite with it, a way to generate mana from bodies, and a way to generate bodies. The mini-wipe ETB offers a way to get enough energy to hopefully start the chain, but you really want a creature that makes lots of bodies you can reanimate, and something like Pitiless Plunderer or Phyrexian Altar (or Ashnod's Altar and Bog Initiate if you're weird) to make it infinite. I use Mitotic Slime as my main source of bodies, and the ability to reanimate anything after I've got infinite mana/reanimations is pretty consistently good enough to win the game. I often use Blood Artist or similar to win on the spot at this point.

It gains some viability points from the fact that Golgari is very good at tutoring the Demon up, as well as combo pieces. It's rare that I don't win if I can set this combo up, but it is possible to have infinite mana/reanimations and have nothing else worth reanimating, and no cards in hand, so you'd just be stuck hoping to draw Zulaport Cutthroat or similar to close. This can happen if everyone's graveyards are exiled, which Farewell can do (and which people should be running more and more often).

In my deck, I have other reanimation sources that can power up Demon of Dark Schemes to use it to reanimate Sidisi, Undead Vizier or Protean Hulk (or something similar) in order to win, so even if it's not infinite, it's ability can still be very powerful. If your playgroup has lots of players that use big creatures, the Demon can reanimate them for you as well, which can sometimes close the game.

It's biggest weakness is that you can't really dig it out with Protean Hulk, it's MV is so high it'd feel pretty bad to just find that in many cases. If you're not ever going to go infinite with it, going finite can still be pretty good, it's only 2B to reanimate a creature, and something like Underworld Hermit or Avenger of Zendikar can bring plenty of bodies along, allowing you to build up an army. If you've got lots of Aristocrat payoffs, just generating the Energy for your next reanimation can be powerful.

RambIe on Angel Deck needs updating

3 weeks ago

Since you went with Atla Palani, Nest Tender
Put Thornbite Staff, Ashnod's Altar, Brion Stoutarm & Serra Avatar in deck.
The rest of the cards wont matter.

AstroAA on Maya Angels

3 weeks ago

So first things first - I see you swapped the commander to Atla Palani, Nest Tender, and I do think that she is stronger for cheating things into play as her plus her ability costs the same as a single Mayael the Anima activation, her ability triggers whenever an egg dies, and besides her you only have one egg producer in the deck - Nesting Dragon - and you aren't running any token doublers, I'd advise running something like Rings of Brighthearth or Illusionist's Bracers to copy her ability, allowing you to potentially cheat in multiple things a turn. However, her ability only triggers when something dies. I see you have Ashnod's Altar and Phyrexian Altar in the maybeboard, and they're definitely probably your best options to accomplish this as that mana can also be used to cast angels in your hand.

Also, your CMC is 4.03, which is ridiculously high. You also aren't running any mana ramp outside of artifacts, which while your commanders ability is based around cheating things into play - if you don't have access to your commander or sac outlets than you're screwed. Things like Cultivate, Kodama's Reach, Migration Path, or cards like Birds of Paradise, Avacyn's Pilgrim, Fyndhorn Elves, or even cost-reducer cards like Starnheim Aspirant, Pearl Medallion all can make a big impact. Or, even just swapping some of the higher CMC angels out for lower-costed ones, like Angel of Vitality, Angel of Jubilation, Resplendent Angel and Righteous Valkyrie can go a long way towards a smoother game.

magicbike on blood for the blood god

3 weeks ago

Ayara, First of Locthwain ------ Bone Shredder Blood Artist---Dutiful Attendant

Ashnod's Altar -----Desecrated Tomb Skullclamp ---- Undying Malice Spawning Pit-----Commander's Sphere Open the Graves Vampiric Rites

Priest of Forgotten Gods Grim Haruspex

Stardragon on An Actual Ninja Phoenix Deck

1 month ago

Since you choose Desecrated Tomb and Tormod, the Desecrator why not Anax, Hardened in the Forge so you get a 1/1 bat, a 2/2 zombie and a 2/2 satyr when a creature dies or returns form the graveyard?

Some extra on death mileage particularly with your altar (I would consider Ashnod's Altar as well)- Pitiless Plunderer for more mana, Species Specialist or Dark Prophecy for card draw, Zulaport Cutthroat, Blood Artist or Bastion of Remembrance for some life gain/drain action or Butcher of Malakir and Dictate of Erebos so when you lose a creature they do too

I saw you have some recursion why not consider Return from Extinction and it's upgraded form Raise the Draugr? I would cut Exhume for one of these they cost the same and can bring back two phoenixes or ninjas and doesn't have the downside of letting your opponent bring a card back. and they cost less though they don't put on to battlefield so that may not be to your liking

Extra board wipes that won't hit your phoenixes (though will hit your ninjas) are Magmaquake, Earthquake, Faultline and Subterranean Tremors

More damage- Berserkers' Onslaught, Wound Reflection, Gratuitous Violence

Harder to block Phoenixes so you can ninjutsu even easier- Goblin War Drums, Intimidate, Cover of Darkness

Maybe Heartless Summoning-to make your commander cheaper to cast in the graveyard (the only time you should cast this from your command zone is the first time, and anytime is get's exiled as this way you can ignore the commander tax as much as possible)

And don't forget Fervor so all your birds are hasty and can attack as so as they on the field so you ninjutsu even faster