Callous Oppressor

Creature — Cephalid

You may choose not to untap Callous Oppressor during your untap step.

As Callous Oppressor enters the battlefield, an opponent chooses a creature type.

{T}: Gain control of target creature that isn't of the chosen type as long as Callous Oppressor remains tapped.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	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
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (25)

DreadKhan on Jinx Master of Chaos

6 months ago

I could be wrong, but I think part of your problem is that you can't run enough wipes to keep pressure down but also cannot run enough creatures to deal with aggro. Some stuff that can help with this include Propaganda, maybe War Tax do a good job at deterring early aggro. Callous Oppressor type cards are pretty powerful, creature theft effects allow you to keep up with aggressive decks running powerful creatures without having to run or cast them yourselves. There might be a couple useful token generators that might fit, Ophiomancer and Ogre Slumlord both provide endless Deathtouch blockers and can deter attacks. My final suggestion to help prevent losses is dedicated blockers, cards like Brash Taunter, this sweet blocker survives many wipes and can make brute force risky to use vs you. There are also cards like Fog Bank that can block fairly well, but remember that low toughness means you're vulnerable to Trample.

I would try out Rite of the Raging Storm, it puts a lot of pressure on the board for anyone but you who can't block a 5/1 trample. Mask of Griselbrand works really well with Rite, but it also works well with any other non-flyer you want to attack with, and helps incase you get wiped/targeted with removal since it can draw cards. The lifegain is a nice perk. Viashino Heretic is a way to blow up artifacts repeatedly that also can deal some damage, if people use large artifacts it can be a lot of damage for mana.

FormOverFunction on Bureaucracy!

10 months ago

GrimlockVIII I think that fits perfectly, both in theme and with the fact that most of my creatures have more impressive toughness than power (especially with cards like Abbey Matron!). Good call!

DreadKhan these are great recommendations! I think I only have one Callous Oppressor and he’s currently camped out in my Torture deck. Some of these others are, as you mentioned, a little pricey and (more importantly) not already in my garbage bags of cards. Definitely will be keeping an eye out for some of them though, in case they become available!! Thank you both for the recommendations!

DreadKhan on Please help me improve my …

10 months ago

If you like stealing creatures and have access to Blink Thassa, you might like Callous Oppressor. I'd also look at Helm of Possession for the same reasons. TBH I think I'd run Sower of Temptation over Gilded Drake with your Commander (Drake is a great card, but at least if you kill off Sower's creature you can just flicker Sower to get a new creature, at which point you can flicker Sower to steal something else), either way it's also worth a look.

If you're looking for ramp in Blue, I'm a fan of the usually clowned-on Dreamscape Artist, Myriad Landscape and Retraced Image, but I think it's probably a reasonable choice to run stuff like Arcane Signet/Fellwar Stone if you're struggling to get your ramp numbers high enough. A sneaky trick I heard about from The Command Zone (it's a Youtube EDH channel) is that you can use creature lands like Mishra's Factory or Faerie Conclave as a form of Blue ramp if you can copy them when they are creatures, Magic has few issues with cloning/copying lands if they are also creatures. Another unusual form of 'ramp' is to use the odd card like Walking Atlas to cheat extra lands in, but you probably would want a few more lands or card draw.

As one-off theft effects go, I find Bribery, Inevitable Betrayal and Cultural Exchange to all be pretty solid, Exchange does want you to have token generators, but Blue isn't bad at making small tokens. Bribery effects can be a LOT bigger than a theft effect, so Betrayal is deceptively powerful vs the right type of deck, but most decks have a few really strong creatures at least, and you should have multiple opponents to choose from.

It's not a Theft effect, but Rite of Replication is hilarious in practice, getting a single copy for 4 is pretty much market rate, getting 5 copies for 9 is crazy when it happens.

DreadKhan on Bureaucracy!

10 months ago

I didn't realize your deck had a fairly low budget when I first started typing, so a few cards I mention might be out of your budget, but I think some of the stuff might fit.

I have an Azorius deck that has an aspect of bureaucracy in it, have you thought about Preacher and Callous Oppressor? I think they might fit flavor-wise, clergy are in part bureaucrats, and arguably the main part of being a bureaucrat is callously oppressing people/destroying their wills to enable control over them. I also like Bribery and War Tax, maybe Spurnmage Advocate and Pulsemage Advocate, advocacy is common in bureaucracies, as are bribery and taxes.

I'm not sure how eager you are to throw more interaction in, but Dovin's Veto and Disdainful Stroke feel fairly bureaucratic, maybe Generous Gift as removal? Is Visions of Duplicity on theme enough? Duplicity seems pretty on theme, and shuffling other people's creatures is the annoying crap officials get up to when bored.

Cool Vorthos idea, hope you have good match ups in your area!

DreadKhan on The Quackening

1 year ago

I have a Quest for Ula's Temple deck which does some similar things, I liked Dreamscape Artist because it can reshuffle your library as needed, incase you don't have a relevant creature to work with on top. It's technically only 1 mana and a card to Harrow (you get back 2 untapped lands, so it can also helping mana fixing) Blue, and I could be wrong but I think your Commander wants the odd Discard outlet too. A worse (but still potentially useful) piece of Blue ramp is Apprentice Wizard, it's not as good as Dreamscape, it's like Worn Powerstone, which is a good rock if you want bigger ramp to potentially cast a big creature a bit sooner. Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus are big ramp rocks with decent ratios. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers are pretty good together, if you have a lot of devotion to a colour Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can help, Deserted Temple can untap any land that makes extra mana. Less rampy and more of a big Scry effect, Soothsaying is a neat card if you care about your deck order. Scroll Rack is better but costs more.

Just a general idea, you might throw in things like Reconnaissance Mission, Bident of Thassa, and Coastal Piracy along with some Unblockable or Shadow creatures (Thalakos and Dauthi are the Blue and Black tribes). You can also throw in stuff like Sword of the Animist, Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip, Prying Blade, Goldvein Pick, Grim Hireling, and any other attack payoffs you can find to generate more value over time. I understand you want a sea-monster theme, but you might want a way to draw some cards/get in some chip damage to soften people up. The only drawback to Shadows is that they can't chump block. If you really want your evasive creatures to be able to chump, there are some small flyers like Spectral Sailor and Thousand-Faced Shadow that have other upsides, these are risk free but are way less evasive than Shadows.

On that note, if you're worried about getting attacked you might look at Propaganda, War Tax, Flood, and Fatespinner are all great ways to make you hard to attack. Mass Diminish, Polymorphist's Jest, Sudden Spoiling, AEtherize, Aetherspouts are all great cards for people to fear.

Callous Oppressor is a funny repeatable theft effect, Ritual of the Machine and Helm of Possession can both steal stuff and are great with tokens, Thieving Skydiver can steal an artifact creature fwiw, Sower of Temptation is a so-so theft effect that shines bright if you can flicker or bounce it, Thalakos Deceiver is probably way better since he permanently steals whatever and can be reanimated, Inevitable Betrayal and Bribery are both pretty sweet.

The biggest (and perhaps best) theft effects are Mass Manipulation and Cultural Exchange, exchange requires bodies but can also be used aggressively to just ruin two players' boards.

Inkwell Leviathan, Lochmere Serpent, Spawning Kraken, Stormtide Leviathan, and Wrexial, the Risen Deep are some relevant creatures I use, some are better than others but there is nothing as bad as Sea Serpent or Bog Serpent, both cards I love but don't use.

If you like Whelming Wave, you might like Spectral Deluge as well.

Hope some of this helps, Big Dimir is a fun deck!

Strangelove on The Black Rose Grand Theft

1 year ago

Np marco-online, you got me brewing! I definitely leaned into the aristocrats.

For more thievery, I think you might like Callous Oppressor or Thalakos Deceiver.

I also thought Volcano Hellion was really cool, but I did end up cutting it.

FormOverFunction on None

3 years ago

To be totally clear: I really don’t enjoy the repetitive looping decks, which is why decks like my torture deck have so many odd stacks in it. I always insist on making the player play it out all the way, because there’s a non-zero chance that my deck is going to fuzz it out somehow ;p Psychogenic Probe , Copper Tablet , Thought Prison , even Callous Oppressor can monkeywrench things in a weird and hilarious way.

FormOverFunction on Are there any old cards …

3 years ago

I’m sort of surprised Heat Stroke isn’t used more. I know it’s too slow for red burn, but I would assume token decks would get value from it (my goblin deck certainly does). Artificer's Hex is an all-time favorite of mine for my haunted house deck. Equipment cards bug me almost as much as planeswalkers so I love messing with them. It’s strong because it doesn’t outright destroy it, so GY recursion doesn’t save it. It’s weak (but more fair) because the player can still choose to use it if it’s worth the creature dying, which makes the play more engaging. Similar to equipment, other artifacts are so core to Standard EDH Decks(tm) that something like Corrosion can jack up a 4-player game big time. Clearly, I get a great deal of enjoyment out of dragging other players back to 1996 by destroying their insane swords and 1/3 flying first strike 1cmc creatures (or whatever). Giant Oyster is far from flashy, but killing things (even fliers!) with -1 toughness is strong, and especially brutal if they have to watch it happen over five non-untapping turns. (Note: sorry if you’ve looked at my decks before, I’m obviously just scrolling through them at this point) Walking Sponge can sometimes make wild swings in momentum in multiplayer. Hilarious. Homarid Spawning Bed produces so many tokens that I’m certain that if I was better at making functional decks I could misuse that in some sort of sac-outlet jank. How do you get giant creatures into play that are worth sacrificing? Glad you asked! Iceberg is such a crazy amount of ramp for blue I’m astonished that it’s not more popular. My guess would be that it’s practically impossible to find, because blue always wants blue mana rather than colorless and because cool new blue stuff is basically free anyways ;p but I've loved it ever since I found a (one!) copy of it for my Briny Deep deck. Breaking Wave might be something The Cool Kids are still using (sadly I wouldn’t know) but if it isn’t it absolutely should be as it can be bonkers. Paralyze was a lot of fun to use on your own creature that wouldn’t otherwise untap in your untap phase. I hope that still works nowadays. Transmutation had always been fun, and I hope it’s still useful. If you enjoy making deals cast a Callous Oppressor and start the bidding high! Do you like hurling insults down at the two strangers fighting in the ring? Get yourself a Whipkeeper and turn it up to eleven! This is way too long a post, so I’ll stop and see what else comes up in the posts. I’m looking forward to hearing about other people’s favorites!!