Commander's Sphere

Artifact

: Gain one mana of any colour in your commander's colour identity.

Sacrifice Commander's Sphere: Draw a card.

Discussion (51)

DemonDragonJ on Ikoria Teaser

4 days ago

Should we make a separate thread for Commander 2020, or is this thread sufficient?

The reprint of Sol Ring was not remotely surprising, but I still feel that WotC is going overboard with reprinting it in every Commander set. The reprint of Commander's Sphere was very nice, however, although I still would have preferred Chromatic Lantern, since its price needs to be kept low.

Twinning staff would be amazing for my Riku EDH deck, but I am not certain if I can remove any cards to make room for it.

Barracuda of the tide is very awesome, and I am very likely to use it to replace Vedalken Orrery in all of my EDH decks that contain the color blue (which is nine out of thirteen, more than half of them), so I hope that it is not too expensive, but I think that I should ask for advice before I make that decision.

JRaynor on Kess, Thousand-Year Storm [Primer-ish]

1 week ago

It seems like a pretty straightforward upgrade to move Commander's Sphere out in favor of the more recently printed Talisman of Creativity

Dubstep4lyfe on Meren would like to bring a friend

2 weeks ago

Hey man! Love grave decks and I'm glad people are still excited about them too! Your list looks pretty interesting, and if you wou like here's my advice: 1. I do not know what budget limitations you are under, so I'll sort my advice by price :) 2. I also do not know the mindset of your playgroup, so if anything I suggest seems too rude, unfun, or not accepted in your group, you make the judgement call and could totally just not run it. It's suggestions, not an order :) 3. Under 5$ includes: Blood Pet, Slaughter Pact, Pox, Arbor Elf, Elves of Deep Shadow, Final Parting, Commander's Sphere or Darksteel Ingot, Stitch Together, and Manglehorn. 4. 5-10$ Includes: Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Abrupt Decay, Entomb, Lightning Greaves, and Birthing Pod. 5. >10$ Includes: Grave Pact, Razaketh, the Foulblooded, and Mana Vault 6. The most exspensive commander staple since force of will and the og duals, it's Mana Crypt!! 7. Potential cards you could take out for these in my opinion: Triumph of the Hordes, Blighted Woodland, Catacomb Sifter, Thoughtpicker Witch, Elixir of Immortality, Caustic Tar, Moldervine Reclamation, Swiftfoot Boots, the guildgate, and Arguel's Blood Fast  ^Flip 8. Again, these are just my suggestions and you may do with them what you will, just thought I'd share because I love this archetype and want to see others enjoy it to their fullest. :)

Vulnoth on Turbo Aggro Grind Time

2 weeks ago

Continuing where I left off.

continuing from creatures

Something to consider when addressing what to drop for my suggestions is how it affects your overall strategy and politics. Ashenmoor Gouger looks good because on paper it can deal damage, but consider what happens if you draw it 10 turns in and the table has all dug in for the long game. Hyper aggressive cards of the sort that do little else aren't going to help you after the first few turns. Hackrobat, Rakdos Firewheeler, Thrill-Kill Assassin, and the like are what you should look for when hacking cards out of the deck in the creature department. You might be gearing up to go fast and hit hard, but you still are playing the "long game", if you can even call it that.

Support

Onwards we march, starting with the strict spell category. Here, you should be looking for either utility or pure power. Spot removal cards like Go for the Throat work in regular 60 card formats, but lose a ton of value as the game is slowed enough for that one spell to have a diminished effect because it can only hit a single creature, often to little effect. Now Bedevil, on the other hand, is outstanding because you can hold it for either an artifact or 'walker, thus expanding your range and making it always live and effective.

• Allure of the Unknown - A huge resource generation spell. Additionally, it plays into politics well by letting an opponent (or friend) have a card. Gotta keep the train moving.

• Bituminous Blast - Perhaps not the most clutch of cards, but at least worth considering since EDH is slow enough for these types of spells to put in work, mostly because Cascade is nuts. I'd understand if it didn't make the cut, though.

• Captive Audience - Hilarious and effective. Instant enemy-maker, but if you haven't farted in the general direction of everyone at the table, others might turn a blind eye. In my experience, when Joe Shmoe poops out an army of dargons and you slap him with this, the table would generally point and laugh.

• Cauldron Dance - A nice little shuffling of creatures, which is nice if you're rich in chunguses.

• Kolaghan's Command - The best charm from its cycle, for good reasons. It's always live in EDH.

• Spiteful Visions - Perhaps risky for politics, but it does put damage on board, thus making Rakdos live, and generates card advantage.

• Fork/Reverberate/Wild Ricochet - copy spells, in my experience, tend to do a lot since they're just whatever everyone else is playing.

• Beacon of Unrest - There will always be something in the grave, and self-recursion is a godsend in my books.

• Scheming Symmetry - Helps your consistency and makes a friend.

• Subversion - Nibbles at your opponents while sustaining yourself, and makes Rakdos live.

• Generally any spell with X in its cost. As the game drags on, they only get better.

I did a brief skim of cards in Gatherer and from among my own decks, but don't be afraid to look at other decks or EDHRec for things that will help you. Just remember that your goal boils largely down to pinging to make Rakdos live, cards that Rakdos is payoff for, and utility general support that rounds out the deck.

Artifacts

Necessary gears to get the machine moving. Mostly it will boil down to mana rocks to accelerate your state, but there will be others that you want purely because they work well for you.

• Cryptolith Fragment  ^Flip - Mana plus ping.

• Commander's Sphere - Obvious utility.

• Sol Ring/Gilded Lotus - Big mana staple.

• Mind Stone/Hedron Archive - Both have their uses, and I adore them both, but in a multicolor they can run the risk of being unhelpful due to generating colorless mana.

• Firemind Vessel - Perhaps slow, but produces plenty of mana.

• Thought Vessel - A personal choice, but if you don't have enough draw power to fill your hand, then it's not worth the cash.

• Tome of Legends - Easy draws.

• Conqueror's Galleon  ^Flip - Another personal choice, but I find that once it transforms, the advantage it generates does wonders, and as a deck stuffed with creatures that could crew it, the fit seems nice to me.

• Lightning Greaves/Swiftfoot Boots - Staples for protecting your Commander. Also Haste.

• Sword of the Animist - Free Rampant Growth on attack. Obvious value is obvious.

Lands

Here you can start to have some fun. Being 2-color, you do have to be somewhat mindful of what you're running, but you can definitely make use of a lot of offbeat lands since you're not trying to be a fool and mana fix 5 colors. Keep in mind that you may not necessarily need everything listed here, but it's just a matter of helping keep your ability to produce both colors consistent.

• Temple of Malice - Slow lands may be unappealing, but Scrying usually helps.

• Arch of Orazca - Yet another personal choice. All you need is to have 10 permanents at any point while controlling/playing a card with City's Blessing and you have it for the game. At which point, Arch becomes something to do with spare mana.

• Reliquary Tower - Like Thought Vessel, it's worth considering, but is acceptable to pass on if you keep burning your hand up.

• Command Tower - Staple.

• Graven Cairns - Filter lands are always nice.

• Rakdos Carnarium - Slow, yes, but in the long run gives more mana.

• Shadowblood Ridge - Another pseudo Filter Land

Chopping Block

I encourage you to think these things out on your own or ask friends about this part, because understanding the process of what and why things stay or go is important to understanding your deck. Below are my suggestions for what needs to get yeeted.

• Ashenmoor Gouger/Hackrobat/Hellhole Flailer/Rakdos Firewheeler/Thrill-Kill Assassin/Rakdos Guildmage - All just don't do that much. Awesome to drop in the first turns, but soon are just fodder. They're nice fodder for Lysolda and Judith, but overall too narrow in use and too low impact.

• Void Winnower/Blood Moon - As someone who wins almost all his games through player politics, I advise against these types of cards that choke the entire table. Like infinite combos kept as panic buttons in decks, you really only get to pull it once before the group starts remembering what you have up your sleeve. After that, you risk being targeted because they'll know what you have.

• Phyrexian Obliterator - BBBB in 2-color is a bold move for what's essentially a 5/5 unblockable.

• Dark Ritual/Doom Blade/Go for the Throat - I personally would cut them, but feel free to play around with at least the removal spells for consistency in board control. Ritual, however, is just not suited for this format.

• Everlasting Torment - It's the only card of its type in your deck, and actually makes you vulnerable to getting chump blocked.

• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth - Urborg serves almost no purpose in this deck.

• Rakdos Guildgate - Guildgates are just packfiller.

• Rakdos Signet/Rakdos Keyrune - In the modern day, your mana rocks mostly should be more useful than an overcosted creature, and if it only produces mana, it needs to be efficient like Sol Ring.

• Lava Axe - Shouting "Catch" while literally throwing this is hilarious, but the card's just horribly overcosted.

• Anthem of Rakdos - You will lose a lot of games you shouldn't lose because of this.

• Ogre Battledriver - Giving a dude Haste to swing is nice, but it's a lot easier to just run a pinger like Goblin Fireslinger or Lobber Crew

• Ob Nixilis, the Fallen - His Landfall is nice, but by nature isn't consistent, which is what you're looking for in ways to ping your opponent. Becoming a chungus is nice, but you're better off just skipping the hoops and playing an actual chungus.

• Vial Smasher the Fierce - This one I'm not totally sold on cutting, but she seems more complicated than just running a pinger. Play around with her and see how Vial Smasher synergizes.

• Master of Cruelties - Another I'm not totally sold on chopping, but he can only attack alone, which bottlenecks your options.

I know this all is sort of messy, but when making edits, start with comparable replacements (i.e. swapping a creature for a creature), run a few test turns, and see how things work.

dnthymamai on Defense Matrix

2 weeks ago

Nice deck! Obelisk of Bant sure adds to the flavor, but what about Commander's Sphere? Sometimes mass destruction of artifacts happens, with this you can draw a card! Other choices could also be Darksteel Ingot or Mana Geode..!

SideBae on Yuirko, the Sadist

3 weeks ago

So I have a few suggestions. Feel free to ignore any/all of them.

1. I notice Mindlock Orb is in your MB. I think this effect can be powerful in the right meta, but if you do want to run it I think you should run Ashiok, Dream Render first. Being 3 mana rather than 4 is a big deal.

2. I like that you're running Ponder -- consider running Preordain, too. I realize it's harder to stack your deck for Yuriko triggers with Preordain, but thinking of it as just a 1 mana cantrip should show how good it is. After all, there's a reason it's super-duper banned in modern. Additionally, you can make your Brainstorm a lot better by adding some cheap shuffle effects; currently, if you don't have Yuriko triggers happening, you're likely to get Brainstorm-locked (stuck with two blanks on top of your deck). Traditionally these shuffle effects come from fetchlands like Polluted Delta or Verdant Catacombs, but since these lands are expensive AF, it's worth noting there're other lands that do similar things. Bad River, Flood Plain and Rocky Tar Pit ("Slow Fetches") are good for budget builds, as is Terramorphic Expanse.

3. If you want to speed up your deck, running as few ETB-tapped lands as possible is pretty much essential. I would cut Submerged Boneyard and Dimir Guildgate for Watery Grave, Drowned Catacomb, Sunken Ruins, Underground River, or even just basics.

4. Yuriko presents an interesting dilemma as a general: you want your average CMC very high, in order to keep his triggers powerful, but you also want to be able to cast your spells. In general, people use alternate-casting-cost spells to deal with this. Consider running things like Treasure Cruise, Dig Through Time, Temporal Trespass (which makes me giggle when I see it played), The Magic Mirror, Commandeer, etc.

5. There're other creatures you should consider running, especially if you consider them as recastable after being ninjutsu-ed back to your hand: Baleful Strix, Thalakos Seer, Snapcaster Mage (if you're rich), Cavern Harpy (a personal favorite), Murderous Rider (which strictly better than Murder), Man-o'-War, Rishadan Cutpurse, Spellseeker... Burglar Rat might be funny, though probably not too powerful.

6. There're some ways to stack your deck not included in your deck. Mystical Tutor and Vampiric Tutor (though vampiric is expensive now) are really, really good. Also note that Counterbalance is another way to exploit topdeck manipulation, especially if you have your Sensei's Divining Top out. Don't forget Mystic Sanctuary.

7. Don't discount Windfall and Fact or Fiction. They're really good. Windfall also works well with Narset, Parter of Veils or Notion Thief.

8. Finally, don't forget about artifact ramp. Sol Ring is obviously the all-star here, but I think you should be running 2-mana rocks rather than 3-mana rocks. Consider running Arcane Signet, Talisman of Dominance, Fellwar Stone, Mind Stone, Prismatic Lens, Sky Diamond, Charcoal Diamond or Coldsteel Heart instead of Commander's Sphere, Worn Powerstone and Seer's Lantern.

Right. That's all I got. Good luck!

JRaynor on Edgar Markov

3 weeks ago

You're not the first one to misread Kaya's Wrath. It's a common mistake.

Another easy upgrade would be changing Murder to Anguished Unmaking. It's not only strictly better, but it's also on theme!

If you are considering what cards to remove, Diabolic Tutor is an easy elimination. You're not all in on combo here so dropping it in favor of one of your maybes isn't unreasonable at all, especially since you have Demonic Tutor.

Regarding your ramp package, I meant add the Talismans alongside your Signets. 2CMC ramp is the most effective time to cast your ramp. Higher CMC ramp generally needs to be synergistic or really good for some other reason. In this case, I'd probably swap out Caged Sun and Commander's Sphere for the two Talismans. Commander's Sphere is fine here, but I think both Talismans are better. C-Sphere really comes into its own in a deck where you can recur it for value. Caged Sun is great too, but this is a 3-color deck so its effect is weakened a bit, and it's also 6 mana so it's not really ramping you when you need it the most either. Black Market is similar in effect but I think it works better with Edgar. Ultimately, I think you'll have a smoother experience playing a few more 2-cmc ramp cards, but play the cards you Want to play.

Finally, don't worry about the competitive scene. Edgar is definitely a capable and powerful commander and you have a pretty solid deck built around him so you'll see success in games pretty often in a normal meta. Competitive is a different scene altogether, where decks are expected to be online and winning by turns 3-4. It's not something you get into without everyone in your group also planning to build decks that operate that way, or it just doesn't work.

jaymc1130 on Emry, Lurker of the Loch cEDH

3 weeks ago

firrlo

I played a half dozen more games with Emry last night testing some iterations. Ultimately I just didn't like the performance of Freed from the Real either. Both of the aura's are a lot more narrow than the Spy, but this is a mono colored deck and we won't have access to Jeskai Ascendancy that is the absolute best combo piece, gotta work with what's available. Pemmin's is staying in though, the protection and utility it offers made for better performance and one piece that works with Lion's Eye Diamond or KCI/Eye of Ramos/Commander's Sphere/Implements of Sacrifice and cost reducers to go infinite is worthwhile as it dramatically increases the consistency of going off the turn or two after casting Emry due to dramatically increased chances of Emry mill hitting relevant pieces to recur.

Mesmeric Orb was actually something I gave a try in my initial incarnations and it's performance was atrocious. Too vulnerable a line to any form of graveyard hate, too clunky, to narrow. The deck still needs some form of ability to make use of repeated Emry activations and draw out though, and in fact the drawing out part is significantly more important than the creation of infinite mana part. Infinite draw always leads to infinite mana, while infinite mana with no command zone outlet is largely useless the majority of the time.

Riddlesmith and Vedalken Archmage did not cut it in the handful of games I played with them in, too slow, inconsistent, clunky, easy to remove. Nor does Rhystic Study in my group, just not competitive enough in terms of the value it tends to generate (drawing typically 2 cards and mostly taxing players' excess mana that isn't needed, in which case cards like Thirst for Knowledge offer better value despite not being competitive enough itself). So somehow Emry needs a way to consistently draw, both for value and to combo out, and moving to Chromatic Sphere/Conjurer's Bauble//Mind Stone type cards with 5 or 6 artifact cost reducers seemed logical. Turns out this has been dramatically more consistent while still fast, though a bit wasteful in terms of card slot efficiency.

Krark-Clan Ironworks should likely be a staple for an Emry deck. It's ability to turn any artifact into an infinite mana generator seriously widens the decks scope and allows more focus to be given to the draw aspect. The additional consistency it's inclusion allows cannot really be understated. I actually have yet to try Phyrexian Altar or Ashnod's Altar though I considered them initially. Ultimately those 2 sacrifice outlets are just too narrow in scope and the combo lines to go infinite are way too convoluted and clunky. It seems to make more sense to use a sacrifice outlet that's going to enable 40% of the deck to become combo pieces. Won't be the combo the deck really wants to look for, but KCI will often be the one it finds with very little effort.

I gave both Magewright's Stone and TYE a look last night in the slot previously held by Freed from the Real and found them interesting. With an active Emry, KCI, and cost reduction pieces to play for 0 mana they generate infinite mana quite nicely. I don't know if the "haste" clause is more valuable than needing one less cost reduction piece to enable the line, but I do like the utility of a hasty Emry in the event my first Emry cast got killed off. It might be worthwhile to run both, but I kind of doubt it. I'm sticking with TYE at the moment.

Scrap Trawler is on my radar as my next idea to test out. Seems like an interesting piece to have around with KCI (I'd initially thought of it as a piece for the Altar pair). Would open up some interesting lines, for example: Tap Mana Vault for , sac it for , sac a tapped Magewright's Stone for , bring Mana Vault back to hand, tap Commander's Sphere for , sac Commander's Sphere to draw a card, bring Magewright's Stone back to hand. With the loop can be repeated with Emry recurring Commander's Sphere infinitely to draw infinite cards and generate infinite blue mana. With a single cost reduction piece in play a dozen other lines open up. With 2 in play basically every card in the deck would generate infinite mana and card draw with only a single untap of Emry required. These lines seemed too convoluted to me at first, but after playing around with the deck some and seeing how often it comes by combos incidentally off a single Emry activation given the dearth of fodder I'm starting to think Scrap Trawler might have a place in the deck (in which case I'd definitely run Magewright's Stone in addition to TYE).

Man, Emry is hella fun to theory craft. Just talking about the possibilities gets my juices going.

As a point of inquiry, how are you liking High Tide and is a line with Candelabra of Tawnos+Minamo, School at Water's Edge worth inclusion in your mind? Is Minamo, School at Water's Edge worth inclusion as just a value piece and if so, what kind of artifact density do you feel is needed to justify it as a value developmental piece?