Dawnstrider

Creature — Dryad Spellshaper

(Green), Tap, Discard a card: Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	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
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (44)

DreadKhan on The Mimeospasm [Reanimator Terminator] - primer

2 months ago

I've heard of people using Phyrexian Dreadnought in decks like this, it's easy to get into the graveyard if you draw it and it's always 12 counters, which is usually enough to be impressive. It is $$$ though!

It might be too cute, but if you have a huge Lord of Extinction in your bin it'd be nice if you also had a Triskelion in there, right? If its late enough you can just kill everyone, early maybe hold it over everyone's head, the ability to just wipe out one opponent on a whim can be entertaining. You can also use it as a nifty board wipe, but that'd be a bit of a let down IMHO.

It's almost certainly too cute, but I have a real soft spot for Scavenged Brawler, if you want it's a sweet buff from the graveyard, but since it also has all those abilities as a creature you can use it as a decent base body in a pinch I guess.

Is 12 enough power to matter consistently? Ghalta, Primal Hunger is an old beefy beater, and similar to Phyrexian Dreadnaught he can come out for very little mana, but this guy can technically stay around, and only costs GG if you have a few bodies out. GG for a 12/12 Trample could be helpful, but it's also a 12 power body when the opponent wipes the board you can use for counters.

Do you get targeted much? Dawnstrider is a repeatable Fog effect that can soak up your most dangerous opponent's attack while also putting a card in your graveyard! I love this card in my Meren deck, where I also use Silverglade Pathfinder, this offers Rampant Growth and a discard source, though it can only find a Basic (looks like you've got 5). Pathfinder is worse than Dawnstrider, but both are a useful effect to have access to situationally, I love an early Pathfinder (as long as I can pitch something useful), but Dawnstrider is better later game.

Do other people you play against use graveyard strategies? Even if they don't I wonder if Consuming Aberration ends up big enough to bother with as a counter source? I guess if you're planning to Jarad people you could make Aberration your base creature and mill people for a bit until it's big enough to end everyone?

I think this is my last idea, Necrogoyf can have a decent power if the game has gone long, not as good as Lord of Extinction, but you can't run two of that, right? Do the people you play against make a point of using lots of creatures? For that matter there is also Urborg Lhurgoyf. I can't see you ever wanting more than 1 of these, but I felt like giving you the option of upfront mill or discard over time.

Here's hoping you haven't already written off all of these, either way nice work on your list!

legendofa on Stop picking lands on a …

2 months ago

Mono green 101 Is this the deck you're looking at?

My first thought is to cut down on the number of lands. You have a lot of ways to get lands into your hand, which is good, but with as many lands as you have, you're going to be drawing into a lot, too.

Another thought is to find something else to do with extra lands in hand, like Dawnstrider, Ayula's Influence, or Stampede Driver.

DreadKhan on Meren, Clan of Nel Toth

1 year ago

One of my favourite things to do in Meren is to ramp (my deck is on the clunkier side, and it runs very few lands), and one of the better ways to repeatedly ramp is to use more stuff like Sakura Tribe Elder, variations include Diligent Farmhand, Dawntreader Elk, Yavimaya Granger, and maybe Burnished Hart/Fertilid. All of these can find a Swamp for you, each sacrifices itself and thus they have some nice synergy with Meren. I think the only Meren decks that don't want multiples of that effect is if they are building a very high powered list, where this kind of play 'isn't advancing your board' sufficiently. I often find that farming XP isn't a waste of time early, so these recursive ramp sources offer that as well. I think it's very hard to justify running land ramp Sorceries when you can run creatures that do the same thing, and arguably do a better job of it. I would also shave stuff like Arcane Signet or the Talisman for creature ramp, Meren can't recur your rocks for you when they get blown up. In addition to Meren there are tons of things that synergize with creatures, stuff like Beast Whisperer and Liliana's Standard Bearer can draw lots of cards via creatures, and you don't get that synergy with a 2 mana rock. Using Meren to recur Liliana's Standard Bearer is a pretty impressive bulk draw option.

Some generically good cards for a Meren list that I love are Buried Alive, Final Parting, and Jarad's Orders, each of these offers real tutoring power, and none are especially pricey. Buried Alive can find a whole combo for you to win with. Old Stickfingers is probably worth a look for the similar reasons, Meren feels really weak if you have no creatures in your yard to reanimate. I'm not sure if it's too high budget, but Fiend Artisan has a lot of synergy with Meren. You don't have to dig out a combo piece for the card to do useful things.

In my Meren deck it's a much better Rhystic Study (I run a very high creature count), but I suspect you'd get some value out of Lurking Predators. There is also Heartwood Storyteller, in my experience both belong in a deck with even more creatures but they could still be useful I think.

In my limited experience Callous Bloodmage offers pretty good graveyard hate on a very low budget, and if you don't need that it can do other stuff, it's a great card to use in infinite loop since it can do a few useful things.

Mitotic Slime offers you a ton of bodies for only 5 mana, it's not especially hard to go infinite with as a result. I like using it with Demon of Dark Schemes and Pitiless Plunderer (and a sac outlet) to win, the nicest part about using a combo like this is that each piece is independently good. Phyrexian Altar is better than Plunderer, but it's even more money (though the difference has dropped sharply).

Dawnstrider is an extra Spore Frog, one that doesn't require reanimation but offers a discard outlet, letting you put creatures in your graveyard. Silverglade Pathfinder is another discard outlet, but offers ramp instead.

I hope this isn't too try-hard for your deck, Meren is a very fun Commander to build.

KayneMarco on Fog Draw EDH

1 year ago

Just an fyi: you can’t legally run Batwing Brume. Also, here’s a list of creatures that give you permanent fog effects that aren’t in your deck:

• Spore Flower
• Dawnstrider
• Knight-Captain of Eos

DreadKhan on F*** Kevin

1 year ago

Any reason you don't run Meren of Clan Nel Toth in here? You don't lose XP counters when she dies, so you can just recur her with your Commander. You could also try out Coffin Queen and Hell's Caretaker to get more recursion in. Repeatable recursion makes things like Merciless Executioner pop in my experience. Not sure how much you get targeted, but Dawnstrider is a nice second Spore Frog, Dawnstrider is also a discard outlet.

I playtested this vs one of my more salty decks, it doesn't feel too oppressive to play against. I actually think your friend should build a deck designed to tweak your nose back if he feels triggered by your deck! The best way to learn to appreciate a deck or play style is to try it out yourself, obvious exceptions abound but I think there's a kernel of truth. I thought Chaos decks were always a bad thing, but when I decided to throw some Chaotic cards into a deck it worked out very well, and now I enjoy a boarder spectrum of Magic games.

DreadKhan on Meren Reanimation

1 year ago

I have a lot of fun using Meren in an EDH deck, maybe some of my EHD concepts translate?

I really liked stuff like Diligent Farmhand, Dawntreader Elk, and of course Sakura-Tribe Elder are very useful. There is also Elves of Deep Shadow, which is useful if you use the 'trick' of running lots of green ramp that finds Swamps/makes black mana and run less black sources because you only need a few. A few black ramp creatures are Blood Pet and Blood Vassal, Vassal is probably worse. A card I used to use in Meren that might work here is Street Wraith, it'll eat up a bit of life, but it gives Meren something worth getting back if she has low/no XP, I settled on running enough ramp-that-dies to not worry about Meren having nothing to do. Death payoffs like Grim Haruspex to draw some cards when things die might help too.

One really funny trick that's very easy for Meren to pull off (and that's way better in 1v1) is abusing Spore Frog, this also builds up XP fwiw. I think Dawnstrider is a lot worse in 1v1 than Spore Frog, but it is also a discard outlet so I run both in EDH.

If you want another 'backup Meren', there is also Hell's Caretaker, this is a bit cheaper than Meren and can actually reanimate big stuff on it's 2nd turn (usually much sooner than Meren), but it does eat a body each time.

Another trick I liked using was Gravecrawler + any sac outlet, as long as you've got another Zombie you can just reuse your Gravecrawler, even if you don't want to splurge on something like Phyrexian Altar or Pitiless Plunderer to make it infinite, it can still be pretty good to have a recursive (and cheap) creature.

DreadKhan on EDH Merens Reanimator

1 year ago

If you're interested in playing fair, then you might like Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. This can take a board full of utility creatures and make them very formidable very quickly. Hell's Caretaker is a card I find useful that doesn't go infinite with anything I know of, it just lets you sneak stuff in once per turn. If you don't include anything like Pitiless Plunderer you can set up repeatable sacrifice loops to generate XP for Meren, probably to reanimate a Protean Hulk or someting else juicy. For this you might use Gravecrawler or Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and probably a 1 drop Knight to have something you can keep killing over and over. Any card that cares about creatures dying will go off, so some stuff that draws on death might be nice, Liliana, Dreadhorde General is a versatile card that fits the bill.

In my experience, the best thing you can tutor up is usually Protean Hulk, Sidisi, or Razaketh, any of these tends to spiral out of control in a deck that can reanimate them on the end step or sooner. Hulk can find various creatures to solve whatever problems you have, but you probably need a sac outlet to ensure it dies right away, the others are more generous. Razaketh notoriously likes abusing Life / Death to set up a pretty quick win when you're ready, you can find stuff like rituals to generate enough mana to go off.

If you want another reanimator that isn't picky, there is Demon of Dark Schemes that helps clear the board of weenies, and as long as you don't have cards that generate mana the Demon won't go infinite with something like Mitotic Slime or Underworld Hermit, they'll just give you lots of triggers for your extra mana. Demon also likes Merciless Executioner type creatures, they can easily generate Energy. Another reanimator I often forget reanimates stuff is Liliana, Death's Majesty, this brings back stuff as a Zombie if you don't want the ultimate, and she survives some wipes as a PW that can make 2/2s while milling you. Some people don't like PWs so ymmv.

I suspect that if you're not sure if you need more wipes, you might want to try one or two more. In Black there is Make an Example that is very brutal as you always hit your priority target for each opponent. It won't clear the board, but it can help manage it, and you can follow it up with a bunch of forced sacrifice. One card that likes seeing a wipe happen (that makes running extra feel less problematic) is Ogre Slumlord, if you run enough 'pay life'effects you might want Sangromancer, and if you think you can kill enough of your opponent's permenants then Kothophed, Soul Hoarder might work out, that can turn a Damnation into a big draw spell.

If your deck is finding it hard to stay alive, you can use Dawnstrider to save you on needing to reanimate a Spore Frog, though I use both as I find Meren can be annoying to certain players.

If you like Phyrexian Arena and aren't using 'win on the spot combos', have you considered Protection Racket? This can draw plenty of non-land cards or deal damage to your opponents, both seem good as long as you don't care if you lose some random 1-3 drops. There is also Black Market Connections, this can provide various resources without being as busted/all-or-nothing as Necropotence.

Hope some of this is helpful! Any Commander that requires a lot of tutoring is very frustrating to learn to play, Commander is incredibly hard to master, but it's easy to get better with practice!

DreadKhan on A Vast Network of Spies

1 year ago

I'm going to suggest a few evasive creatures I use in decks that care about that feature, they're generally higher MV, which I gather is an asset to you! Hope they're not too high budget for your plan! Thieving Skydiver is an evasive creature that can steal a mana rock or Sword, it can even scale up from there. Another I truly love is Sower of Temptation, which steals a body until it dies. If the stolen creature dies you can maybe flicker it (you can also upgrade what it's stolen that way), but it's also a 2/2 flyer. Not necessarily good enough (but strong enough that I feel they're worth a look), Thalakos Deceiver can steal a creature if there is something worrisome (and it's just an evasive 1/1 if not), Thalakos Dreamsower can lock down a problem creature (less useful if people are big on Haste or Craterhoof, very good if they don't), and Thousand-Faced Shadow can copy a creature while offering an evasive attacker in a pinch.

I like Sporefrog a lot, I even run it alongside Dawnstrider in a Meren deck that tends to get targeted. You can easily afford to discard the card in Edric, and the ability can happen each turn.

Edric is a cool deck, interesting choice to build on a budget!