Cryptic Serpent
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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
Freeform Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Cryptic Serpent

Creature — Serpent

Cryptic Serpent costs less to cast for each for each instant and sorcery card in your graveyard.

UR Pteramander
by James13

UR Pteramander thumbnail
MDN 22 / 13
Delver of Secrets feature for UR Pteramander

DragonMaster420 on UR Pteramander

3 months ago

Tolarian Terror, Cryptic Serpent, Thought Scour, Consider, Ionize

Lord_Olga on Mill deck

2 years ago

I'm personally okay with the presence of Jace's Phantasm, its cheap, big, and lets you defend yourself on the board. Your focus is milling, but you will have to keep yourself alive from attacks while you are doing the milling. It also gives you the option to attack if the mill doesn't work out and limits your opponents options as well. If you would like something less conditional and more focused on defense, Aegis Turtle can do it too.

I would probably remove Consuming Aberration and Cryptic Serpent as they're both expensive. You're going to want the game to be nearly over by the time you'll even be able to consider summoming either of them, and if their library is nearly empty, you wont need to blow 5 mana on a big creature, wait another turn, and start casting spells to finish the job.

In terms of adding cards, I'd recommend throwing in a couple Fraying Sanity. It's a little bit of a mana investment, but will double all your mill effects for the next few turns accelerating the pace of your victory. I'd definitely do some of the swaps wallisface mentioned in the last two points, except for maybe Tasha's Hideous Laughter since it doesn't put cards in the graveyard which will not trigger some of your effects, not worth the trade off to me for something that will mill maybe 8 cards, which is very doable already in this deck.

Additional note, in general when building for modern you want to keep your mana costs low unless you have mana ramp in the deck. Try not to go higher than 3 or 4 cost cards if you can help it. Keeps the deck efficient. Also for efficiency, try to get down to 60 cards. Even that extra 2 makes a draw rate difference that you dont want.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on $25 Quicken the Kraken

3 years ago

Awesome list! Quick headsup, Tolarian Terror might be a better choice than Cryptic Serpent.

multimedia on Urza’s legion

3 years ago

Hey, good start on a budget with what you have so far. Command Tower is a budget staple land for multicolored Commander decks and Arcane Signet is a budget staple mana rock.

Ramos, Dragon Engine can only be played in a five color deck using it as Commander or another five color Commander. It's activated ability has all five mana symbols and those symbols count toward it's color identity. Urza's color identity is only three colors Esper (black, white, blue). Because Urza doesn't have red and green that's why Ramos can't be played with Urza as Commander.

If you want aggro with Urza lets look at the beginning of the mana curve first, cards spots of 0-3 CMC only then we can look at the higher end of the mana curve. The first changes to consider is to remove all the nonartifact creatures and then later determine if they are worth a spot in your deck because they have abilities that help artifacts or Urza. I think you'll find that you don't need any of these creatures because artifact creatures can take their places. If you want to be aggro with Urza then you want to utilize Urza's artifact creature affinity to cast Urza quicker. To do this consistently Urza wants 0-2 CMC artifact creatures and some 3 CMC artifact creatures more than the rest.

Some of these creatures may be added back in later, most likely not, but for now lets build the creature base with only artifact creatures. For making upgrades lets look at best cards here with Urza and build around them? Arcbound Ravager and Portal to Phyrexia are the two best cards here with Urza because they're artifacts and they're abilities are more powerful compared to most other cards here. Ravager brings the aggro, but if aggro doesn't do it and you need more reach to win the game then Portal can do that. Lets start with Ravager and what makes it better with Urza? Modular and you have some here, more one drops can help toward Urza's artifact creature affinity and Ravager.

Steel Overseer adds to the +1/+1 counter strategy, it's powerful but only for artifact creatures and if trying to be aggro it's a good reason to play very few nonartifact creatures. Silas Renn, Seeker Adept goes well with Arcbound Ravager since with Ravager you want to sac artifacts and Silas lets you cast an artifact from your graveyard. It's deathtouch combined with Urza's menace makes it a creature who opponent is not going to block and lose two or more creatures blocking it. Baleful Strix, Triarch Praetorian, Malcator's Watcher are two drop artifact creatures who fly and who draw when enter the battlefield (ETB) or dies.

Some artifacts here are worse than others.

Think about limiting the amount of nonartifact spells to just the better ones you have here?

Equipment that increases the equipped creature's power equal to the amount of artifacts you control really ups the aggro since then any little artifact creature can become huge which combined with menace can make it a great attacker. I see Silver Myr and it's good here since counts twice for Urza, artifact creature affinity and ramp. Consider adding more artifact creature mana dorks who can make colored mana?

The budget Signets can help for ramp as well as color fixing which is really needed because the manabase here is pretty much all basic lands. Arcane Signet is a staple budget mana rock for ramp in Commander. Chromatic Lantern is fine for color fixing, but you're going to want more than that.

Some nonartifact creatures at the beginning of the mana curve can really help aggro and Urza.

Losheel, Clockwork Scholar is powerful with artifact creatures when attacking is what you want to be doing especially Constructs. Your artifact creatures don't take damage in combat meaning that opponents will have a difficult time choosing to block since their blockers might die, but your creatures will be fine. Losheel is also repeatable draw, once on each players turn when an artifact creature ETB you draw this includes when a Construct is created by Urza if you didn't have an artifact creature ETB before your end step.

Sai, Master Thopterist can be a repeatable source of artifact creatures, Thopters, to be attackers or sac fodder. Emry, Lurker of the Loch is like Silas Renn, Seeker Adept more ways to cast artifacts from your graveyard is good with Arcbound Ravager and other sac outlets.

That's it for this comment, but if you're still interested I'll give advice about the high end of the mana curve here to take more advantage of aggro into mid game and Portal to Phyrexia late game as well as some budget land options for the manabase. Would you like more advice?

Good luck with your deck.

PickleNutz on $10 Controlled Burn, Arcane Edition! [UltraBudget]

3 years ago

Young Pyromancer and Cryptic Serpent would be good in this set up. I would try slotting the pyromancers in place of guttersnipe and play around with cryptic serpent a bit. It’s an underrated card for its power.

dgalarza on When Can the Bird Invasion Commence?

4 years ago

You have opened my eyes. I am, in fact, running one Cryptic Serpent so the nonbo doesn't matter. I'll run Treasure Cruise instead of Improbable Alliance. The only thing I worry there is that my turn 2's probability of having board presence goes from 79% to 70%, and I am more prone to getting slammed by Bloodsoaked Champion and the like. But that card advantage though...

dgalarza on When Can the Bird Invasion Commence?

4 years ago

Thanks for taking time to check me out, zapyourtumor!

I haven't kept up with the newest sets. Thanks for turning me on to Consider. I'm going to try it out in Radical Idea's spot. That 2 mana is pretty restrictive in the mid game I find.

I've wonder about Jori En, Ruin Diver for the longest as well. I honestly run Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  Flip primarily for the creature half. I'll run Jori En in Jace's spot, but I worry that the mana curve is bloated at 3 with him and Irencrag Pyromancer.

I see Expressive Iteration as a win more card for me in this build. I could be completely wrong. I'll test it out last and once everything else seems solidified. Probably in Improbable Alliance's spot.

I've ran this iteration with Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time before. The nonbo with Cryptic Serpent always felt bad. I recently added Serpent. Despite its unassuming nature, it definitely has helped me stabilize some matches. I think I'll try to squeeze in 1 Dig because that value is way too good to write off.

I do love me some Magma Spray. Scorching Dragonfire is there because of local meta reasons. Death Baron is a menace!

Crackling Drake was always so hard to cast. The mana and color requirements were always so hard on me. Especially when I found myself having to shock or ping myself for the mana way more than I'd like. 4 mana by turn 6 always seems harder than it should, and I feel anxious when I don't have mana open for a Lightning Strike or Negate.

Thanks for the feedback!

nathanielhebert on $25 Quicken the Kraken

5 years ago

I've been swimming paces like Poseidon with this deck, and enjoying the flavoured removals with Whelming Wave and River's Rebuke . One thing I'm trying out is adding another ticking-time-bomb-kraken, Deep-Sea Kraken , which is a nice addition if found early, ideally tucking another monster in suspended animation on turn 3, just behind a bubbling Ominous Seas .

The "cheap" Cryptic Serpent are also a nice touch, which come in handy to repopulate the board quickly after the graveyard's been filled with the scrys for card draws. Kudos!

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