Castle Vantress

Land

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

: Gain .

, : Scry 2.

Discussion (46)

SynergyBuild on Daveslab2022

2 weeks ago

Blue is the key interaction color, black is good too, but green is effectively a mandated color. Loam is the best grindy value engine, and effectively says "permanents" instead of lands in this format. On it's own that is op, dredge makes it beyond busted. Scapeshift is a strong wincon too, but manlands, Field of the Dead, and Dark Depths/Thespian Stage all work.

Remember unlike legacy where that's a 1 hit win, in this format it does take two hits. I enjoy Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi, but I enjoy it because it can hit hard on end-steps and just has the haste value. Against Field of Ruin you can toss it on a basic, but putting it on a Lumbering Falls or Raging Ravine, maybe even a Celestial Colonnade, so if you activate them they get really buff.

Secure the Wastes, Sylvan Awakening, Finale of Glory, etc. Can win as well, trust that a lot of decks have numerous wincons they can run, and while when entering the game without creatures it seems hard, its certainly not impossible. The goal is to build around the card advantage of the game.

Life from the Loam is overpowered because of this, and the fact countering it doesn't stop the engine. There aren't a ton of these type of card advantage engines without most permanent types, and that's why the few we have are valuable, and while Ponder, Brainstorm, Preordain give card selection, advantage is hugely in need, so when looking through what you want, here are the following pieces of card advantage:

Hymn to Tourach and Gerrard's Verdict both are cheap ways to grind out value by 2 for 1ing an opponent from cards, it's no engine, but it functions well to disrupt whatever your opponent has going on. Be scared of Misdirection or Divert as they can blowout this style of card advantage, and are highly valuable pieces of "anti-interaction", but even a Veil of Summer can be a seriously bad turn for this card.

Castle Locthwain, Castle Vantress, Castle Ardenvale, Kjeldoran Outpost, Westvale Abbey  ^Flip, Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree, etc.

Sorry, started writing this I need to follow up later, hope this gives a brief intro!

Balaam__ on Mist in the wind

3 weeks ago

Castle Vantress might have a place. Otherwise this looks pretty good!

Amoskeag on Cursed Energy Grindstone

1 month ago

Hey! Mill is always a fun strategy, here are my thoughts for this "Cursed Mill" deck.

Fraying Sanity will make your mill effects much better, even when they "Whiff" on your Grindstone, and speaking of Grindstone, Painter's Servant is a really fun combo with it but BOY it's a pretty penny right now so let's forget about that. The other curse that flys to mind is Curse of the Bloody Tome, keep dumping that library into the yard!

Energy Field is for sure a neat card, but you have to basically stop playing the game to keep it in play, that's big sad energy when you want to stall out the game and pull ahead. Call me crazy but with a White or Green Splash, you could play Wheel of Sun and Moon enchanting yourself, preventing you from ever losing your Energy Field do to its ability! but that's something for version 2 of the deck I'd say.

And now that M21 is on its way you get some copies of Bruvac the Grandiloquent, it's totally made to improve your game plan!

Rewind is cool but you seem to have plenty of the "untap x lands" effect, Remand would give you the ability to stop a player's turn and draw you a card.

Since currently this is a 2 color deck, and you want mana rocks, drop the Star Compass and just use Talisman of Dominance if you don't have the basic land you need it's going to hinder your ability to play, Talisman pings you for colored mana (not the colorless note) but you'll be able to get exactly the mana you need without getting caught by luck of the draw.

Furthermore, your mana base is comparable to a burn deck's count, your going to be getting to 3 lands as a top-end consistently with proper shuffling. you have cards in the 4 and 6 mana range, you'll want to get to 21 or 22 lands so you are making your land drop every turn. Your mana base can also be made more consistent with a few two-color lands, I would recommend the Scry Lands as a starting point. Temple of Deceit would be the one you want. Also Castle Vantress. Other lands you can use to improve the consistency of your mana base include Drowned Catacomb, Choked Estuary, Underground River, and Watery Grave. Creeping Tar Pit serves an additional purpose of being a creature you can use to close out the game if the mill isn't working, also it's Unblockable yay!

abby315 on Dimir Flash Bat

1 month ago

You should consider 4x Spectral Sailor - they're absolutely nuts with the Octopus and the other mutaters, they're cheap ways to trigger Brineborn Cutthroat, and the 4-mana ability means you can always choose between drawing, playing a creature, or countering.

I think they're much better than Lochmere Serpent and probably the two Greatshark, or perhaps two Pouncing Shoreshark.

Also, I'm surprised to see no Slitherwisp?

Finally, 1-2 Castle Vantress might be a nice addition.

Luckee on Intet Lottery

1 month ago

RNR_Gaming those are some good suggestions! I tried to look for cards that could bring as much recurrable top deck manipulation as I could, Castle Vantress, Crystal Ball, Psychic Impetus, and Sigiled Starfish as examples. Cards like Brainstorm and Ponder are pretty powerful for one-time plays, but I was trying to seal the long game with the previously mentioned selection. However, I suppose that same argument could be used against the inclusions of Savage Beating and Seize the Day, though I thought getting in extra attacks could mean more triggers and potentially game-winning plays so I made an exception.

As for Sensei's Divining Top, I was considering it, but I was looking to budget some of the options to keep things within as reasonable as a price range I could.

Thanks for taking a look! The feedback is appreciated!

kamarupa on All the lands in a sorted list

2 months ago

looks like this is missing at least a few lands - all the newest castles at least, and therefore possibly many more - Castle Ardenvale, Castle Garenbrig, Castle Locthwain, Castle Embereth, Castle Vantress

Grind on Shuffle land

2 months ago

I agree with you all (except tonystark because oracle of mul daya is a great card), but i agree that shuffling takes too long. However scry 1 is a powerful ability: the only lands with unconditional repeatable scry are Soldevi Excavations and Castle Vantress and these abilities cost 3 and 5 mana respectively.
Also, scry is unconditionally useful. Whereas shuffling is conditionally useful. So how about this version:

Bottomless Rift
Land
: Add .
, pay 1 life: Put the top card of your library on the bottom of your library.

PokeKoa on Izzet amass

2 months ago

You can replace the 4 Sulfur Falls with 2 of each of Castle Embereth and Castle Vantress for a standard deck because Sulfur Falls isn't standard legal as of 2:30 on 5/23/2020