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)

slashdotdash on Golos attempt II

1 week ago

Hey there Kronhamilton,

First of all, I like the improvements you’ve made to your deck. It’s already looking a lot slicker and I can see you’ve made some very fun looking changes to how the deck plays.

You’ve got a nice array of threats (I always love to see the Bringers and Ur-Dragon) and a decent amount of ramp which are both a big plus. Additionally, you’ve got the beginnings of some nasty graveyard synergy shaping up, which looks really, really cool as a sort of plan B.

That being said, I’d like to make a few suggestions to help guide you toward a more consistent and powerful Golos deck. Please remember that these suggestions are just my informed opinion, and that I totally respect whatever deck choices you decide to make. I really just want to help you get comfortable with deck building and learning what to look for in a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ card.

Broad Suggestions

I would encourage you to add 2 Lands, 3 Removal cards, and 8 Draw cards. I’d also think about adding 2 more Ramp cards, but that is less critical to the overall health of the deck. Your Threats look great and I think your Sweepers are also appropriate. Anything that synergizes with your graveyard backup plan is great.

There are a couple of things to think about as you play this deck; 1. “Am I happy or sad to be holding this card in my hand or drawing it off the top of my deck?” – If a card seems to constantly be ‘the wrong card’ for the situation, or you can never seem to cast it, or you always play other cards instead, or you tend to die while holding a certain card, then you probably want to think about how well that card fits in your deck and whether or not you should cut it or modify the deck to support it. 2. “What ongoing advantage does this card give me?” – Some cards seem like a decent card based on having decent power/toughness, a fair cost, and some neat keywords or abilities. Just having those upsides alone though doesn’t make a card truly powerful. Instead, try to think about what ways a card can synergize with your deck to create crazy effects or otherwise how it will become more dangerous as the game progresses (like a Quartzwood Crasher, Scute Swarm, or Giant Adephage). Additionally, try to find cards that do multiple things such as Chasm Skulker which gets bigger when you draw cards and also explodes into tokens when it dies, or even Ravenous Chupacabra which deals with a threat and also acts as a blocker when you are facing pressure. The key is finding a way to levarage the most amount of value in each individual card – even a 2 mana ramp spell will set you up to play all of your future spells 1 turn earlier than normal for the rest of the game, which can be an insane advantage when you think about it. 3. “Am I out of options?” – If you can’t seem to find a solution to a problem or you’re ‘running out of steam’, then it is likely that you need more card draw and more ways to create ‘engines’ that accrue value. An example of an engine would be Fertilid + Evolution Sage or Rampaging Baloths + Elemental Bond or Kruphix, God of Horizons + Victory Chimes or Atraxa, Praetors' Voice + Ajani, the Greathearted or Anointed Procession + Endless Ranks of the Dead or Search for Azcanta  ^Flip or Deadbridge Chant or Mind Unbound, etc.

Ramp

Your ramp looks pretty good with 10 dedicated Ramp cards. I’d suggest adding 2 more Ramp spells to really help speed things up early. Examples would be Kodama's Reach, Llanowar Elves, Wild Growth, Farseek, Rampant Growth, Springbloom Druid, etc.

Ramp - 10

• Fertilid

• Palladium Myr

• Solemn Simulacrum

• Cultivate

• Arcane Signet

• Commander's Sphere

• Ketria Crystal

• Raugrin Crystal

• Savai Crystal

• Sol Ring

Not Ramp

• Azusa, Lost but Seeking - you don’t have enough land + card draw to really capitalize on Asuza’s ability.

• Empowered Autogenerator – this card is vastly too slow to be considered a true Ramp card. At best I would call it a ‘Ramp Support’ card, because it is there to slowly help you in the late game, not propel you in the early game like a true Ramp card (Rampant Growth, Farseek, Fertile Ground, Llanowar Elves, Wild Growth)

Draw

Overall, I think your card draw package needs a little bit of love. I want to note I see a lot of ‘looting’ effects like the ones on Teferi, Master of Time or Obsessive Stitcher and while these cards are great for a graveyard strategy they still don’t count as card draw. I’d keep most of these ‘looting’ type cards, but try to find cards that get you about 2 or 3 cards such as Harmonize, Concentrate, Escape to the Wilds, Urban Evolution, Moldervine Reclamation, Deathreap Ritual, Recurring Insight, Mind Unbound, Underworld Connections, Cloudblazer, Mulldrifter, Drawn from Dreams, Return of the Wildspeaker, Harvester of Souls, Momentous Fall, Dream Trawler, Keeper of Fables etc.

Draw - 2

• Bringer of the Blue Dawn (nice)

• Reconnaissance Mission

Not Draw

• Barrin, Tolarian Archmage – drawing 1 card does not really count. If anything, Barrin is like slow, bad removal for dealing with your opponents’ stuff temporarily. If you’re interested in reusing Golos’s land finding ability I would recommend playing Soulherder instead.

• Solemn Simulacrum – He has sort of ‘incidental value’ with his death trigger but doesn’t actively net you a bunch of cards like Keruga, the Macrosage or Beast Whisperer. Sad Robot is still great though.

• Titanoth Rex – still keep this guy because he is a threat that isn’t dead in your hand on turn 5.

• Void Beckoner – same story as the Rex

• Teferi, Master of Time – Teferi’s great, but he is really at his best when you’ve got 4-7 card in hand so that you can throw a bunch of big threats to the graveyard and hopefully draw a reanimation spell. Other than that, Teferi isn’t going to refill your hand so he doesn’t count as true draw.

Removal

Your removal package looks like it needs a couple more additions to keep your deck responsive and able to handle imminent-doom type threats. It is worth noting that cards like Blatant Thievery or Mythos of Illuna can save you in certain situations, but be wary of their crazy mana costs and the fact that they are not instant-speed answers. Examples include Mythos of Nethroi, Beast Within, Price of Fame, Reality Shift, Terminate, Return to Nature, Putrefy, Utter End, Eat to Extinction, Murderous Rider, etc.

Removal – 4 (aim for 7)

• Mortify

• Despark

• Barrier Breach

• Disenchant

Cuts

There are several cards that I would consider cutting first when modifying the deck.

• Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast - he relies very heavily on luck and only interacts with creatures. This makes him good with only 30% of your deck. Additionally, Lukka can’t ‘protect’ himself like Garruk can (making tokens to block for him), nor does he have an immediately accessible removal ability like Teferi. Overall, Lukka is interesting but a little lacking in consistency, defensibility, and power.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking – you don’t have enough land + card draw to really capitalize on Asuza’s ability. Yes, you can use the double lands (like Gruul Turf) to bounce a land to hand and then play that land with Asuza, but realistically that’s such a narrow and relatively tame synergy (in this non-landfall deck, that is) that you would be better off playing a Farseek or a Rampant Growth or even a Fertile Ground.

• Sparkhunter Masticore - This little fellow has a major drawback and no seriously crazy abilities that make him worthwhile. Yes he can deal with planeswalkers, but so can a Murderous Rider or an Eat to Extinction. Yes he can be an indestructible 3/4, but you have to pay 3 mana just to make him indestructible. Under normal circumstances that’s 6 mana for a 3/4 that dodges death one time - a 3/4 just isn’t fantastic. The biggest bad news about this robocat is its “additional cost to cast” ability which means that even if you hit it with Golos’s ‘Rainbow Wheel of Death’ ability, you still have to discard a card for a 3/4. I just honestly think you’d rather have a removal spell (Beast Within, Mythos of Nethroi) instead of this cat any day.

• Pursued Whale - While this whale is kinda cool and he does force combat, he is just sorta expensive for what he does. 7 mana for an 8/8 is pretty standard and giving your opponents tokens (that they could just attack you with or sacrifice to an effect) can be a bad idea in some situations, such as when they have an Beastmaster Ascension or a similar effect on the field. While his semi-hexproof ability (3 more mana to target) seems nifty, that is one of the only really powerful highlight abilities of this card, meaning that ability is protecting a relatively low-powered card. A couple immediate alternatives come to mind for me; Geode Rager to force combat AND keep you safe, and Dream Trawler for a flying, hexproof, lifelinking, card drawing threat.

• Renata, Called to the Hunt - She just isn’t fantastic. You aren’t playing a devotion centric deck in which she might become a 10/10, and your strategy doesn’t really care about 1/1 counters either. I would consider replacing her with a Harmonize or another 3 or 4 drop with more impactful abilities. Heck, even another reanimation spell could be nice like Unburial Rites or Grave Upheaval since your deck seems to have some tendency to but things in the graveyard for later.

• Lorescale Coatl - Cards like this (or his bigger cousin Chasm Skulker) are really designed for “wheel decks” that play “wheel effects” like Windfall or Reforge the Soul. He is fine, but really not much better than that. If you want a threat that can grow faster and do more important things, try Managorger Hydra or even Scute Mob.

• Colossification - This aura is too expensive, taps your creature down, and worst of all is an aura. Auras are generally quite bad because your opponent can destroy your creature and the aura attached to them with one spell – and odds are they’ll do that because it is usually too juicy not to. The fact that you can’t attach Colossification and attack immediately means that your opponents will have a full turn to deal with it before you get a chance to use it (and keep in mind your Colossified creature needs to survive 3 opponents’ turns!). This means you’ll most likely run out of cards in a hurry without accomplishing anything.

• Door to Nothingness - Unlike Progenitus, you can’t reanimate the Door, nor can you get its full value off of the Rainbow Wheel of Death. The only time this card does anything at all is when you literally have 10 mana of the exact color combination necessary to use it. It’s still your call, and I know some people make it a goal to Door their opponents, but be warned: you probably don’t have as much ramp as you need to make this work well. I’d consider supporting this crazy cards (and your many expensive threats for that matter) with a few more ramp spells – Boundless Realms, Migration Path, Circuitous Route, Kodama's Reach, Explosive Vegetation, Zendikar Resurgent

• Azor's Gateway  ^Flip – This card belongs in a very specific variant of Golos. That variant is the Minamo, School at Water's Edge Golos deck which also runs stuff like Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Fatestitcher, Kiora's Follower, and other payoffs like Jegantha, the Wellspring, or Captain Sisay. Especially considering that Sanctum of the Sun (the flip side) adds X mana of only 1 color, I think this card is just rarely going to work like you want it to unfortunately.

• Lathliss, Dragon Queen - Basically, you only have 3 other dragons in the deck so I would either exchange a bunch of cards for more dragons or cut Lathliss, since she will rarely be able to use her best ability (5/5 tokens). Keep in mind, you could also run a bunch of cards with the ‘changeling’ keyword if you wanted to get really funky, in which case you may as well also play stuff like Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow, Reaper King, Crested Sunmare, The First Sliver but that’s a very slippery and insane slope that I’m not sure you want to get sucked into.

Summary

Nice changes Kronhamilton, I can see that your deck is really starting to shape up as a rampy graveyard-mingling Golos deck, and that’s really cool. I encourage you to try and pay attention to what situations you find yourself in, as that’s often the best way to tell what cards you need to cut or add to the deck for it to work best. As a default, I’d consider making a few of the changes I mentioned in the Broad Suggestion section, as those changes should just generally help with your deck’s consistency.

Please do let me know how you decide to tune your deck – it’s really fun to watch honestly, and I’m always down to help advise you. Other than that, take care and enjoy Golos!

Best,

-Slashdotdash

Savage1988 on Bolas's Pro-Life Superfriends

1 week ago

The final cut (so far): I've added Chromatic Lantern over Commander's Sphere

This is the last revision I'm making before playing sometime in the future. Can't really make any more cuts until I've actually played the deck, I'll keep you posted if there's any results!

Thanks all for thinking along (especially you TriusMalarky, CaptainToll) and helping me to get through some of the choices)

PS: if you haven't already, please +1 the deck if you like it to get it some more attention on here :)

Snap157 on Korvold, Fae King, ruler of Eldrazi

1 week ago

This is so cool! Have you considered Rapacious One instead of Essence Feed? Maybe Ashnod's Altar? I feel like the altar would be able to net you twice the mana from your eldrazi spawn and can also provide on-demand death to your creatures, and a hit from Rapacious One can easily advance your board state towards something powerful and repeatable.

As backups, I would consider Quicksilver Amulet or Elvish Piper in case you can't get enough mana eldrazi.

Your land base looks good, however Korvold especially benefits from lands that can sacrifice themselves. Fetch lands like Wooded Foothills, Verdant Catacombs, Bloodstained Mire, Windswept Heath, Misty Rainforest,Prismatic Vista, Scalding Tarn and Polluted Delta could really speed up your mana base and let you draw cards at the same time! I get that they may be out of budget- proxies are always an option if your playgroup is cool with them. Additional lands like Spawning Bed, Lotus Field, Jund Panorama, Blighted Woodland and Fabled Passage work well too.

Harrow instead of Wild Wanderer would fit your sacrifice theme. Pitiless Plunderer would give you double value while Broodwarden only buffs some of your creatures. You're not really winning with spawn, and a lot of your best eldrazi produce scions anyway.

I like your removal package, but I feel like there are some unneeded spells that can also be cut for ramp/removal. Things like Fog, Spawning Breath, Prismatic Omen, and Wave of Vitriol don't really advance your game plan (at least not as much as you'd like them to), and I think things such as Breaker of Armies, Nature's Lore, and Corpsehatch, and Commander's Sphere would work some wonders.

This is a super cool concept and I'm eager to see it in the future. I hope this helps!

Peoni on Kykar's Tokens & Cantrips

1 week ago

So I'm not a Kykar pilot, but from what I've seen of them they're a big fan of infinite combos. A few that I know of involve achieving infinite cast triggers to feed Kykar's token generation, coupled with damaging etb effects like Impact Tremors and Purphoros, God of the Forge. Sac damage outlets such as Goblin Bombardment and Barrage of Expendables also do the trick. Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter is a big go to not only for infinite cast triggers, but infinite mana as well when combined with nonland mana producers. Another option would be to combine your Jeskai Ascendancy with a Retraction Helix and any 0-1 mana artifact. Use Helix to return your own artifact to your hand and then cast it. You'll then untap your creatures, make a spirit, sac the spirit for mana, and use Helix again to repeat the cycle. If you can do this with a 0 mana artifact it's also limitless creatures and mana. Good artifacts to use with this would be Everflowing Chalice, Spellbook, Sensei's Divining Top (not budget, I know, but it's a good pick for Kykar if you ever want to add more to it), and Sol Ring. There's also Arcane Adaptation and Bishop of Wings.

For general EDH deck building I think can be of some more use lol. Starting with your lands, I would recommend subbing out a lot of your lands that come in tapped. There are a lot of nice (fairly) budget options for multicolored lands like pain, filter, and check lands. If you can't find multicolored lands within your price range I would suggest just going with basics. Personally, I think that the speed benefit of a basic coming in untapped trumps the versatility that tapped lands will eventually provide.

As for rocks I'd recommend running the aforementioned Sol Ring and Everflowing Chalice. Sol Ring is just one of those cards that slots into just about every commander deck. As a general rule I try to avoid mana rocks at 3 cmc or above, just because that's around the point where they stop generating enough value to be worth running or even casting. You want your ramp to be hard and fast so that you can transition into making plays sooner. You don't want to be ramping on turn 5 when you could be pulling off big combos. In this regard you've already done really well in your selection, but I would suggest cutting Commander's Sphere and Chromatic Lantern. Lantern has its place in certain more color intensive decks, but I don't necessarily think you'll be needing it in a 3 color deck. Other good 2 cost options are Fellwar Stone, Mind Stone, and Prismatic Lens. Wayfarer's Bauble in your maybeboard is a good choice for this deck too.

You could probably use more efficient counters for controlling the board, like Counterspell. Some good commander counters include Swan Song, Flusterstorm, Delay, Negate, Dovin's Veto. Muddle the Mixture is a fantastic pick for flexible control and fetching your combo pieces. It hits both pieces of the Isochron combo, Bishop of Wings, and it can hit other valuable targets like Cyclonic Rift (another big commander card. Almost an auto include in blue decks). You'll also probably want to run more removal like Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, and Chaos Warp.

Finally, just as misc recommendations, I'd suggest swapping out Fumigate for Wrath of God. I'd also suggest adding in some mana sinks to win the game off of once you go infinite, like Comet Storm and Kumano, Master Yamabushi.

Overall this is really solid for a first time draft! I like your deck a lot and if you do decide to expand into commander I really hope you enjoy it. Hope this helped. :^)

Savage1988 on Bolas's Pro-Life Superfriends

1 week ago

Thanks both for all the input so far!

I see the upside on familiar, it just doesn’t make up for its downsides IMO.

Cuts I’m looking at:

• Spread the Sickness

• Settle the Score

• Commander's Sphere

• Solemn Simulacrum

• Nevinyrral's Disk

Possible adds

• Slaughter Pact (for a second tempo spell: Rapid Hybridization probably, but isn’t there a better cheap black removal spell so we don’t need to run these blue 3/3 makers? Fatal push and tragic slip are too narrow right?)

• Whelming Wave / AEtherize / Blasphemous Act

• Talisman of Indulgence

• Ral Zarek

• Teferi, Temporal Archmage

Savage1988 on Bolas's Pro-Life Superfriends

2 weeks ago

TriusMalarky Awesome, thanks for thinking along! I like these nitty-gritty disussions.

Re: tapped lands suck

First off: My current tapped-count is at 6 (wilds, terramorphic, necro, path, vivid x 2) - I guess you could count 2 tango and 2 checklands for 0.5 tapland each, bringing our total to 8. With 37 lands I actually think the odds are pretty decent that I can run T1 tapland, T2 untapped land, enabling my 2cmc ramp spells and going from there. I'm therefore not sure this is all too bad, but a bit more in depth:

Crumbling Necropolis and Path of Ancestry provide all my 3 colors all the time, this is good enough to justify entering tapped.

The idea behind Vivid Creek and Vivid Marsh is that they're lands that function as 3c lands most of the time (especially during set-up), and with proliferation going all of the time. It's also possible to use them without removing counters if you're using them on ramp for example, so it's not like they always deplete. I agree the tapped clause is a real cost for something that's not guaranteed, and I could be convinced they're not as great as I think they are, but I think they'd do OK.

I agree Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse aren't the best. I have thought about replacing these with tapped duals, but those don't help out my tango / check lands. It's very possible regular basics are better here though.

Re: Saprazzan Skerry, Peat Bog and Sandstone Needle

Awesome suggestion. They're more powerful than the vivid cycle for sure and, don't get me wrong, providing 2 mana as a land is amazing but:

• they're not basics

• they come into play tapped

• they don't fix my mana

• they end up literal dead really quickly if i don't find a proliferation piece (not having played the deck, this concerns me the most)

I'm tempted to try them because when it works it's amazing, but I don't think they're a slam dunk except for when you're in magical christmas land. I need to think about the times when the deck's not firing on all cilinders more than when everything's already going great (i.e. i have time to proliferate). If it turns out that i easily proliferate all the time i'll add them asap.

Re: Ramp and artifacts

OK:

• Chromatic Lantern is out for Rakdos Signet

• Commander's Sphere is out for Talisman of Indulgence or Fellwar Stone - which would you prefer?

This gets me to 4 signets, 3 talismans, chalice, prism, sol ring, that's 10 ramp < 3cmc. Adding cornucopia and relic gives me 12 which should get me one in hand roughly 60% of the time (almost 90% if you count the free mulligan as 7 extra looks) - which is great. Looking at my curve most of my business happens at 4cmc, so getting there asap is key.

Hard disagree on Throne of Geth. Have you played with this card? (I haven't.) It seems I'll have some (maybe even a lot of) spare artifacts lying around, which makes this repeated, instant speed proliferation. Absolute worst-case you can sac it to itself. I'd even argue this is very efficient (and cheap), even though the resource cost for using it is different. It seems like a great thing to copy with something like Saheeli, Sublime Artificer too.

Lithoform Engine may be inefficient, but doubling proliferate triggers or god-forbid planeswalker ultimates is simply too spicy not to run. You could be right but if this isn't the home for this card I'd like to find out.

I have to agree on Solemn Simulacrum - it's too expensive for the deck and doesn't really do much other than provide generic value. I think I'll cut this for another walker, maybe I'll try Jace, Cunning Castaway for the memes.

Thanks again for you time, I look forward to your reply

TriusMalarky on Bolas's Pro-Life Superfriends

2 weeks ago

9 taplands, but your manabase would actually benefit from more basics. Most of those should be basics. Interplanar Beacon is pretty decent, too.

Chromatic Lantern and Commander's Sphere should be 2-mana rocks. The fixing they provide in a 3-color deck isn't all that powerful. Talismans or Diamonds should suffice.

Nevinyrral's Disk can be any 5-mana wrath effect. You can run Vandalblast, Crux of Fate, etc.

multimedia on HELP Meren Budget

2 weeks ago

Hey, very good budget version of Meren.

For the manabase my advice is play an equal amount of Forests and Swamps because you have one drop green mana dorks who you want to be able to consistently play turn one which a Forest is the best land option for the manabase to do that. Having double the amount of Swamps than Forests is problematic when playing one drop mana dorks.

Some budget cards to consider adding:

• Buried Alive
• Jarad's Orders
• Final Parting
• Elves of Deep Shadow
• Talisman of Resilience
• Solemn Simulacrum
• Midnight Reaper
• Deathreap Ritual
• Butcher of Malakir
• Demon's Disciple
• Primal Growth
• Harrow
• Dread Return
• High Market

Buried Alive is excellent to tutor for any three creatures and put them into your graveyard, one of the best cards with Meren. Jarad's Orders and Final Parting are nice budget tutors with Meren. Tutoring for two cards, one goes into your hand and the other being a creature into your graveyard to reanimate/recur with Meren. Elves of Deep Shadow and Talisman of Resilience are low CMC budget ramp upgrades.

Midnight Reaper and Deathreap Ritual are more repeatable draw sources when creatures you control die. Deathreap can draw a lot of cards in multiplayer Commander since morbid can trigger on any players turn as long as any creature died during the turn. Butcher of Malakir is a upgrade for a budget big creature to reanimate with Meren since it's a repeatable source of opponents having to sac a creature they control when any creature you control dies. Demon's Disciple is an upgrade for Merciless Executioner since if an opponent doesn't have a creature, but has a Planeswalker they have to sac a Planeswalker.

---

Some cards to consider cutting:

• Vivid Marsh
• Vivid Grove
• Merciless Resolve
• Gravedigger
• Hedron Archive
• Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis
• Kodama's Reach
• Cultivate
• Blood for Bones
• Mind Stone
• Commander's Sphere
• Farseek
• Merciless Executioner
• Deathbringer Regent

The Vivid lands are not good lands and even on a budget there's better options. They aren't reliable enough to warrant ETB tapped and even if you have a way to put more counters on them with proliferate I still think they're not worth playing even over more basic lands. Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis is not worth the trouble of casting it or reanimating it. It's just a beater, but you want more than that with high CMC creatures in Commander.

Good luck with your deck.