Assassin's Trophy

Instant

Destroy target permanent an opponent controls. Its controller may search their library for a basic land card, put it onto the battlefield, then shuffle their library.

Discussion (47)

Keqing420 on Monomanamaniac's Infinite elves

1 week ago

but you're not actually reaching 50 mana. show me the "exact" line of play that nets you 50 mana. because the line of play you mentioned doesn't even come close, despite sounding like a best case scenario. even if you played a land drop on turn 4, you'd have 4 devotion, meaning your lands could tap for 5 mana (since you need 2 of them to activate nykthos) then you'd have 4 from archdruid, and 3 from heritage druid. so thats 12 mana. where does the other 38 come from?

i don't think Elvish Champion has ever been $20. i actually just looked at the cards price history for a couple different versions of it, and it basically topped at $10.

the shaman is actually not comparable to nykthos for the reasons you stated. a swamp might not get you a turn 1 dork, but thats a poor argument grasping at straws. you'd have fetch lands and dual lands like Verdant Catacombs and Overgrown Tomb, and possibly Llanowar Wastes or the GB pathway (darkbore pathway) from kaldheim. you wouldn't just have forests and swamps. plus it can still come down turn 2. if the cost of the dual lands is too much, then it makes sense to not include shaman. but saying "a swamp doesn't get me a turn 1 dork" isn't quite a valid reason in my opinion. you'd likely only have a single basic swamp in the deck anyway, simply in case someone casts Path to Exile or Assassin's Trophy.

Beast Whisperer and Primal Surge should be cut. there are better creatures to spend 4 mana on, and you'll probably just have an empty hand by the time you draw him if elves did their job to begin with. by the time you have the board presence required to pump out 10 mana for surge, you have the board presence to likely just attack and win. it's a "win more" card in elves.

maxbiatch on Rakdos DS

2 weeks ago

Pretty cool build! Have you thought about changing the land base a bit (more fetches, are Dragonskull and Castle working well?) and I am not a huge fan of Angrath's Rampage in the Sideboard. It can hit different things, but can be pretty worthless as well. I tend to run Abrade, Dreadbore or Feed the Swarm in the Sideboard. They are a little more limiting, but instant speed and making you target what to destroy can be a big advantage. Or change cards like Watery Grave into Overgrown Tomb so you can fit Assassin's Trophy or Abrupt Decay into the Sideboard. Depending on your meta, Cleansing Wildfire could be a nice pick (dismantling Oops and Belcher, which Kolaghan's Command fails to do most times). Rain of Gore can turn into a boomerang against Heliod, Sun-Crowned, it's not a bad card but isn't an auto win against these decks either, but I've not found a better solution myself yet. Noxious Revival seems interesting and I think I've never seen it in Shadow ever before. Is it working for you? Are you usually targeting yourself with it or your opponent?

ZareZare on Jund

2 weeks ago

I do agree with rjife that many of the cards he suggested should be added to the deck, but I do disagree with his suggestion of Waker of The Dead, as Liliana, the Last Hope is just better. Also, Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is more of a sideboard card, and I would recommend swapping out the eat to extinction for Assassin's Trophy in mainboard, and the fatal pushes in sideboard for Kalitas. I would also say take out the Soul Shatters for more Fatal Push.

rjife on Jund

3 weeks ago

I love jund, and this deck is no exception, though there are a couple things that I think could be improved on:

Grim Flayer is much better than ambitious aetherborn, and considering you're running kroxa, running a few Satyr Wayfinder is definitely plausible.

I have been very unimpressed with eat to extinction, as Abrupt Decay and Assassin's Trophy deal with anything for less mana.

In the 4-drop slot, I have found that many jund decks tend to run Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, and many others run no 4-drops at all.

Here are some other jund staples you may want to consider running: -Kolaghan's Command -Chandra, Torch of Defiance -Liliana, Waker of the Dead -Thoughtseize

Have fun junding them out

Peligrad on Please Enlighten Me

3 weeks ago

Not all CEDH decks are equal either. Your definition of all CEDH decks winning by turn 5 doesn't hold true, especially since the banning of Flash CEDH has slowed down and the slower but more robust responsive decks tend to perform better than the super fast active decks.

The aggressive decks are extremely fast but fragile. Certain casual decks can win consistently against ones like this because casual decks run a lot of the same removal. A Swan Song or Swords to Plowshares or Assassin's Trophy played from a casual deck does the same thing that it does when played from a Cedh deck.

Additionally, politics play a role. When 1 CEDH deck sits in a pod with 3 casuals, all 3 casuals should be focused on the CEDH deck.

legendofa on What's your favorite card?

1 month ago

Megrim got me into the game, but my top cards right are the cheap removal suite: Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy, and Maelstrom Pulse. Your annoying thing is gone, no questions asked or answered.

HalbrechtHalbrecht on Modern Elfkind

2 months ago

Love elves! +1 from me. I used to run a GW CoCo elves build that has a lot of crossover with your list. Some thoughts:

I used to like Fauna Shaman as a nice way to cash in redundant copies of Ezuri, Heritage Druid, other dorks, etc. In this deck, you actually have a much better target than I ever had with Shaman of the Pack. On a stalled board state, you can Fauna Shaman all your copies out turn by turn.

I also recommend a single copy of Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx if you have or can afford it. Obviously, you have plenty of other ways to generate lots of mana with elves, but I remember it could still come in handy.

For the sideboard, why not run Essence Warden in place of the Leylines? Sure, it's nice to have a free Leyline on turn 1, but at every other point, the Warden only costs 1 and it's another elf body. Better synergy overall.

Finally, I'd recommend some removal. I used to run Dismember, but obviously there's lots of options in GB — Assassin's Trophy, Abrupt Decay, etc.

Hope at least one of those things was useful! Regardless, thanks for a nice blast from the past. :)

plakjekaas on Opposition Agent needs a preemptive …

2 months ago

Yeah, no. I'm not buying it. I think a lot more players than you assume, play the game to play the game, and just don't like to lock up tables in the magnitude you're suggesting. Because the way you picture it, there will be no decks left not playing blue or black in the world.

I will not be jamming Hullbreacher in my temur landfall deck, Opposition Agent will not make the cut for Rankle, Master of Pranks, nor for Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire (excellent answer right there in the command zone btw). Commander players all over the world like to play suboptimal decks with janky combos, tokens, big creatures, tribes, any way to personalize the experience and make it fun to play. The problems you are projecting are only for tables that rely on their tutors to do anything they want to, with only interaction, tutors, and instant, hard-to-interact-with win-the-game combo pieces in their deck.

Which is currently the most powerful way to play magic in EDH, because you're playing singleton. But not really, because every tutor counts as every other card in your deck that it can find. OP agent, like Aven Mindcensor, Stranglehold,Mindlock Orb and Leonin Arbiter, will absolutely WRECK cEDH tables, nobody will disagree with that. If you can't answer a 3/2 with your hand and/or boardstate, without searching your library, or if your deck can't win without its Thassa's Oracle, yes, then this card is a major problem for you.

But in the top 100 cards on EDHrec, there's 16 that get hosed by OP agent. 9 of them only search your library for land(s). If that was enough to be banned from a format, Null Rod and Collector Ouphe would have been banned ages ago, because almost every deck plays mana rocks (23 out of 100 are hosed by those). Getting your stuff stolen feels bad, however, so this will immediately make the top Salt Cards list on EDHrec.

It sounds like only the most powerful decks and tables are not ready for the impact of this card, the paradigm shift that searching your library to find exactly what you need at any time, can be answered now, and might no longer be the best thing to do in any situation, it might even lose you the game now. The rest of the world, who can just cast a 6-power creature from their hand, or the command zone, and start beating the player who forbids them to play their deck until he is no more, along with the other 2 players who don't have an OP agent in play and like to see it gone, will shrug and consider this the next unfun stax piece, like Stasis, Winter Orb, Armageddon, Cursed Totem, Drannith Magistrate, Notion Thief, Narset, Parter of Veils, Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top, Glacial Chasm and others that have mostly been self-restricted at 90% of all EDH playgroups in the world, but not banned.

So to preemptively ban this card because a small subset of commander metas around the world will have a hard time dealing with it, is hard for me to get behind, especially if that's the same subset that will have a Force of Will, an Assassin's Trophy, a Cyclonic Rift and/or a Mystical Tutor to find those or a different answer with OP agent on the stack.