Baleful Strix

Baleful Strix

Artifact Creature — Bird

Flying, deathtouch

When this enters the battlefield, draw a card.

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vintage Legal
Casual Legal
Custom Legal
Quest Magic Legal

Rules Q&A

Baleful Strix Discussion

multimedia on Nihiloor Nightmares

3 weeks ago

Hey, well done for a first deck on such a low budget. I haven't seen this Commander before.

When you're just starting out building decks in Commander it can be helpful to have some basic deck structure guildlines to follow.

This is just a basic structure to get things started. It doesn't cover everything and your final deck may have different numbers for each part of the structure such as you might have more creatures. Some cards can cover more than one area such as Palace Jailer who is creature removal and can be repeatable draw which is really helpful.

Ramp is something all Commander decks need since you don't want to only rely on lands/land drops to make mana. You have Sol Ring which is really good, but that's where the ramp ends here. Only Sol is not enough ramp.

I always explain to new Commander deck builders that you need to be able to sacrifice (cut) some of the fun cards to add ramp to your deck. Since doing this will help gameplay so that you can more easily cast your Commander and the other big fun cards you want to play. In the case here my advice is consider cutting at least 9 cards to add more budget ramp?

Some cards to consider cutting to add more ramp are creatures who don't do enough for their mana cost: Gods' Hall Guardian, Living Tempest, Dread Rider, Shepherd of Heroes, Kor Celebrant, Ronom Unicorn, Brinebarrow Intruder

Like ramp all decks also need draw that comes from single draw effects and more importantly repeatable draw sources. Currently your deck has three good single draw effects Baleful Strix, Champion of Wits, Cloudblazer and one repeatable draw source Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. There's a reanimation theme here that can get you more draw from these creatures which is good, but consider more draw?

Jailer and Rose can be repeatable draw sources with the Monarch Emblem. When you have the monarch then you draw a card at your end step. Only one player in the game at one time can be the monarch and it can change players. As long as you are monarch you get the repeatable draw at your end step which is a big advantage.

For an opponent to become the monarch they have to do combat damage with a creature to you or play a card/effect that makes them the monarch. When this happens you loose the monarch and that opponent becomes the monarch. You can get back the monarch though by doing combat damage with a creature to the opponent who is the monarch or playing a card/effect that makes you the monarch.

Some cards to consider cutting to add more draw: Withercrown, Grave Endeavor, Arcane Endeavor, Smite the Monstrous, Extract Brain, Wand of Orcus

The area of your deck that you have a lot of is removal. I count 23 single effects of removal here. You can afford to cut some removal to improve other areas of your deck: Withercrown, Befuddle, Iron Verdict, Smite the Monstrous.

If you're interested I offer more advice in another comment. Including explaining how blink from single effects or repeatable such as Soulherder and Brago, King Eternal can be powerful here. Would you like me to continue with more advice?

Good luck with your deck.

multimedia on Artifact Commander Turd

1 month ago

Hey, for a first deck on a low budget well done. I haven't seen this partner pairing before.

When you're first starting to deck build in Commander it can be helpful to have some guidelines for a casual basic deck structure.

This structure is meant to be a starting point for a deck in Commander. It's just a basic structure to follow, not all areas of your deck are covered and you may end up with different numbers of each area. For example you might have more ramp from mana rocks because artifacts are important cards here. Silas is quite fragile and he wants to attack therefore having some protection and evasion for him such as Zephyr Boots and Swiftfoot Boots would be helpful.

In Commander there's some budget staples to consider adding:

Both your Commanders care about cards in your graveyard, but you don't have very many effects that can get cards into your graveyard or get them out of your graveyard. Here's some budget card suggestions to consider adding to build around to improve synergy with your Commanders.

Baleful Strix is an artifact creature who you want to keep recurring with Silas as a way to draw and more deathtouch. Master of Death can keep returning from your graveyard to your hand for the cost of 1 life at your upkeep. He also has surveil 2 (self-mill) where you look at the top two cards of your library and choose to keep them there in any order or put one or more of them into your graveyard.

Pair Master and Strix with Tortured Existence as a way to discard to then return another creature in your graveyard to your hand (recursion). With Existence you don't ever have to cast Master instead keep discarding it and returning it to your hand which each turn to create a 2/2 Zombie with Tormod for one mana and 1 life.

Riddlesmith is repeatable draw/discard (loot) when you cast an artifact and you choose which card you discard which is helpful. Wonder is a powerful effect when it's in your graveyard, it's a good card to discard, since then if you control just one Island all creatures you control gain flying. Silas has deathtouch which makes it likely he will not be blocked in combat, but flying is actual evasion to make it more consistent that Silas will do combat damage to a player. Wonder can give all 2/2 Zombies flying for big attacks.

I can continue with more advice in another comment. Would you like me to continue?

Good luck with your deck.

multimedia on The Undying

1 month ago

Hey, nice casual budget version, but are undying creatures other than Mikaeus and Flayer really worth it?

Consider more enablers to get +1/+1 counters on your creatures?

If you're going for an attacking strategy then consider a few more fliers that have some added value when they die or when they ETB?

Bloodtracker + Sword of Hours is a nice interaction. Some sac outlets are helpful to sac creatures who have counters to get their die or ETB triggers.

You have several high CMC creatures here, more reanimation and enablers could help.

Olivia, Mobilized for War is a +1/+1 counter enabler and an enabler for reanimation.

Some cards to consider cutting:

Good luck with your deck.

Scytec on Vela The Ninja-Clad

1 month ago

So, the fun thing about Vela is that she doesnt require anything to die to get the ping damage. So a combo for it would be Deadeye Navigator + Peregrine Drake. Target Drake with Navigators ability and you can continuously untap lands, tap all your lands, use two mana to activate the Navigators ability on Drake and eventually get infinite mana. That is nice, but what you care about with Vela is the fact that in order to generate infinite mana, you have to blink Drake infinite times. Everytime you do that with vela on the battlefield each opponent will lose one life, so you kill your opponents without ever needing to do anything else. There are many combos like that bounce/blink creatures on your battlefield. Many groups don't like infinite combo though, so you should discuss this with them before you include it to avoid the feel bads. One card that goes really well with Vela by itself is Rite of Replication if you kick it, it translates into 30 damage instantly to each opponent. Rite kicked targeting Vela will make 5 copies of Vela in addition to the original. All 5 will immediately need to be sacrificed due to the legendary rule not allowing you to have multiple copies of any legendary creature. 6 copies of Vela seeing 5 other copies of itself leaving means 30 damage gets assigned to each opponent. It is very mana intensive since the kicker is so expensive. Deadeye Navigator is really excellent because you can blink anything on your board for 2 mana. You can use it targeting Vela to save her from removal, or you could target itself and when it re-entered the battlefield you could choose a new creature to target with his soulbond ability. Anything with an "enters the battlefield" effect such as Mulldrifter, Baleful Strix, Gonti, Lord of Luxury, and Gary (Gray Merchant of Asphodel) you can repeatedly activate with Navigator by paying two mana, and you can always swap targets as well. Sorry for the novel. :p Let me know if you have and questions about anything i said. I am not the best at explaining myself, but i will do better if i need to. Haha.

RambIe on I Can't Pronounce My Commander's Name

1 month ago

Lanzo493: you have a very good point Kaya's Ghostform does not work with Soulherder, or Teleportation Circle
But i still support them because Kaya's Ghostform will work with all the other untap effects, while Soulherder & Teleportation Circle will work with all the other wonderfull etb creatures like Agent of Treachery & Sun Titan
so i am going to surrender this debate to "dealers choice" feeling both points are valid

On another note i can understand hesitation on cutting Arcanis the Omnipotent becouse the value of draw three, , draw three more
May i suggest cut Arcanis the Omnipotent & Baleful Strix then put in Jace's Archivist ?

DrukenReaps on Are there any other cards …

2 months ago

Dethrone is an attack trigger so you don't really need evasion. Anything that dies will be back at the end step including Marchesa if she got a counter.

Some of the best card draw with her in my experience was Grim Haruspex, River Kelpie, Baleful Strix, Sage of Fables, and Mulldrifter.

If it was less about the card draw and more about the evasion Herald of Secret Streams, Archetype of Imagination, and Wonder are solid options. Even Archetype of Aggression has good uses here. I don't know any cards that do both of these things...

Lokotor on Marchesa, The Black Rose - Primer

2 months ago

Quodan

Fain, the Broker Is ok, but a bit slow. I would consider it in a budget list possibly, but I think there are generally better sacrifice outlets you could pick from.

Kalain, Reclusive Painter I don't like. you need to devote a lot of space to treasure production and there's really not a lot of cards that fit the bill on that end, and it's too limited to rely only on his own ability to make treasures. in a pirate focused list where you're making a lot of treasures it might be a better fit, but in general I wouldn't bother with it.

Plumb the Forbidden is definitely a playable card, I generally steer more towards creature based card draw like Baleful Strix, Watcher for Tomorrow and Yawgmoth, Thran Physician since they tend to provide better value over a game, but you could certainly play this as well. I have it in my budget list, although the price has gotten a bit higher lately.

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer Doesn't really do a lot here. I think it's a much better card in formats like legacy and modern than in commander and it doesn't really create the right kind of value for a marchesa deck the way I run it (aristocrats) he doesn't have evasion and is a fairly small body, so you'll probably find it hard to connect and so I think a lot of the time he's going to just sit around and do nothing.

TraceT

Resculpt is definitely something you could play. It's pretty much directly comparable to Reality Shift and you could certainly play either or both.

KaptnK on

2 months ago

Saw this deck list requesting help so ill provide some feedback here. First of all love the idea of winning with Eldrazi spawn tokens! I do feel though that you have too many creatures in the deck and could use some more utility spells to smooth out your games and push you towards your goal. I am not sure of your budget so ill try to keep that in mind with my feedback. Some ideas of this would be:

For your lands you look to be missing Command Tower which could easily replace a basic land. Additionally you could look to add the new triome lands Zagoth Triome to help with your colour fixing.

Finally you could look at some finishers like Overwhelming Stampede or Triumph of the Hordes to go with your "go wide" strategy.

Some general things to think about. You look like you need some more card draw and mana ramp (hence some of my suggestions above) but also need some additional removal spells to slow down everyone else while you get your army built.

Hope some of this helps!

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