Chemister's Insight
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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
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Chemister's Insight

Instant

Draw two cards.

Jump-start (You may cast this card from your graveyard by discarding a card in addition to paying its other costs. Then exile this card.)

ShiningEyes on

2 years ago

Hi! First off, fun concept.

That said, I'm seeing that this deck struggles to come back from cards like Wrath of God or Settle the Wreckage. You can help buff your resilience to this one of two ways; having competent counter plays such as Counterspell, Heroic Intervention, and Teferi's Protection. Or you can have some ways to keep your hand full, such as Deep Analysis, Harmonize, or Chemister's Insight.

Also worth considering since you're running so many elves are the high-quality tribal cards like Urza's Incubator, Herald's Horn or Icon of Ancestry. There are many cards like these, some better than others. Consider running a search for Choose a Creature Type as text to find others.

Best of luck!

mrweaselman on America Control

2 years ago

Chandra Ablaze does not seem very good in this deck, I can't see a time you really want to use her +1 and her -2 is pretty situational for control. Neither is really worth the cost either. Chandra, the Firebrand is alright, but I think that there are better planeswalker options. Chandra, Torch of Defiance is probably the best Chandra, although she's a bit more expensive. Ajani Vengeant is another pretty solid option.

Detention Sphere is better than Banishing Light in your colors. Mana Leak is probably better than Negate. You can always sideboard swap them if you have the space too.

Fire / Ice can replace Lightning Bolt if you find yourself light on card draw. You'll want to replace Drawn from Dreams with instant draw. A couple options are Precognitive Perception, Sphinx's Revelation, Chemister's Insight, or Thassa's Intervention.

Going over the land base, you may be able to go down 1-2 and replace them with draw, your high end is only 4-5 mana. Take out basics for 4 Mystic Monastery, 3 Battlefield Forge, and 2 either Celestial Colonnade or Wandering Fumarole. I'm not completely sure what your colored distribution is, so those numbers may not be optimal.

If you run any of the artifact bridges like Razortide Bridge you can also run Cleansing Wildfire, which may not be competitive, but is pretty spicy.

Omniscience_is_life on

3 years ago

I don't know if Censor is a good enough counter to merit being a 3-of, seems like the alt cycling tech isn't enough to make it better than a good ol' Miscast, Swan Song, Essence Scatter, Dovin's Veto, or Spell Pierce. Historic has a LOT of good control magic options!

I feel similarly about Chemister's Insight--4 mana seems like a lot to hold up, and with Thirst for Discovery in the format I feel like Insight should only have 2 copies, with two Thirsts.

Since your primary finisher is Approach, I would recommend adding another; the math's been done, if you want to draw roughly one of a card per game then 3 is the number of copies to run.

Like the deck, good to see Search for Azcanta  Flip getting some play! Keep it up!

Pheardemons on Pioneer Discard

3 years ago

I like the deck man. I am interested in playing something similar in pioneer. Not sure if I want to go Grixis for Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger because Ashiok is one of my favorite planeswalkers, or just Rakdos because it is my favorite guild.

Anyway, if this is something your interested in perfecting, I'd recommend Eliminate over Cast Down to allow for utility to hit planeswalkers as well. Because of your theme, you don't necessarily need to worry about big creatures attacking in since you can make them discard it anyway. Murderous Rider is another staple that you could use instead as a potential backup plan to beat face.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Ashiok, Nightmare Muse , but Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver can also be a powerful win condition for less mana. Granted, if they are not a creature deck it can hurt, but you still are exiling their deck AND hand with it. I would say it is worth playtesting.

Since you're blue I'd recommend some draw spells. I really like Chemister's Insight for this type of deck since you can discard a discard spell to its jumpstart if their hand is low, while refilling yours for more utility. There are plenty more to consider since it would be likely that you'd run out of a hand around the same time as your opponent without some sort of draw.

MagicMarc on

3 years ago

Hello, I saw your post about the deck and wanted to make a couple of suggestions.

You have some cards I think are of dubious value in your deck and would like to suggest removing them. You should delete the following cards; Thought Scour This card adds nothing to this deck's game plan. Spore Frog . Cut these and replace them with Empty the Warrens . Empty the Warrens can make blockers, increases your storm count, and can storm for even more goblins.

I also feel I have to make the obligatory mention about some of the better turbo fog and storm creatures you could replace them with; Augur of Bolas , Guttersnipe , Sprite Dragon , Snapcaster Mage and Electrostatic Field . If you really need to have a creature, make it a 4 of any of the creatures I just mentioned. But dump the frogs. If you really think fog effects are your answer then cut them for Haze of Pollen . Haze at least can raise storm counts or be cycled when the battlefield does not have serious threats in play. And the frogs would be gone.

Cut Nature's Spiral . It is too narrow and does not advance your win condition. I am also not happy with your enchantments either. I think I see your game plan using them but they hurt your odds of Storming off on your opponent and really only hurt yourself by slowing down your deck. I would cut Gaseous Form for sure. And suggest cutting Abundant Growth . I would replace these with copies of Echoing Truth and Growth Spiral . Both of these cards do the same thing those cards do in the short run, then they raise your storm counts and help win the game in the long run.

Your deck is missing two things that help turbo decks and burn/storm decks. Card advantage and mana rituals. Consider these cards when thinking about what to replace your cuts with or consider making room for some of them; Desperate Ritual , Pyretic Ritual , or Manamorphose . If you plan to keep Abundant Growth in your deck then these rituals have lesser value but I would consider dumping the growth for a playset of one of these or more depending on your card count. They up your storm count and provide the mana to cast more cards in the same turn adding even more to your storm counts.

For card advantage, consider making room for the cards like these; Opt , Sleight of Hand , Serum Visions , Pieces of the Puzzle , Behold the Multiverse , Brainstorm or Frantic Search . Some of these are cheap to cast with a small return but will really accelerate the deck and raise your counts. The bigger cost ones have bigger payoffs for card advantage but will make slower turns. Some other cards to consider are Browbeat , Risk Factor and the blue jump-start card Chemister's Insight . You don't see Risk Factor or Chemister's Insight in competitive decks as much but they are both good alternatives that can keep providing advantage or damage. I would consider adding 4-8 of some of these cards to give you card advantage and help refill your hand for bigger storms.

Two more suggestions that may have a place in the deck; Silundi Vision  Flip can replace a generic island while letting you dig pretty deep to find one of your win conditions. You may even consider adjusting the mana base to make room for maybe even 2 of these.

Consider adding Past in Flames to the deck. This card really increases the chances of a win especially during long games by letting you replay all of your burn spells from the yard. It needs a big mana investment but it can finish a game depending on the state of your graveyard. I would seriously consider replacing two copies of Call to Mind and/or Nature's Spiral with a total of 2 copies of Past in Flames . I would keep it at two copies, it does need a big mana state to really work out for you and going to 3 or 4 copies will hurt the deck instead of help it.

Lastly, consider going to 4 copies of the good cards you already have in the deck. You should raise the counts of Lightning Bolt and Shock to 4 each for sure. I would also consider dropping copies of Fog to raise your counts of Moment's Peace . Generally, if you do need to fog the field it will happen later in the game so the mana cost is not as big a burden and the flashback makes them awesome.

multimedia on Kalamax Kopy

3 years ago

Hey, some advice to help to lower the mana curve is to consolidate all the six, five and four CMC cards. Choose the better ones and cut the others for lower CMC instants. An example for each is choose two of the better cards here.

Counting Kalamax there's 19 four drops here, which is a lot and this many is making the mana curve higher. Of these four drops the better ones are: Kalamax, Wilderness Reclamation , Rashmi, Eternities Crafter , Primal Amulet  Flip, Murmuring Mystic , Spark Double and Chemister's Insight . The others or at least half of the rest could be cut for lower CMC instants to reduce the mana curve.

If adding Reclaim + Regrowth then you don't really need any of the other higher CMC cards that can recur cards from your graveyard such as Surreal Memoir , Goblin Dark-Dwellers , Charmbreaker Devils , etc. These and others could be cut to help to reduce the mana curve. Solve the Equation is an excellent budget card with Kalamax since it can tutor for any instant or sorcery. It could replace a high CMC card since it can tutor the best instant in your deck. Equation and Regrowth are very good with Narset's Reversal since they're sorceries can repeatedly cast/copy with Reversal on your turns.

More ways to lower the mana curve is adding more low CMC instants that draw. This draw is fine without Kalamax and then after you control Kalamax equals a lot of draw for low mana cost. The low mana cost to amount of draw lets you potentially cast more instants on opponent's turns. To give you a better idea what I mean these are some greater than to less than card examples of potential changes to consider.

Other ideas are some low CMC instants that draw that also give Kalamax evasion, letting him more easily do combat damage to a player when he attacks. The drawback these spells have is you want to cast them on your turn since it's not ideal to cast them on an opponent's turn because then you won't get the evasion benefits for attacking.

Unleash Fury doesn't draw, but it can be a one instant kill spell with Kalamax for two mana. Doing 21 Commander damage to an opponent who didn't block Kalamax, but only if Kalamax has starting 5 or more power. Cast Fury, copy it with Kalamax which puts a counter on attacking tapped Kalamax giving him 6 power. The copy of Fury doubles the 6 power to 12 power and the original Fury doubles the 12 power to 24 power.

With Kalamax a Fork such as Expansion / Explosion is a like a supercharged Unleash Fury . Expansion can give tapped Kalamax infinite power with +1/+1 counters that stay on Kalamax as well as other value.

I offer more advice in another comment about how you could add more complexity to your deck with Forks.

BrassLord on Ormos needs so much support budget is futile help

3 years ago

I haven't seen this commander done before, seems pretty neat! In terms of single cards, I'd definitely recommend Frantic Search , Mystic Sanctuary , Drownyard Temple , Chemister's Insight , Deep Analysis . Good general looting/blue cards to go with your commander's self discard theme! Self mill could also work, in which case Fraying Sanity on yourself could have a high upside! If you're looking for a budget wincon with your deck, Tunnel Vision seems like a fun route to go! If you pair it with something like Vessel of Endless Rest or Proteus Staff (though the staff is like $4 :/) you can either mill an opponent out, or mill yourself out. At worst, Vessel of Endless Rest is a three mana mana rock that puts a wincon back in the deck. To that end, in your current build, your commander is a (sort of semi conditional) infinite mana sink that will end with you picking up your deck and winning the game with Lab man and the like. Not sure how you feel about infinite combos, but if you're looking for a budget infinite mana combo in the deck outside of Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter , Peregrine Drake / Cloud of Faeries + Deadeye Navigator is tried and true. Or if you go the artifact subtheme, Pili-Pala + Grand Architect might also work!

As for budget additions, I've had a lot of success with Sculpting Steel and Mirrormade . Both of these cards are relatively cheap and scale well depending on what your opponents play. You can double down on the best artifact/enchantment on board.

Since the deck seems a little hungry for mana, you could also double down on the key effects with ramp like Thran Dynamo , Gilded Lotus and Voltaic Key . Could help you get WAY ahead with your draw X spells.

To that end Emry, Lurker of the Loch seems to work in tandem with what you want your commander to do! Deck thinning and casting rocks from the bin!

Hope that gives some ideas! The commander seems rather open ended aside from wanting to draw ALL the cards, there are definitely a lot of different routes to go! For sure a cool commander!

King_Of_Thallids on Nymris, Oona's Trickster - Help Needed

3 years ago

Flash of Insight , Think Twice , Oona's Grace , Radical Idea , Chemister's Insight , Brazen Borrower , Logic Knot , Murderous Cut , Temporal Trespass (Not instant speed, but an extra turn fueled buy all the cards in you graveyard can't hurt), Saw It Coming , Rise of the Dread Marn , Jarl of the Forsaken Glimpse of Freedom , and Cling to Dust .

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