Bitter Ordeal
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Legality

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

Bitter Ordeal

Sorcery

Search target player's library for a card and remove that card from the game. Then that player shuffles his or her library.

Gravestorm (When you play this spell, copy it for each permanent put into a graveyard this turn. You may choose new targets for the copies.)

SniperFrog on Oona

1 month ago

Alright. So there's a couple things I would change, but I don't want you to think it's better or anything, just what I would do. I'll give budget suggestions and non budget suggestions so you have a variety of choices without hurting the wallet.

I think I would go for mono blue so I can get Bruvac the Grandiloquent's effect in my command zone. It seems actually nutty to just be able to get this guy going. That being said, I like a lot of the black spells you have here, namely Mind Grind and Nightscape Familiar, so I would consider something like Phenax, God of Deception or maybe Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker to stay in dimir. Not really sure the red is helping much at all, though. Only four red cards is a bit of a bad look, though they seem cool in theory. I've never played any of them, so I don't really know how good they actually are.

So there are a few optimizations I would consider as well. Three mana rocks are a bit slow for my tastes and there are a lot of decent options at two mana, I'd recommend Fellwar Stone, Mind Stone and Arcane Signet to name a few cheaper options. There's also Sapphire Medallion, Chrome Mox and Mana Vault, though those are strictly non budget.

More optimizations for interaction seems good here as well. Maybe drop some of your three mana counterspells for some one or two mana spells. Counterspell is a mainstay and at very good price as well. I like Swan Song, An Offer You Can't Refuse and Drown in the Loch in this slot. There are a plethora of non budget options as well, particularly free counters like Force of Will and Force of Negation or other heavy hitters like Mana Drain and Cryptic Command. Plenty of cool things to do with this, however, so you have options.

Your lands look rough. I personally will always go with untapped lands with so many options, but that can get really pricy, really fast. Of course, if you didn't have to worry about a red splash, your landbase gets A LOT better.

If you're having trouble with hitting enough lands, consider lowering the curve a bit or even adding a couple more to try to smooth things out. I generally try to have around forty-two to forty-five mana sources, though my curves are usually around 2-2.5, so you might want a little more than that, maybe. I don't know. That's something you can figure out with playtesting.

Now comes the fun part. As it stands, including the above mentioned cards, I would try to find room for these:

Into the Story for some card draw.

Leyline of the Void or something similar like Planar Void along with Helm of Obedience mills infinitely. Also pretty good to beat the eldrazi triggers if you see these things regularly.

Rhystic Study and its baby brother Mystic Remora are both excellent card draw spells with humongous upside, though they are both getting a little on the expensive side now, with Rhystic pushing forty or fifty bucks.

I like Bitter Ordeal, but I think this is kind of a pet card that I want to make work, so I might be projecting here. lol

Reanimate effects seem VERY strong here. I like the ones that target opponent's graveyards the most, so I would stick with Animate Dead and Dance with the Dead along with the aforementioned reanimate. Didn't think about this at first. Could be really sweet.

Mesmeric Orb is money in these decks. Gives mad inevitability.

Altar of the Brood and Altar of Dementia are both combo pieces, but I feel like they're more build arounds than good on their own.

Folio of Fancies. I've never seen this card before, but I love it. Seems like it would fit nicely.

Tome Scour and Brain Freeze are insane with Underworld Breach but this is another build around that pulls you more into storm than mill, I think. Still maybe worth thinking about.

Sands of Delirium seems sweet.

A few draw X spells could be just what you need. Stroke of Genius, Pull from Tomorrow, Fascination and Prosperity come to mind. Skyscribing also seems sweet, but I'm not sure how good it is.

Some cards I would just outright cut:

Gravepurge, not positive what this is doing for you, beside gumming up your draws. I guess it can get something back but not sure it's relevant. Hard to say without playing the deck.

All three mana rocks. Darksteel Ingot, Dimir Cluestone, Ur-Golem's Eye, Hedron Archive are a few. There are actually a few more than I thought, so maybe cutting all of them isn't the right thing to do unless you are cutting like for like for cheaper rocks.

Grisly Spectacle, I feel like you can get a better removal spell. I see the appeal, but I feel like it will get at most six cards milled maybe. Something like Feed the Swarm is probably just better or Drown in the Loch which hits two birds with one stone.

Countermand. Four mana counterspell seems like a really hard ask. I know it's on theme, but something cheaper is probably just better. See above for suggestions on cheap counters.

I would maybe cut some other, stuff, but I feel like I've already given you a lot to think about. Love the list. I'm excited to see it once you've had a chance to keep tuning it. Follow for sure. :)

Balaam__ on Chattering Ordeal

4 months ago

Ah, Bitter Ordeal. Always liked the card; liked the artwork even more. Great job putting this together.

Metroid_Hybrid on Convoluted Combos

6 months ago

A (relatively) "early" win with the Undying-loop combo with Yawgmoth, Thran Physician sounds rather straightforward, but is actually pretty convoluted in it's execution. It's a 4+ card combo for starters, and then to actually play out all of the moving parts can be quite the pain in the ass for the entire table, especially if you're tapped-out and need to dig through your Library one-by-one until you draw a Lotus Petal, Mana Crypt, and a finisher (in my case either Sickening Dreams or Bitter Ordeal).

Decklist for reference and more detailed explanation..

BruhYouFarted on Card creation challenge

6 months ago

Aggressive Taxing / 3W

Enchantment (Common)

When ~ enters the battlefield, exile target land until ~ leaves the battlefield.

/

Pauper man here, and white is lacking in sideboard tech for Tron, at least not from what I've seen.. A Banishing Light for lands sounds like a thing that white could do, so why not?

Make a fair card with Gravestorm, as seen on Bitter Ordeal.

johnwayne1488 on EDH- HAPATRA - Your opinions

6 months ago

Thanks for the suggestions for Walking Ballista and the discussion on Bitter Ordeal, i will be updating the deck soon (currently moving out) but I do like Bitter Ordeal has i'm sometimes a bit salty losing to Cyclonic Rift and such cards hehehe!

Gidgetimer on EDH- HAPATRA - Your opinions

7 months ago

First line you mention is cool, I never thought about the fact that Ivy Lane Denizen, Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons, and Devoted Druid are infinite mana. I am going to have to keep that in mind for when I am playing my deck.

Unfortunately your second paragraph has a couple of inaccuracies regarding Bitter Ordeal. Gravestorm triggers a single time (When you cast this spell) and makes copies equal to the number of permanents that have been put into the graveyard this turn (copy it for each permanent put into a graveyard this turn). Copies of spells are not cast, they are simply created on the stack. Copies of cards can be created in other zones and then cast. The easy way to tell when a copy will count as being cast is that the ability creating the copy will specifically say "cast".

Wabbajacke on Lobotomy

10 months ago

wallisface & Jabberjaw46 thanks for your comments and help! I understand your Points, I think I have a lot to learn when it comes to deckbuilding.

  • In German it is written "Lobotomie", my bad, changed it.

  • It somehow looks like I always get lost somewhere when I build a deck. Most of the time I probably lose the win condition out of sight.

  • Somehow I liked the idea of Bitter Ordeal in this deck, but as you say, that takes other cards to work properly then the cards i used here.

  • I actually got my Lands pretty cheap, with most of them I was just lucky pulling them from Modern Horizons 2 and Khans of Takir. Otherwise I would have had to build around it somehow.

  • And again your right, the only cards it grabs where Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers to get enough mana ready for Increasing Confusion.

  • I think the idea of a lantern control deck is pretty good and also absolutely fits the theme. So to make the deck a lantern-control deck, what would be the best changes? I never played a control Deck like this and I am happy about any help to get this deck running.

I want to stay black and blue if possible.

wallisface on Lobotomy

10 months ago

Some thoughts:

  • the correct spelling is “Lobotomy”

  • Your current build is very unlikely to be able to close out a game. You’re only realistic wincon is to mill the opponent, but you just don’t have gas to make that a reality - with your only good millspell being Tasha's Hideous Laughter, i’m expecting most games you’ll maybe get through half the opponents deck before losing.

  • There’s a bunch of non-synergy here. For example, you’re very unlikely to get much value from the gravestorm ability on Bitter Ordeal.

  • Expedition Map appears to only exist to grab Cabal Coffers… but that’s a super slow/messy way to get one particular land that’s only helpful in a very small handful of situations. The map is more likely to clog-up your hand than help you.

  • You have almost nothing to stop your opponent enacting their plans. Remand only buys you a turn (at most), and the Hermit can be easily played around. Mill decks need time to get things done (especially if you’re milling slowly). Without interaction, your opponent will just win the game before you get close.

I second Jabberjaw46 above, in that changing this deck into more of a Lanturn-Control build should give you the vibe you’re after, while being competitive (and not being overly expensive). I think if you want a chance of this deck winning at-all through the conventional mill route, you need to do some major changes to make it practical

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