Dark Confidant

Creature — Human Wizard

At the beginning of your upkeep, reveal the top card of your library and put that card into your hand. You lose life equal to its converted mana cost/mana value card.

Legality

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

Discussion (49)

Azoth2099 on Vilis gives and Vilis takes

2 weeks ago

Flodder

My main man Vilis!

Consider the following: Dark Confidant, Dark Tutelage, Black Market Connections, Ulcerate, Devour in Shadow, Feed the Swarm, Cruel Tutor, Plunge into Darkness, Blood Celebrant, Sign in Blood & Jinxed Ring.

Happy brewing!

Azoth2099 on Kaalia, help wanted

3 weeks ago

MarioDargon

Hey dude! Good Commander choice, Kaalia of the Vast has been my main {R}{B}{W} option for years now.

I'll try to keep this brief lol.

The most important thing to remember when brewing this one is to not get distracted by the possibilities of all those Angels, Demons & Dragons. Focus on card quality above all else, the Spells that are going to win you the game.

Razaketh, the Foulblooded & Vilis, Broker of Blood are the top dogs here, their power as individual cards will oftentimes win you game from sheer value. Other pieces like Rune-Scarred Demon, Burning-Rune Demon & Hoarding Broodlord will do the same if you build around them with Spells like Ephemerate & Saw in Half.

I'd also recommend more Treasure tokens! I see you're already running Smothering Tithe & Goldspan Dragon, which is a great start. Adding Ancient Copper Dragon, Cavern-Hoard Dragon, Monologue Tax, Lotho, Corrupt Shirriff & of course Dockside Extortionist will make sure that your deck doesn't necessarily need it's Commander on the field to function. There are also a few lines via Dockside Extortionist & Razaketh, the Foulblooded that deal infinite damage, produce infinite Mana and yield infinite Tutors, which we can get into later if you decide to go that route.

Wrapping up on Mana, I'd also recommend more Rituals and Rocks. Dark Ritual, Burnt Offering & Seething Song are great, as are Talisman of Hierarchy, Talisman of Conviction & Talisman of Indulgence. A Thran Dynamo could be good too. Oh man, Hellkite Tyrant can steal your opponents Rocks, which counts as Ramp I guess?

Anyway, moving on to card draw! Kaalia of the Vast runs through a lot of cards if you build her right, and keeping your hand full is a priority. Necropotence, Black Market Connections, Dark Tutelage, & Dark Confidant are great ways to turn your Life total into more gas. Esper Sentinel & Archivist of Oghma scale with your opponent's activity. None of them will do as much heavy lifting as Vilis, Broker of Blood, but that's honestly asking a lot of any card other than Ad Nauseam.

Onto the deck engine! I see you're running a few things to double down on your Commander's effect, like Aggravated Assault, Blade of Selves & Isshin, Two Heavens as One. While this strategy seems like a great idea on paper, it's actually not as efficient for the deck as it seems. Running a Reanimator strategy to ensure that the deck can continue to cheat creatures out without having to rely on it's Commander to do so is a far more powerful & consistent strategy. Spells like Entomb, Reanimate, Final Parting, Buried Alive, Victimize, Animate Dead, & Karmic Guide will pull a lot of weight in this context.

I could talk about Kaalia of the Vast all day, but I'll stop here. Let me know how you feel about these suggestions.

Also, here's my own list if you want to check it out: ANCIENT DRAGON TEMPEST (KAALIA)

Cheers!

sergiodelrio on No Country for old Johnnys …

1 month ago

I have not played Modern, or any kind of Magic in years. Precisely since MH2 came out. Modern has been my go-to format, and almost exclusively the format I played, with a little splash of Pauper occasionally.

That had been a very conscious decision when I got into MTG, after becoming aware what formats even are. Modern was quite new back in the day, but it was the format whose premises I liked the most so I went with it. Big card pool with many interesting and viable cards, not too fast not too slow ('turn 4 format'). I was sold, especially since everyone's mantra about it was 'your cards won't rotate out and will always be playable'.

Well guess what, my cards rotated out with MH2.

Snapcaster Mage? Who's that? Dark Confidant? I saw his picture on a milk pack. Path to Exile is indefinitely closed for construction. You get the idea, but I'll stop the list here even tho I could mention many more.

All of this after I had spent a lot of cash and time accumulating cards for my collection.

When people conclude that 'Modern is a healthy format' right now, they seem to only account for win% and diversity within top8 lists. What should also be accounted for, imho, is how many cards in the card pool are actually relevant in the format in that they are not strictly worse than other cards or can at least find a home in Tier2 & Tier3 decks. As far as I can tell most of those went off the radar for good.

I had always been a true 'Johnny' in that I had a lot of fun theorycrafting rogue decks up to the point where they at least were semi-competitive. Granted, I almost never won FNM with those, but I also NEVER came out last, and had so many precious table-flipping-opponent moments which were all the fun to me.

Heck, one time during Eldrazi winter I WON a 70 player event and got a Judge Promo Snappy, so please don't assume my rogue builds could never compete in the first place (with my own pre-Adam-Bowman Slivers list, if you must know).

I understand that many and most other players might not feel the same way about what is fun, and that's fair, but the game had been set up to ALSO accomodate my type of fun. Now that's gone, so I'm gone as well.

Just to be clear. I, personally, don't mind new cards entering the format, au contraire. Johnny loves more toys.

But what they did, especially with MH2, was a conscious decision to raise the power level of Modern. This is most evident in the introduction of Counterspell.

That, in turn, resulted in altering the core premises of the 'Modern Horizon' product series (HORIZONTAL progression) and also the premises of the format as a whole. I can therefore no longer play the game and enjoy it, since the choices are now:

1) Spend a ridiculous amount of cash on new cards (Monkey, W6, elementals, triomes, etc), play competitively but lose the joy of theorycrafting rogue decks

2) Get more into Pauper maybe

3) Quit

So in conclusion I just want people to be aware that there are more vectors to a 'healthy format' than a diverse top8 and that there are many more players like me, who for one reason or the other stopped playing this game, and that probably contributed to a general decline of MTG as a whole, which in turn also negatively affects card prices, especially those older cards that have been rendered unplayable.

This is not supposed to be a rant even, I just wanted to share and express my resignation and maybe all this is just the result of me being naive.

How do other people feel about this? I'd really like to know, since Tappedout has been a great part of MTG continuity for me over the years. I've seen people come and go, but I still come back from time to time even now just to check what's up with the community.

butcher234 on Power ≤ 2 Tribal

2 months ago

Thanks for the comment! I used to run Dusk / Dawn, but it wound up getting cut for more protection. Might be meta-specific for me, but I found myself casting Dusk for little value just to get my hands on Dawn, hence the need for more protection instead. I've had my eye on The Battle of Bywater. I'm on the fence! Most of the time, I'm able to slide under the big stuff, so we shall see if it gets a slot. For whatever reason, I'm unreasonably attached to my high creature density and Bob curve.

wallisface on Bow Down to Sheoldred

3 months ago

idfkgabe decent creatures in white and/or black are aplenty, but might depend on your budget. Some options include Giver of Runes, Esper Sentinel, Solitude, Dauthi Voidwalker, Orcish Bowmasters, Leonin Arbiter, Skyclave Apparition, Grief, Dark Confidant, Thraben Inspector, and Archon of Emeria

Azoth2099 on Repanse De Lyonesse (Syr Gwyn Knight Tribal)

3 months ago

Rizikar

Oi! Nice Commander pick, Mardu Knights are my jam.

If you're trying to give the decks some legs via recursion, Reanimator is the only way to go imho. Fortunately {B} & {W} are the perfect colors for that! Here's the Reanimator package that I typically start with if I'm building a deck in that style:

Animate Dead, Dance of the Dead, Necromancy, Reanimate, Entomb, Buried Alive, Final Parting, Phyrexian Reclamation & Sevinne's Reclamation are sick. There are also some pretty spicy loops that can be accomplished with things like Corpse Dance & Dread Return, but we can get into all of that if you decide to run Reanimator as a strategy for this build.

There's also some pretty great card draw options in this color combination that I think will do the deck some good. Necropotence, Black Market Connections, Esper Sentinel, Archivist of Oghma, Dark Confidant & Dark Tutelage all come to mind. Tectonic Reformation could provide some value here too.

I'd also also maybe cut down on some of those lands in favor of some more Mana Rocks. Talisman of Conviction, Talisman of Hierarchy, Springleaf Drum, Fellwar Stone & Chromatic Lantern would be good includes.

Tutors are expensive af, but there are a few nice choices that are very affordable right like Open the Armory, Wishclaw Talisman, Diabolic Intent, Diabolic Tutor, Gamble & Reckless Handling. Vampiric Tutor & Enlightened Tutor were just reprinted a little ago, so they're as cheap as they're going to get right now. I'm pretty sure Vampiric Tutor was like $90 a little bit ago, food for thought. Oh man, Stoneforge Mystic also exist, and is wonderful.

Some non-specific Tribal support like Shared Animosity, Mana Echoes & Coat of Arms, Cryptic Gateway & Vanquisher's Banner could also do stuff!

Lastly, a short list of neat Equipments you could consider are Conqueror's Flail, Hammer of Nazahn, Bloodforged Battle-Axe, Heartseeker, Masterwork of Ingenuity & Mask of Memory. I guess Halvar, God of Battle  ^Flip is technically an Equipment card too?

Good luck in refining your list!

Coward_Token on UB: LOTR

3 months ago

Templating confusion:

• Why doesn't Fealty to the Realm doesn't just goad?
• Why doesn't Gollum, Obsessed Stalker just say "...dealt combat damage by it..."?

I get that there's some nuance to not having the above (e.g. Helm of the Host on Gollum), but it seems minute.

Thankfully no Horsemanship on Rohan cards, AFAIK.

Boromir, Gondor's Hope: {U} feels weird flavor-wise. The sea power thing again?

The faces in Lorien Revealed look more horrified than amazed

Call of the Ring is basically a more wrath-resistant Dark Confidant in decks with a black inclusive mana value <= 1, namely: Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh (with the proper partner), Ashnod, Flesh Mechanist (skulk + 1 base power means she can often attack safely for her trigger), Frodo, Sauron's Bane (obviously). Also Valentin, Dean of the Vein  ^Flip, I guess.

Fall of Cair Andros: Man, Blasphemous Act was already overpowered. Gogo Rem Karolus, Stalwart Slayer (+ a haste source), the Army will probably be able to finish someone off on its own while you attack someone else with the rest of your creatures.

Rising of the Day: Randomly strictly Fervor, I actually don't like this.

Long List of Ents: Cute, but the amount of hoops you need to hop trough for one extra counter per turn feels pretty anti-climatic. But hey, if your proliferate an extra chapter counter onto this (or something) and you then cast a changeling (or something), it'll get two counters! Woho...

Quickbeam: Kinda feel like he should have haste?

Horn of Gondor: Even if it's non-free to activte, Human Krenko is pretty good.

Palantir of Orthanac: I feel people are overestimating this for the purpose of self-milling. After 2-3 counters in a graveyard deck, people are just going to let you have that free Preordain

Azoth2099 on Sen Triplets - Esper Control (Seeking Help)

3 months ago

Iraeus

Okay, so if you're specifically trying to outdo Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait, you're going to have to make sure that you're not being outdone by it's immense card draw & Ramp. Deep Gnome Terramancer, Archivist of Oghma, Esper Sentinel, Alms Collector, Monologue Tax, Smuggler's Share, Consecrated Sphinx, Faerie Mastermind & Ledger Shredder will help accomplish this. Black Market Connections, Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top, Dark Confidant, Dark Tutelage & of course Necropotence are also great card draw options, but won't scale with whatever your opponents are doing. Tithe, Gift of Estates & Land Tax are generically great, but extra great in this context.

Consider Rule of Law, Arcane Laboratory & Archon of Emeria as well. Sanctum Prelate, Void Winnower & Chalice of the Void will also hit 'em with a big ole "NOPE" when adequately applied. Decree of Silence + Solemnity will do so as well.

Weird stuff like Deathgrip will also probably help you lock the game down, but it might not translate very well outside of trying to take down Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait lol. Depends on how {G} heavy your group is, really.

Speaking of that, you really might just need more Counterspells or something! Stuff like Tale's End seems pretty good for your goal here. More Mana Rocks seems like a great idea here too. I'm sure you're buddy is running a bunch of traditional {G} Ramp & Dorks, right? You absolutely must keep up, or you're gonna lose.

More {B} Tutors will help you grease the wheels, too. They can get pretty expensive dollar-wise, but options like Diabolic Tutor, Diabolic Intent & Wishclaw Talisman are very affordable right now.

Let me know how you feel about these suggestions! Cheers!