Batterskull

Artifact — Equipment

Living weapon (When this Equipment enters the battlefield, create a 0/0 black Germ creature token, then attach this to it.)

Equipped creature gets +4/+4 and has vigilance and lifelink.

: Return Batterskull to its owner's hand.

Equip

Discussion (45)

Weird_Frisbee on Flip-Bolas Grixis Control

3 weeks ago

ammon502,

Opt is not the worst cantrip, prolly Brainstorm is unless I have that shuffle effect.

I was trying out Batterskull as a aggro option to stabilize boardstates and my life total. However i'm just going back to Baleful Strix.

Sublime Epiphany is too expensive to me, 6 mana is alot to hold up for just a single spell, albeit with multiple effects. Whereas my 3 six-mana+ spells are more highly impactful

zAzen7977 on Alchemy Balcony

4 weeks ago

Next I suggest swapping out expensive utility cards like Drift of Phantasms, Perplex, Muddle the Mixture, etc. for 1 drops to reduce your mana curve and allow turn 1 plays. Good candidates include Mishra's Bauble, Serum Visions, and Opt, which do not tutor for a card, but the additional card draw accomplishes the same objective without setting you back a whole turn.

You need to protect your combo proactively instead of reactively, so I suggest running Thoughtseize and/or Inquisition of Kozilek to remove threats before they are played. Force Spike and Spell Pierce are the best 1-drop counterspells, you may consider incorporating some into the main deck or sideboard. Removal like Fatal Push (in conjunction with fetchlands to trigger revolt) and Dismember are critical for dealing with creature-based decks and you should run at least 2 mainboard or on the side.

As far as the sideboard goes, great Karn targets are Wurmcoil Engine and/or Batterskull to gain life, which is critical against aggro and especially burn. Damping Sphere shuts down storm and ramp/Tron simultaneously. Ratchet Bomb wipes tokens or low cost permanents...

Feiryn on Ojutai Voltron

4 weeks ago

I spot someone looking to play my favourite dragon!

First off, what's your budget like? You're running cards such as Mana Drain so I'm going to assume a high budget at least for this comment.

Starting with your lands, you generally want to avoid cards that always enter tapped. This especially goes for a more aggressive list like this where you don't want to be waiting until the next turn for your mana. I recommend dropping all of the lands you have that enter tapped including Temple of the False God, and instead look at picking up others like Adarkar Wastes, Prairie Stream, Seachrome Coast, Nimbus Maze, Skycloud Expanse, Port Town, or even just replacing them with basic Islands/Plains. If you have a lot of money to burn there's always cards like Ancient Tomb, Cavern of Souls, and of course fetchlands.

I highly recommend picking up a Stoneforge Mystic and Batterskull if you can afford them, they go extremely well together. Umezawa's Jitte is another really good piece of equipment but also is a bit more on the expensive side. I recommend cutting Whispersilk Cloak as Shroud makes you unable to equip Ojutai with anything, and Swiftfoot Boots is redundant due to Ojutai's natural hexproof. If you want another way to protect him, there's cheap options such as Sword of Vengeance which gives him a tonne of stuff.

For enchantments definitely look at Aqueous Form, cheap and fills the niche you were going for with Whispersilk Cloak. Battle Mastery and Daybreak Coronet are also fairly good Auras.

As for other cards there's Fabricate, Steelshaper's Gift, and Enlightened Tutor if you want to get pricy. I also recommend cutting Karn's Temporal Sundering, Time Warp, and Ojutai, Soul of Winter since they won't help you in your overall gameplan much.

Apologies for the wall of text, but I hope some of this helps!

Snake_Oil on Going about building a RE …

1 month ago

Black also has a lot of disease/plague effects, so along with Zombies you're solid.

Adding Blue opens you up to Laboratory style cards like Arcane Laboratory, Laboratory Maniac and Laboratory Brute.

Blue/Black gives you a few good commander options too, the best to my mind being Gisa and Geralf -- You can cast a zombie from the grave each of your turns and you could say they're like The Ashford Twins (minus the weirdness and plus the good-natured antagonism). Grimgrin, Corpse-Born is also a good card just in the deck, a big Tyrant style zombie albeit with a setback.

You could add mutate creatures in like Dirge Bat and Insatiable Hemophage but it's a really shallow pool and mechanic, you're better off focusing on zombie synergies.

But, for some real fun, look to equipment with Living Weapon like Batterskull, Lashwrithe, Scytheclaw and Skinwing -- Equipments that have that bioweapon vibe on top of creating germ tokens to act as your T/G Virus!

Hope this gives you some ideas!

multimedia on Elsha's Infinite Voltron

1 month ago

Hey, nice version of Elsha. I saw your forum topic asking for help with cuts.

Six cards to cut to make 100 cards:

• Remember the Fallen: lackluster recursion.
• Danitha Capashen, Paragon: doesn't reduce all artifact casting costs only equipment which makes her not as good as other cost reducers since she doesn't work with the Top combo.
• Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin: creature who's not good enough to disrupt Elsha.
• Ghostly Prison: I don't think you need both Prison and Propaganda, one could be cut.
• Blackblade Reforged: only good if you have a lot of lands, but you don't want a lot of lands with Elsha.
• Basilisk Collar: not a fan unless you're playing ways to take advantage of deathtouch and you can get lifelink from better equipment.

When you want more cuts look to reducing some redundancy:

• Puresteel Paladin is much better than Brass Squire.
• Padeem, Consul of Innovation is much better than Leonin Abunas.
• Sword of Vengeance is better with Elsha than Sigiled Sword of Valeron and Batterskull for vigilance since also gives trample. Valeron is a supbar equipment for the same costs as Vengeance and Batterskull not giving evasion is a big drawback.
• Hammer of Nazahn is better than Darksteel Plate.

All the Swords in the cycle can be good for different budgets, but when you have the three better expensive price ones then you don't need to play the others. Sword of Body and Mind, Sword of War and Peace, Sword of Truth and Justice are not as good as the others and could be cut.

---

Some cards to consider adding:

• Enlightened Tutor, Whir of Invention, Reshape, Fabricate: tutor for an equipment or Top.
• Foundry Inspector, Cloud Key: other artifact mana cost reducers for the combo with Top.
• Izzet Signet, Azorius Signet, Boros Signet: add the Signets in place of lands.
• Jeskai Ascendancy: is like giving Elsha pseudo vigilance with instant speed surprise untap/pump her to block and draw.

Good luck with your deck.

sylvannos on Goato: Gifting Skulls all the way to Value Town

1 month ago

@Jackfrost23: Compared to U/R Storm with Gifts Ungiven, this is more of a "draw-go" hard control deck, rather than a combo deck. You're looking to grind your opponent down through raw card advantage and silver bullet answers over casting a big Grapeshot. Compared to Junk Gifts, the red over green means much stronger removal. Not only do you get Lightning Bolt, but also cards like Terminate and Kolaghan's Command. Sometimes, you can just burn people to death like U/W/R Control does by going Lightning Bolt -> Snapcaster Mage -> Lightning Bolt at your opponent's end step, then untap and swing with Snap and Celestial Colonnade.

What makes this specific build powerful is how difficult it is to remove its threats. Not only is Godo, Bandit Warlord strong on his lonesome by getting an equipment, Batterskull is hard to get rid of. But then along comes Trading Post and Academy Ruins to make Batterskull even more difficult to remove. This means you can safely trade your threats against other control decks. Your opponent is forced to counter your Batterskull after they bounce it back to your hand after it came out from Unburial Rites on Godo, only to have to still deal with it when you get it back via Crucible of Worlds -> Academy Ruins. Coupled with Lingering Souls and other threats, you have this massive value engine that means your opponent gets 29,301,246-for-1'd every time they want to deal with something.

Where this deck struggles that other Gifts may not is in the lack of countermagic and answers to aggro. Aggro can have problems dealing with the 12+ removal spells in the main deck and boardwipes out of the sideboard, but sometimes you just run out of removal faster than they run out of gas. No counterspells makes Tron and combo difficult matchups. This build is more about beating a control-heavy meta with red-based aggro, while CoCo variants, Humans, Fish, and so on are harder to deal with.

Icbrgr on Mono-Red answer for Stony silence?

1 month ago

@DragonSliver9001 I think you may be confusing colors with archetypes/strategies. Skred Red isn't a Burn/RDW deck running 16-18 mountain using Lightning Bolt/Goblin Guide to get the opponents life total to 0 ASAP.

Although its a Mono-Red deck that likes Lightning Bolt; Skred is more on the Control/Prison spectrum of Magic. They have 22 or more lands as well as mana rocks/accelerators and have 5 drop finishers like Batterskull/Stormbreath Dragon + Planswalkers. To achieve this endgame strategy Skred decks focus on restricting and denying the opponent's resources or actions via removal and mana deprivation. Scrying Sheets/Artifacts used at End of the opponents turn to dig deeper into the deck for answers/finishers are certainly welcome.

@MagicMarc I do not have the intention to remove any of the artifacts at this time. T2 Mind Stone sets up a T3 Koth of the Hammer as well as help pay for other generic costs so my untapped mountains can be used to pay for other spells, and then replaces itself in the late game if needed... Relic of Progenitus is great against so many different decks having any graveyard synergies/values and at its worst replaces itself... Pyrite Spellbomb is the least exciting IMO however; the options for an additional 2 damage here and there is nice and if needed replaces itself.

As far as Metalcraft in this deck is concerned; its honestly more of a gimmick than anything.... Galvanic Blast vs Burst Lightning or Kuldotha Phoenix vs Stormbreath Dragon... there are arguments to be made either way in both cases but I personally just found the metalcraft skred sub-theme to just be my own personal touch to an otherwise known/solved/tried and true deck.

marn3us on Akiri, a Boros New Hope

1 month ago

jakeyuki12 : thanks for the comment! What do you mean with Boros equipment good stuff? I totally agree that the deck should not rely exclusively on the commander to function and I've tried to only include synergistic creatures and equipments, but I would be really interested in including your recommendations to power up the deck.

Joe_Ken_ : thanks a lot for the suggestions! Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer was already in the list since he's a really strong beater and I'd really like to fit Adriana, Captain of the Guard as well but I really can't find a slot for her... If I only could include one of them, which one of the two would you recommend?

The living weapons are a really nice idea, Batterskull costs too much mana but i'm trying to fit Flayer Husk alongside the Ancestral Blade already in the deck.

I'm also really debated regarding Sunforger given how strong it is, what do you guys think?