Contamination
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Big Apple Highlander Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Freeform Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
PreDH Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Contamination

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice this unless you sacrifice a creature.

If a land is tapped for mana, it produces instead of any other type and amount.

Profet93 on Sephiroth's Sac

1 month ago

BotaNickill

Is strategic betrayal worth running for GY hate when it doesnt trigger ur commander and it allows them to chose?

Why run stronghold in a deck with such few basics?

Contamination to go with bitter blossom or maybe something like a Reassembling Skeleton as sac fodder and redundancy of bitter blossom?

Yahenni's Expertise > languish? - Idk if meta choice for 4 toughness commanders

Tragic Slip > tragic trajectory? - Instant speed, strong removal IMO.

clayperce on The Black Deck

6 months ago

ALostWanderer -
Saw your help tag so thought I'd reach out. As a disclaimer though: I've never played Tergrid (vs or myself) and I'm still working on my first Bracket 4 deck myself. So please take all this as "brainstorming", not as "recommendations" ! :-D

FIRST THOUGHTS: MANA BASE AND MANA CURVE

  • I love Salubrious Snail's manabase tool for analysing my lands, mana rocks, and rituals as I tweak a deck. If we plug your decklist in, it reports "your manabase is struggling, playing your spells 0.99 turns late on average" (with Tergid over 1.3 turns late). For Bracket 4, you'll probably want to aim for something like "... strong playing your spells [~0.2] turns late on average."
  • As you tweak the deck, I rec' taking an especially hard look at your 5-drops (which compete directly with Tergrid) and your 7-drops (which compete directly with her re-cast).

MORE B4 STAPLES? Some options to help find the cards we need and play them quickly …

MORE DISCARD EFFECTS, MAYBE?

MORE PROTECTION, MAYBE? If you find yourself needing just a touch more protection for your Bracket 4 meta: Cavern of Souls, Imp's Mischief, and oc Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots.

MORE COMBO PIECES, MAYBE?

  • As far as I can tell, you only have 2x combos in the deck (any lifegain effect + Exquisite Blood + either Sanguine Bond or Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose) ... increasing the combo potential (and Tutor effects, to find the pieces) is definitely solid approach to make the deck more competitive in Bracket 4.
  • The Find my Combos page over at Commander Spellbook is a great tool, if you want to lean into combos more.

MORE STAX EFFECTS, MAYBE?

  • It’s hard to go wrong with the namesake card (Smokestack) in a Stax deck :-)
  • If you wanted to lean into Mass Land Denial a little more, I like both Contamination and Desolation.

A FEW FINAL THOUGHTS:

  • You might consider adding Feed the Swarm and/or Withering Torment ... they're IMO the best tools we have to deal with enchantments in Mono-B.
  • Braids, Arisen Nightmare maybe? I play Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER and she's amazing there ... I don’t get that many sacs from her (so she may not be as good in your deck), but her card draw is always superb.
  • I'm a fan of Malakir Rebirth, as protection when I need it and a Land when I don't.
  • I don't see anything that benefits from Reliquary Tower ... it would honestly be my first drop.
  • It's a totally small thing, but if you don't already have very distinct deck sleeves, you might consider getting some ... the last time I played vs a steal-your-things Commander everyone at the table had blue matte sleeves, and sorting out the cards afterwards was a bit of a pain :-D

Anyways, I really hope something in there ^^ proves useful, and I’m very sorry for the spam if it doesn't!

Good luck (and good skill) with the deck!
Cheers!

legendofa on Shielded

7 months ago

capwner That's an interesting one. Need to see how well the deck can support Contamination. I like it, but that might be a side board option. Black doesn't look super popular in the meta lists (not that I'm trying for meta, I'm just messing around), so definitely will have its place.

I'll also take a look at the ramp enchantments. Enchantress's Presence is pure gold here. Still testing and tweaking.

capwner on Shielded

7 months ago

Looks like it's coming together well! I was thinking about this deck earlier, I was wondering if Contamination might work somehow to provide another lock. Maybe paired with another enchantment that can make dudes such as Squirrel Nest? I would also try to go up on Enchantress's Presence that card is gas for you and maybe some Wild Growth/Fertile Ground to round it out?

EDIT - isn't contamination already just really sweet with Umbilicus for the same reasons as solitary? lol

clayperce on Sephiroth, Fabled Soldier

7 months ago

Ryski3 -
Ok, I'll throw some thoughts at ya. PLEASE take all this as "brainstorming" though, not as "recommendations", as I'm still very new to Sephiroth, my deck is definitely not "there" yet, and we're almost certainly building for different playstyles and metas.

Looking at my deck (sorry I haven't transferred it over to TappedOut yet) and comparing it to yours, a few general things stand out:

MANA CURVE: My mana curve is quite a bit lower (total mana value 152 and average mana value 2.38, with the peak of the curve at 27x 2-drops) than yours (total mana value 180 and average mana value 2.77, with the peak of the curve at 21x 3-drops). I built it this way partly to make the deck faster, but mostly because I generally want to cast Sephiroth as soon as I have three mana … and every other 3-drop kind of “competes” with him. Depending on how fast you want to go and when you want to play Sephiroth, shifting your mana curve lower might be worthwhile.

MANA BASES: Our manabases are VERY different (I have more lands despite my lower curve, and you have a bunch more mana rocks and utility lands), but the end result is very similar. If we plug our deck lists into Salubrius Snail’s manabase tool, we can see they’re both “Very strong” and we both have a ~60% chance of casting our 6-drops on curve. That may be something you want to keep an eye on though, as you make adjustments to the deck.

“PILLARS” OF AN ARISTOCRATS DECK (SAC FODDER, SAC OUTLETS, DRAIN EFFECTS):

  • I have my sac fodder spread across a few areas: 3x like Fleshbag Marauder in “mass disruption”, 2x like Greedy Freebooter in “ramp”, 5x like Gravecrawler in “recursion”, and of course 12x like Bitterblossom in “tokens”, for 22 total. As for the other pillars, I have 5x free sac outlets and 7x drain effects (3x like Marionette Apprentice in “direct damage” and 4x like Blood Artist in “drain”).
  • In your deck, I think it’s 15 total pieces of fodder (3x in “mass disruption”, 1x in “ramp”, 1x in “recursion”, and 10x in “tokens”), 3x free sac outlets, and 6x drain effects (1x in “direct damage” and 5x in “drain”). You mentioned your deck feels like it could use some more token generation, but we’re actually pretty close there (12 vs 10). But raising your sac fodder in some of the other areas could perhaps make a big difference … maybe start with the “recursion” area (both in my main deck and in the “considering” tab)?

STAPLES (CARD ADVANTAGE, CARD SELECTION, MASS DISRUPTION, PROTECTION, TARGETED DISRUPTION, ETC): We’ve got different priorities here (I think mostly because of our different metas), and that’s cool.

THOUGHTS ON BRACKET 3 VS BRACKET 4:

  • My deck is honestly in a REALLY awkward position … it’s too fast for Bracket 3 but it's generally way too grindy/not consistent enough to compete at Bracket 4. So I need to either tune it down (by removing some infinite combos) or tune it up (by adding either more combos or more tutors to make the current ones more consistent, plus maybe adding some more fast mana sources).
  • As for your deck, adding some infinite combos would definitely be a way to increase the power level. The challenge is it’s very easy to build an Aristocrats deck that can go infinite on Turn 3 (or even earlier with fast mana or a Dark Ritual), and even if it doesn’t happen often, once it does, folks will think we’re playing a Bracket 4 deck at a Bracket 3 table.
  • You may already be using it, but if not: The Find my Combo page, over at Commander Spellbook is a GREAT tool, whether we want to add combos to a deck or keep them out.

A FEW ACTUAL RECOMMENDATIONS:

Thank you for coming to my TEDtalk. Hopefully something in there ^^ was useful, and if not I’m very sorry for the spam. Good luck (and good skill!) with Sephiroth!

Cheers!

theNeroTurtle on Pin Cushion

7 months ago

i see that Contamination is in the maybe section. I would run it since you are already playing Bitterblossom. Those two together are fantastic.

Hybrow on Heart of Black Coal - Ayara ETB trigger EDH

1 year ago

Hey Profet93, thanks so much for the view and suggestions

Jet Medallion I originally had in deck, but found that the ramp didn’t help in my commander, and quite a few of the spells I play over and over don’t have any colorless costs, so I swapped it out for Bontu's Monument, which had the bonus of doubling my commanders ability.

Bubbling Muck – I don’t love the one-time use of it. Would take the space of something that I can use again and again in this deck.

Cabal Stronghold – I think this is a carryover from before I had a coffers. I could easily swap it out for Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. I actually have one sitting in a binder not getting used.

Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx – Of all the lands, this is the one I like the most. I checked and there isn’t one in my binder, but I do have sitting in a for-fun The Colossal Dreadmaw deck. Would probably swap out Castle Locthwain. The draw is nice but find I don’t generally need it.

Deserted Temple is ok, but I don’t have mana doublers and other than coffers (and I guess now Nythos there isn’t really anything I need to untap.

Thespian's Stage and Vesuva – I am not a huge fan of the copy lands, V in particular enters tapped, which I hate. And they are both dependent on me having something that is worth copying, which isn’t always the case.

Contamination – If I had a different playgroup, this would be an automatic add, but my friend group doesn’t love playing mass land hate. A Strip Mine is fine, but something that shuts down another player completely, we generally don’t play just to keep everyone having fun. Infernal Darkness is kinda the same thing, so going to pass.

Imp's Mischief I just checked, and I do not own one, but am going to have to add it to my next buy list. Mono-coloured decks have some real blind spots and having a quazi-counter available would be great.

Skullclamp is going to go on a sidelist for this deck for a while. My mono-red Purphy relies on it for draw, but so far with Ayara hasn’t really needed the extra draw very much.

Carnival of Souls – I did have this one in an early build of this deck, but with my wincon being Plague of Vermin this wouldn’t work, and I feel like in a 4-player game I am going to lose more life than I can afford.

Thanks again for the suggestions. I have already added the two lands.

Profet93 on Heart of Black Coal - Ayara ETB trigger EDH

1 year ago

Hybrow +1, great description.

Jet Medallion - Ramp

Bubbling Muck - Ramp. Given you're not running Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, this ramp will most liklely be onesided

Im unsure if you have enough basics to warrant cabal stronghold. Best case scenario: Turn 5 you have 4 basic swamps and stronghold to break even. While it's nice to have in the later game, I wonder how impactful it really is at that point. Would you not be better served by another utility land such as Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Thespian's Stage, Deserted Temple or even a Vesuva? Nykthos seems like an easy ramp choice, stage/vesuva can copy coffer or other utility land, temple can untap coffers or be a political tool. I feel that rather than spreading your "land ramp" between coffers and stronghold, you should just go all in on coffers. It's easier to chase one rabbit than two if you get what I'm saying. How has stronghold been playing for you? I've found it more impactful in primarily budget decks with an overwhelming amount of basic lands.

Contamination - Mild stax (they can use dorks or rocks to bypass it) that shuts off their land mana production, including both sides mass mana producing lands (cradle, nykthos, lake of the dead, serra sanctum, etc...). With all your token generation, it seems like a shoe in. Not to mention it's synergy with reassembling skeleton and other cards that u can recur from ur grave easily. Should contamination be too much/rude, Infernal Darkness is a similar effect that doesn't shut off mass mana producing lands and can be easily kept for 1-2 turns while you get your set up. Both can be probably used to make the blue player float all their mana in an attempt to cast a counterspell during the current phase - aka, counterbait.

Regarding Problem 1/protecting your commander, I would go with the versatile tool, Imp's Mischief - It redirects targeted removal, draw, extra turns and can "counter" counterspells. Most spot removal in EDH is cheap so you probably wont lose much life and with all your lifegain, this potential concern appears heavily mitigated.

You have a lot of token generation, so perhaps Skullclamp might be worth considering. It is nice to use on ur commander as well given it's the lynchpin of your deck.

Not a serious suggestion, but I wonder how Carnival of Souls would work with this deck, do note it activates on any creature, not just yours.

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