Drannith Magistrate

Creature — Human Wizard

Your opponents can't cast spells from anywhere other than their hands.

Legality

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

Discussion (47)

nhhale on Why Are Most Hatebears so …

2 months ago

1. Most are not good, so the low cmc is fine.
2. Sometimes R&D makes mistakes printing new cards.
3. Sometimes the rules committee makes mistakes by not banning cards in certain formats. (Drannith Magistrate in EDH comes to mind).

Basically, they have to be cheap because they're bad (for the most part).

Caerwyn on Why Are Most Hatebears so …

2 months ago

I would build on one point on Gidgetimer’s statements about Drannith Magistrate:

I do not think the problems with the card in EDH stem just from its ability to shut down Commander reliant decks - the issue in EDH is that it never wiffs. As I mentioned above, part of the reason Hatebears are so efficient to cast is your chance they do not do anything a vanilla creature could do. If none of your opponents are heavy into creatures with ETBs, that Hushbringer is doing a whole lot of nothing.

Drannith Magistrate never had that problem in EDH - it has a 100% chance of being able to interfere with 100% of your opponents. Even if your deck can function perfectly well without your Commander, the Commander tends to be a helpful card to your strategy, making it just a wee bit harder for non-reliant decks to win.

I think it is probably a bit overhyped in terms of its power - it is annoying, to be sure, and interacts poorly with the rules of Commander (which is one reason a card can get banned) but there are plenty of ways to play around it and, while I think “dies to removal” is a generally poor argument, the fact it is guaranteed to hit everyone increases the chance someone steps up and tries to remove it.

Gidgetimer on Why Are Most Hatebears so …

2 months ago

wallisface, I realize that you primarily play competitive Modern and your assessment of Drannith Magistrate is perfect for that aside from the fact that Magistrate is NOT universal. However; for EDH Drannith Magistrate is oppressive for commander focussed decks. It is doubly so for commander focussed decks in the more casual end of the format where interaction is slim. The people who get hit by it in EDH are actually those trying to play the most "fair" type of Magic that the format offers. I realize that the answer to this is to simply run more interaction if you can be hosed by a single card. Alternatively one could hold what interaction they do have for the cards that hose them. It is hard to convince casuals to change their deck building or play patterns though.

wallisface on Why Are Most Hatebears so …

2 months ago

DemonDragonJ, Drannith Magistrate is one of the absolute fairest of cards. Tbh i’d be fine it it only costed a single mana instead of two.

• its effect only punishes players trying to do “unfair” things. The game needs answers to strategies that are trying to cheat the system.

• at 1 power, this creature presents no threat at all.

• at 3 toughness and 2cmc, this creature dies to pretty-much every killspell under the sun. Its so ridiculously easy to remove, that being tripped-up by it to the extent that your game is “ruined”, is more an indication that your deck is severely lacking interaction, and has some pretty big flaws.

• its effect is universal, so the owner has the adhere to their own rules.

DemonDragonJ on Why Are Most Hatebears so …

2 months ago

Ojallday, I started this thread because I have had my games ruined by hatebears, most notably Drannith Magistrate, too many times, and I am hoping that I am not the only player who thinks that such cards are too inexpensive for what they do.

DemonDragonJ on Why Are Most Hatebears so …

2 months ago

A "hatebear" is a permanent, usually a creature, that prevents something from happening or otherwise hinders a certain strategy, with some well-known examples of such cards being Containment Priest, Drannith Magistrate, Collector Ouphe, Hushwing Gryff, Hushbringer, and so forth, and such permanents tend to be rather inexpensive, which I severely dislike, as I feel that cards that can completely shut down certain strategies should be more expensive. I am not bothered by Linvala, Keeper of Silence or Angel of Jubilation, since they have stricter casting costs than the other cards that I mentioned, nor by Ash Zealot, since that creature punishes a player for doing something, but does not outright forbid them from doing so, as do most of the others.

What does everyone else say about this? Why are most hatebears so inexpensive? Should it not cost more mana to utterly ruin a deck's strategy?

DreadKhan on Trying to maximize the power …

2 months ago

Have you ever thought about Witch's Clinic or Devoted Caretaker? Not quite sure what constitutes an '8', but Crackdown is pretty neat in mono-White, few people run big White creatures, it's probably a better defense than Ghostly Prison or Norn's Annex, but it might paint a target on your back. I think at a power level of 8 you can run something like Drannith Magistrate, that might be worth a look.

Wipes are very important as your power level goes up, people's decks get 'out of hand' both quicker and to a greater extreme, even 'fair' decks might have a much scarier board than you. Even in cEDH I hear about people using wipes these days, Promise of Loyalty is one I like, this will clear out even wide boards and force people to go after each other. The Eternal Wanderer is also interesting, but she is 6 mana for a pretty fun wipe in Voltron decks. There is also Single Combat, I suppose if you keep your Commander who cares if you can't summon any new creatures?

If your power level is reasonably high you can almost count on someone drawing quite a few more cards than you, maybe Wedding Ring would be worth it?

Azoth2099 on Narset's Work Out Plan

2 months ago

Bkotz

This version of Narset looks so fun, man!

One thing that I feel is fundamental when remembering Narset, Enlightened Exile's function as a Commander is that her ability gives you Graveyard hate as well as pseudo card draw by giving you access to your opponent's Graveyards as well as your own, meaning that you will always have card advantage as long as you protect your Commander.

That being said, I would definitely find room for Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Mother of Runes, Giver of Runes, & an abundance of Counterspells. Personally, I don't like spending more than 1 Mana for a Counterspell these days. Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, Dispel, Swan Song & An Offer You Can't Refuse provide a crazy ceiling of value for a single Mana. If you wanted to roll with 2-drops for budget reasons, though, Delay, Arcane Denial, Dovin's Veto & Negate are all easy to cast, & throw a wide net. Misdirection & Bolt Bend are also options here.

Secondly, Narset, Enlightened Exile can only trigger on your own turn, & you need to ensure that everything is going to go as planned. Grand Abolisher & Conqueror's Flail will lock your opponents out of your turn without giving your opponents the same utility like cards like Teferi, Time Raveler & Defense Grid notoriously do. Silence, Revel in Silence  ^Flip, Abeyance & Orim's Chant can do something similar for 1-2 Mana.

Speaking of Stax, there are a few concise, utilitarian pieces that you may want to consider. Drannith Magistrate, Sanctum Prelate, Archon of Emeria, Lavinia, Azorious Renegade, Boromir, Warden of the Tower, Aven Mindcensor & Containment Priest shut down a LOT of strategies. You'd be surprised how little most decks can do once you take away their ability to cheat stuff in, Tutor and/or cast things for free. Personally, every deck I have is heavily handicapped by all of those pieces. I wouldn't even be able to target them with removal if you played your cards right.

For noncreature Stax, you've got Chalice of the Void, Cursed Totem, Thorn of Amethyst, Deafening Silence, Grafdigger's Cage (which your Commander's ability gets around btw, very strong here), & Rule of Law as a few solid options.

You do need quite a bit more card draw, though. Scroll Rack & Sensei's Divining Top are obviously great, but the level of toolbox utility they actually give you in practice is even better than it seems! Archivist of Oghma, Faerie Mastermind & Ledger Shredder all give you card draw that scales with what your opponents are doing, which is fantastic. Other things like Deep Gnome Terramancer & Wandering Archaic  ^Flip do the same thing, though they technically aren't card draw. Hell, might as well throw Monologue Tax out there too since I'm talking about scaling.

There's also Careful Study, Frantic Search, Tolarian Winds, Faithless Looting, Cathartic Reunion, Burning Inquiry, Thrill of Possibility & Dragon's Rage Channeler, which are great synergy here!

Speaking of synergy, let's get into that! The foremost synergies for Narset, Enlightened Exile imho is Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + Brain Freeze & Intuition, and much of the deck should be geared towards maximizing on that. They're all very easy to Tutor up via cards like Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Solve the Equation, Fabricate, Reshape, Transmute Artifact, Reckless Handling, Goblin Engineer & Gamble, in addition to being easy to recur via your Commander's ability. It's actually absurd, truly busted. I wouldn't recommend throwing Wheels like Wheel of Fortune or Windfall into the mix, though. They're very overrated, & you can just run Brain Freeze for the combo instead. No need to give all of your opponents a bunch of cards for free if you don't have to! Queen Kayla bin-Kroog is for sure worth consideration, though, if you choose to run Artifact Stax.

Maximizing on Underworld Breach, however, means running Storm. I'd recommend Birgi, God of Storytelling  ^Flip, Storm-Kiln Artist, Urabrask  ^Flip, Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual & Seething Song to keep your Storm engine from shutting off. I personally don't condone Runaway Steam-Kin, as it's just too freaking slow & conditional compared to other options.

Additional Combat Phases would also be of great use here as opposed to trigger doublers like Strionic Resonator or something. Aggravated Assault, Waves of Aggression, World at War & Seize the Day are the only ones I'd consider running, though. You don't wanna load up on too many synergy effects when you can just Tutor for the best of them when the time's right, ya know?

Since you're running Dockside Extortionist, I'd also consider Cloudstone Curio. With one other Creature (like Spellseeker for example), you can produce infinite Treasures & ETBs with little effort, which is usually more than enough to get you to the finish line.

Your ramp package is looking solid enough, but I'd include 2 more Rocks as well as the rituals I named previously. Fellwar Stone is, functionally, a 5-color Rock for 2 Mana, which is absurd. I tend to not condone 3-drop rocks, with the exception of Chromatic Lantern, which was just reprinted recently and is currently super cheap.

Oh man, now that I think of it Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal gives your whole team infinite power and toughness via your Commander, as well as giving you infinite Mana if you have enough Rocks on the field. Maybe consider it lol.

Monastery Mentor seems to fit like glove here as well, offering some much needed redundancy and a surprising amount of board presence. It's kind of like Deep Gnome Terramancer or Wandering Archaic  ^Flip in the sense that it just provides waaaay more value while playtesting than you thought it was going to!

Also, consider giving yourself Hexproof with stuff like Witchbane Orb to protect your own Graveyard.

To summarize, I really think your best bet with this one is building a system that gets to either an Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + Brain Freeze combo win or an Intuition win as quickly as possible, with other combos like Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter being strong potentialities on the way.

Cheers!