Concentrate

Sorcery

Draw three cards.

Discussion (48)

Icbrgr on Is Grixis Control Weak/Bad in …

1 week ago

I for one have my hopes for prismari command and would love to see grixis do good things with it (what you said sounds pretty good to me)....the only other countermagic i highly recommend to people that you didnt mention is good ol' Mana Leak ... much like Condescend its super generic/mana base friendly and is an allstar early-mid game.... a newer sweeper that I came across while playing MTGA is Storm's Wrath ... the fact that it catches walkers too seems like it could be pretty good?... never thought of silumgar as an option but honestly that seems pretty legit!

Cruel Ultimatum is definitely too slow for Modern in any competitive environment.... Unless the meta became Naya Zoo for some reason and Grixis control could just do whatever it wanted... I just Run Ultimatum because its Cruel Edict + Three Tragedies + Lava Axe + Raise Dead + Concentrate + Soothing Balm + Exile opponents soul.... It's my favorite card and got the playmat to match ;)

I was just wondering why when I looked into what SERIOUS Grixis control looks like nowadays it hasn't topped any events in so many years... That kinda bugs/concerns me way more that Ultimatum being obsoleted.... unfortunatly it just sounds like + splash whatever other color is just a case of "anything grixis can do I can do better" from the sounds of this thread.... oh well maybe someday Grixis Control will get what it needs to be a presence in the competitive landscape.

Reliquarian on Morophon Eldrazi balanced

2 weeks ago

I'm not the most familiar with Eldrazi stompy style lists, but just at a glance I can see that the high cost of your creatures (which are your main route to victory from what I can tell) is going to be a limiting factor for this deck. You may have already found in your games that you can cast a few big eldrazi, but you still don't win because you have to spend too many turns trying to get them into play and you aren't able to use them before they are removed or dealt with in some other way. My suggestion is to include more ways to get multiple big eldrazi into play on the same turn and find ways to use them quickly (haste is a good way to do this, or by simply throwing them at your opponent's faces with Fling type of effects).

Some card suggestions to accomplish getting multiple eldrazi into play in 1 turn are: Elvish Piper , Quicksilver Amulet , Sneak Attack , Mana Echoes , Animar, Soul of Elements

Some suggestions to use your eldrazi quickly once they are in play are: Barrage Tyrant , Brion Stoutarm , Fervor , Rhythm of the Wild , Fires of Yavimaya

Additionally, if you are dropping tons of big Eldrazi into play to get closer to winning, you will need more cards in hand so I would include more immediate card draw like: Concentrate , Precognitive Perception , Harmonize

Hopefully those suggestions are helpful and fairly budget friendly (not sure how much you wanna spend on upgrading your list but those are solid options). Let me know if you have any questions or want any clarification. Thanks!

Optimator on Giant's Deck

3 months ago

The amount of utility cards that facilitates for a large-creature/stompy deck (like giant tribal) is completely unparalleled and unrivaled. There are things--both budget and expensive--like Garruk's Uprising, Soul's Majesty, Hunter's Insight, Snake Umbra, Triumph of Ferocity, Lead the Stampede, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Return of the Wildspeaker, Abundance, Rhythm of the Wild, Selvala's Stampede, Shamanic Revelation, Elemental Bond, Colossal Majesty, Guardian Project, Rancor, Primal Rage, Heroic Intervention, Wrap in Vigor, Golgari Charm, Lifecrafter's Bestiary, Canopy Cover, Aspect of Mongoose, Alpha Authority, Asceticism, Defense of the Heart, Lignify, Lurking Predators, Bow of Nylea, The Great Henge, Eerie Ultimatum, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Seasons Past, Reap the Past, Genesis Ultimatum, Beastmaster Ascension, Overwhelming Stampede...

The list is huge, and it grows every year.

This is on top of the superior ramping ability of Green and it's above-average removal options. One big advantage of Green's land-based ramp is things like Planar Cleansing, Hour of Revelation, Play of the Game, Bane of Progress, Creeping Corrosion, and Merciless Eviction can't send you back to the stone age by destroying all your mana rocks.

Everything you will want to be doing with Giant Tribal, Green supports and supports well. I cannot stress this enough. Not to mention the good green giants that keep getting printed.

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Black doesn't provide too much in the way of utility specific to giant tribal or stompy decks other than recursion and good card draw like Greed, Phyrexian Arena, and Erebos, God of the Dead. Personally I like cards like Damnable Pact, Read the Bones, Ancient Craving and Ambition's Cost but if you're running Green and/or Blue you shouldn't need to lose life to draw cards. Painful Truths might still be useful due to it's great rate (three cards for three mana is good). Syphon Mind is a great rate and has the upside of making your opponents discard.

Obviously Black specializes in removal (but so does White!) so you could run things like Mortify, Despark, Utter End, Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Dreadbore, Terminate, Bedevil and Ruinous Ultimatum. In Garruk's Wake and Decree of Pain are probably good in your giant deck since you're ramping so hard. Since you're running White you shouldn't need Black's wraths, but those two stood out.

Things like Phyrexian Reclamation, Animate Dead, and Reanimate are great for creature decks. Palace Siege is all right on a budget. So is Twilight's Call. It's no Oversold Cemetery or Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Rise of the Dark Realms but those are pricey. Recovering from boardwipes will be important.

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Blue has some interesting removal options like Curse of the Swine, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift. You have some Cyclonic Rifts in your trade binder, right? That alone is a great reason to run Blue in your deck (it's literally one of the best cards in EDH straight-up). Do it!

Blue also has all the card-draw--from per-turn stuff like Kumena's Awakening and Mind Unbound; chunks of cards like Concentrate, Treasure Cruise, Fact or Fiction, Fathom Trawl, and Tidings; huge hand-refillers like Overflowing Insight, Mind Spring, Stroke of Genius, and Pull from Tomorrow; and some sneaky stuff like Windfall, Keep Watch, Drawn from Dreams, Verity Circle, and Insight. Green has some amazing card-draw already but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to supplement it with Blue cards. Rush of Knowledge would be REALLY good in a giant-tribal deck--especially with Morophon, the Boundless at the helm.

Counterspells are very much not Giant/Stompy but I have a few aggro decks that run a silver-bullet copy of Negate or Swan Song just as anti-boardwipe tech. Not necessary though. Boros Charm, Golgari Charm, and Wrap in Vigor work well in that capacity. There are lots of 3-cmc options too but the mana difference between 2 and 3 is huge.

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You could even run some interesting charms like Abzan Charm or Esper Charm. There are some surprisingly potent options. Some are stinkers of course.

Temur Ascendancy would be reason alone to run five colors and be utterly fantastic in this deck.

Garruk's Uprising alone is reason to run at least Green.

Merciless Eviction is one of the best removal spells in the game. Four or five colors would allow you to run that.

Urban Evolution would be good in a big-mana deck like this. Inspired Ultimatum, while not amazing, is playable.

You get the idea.

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As you can see, there is a myriad of reasons to run more colors. Honestly, I really can't recommend it enough if true Giant-Tribal is the goal--whether Naya giants or five-color giants.

One extremely important thing for large-creature decks is to consider how you're going to recover from board wipes. Superior card-draw from Green, Black, and Blue cards will help immensely. Card advantage like Phyrexian Reclamation, Palace Siege, Seasons Past, All Suns' Dawn, Reap the Past, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Eerie Ultimatum, and abilities like Mayael the Anima's, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim's, and Kenrith, the Returned King's reanimate ability will help you recover. These are things that Red and White simply can't do well. Sure there's Resurrection and Reya Dawnbringer, but they aren't great.

Brion Stoutarm is a legitimately good general--he really is!--but not for giant tribal. He brings nothing to the table for giant tribal other than being a decently-statted Giant himself and pigeonholes you into the worst color pair in EDH for essentially no benefit. As I mentioned, Iroas, God of Victory and, to a lesser extent, Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas would make better commanders if you are dead-set on Boros colors (which I do not recommend if you want to play maximum giants). If you were building around Brion's ability and had some giants around as support that would be one thing, but it seems that's not the goal. As such, please consider switching commanders :) I think that if you want Brion Stoutarm as the commander, you should make a Brion deck.

I really do think you'll be happier in the long run with a different commander It doesn't have to be expensive. Most of what you would need I can trade to you, including Morophon, the Boundless, and most supplemental cards I don't have are in the 25-cent to $1 range (Realm-Cloaked Giant, Mayael the Anima, etc). I actually have a shitload of this utility stuff on-hand, and you have some great staples like Cyclonic Rift on-hand--and probably more! I want you to be satisfied with your deck! It doesn't have to be competitive to be fun, but it doesn't have to be expensive to work better and smoother and be more competitive.

Optimator on Rooftop Experiments (Zombie Tribal)

4 months ago

So the problem with those cards for me and this deck is I don't run a ton of graveyard recursion other than GnG, so a card like Sift is identical to Concentrate. I'd just as soon draw the cards normally in case I whiff on a creature to put in the bin. In my research I've found that almost all Blue cards like Sift are costed at the Common rarity, so non-discarding card-draw cards are often better on-rate.

Rain of Revelation is strictly better than Sift too, but this deck doesn't really play at instant speed so the effect is diminished once more. I could see Pull from Tomorrow being more of a stand-out now that I think of it.

slashdotdash on Golos attempt II

4 months 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

Optimator on OVERplayed cards?

4 months ago

What's wrong with Concentrate?

wereotter on OVERplayed cards?

4 months ago

Harmonize especially in decks that have blue. Seriously, would anyone consider putting Concentrate into their decks? Then why it's color shift? And on that note Mulldrifter too since for a lot of decks it's basically Divination but worse since blue can recur spells, but not creatures.

defamagraphy1 on Are These Cards Color Pie …

5 months ago

Even so, whether it was defined or not, breaks in the color pie have been consistent through Magic's history. Planar Chaos was a set where they intentionally made those. As Harmonize was an intentional green version of Concentrate and Damnation was the version for Wrath of God (at this point a cheaply costed "destroy all creatures" effect hadn't been printed yet, or it had a situational downside)