Baleful Strix
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Block Constructed 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

Artifact Creature — Bird

Flying, deathtouch

When this enters the battlefield, draw a card.

theinvincible333 on Niv value

2 months ago

tindolos on Sefris Dunegons

3 months ago

2022 Deck Overhaul

The budget version was pretty fun and goofy to play but I started looking for more consistent ways to get through dungeons and win.

Out

In

Spirits on Yuriko (Optimized) Primer

3 months ago

azja,

Couple early questions if you don't mind. Let me know if I'm a bother :) My Yuri Deck

Karn's Temporal Sundering hitting an opponent for 6 is good, but wouldn't Capture of Jingzhou be more efficient for CMC1 less? Perhaps its a budgetary/availability consideration?

You have 15 enablers, I read the notes on them, couple questions. What's the critical mass on this, like would 10 be deterimental. When I did a rough pull in had the following questions:

Why is Tormented Soul excluded, is it just as simple as the Force of Will? He still not better than the 2CMC options like Augury Owl?

Kaito Shizuki thoughts? I'm worried that the CMC3 for the -2 is the wrong tempo/timing, but, he does come in, make a unblockable, then phase out to also get the draw next turn. If you don't need the unblockable, it's draw 2 for CMC3, tough to see hitting his ultimate at 7. 3CMC planeswalker are usually good, some I'm tempted to think this one will be too? But I have no play experience on this deck.

I just can't get my head around the flying evasion guys though, Faerie Seer, Spectral Sailor, Wingcrafter, Augury Owl, Sage Owl. They feel "sub-optimal" to me and difficult to include, but as I said what's the critical mass here? I was considering Baleful Strix in the 2CMC drop, just because he replaces himself in hand (which may just be discarded anyway, but looting never that bad anyway), with deathtouch less likely to be blocked by flying/reach, and he can be an effective (deathtouch) defender.

I've roughed in "12" for the timebeing.

Honestly my first thought was this is a turbo-draw to tutor, fish-pact/fish-consul strategy. I was looking at Tatsunari, Toad Rider instead, but I think I like "big splashy spells" more than the aristocrats method. So that got me thinking, what the heck do I win with, is this viable or am I off-base here:

Primary: Thassa's Oracle + Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact ASAP / Draw for tutors

Tertiary Maverick 'Turn and Burn': Temporal Trespass, Temporal Mastery, Temporal Manipulation, Capture of Jingzhou with perhaps something like Sea Gate Restoration  Flip or Dig Through Time as possible damage enablers in addition to the 'turn'.

I skipped Secondary intentionally, is there no room here for a Doomsday? I can think of multiple stacks with varied CMC, E.G. if devotion to blue 3 + Doomsday + Thassa's Oracle (BBBUU) is a win, if you don't have Thassa's Oracle, somethig like Doomsday + Gitaxian Probe/Street Wraith into a Night's Whisper or something could be around CMC7, Gush kinda useless here for a CMC3 (BBB) stack.

Thoughts on that? I see you intentionally don't run the fish, but this seems viable for this deck?

For Scheming Symmetry doesn't the player just pull a counterspell to stop your win, does it really "win on the spot", if you have to pass it feels useless, but with Nashi, Moon Sage's Scion or Opposition Agent it does work. Reliability? I "should"? run it?

Has Mutavault been enough value for a possible swing vs. the downside of the colorless mana? It dodges board wipe and is a ninja, so kinda-of makes sense to me, but I'm on the fence?

Also, would avoiding the enters tapped lands be better? E.G. Drowned Catacomb, Mystic Sanctuary, Sunken Hollow be far better as say City of Brass, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, River of Tears, Etc.?

I do have TOO MANY potential colorless mana Ancient Tomb, Gemstone Caverns, Reliquary Tower, Strip Mine. I feel like Reliquary Tower is a trap and I should remove, where I feel like, what's my strategy vs. a Glacial Chasm or Maze of Ith.

It's still a work in progress, I think I need more Ninjas then I have, still evaluating them one by one, and trying to figure out what each tutor gets me, but first I need to know what my win-con plans are to know what i'm looking for!

Thanks for any feedback you can provide.

multimedia on Satoru and the ninja deep sea creatures

3 months ago

Hey, interesting concept, combining Ninjas with sea monsters. Well done if this is your first attempt at deck building, you have good card sense.

Some cards here that are not as good as the others that could be upgraded, even on a budget: Prismatic Lens, Doom Blade, Nemesis of Reason, Ambition's Cost, Commander's Sphere, Rogue Class, Tromokratis, Blade of the Oni.

  • 1x more Island --> Tromokratis
  • 1x more Island --> Nemesis of Reason
  • 1x more Swamp --> Doom Blade

30 lands is low when you want to get to at least four mana to ninjutsu with Satoru. Consider cutting a couple of the high CMC sea monsters that are not as good as the others, Tromokratis and Nemesis of Reason, to add a few more lands? Could just add more of each basic land or there's many other options that are more expensive price: Watery Grave, Morphic Pool, Drowned Catacomb, Shipwreck Marsh, etc. Some budget options are: Ice Tunnel (another land Marsh Flats can get), Temple of Deceit, Esper Panorama.

Prismatic Lens and Commander's Sphere could be upgraded to mana rocks that can combo with Hullbreaker Horror to make infinite mana. Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice combo with Sol Ring by repeatedly bounce/cast them with Hullbreaker to make infinite mana. Sol pays for itself plus 1 extra colorless mana each time you tap it before it's bounced by Hullbreaker. Astral is better because once you make infinite colorless then you can pay that colorless to cast Astral to make infinite blue or black mana. When you have infinite colorless then Arcane Signet or Dimir Signet can also be used to make infinite blue/black mana.

If you can create a copy of Hullbreaker from Thousand-Faced Shadow then this combo can bounce all your opponent's nonland permanents and keep doing this on each of your main phases.

Ingenious Infiltrator is a good Ninja for repeatable draw. Baleful Strix is a nice creature to enable ninjustu. Prosperous Thief is a Ninja for repeatable ramp who also triggers from a Rogue and there's many unblockable Rogues here.

Good luck with your deck.

multimedia on Umezawa of the Swamp

3 months ago

Hey, if you're looking for other potential cuts then look at the amount of removal you're playing. I count 19 removal sources including counterspells. That's a lot of removal and some of it could be cut for more draw and ramp.

Having a more balanced ratio of draw sources to ramp sources to removal can help gameplay. 10+-10-10 (draw-ramp-removal) is a good start. Overall more draw than the rest, with ramp sources potentially being less since on a budget there's not a lot of good ramp options in Dimir. More draw can replace some ramp since it can help to find lands. I don't consider Ecologist's Terrarium and Armillary Sphere ramp since these effects put basic land(s) into your hand not onto the battlefield. This effect is more draw than ramp and both of these could be cut for ramp, Terrarium is better card than Sphere.

The current ratio here of these three areas is 11-4-19 (draw-ramp-removal). Other than Nezahal, Primal Tide and bouncing Baleful Strix with ninjustu most of the rest of the draw is coming from one-time effects. One-time effects are fine, but repeatable effects are better. Number of ramp sources here is low. Prosperous Thief is in NEO set and it's good ramp for Ninjas since it also counts Rogues and many Rogues here are unblockable. It's two mana ninjutsu can be helpful for a potential turn two play after getting creature turn one.

Twisted Embrace, Essence Capture and Clawing Torment are some removal here that are worse than the rest. If you're getting Kaito Shizuki that's great, Twisted Embrace could be cut for him. Negate could replace another removal spell if you want to play it, it's better than Essence Capture, but If not I don't think you need it.

azja on Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow (1st CEDH deck)

4 months ago

Haha don't worry, none of my other decks are as organized and thought out as my Yuriko list!

As for the tempo of your deck, it probably depends on the other decks in your playgroup. I tend to play Yuriko against my friends' higher-powered decks, which is why mine is built for a speedy t2 Yuriko. But if their decks are more medium-powered, you could slow it down and play value creatures like Baleful Strix and Thalakos Seer, and/or more expensive ninjas like Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, Silent-Blade Oni, etc.

Guerric on [Primer] Crouching One-Drop, Hidden Ninja *Update*

4 months ago

Thanks for the feedback xram666, and I appreciate the kind words!

As for the cards, I totally forgot about Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire! I remember when that was revealed I vowed to try it out in several of my black decks (since in any context it's a repeatable black tutor), but the top deck manipulation in Yuriko is unparalleled. Thanks for pointing that out- I will definitely put that in.

As for Thalakos Seer, I am aware of it and have thought about trying it out, but what holds me back is that I used to play Baleful Strix, which performs similarly to the seer. I ended up not liking it as much because one mana is just so much better than two for enablers. Being able to play the enabler, use ninjutsu, than replay the enabler in the second main to be ready to attack and enable ninjutsu the next turn is just so good. I also find that card draw is at a bit less of a premium in Yuriko since she draws so many cards anyway, so I didn't find that pulling Baleful Strix really made much of an impact that way.

I know that a lot of people play Brainstorm, but I personally don't like it too much in commander due to it's one off nature. Setting up one attack with only the top three of my library just doesn't inspire me all that much. I'd rather just use Scroll Rack, Soothsaying, Insidious Dreams, or Lim-Dul's Vault, which are more impactful, or Sensei's Divining Top, which is repeatable, or tutor with Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire (thanks again!) or Mystical Tutor or Scheming Symmetry. Its just hard to justify the slot for me, but I am an extremely value-centric deck builder, maybe to a fault!

Umezawa's Jitte is amazingly flavorful, which is a huge plus for me. Its also just such an iconic card in magic's history, which is another plus. It's also definintely good, and could definitely work. For me my intuition is that it might just be a bit too midrange with my approach. Usually when I play creatures are going into and out of my hand, which makes the cost of re-equipping it over and over again burdensome. I've always played with Sword of the Animist, which is one of the best non-green ramp cards there is, but I usually abandon it after I get a few lands out because I want to use the creature for something else. I definitely think it could work, especially if you're disciplined enough to keep building up charges till you can dome someone with it, but I'm not sure I have the discipline! That being said, its a cool card, and if I had a copy I would probably be trying it just because it's that cool.

Thanks again for all the suggestions!

azja on Yuriko (Optimized) Primer

4 months ago

@freezerboy Thank you for the comment!!

Thalakos Seer (and similarly Baleful Strix) are definitely powerful with ninjutsu and extremely close to being in the decklist. I chose to lean towards speed/mana efficiency with my deck, so they unfortunately didn't make the cut. If it were a bit slower and value-based (i.e. playing better ninjas than Skullsnatcher) I would likely include them.

The decks in my playgroup are a bit too competitive for Hatred on an unblockable creature to work consistently, but I would love to see someone try that out, it's just janky enough to work :')

As for Tainted Strike, if I targeted one of my unblockable creatures wouldn't it just deal 2-3 infect and not much else? Maybe I am missing the synergy here, let me know!

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