Dowsing Dagger

Artifact — Equipment

When Dowsing Dagger enters the battlefield, target opponent creates two 0/2 green Plant creature tokens with defender.

Equipped creature gets +2/+1.

Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, you may transform Dowsing Dagger.

Equip

Discussion (50)

multimedia on Latty the baddie

2 months ago

Hey, one drop green mana Elves are really good, a big reason to play Elves. They aren't just ramp with Lathril they're also fuel for her activated ability when you don't need them for ramp and lets you get more Elves onto the battlefield quicker.

• Elves of Deep Shadow: can tap for black mana which is helpful with a lot of Forests.
• Fyndhorn Elves
• Elvish Mystic
• Llanowar Elves
• Arbor Elf: combos with Elvish Guidance when it's enchanted to a Forest.
• Birchlore Rangers: lets you tap Elf tokens the turn they're created to make mana, even black mana.

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Staff of Domination does everything as a mana sink for Elves and can be an enabler for Lathril to be a win condition. With Staff you first make infinite green mana by tapping and untapping one of Archdruid, Marwyn(with 5 or more power), Priest of Titania, Circle or Wirewood Channeler. When you have infinite green mana then Staff is the mana sink to draw and cast enough Elves to control 10 or more. When you have 10 or more Elves then Staff can be the mana sink to repeatedly untap Lathril and each one the 10 Elves as the win condition.

Quest for Renewal is another enabler for Lathril and 10 Elves to be win condition. When Quest has four counters which is not difficult especially with more mana Elves, you can untap all creatures you control during each opponents turn. With Lathril each opponent loses 10 life on each player's turn, resulting in all opponents losing 40 life in one cycle of all player's turns if you have three opponents.

Chord of Calling is a helpful instant creature tutor since can tap Elves to help to pay for it's convoke, with enough Elves it's a free spell to cast and it puts the creature you search for onto the battlefield. It has nice interaction with Elf tokens since can tap them to convoke the turn they're created. With Chord get Ezuri or Miara, Thorn of the Glade in response to removal, get Archdruid so you can tap him on your turn, get Magistrate so you can tap her on your next turn, get Varragoth so you can attack with him on your next turn, etc.

Patriarch's Bidding is among the most powerful tribal spells for quick recovery. For five mana it reanimates all Elves in your graveyard. Play a Regrowth just to have another potential Chord or Bidding or recur any other card.

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An area to consider improving to help with competitiveness is the manabase by upgrading to Golgari dual lands that ETB untapped.

• Undergrowth Stadium --> Foul Orchard
• Llanowar Wastes --> Golgari Guildgate
• Overgrown Tomb --> Jungle Hollow
• Unclaimed Territory --> Darkmoss Bridge
• Twilight Mire --> Cabal Stronghold
• Woodland Cemetery --> Skemfar Elderhall

Cabal Stronghold only works with basic Swamps and there's only 9 here which is not enough to really get much if any ramp making it consistently only a colorless source of mana.

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Some cards to consider cutting: Blightbeetle, Mana Bloom, Terramorph, Serpent's Soul-Jar, Return Upon the Tide, Masked Admirers, Wild Pair, Golgari Guildmage, Korozda Guildmage, Rhys the Exiled, Blanchwood Armor, Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip, Harvest Season

If Blightbeetle is tech in your playgroup than nice, but if it's not then it looks out of place. Most if not all mana ramp sources can come from actual Elves instead of other sources like Mana Bloom or land ramp like Terramorph. I would even play one drop mana Elf or Farhaven Elf over Cultivate or Harvest Season.

Serpent's Soul-Jar is not a good card, exiling an Elf when it dies is not a may you have to do it and hoping to be able to cast many Elves later, one at a time with Jar is not going to consistently happen. Instead most if not all your exiled Elves will be stuck in exile for the rest of the game because Jar will be destroyed or removed another way.

Good luck with your deck.

Optimator on CatDog Musings

3 months ago

Personally I would swap:

Mongrel Pack with Qasali Pridemage or Swords to Plowshares,

Mentor of the Meek with Beast Whisperer,

Explosive Vegetation with Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip or maybe Vastwood Surge,

Fade into Antiquity with Crush Contraband or Qasali Slingers (or Unravel the Aether or Deglamer),

Banishing Light with Generous Gift or Beast Within,

and Alpha Authority with Wrap in Vigor or Boros Charm or Heroic Intervention.

Ector on Galea, the Equipmonger

4 months ago

The Ramp, the Lands and Topdeck Manipulation

The major goal of every good Galea deck is the right method of ramp and topdeck manipulation. Every time you see a card that Galea cannot play, you should have a way to change the situation somehow. And there are two primary ways to achieve that:

1. Direct manipulation. Scroll Rack , Sylvan Library , Soldevi Excavations , Vantress Gargoyle and Jace, the Mind Sculptor directly manipulate with your topdeck, allowing you to gain card advantage. Let's look at Scroll Rack for example. If you have say three Auras/Enchantments in your hand that you can play this turn, and your topdeck isn't Aura or Equipment. You just draw three cards, put your Auras/Equipments on topdeck and play all them, actually drawing three cards for 1 mana!

2. Fetching lands. As long as Galea cannot play lands from top of your library, you should fetch lands as much as you can. This reduces the number of lands in your library (and the chance to see a land on your topdeck), and allows you to shuffle your library. We have six lands that fetch the other lands, and one of them ( Thawing Glaciers ) can fetch multiple times. We also have Sword of the Animist and Elvish Reclaimer that fetch lands repeatedly, and Expedition Map .

The Ramp strategy of this deck uses "the best of all worlds" principle: the best creatures, the best artifacts and the best Aura ( Wild Growth ). Most of the Ramp cards cost 1 mana, but there are few 0-cost and 2-cost cards. Why don't I use more Auras? Because creatures and artifacts are more efficient, and I need Ramp prior to playing Galea. Why do I use mana dorks? There are two reasons: I need early targets for my Equipment, and I want to sacrifice them later to Skullclamp .

This deck has three ways of fetching NON-basic lands: Elvish Reclaimer , Expedition Map and Tolaria West - and if you have Academy Ruins , you can recycle Expedition Map to fetch more lands. One of the best targets for the fetching is Urza's Saga , which can create a giant token and fetch Skullclamp or Expedition Map . Another very important target is Glacial Chasm , which can allow you to survive and grab victory even in a grave sutuation. Of course, Academy Ruins and Hall of Heliod's Generosity are also the popular fetch targets.

The Aura Selection

Most Auras in this deck steal or spoil enemy creatures (especially Commanders). It's hard to win when your Commander is stolen or converted to Insect :) There are only two Auras that should be played on your creatures: Mantle of the Ancients and Unquestioned Authority . Most of the time they are played via Sovereigns of Lost Alara : you attack, then fetch one of them from your deck, and, in case of the Mantle, also play all Equips from your graveyard.

The Hidden Gems

Conqueror's Flail prohibits opponents from playing spells during your turn. This allows you to play all your stuff without pesky counterspells and attack safely. It's very important for this deck.

Moonsilver Spear and Seraphic Greatsword create 4/4 flying Angels. If you have both, you can create enough blockers that can eventually kill somebody.

Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip should be transformed into a land that provides three mana of any color. It's a great Ramp, especially if you consider that Sword of Feast and Famine and Treachery untap your lands. With a bit of luck, you can even create two Construct tokens with Urza's Saga !

Fractal Harness is the easiest way of creating an enormous creature. It will grow very fast, and Belt of Giant Strength may give it +10/+10! If you get both in play, follow the "Trident Punch" path and look for Surestrike Trident .

Umbral Mantle doesn't have a lot of good targets in this deck: there are no creatures with powerful "Tap:" abilities. But you can steal them! :) Talking seriously, the Mantle is used to untap our Ultron after attacking. I am not a big fan of using Galea for this purpose: it's better not to put all the eggs into one basket. Plus, the Mantle makes a great combo with Surestrike Trident .

Shimmer Dragon is really great for this deck. It flies and almost always has Hexproof. It provides insane amount of cards. And it is much better material for Ultron than Galea IMHO. Most of the time you would need just one Scytheclaw or Kaldra Compleat on it to deal very serious damage.

Fierce Guardianship means that you always might have a counterspell :)

Thassa, God of the Sea is very helpful for two reasons: it can make your creature unblockable (even a tiny Elf with the Scytheclaw becomes a very dangerous threat!) and it provides a free Scry 1 every turn (see above on topdeck manipulation). Still, you have a chance of turning her into creature, since there are several permanents with UU in their casting cost. Having an indestructible creature is always nice!

jakeyuki12 on Commander Knights

7 months ago

Hiya! Long time Boros player here, got a few tips for the list.

1) In your creature line-up there are several creatures that aren't knights. There are also creatures that not only aren't knights, but don't synergize with knights. I would examine each of these creatures with a critical eye. The strength (and fun) of a tribal deck is its synergy. If there are creatures in a tribal deck that don't contribute to that synergy, they have to majorly make up for it (both for power's sake and for fun's sake). So I would look at each non-knight in your list and see if they're worth it (both power wise and fun wise).

2) There are also knights in your build that synergize with other things, namely equipment. If the deck were led by Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale then this would make more sense. Since it's not, I would recommend trying to replace the equipment subtheme you have going on with better tribal synergies.

3) Your deck is kinda short on both card draw and ramp (You're doing great in the removal package though!). Boros is fortunate to have been getting tons of love in both the card draw and ramp departments in recent years, so we actually kinda have options. From what I can see in this (like many) tribal deck is that you want to play lots of creatures that synergize with each other, so you're going to be emptying out your hand very quickly. Wheel effects ( Reforge the Soul , Wheel of Misfortune ) are great sources of card draw when you're emptying your hand. Impulsive draw ( Showdown of the Skalds , Light Up the Stage , Ignite the Future ) is also pretty good for this. As for ramp, that's probably more down to preference. In aggressive decks I like Sword of the Animist and Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip since they reward you with ramp for attacking.

azja on Yuriko and the ninjas

8 months ago

Hey! I just read through your decklist and thought of a few things you could add/remove. I'll start with the potential cuts:

1. God-Eternal Kefnet : Most of your instants and sorceries are reactive, like counterspells or removal. I think the only spells worth copying with Kefnet would be extra turn spells, and you only have a handful.

2. Phantasmal Image : The only creature worth copying is Yuriko herself, which won't work due to the legend rule. Either Sakashima the Impostor or Sakashima of a Thousand Faces might work better here.

3. Wonder : This card is awesome to draw in your opening hand, because a t2 Yuriko means you'll have to discard to hand size at end of turn. But with no other reliable ways to get it into the graveyard, it's a bad draw otherwise.

4. Quietus Spike : 3 mana to cast and 3 mana to equip makes this card very clunky. Better to focus on playing more enablers and ninjas.

5. Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip: Giving an opponent extra blockers hinders Yuriko's ability to deal combat damage.

6. Arcane Signet : Tapping out t2 for a ramp spell isn't really where Yuriko wants to be. I would swap it for Sol Ring instead. It also has the same problem, but has a much greater payoff.

This comment is getting long, so I'll put the potential additions in a second comment!

jakeyuki12 on Boros Soldier Tribal: Tajic

8 months ago

Hiya! Long time Boros player here, got some thoughts on your deck.

The biggest thing I can see with your deck- you aren't running many tribal payoffs. PLaying a deck full of soldiers just because you like soldiers is fine, but you might as well reward yourself for sticking to only soldiers. There are soldier tribal payoffs and generic tribal payoffs, I recommend running more of them as I only see two cards in your deck that actually reward you for running a ton of soldiers.

The next thing- there are some choices among your different categories that I think should be adjusted. For example, I think you're running just a bit too much removal. Running too much removal can actually be a bad thing- you don't want to spend too much time on removing your opponent's threats, you want to make sure you're developing your board. Running too much removal leads to games where you draw a ton of removal and don't draw your key pieces. I recommend cutting one or two pieces of removal, probably Lapse of Certainty imo. For your ramp I recommend replacing one of the mana rocks (probably Worn Powerstone ) with Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip as it synergizes better with your deck that wants to attack with creatures. For your card draw, you're running some rather suboptimal choices. I would cut Staff of Nin and Mind's Eye in a heartbeat, the cards are way too clunky, way too slow, Boros has much better options nowadays. Look at some of the impulsive draw options we've gotten recently. Stuff like Showdown of the Skalds or Light Up the Stage is much better. Finally, you're running too many non-soldiers in the deck. A lot of them make soldiers, but it might be better to not run them and run actual soldiers.

NensouHiebara on Halvar, Divine Voltron

8 months ago

@Omniscience_is_life

Wayfarer's Bauble was in this deck for a brief time until Smothering Tithe needed the spot. I'm not really interested in more Mana Rocks. I'm looking into adding Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip and I don't have a desire for more ramp after that.

The Plainscyclers do more than grab lands. They still creatures, and are used as emergency bodies in the late game. The spare shuffle effect from the cycle can also refresh the top of my library for Sensei's Divining Top. A Plains can't do that.

I'd rather focus on the new card draw that's coming than find space for Sram.

ClockworkSwordfish on Dauthi Dankness

9 months ago

I love me some Dauthi, but it seems a little limited running nothing but creatures and lands. The Dauthi Trapper + Dauthi Cutthroat combo is solid once it gets going, but you might appreciate having more on-demand ways to deal with your opponent's cards.

Since chances are your opponent will never be able to block any of your creatures, you could take advantage of that fact with equipment like Mask of Memory , Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip, Specter's Shroud , Bloodforged Battle-Axe or Whispersteel Dagger . Something like Nightmare Lash will also help ensure your creatures can deal that 20 crucial damage in a hurry.

That said, chances are you'll never be able to block, either, so a card like Darkness can tip the balance by preventing your opponent from counterattacking every time. Revenge of Ravens can also serve as a disincentive, helping ensure your opponent runs out of life before you do.