Elspeth Conquers Death

Enchantment — Saga

(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice this Saga after III)

— Exile target permanent an opponent controls with converted mana cost 3 or greater.

— Noncreature spells your opponents cast cost more to cast until your next turn.

— Return target creature or planeswalker card from your graveyard to the battlefield. Put a +1/+1 counter or a loyalty counter on it.

Discussion (51)

Kwhill on Derevi, Empyrial Tactician

3 weeks ago

I'd recommend cutting the following cards right away:
Tidal Force (Doesn't do much. Very expensive.)
Siege Behemoth (Good effect, but very expensive.)
Emmara Tandris (It doesn't look like you really have that many tokens. Not sure why this is here.)
Deepfathom Skulker (Good trigger, but expensive, and you can't activate its second ability easily.)
Archon of Coronation (Really easy to lose the monarch and it doesn't do much besides give you the monarch.)
Amareth, the Lustrous (Not really that good. Very rarely will draw you anything in general and the body is very meh.)
Inniaz, the Gale Force (I don't like this kind of effect. You are forced to give up something.)
God-Eternal Oketra (The tokens are okay, but it really doesn't do enough IMO)
Archon of Redemption (3/4 flyer for 5 with a situational life gain effect is pretty bad...)
Angel of Destiny (If it ever gets removed, all you did by attacking, possibly losing creatures in the process, possibly taking hits because your defense are down, was gain life. It just seems like the card really does nothing.)
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice (Not enough token synergy to matter. Life gain is not very good.)
Thassa, Deep-Dwelling (This doesn't do much in your deck. IMO)
Basri's Lieutenant (With almost no +1/+1 counter synergy in the deck, this really doesn't do anything for you.)
Adrix and Nev, Twincasters (Not enough token synergy.)
Niambi, Esteemed Speaker (Can save a creature, but other than that, the card pretty much does nothing.)
Ornithopter of Paradise (Can't trigger Derevi because it has 0 power. Pretty bad as a ramp card too.)
Rhys the Redeemed (Not being elf tribal or big on tokens means that he won't do much.)
Parhelion II (Way too expensive and really doesn't do that much for its cost.)
Righteous Authority (Very expensive and no way to abuse it in the deck currently.)
Cosmos Elixir (You have a ton of draw in the form of "when a creature deals combat damage, draw 1" type cards. You don't need this IMO.)
Sword of Vengeance , Sword of Body and Mind (Not really sure what they're supposed to do for you. Tiny pumps and trample aren't going to help you much IMO.)
Combine Chrysalis (Not enough tokens.)
Sol Talisman (Why is this not Sol Ring?)
Cloudshift , Ephemerate (Almost no abusable ETBs)
Griffin Aerie (Not enough life gain to make this work and not even a great effect.)
Garruk's Uprising (I feel like you should probably be focusing on smaller bodies, not bigger ones.)
Growing Ranks (Not enough tokens.)
Elspeth Conquers Death (Doesn't really do anything you're looking for IMO.)

That's just the ones I would cut right away for not being good in general or not fitting with your strategy.

The token subtheme is kind of unfitting IMO. There's only a few tokens here and there, and a lot of them are "big" tokens, not little ones that can trigger Derevi a lot, but then you also have lots of things to take advantage of tokens even though you don't have that many things that produce tokens (and a lot of times, they're too expensive). If you want to focus a deck on tokens, I think you should choose a different commander.

In general, I think you should probably focus more on having a bunch of smaller creatures so you can get lots of Derevi triggers rather than bigger creatures. This could be a way to work in tokens if you want to push it, because you could focus on smaller tokens that you can push out very cheap and early in the game.

In addition to this, you may also want to consider putting in more cards that you can abuse with Derevi. I love the inspire guy you have in there, Arbiter of the Ideal (don't know if you know, but you can stack tap/untap/tap/untap triggers on him and trigger inspire a bunch of times in one combat!). I think you should focus on this kind of effect more.

I think you should also try to put a little more ramp in there. Sol Ring, Simic Signet, Arcane Signet, and maybe a couple other mana rocks are noticeably missing.

That's pretty much all I have to say about it right now. Let me know what you think!

DanMcSharp on Orzhov Control actually OKAY?

1 month ago

Yeah I ended up in the same position, I built the entire deck around Tergrid, God of Fright  ^Flip but eventually figured that it was still almost always better to use Tergrid's Lantern instead.

She still sees some play either as the 2nd copy I draw, or when brought back from by Elspeth Conquers Death though. Sometimes against deck with few or no removal she works wonders too. For what it's worth, running a must answer Rankle, Master of Pranks sometimes makes it more likely that she survives later as well.

As for what you could cut, I would also go with Doom Foretold mostly because I tend to cut 4x higher cmc first when I try to make room, and yeah cutting an Elderfang Disciple seems fine too since running 8 of those weak creatures that make the opponent discard can make for pretty weak top-decks eventually.

Btw, any reasons why you play 4 Vanishing Verse rather than maybe 2 of those and maybe 2 Heartless Act to have more removal conditions to work with?

Jonesbond49 on Friends with Atraxa 2.0

2 months ago

Here is a list of cards that caught my eye.

Planeswalers:

Elspeth, Sun's Champion creates blockers and wraths big creatures.

Garruk, Cursed Huntsman creates blockers and destroys a creature while drawing you a card.

Ashiok, Nightmare Muse creates a blocker and bounces a creature while disrupting a hand.

Removal: Elspeth Conquers Death is just a good removal piece that returns a creature/planeswalker on the third chapter.

Wraths: Austere Command , Time Wipe , Cleansing Nova , and Doomskar .

Cards that save or reanimate: Semester's End (new card), Triumphant Reckoning , and Primevals' Glorious Rebirth

gumbogogo on Runetron, Defender of Realms

5 months ago

The Birth of Meletis might be worth considering. Along with a few other control-y white cards like Banishing Light and Elspeth Conquers Death .

Neotrup on MTGA destroyed my Athreos, shroud-veiled

5 months ago

What comes to mind, especially mentioning he had an enchantment out, is Elspeth Conquers Death , which would work to remove Athreos, Shroud-Veiled , but as said was said, without knowing the actual cards involved, it's hard to say. Could have been Arena messing up, or could have been the specific cards involved.

ShiltonCDXX on New Standard Shrines

5 months ago

I had thought about that but have found Banishing Light , Elspeth Conquers Death and Calix, Destiny's Hand are able to take care of any non-creature permanents causing issues.

I only use these on creatures if there are no other non-land permanent types.

Heartless Act only targets creatures also btw.

Polaris on Why in Arena when I …

5 months ago

The reason is Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider hard-counters Sagas. You, the opponent, cast a Saga. When it enters the battlefield it tries to put a counter on itself, but because of Vorinclex's last ability it puts 1/2 rounded down to zero counters. It never gets any counters at all while Vorinclex is in play (unless you had a Vorinclex out yourself), even during your subsequent draw steps.

Removing Vorinclex will let the saga progress normally; on your draw the turn after you remove Vorinclex, Elspeth Conquers Death will get its first counter and exile a permanent, and the subsequent turns will trigger chapters 2 and 3.

DanMcSharp on Eat the Rich

6 months ago

Hello,

I'd be curious to see how this deck plays out, but at a glance there seems to be a few things that could backfire on you. Those Hushbringer would stop your Skyclave Apparition , Containment Priest would ruin the 3rd chapter of Elspeth Conquers Death , Vryn Wingmare makes your own spells more expensive... It would be a shame if you played it as a blocker against an aggressive deck to then not be able to cast a wipe the board on time.

It's also pretty gutsy of you to only run 19 lands. A prison deck certainly doesn't want to fall behind if it hopes to keep the opponent in check as the game progresses. The Birth of Meletis is supposed to give you an edge, but with so few lands it will often be what you HAVE to play just to hit your land drops instead of whatever else you'd rather do.

Anyway, good luck! Cheers!