Brave the Elements

Instant

Choose a colour. White creatures you control gain protection from the chosen colour until end of turn. ((Remember the acronym debt.) White creatures you control can't be damaged, enchanted, equipped, blocked or targeted by anything of the chosen colour. Anything of the chosen colour attached to your white creatures immediately fall off.)

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

kamarupa on Population Bomb

1 month ago

Nice work! I guess you really deserve some props, as I've seen plenty of people on here that aren't new list decks as certain formats but still include cards that aren't legal in that format. So that's why I asked.

In terms of advice, I probably have more than you want. For starters, I'm not sure a Populate/Tokens deck is going to be what I would consider "fast-paced." It may or may not keep up with a Goblin deck - it would really depend on the caliber of each deck and to a lesser degree, the player piloting that deck. When it comes to speed, I think of low MV infinite combos, burn, Elves, +1/+1 counter Humans... So if you're really looking for speed, then there may be better place to look.

That said, if it's not so much speed, but a tokens, and tokens that can maybe compete with a fast paced Goblin deck, I think that is probably possible. As it stands, it looks like you've got a fairly budget brew going, though I notice a few pricier spells in the sideboard. So I'll be mentioning both cheap and pricier spells and let you decide where you want to draw the line.

For starters, land is one of the best investments you can make. All decks need it and the better lands you have to choose from, the more solid your decks' foundations will be. In my opinion, there is no point in spending big bucks on spells when your land base can't consistently cast them. www.managathering.com is an awesome resource to find lands. It didn't exist when I first started brewing, but I go there all the time now, namely because I just can't remember all the card names like I used to, lol. Ideally, you want lands that don't enter tapped, especially if you're going for speed. If you can afford them, Temple Garden & Windswept Heath are the perennial favorites. But Razorverge Thicket, Overgrown Farmland, and Branchloft Pathway  ^Flip are all decent. I recommend 22 lands for a "fast deck" - IE a deck with an Average MV of 2 or less (2.05 is close enough). Much greater than 2 average and I'd recommend 23-24 lands. Which stinks, I know, because the more land you include, the less spells you get and more likely you are to get mana screwed. But I've found that if you ever want to reliably cast spells that are 3 or more, you're going to need those extra few lands. Even with mana ramp, 16 is not enough land.

Typically, Artifact/Enchantment removal spells go in the sideboard. And typically, people run 4x creature removal in the mainboard: Any of the following would be good: Winds of Abandon, Sheltered by Ghosts, Path to Exile should be in the mainboard.

Druid's Deliverance is fun, but even in decks where I include Fog, I rarely include more than 1 copy. At double the MV, Druid's Deliverance is either going to tie up your mana (slowing you down), and/or delay instead of remove, and/or get cast just for the populate, which you already have spells for. So I'd suggest cutting it 1 copy.

Fight as One is... a decent spell. Heroic Intervention would be better. Since all but 1 of your creatures is white, Brave the Elements would be more versatile and cheaper and Tamiyo's Safekeeping is just cheaper. In my experience, 1 is the MV that is best for protection spells because it doesn't need as much mana to be available - that is - they're just more versatile. And I usually only include 1-2 of such spells.

I'd just cut Selesnya Charm. It just doesn't do anything that well and it's single use doesn't make it valuable enough to include.

Call of the Conclave is similar to Selesnya Charm - tokens aren't much about how big so much as how many. Repeatable token generators are going to be bigger threats than single-use spells.

The thing with Populate is that it doesn't really give you much oomph unless you've got bigger tokens. So you're not wrong looking for tokens that are on the bigger size. But since tokens are easy to get rid of and impossible to bring back, most people ignore the Populate mechanic altogether in favor of making lots of tokens as quickly as possible and at instant speed if they can.

Thraben Doomsayer is pretty good, though I do hate the 3MV casting cost. But you can make tokens at instant speed, which is great, and you can do it every turn.

Lingering Souls is one of the best token spells because you get so many for not that much mana, though you don't have the black mana here to make it worthwhile.

Tocasia's Welcome is great card draw for tokens, namely if you can create a token on your turn and your opponent's turn.

Creatures that care about ETB triggers are really good with tokens, too. You really can't go wrong with Soul Warden and/or Soul's Attendant - with 6+ Soul Sisters, I'd imagine a Goblin deck would find it very difficult to hit you for more life than they cause you to gain. And if you can gain enough life, Speaker of the Heavens gives you tokens that are worth Populating.

Growing Ranks is pretty good, but at 4MV,it's on the slow side.

Overrun is a good spell here, and I think you've got the right number.

Wake the Reflections is ok, I guess, but again, only copying 1 token just isn't as good as it might seem. At least it only costs you 1 to cast. The question is whether its actually powerful enough to be worth including, verses using that space for more token spells.

Something like Ephemerate or Cloudshift would probably be good with Hare Apparent

I like Finneas, Ace Archer, but I don't like it enough to overlook its Legendary status to run 4 copies.

Broad-stroke advice: 4x creature removal, 2x protection spell, 1x fog spell, 22x lands, 2-3x card advantage spell, 12x token generators, 8x ETB trigger spells. That leaves you with about 10 spells to lean into a mechanic like populate or more removal, etc, etc.

Please don't think what I write is definitive or that I'm insisting. Ignore whatever you want. I'm just throwing out my thoughts, hoping something might be useful for you.

kamarupa on Arti-Kor

2 months ago

Perhaps 1x Buried Ruin could replace 1xNarrow Escape? (and drop 1x Plains) That would open up 1x slot... Not sure what you'd use it for, but maybe Brave the Elements or Ephemerate?

kamarupa on Cocaine

2 months ago

Big thanks for the +1 and thoughtful suggestions. I do feel like I need to remind you that Blasphemous Act is stymied by Brave the Elements. And on top of that, this deck often wins with only 3-4 creatures in play.

It's been quite a while that I updated this deck at all until just recently. I'm sure there are other spells that I should be swapping in. The last time I was really putting any work into this deck, The Ozolith was under $10 lol, and Path to Exile was over $5. And Aether Vial was like $25.

I like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar - I actually built a deck around her specifically. (see Sweet Adeline) I suppose I could put in place of Mangara of Corondor, which is rather slow anyway.

I'll def do some work on this and see if I can bring it up to the year 2025 :)

kamarupa on Return from Exile

2 months ago

I like the concept, but I think this concept could be honed a bit more... A few spells to consider:

Hour of Revelation/Devastating Mastery/Planar Cleansing/Perilous Vault - these works on everything, not just creatures. So they're a good bit broader and effective against more decks. And they also opens to the door to use spells like Journey to Nowhere or Chained to the Rocks.

Since you plan on using wraths to wipe the board, spells like Path to Exile don't seem quite a useful as normal. Perhaps protection spells like Brave the Elements might be more useful - instead of removing early threats, you could block without your creatures dying. And later in the game, you can use it to evade any blockers an opponent might muster after your wrath.

I'm a little concerned there aren't many creatures in this deck and many of them have rather high MV. I wonder if something like Holy Day might also be more useful than Path to Exile in keeping you in the game long enough for your plan to work.

kamarupa on Another B/W Aggro Deck

2 months ago

Brave the Elements seems like a very useful spell here, as it provides a lot of protection from removal and it's likely more useful as evasion than a pump is in delivering a fatal blow. I'd cut pump and reanimation spells to make room for it.

kamarupa on Pussy on F I R E

3 months ago

With only one green creature, I'd consider dropping Madcap Skills for Brave the Elements, which gives you wide evasion for a fatal swing as well as wide protection from removal.

Arsienic on BUG - Modular Historic - Arena build

3 months ago

oof reading the card explains the card: replace Brave the Elements with Fight as One, as brave the elements just doesn't work there lol.

Arsienic on BUG - Modular Historic - Arena build

3 months ago

Apollo_Paladin Thanks for the feedback! sorry for a horrifically late response. Please note I still haven't gotten around to looking at a lot of the new cards and if they would be good to add to the deck.

You are absolutely right, The creatures are a huge part of the deck and protecting them is a something I'm realizing I lack. On the other hand, Do I need to protect All of them? in this deck (as I'm sure anyone looking at it is aware) a strong source of power is creatures dying and multiplying their counters on to other creatures, often to get a close win. With this in mind, I have a couple of thoughts:

• First adding more/any mass protection. The suggestion to add Teferi's Protection is amazing at this, ensuring to make sure that nothing dies as a result of my opponents actions and putting the control of when/how they die in my control. I can definitely see this helping, but I think I can do more.

• My second line of thinking is, if I want my things to die and my opponent is doing the work of killing them for me, can I use specific creature protection to turn board wipes into net positive interactions. (I.e. using Brave the Elements to only protect Hangarback Walker ensuring that the board wipe will only stand to make walker an even bigger threat). I do see that this plan is very ineffective against exile based wipes, and teferi's is, again, a great option I'm going to add!

I think somewhere between these two thoughts of protect everything, and charge the win-con with my opponent's removal is the base of what's going to become my sideboard. I really want cards I can use to protect my creatures into game ending resets, but I also want cards that can, for low mana, protect a single target.

again, thanks for the feedback! and any card suggestions, especially with all the new stuff out, are appreciated!