Eight-and-a-Half-Tails

Legendary Creature — Fox Cleric

: Target permanent you control gains protection from white until end of turn.

: Target spell or permanent becomes white until end of turn.

Discussion (51)

Drcfan on Devotion to White Angels

1 month ago

@Gloglok

• Gideon of the Trials is a very versatile card on its own but i had to swap it out because Runed Halo has no synergy with any planeswalkers. Runed Halo showed to be just too good to be swapped out. (It only struggles if you always play against new brew decks)

• Skyclave Apparition is an option i'm testing at the moment (Works quite good). It would fit way better if it were an Angel or Human though (for Caverns and Deck flavor). You would have to swap out Wall of Omens for Charming Prince then for the additional interaction.

• Linvala, Keeper of Silence I keep her in here because i have someone who plays Slivers in my playgroup with a value combo Dormant Sliver and later Necrotic Sliver. If she enters the battlefield, it's game. Lyra Dawnbringer is really nice but its ability need a lot of Angels on the battlefield. She works way better if the Angels are cheap, like 2 - 3 mana drops. I've not seen a non lifegain Angel that low except maybe Serra Avenger

• Giver of Runes is insane and would be a great addition, because i cannot deal with Path to Exile myself. I tried it with Ranger-Captain of Eos a while ago but somehow the deck got slow i lost one match after the other. Not sure how i could include Giver of Runes at the moment. I have a Eight-and-a-Half-Tails Sideboard against control which you can fetch.

• Emeria, Shattered Skyclave is a must include for this deck even if you cannot fetch it. Every white deck i own has it now. Ondu Skyruins is not really needed, i included it because i play a lot of multiplayer at the moment.

• Secluded Steppe + Mistveil Plains gives Weathered Wayfarer the ability to tap and draw a card for 4 mana (Activating Mistveil Plains cost 1 mana. At least some card draw engine, you can try Arch of Orazca if you like it more. I like the land fetch ability more XD).

What i really need for this deck is 3 drop removal better than Oblivion Ring. Grasp of Fate is strictly better but not modern. Banisher Priest and Fiend Hunter die easily to removal. I hope some day a set will bring something printed on an Angel

Kind Regards -Drcfan

Drcfan on Devotion to White Angels

4 months ago

@ DrCinnamon

• Grand Abolisher can help a lot against control decks and suits the devotion plan as well. If you face control often, you can also include other anti control cards. Fell free to experiment with Eight-and-a-Half-Tails, Favor of the Mighty, 4x Cavern of Souls, Giver of Runes, Greater Auramancy, Ranger-Captain of Eos, Pristine Angel, Voice of All, Pentarch Ward, Spectra Ward. Control has always the upper hand over you, this helps to bind their hands.

• Luminous Broodmoth it's not an Angel and you control not enough non flyers that are worth to keep alive. You can run a creature only strategy. I suggest you look at death and taxes decks and draw inspiration from there.

• Angels do not synergize with anything. You play Angels only because you like Angels not for competitive reasons. There is an option for a lifegain Angels deck (I'm working on it right now) but it uses very different kind of Angels Angel of Vitality, Resplendent Angel, Archangel of Thune, Lyra Dawnbringer and a lot of 1 life passive trigger cards.

• If you add another color or colorless, you destroy the devotion plan. Therefore you need another strategy to get Angels out. See "Other strategies" in description

Rhadamanthus on When exactly is a spell …

7 months ago

Unfortunately no, this won't work. By the time you're able to activate Eight-and-a-Half-Tails' ability, you're already past the point where Ivory Cup would trigger.

For spells, "play" and "cast" mean the same thing (you can see in the current official Oracle text on Ivory Cup's Gatherer entry that it's been updated to use the word "cast"). A spell is officially "cast" after the player has finished making all the decisions for it and paying all the costs. Players get a chance to make responses after the casting process is completed but before the spell starts resolving. In your example that means you've already finished casting the spell when you get the opportunity to use Eight-and-a-Half-Tails to turn it white. The time that Ivory Cup would have triggered is already passed.

Tylord2894 on When exactly is a spell …

7 months ago

You can not use Eight-and-a-Half-Tails's second ability to trigger Ivory Cup.

It's important to remember that Magic is almost 30 years old, so the wording that is printed on cards is very much subject to change. The update Oracle text of Ivory Cup uses "cast" instead of "played". I don't know what this change occurred, but a spell is not considered "played" anymore. It is always considered to be "cast" (there's an "exception" to this that I'll talk about later).

When casting a spell, there's a series of steps that the caster goes through, selecting modes/divisions/targets, determining costs, paying for costs, etc. The very last step in the process is declaring a spell to be "cast". That is when Ivory Cup will trigger. Since there is not an opportunity for you to resolve before that point, you can not use Eight-and-a-Half-Tails to change that spell to be white.

Now, this "exception" to the rule that "spells are only ever cast." Some cards will allow you to "play cards" from somewhere. For example, most "Impluse" effects (like the eponymous Act on Impulse) say that you can "play cards exiled this way". What this is trying to say in only a few words is that "you may cast spells or play lands exiled with Act on Impulse".

Hope this helps!!

Redriver18 on When exactly is a spell …

7 months ago

I am running a deck with Ivory Cup and Eight-and-a-Half-Tails. My question is, if I use Eight-and-a-Half-Tails to turn a non-white spell on the stack white, does it trigger Ivory Cup? I am confused about when a spell is considered to have been played as opposed to cast.

demont on Infinity On High

7 months ago

Ilvaldus i'd definelly like to see that Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite brew :D.

I run one Elesh Norn deck myself, but my brew is a more casual one, flooding tokens/anthems and tapping out, lot's of fun. Pretty strong card though, got the idea because of this list i run, it's very funny to watch other player's reactions when you drop her.

I imagine that in cEDH would be a massive punch for some decks, cause it completetly nullifies some cedh commanders (such as Kinnan, Najeela, Tymna, Edric etc).

But rolling back to the discussion, i understand your points, i'll probably give it a try on those cards, specially on the totem and the stakes, just to see how it runs.

There are a few other points i'd like to brainstorm with you, about board protection. I've noticed my pieces are not destroyed very often, i imagine it's because we just break the stax parity slightly (unlike an Urza for instance) and most of the stax affect's all players kind of equally, so people usually focus their hates on other player's more dangerous stuff. With that in mind though, i was wondering about a few protection pieces like Teferi's Protection or something less "one shot" and also less traditional like a Eight-and-a-Half-Tails. I was wondering it wouldn't be worth a shot over the Karmic Justice let's say. I know is a good political card but i noticed sometimes it doesn't really matter for the opponent casting hate because he does not control a non-creature piece to suffer from the trigger, not to mention the creature hate that is not affected by it at all.

But to be honest this current build is running very smoothly for me. It somehow achieves consistency through the games, even without many tutors/draw options being a mono white deck. I'm getting a pretty good win rate even when playing against some high lvl decks (First Sliver, Medium Green, Urza etc), so overall this is a very competitive build imho. I've also noticed that when you're facing some decks that also runs a few stax pieces, we also benefit from the table slow down overall so, it's very interesting for me to see that we get advantage from another player's card, it's kinda like a virtual card advantage.

Anywayz, fun discussion man, as a enthusiast of mono white and mono red decks i appreciate this brew, keep it up!

NV_1980 on Avacyn's Angels of the Apocalypse

8 months ago

Hi,

In an Avacyn deck, the main problem you're facing is getting her on the board and then keeping her there. We would therefore recommend you think about the following cards:

• Cavern of Souls: makes all your Angels immune to countering; very expensive though.
• Silence: of course, this can be countered by itself, but if it isn't you can summon Avacyn next with impunity.
• Defense Grid: tax on spells that counter; wonderful!
• Mana Web: forces opponents to use up way more mana sources than they might want to during their own turns, making less mana available for spell-casting.
• Grand Abolisher: we second vasarto77's suggestion; please mainboard this because it is so good.
• Mother of Runes/Giver of Runes/Eight-and-a-Half-Tails: great protection in case the greaves/boots are unavailable.
• Shadowspear: not for your protection, but to deal with theirs in case they have it.

We hope you enjoy this feedback. Have fun with the brew. In case you are curious, here is our Avacyn deck.

Regards,

Mrs. and Mr. NV_1980

JANKYARD_DOG on Maro's Core Set 2021 Teaser

8 months ago

List Continued

Note: re:Above list. Serra has no creature legendary so it may exclude her.

1. Arcanis the Omnipotent
2. Bosh, Iron Golem
3. Dakkon Blackblade
4. Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
5. Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
6. Higure, the Still Wind
7. Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
8. Jaya Ballard (one creature, 2 walkers)
9. Karona, False God
10. Kresh the Bloodbraided
11. Lyzolda, the Blood Witch
12. Malfegor
13. Maralen of the Mornsong
14. Mayael the Anima
15. Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
16. Morinfen
17. Phage the Untouchable
18. Raksha Golden Cub
19. Reaper King
20. Rith, the Awakener
21. Sakashima the Impostor
22. Seshiro the Anointed
23. Sisters of Stone Death

So now figure out which ones are most likely to fit into Tefiri's Past/Lore. Still say Sidar is most likely, But Jaya as another creature card could be possible I suppose.