Avatar of Woe

Creature — Avatar

If there are ten or more creature cards total in all graveyards, this spell costs less to cast.

Fear (This creature can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or black creatures.)

: Destroy target creature. It can't be regenerated.

Discussion (51)

Epicurus on Volrath: No School, like Old School

1 month ago

Awesome deck, love the oldschool vibe. I didn't read through all of the previous comments thoroughly, but I didn't notice anyone suggesting No Mercy, so I'll just leave that here. Also, Avatar of Woe, because it's a potentially cheap bawler, and also a high CMC for Volrath.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Cheers!

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Old Stickfingers Big Hits

3 months ago

The idea looks great, but 31 lands seems veeery low. You have quite a few ramp cards, but less than 35 lands seems too few.

Regarding your fatties: Avatar of Woe and Phyrexian Triniform might be useful additions.

Necrosis24 on Ghostly Flame and Thran Lens

4 months ago

I am working on a Rakdos morph deck and have come across Thran Lens and Ghostly Flame.

Thran Lens seems to have more obvious applications such as:

• Fear (ex. Avatar of Woe)
• Intimidate (ex. Academy Raider)
• Devoid (ex. Dominator Drone)
• Forsaken Monument
• Tomb of the Spirit Dragon

Ghostly Flame on the other hand I can't think of any useful applications as it doesn't circumvent targeting a creature with "protection from red/black". Even if it did that would be a niche ability not prevalent in my meta.

So I was curious if there were any cards/abilities that benefit from Thran Lens and Ghostly Flame beyond the ones I mentioned.

Gidgetimer on Xytheria, Empress of Stone

4 months ago

I think their point is that Xytheria has no way to destroy creatures, and no easy way to give her a way to. Your intent is clear, but MTG templating is very precise and has no way to parse your intent. Damage dealt never destroys anything, it is either CR 704.5g, CR 704.5h, or effects that specifically say "destroy" (Avatar of Woe, Doom Blade, Wrath of God etc).

To fulfil your intent you would need to template the ability like Sengir Vampire. If you want the destruction to have to be a result of specifically the damage Xytheria deals, you are going to have to find a creative way to template it to make it work. Every effect that I can find specifies "dealt damage ... dies this turn" for added benefit triggers.

120.5. Damage dealt to a creature or planeswalker doesn’t destroy it. Likewise, the source of that damage doesn’t destroy it. Rather, state-based actions may destroy a creature or planeswalker, or otherwise put it into its owner’s graveyard, due to the results of the damage dealt to that permanent. See rule 704

701.7b The only ways a permanent can be destroyed are as a result of an effect that uses the word “destroy” or as a result of the state-based actions that check for lethal damage (see rule 704.5g) or damage from a source with deathtouch (see rule 704.5h). If a permanent is put into its owner’s graveyard for any other reason, it hasn’t been “destroyed.”

704.5g If a creature has toughness greater than 0, it has damage marked on it, and the total damage marked on it is greater than or equal to its toughness, that creature has been dealt lethal damage and is destroyed. Regeneration can replace this event.

704.5h If a creature has toughness greater than 0, and it’s been dealt damage by a source with deathtouch since the last time state-based actions were checked, that creature is destroyed. Regeneration can replace this event.

legendofa on Black poison

8 months ago

First, welcome to the club!

As far as lands go, if you have some money lying around that you need to get rid of, Cabal Stronghold might help. If you have a lot of money lying around, Cabal Coffers . Piranha Marsh and Leechridden Swamp are also simple triggers for the Sanguine Bond - Exquisite Blood loop. Are you building to a specific format?

I see the direction this deck is going in, but it's got a lot of moving parts, and those moving parts need to come down in a pretty tight order. The Avatar of Woe branch is also reliant on the opponent(s) playing a lot of creatures. Overall, this deck has a lot of components that are simply out of your control.

I'm not trying to discourage you, or say that this deck is useless. It's got a good core and good intentions. The first step to improvement would be to streamline it.

TheVectornaut on Jarad big sacrifice

9 months ago

I ran Jarad for quite a while in my Necrotic Ooze deck. The main plan is to fill the yard with a ton of creatures off cards like Satyr Wayfinder , sacrifice them with Hell's Caretaker to bring back huge threats, and/or use Ooze plus strong activated abilities like Avatar of Woe 's and the untap from Devoted Druid to amass an advantage. Before going in a more combo-heavy direction, I had Jarad and Korozda Guildmage as my big payoff cards (with Spider Spawning and Kessig Cagebreakers in the sideboard). Both love the way the Lord himself can be sacrificed to close out the game when your graveyard gets big enough. Having redundant effects helps make any plan more resilient, so I usually run a playset of Splinterfright and sometimes consider Nighthowler or Bonehoard as backups for the elf. Splinterfright in particular benefits from having a Nyx Weaver self-mill effect tacked on. The major benefit to using these types of cards over Colossification is just mana cost. +20/+20 will almost always win the game, but for 7 mana, it's easy to see it being too slow in all but the most casual environments. Plus, if you tap out for the aura, a single Vapor Snag can ruin the plan before Jarad gets to activate. I'd want some other ways to take advantage of the huge buff, even if that's just efficient trample creatures, if I was building around Colossification. That, or finding some way to cheat it into play early.

If you can, I'd also recommend cutting down to the 60 card minimum. This will make it all the more likely you draw the most synergetic cards, although I do like that you have tutors to help with that too.

osiczym on Awaken the Undercrypt: Agadeem

10 months ago

Oh, and consider Avatar of Woe which would come here pretty quick on battlefield

TheVectornaut on Blue-Black Deck

10 months ago

I'd start by identifying what you want the main goal of your deck to be. I see two main ideas here that could be built around.

The first is dealing unblocked damage by disincentivizing blocks with deathtouch. Darkblade Agent , Eternal of Harsh Truths , Graveblade Marauder , and maybe Blightsteel Colossus (with enough reanimation) fit this archetype. Because of the two "blade" cards, there is some overlap with the second archetype which I'll cover next (and if you keep them, cards like Notion Rain , Mission Briefing , Thought Erasure , and Discovery / Dispersal are likely to get more mileage than Divination or Secrets of the Golden City ), but there may be even better ways to profit from unblocked creatures. Curiosity enchantments like Curious Obsession , Sixth Sense , and Keen Sense are frequent accompaniments to the Invisible Stalker s and other bogles of the world, and Bident of Thassa is a strong option for those going wide. I like Quietus Spike as a sort of midway point between Basilisk Collar and Master of Cruelties in decks like these too. Other beaters to get in with could be Tomebound Lich , Oona's Blackguard , Dimir Cutpurse , Looter il-Kor , Shadowmage Infiltrator , Surrakar Spellblade , Wharf Infiltrator , or Virtus the Veiled if he's legal in whatever format this is for. More generic deathtouch synergy could include Hooded Blightfang , Viridian Longbow , Thornbite Staff , Psionic Gift enchantments, and any source of first strike. Finally, I like Cipher as a way to gain advantage from repeated attacks, so maybe a Hidden Strings or Paranoid Delusions could come in handy.

The second main idea is to stack the graveyard(s) with as many creatures as possible to extract value from Undergrowth and similar mechanics. Avatar of Woe , Lotleth Giant , Trepanation Blade , Teferi's Tutelage , and some of your Disentomb effects fit here. Major threats in these kinds of decks include Wight of Precinct Six , Jace's Phantasm , Consuming Aberration , Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker , Fleet Swallower , Nemesis of Reason , Bonehoard , Mortivore , and Nighthowler . If you want to focus on your own graveyard, green is a great color to dip into as I alluded to earlier. Ghoultree , Boneyard Wurm , Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord , Splinterfright , Nyx Weaver , Nemesis of Mortals , Spider Spawning , and Kessig Cagebreakers are just some of the tools you get access to. Golgari is also the king of Undergrowth, so Hatchery Spider , Izoni, Thousand-Eyed , Molderhulk , Rhizome Lurcher / Undergrowth Scavenger , Kraul Harpooner , and Necrotic Wound are on the table. If milling your opponents is more your thing, some staples to consider are Thought Scour , Sphinx's Tutelage , Drown in the Loch , Traumatize , Fraying Sanity , and the crab duo. Jace's Erasure , Psychic Corrosion , and the Tutelage pair benefit the most from other draw synergy, and Visions of Beyond is an obvious inclusion if that's the route you take. Either way, I'd cut down to only the most efficient of your reanimate to hand cards and the like since you don't want to be stuck with a fist full of them and no creatures in the graveyard to target. Speaking of cuts, for maximum power, it's usually correct to play as close to the 60 card minimum as possible. Picking a single strategy to hone in on should make it easier to whittle down to the most important 60 in the deck.

If you have questions, let me know. Good luck with your build!