Crucible of Fire

Enchantment

Dragon creatures you control get +3/+3.

Discussion (51)

Jehrikuss on Morophon, All tribes

1 day ago

Crucible of Fire is good, as is Dragon Tempest. Some good cost reduction cards are Dragonlord's Servant and Dragonspeaker Shaman . A lot of the dragonlords are pretty powerful for "dragons" attacking, like Silumgar, the Drifting Death and Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury (I play a lot of dragon decks if you couldn't tell)

king-saproling on Wasitora, repopulate the sick world

4 days ago

Check these out fam: Fireshrieker, Seize the Day, Konda's Banner, Crucible of Fire, Dragon Tempest, Scourge of Valkas, Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

multimedia on Draconic Command

3 weeks ago

Hey, if you have Smothering Tithe and Arcane Signet then add them because they're some the best ramp for five colors to play.

Cards to consider cutting:

• Fountain of Renewal
• Armillary Sphere: there's better ramp options since this only puts the basic lands into your hand not onto the battlefield.
• Moldervine Reclamation: the least good repeatable source of draw here and being a five drop makes it high mana cost redundancy that you don't need.
• Blood for Bones: lackuster reanimation because you have to sac a creature first. You have reanimation that comes with a Dragon, Teneb and Bladewing which is better reanimation with Dragons.
• Dance of the Manse: nice to reanimate artifacts/enchantments if the strategy of your deck is to self-mill or interact in other ways by getting artifacts into your graveyard. That's not the strategy here therefore this card is not doing much.
• Farseek: good ramp only if you can search for a dual land. Currently Farseek can't search for a dual land which means it could be replaced with a better card for ramp such as Arcane Signet or Smothering Tithe.
• Ryusei, the Falling Star: this Dragon is subpar because you only get the value from it when it dies, but you don't have a consistent way to kill your Dragons nor should you add one.
• Crucible of Fire: Dragons already have high power and flying they don't need an anthem effect like this.
• Helm of the Host: can be a powerful card, but needs support to be one. Your deck doesn't have that support and adding it just for Helm is not needed.

---

If you're looking for Dragon power then consider moving from the sideboard to the main deck Utvara Hellkite and Steel Hellkite? Utvara is among the best Dragons because it creates a Dragon for each Dragon you control that attacks, each Dragon not just Utvara which can create a huge Dragon army.

Utvara is busted with Dragon Tempest, Scourge of Valkas and Temur Ascendancy, Kindred Discovery, Elemental Bond. Tempest/Ascendancy because they give it haste. Tempest/Scourge because each time a 6/6 Dragon is created it does damage to target creature or player equal to the amount of Dragons you control. Ascendancy/Discovery/Bond can be a lot of draw because each 6/6 Dragon created draws you a card.

Scion of the Ur-Dragon and adding Utvara are reasons to also include more tutors that can search for them and put one of them into your hand. Steel Hellkite is also a Dragon upgrade as it's repeatable attack ability can wipe out an opponent's board state, one opponent at a time. Steel is good with lots of ramp.

Joe_Ken_ on Plasma In The Sky

3 weeks ago

A card I include in just about all my Boros decks is Sunforger since it can give you a get out of jail free card for board wipes with cards like Boros Charm , Make a Stand , and Unbreakable Formation There is also Teferi's Protection but that card is a little pricy.

Smothering Tithe is definitely a piece of ramp you'll want to include into the deck since if it isn't paid for then you'll quickly build up a good amount of mana.

Myriad Landscape is pretty much a land that also works as a piece of ramp for you.

Some white dragons that are pretty good are Sunscorch Regent since it gets you life while becoming huge and Scalelord Reckoner who will make opens take a loss when they want to target one of your dragons.

A red dragon that wasn't mentioned above is Glorybringer who has haste when he comes in and can act as removal on some of the smaller creatures you'll go up against.

An old dragon that could be an interesting include is Kilnmouth Dragon since he can come in as a massive body if you have other dragons in your hand.

For some full board buffs for damage and sustainability I would include True Conviction since if your commander gets taken out a bunch of times then it is always good to have a backup source of double strike also life link will be amazing on all your dragons.

Dictate of the Twin Gods can be cast at instant speed so dropping this in right before damage will pretty much just kill players.

Crucible of Fire is an awesome card since it will make your dragons much bigger.

TypicalTimmy on Ability challenge

1 month ago

Okay, back. Bare in mind I purposely ignored this thread for like a week, so I wouldn't see anything preemptively. Yes I popped in to acknowledge ZendikariWol's post on the previous page, but that was just so I wouldn't accidently overlook it as it was on another page at the very bottom. So I have zero prior knowledge on what's being made here. I see, as I read the replies, that there is some back and forth regarding some ideas. I'm not actually reading those, either. The reason is, I don't want to be influenced. I'm reading the name of the user, and if I already read a post from them, I skip all other posts they have made. I feel that's the best way to move forward.

User replies and thoughts

• ZendikariWol: Affiliate to X is an interesting idea. Basically, it allows tribal synergy with creatures who are not part of that tribe. To be honest, this feels like an unset mechanic - or at least could originate in an unset. I don't mean that in a bad way, either! It's actually quite funny to think of something like a Bear being affilated to Hounds, with the flavor text "D'awww, who's a good boy??" and the bear is being scratched on the head or sitting on someone's lap. It has a nice whimsical feel to it. Explored in another set, I think it'd be solid for Tarkir. You could have Humans be Affiliated with Dragons, drawing tribal synergy between the two. Honestly, the sky's the limit with an ability like this. As long as the set has a tribal theme, it would work. Take, for example, Eldrain. You could have a strong Affiliation with Knights in that one. I'm not honestly sure how big it could go, but it definitely has potential.

• Boza: Honestly, your mechanic concerns me. It sounds like a hard wincon and requires a ton of setup and, by design, has LOTS of interaction between players, but unfortunately the reality is that once you get 10+ Gold tokens, you just have to self-Wrath. Once you have like one permanent with Affiliate, you automatically win the game. For example, if you are sitting at 12 Gold tokens, you can wipe the board clean and drop a single 1cmc or 2cmc spell with Affiliate. You'll end up creating 1 more token and now you have 13 with 1 permanent with Affiliate, thus winning the game. It really is a cool mechanic, but the wincon feels a bit strong.

Ya done did me do math, Boza. I went back to make sure I had the correct grasp of your concept. The first card you'd cast with Affiliate would see you control no PERMANENTS with it and thus get a big fat 0 Gold tokens. The second one would see 1. The third would see 2. The fourth would see 3.

So, how many does it take?

• First: 0
• Second: 1
• Third: +2 = 3
• Fourth: +3 = 7
• Fifth: +4 = 11
• Wrath, cast sixth and win

Wait, it checks the whole game - not just your boardstate. So if your opponent has cast 5 permanents with Affiliate, you merely have to cast the sixth and you'd win. Now, you'd control only one permanent with it, but you'd control a total of 11 Gold tokens. So you can literally just wait and snap a win out from someone by casting a single spell.

• dbpunk: Feels like a functional reprint of Soulbond, only stronger since it can be any permanent and not just another creature. I'm interested in seeing where this could go, for example if someone is affiliated with an equipment or if a manadork is affiliated with a land? I feel like the design space is effectively limitless, but I must admit that worries me that it can become so big, that the abilities overall would become rather thin. For example, how many creatures can be affiliated with enchantments, effectively? It's certainly an interesting take on an old mechanic. Probably best for a Commander Precon set where you have a Commander with multiple types, such as a Legendary Artifact Enchantment Creature or something bonkers like that. But again, I can't speculate on the Precon design.

• Woiteck: I am extremely happy you specifically mentioned it being for a multiplayer game. I was about to say, what happens when two opponents in a Standard match each have one out?? Uhh, gg? Lol but, this does raise the issue of, what happens when the LAST two players in a round of EDH have one of these out? It's an interesting design though. You can't harm them, and for that you benefit whenever they do. Sort of like a Smothering Tithe but to the max. Could be super fun and janky in a Group Hug deck, or perhaps even a strange Prison deck where you lock players out from interacting with you, and now you benefit anytime they interact with anyone else. I feel like this is some Big Brain decking. Probably some kind of 4c Commander idea. It's definitely interesting. You'd want to spread your resources around, though. If you pile them all onto one player and that player drops out of the game, your entire boardstate effectively became meaningless. However, if you spread the love, you now can't interact with anyone. That creates a lot of problems; You can't focus too much on one person, but you can't focus on everyone. And if you focus on two players and not the third, it will make that opponent feel like you are "going after" them since they are the only one you can interact with. Overall, it's a cool idea, but I'm concerned about how it would play out.

• Tzefick: Did you make a submission? I'm not seeing any from you. Did you just pop in here to comment on other users? If so, that's okay. I'm just making sure that I'm not missing something.

Winner

This is really hard, but I feel perhaps it's on me because "affiliate" is a very difficult word to capture on a playing card. Affiliate means to officially attach or connect (verb) or when a person or organization is attached to another (noun).

For example, if I set up a meeting so that I might affiliate with the sales department, we are actively engaging in conversations and meetings to become better inter-connected. Likewise, if my company reaches out to a distributor in order to steamline shipping, our two companies are now affiliated together.

This is something everyone captured to some extent or another. So in terms of achieving what the core root of the word means, everyone represented it well. However, and it's on no part anyone's fault, that concept is extremely hard to represent in a card game medium. You are "representing a social meta-construct with physical design space". That is not an easy task.

So I am going to judge the winner, not based on whose design is the coolest or most unique, but on how well it can fit into a Commander Precon.

I feel like everyone's design fits best into Commander Precons. I say this because you have (excluding lands) something like 65 cards to work with. That's a lot of design space. If you tried to fit Affiliate into a Standard set, you'd have maybe 12 - 20 cards? And with our recent bout of single-block sets, you might only have like 7.

So if in 2021 Affiliate was one of the core themes in the set of Commander Precons, how does each one fare? That's how I am basing my rankings. I think that is the most fair way of doing things.

Now, before I continue, I'd like to say I am officially going back to read the rest of the thread. I am doing this because, after coming to a decision on each design as listed above, I'd like to see what each user who had something to say... well, says. I am doing this because while I have my personal opinion on the matter, I feel their individual voices deserve to be heard. Perhaps I will see something I overlooked, which would be unfair to ignore that information.

ZendikariWol, Winner

ZendikariWol: As I said, I am basing my decision on a Commander Precon set. That gives all four participants an equal chance to have the maximum number of cards in a theoretical deck. This means the deck can be specifically honed from the start to see what it might be capable of. Your idea of affiliating with creatures to give them additional subtypes comes of as both humorous and interesting. I'll admit, it does have the drawback of potentially going too wide. If you have a Goblin affiliated as an Elf, but you have like two cards that care about Elves, that Goblin is effectively meaningless. I feel like the best way to build this kind of a deck is using a dual-tribal theme. I have a deck on here somewhere that does exactly that; Every single creature (and token) are BOTH Elf and Warrior. I wanted to challenge myself, so I made it. It isn't any good, but it exists. Now this obviously has the inherent problem of "Why not just give the creature that subtype?"

Well, from a flavor perspective, it makes no sense. There is no such thing as a Jellyfish Hydra. Wait.

The charm it brings is amazing, but I can't put you here based on that alone. It functionally must represent something and make sense. For that, it's the ability to interact and pull synergy from others. It would be unfair of me to assume what your Commander in the Precon might look like, so I won't. I'd have to do that for everyone else, and then you get too derailed. I could also speculate on what the deck might look like, but again that would be unfair as then I'd have to do that for everyone else.

So purely based on the mechanical function, I have to ask this:

• Does it work? Yes. Synergy being pulled across tribes works well. Tribal synergy is always a strong contender for matches, and we have seen several times where Precons use this.
• Does it offer drawbacks? Yes. You'd need cards of specific types in order to interact with. For example, if you have someone Affiliate with Dragon, you'd need something that cares about Dragons, such as Crucible of Fire. If you don't have that out, the Affiliate with Dragons does literally nothing.
• Does it backfire? No, actually. Not really. Even if you lack the synergy at that moment, the creature itself is still useful as is. This is the type of mechanic where the more you have, the better it becomes. This means judging it in a vacuum of one card does not paint the whole picture. Again, this is why I am basing my decision on theoretical Precons.

Woiteck

Woiteck: Your idea seem like it can become an issue at any point in the game, purely because you sadly lock yourself out of it. If you are up against 3 opponents, you have three options:

• Choose 1 to lock yourself out of and go after two players, but once that player leaves the game your cards become moot
• Choose 2 to lock yourself out of and have the 3rd player upset that you are "attacking them" (Since that's literally the only player you can attack or interact with)
• Choose 3 and lock yourself entirely out of the game. Now you're drawing and getting +1/+1 counters and doing cool stuff, and you literally can't do anything.

The interactions are awesome, and I love this exchange. This sort of "politics matter" vibe is great, which is why I put you higher on the list. But, I just can't get past the fact you can literally stonewall yourself at any point of the game. The fact it backfires so dramatically stopped me from putting you higher on the list.

dbpunk

dbpunk: I am interested in seeing more examples of how this could work, but I feel like overall the condition doesn't really make the ability viable. Affiliating with another permanent for a +1/+1 bonus, or getting a keyword ability, kind of seems ... I don't really know how to word it without coming off rude, and that makes me feel terrible. Like, if a card costs a little more mana so it can be Affiliated with, perhaps an Enchantment so it gets +2/+0 or something, why not just give it +2/+0 in another way, such as like how Kragma Warcaller does. I'm just trying to see how this could work in a deck and I'm not really seeing it. I feel like you'd need either a ton of interactions, which could become confusing and players can lose sight of what's interacting with what (Again, just like my Hunt ability) or that you'd be so focused on interacting with one permanent or type of permanent that you'd cut out a lot of potential. It sort of reminds me of Outlast, where the bonus is applied if a +1/+1 counter is on them. It's easy to remember because the creature is marked with a counter and you merely have to see who has Outlast to see what bonuses are applied. This version makes you constantly double-check and remember by yourself. Again, just like my Hunt ability. So while it is interesting, I feel like it can get out of hand very quickly and players will lose focus or not remember. Or worse, the permanent it was Affiliated with is removed and the player still applies the bonus, by mistake or on purpose.

Boza

Boza: The aspect of stealing a game from someone because you cast a single spell is something I have a hard time with. Not just with this idea, but any card. That's why I dislike Craterhoof Behemoth. I don't feel like a player should "win the game" merely because they cast a single spell. The counterargument here is that it is upon the opponent to interact with the game and prevent that player from winning, and I understand. I don't mind the idea of blowing up permanents so less Gold counters are used, or using the Affiliate mechanic to ramp into some serious big spells. My issue is having a player work toward a goal, and their opponent casts a single spell and wins "by default". Having said this, I must give you props though. I made my Hunt mechanic, fully acknowledging it's a worse version of Fight, but I built it the way I wanted to because that's how I enjoyed it. So I'm not faulting you for your design - it really is an interesting way to force interaction and keep pace. I'm simply concerned that games can be stolen too easily. Now, I did say that I'd rate these based on a Commander Precon. That's true, but this kind of has a problem as well. I worked out it only takes six spells to win the game. So, if the Precon has too little, such as 8 or 9, the win condition might be too difficult to reach. If there's too many, such as 17 - 20, it might be too easy. Finding that sweet spot seems like it could be painstaking and, even if you hit it, there is no real guarantee you'd even draw enough to use. It just feels like there are too many things to step over to get it to work consistently, without backfiring. This feels like it's honestly more of a "ramp" mechanic, in that you cast a bunch of cards with Affiliate to generate a ton of Gold tokens so you have open mana for better spells. In that regards, well done you win. But because you stapled a win condition onto it, I need to consider that half of the equation as well. Since the clear goal is to get 10 more Gold tokens than the number of permanents you have with Affiliate, this means you can't actually use those tokens. So as a purely ramp-motivated design, it's fantastic. But as a wincon, it's too difficult and problematic in my opinion. Then again, so are many of them. Alternate wincons are hard to design and balance appropriately. I feel like if a Precon was built to actually win with this, it'd win too easily and thus become a problem in that regards as well.

TLDR - Balancing issues make it hard to figure out.

I honestly feel genuinely terrible with this. I feel like everyone struggled overly hard. I'm really sorry. Writing this post made me feel like a piece of shit because everyone put a lot of thought and time and effort into it, but at the end of the day it was just a very bad word.

I chose Affiliate as the word because I thought it'd be challenging. I never anticipated it'd be so much of a problem.

Kudos to everyone who managed to fight through it like a champ. Again, sorry the word was so difficult. :(

Gomoomog on Nicol

3 months ago

You can add some Crucible of the Spirit Dragon to play some dragons late game. And Crucible of Fire could be good too.

Hav0cD3m0n on Love and Hate

3 months ago

Cards I would change for others that just seems better IMO.

Hypersonic Dragon (You should replace it by Vedalken Orrery or Leyline of Anticipation ... or even both)

Act of Treason (Put Insurrection instead, cost a lot, but can win you a game)

By Force ( Vandalblast is way better imo)

Reckless Air Strike (again, put something like Shattering Spree )

Courier's Capsule ( Witching Well )

Turn Aside (I understand it only cost one.. but something like Arcane Denial can counter anything and make you draw, which is excellent with any Niv)

Oppressive Will (Again, Mystic Confluence or Dream Fracture is insane)

Cards you can just cut out for others I have proposed

Adaptive Automaton

Loch Dragon

Quicksilver Dragon

Tandem Lookout

Engulfing Eruption

Reminisce (you already have Elixir of Immortality , and with Laboratory Maniac , I don't think you really need a second one)

Trepanation Blade

Pyromancer's Goggles but it's up to you honestly.. just have no good experience with this card personally

Panharmonicon (not sure why you play it tho..)

Izzet Keyrune

If you want to, you can drop the "dragon" part of the deck.. it's original, funny, but I think you don't need that to win.. So cards like Crucible of Fire , Dragon Tempest , Dragon's Hoard , can be replace.

Snap157 on Flight of Dragons

4 months ago

I would suggest Thundermaw Hellkite or Stormbreath Dragon in the place of Archwing Dragon and maybe Crucible of Fire