Compelling Deterrence

Instant

Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. Then that player discards a card if you control a Zombie.

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
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (51)

Balaam__ on Balaam__

2 years ago

sleepygordie I took a closer look at your zombie token deck. In my experience, the more things a deck is trying to do the less effective it becomes, even if those things are similar or related. I went ahead and stripped out a number of cards and rebuilt it with budget in mind, first and foremost. This shouldn’t be any more expensive than what you already posted, and while it’s quite a bit different I urge you to consider using it as a template.

4 Wight 6 Swamp 4 Shamble Back 2 Rise from the Tides 4 Mana Leak 6 Island 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 4 Gravecrawler 4 Duress 4 Drowned Catacomb 3 Diregraf Colossus 4 Compelling Deterrence 4 Clearwater Pathway // Murkwater Pathway 4 Cemetery Reaper 4 Bone Shards

A brief description of what it intends to do:

•Lands

Since you’re budget conscious, the best lands (fetches and duals) are out. But there are still better options than what you had, and inexpensive too. Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip is fantastic because it’s whatever you need at the time you play it, and you already had Drowned Catacomb so that’s still here. Regular basics are the only other lands you want.

•Creatures

Gravecrawler, Wight and Diregraf Colossus were already there so you know why you chose them. I added Cemetery Reaper as a great 3 drop lord that’s non-legendary (you can have multiples in play and they stack), and his ability can make more tokens and can target either player’s graveyard.

•Instants

Compelling Deterrence is great, use 4 copies. Mana Leak is efficient counter magic, especially early game when you’ll need it the most. {1}{U} is easier to cast than Counterspell’s {U}{U}.

•Sorceries

Duress and Inquisition of Kozilek strip your opponent’s hand. Bone Shards is super useful to eliminate a creature threat, and your tokens are easy sacrifices to pay that part of its cost. Shamble Back is cheap and effective token generation and helps recover lost life. Rise from the Tides is too mana intensive to use as anything other than a strong finisher. With all the instants and sorceries here that will end up in your graveyard, when you cast Rise from the Tides you should get a ton of tokens.

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With the above list you’ll have early board presence (lots of 1 and 2 drops), plenty of discard and removal to slow down your opponent, and some strong finishers. Bear in mind this is just a quick list I threw together and is by no means optimized. Use it as a template, a building block to customize and make your own.

Omniscience_is_life on What's Your Favorite Spooky MTG …

2 years ago

Those are some oldies! My fave is Compelling Deterrence--it's also funny, and I don't really love things that are just spooky. I'm a bit of a scaredy-cat; I don't want to play certain cards like Suture Priest just because I don't like looking at them!

9-lives on Rise from the Tides (Dimir Zombie control)

2 years ago

Spellweaver Eternal is very nice! Never seen that card before. I would like to use Siren Stormtamer but the sheer power of dealing 2 damage each time blocked is great! I'm torn between which to use! Nice hand control with Thoughtseize and Compelling Deterrence! Hand control is a thing that is amazing in utility! I really can't think of anything to use that would make your deck better, but I'm not a seasoned player, so all I can do is give you my compliments.

DeVerbalen on Astos control

2 years ago

Hi, first of all welcome to the game of magic, its pretty amezing. There are a couple of problems with your deck in my opinion.

• Some cards are not modern legal. I don't know what the format is at you LGS but if its modern you have to change the cards that aren't legal to use.
• You are forcing yourself to play blue-green just to able to use Desert Twister which isn't modern legal, and quite frankly, not good. I would take it out so that you can play mono-blue.
• In terms of counterspells, Counterspell is about to get legal in modern in a couple of days so I would buy four copies and take out Broken Concentration , Cancel , Memory Lapse (also not legal in modern) and Negate .
• You use some bounce-effect cards that have effects you don't benefit from. Absorb Identity is only useful if you have shapeshifters, and you don't. Compelling Deterrence is only useful if you have zombies, you don't. Winds of Rebuke is only useful if you can utilize the cards that you put in your graveyard, you can't. Exchange these four card with Unsummon which is cheaper and thus more efficient in your deck. If you want to go a little bit more expensive exchange them for Brazen Borrower .
• As a final remark, you use to many lands. In your deck I would use between 20 and 24 lands.

If you have any more questions be sure to let me know!

Phion on When Hel freezes over (27/12/22 major update)

3 years ago

Oh and you probably want to replace Compelling Deterrence with a Cyclonic Rift

Phion on When Hel freezes over (27/12/22 major update)

3 years ago

Chats Wow thats awesome, really happy that someone else has made the deck! Ive won overall 6 out of 8 games now which ain't bad at all for a deck only £100 against other decks coming closer to £500 (did have to work for it though).

I can definetly see why you would add grave pact, personally I find it to be a bit intense on the swamps which highlights one of the decks problems of a lack of dimir ice lands. If you have issues with this I might recommend Dictate of Erebos as it also allows you to flash it in so you could keep your mana open for a counterspell on opponents turn ( also as it has flash, Mystical Teachings can search for it at instant speed).

Winter Orb might be viable because the deck has a few mana rocks and plays a slower game compared to some decks I played recently. I think it would be worth adding even more mana rocks however if you take that approach. In additiion should you want to have all your lands untap on the next turn you could use Compelling Deterrence to return to hand on your turn (careful of the discard though)

Optimator on Gisa and Geralf EDH V.2.2

3 years ago

I have a guide/repository for card-draw cards if you want to peruse it. You may find some cards with more synergies that you like. Weight of Memory can be decent for self-mill strategies, etc. EDH Card-Draw Master List

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As for cuts... let's see...

I don't love Forgotten Creation, personally. I always felt like I had non-creatures I wanted to keep in my hand all the time. Your deck is a bit more creature-heavy than mine, so perhaps it's pulling its weight.

You have the necessary components for Gravecrawler combos, but not a ton of tutors to make them reliable to get out. As such, perhaps one of the weaker payoffs for that can go, such as Vengeful Dead or Plague Belcher. If you're using Buried Alive to find the pieces then you'll only ever need one, and Diregraf Captain is an excellent choice. That said, your deck is fairly token-heavy so perhaps the incidental groupslug is being underappreciated by me.

I don't really love Ancient Excavation or Compelling Deterrence.

Personally I think Endless Ranks of the Dead is a bit of a trap unless you're all-in on the token strategy, such as a Ghoulcaller Gisa or Sidisi, Brood Tyrant zombie deck. Very fun, but a bit win-more unless you can really make it pop off. I've never been satisfied with it's performance in my deck, but you're going wider than I do so perhaps it's fine. Something to think about though.

It all kind of depends on how much you're self-milling. You have a decent amount, but you aren't exactly going all-in. As such, Grimoire of the Dead may be a liability. I have played around with that card in some of my decks and it just seems to get removed before it works. When it did I usually won the game, though. It's fun, but unreliable. Rise of the Dark Realms is obviously more reliable but it's very pricey.

I never found the self-mill in my deck as useful as regular card-draw. There's not a ton of point to have 15 zombies in the graveyard if you only want to cast one or two of them over and over. There are payoffs, of course, but to me it feels like being in the middle-ground is way worse than being all-in or having minimal self-mill. I just hate milling over answers or Rooftop Storm!

I don't think you're running enough to make Nightscape Familiar worth it.

Honestly, I don't love Havengul Lich a ton. The color restriction makes it hard to use and you have lots of ways to bring out your own zombies already. He's better in a more mill-your-opponents strategy IMO.

Tymaret Calls the Dead is a bit of a weaker card. Exiling your own zombies is a bit of a non-bo (unless your self-mill strategy is really rolling). The lifegain can be nice but I'd rather run Whip of Erebos if that's the goal, or a better card-draw card if that's the goal.

Snickles@EDH_only on Card creation challenge

3 years ago

rdean14: Recoil or Compelling Deterrence work similarly, it's a deck archetype that I've used for ages during the original ravnica block (looking at you, Dimir Cutpurse, you absolute unit). heck, got an edh deck for it here: Mind crusher, Dream Breaker

lets see here; white has "redirect damage" effects, red has "can't block, must attack" effects, lets see what we can do to combine them:

Aggressive bond

Enchantment - Aura

enchant creature

enchanted creature has aggressor (this creature can't block), and must attack each combat if able.

whenever the enchanted creature would be dealt damage, its control takes that much damage as instead.

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another!