Concentrate

Sorcery

Draw three cards.

Discussion (51)

SideBae on Aminatou in Progress

3 days ago

1. So Preordain is awesome for the same reasons your Brainstorm and Ponder are... I suggest running it.

2. Narset, Parter of Veils is a great way to limit your competitive opponents. Especially if you pair her with a well-timed Windfall . Ashiok, Dream Render happens to be another way to punish people for playing tutor-tribal kinds of strategies.

3. Another hallmark of competitive decks is their ramp, especially zero and two-mana. In your description, you say you want to stay budget -- unfortunately, that rules out about all of the good zero mana ramp. ( Mox Tantalite is bad, and Mox Amber is hardly better most of the time.) So I suggest increasing your two-mana ramp, and maybe including Ancient Tomb if at all possible to speed up their presence on the board. Some to consider: Talisman of Progress , Talisman of Hierarchy , Talisman of Dominance , Coldsteel Heart , Fellwar Stone , Mind Stone , Everflowing Chalice , Prismatic Lens , etc. None of these should be more than a few bucks.

4. Concerning your lands: I think you're running too many, especially if you add some of the ramp mentioned in (3). I'd cut four-ish, maybe five. Generally, once you have a few (3 - 4) lands, you'd rather have a rock and a land in hand than just two lands, since you can cast the rock without using your land-drop. I'm not sure HOW budget you want to keep this deck, but Mana Confluence and City of Brass are each around $10, and they're great in any three or more color deck. Pain lands ( Caves of Koilos , Adarkar Wastes and Underground River ) are better than your tapped lands like Sejiri Refuge , as far as I can tell.

5. I think a reanimation package is probably better than running Show and Tell . Show and Tell is symmetrical, and is often actively dangerous to resolve in EDH, when everyone is trying to do busted stuff. I'm much more a fan of Buried Alive and Entomb to get your fatties in the bin, and then using Animate Dead , Dance of the Dead , Reanimate and/or Necromancy (which is $$$ for some reason) to get them back.

6. Tutors like your Demonic Tutor are good, but like zero mana rocks they tend to be pricy (see Vampiric Tutor and Enlightened Tutor ). One I do suggest is Lim-Dul's Vault , which is only a couple dollars these days. It also happens to be instant speed, which is kinda dumb-powerful, if you ask me.

7. Cumulative upkeep was designed to make powerful effects transient; however, Aminatou, the Fateshifter sorta changes that equation with her -1. Consider cards like Mystic Remora , which you can blink to keep around relatively indefinitely. Similar cards to consider are: Musician , Phyrexian Etchings , Tidal Control and Infernal Darkness (if you're particularly mean).

8. Divining Witch is interesting -- I'd actually never seen that card before. If you're trying to exile your deck and win with your Jace, Wielder of Mysteries , I think Demonic Consultation is probably a better way... though you might want to keep both. Another method (that I think is worse) is to use the card Doomsday , which is only a few dollars. The problem is that if you run Doomsday , you'd likely want to run a Doomsday -package, so you could win by just casting it and drawing into your top card... For that, I'd suggest talking to someone smarter than me, as I've never been able to get the hang of what the hell is going on with that strategy. All I know is that the package usually has something like Gitaxian Probe and Lotus Petal and ends with me being dead.

9. You may have good luck with card draw spells. Repeatable effects, like Phyrexian Arena and/or Dark Confidant , tend to be expensive; luckily, the spell versions are often decidedly less so. I suggest running a few or more of the following: Painful Truths , Night's Whisper , Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time (running both can be tough since delve can get in its own way), Fact or Fiction , Thirst for Knowledge , Concentrate , Chemister's Insight , Oona's Grace (questionable, due to the high mana requirement), Ancient Excavation (good with the reanimation mentioned in (5)), Archmage's Charm , Chart a Course , Syphon Mind , Deep Analysis and/or Words of Wisdom -- pay extra attention to the instants you can cast on an opponents end step. Another way to do this is simply to steal your opponents' card draw with Notion Thief or Plagiarize .

10. Lastly, I know its around $11 these days, but I think Counterbalance would be dumb in this deck. Using your general's +1 will let you stack whatever you want on top, which can be especially devastating if you can keep an opponent's general off the board that way.

Good luck man! Love this deck.

TypicalTimmy on Card creation challenge

1 week ago

The vast overwhelming majority of the 88 Drakes are blue, with red and green tied for second but red is a bit more.

Legendary Creature - Drake

Svaathaal, Firescribe

Flying

Whenever you scry or draw a card, Svaathaal, Firescribe deals 1 damage to any target.

, : Draw three cards.

4/6

---

Access to Temur gives you a big Drake tribal if you would like. Note that you only deal 1 damage when you scry as it is based off of each instance. However, the same is true for drawing. So when you activate his ability, you get a free Lightning Bolt , effectively. That's why it's such a high cost, given that both Harmonize and Concentrate are easier to cast and cost less.

Take an uncommon powered Sorcery and put it on a stick (A creature that has that effect as an activated ability)

Optimator on Human Fly

3 weeks ago

I know you're looking for non-wheel card draw. I don't love cantrips in EDH unless there is a number-of-spells-matters effect in play but they can smooth out a deck a bit. Ponder , Preordain , Portent , Sleight of Hand , Serum Visions , etc. The sweet spot in around 3-5 CMC for me, ideally drawing CMC -1 but there aren't a ton of spells that efficient. I don't love Divination in EDH (2 for 3) but it's the gold-standard in 60-card decks for a quickie hand refill. There are tons of efficient cards like Divination too.

There are a ton of "draw 3, discard 1" for 4 or 5 mana, which are okay. Sift , Trial of Knowledge , and Amass the Components , for example. Many are costed for being commons, which isn't where you wanna be in EDH. There should be plenty of good, efficient cards to draw from though. At the same time, you have a lot of great high-CMC draw, like Consecrated Sphinx and Thought Reflection, so having a few Divination effects might smooth out your draws.

Some suggestions: Concentrate , Windfall , Cathartic Reunion , Plea for Power , Tidings , Nin, the Pain Artist , Finale of Revelation , Mind Spring , Braingeyser , Stroke of Genius , Blue Sun's Zenith , Fact or Fiction , Chart a Course , Ugin's Insight , Treasure Cruise , Dig Through Time , Kumena's Awakening , Fevered Visions , Honden of Seeing Winds , Reverse Engineer , Read the Runes , Precognitive Perception , Distant Memories , Arcane Encyclopedia , Endless Atlas , Trail of Evidence , Theft of Dreams , Borrowing 100,000 Arrows , Nezahal, Primal Tide , Kefnet the Mindful , Cavalier of Gales , Combustible Gearhulk , Thassa, God of the Sea , Shared Discovery , Secrets of the Golden City , Vivisection , Weight of Memory , Recurring Insight , Breakthrough , Niv-Mizzet, Parun , Deep Analysis , Gush , Invoke the Firemind , Expansion / Explosion , Chandra, Flamecaller , Dragon Mage , Wild Guess , Tormenting Voice , Arch of Orazca , Runehorn Hellkite , Conqueror's Galleon  ^Flip, Kraum, Ludevic's Opus , Ludevic, Necro-Alchemist , Commune with Lava .

dingusdingo on Budget Kefnet Turns

1 month ago

I enjoy the Kefnet Turns build, haven't seen it before for this commander and I think its rather neat. You should focus exclusively on assembling your win and remove the extra side cards, like your mill sub-theme. I also think you should replace expensive removal and interaction with cheaper pieces, as you're less likely to cast them off the top with Kefnet. I also think you should add in more ways to discard and also tutor to top of deck. Your combo requires a handful of specific cards and also to be in a specific spot in your library, so topdeck manipulation and tutors help immensely.

My complete list of changes would be

Dismiss -> Counterspell

Everdream -> Ponder

Exclude -> Arcane Denial

Precognitive Perception -> Concentrate (You're never copying the addendum with Kefnet)

Supreme Will -> Mana Leak

Thought Collapse -> Mental Misstep (Every deck runs 1 cmc spells so Misstep is unbelievable value for EDH)

River's Rebuke -> Wipe Away

Zndrsplt's Judgement -> Vapor Snag (That card is hard to link to :O )

Mistfire Adept -> Long-Term Plans

Riverwise Augur -> Sleight of Hand

Niblis of Frost -> Mystical Tutor

Drowned Secrets -> Serum Visions

Fraying Sanity -> Preordain

Precognition Field -> Careful Study

Psychic Corrosion -> Fabricate

I think its worth noting

That to combo off, you need Library + Aminatou's Aug + Dino + Turn card + Commander. That requires 4 cards outside your commander, 3 of which are exactly specific. Finding another enabler or outlet to reuse your turn spells or another way to put cards on top would help the consistency of this deck a lot. Running more draw and tutors to topdeck also lets you value copy a turn spell to start chaining turns, and even if you don't hit an infinite loop getting 3 or 4 extra turns will get you much closer to establishing the lock. You should shave off alternate wincons and focus on getting infinite turns, because once you have them you've won.

SideBae on ooze tribal redux

1 month ago

I see a few areas for improvement:

So one of the main reasons to play green is the mana dorks. You should at least be running Birds of Paradise , Llanowar Elves and Elves of Deep Shadow , and you should probably be running a few more as well. Fyndhorn Elves , Elvish Mystic , Priest of Titania , Arbor Elf , Bloom Tender , Boreal Druid and Deathrite Shaman are also worth considering.

Card-draw is a big part of EDH. Distant Melody is good in any tribal deck, and depending on your typical board presence Slate of Ancestry may be worth considering, too. Fact or Fiction , Painful Truths , Treasure Cruise , Dig Through Time , Night's Whisper , Windfall , Harmonize and Concentrate are also good draw-spells. Sylvan Library and Phyrexian Arena are good pieces of permanent-based card-advantage. Mystic Remora is excellent, if transient, and at more inexperienced tables it can easily be an Ancestral Recall .

Your mana-base is worth rethinking, too. Overgrown Tomb , Breeding Pool and Watery Grave are all relatively affordable these days (because of the reprint), and City of Brass and Mana Confluence are worth running in a three-color deck, too. Depending on your budget, you may want to run fetch-lands like Polluted Delta or Prismatic Vista ; lower-budget options include Bad River , Flood Plain or the other slow-fetches. Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse , too. Llanowar Wastes , Yavimaya Coast , Underground River , Waterlogged Grove , Nurturing Peatland , Hinterland Harbor , Woodland Cemetery and Drowned Catacomb are more good dual-lands.

If you do end up running any sort of fetches, you'll have a bunch of shuffle-effects. This means Brainstorm becomes a powerful spell, as you can shuffle away bad cards while digging for the ones you want. Ponder , Preordain and Impulse are great as well.

Tutors are great -- then you don't even need to bother digging, as you can just go get what you want. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are the gold standard, but as a pair they'll likely run you around $100. Diabolic Tutor , Lim-Dul's Vault and Dark Petition are all far more accessible. Mystical Tutor and Worldly Tutor are also good, though I don't think they'd be as good as the non-restricted tutors.

You also need to consider removal. Toxic Deluge , Pernicious Deed , Damnation , Decree of Pain and Cyclonic Rift are all great boardwipes. Nature's Claim , Krosan Grip , Casualties of War , Assassin's Trophy , Abrupt Decay , Windgrace's Judgment and Ashes to Ashes are good forms of spot-removal.

Narset, Parter of Veils and Ashiok, Dream Render are both powerhouses in EDH. Narset is especially busted if paired with a Windfall .

Speaking of value-town, consider Villainous Wealth . Notion Thief and Eternal Witness are great, too.

Finally, you might want to consider a reanimation package. Entomb or Buried Alive paired with Animate Dead , Reanimate , Dance of the Dead or Necromancy is a great way to get fatties out fast. Reanimating Grave Titan , Massacre Wurm or Inkwell Leviathan can swing the game in your favor real fast.

Good luck!

SideBae on 5 Color Dragons

3 months ago

The easiest way to speed up a deck is by removing ETB tapped lands. I highly suggest running Command Tower , as well as City of Brass and Mana Confluence . If you have access to it, Cavern of Souls is a good option for any tribal deck, but Unclaimed Territory is another good option. Forbidden Orchard , Exotic Orchard and Reflecting Pool are more interesting lands to consider.

Green dorks and two-mana rocks are also very good. I see you're running Birds of Paradise , but Elves of Deep Shadow , Llanowar Elves , Rampant Growth , Fyndhorn Elves , Orcish Lumberjack and (if you can) Noble Hierarch are also great additions. If you want to invest relatively heavily into your dork-base, Bloom Tender is REALLY good in chromatic decks. If you find yourself facing a lot of blue decks, Carpet of Flowers is a good idea, too; Joiner Adept acts as a second Chromatic Lantern .

Fellwar Stone is good. The talisman cycles ( Talisman of Dominance , Talisman of Indulgence , Talisman of Impulse , Talisman of Unity , Talisman of Progress and the new five from Modern Horizons) are all good; I suggest that most, if not all, of your mana rocks should be two or less mana. Using a land like Ancient Tomb also helps cast these turn one. Signets like Dimir Signet or Boros Signet are good too, although I think most of the time the talismans will be better. Gilded Lotus is a good exception to my CMC rule in a deck with as many fat creatures as yours.

I don't think Nissa's Renewal is very good; generally, ramp is good in the early game, but not so good by the time you reach six mana. Nature's Lore , Rampant Growth , Farseek , Cultivate and/or Kodama's Reach are all powerful ramp spells you can fire off early. I think the first three are better, if only because they can fetch non-basics like Breeding Pool or Godless Shrine . I'm not as much a fan of the other two, but experience will show if they're worth including. Finally, I think Skyshroud Claim is better than Explosive Vegetation .

If you're going in the Quicksilver Amulet direction, Elvish Piper and Thran Temporal Gateway are good ideas as well.

If at all possible, tutors are good. Demonic Tutor is the gold standard here, but Diabolic Tutor is a good, more affordable alternative. Vampiric Tutor , Worldly Tutor , Sylvan Tutor , Dark Petition and Gamble are all good cards as well, though their affordability varies tremendously.

Red comes with good counter counter magic options. Price of Glory is a good card if you want to discourage opponents playing on your turn, and Pyroblast is a good way to stop Counterspell and friends. Cards like Pyrostatic Pillar can punish decks with lower curves.

Card draw is at a premium in EDH. Staff of Nin is easy on the colored mana and gives you an extra draw each turn, and Phyrexian Arena is another good option. Harmonize , Concentrate and Painful Truths are good draw-threes.

Because your deck is running a LOT of fatties (and the best fatties, at that, 'cause they're dragons), you may find cards like Lurking Predators is be pretty good; Descendants' Path is a similar card. Depending on how fatty-heavy your meta is, Eureka effects like Show and Tell may be good. Sneak Attack is good if you want to use one-time face-smacks like Nicol Bolas or your already included Oros, the Avenger .

If you DON'T want to run dorks, and opt for artifact ramp instead, depending on your meta you may have a good time with cards like Porphyry Nodes or Night of Souls' Betrayal . Effects like Pyroclasm and Volcanic Fallout can also wipe out opponent's boards if they choose to go wide.

I think EDH decks tend to need a lot of mass removal. By Force is a favorite of mine, and Toxic Deluge , Wrath of God , Ritual of Soot and Supreme Verdict are all great if you have access to them. Back to Nature is good if you choose to cut down on the number of enchantments you're running, but Nature's Claim or Krosan Grip are also pretty good options.

If your curve is really high, things like Timesifter can be pretty brutal.

I'm not super sure Niv-Mizzet Reborn is very good. I don't know if you'll be getting very much card advantage, because you have a lot of cards that are more or less than exactly two colors. I think a card-draw spell like the ones I mentioned above would be better, like Treasure Cruise or Dig Through Time .

Good luck with deck building my man!

SideBae on I Play For Free, You Don't Get To Play!

3 months ago

The first thing I notice when looking at this list is that you run 41 lands. I strongly advise against this. In my experience, unless you’re a green landfall deck like Azusa, Lost but Seeking , there is little utility in running more than 34, maybe 35 lands. There are budget options for fetching, such as Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse , which you might find helpful for color fixing. Also, you might consider running the shock lands in your colors ( Hallowed Fountain , etc.). These can be grabbed by slow fetches like Flood Plain , and add a level of consistency to your mana base without breaking the bank. Hall of the Bandit Lord is also a consideration, though it can be pricey. Temple of Epiphany , Temple of Enlightenment and Temple of Triumph may be helpful to find more/fewer lands early, before Narset is down, and remove ‘dud’ lands from the top of your deck after she is ready to attack. Command Tower , Mana Confluence and City of Brass are also good additions.

My second piece of advice is to add top deck manipulation. While many of these kind of cards are expensive, like Jace, the Mind Sculptor , Scroll Rack and Sensei's Divining Top , card’s like Ponder , Brainstorm and Preordain are very affordable. I especially advise the first two, as they permit stacking up to two spells on top of your deck before attacking with Narset, where Preordain only stacks one. However, all three are great in an opening hand looking for lands or action cards, and I would run all three in virtually all blue decks. Telling Time and Serum Visions are also contenders for this slot, though I don’t think as highly of them.

Mystical Tutor , Enlightened Tutor and Personal Tutor are also great ways to stack cards you need on top of your deck before a Narset trigger resolves. These are in the $20-$30 range though, so they may not be super accessible.

Strionic Resonator copies your generals ability... just sayin’.

If you don’t want to run counter magic, you should at least consider counter counter magic measures like Defense Grid or Price of Glory . These will make it way more difficult for your opponent to counter your general on her way down, or your free spells during the resolution of her trigger. Silence is also a good card from that view. Some interaction is always good, though. Here, I recommend Wrath of God , Supreme Verdict and/or Swords to Plowshares . The first two are board wipes that will hold back wide decks and give you time to cast your general; Swords is just the best spot removal in the game. Wear / Tear is another great piece of interaction in RUW.

With respect to your ramp: I see you’re running all three cluestones. I think the signets ( Azorius Signet , Boros Signet and Izzet Signet ) are better. In my experience there is a tremendous difference between 2- and 3-mana rocks in EDH. Similarly, I advise Talisman of Progress , Mind Stone , and Thought Vessel as ramp options. Coldsteel Heart is also a good idea.

Depending on your board presence during each game, you might consider Restore Balance , as a Narset trigger allows you to cast it immediately. This may be helpful if you can’t go off that turn, and just want to keep opposing boards in check.

If you want to get SUPER spicy, Mind's Desire and Volcanic Awakening are also good options to hit off Narset triggers. Temporal Manipulation is an extra turn card you may have missed.

Card draw and selection is a premium in EDH and decides most games. Chart a Course , Faithless Looting and Dack Fayden all come to mind when viewing your list. Ancestral Vision is about $10 these days, and is a fun flip off a Narset trigger, though Concentrate may be just straight better, as you can cast it from your hand as well. Mystic Remora is a good enchantment for drawing cards. If you choose to run a counter counter magic package, Dictate of Kruphix or Howling Mine may help; however, be weary of playing them when you have no counter protection, as they are symmetrical effects.

Finally, depending on how mean you are, Ravages of War , Armageddon and Cataclysm are possibilities. Nuke-ing all the lands means that Narset is very likely to take over the game, and resolving one of these spells may win the game on its own. Cataclysm is, in my experience, even more brutal than the other two, as it kills walkers and removes armies of blockers.

I hope you find this helpful; let me know if you need clarification on any of my comments.

Good luck with deck building!

Lanzo493 on Scarab God's Boneyard Fun

5 months ago

I love zombies. Here’s some more budget friendly options for zombie tribal. Diregraf Captain , Diregraf Colossus , Undead Warchief , Lord of the Accursed , Cryptbreaker (great for card draw), Death Baron , and Shepherd of Rot .

As for graveyard interaction, your commander already does really good. So does Gravecrawler with any sacrifice outlet. Ashnod's Altar is great. You also have access to Buried Alive .

Now for draw. The good ones are Rhystic Study and Phyrexian Arena . Other ones include Arcanis the Omnipotent , Cryptbreaker , Concentrate , Brainstorm and the other cantrips.