Dark Ritual
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Big Apple Highlander Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Freeform Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oldschool 93/94 Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
PreDH Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Dark Ritual

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SaberTech on Dissident Storm

2 weeks ago

You do have a lot of cantrips and rituals, although I would consider running Dark Ritual as well. It's the most mana efficient ritual, and being able to cast Necropotence turn 1 or suddenly flash in an Opposition Agent off of just one open black mana is pretty strong. Brainstorm would be worth considering but I don't think that you have enough ways to shuffle your library right now to get the most use out of it. Maybe if you upped the number of fetch lands that you are running. Night's Whisper is a possible consideration for another cheap draw spell.

I do think that some of the top end of your deck could be replaced. Too many expensive storm payoff cards means that you have a higher chance of having them clogging your starting hand and first few draws, which is rough for a deck that wants to be setting up and casting a bunch of cheap spells. I really think that Eye of the Storm should go because there is a high chance that your opponents may get to benefit from it more than you do. You could replace the more expensive cards with wheels and card draw engines to help you keep your hand full and find your remaining win conditions faster. Windrider Wizard or Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain could be worth considering depending on how mana artifacts vs spells your final list ends up running. Gale, Waterdeep Prodigy can help you cast more spells in a turn but might not be what you want if you are hoping to stock up your graveyard for Underworld Breach.

You may end up needing a couple more board wipes depending on your meta. If everyone in your play group is just aiming to hit their combos the fastest then you may not need to worry about being beaten down by creatures before someone combos off and wins the game. If you are facing a bunch of creature-focused decks then more board wipes like Toxic Deluge may be necessary.

Hindering Touch doesn't seem like a strong enough counterspell to be running in Bracket 4. There is always Force of Will or Pact of Negation, but another one that may be worth considering is Muddle the Mixture for its option of being a tutor. It can grab Brain Freeze or Underworld Breach, and if you add in the dramatic Scepter combo then it can grab those cards too.

SaberTech on Dissident Storm

2 weeks ago

Alright. It's harder to pull off a storm deck in Commander but there are things you can do.

The easiest way to storm in Commander is with the Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal combo. The Scepter copies the imprinted spell, but you cast the copy so it counts towards your storm count. Running this combo requires you to run a bunch more mana rocks though, because you need to be able to produce at least 2 mana off of the rocks just to get the engine going, plus more mana if you want to produce infinite mana off of the combo. I don't know what your budget is like or if your group allows proxies, but at higher level tables you'd be looking to run cards like Mana Vault and Grim Monolith since those produce 3 mana all on their own. Beyond that though, you would definitely want to be running the talismans like Talisman of Dominance. Everflowing Chalice is another good option for storm because it's on rate if you only kick it once or you can just play it for free un-kicked to increase your storm count. Whichever rocks you end up running, you'll need a good number in the deck to support the combo.

The Dramatic Scepter combo also works well with Wishclaw Talisman. Activate the Talisman, then with the ability on the stack you activate the Scepter to untap the Scepter, the Talisman, and your mana rocks. While the first ability is still on the stack, activate the Talisman again and repeat the cycle. You'll be able to use up all 3 wish counters yourself and in the end you just pass a useless Talisman to the opponent, although after tutoring three cards you should just be winning that turn. The combo also just kills if Guttersnipe is out.

Running a bunch of mana artifacts (that don't enter tapped) has another benefit in that you can run cards like Paradoxical Outcome, Hurkyl's Recall, and Retract. You get to tap your rocks for mana, bounce them back to hand, and then recast them to increase your storm count and hopefully even net extra mana, although that requires more artifacts that produce more mana than they cost like Sol Ring, Mana Vault, and Grim Monolith.

Another combo card you could be running is Chain of Smog, which combos with Professor Onyx as long as you keep targeting yourself with the Chain and its copies. The copies won't count towards your storm count, but they will get you a bunch of treasure tokens off of Storm-Kiln Artist. You would have an empty hand, but you would have the mana to cast Kess and then cast a card from your graveyard. Ideally, you would be running wheel effects like Wheel of Fortune to immediately refill your hand and keep your plays going. Storm decks typically like to run wheel effects. On the more budget end of things, you could at least be running Windfall and similar effects so that you can match your opponents' hand sizes after emptying your own.

Chain of Smog + Archmage Emeritus will basically let you mill through your deck at the cost of emptying your hand. You'll be forced to discard the cards that you draw off of Emeritus. However, If you run a copy of Unearth in the deck then you can draw and discard your deck, use Kess to cast Unearth from your graveyard, and bring back Thassa's Oracle for the win. It's a risky line though because you won't have access to any counterspells to protect it.

Unearth is still worth considering for the deck in general since it can get back several relevant creatures in case they are countered, it's a 1 mana spell for storm count, and at worst you can cycle it away to draw a card.

Another combo I can think of based off of cards already in your deck is God-Eternal Kefnet + Scroll Rack + Time Warp (or any other extra turn card that doesn't exile itself). You use Scroll Rack to make sure that Time Warp is the top card of your deck. When you draw, Kefnet sees it and copies it. You cast the copy, and then before the end of your turn you use Scroll Rack to put Time Warp from your hand back on top of your library. Rinse and repeat for infinite turns.

Beyond that is typical storm stuff:

If all of that is sounding really expensive, Stella Lee, Wild Card and Veyran, Voice of Duality are known commanders for their own unique storm decks. You can find lists at various budget point for them online. Zada, Hedron Grinder can also play as a budget, glass-cannon style goblin storm deck.

DreadKhan on Why Are the Other Free …

1 month ago

IMHO it doesn't matter if it sees play at higher levels, it matters if it's unfun in lower brackets. Nobody should give a crap if a card sees any play whatsoever in Brackets 4 and 5, neither Bracket cares about GC, so why count that! This is devil's advocate stuff, but by that logic perhaps Rollick, Haze, and Maneuver should be GC, because they're so specifically useful in Brackets 1 and 2, where everyone is on derpy combat decks? I feel like most Bracket 1 and 2 Dinosaur decks would care a lot more about Haze being used against them compared to Guardianship; how many key non-creature effects are even in a low power Dinosaur deck? I would say it should also be considered whether the card would be an issue if it was completely unrestricted in Bracket 3. I hate it when they ban stuff that's great only in cEDH, IMHO if you really want to run Mox Diamond in your Bracket 1 or 2 deck go for it, it's not likely to help you if you're actually building at those power levels. I think all of us who played back in the day remember finding out that stuff like Dark Ritual 100% didn't go in every deck, and if you've been around even longer you might have noticed it with the much lauded Black Lotus. There are decks where you'd rather play slower and not go down a card, be they Control or just a bad deck. I think a lot of lower power Commander decks are like that, where they wouldn't proxy a Mox Diamond or Black Lotus even if they could, for the same reason they don't run Ritual mana in general.

Venum on Planetfall

2 months ago

I like your build!

Here's a couple suggestions if you're going with the sac land win : Solphim, Mayhem Dominus + Mayhem Devil for extra damage at every land sac.

I also like the combo where you boost Juri, Master of the Revue and then Fling it to possibly kill two opponents.

As for a free sac and slow your opponents, i feel like Braids, Cabal Minion is a good way to do so, especially if you can get it out early game with Dark Ritual

DreadKhan on Meren Sacrifice Shenanigans

2 months ago

I see that you are taking a pretty different angle than I did here, but there might be a few cards that I can suggest from my own Meren and the Golgari Queens. Would Savra, Queen of the Golgari make sense in your list? It's a slightly different Grave Pact, but at 4 mana and easy to cast she can come out earlier, the life gain is a lot less important other than offsetting the payment for the effect.

I think they're about as fun as an untreatable toothache, but Grave Pact effects in my experience like you to run several of the Merciless Executioner type creatures that exist, Accursed Marauder is a great start, but I think Plaguecrafter and Demon's Disciple might fit. I don't know exactly how many you'd 'want', but I'd run 3-5 creatures that exist almost purely to make everyone sacrifice a creature. IMHO if you only run one or the other the Executioners are probably the better include since you can get them out sooner, they stand alone (Grave Pact does nothing if you don't have a creature), and you can recur them with your Commander, but both are INCREDIBLY nasty when combined. In the decks I have that use edicts you really want to reach 'critical mass', so that you both have access to an Edict when it's necessary, but also have enough to continuously pare back the opponent's board.

This is a personal preference more than anything, but when I play Meren my fondest hope is usually to have a creature that ramps me that also kills itself; Sakura Tribe Elder is the 'gold standard' of the effect, but I think you could benefit from Diligent Farmhand and Dawntreader Elk, and maybe Yavimaya Granger. I even run Fertilid and Burnished Hart, but I don't think I'd recommend them to anyone else at this point! Anyways, the idea is you juggle one of these to both gain XP for Meren while ramping yourself, and when you draw something better to reanimate just reanimate that. The ramp is usually very useful to cast either Protean Hulk or Razaketh.

Speaking of Razaketh, I found it VERY useful to have mass untap effect to go with Life/Death, once Life/Death makes all your lands into weenies you can untap them with something like Vitalize or Benefactor's Draught. I also threw in a Songs of the Damned and Dark Ritual to help generate mana when I'm short. Lotus Petal is also a very good Razaketh card if you don't want to spring for Lion's Eye Diamond.

Just a little tip I stumbled upon, most Meren decks have very high Black devotion, but they rely heavily on early Green ramp; I really wanted to shave lands for creatures in my list, but since I can find Swamps with Forests via ramp, I ended up running WAY less Black sources than Green. I used 7 Basic Swamps and 2 Swamp/Forest duals, and I find I have very few fixing issues, even with a very low land count, since I almost never need more than 2 lands early on, and I found the deck absolutely hated drawing into them (Meren is a deck where I feel like you're supposed to run all the creature ramp you can, because Meren cares so much about Creatures and so little about non-creature spells, lands are dead draws).

I guess that brings me to the last point, I feel like you should really try to get more creatures into this list; your Commander does absolutely nothing if you don't have creatures in the graveyard. I have 57 in the 99 atm, I feel like having less than 40 in a Meren deck is too few. The nice thing about creatures is that Golgari has a LOT of creature synergies, I love using Lurking Predators or Heartwood Storyteller.

If you want more specific help feel free to ask!

indieinside on Swamps Matter

3 months ago

Obviously these totally come down to budget, but here are a few.

Because you are playing Cabal Coffers you should totally be playing Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.

Phyrexian Tower – Mana Ramp

Lake of the Dead – Mana Ramp

Since you are playing Animate Dead you should also consider Dance of the Dead and Necromancy. They do the same thing. Gives you more consistency.

Other ramp:

Cabal Ritual

Culling the Weak

Dark Ritual

Jet Medallion

Rain of Filth

Murrow on Artificery

4 months ago

Icbrgr you should definitely give pauper some brew time! My head is swimming with ideas seriously. And just look at how well spread out the meta is! It seems very healthy. Very old school magic feel too with the simpler card effects. But access to Counterspell, Lightning Bolt and friggin Dark Ritual! Lmao. Also I shall take your suggestion for more interaction into consideration! Thanks!

NV_1980 on commander mill

5 months ago

Hi opencorners! Please consider adding some more mana-options to the deck. Right now, all you have for that are lands and compared to the average commander deck, this will make your deck painfully slow. Options I'd recommend include Arcane Signet, Dimir Signet, Fellwar Stone, Talisman of Dominance, Thran Dynamo and most especially Sol Ring. Dark Ritual can also be extremely useful at times.

You could also do with some more card-advantage (draw) to increase the deck's speed. Notion Thief, Phyrexian Arena, Ponder and Preordain could all be great additions for this.

Aside from this, I'd recommend giving the following cards a shot (I've tried to keep them budget):

  • Breach the Multiverse: strong mill-spell that's potentially game-ending in terms of the sudden advantage you can gain (especially if you play against multiple opponents).
  • Freed from the Real/Pemmin's Aura: allows you to untap your strongest millers (when Phenax is around) for next-to-nothing cost, and use them to mill again.
  • Memory Erosion: quite deadly against decks that try to overwhelm you with the amount of spells that can cast per turn (this card is the death of prowess and storm decks).
  • Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker: great mill potential with every successful attack.
  • Nighthowler: a second Wight of Precinct Six.
  • Sphinx's Tutelage: an incredibly effective mill card as it's triggered by your draw (which makes having more draw in your deck even more beneficial).

Hope this helped. In case you need some more insights, have a look at my own Phenax deck. Good luck with the deck.

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