Combos Browse all Suggest
Legality
| Format | Legality |
| Archenemy | Legal |
| Block Constructed | Legal |
| Canadian Highlander | Legal |
| Casual | Legal |
| Commander: Rule 0 | Legal |
| Custom | Legal |
| Freeform | Legal |
| Highlander | Legal |
| Leviathan | Legal |
| Limited | Legal |
| Oldschool 93/94 | Legal |
| Planar Constructed | Legal |
| Planechase | Legal |
| PreDH | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Tiny Leaders | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Black Lotus
Artifact
: Sacrifice this: Add three mana of any one colour.
legendofa on Is Universe Beyond good or …
3 weeks ago
capwner Here I venture into speculation, but I don't think Richard Garfield's really been involved, or much cares about the current state of the game. He made it, he sold it, he showed up to help develop a few sets, he moved on. And I do know for sure that the "original vision" didn't include netdecking, rarity markers, sales of single cards, set previews, or anything else that would reveal information about a card before you see it in action. The "original vision" was that you learn about cards from playing the game, and cards like Black Lotus would be basically urban legends. Keyforge, a more recent game from Dr. Garfield, literally assigns you a deck and prohibits any modifications to that deck, because he considered the ready availability of copiable tournament deck lists and an established meta to be against his "original vision".
I'm pretty much boycotting other divisions of WotC; I have completely and actively ignored D&D 2024 and found alternatives, because it's gone in directions I don't agree with. And I've dialed my M:tG purchases way back; I'm buying maybe a few singles and draft entries a year, and I'm pro-proxy.
What, specifically, did you love about M:tG before UB? You describe the effects of everything post-UB as bland and low quality. What do you consider as exciting and high quality from the past? Do you consider players who have joined the game in the UB era, or because of UB, to be serious and knowledgeable players?
sylvannos on Why Would Someone Do This?
3 months ago
Black Lotus was meant to be played unsleeved in the playground sandbox as Richard Garfield intended.
DreadKhan on Why Are the Other Free …
4 months ago
IMHO it doesn't matter if it sees play at higher levels, it matters if it's unfun in lower brackets. Nobody should give a crap if a card sees any play whatsoever in Brackets 4 and 5, neither Bracket cares about GC, so why count that! This is devil's advocate stuff, but by that logic perhaps Rollick, Haze, and Maneuver should be GC, because they're so specifically useful in Brackets 1 and 2, where everyone is on derpy combat decks? I feel like most Bracket 1 and 2 Dinosaur decks would care a lot more about Haze being used against them compared to Guardianship; how many key non-creature effects are even in a low power Dinosaur deck? I would say it should also be considered whether the card would be an issue if it was completely unrestricted in Bracket 3. I hate it when they ban stuff that's great only in cEDH, IMHO if you really want to run Mox Diamond in your Bracket 1 or 2 deck go for it, it's not likely to help you if you're actually building at those power levels. I think all of us who played back in the day remember finding out that stuff like Dark Ritual 100% didn't go in every deck, and if you've been around even longer you might have noticed it with the much lauded Black Lotus. There are decks where you'd rather play slower and not go down a card, be they Control or just a bad deck. I think a lot of lower power Commander decks are like that, where they wouldn't proxy a Mox Diamond or Black Lotus even if they could, for the same reason they don't run Ritual mana in general.
Balaam__ on Fake Cards
6 months ago
That’s the genius of it. If there had been a Black Lotus in there, you’d know right away it was a fake. But to painstakingly mint tens of thousands of counterfeit basic lands for .01 apiece and sell them over the course of several decades for double that amount, it’s like free money :D
Balaam__ on Balaam__
7 months ago
@legendofa thanks for the interest in my “A White Pebble” deck. It’s ancient, one of the first I posted to the site…and in dire need of refinement.
I’d like to get rid of the $50k+ upper crust cards like Black Lotus and make it affordable for most people playing Legacy, but don’t quite know what to replace the OP cards with. Interested in any suggestions you might have. I like the path to victory and don’t want to completely redesign it, just make it realistic for most players to be able to build.
Phoenixfire2845 on
2 turn deck
8 months ago
The perfect hand is 2x Black lotus 1x Chromatic Sphere 1x Emry, Lurker of the Loch 1x Freed from the Real 1x Craving of Yeenoghu 1x Volcanic Island the odds are 0.0005% you first play your land then you play both of the Black Lotus(s) you sack one of them for red and the other one for blue you play out Emry, Lurker of the Loch Then Craving of Yeenoghu on Emry activate his ability targeting a black lotus cast and sack that for blue then play out Freed from the Real on Emry tap your land for one blue activate Freed from the Real ability to untap then you tap emry get back black Lotus cast it And sacket for blue Until you're satisfied I recommend At least 1 billion times Just for safety Then play chromatic sphere Pay the one and sack it for blue do the whole business with emry until your deck is gone then play
Phoenixfire2845 on
2 turn deck
8 months ago
The perfect hand is 2x Black lotus 1x Chromatic Sphere 1x Emry, Lurker of the Loch 1x Freed from the Real 1x Craving of Yeenoghu 1x Volcanic Island the odds are 0.0005% you first play your land then you play both of the Black Lotus(s) you sack one of them for red and the other one for blue you play out Emry, Lurker of the Loch Then Craving of Yeenoghu on Emry activate his ability targeting a black lotus cast and sack that for blue then play out Freed from the Real on Emry tap your land for one blue activate Freed from the Real ability to untap then you tap emry get back black Lotus cast it And sacket for blue Until you're satisfied I recommend At least 1 billion times Just for safety Then play chromatic sphere Pay the one and sack it for blue do the whole business with emry until your deck is gone then play Mycosynth Lattice and then play until you got no Mana making sure the last cards you are playing are enchantments and The infinite token Generation Which you can do by just casting Black lotus over and over again
kamarupa on
Population Bomb
10 months ago
I don't count mana dorks as lands. They are mana accelerators - they help allow you to have more mana FASTER, but aren't a 1:1 substitute. Dorks cost mana to cast, meaning you need [the right color] land to cast it (sans something like Black Lotus or Chrome Mox, etc). They also are easily removed and come with summoning sickness. More importantly, they only function as a "ramp" if you are able to make land drops every turn. You don't have to take my word for it - you can learn the lesson the hard way on your own. I certainly did. When I first started playing over 10 years ago, I was determined to ignore all rules of thumb and advice and run 16 lands with 8 ramps spells in my decks. And when it worked, it was great - 1xArbor Elf + 1xUtopia Sprawl + 1xForest and I was tapping for 4 mana on turn 3. But often, it stopped there because I wasn't making any more land drops. I could have been tapping for 6 mana if I'd have had lands to play on my first 3 turns, but instead I was gambling with my opening hand and putting all my proverbial mana eggs in one basket - and you can bet your bottom dollar my opponents took advantage of that weakness with removal spells all too frequently, leaving me 2 mana at the start of turn 4. And those were the good opening hands. On bad starts, I was drawing down to 5 or 6 just to get a land. Which is an even bigger gamble! Over time, my mana base kept creeping up. I tried playing decks of nothing but 1MV spells and 16 lands. I tried playing 1-3MV Elves with 17 lands. I tried playing 1-2MV Humans with 18 lands, then 19, then 20. Eventually, I started to learn - I need 22 lands minimum. 24 if I want to ever cast anything with a higher MV than 3. In a very rampy, low MV Elf deck, I think one could probably get away with 20 lands, but it would be not only leaving the deck exposed to creature removal, but also greatly limiting the viable spells to low MV. And I'll add, as little as I like it, it's good to have spells that cost more than 2. Not loads of them, but 4-8 3MV spells and 2-4 4+MV spells are often what pushes a deck over the top to get the win.
Maybe it helps to think of it this way - Ramp, no mattter the type, allows you to play more mana sources on a single turn. It only helps you if you can play a land every turn. Otherwise, it's just a riskier way to have the same amount of mana you'd have if just added more lands. The only possible advantage you get from playing a dork nstead of (vs in addition to, which is definitely an advantage) a land is that a dork can chump block. Which you probably won't get any mileage out of because tapped creatures can't block and if by chance you don't use your dork for mana and you do block, now you're out a mana source that you probably needed.
So again, if you want lots of mana sooner than you'd have playing 1 mana per turn, then include a ramp. If you want to mana-fix for multiple colors, use dual lands. If you want to consistently be able to cast spells up to 4MV, then you need 22-24 lands.
Also, having more spells won't make your deck work better. What makes a deck work best is having a stable mana base, consistently playing value-packed spells, disrupting opponent's strategies, and maintaining advantages (boardstate, card draw, lifegain, etc.) If a deck isn't managing to achieve an advantage, it's not for lack of cards, it's for lack of good cards/synergy.
