Channel

Sorcery

Until end of turn, any time you could activate a mana ability, you may pay 1 life. If you do, add {C}.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Big Apple Highlander	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oldschool 93/94	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
PreDH	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

capwner on legendofa

6 days ago

Heck yeah! Yes it does feel kind of like a mix of kitchen table because the random bulk rares and uncommons are often quite good, but mixed with a bit of high octane vintage since you get to play with the full card pool so can play some crazy stuff so long as it's cheap (usually legacy/modern banned cards) like Sol Ring, Balance, Hymn to Tourach, Channel, Frantic Search, Flash..! And many classic strats have affordable core cards like Tron, Cloudpost, Delver of Secrets  ^Flip, Monastery Swiftspear, or Spell Queller! The more I've played the more I think the format design is brilliant and the deckbuilding is some of the most fun and wide open feeling I've experienced much like playing kitchen table.

psionictemplar on Broken Biorythm

3 months ago

If only you could play Channel.

BotaNickill on Shadow Clone Jutsu v.2 (Retired)

2 years ago

Upvote for the Venerated Rotpriest enthusiasm! I like the interaction with Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief for sure, and I have a playset of her just in case I go back to the darkside (blue), but I am mainly a Selesnya player and my Rotpriest deck builds have been geared that way. I have mostly been playing it on Arena, first in Historic, but now mainly in Timeless. (But I do have a modern vs as well). Access to Once Upon a Time has been nice for consistency, and I've been considering adding Channel for the possibility of castion out most of my hand onm T1 But White offers some noice options for removal, like Swords to Plowshares and Annex Sentry, there's also some great white targeted spells, Defiant Strike, Ephemerate, Gird for Battle, Gods Willing etc. I usually choose to mulligan until I get a rotpriest in my opening hand and at least a land or two and a protection spell. But keeping Rotty on the board is always a challenge as he has a giant target on his back. How has this all worked out for you in Simic with being able to copy the rotpriest?

legendofa on Is WotC Being Cautious About …

3 years ago

In the earliest days, there was Channel giving 19 "free" mana. Force of Will and Necropotence weren't far behind, as a "free" counterspell and "free" draw 19. Life payments then went pretty quiet for a while, until the fetchlands and shocklands came in, followed by Phyrexian mana. Gitaxian Probe and Mental Misstep stand out here. Virtually every time that life payments were allowed to gain an advantage or offset a "standard" cost, it changed the way the game was played.

Basically, you start with 20-40 of a resource that is easily recoverable and is generally spent 1-2 at a time. Even if your opponents are trying to deplete that resource in big chunks, there's no official difference between winning at 20 life and winning at 1 life. You don't get points for having more life left, so might as well use it.

On that line of thought, are there any games where your life total, or the equivalent, is the primary resource?

DrukenReaps on Alternate Ban List

3 years ago

I've never really been a fan of the ban list used for commander. I don't think it addresses potential problem cards the right way. There's always going to be a new problem card printed. I also think there's cards stuck on there that use to be scary and just aren't now. Like when Worldfire came off and no one really cared lol. So I wanted to just go through the mental exercise of designing a new ban list. First thing is I wanted to bring back the old "banned as commander" and therefore have 2 ban lists. The argument I heard most against this is that it's complicated but we play the most complex deck design game in MTG. I think people can handle 2 ban lists. For the banned from the 99 part of the list I was thinking I'd focus on fast tutors and fast mana. Like I said there will always be more problem cards. Many that aren't banned are arguably stronger than banned ones currently. For example Godo, Bandit Warlord + Helm of the Host is arguably easier and more consistent than Cromat + Coalition Victory.

So here are the 2 lists, they do not contain everything. Just wanted to start the idea and see people's thoughts.

Banned as Commander- Braids, Cabal Minion Emrakul, the Aeons Torn Griselbrand Iona, Shield of Emeria Leovold, Emissary of Trest

Banned from the 99- Mox Emerald Mox Jet Mox Pearl Mox Ruby Mox Sapphire Black Lotus Channel Sol Ring Mana Crypt Mana Vault Worldly Tutor Enlightened Tutor Personal Tutor Vampiric Tutor Demonic Tutor Mystical Tutor

I would also simply declare that Companion doesn't work in Commander. So you can play your Lutri, the Spellchaser if you so desire. I think this mechanic as a whole was poorly thought out and poorly tested, hence the changes and bans across multiple formats.

Alesamuel on Equipment

3 years ago

In Oathbreaker rules, your signature spell needs to fall within your commander's color identity. Since Channel is green, it can't be your signature spell if your commander is Karn, Scion of Urza since Karn is colourless. A better suited Signature Spell would be All is Dust or another colorless spell.

DeinoStinkus on What Commander Do You Think …

4 years ago

TheSnuggleLord I agree strongly that the standardization of the Commander format has led to insane power creep, and this is because Commander occupies a unique design space that should not be catered to excessively just by its very nature.

Vintage has the same card pool as Commander, except that cards that warp the entire game, such as Black Lotus and Channel, are legal, so it's not easy to create cards that sway the direction of the format.

Modern, on the other hand, has a more limited card pool, and didn't really suffer from insane power creep until recently, because cards that are designed for Standard aren't necessarily great for Modern. This obviously changed with the introduction of the Modern Horizons sets, each of which caused massive changes in the Modern format. As it turns out, creating intentionally pushed cards for a given format makes that format much more powerful.

Commander sets pushed the power level of the Commander format as a whole further forward each and every time they were released, which isn't necessarily bad until you release a new Commander-tailored set of pushed cards every single set. Then it becomes an issue.

amarthaler on Midnight (in the) Guard’n of Gond and Evil

4 years ago

Nice deck build! Should throw in a Channel just because :D