Avatar of Woe

Avatar of Woe

Creature — Avatar

If there are ten or more creature cards total in all graveyards, Avatar of Woe 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.

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Legality

Format Legality
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Leviathan Legal
Modern Legal
Limited Legal
Highlander Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Unformat Legal
1v1 Commander Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
2019-10-04 Legal
Legacy Legal
Vintage Legal
Custom Legal

Avatar of Woe occurrence in decks from the last year

Latest Decks as Commander

Avatar of Woe Discussion

TheVectornaut on Blue-Black Deck

3 days 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!

Coward_Token on Kaldheim official spoilers

1 month ago

Hand-Pod, kinda: go cards with overcosted CMCs like Avatar of Woe to cheat out big stuff early

Runed Crown: Some very forgiving templating there, no anxiety about drawing a Rune you'd rather like to fetch

Axgard Armory: and/or? Whew, that's surprising. And it taps for colored mana too? Pretty nice

UB Axgard Armory equivalent: the mill 4 is just gravy, although the creature entering tapped sours things a bit

PyroSwardsman on Yuriko Test

2 months ago

The deck is looking pretty good. I like the creature base you have chosen, there are a couple questionable creatures though. Cloudreader Sphinx seems kind of bad in this deck. If you just want a flying scryer, perhaps Sphinx of Foresight, Prognostic Sphinx, Stormwing Entity, or Siani, Eye of the Storm.

Passwall Adept is just not good enough. its too much of a resource drain. Opt is not helpful in this deck since you immediately draw the card after scrying. Cunning Evasion wont do much good I am thinking since most of your creatures wont be blocked anyway.

In my opinion, you need a few less low CMC cards and a few more high CMC that you can use to get Yuriko damage in. For cuts, I would start by looking at any creatures that cost CMC 2/3 that dont provide value other than being unblockable (Invisible Stalker, Vault Skirge (love that card btw). I would then look at replacing sorceries with instants where possible. Darksteel Pendant and Crystal Ball are not good enough in my opinion and are too much of a resource investment unless there is some sort of artifact strategy I am missing. Dimir Keyrune provides interesting utility but is inefficient. Consider Arcane Signet instead or perhaps even Dark Ritual. Thran Dynamo is fairly efficient for cost to mana provided but it seems most of your mana needs are for color. Key to the City is for yuriko after she is out I assume.. I would probably run Aqueous Form instead because it has a scry effect on attack which is pretty desirable.

Here are some cards to consider in not much particular order:

Zhalfirin Void

Moonring Island

Chromatic Orrery (high cmc and provides a lot of mana)

Mission Briefing (can add card to graveyard for delve and recast Brainstorm which is arguably one of the best cards in the deck)

Condescend

Chain of Vapor (way to return a card to hand as well as an opponents card or cards)

Archaeomancer (can get brainstorm back and can be returned to hand with ninjitsu potentially)

Harsh Scrutiny

Shrieking Drake

Archetype of Imagination

Flood of Tears (this is a pet card of mine. You can return a bunch of cheap creatures and then put out something big like a Chromatic Orrery)

Lim-Dul's Vault

Scroll Rack (spendy but so good)

Soothsaying

Spire Owl

Diabolic Vision

Index

Spy Network

Trickery Charm (does multiple things you want)

Beseech the Queen

The Magic Mirror

The Cauldron of Eternity

Deep-Sea Kraken

Avatar of Woe

Void Beckoner

Dead Drop

Tombstalker

Curse of the Cabal

Connive / Concoct

Grozoth (requires you to build around it to be worthwhile but can be good)

Scion of Darkness

Treasure Cruise

Baral's Expertise

zamiero on Vial and Ghost!

2 months ago

3> Ahhh I've been wanting to play with Obosh, the Preypiercer and Angrath's Marauders - glad you found a spot for them. While you're at it, you could also consider other "damage doublers" such as Wound Reflection and Fiendish Duo. I've thought about a Vial-Smasher deck with a White partner just to add Gisela, Blade of Goldnight.

3> I see you enjoy big monsters and X-spells here. Oh to be young again... but seriously, this seems like a good deck to play them in as you would be rewarded. Instants are your friend, as you can Smash Vials on everyone's turn! No Comet Storm?

3> I would be worried about Vial-Smasher getting nuked from orbit as soon as your turn passes and it's no longer indestructible. You'll find Heroic Intervention and Slippery Bogbonder will help with targeted Exile removal. You already have Destroy and Sacrifice covered I see.

3> I see some cost-reduced and commander-free spells in there, but you have a limited suite. While doing research for my thoughts on Vial-Smasher, I found the following might be helpful - list is just copy/paste, so it will include some White and/or Blue cards:

3> I see some cost-reduced and commander-free spells in there, but you have a limited suite. While doing research for my thoughts on Vial-Smasher, I found the following might be helpful - list is just copy/paste, so it will include some White and/or Blue cards:

Destroyerbirb on Sakashima, of a thousand faces …

3 months ago

Last_Laugh I see you did some quick math.

So, since you are playing Sultai, some reanimation strategies and their creatures are really useful. Reanimate and Exhume are the best in the game, alongside Animate Dead and friends. The reason why these are good is because if you manage to reanimate a big threat quickly and start cloning those threats, even if the threat is removed you probably have a million copies of it.

Grave Titan is powerful, with the potential to end games by itself if left unchecked. If you have lots of copies, however, you could win in 2-3 turns easy.

Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger's mill ability is very strong, even in commander. A few clones and you got the game in the bag.

Baleful Force and similar cards are very good, giving you lots of card advantage.

Sower of Temptation just gets really mean with clones. (At the same time, it gets impossible to track who stole what, or, more accurately, what stole what. Now, where's my hat?)

Cloning a Gray Merchant of Asphodel will close a game.

Avatar of Woe can prevent your opponents from playing magic, and good ol' Blightsteel Colossus is going to lose you all your friends plus one.

Gilder Bairn, Maulfist Revolutionary and proliferate cards are very good with counters, getting scary quick. Heroes' Bane is such a cool card, and it's always funny seeing someone grow their hydra into mega thicc mode. I did this, and ran out of dice. I borrowed the store's dice, but they ran out too.

Finally, Branching Evolution and Primal Vigor are must removes.

Based on the comments above, I'm sure the deck will turn out to be very good, and you might even lose a friend or two when playing magic!

dingusdingo on Budget Reanimation Targets

4 months ago

Sire Of Insanity is insanely good, and turns being ahead on the board into wins. Also quite inexpensive to purchase. Does great work when your deck plays from the graveyard

Terastodon is a 9/9 beater that solves 3 problems immediately. Also rather inexpensive to acquire. You can even nuke 3 of your own lands to get three 3/3's and one 9/9 for 18 swinging power on the field.

Protean Hulk isn't too expensive and is a fantastic choice if you have a creature based combo already in the deck.

Sheoldred, Whispering One is expensive to buy, but an absolute powerhouse in reanimator strategies. Sticking this on turn 3 can put you super far ahead.

Avatar of Woe can be great board control when reanimated early.

Massacre Wurm is about $2 after all the reprints, and while it isn't the best reanimation target, it can certainly bring the hurt for opponents.

Ancient Stone Idol is a 12/12 Trampler, no crazy effects but a massive beater that has a die trigger.

Most demons are decent choices. I'm a big fan of how Kuro, Pitlord can instantly clear a board, but his upkeep cost is kind of gross.

Most Titans are good choices too, Inferno Titan and Grave Titan for Korvold (no Prime Time in EDH)

As far as budget reanimation cards, I'm a huge fan of Apprentice Necromancer for reanimation targets with ETB triggers. It works extremely well with Sun Titan, which is out of Korvold colors but a gross combo to be aware of nonetheless (Sun Tit ETB returns the Necro, the attack trigger returns something else too). I also like Life / Death which has lots of potential in Korvold (make lands into creatures, then sac creatures to draw tons of cards) outside of just reanimation. Animate Dead and Dance of the Dead are both inexpensive at around $5 and $10 respectively last I checked and are worth getting, they will be staples even in 100% optimized reanimator. Whisper, Blood Liturgist has nice use when you get Korvold sac triggers, but needs cheap token or reusable bodies to use consistently and is expensive to cast at 4 CMC. Victimize is a great card, but once again requires bodies on the field. Exhume is fast to cast but you usually want to pair it with graveyard removal or time it well. Dread Return is a useful card that does well with lots of bodies and can be used twice. Doomed Necromancer is great Korvold tech but slow at 3 CMC + summoning sick, usually activating on turn 4 or later.

Buried Alive is a phenomenal card that can enable reanimator strategies, a definite must-include.

Cheap discard outlets also help move fatties from your hand to the graveyard. I can recommend Putrid Imp as the GOAT, but also Tortured Existence, Wild Mongrel, Faithless Looting, Noose Constrictor and Fauna Shaman. You can also look to some one-time spells to help you discard, I recommend Collective Brutality and Smallpox especially. Bog Witch can work wonders in slower metas, but will be a cut when your deck gets more optimized.

niloc50 on Dimir Mill

5 months ago

Thank you too for your suggestions! You´re absolutely right. A mill deck should hit as hard as possible every single turn. I really love the synergy of Scheming Symmetry in a mill deck in general. It´s a great way to gain advantage over your opponent. The combo with Archive Trap pretty cool too.

I´ll probably keep the Fraying Sanity. Indeed it´s a turn without a lot of milling. But most of the time it´s absolute worth it, because you´re milling twice as much during your next turn and also the opponent will most likely mill himself too. If you need graveyard hate you can easily replace it with Leyline of the Void whilst sideboarding.

This List is also a reminder for myself of which cards belong physically to the deck. So I´ll need to have a look if I can offer a playset of different fetchlands or 2 to 3 Ensnaring Bridge. :D

Avatar of Woe, Consuming Aberration and Overwhelmed Apprentice are the first cards I´ll replace with some of your suggestions. Undead Alchemist and Memory Sluice are cards which I´ll replace too, but I would really recommend to try the combo of 1 or 2 Memory Sluice + Undead Alchemist it makes a lot of fun to get all the tokens if you´re playing against a creature based deck! :D

dbpunk on Why Are Empress Galina and …

8 months ago

Tbh theres also better, cheaper alternatives to both.

For Tsabo you have Isochron Scepter and any 2 or 1 mana instant kill spell at 2, you can use Magus of the Abyss, etc. Hell for the same effect nearly exactly, you have Avatar of Woe, which is usually a two drop when you cast it.

For Gallina, literally anything that lets you take control of a creature will do it. Theres plenty of spells that let you steal a creature without paying , and for her mana cost exactly and 1 less power you can use Beguiler of Wills.

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