Diabolic Intent

Sorcery

As an additional cost to play Diabolic Intent, sacrifice a creature.

Search your library for a card and put that card into your hand. Then shuffle your library.

Discussion (51)

dingusdingo on Yuriko Reality and Consultants - cEDH

2 days ago

MadCatMax I gave a very clear reasoning. You are able to hit your infinite turns combo much faster if you are able to pay the mana reliably.

Your combo costs

• for the Oboro activation
• Play a land and have at least 3 other islands in play
• Cast Time Warp for
• Total cost is
• 3 Islands + Mystic provides
• There is still required every execution of your turns loop
• You run 3 rock accelerators in a 99 card deck, and also Dark Ritual which is not effective for the loop
• Even utilizing the untap effect from Oboro on one of your own lands, the earliest you can rip this combo is turn 6 without accelerators.
• This is assuming you hit a land drop every turn for 6 turns. 29 lands, probably not.

You have colorless mana costs in Intuition Oboro Breezecaller Commandeer Force of Negation Misdirection Spellstutter Sprite Tale's End Gingerbrute Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive Fallen Shinobi Ingenious Infiltrator Mist-Syndicate Naga Mistblade Shinobi Sakashima's Student Skullsnatcher Universal Automaton Brazen Borrower Contagion Cyclonic Rift Snuff Out Submerge Whiplash Trap Back to Basics Chains of Mephistopheles Cursed Totem Grafdigger's Cage Scroll Rack Temporal Manipulation Temporal Mastery Temporal Trespass Time Warp Demonic Tutor Diabolic Intent Hope of Ghirapur and Snapcaster Mage. That's 35 cards, literally exactly half of your non-land cards. Of course you can argue that a handful of these have alternate costs that don't include colorless mana, such as the pitch-to-play and some of the ninjutsu, which removes 10 cards from the "uses colorless mana" list. Either way, a quarter of the actual cards you draw and a third of the non-land cards you draw use colorless mana, and the alternate cost cards you will undoubtedly sometimes pay full price for when games go long and resources are available. I didn't even count your two burn cards.

I know you're trying to be clever by cutting slots, and I know this deck doesn't have the explosive plays of hitting Sol ring into mana rocks. Don't try to reinvent the wheel and get clever by cutting mana positive rocks in a deck that uses mana.

My comment is more directed at your friend, who I wrote a very elaborate response to as for inclusions for Sensei's Top in his Doomsday list, and how being reliant on your commander and creatures entirely for card advantage as well as pile cracking is setting him up for failure. Rather than respond, he chose to delete and block me. These decks have a bigger overall problem of being decent competitive decks against most match ups, but absolutely entirely worthless against certain match ups that completely hose the strategy because of how reliant on the commander these decks are. Nevermore on your commander either causes you to scoop or pray for amazing top deck. Repeated Pyroclasm effects resolving cause scoops. Choosing to run Misdirection over Swan Song means if you're counting on Misdirection to stop Pyroclasm you're scooping, or if you're counting on it to stop Demonic Consultation or Flash or Tainted Pact you're scooping. Yes I know it makes a bird token for blocking, but slotting bad cards is your biggest problem.

No I'm not joining your discord. You two are clowns, enjoy brewing your mediocre deck on your own. I'll enjoy the free wins if I ever end up in a pod against someone playing one of these decks.

Hissp on Wizard's Chess - Inalla cEDH

1 week ago

Hi Aiden_Phelps!

We don't run enough creatures to support Diabolic Intent. I ran it in early iterations of this list and it was often dead in my hand. Furthermore, this list is focused around rushing Spellseeker. Grim Tutor is admittedly the worst of our tutors to support for that strategy, in that you can't tee up turn 2 wins with Mana Crypt like you can the narrower creature tutors. It's still very possible with multiple pieces of fast mana, whereas Diabolic Intent is nearly impossible to use by turn 2 :)

Aiden_Phelps on Wizard's Chess - Inalla cEDH

1 week ago

Is there a reason you're not playing Diabolic Intent? It seems way better than grim tutor.

Requillias on Korvold Commander

1 week ago

Deck Upgrades:

Creature Upgrade

To remove: Aggressive Mammoth, Byway Courier Chittering Witch, Footlight Fiend,Gluttonous Troll,Gruul Spellbreaker, Judith, the Scourge Diva,Keeper of Fables, Ogre Siegebreaker, Primordial Wurm, Rapacious Dragon, Rubblebelt Rioters, Sengir Vampire, Spark Reaper, Sphinx of the Guildpact, Spikewheel Acrobat, Vindictive Vampire, Woodland Champion, Zhur-Taa Goblin

To add: Eternal Witness,Squee, the Immortal,Zulaport Cutthroat, Vexing Shusher, Goblin Matron, Munitions Expert, Krenko, Mob Boss, Warteye Witch, Sling-Gang Lieutenant, Goblin Trashmaster, Putrid Goblin, Dockside Extortionist, Arasta of the Endless Web, Creakwood Liege,Dragonlair Spider, Viscera Seer, Ayara, First of Locthwain, Pitiless Plunderer, Poison-Tip Archer, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Deathrite Shaman

Artefact Upgrade

To Remove: Thaumatic Compass  ^Flip, Witch's Oven, Bloodsoaked Altar, Golden Egg, Mask of Immolation, Rhonas's Monument

To add: Sol Ring, Arcane Signet,Lightning Greaves, Ashnod's Altar, Haunted Cloak, Skullclamp

Enchantment Upgrade:

To remove: Gift of Paradise, Warbriar Blessing, Wolfwillow Haven

To Add: Necrogenesis,Cindervines, Grave Pact, Grave Betrayal, Attrition

Sorcery Upgrade:

To Remove: Severed Strands, Taste of Death, Victimize

To Add: Unearth, Reanimate, Blood for Bones, Return from ExtinctionTerminate, Dreadbore, Hull Breach, Diabolic Intent

Instant Upgrade:

To Remove: Bake into a Pie, Heartfire, Murder, Return to Nature, Shock

To Add: Artifact Mutation, Putrefy, Guttural Response, Veil of Summer, Abrupt Decay, Assassin's Trophy

Greetings, Brian

dingusdingo on Opinion: Banning Tutors in EDH

1 week ago

Magic is a game with elements outside your control. Your deck is bigger than your starting hand size. This randomness helps balance skill between deck building as well as piloting, and has been noted in a few places. Simply put, even a deck that is only winning 25% of games against a 75% winrate deck still is getting wins when the great deck gets bad hands, or bad draws, and the weaker deck can have their own great starting hands or lucky top decks.

Tutors are seen as one of the ways to reduce variance, and increase skill. If I have 1 card that says "I win when I cast this" and I have 1 Vampiric Tutor, my deck now has 2 cards that lead to winning. If I add Demonic Tutor to the mix, now I have 3 cards that are leading to winning.

Drawing extra cards has a similar effect, but that effect is much more pronounced in a 60 card format with 4x of any specific card. By running cards like Brainstorm or Ponder you gain access to more cards, and get to make meaningful choices about the cards available to you. To put it another way, you're reducing variance in available resources from your total possible resources. Tutors do the same thing. Tutors reduce variance in the game overall, by dramatically increasing the card quality of available cards for a small premium on whichever card you wish to play. A Llanowar Elves that was fetched by a Demonic Tutor cost you to cast, and there were two different points in getting the Elf from the library onto the battlefield where a player could have interacted with you. Big shout out to TypicalTimmy for also understanding this and putting it in a concise way. All tutors do is improve your card quality or give you access to cards. The thing you should be looking at are the combos themselves, and culling the ones that are too hard or too cumbersome to interact with.

Tutors also give information to opponents, especially in EDH where information can be used by more opponents than a 1 on 1 game. Consider the following: Outside of Vampiric Tutor Imperial Seal Demonic Tutor Grim Tutor and Diabolic Intent (and a handful of others), all the other tutors are conditional. Being conditional, the opponents have to know you satisfied the condition for searching. What do these have on common? The word reveal. If someone uses a Worldly Tutor to fetch Protean Hulk, all of their opponents have just received very important information about the options available to the pilot. Any player worth their salt will use this information to hold up counterspells or prioritize playing pieces that shut off Hulk combos, like Cursed Totem

Tutors serve as the missing piece. Sometimes it can be correct to tutor up your combo as fast as you possibly can and cast it. Other times, I expend tutors on finding more mana (I literally used Imperial Seal to find Command Tower three hours ago at my LGS). Sometimes I'll use that tutor to get Dark Confidant early, to help me control other players and stay ahead in cards. Other times I search up protection like Pact of Negation. As it turns out, double tutoring is a BIG TELL for opponents, and anyone who has played this game for a couple years is going to make the intentional choice to hold up mana to stop you. Simply jamming and racing doesn't work in every game, or every deck, even decks designed to do exactly that.

Tutors cost the same mana as Counterspell and all the other 0 or 1 or 2 mana variants that counter spells. You're getting more points during the process of the combo to use that counterspell. Many combos can be stopped by easy includes like Tormod's Crypt or Disenchant or whatever. Many players choose not to slot cards that interact with other players, and this is why tutors are seen to be a problem. If you basically let players Goldfish for 5 turns in a row, they can assemble a win. I don't think players really understand how meaningless inflicting damage to players is when you have to do 120 to win. That is 6x what you do in every other format, and cards are balanced around 20 life, not 120. When you get 30 damage to them by turn 5, they've drawn and tutored cards willy nilly without you busting them apart by killing their creatures, or removing enchantments/artifacts, or forcing them to discard cards or turning off their combos. They can just, combo off.

I firmly believe that tutors are very healthy for the format. If I know my opponent is capable of assembling and executing a combo, it forces me to consider how I'm going to react or respond to them. Opponents who tutor cards are broadcasting their ability to win, and this causes interesting dynamics around the table about expending or saving mana. It causes more dynamic interaction besides simply attacking and blocking. I don't know about you, but games of Magic are more fun when players interact with each other and threaten to win and stop other players from winning.

CastleSiege on Opinion: Banning Tutors in EDH

2 weeks ago

I wouldn't be too bent out of shape if the mainstay tutors were banned. Those being Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Worldly Tutor and Enlightened Tutor. Maybe even Sylvan Tutor, Mystical Tutor, and Diabolic Intent.

Another powerful and abusable tutor is Survival of the Fittest, although it's more narrow and needs to be in a creature dense deck to be efficient. Birthing Pod is similar in the sense that it is a build-around card. Entomb and Buried Alive are also both very powerful but require other cards and specific strategies to be useful.

Banning land tutors such as Nature's Lore, Skyshroud Claim, and fetchlands seems excessive.

There are obviously tons of other powerful tutors I didn't mention, this was just my quick take. Try talking to your playgroup about banning tutors as a house rule, and have long discussions about which ones to ban and why. Try it out for a few weeks and see how you enjoy it :)

m_to_the_three on Meren-ium Falcon

2 weeks ago

Nice meren deck. This is mine that I have been using since meren has came out as a card. https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/graveyard-queen-meren-of-clan-nel-toth/ If you have any questions on why I use or dont use a card let me know, I am always happy to help other meren players out.

Having a Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip and Reanimate is nice for backup reanimation cards. Meren does typically get targeted so you want your 99 to be really tight and well. Then Meren is just the nice gravy engine that takes the deck from 100% to 1000%. So having similar effects of Meren is nice.

Sac outlets are very important for meren cause you want your exp counters to be as high as possible. It also synergizes well with merens ability. Phyrexian Altar and Ashnod's Altar are nice ones to use cause they can generate mana. Carrion Feeder is a good one drop sac outlet that can sac itself. Protip: you mainly want creatures that can sac themselves and others vs just others. The exception to the rule is creatures with really strong abilities like Razaketh, the Foulblooded. Diabolic Intent is very nice because it is a tutor and a sac ability combined together.

Because meren ability revolves around bringing the dead back to life, you want creatures that can either kill themselves, have strong etb triggers, or like to die so you abuse meren ability and get a lot of value. Plaguecrafter, Fleshbag Marauder, and Merciless Executioner are some creatures that a really solid etb trigger. I recommend at least running Plaguecrafter. Terastodon has a very nice etb trigger, it also synergizes well with natural order. Getting a turn 3 or turn 4 terastodon and targeting 3 lands is a nice way to get somebody to scoop. Mindslicer is a wonderful creature in meren decks, you sac it get an exp counter, make everybody top deck, and you fill up your graveyard. Everybody is suffering except you.

You are playing black and green so you have access to some really strong tutors. Pattern of Rebirth is a really good one because it just grabs any creature. Woodland Bellower is nice because it puts the tutor creature onto the battlefield, Fierce Empath is a nice tutor to grab any of your big creatures. Whats nice is both these cards synergize with each other so you can cast woodland bellower, tutor fierce empath and then grab another big creature Or do the inverse and you can do fierce empath to grab woodland so then woodland can get you a useful small creature. What is also nice is both of these are creature cards so you can abuse them with meren ability and keep tutoring cards each turn.

Some straight upgrades. Instead of Wall of Roots use Devoted Druid. Same mana cost but you can use devoted druid ability more then once per turn, plus when it dies you get an exp counter. Instead of Nyx Weaver use Altar of Dementia, same mana cost but easier to cast cause colorless, its a sac outlet so it synergizes with the deck better. It also has a higher roof which means you can mill yourself much more then 2 per turn. Also its ability if flexible and you have the option to mill other people but that isnt as strong as just milling yourself. Instead of Glowspore Shaman try Entomb or Buried Alive, it allows you to search your deck and pick what card you want to put in your graveyard. What is also nice is entomb is at instant speed.

I hope this helps a lot.

sevro_b on If I Die, I Die

2 weeks ago

Some wholesale changes after a weekend with my buddies, leaning even harder away from storm-style cards and fewer creatures overall:

In: Shadowspear, Essence Harvest, Nyx Lotus, Sangromancer, Extraplanar Lens, Phyrexian Arena, Swiftfoot Boots, Venser's Journal, Soul Channeling, Withering Boon, Tendrils of Corruption, Arcane Signet, and 22 Snow-Covered Swamps

Out: Greed, Blood Celebrant, Demon's Horn, Deathgreeter, Magus of the Coffers, Tendrils of Agony, Vampire Nighthawk, Charcoal Diamond, Haunted Crossroads, Knight of the Ebon Legion, Diabolic Intent, Spawning Pit, Crypt of Agadeem and 21 Swamps