Castle Vantress

Land

Castle Vantress enters the battlefield tapped unless you control an Island.

: Gain .

, : Scry 2.

Discussion (51)

5colourchaos on Riku of Two Reflections - Wizard Duplication

3 weeks ago

Primal Vigor ---> Restock

Howl of the Horde ---> Filigree Fracture

Melek, Izzet Paragon ---> Recollect

Llanowar Visionary ---> Naturalize

Spell Crumple ---> Blasphemous Act

Peregrine Drake ---> Shared Summons

Guildless Commons ---> Castle Vantress

DanMcSharp on Free Fly (Arena Standard)

2 months ago

Hello again,

Honestly I don't know if my insight is so great that you should eagerly look forward to it like this, but I certainly don't mind, always glad to help as I can!

First thing I notice is that you don't have a lot of 1 and 2 drops. The deck mostly starts to come online at turn 3 or 4, and then you try to get the most out of cards like Watcher of the Spheres and Warden of Evos Isle (8 of these seems like a bit much btw, you could remove a few Warden of Evos Isle ) which would imply that you want to use all your mana every turn, otherwise they didn't achieve much. You also don't have anything to play at instant speed as it is, so if I was you I would replace the 4 Alseid of Life's Bounty with 4 Selfless Savior because taxing yourself 1 mana for each Alseid of Life's Bounty that you want to use really hurts since you have nothing else to do with the mana if you end up not using it. Getting hexproof is nice, but you run so many creatures that I'm pretty sure you should be more worried about board-wipes, and Selfless Savior usually helps more with that anyway. Sure Alseid of Life's Bounty has lifelink, but it's not getting any bigger or enchanted in this deck, so I wouldn't count on it to keep you alive with its life gain.

I have to admit I'm not a big believer in Archon of Absolution myself, but I can see how useful it can be with today's meta since mono-white life gain/agro is everywhere. But I must say I feel like it's dead weight in any control matches, and it only having 2 toughness at 4cmc makes it too easy to remove for anything that's not white. If it works well for you, I'm glad to hear it though!

Reidane, God of the Worthy  ^Flip seems like a fine addition. It's probably annoying enough to play against for you to run some, and with all the snow cards around these days it's the best time to try it out.

If you're concerned about protecting your creatures, the first thing that comes to mind for you in this deck would be Lofty Denial , but if you feel fancy you could try adding 1 or maybe 2 Flicker of Fate . It can save a creature from targeted removal, return a stolen card back to your side of the battlefield, mess with the opponent's enchantments, +1/+1 counters and equipments, could be a combat trick for your Watcher of the Spheres by bouncing another flier, could draw you a card with Cloudkin Seer or bounce another target with Riddlemaster Sphinx and more interestingly, it could turn your Hakka, Whispering Raven into Alrund, God of the Cosmos  ^Flip at instant speed!

This would already give you a few instant speed things to do if case you'd rather keep Alseid of Life's Bounty in the deck. If you go that route you could also consider Skycat Sovereign since it's a good 2 drop anyway, and it would give you more things to do with any leftover mana. Actually, 1 or 2 castles like Castle Ardenvale or Castle Vantress probably wouldn't hurt either.

I'm more used to seeing azorius flier played as a low curve agro deck, but it can probably work fine this way too. Actually you could also try slotting in like 2 Mazemind Tome , it's usually a fine addition for midrange decks that don't have much control elements, and it's also life gain!

Hopefully this gives you some food for thought.

Cheers.

DanMcSharp on Control Mill 2021 (Arena Tested)

3 months ago

Interesting take on the mill plan.

I'm glad to see Sphinx Mindbreaker used here, and mixing it with Obsessive Stitcher and Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip seems promising. I do feel like running 4 Sphinx Mindbreaker seems like a lot though since Obsessive Stitcher is your only reliable way to cheat it into play. Using a 6 mana Ashiok, Sculptor of Fears (that's pretty bad otherwise) that might still be there to play it from the graveyard on the next turn doesn't seem like the greatest idea. I think 3 would be more reasonable.

I like the inclusion of Ghostly Pilferer since it should line-up nicely against all the foretell cards in the meta, but I feel like Vantress Gargoyle would serve you better in the main board both for staying alive, your mill plan, or winning with damage.

You are running very few lands at 21 for a deck that means that runs a bunch of high CMC cards that also wants to keep up mana for instants and creature abilities. Personally I would remove the 2 Ashiok, Sculptor of Fears and add 2 lands, probably a Castle Vantress and a Castle Locthwain .

Drown in the Loch is an amazing card in here, but it being your only counterspell and your only removal, it will have a lot of heavy lifting to do. A few Saw It Coming or Heartless Act could go a long way. You could probably cut a few Relic Golem or Ghostly Pilferer since you won't get much value out of too many creatures out at the same time with abilities you need to pay for anyway.

Hopefully these are useful, cheers!

LunchBox1211 on Card creation challenge

3 months ago

Armory

Artifact - Fortification

Fortified land has ", sacrifice this land: Search your library for up to 2 equipments and reveal them. Put 1 in your graveyard, and the rest in your hand."

Fortify

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Make a knight from Eldrane (legendary or not) who passed the tests at Castle Garenbrig and Castle Vantress.

Barbarian_Sun_Pope on Sleight Loss of Hand

4 months ago

Totally forgot about Castle Vantress, I'll add it as a one of so I don't reduce the effectiveness of Engulf the Shore too much. As for Midnight Clock, I'll playtest this a bit, but I don't think it's going to be more effective than Day's Undoing at the same CMC and requiring fewer resources. Thanks for the suggestions.

ImaginitiveRascal on Sleight Loss of Hand

4 months ago

Midnight Clock might be good, as well as Castle Vantress to scry for the goods.

rjife on Mono Blue Spirits

5 months ago

I think playing at least 2 Castle Vantress is worth it, and Dive Down is worth considering.

Tropical_December on Land Interaction

5 months ago

Halls of Mist is fun, Maze of Ith, Mystifying Maze, Labyrinth of Skophos all deal with attackers. Another way to deal with creatures is with removal: enter Quicksand and Mouth of Ronom. When protecting your own creatures Yavimaya Hollow is the best. With your general being a 6/6 Arena will kill quite a few unfortunate souls.

Petrified Field is great for recursion of valuable lands, Tolaria West will find the valuable lands and when paired with the field you get two tutors.

Soldevi Excavations is good filtering on a land, Search for Azcanta  ^Flip is great for finding noncreature spells; however, note that it also cannot get lands. Halimar Depths is a one time top deck filter, you have to decide whether entering tapped is small enough to ignore. Castle Vantress is going to be the best land for this, four mana plus a tap is expensive though.

All creature lands are great, but given enough mana Urza's Factory is even better, just pumping out creatures. Hostile Desert takes advantage of all the lands that will undoubtedly be entering your graveyard. Of course the aforementioned Field of the Dead is the best at generating blockers and possibly attackers.