Bottomless Pit

Enchantment

At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player discards a card at random.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Big Apple Highlander	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
PreDH	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

clayperce on The Black Deck

7 months ago

ALostWanderer -
Saw your help tag so thought I'd reach out. As a disclaimer though: I've never played Tergrid (vs or myself) and I'm still working on my first Bracket 4 deck myself. So please take all this as "brainstorming", not as "recommendations" ! :-D

FIRST THOUGHTS: MANA BASE AND MANA CURVE

• I love Salubrious Snail's manabase tool for analysing my lands, mana rocks, and rituals as I tweak a deck. If we plug your decklist in, it reports "your manabase is struggling, playing your spells 0.99 turns late on average" (with Tergid over 1.3 turns late). For Bracket 4, you'll probably want to aim for something like "... strong playing your spells [~0.2] turns late on average."
• As you tweak the deck, I rec' taking an especially hard look at your 5-drops (which compete directly with Tergrid) and your 7-drops (which compete directly with her re-cast).

MORE B4 STAPLES? Some options to help find the cards we need and play them quickly …

• Card Advantage: Phyrexian Arena, Dark Confidant
• Tutors: Case of the Stashed Skeleton, Demonic TutorGC, Diabolic Intent
• Fast Mana: Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal, Mox Amber

MORE DISCARD EFFECTS, MAYBE?

• As I understand it, Tergrid can sometimes be challenging to play because there are fewer and fewer good targets for her sac trigger as the stax effects pile up + token decks can sometimes run away with games. If you encounter that sometimes, leaning harder into her discard trigger may be an answer.
• Some options here, in no particular order: Syphon Mind, Liliana's Triumph, Thoughtseize, The Raven Man, Geth's Grimoire, Elderfang Disciple, Tinybones, Trinket Thief, Virus Beetle, Cunning Lethemancer, Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal, Bottomless Pit, Desolation, Necrogen Mists, Oppression, Geier Reach Sanitarium, Chain of Smog

MORE PROTECTION, MAYBE? If you find yourself needing just a touch more protection for your Bracket 4 meta: Cavern of Souls, Imp's Mischief, and oc Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots.

MORE COMBO PIECES, MAYBE?

• As far as I can tell, you only have 2x combos in the deck (any lifegain effect + Exquisite Blood + either Sanguine Bond or Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose) ... increasing the combo potential (and Tutor effects, to find the pieces) is definitely solid approach to make the deck more competitive in Bracket 4.
• The Find my Combos page over at Commander Spellbook is a great tool, if you want to lean into combos more.

MORE STAX EFFECTS, MAYBE?

• It’s hard to go wrong with the namesake card (Smokestack) in a Stax deck :-)
• If you wanted to lean into Mass Land Denial a little more, I like both Contamination and Desolation.

A FEW FINAL THOUGHTS:

• You might consider adding Feed the Swarm and/or Withering Torment ... they're IMO the best tools we have to deal with enchantments in Mono-B.
• Braids, Arisen Nightmare maybe? I play Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER and she's amazing there ... I don’t get that many sacs from her (so she may not be as good in your deck), but her card draw is always superb.
• I'm a fan of Malakir Rebirth, as protection when I need it and a Land when I don't.
• I don't see anything that benefits from Reliquary Tower ... it would honestly be my first drop.
• It's a totally small thing, but if you don't already have very distinct deck sleeves, you might consider getting some ... the last time I played vs a steal-your-things Commander everyone at the table had blue matte sleeves, and sorting out the cards afterwards was a bit of a pain :-D

Anyways, I really hope something in there ^^ proves useful, and I’m very sorry for the spam if it doesn't!

Good luck (and good skill) with the deck!
Cheers!

DreadKhan on

1 year ago

I love Bottomless Pit and Necrogen Mists, these just sit there and generate value for you. There is also Oppression, as well as Stronghold Rats and Cunning Lethemancer if you want even more persistent discard effects (they're way more impactful than a Sorcery (outside Mind Twist)). Apologies if you already feel like you have enough Discard sources!

DreadKhan on What makes a card or …

1 year ago

I like to build some fairly toxic Commander decks, though I try to warn people if a deck dips too deeply into any of the elements I've noticed that cause toxicity. In Commander most people consider decks that take away player agency to be toxic, so that includes; -excessive permanent removal (clearing each opponent's board repeatedly, or Obliterate/Jokulhaups) -things that limit what you can do (like Rule of Law or Collector Ouphe) -excessively pushed Commanders in Casual (stuff where they throw Ward on for no reason, most of these are also the payoff and enabler in one card) -Chaos effects that turn the game on it's head (Thieves' Auction and Grip of Chaos for example) -stuff that prevents untapping (Static Orb and Winter Orb) -stealing everything strategies (flickering Agent of Treachery infinitely, Insurrection late game) -excessive discard (multiple Necrogen Mists and Bottomless Pit effects) -'win on the spot' effects that don't have an upkeep trigger (there is a few of these on the banlist, like Biorhythm and Coalition Victory) -counter everything strategies (Dovescape) -overly efficient tutoring (Zur the Enchanter *f-etch* fetching out Necropotence, and people are weirdly salty about Vampiric Tutor) -faster elimination strategies that encourage you to target a specific opponent (think anything Infect, and lower to the ground Voltron decks) -I think the last one I can think of is optional tax effects that encourage people to screw their pod and play into the Rhystic Study, if the tax is just a tax, like Thalia, Guardian of Thraben people tend not to mind as much, it's the ability to king make if you're dumb.

In 1v1 I don't think it really matters, unless you only have 1 deck to play kitchen table with just changing decks should generate enough novelty to avoid the build up of bad feelings, and if you're playing competitively it's your call if you want to play nightmarish stuff like Nadu, or something traditionally 'fun' like Aggro... only if everyone plays decks that aren't fun, more people will quit, so it's a 'tragedy of the commons' scenario too if you have a fairly small meta each player needs 'fun to play against' decks, even for 1v1.

Azoth2099 on Tergrid Sac Discard Draw help please

3 years ago

Asyriel

Ok, so here's a few top picks (imho) for Tergrid, God of Fright  ^Flip.

Oppression, Liliana, Waker of the Dead, Rankle, Master of Pranks, Living Death, Delirium Skeins, Innocent Blood, Cunning Lethemancer, Bottomless Pit, Necrogen Mists, Words of Waste, Smokestack, Sword of Feast and Famine & Chains of Mephistopheles (just proxy it lol)

There's also a lot of cheaper options that are just as synergistic like Plaguecrafter, Demon's Disciple, Raven's Crime, Hymn to Tourach, Mind Twist, Mind Shatter, Mind Slash & Sadistic Hypnotist.

Outside of the synergy pieces, I'd recommend replacing some of those low-power pieces like Bad Deal & Inevitable End with value pieces like Dark Ritual & Vampiric Tutor for greater consistency.

Kret on Blackness EDH

3 years ago

Hello from a covert discard enjoyer. My suggestion is that the discard itself won't win you the game and If I were you I'd cut some discard spells that target only a single player like Duress or Invoke Despair because they are quite inefficient in a 4 player game as well as some discard spells that only discard one card like Burglar Rat because again they are quite inefficient. Bad Deal isn't what you want to be doing for 6 mana. Instead, I'd add Painful Quandary because it has a static effect and in a low resource environment your opponents will have to start paying 5 life to do anything and that feels really miserable. Discard goes well with reanimation, I'd add all 3 versions of Animate Dead -> Dance of the Dead and Necromancy. Unfortunately discard players often get focused by the table so I like to add something like Gray Merchant of Asphodel to keep life total high. Consider also Bone Miser, Soul Shatter, Sign in Blood, Rankle, Master of Pranks, Bottomless Pit, all versions of Plaguecrafter, Asylum Visitor and Containment Construct. In general I'd prioritise static discard effects (like discard one card every upkeep etc) over single dicard effects.

DreadKhan on Sacrificial Treachery

4 years ago

I always like effects like Bottomless Pit and Necrogen Mists when I'm building a discard deck, these clear out a ton of cards over time, and even one will quickly make it very hard to keep any cards in hand past upkeeps. There is also Cunning Lethemancer, Necrogoyf, Stronghold Rats and maybe Raiders' Wake if you think you can count on being able to swing at someone. I like these effects more as a way to keep opponent's hands extremely small, they play more like a Stax effect in many ways. They play well with the 'cares about hand size' effects as well as 'cares about discard' effects, and as noted, make it very hard for people to store cards. Other than stuff like Mind Twist and Hymn to Tourach, I don't find single target discard is reliable at keeping hands small, 'engine' enchantments always felt really good.

Have you considered Helm of Possession and Ritual of the Machine, both can do great work in a sacrifice deck that can afford to lose a creature to steal something much juicier. I think Helm is usually the stronger card if people can't blow it up right away, but Ritual is Reserved List and prone to spiking when someone realizes it's potential. Both are a tad pricey, just thought I'd mention them.

Final point, if people are going to be discarding a bunch of creatures potentially, you might like Coffin Queen as a way to reanimate those pitched bodies, especially your opponent's stuff, as it gets exiled when it dies again. Demon of Dark Schemes can also work, not sure if you can generate enough energy to make it viable, but with stuff like Pitiless Plunderer it can go infinite reasonably easily.

DreadKhan on Uber For Phage?!

4 years ago

If you're looking for discard stuff, I use Bottomless Pit, Necrogen Mists, Cunning Lethemancer, Stronghold Rats, Necrogoyf and Creeping Dread as my best discard outlets in my Discard/Stax deck. No clue how many you'd want (if any), but these tend to be good at generating a lot of discard triggers if that's what you want, both for you and opponents.

Strong but not as consistent, you could look at Syphon Mind, it might be the best discard spell, but it's a one and done unfortunately. If you can generate a lot of bodies, Sadistic Hypnotist can clear out big hands. If you think you can consistently deal combat damage to opponents (via Shadows or other unblockables), Court of Ambition is really decent, offering damage and discard on the same card.

legendofa on Tourach, Dread Cantor

4 years ago

Welcome to the club, Thefrench!

How about some repeatable discard? Disrupting Scepter is kind of the low end, specter creatures like Abyssal Specter or Hypnotic Specter provide damage-based discard, and triggered discard like Bottomless Pit through Cunning Lethemancer and Necrogen Mists to Anvil of Bogardan provide reliable counters for your commander, depending on how much money you're willing to spend. Liliana's Caress gets a one-mana discount off Megrim for a very similar effect.