Fathom Trawl

Sorcery

Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal three nonland cards. Put the nonland cards revealed this way into your hand, then put the rest of the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in any order.

Legality

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

Discussion (8)

SufferFromEDHD on Keranos Lands

1 year ago

Such a clever concept. Big fan of "less is more" and this list is it. I too have an Izzet 43 Lands.dec list piloted by Keranos but my theme/gimmick was Legacy 43 lands.dec your glass cannon heavy land based combo is awesome!

I'm going to spit ball some ideas because your list got my creative juices flowing:

Cursed Scroll that many basics makes this efficient colorless damage.

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle make something out of all those basic mountains.

Fiery Islet/Prismari Campus high quality filter and card draw.

Tolaria West tutor for the utility lands.

Burning Sands/Mana BreachOverburden I always try and sneak a stax tax or 2 in my combo decks. These similar cards are an irrelevant tax to you but brutal to aggro strategies.

Back to Basics brutal to greedy mana bases.

Retreat to Coralhelm/Valakut Exploration good value for playing lands.

Fathom Trawl cascade tutor. Treasure Hunt #2

Cut Tectonic Reformation. Add Trade Routes. The synergy with Seismic Assault is necessary to your strategy.

Optimator on

3 years ago

Drop Faerie Tauntings , Ashiok, Nightmare Muse , Traumatize , Trepanation Blade , add about one or two more ramp and two more card-draw at least. I almost always run 8 pieces of ramp and the prevailing wisdom is 10. Same for card-draw: I aim for 8, many aim for 10. Extra ramp is great with Oona's ability and card-draw can draw you into lands and just generally smooth everything out.

Reconnaissance Mission would be good. Treasure Cruise is often almost an Ancestral Recall and is budget too. Even though you're running Blue , Read the Bones is a great rate, as is Night's Whisper . Divination , Concentrate , and Tidings are all great on a budget, if a bit unexciting.

I love Keep Watch , Borrowing 100,000 Arrows , Theft of Dreams , Insight , Windfall , Plea for Power , Curse of Verbosity , and Manifold Insights but they are swingy. High ceilings, low floors. The mana cost on them is what makes them so good.

Midnight Clock is budget right now but it's starting to make waves. Get yours now while they're cheap. Ramp AND draw! Great on a budget.

Secrets of the Golden City and Kumena's Awakening should usually be City's Blessing-ed. I like Kimena's a lot on a budget (along with Patient Rebuilding ). Rush of Knowledge is decent if you have Oona out. Fathom Trawl is a guaranteed three non-lands, though it might be a bit lackluster with so many faeries. Not a bad card though. Mind Spring is great with ramp.

Drawn from Dreams and Dig Through Time are probably better than Diabolic Tutor until you have a game-winning card in the deck like Coat of Arms or some combo pieces (of which all are out-of-budget). I'd say drop Diabolic Tutor . Diabolic Vision is all right on a budget, as is Pilfered Plans , Forbidden Alchemy , and Notion Rain . We can probably do better, even on a tight budget.

Soul Ransom is kind of faerie-ish. Pact of the Serpent maybe?

With all your fliers, Rogue's Gloves and Mask of Memory are fantastic card-draw cards. Mask of Riddles is cute. Curiosity and Curious Obsession are decent but dangerous. Chart a Course is decent with fliers. Whispering Madness can be good with fliers too.

I have mixed feelings about Opt , Serum Visions , Sleight of Hand , Ponder , Preordain , Portent . They certainly don't hurt but they're bad late-game. I run them in some decks. Consider them if most of your card-draw is expensive. Brainstorm is a bit of a trap unless you have ways to shuffle your library and get rig of unwanted cards. This usually requires fetch lands like Polluted Delta and is better in 60-card formats.

Rain of Revelation , Archmage's Charm , Fact or Fiction , Succumb to Temptation , Precognitive Perception , Frantic Search , Pull from Tomorrow , Gush , Village Rites are all good for being instants so you can leave counterspells up and if you don't need them you can draw. That's one of the reasons a card like Anticipate looks weak but is nice for keeping counterspells open. Fact or Fiction is particularly good and is considered a staple in many formats, including EDH.

I would swap out Dimir Locket and Dimir Cluestone for Mind Stone and Prismatic Lens . Maybe Star Compass if it is in budget. I know you need your colors but 3-mana mana rocks that don't have huge upside are sooooo slow. Arcane Signet is probably out of budget, which is too bad. Is Wayfarer's Bauble still expensive? Probably. Worn Powerstone and Hedron Archive maybe? Oona isn't cheap and you want mana for her ability if push comes to shove. Trinket Mage is ramp because it can snag Sol Ring , making it the same rate as Explosive Vegetation and Hedron Archive .

Optimator on Giant's Deck

3 years ago

The amount of utility cards that facilitates for a large-creature/stompy deck (like giant tribal) is completely unparalleled and unrivaled. There are things--both budget and expensive--like Garruk's Uprising, Soul's Majesty, Hunter's Insight, Snake Umbra, Triumph of Ferocity, Lead the Stampede, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Return of the Wildspeaker, Abundance, Rhythm of the Wild, Selvala's Stampede, Shamanic Revelation, Elemental Bond, Colossal Majesty, Guardian Project, Rancor, Primal Rage, Heroic Intervention, Wrap in Vigor, Golgari Charm, Lifecrafter's Bestiary, Canopy Cover, Aspect of Mongoose, Alpha Authority, Asceticism, Defense of the Heart, Lignify, Lurking Predators, Bow of Nylea, The Great Henge, Eerie Ultimatum, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Seasons Past, Reap the Past, Genesis Ultimatum, Beastmaster Ascension, Overwhelming Stampede...

The list is huge, and it grows every year.

This is on top of the superior ramping ability of Green and it's above-average removal options. One big advantage of Green's land-based ramp is things like Planar Cleansing, Hour of Revelation, Play of the Game, Bane of Progress, Creeping Corrosion, and Merciless Eviction can't send you back to the stone age by destroying all your mana rocks.

Everything you will want to be doing with Giant Tribal, Green supports and supports well. I cannot stress this enough. Not to mention the good green giants that keep getting printed.

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Black doesn't provide too much in the way of utility specific to giant tribal or stompy decks other than recursion and good card draw like Greed, Phyrexian Arena, and Erebos, God of the Dead. Personally I like cards like Damnable Pact, Read the Bones, Ancient Craving and Ambition's Cost but if you're running Green and/or Blue you shouldn't need to lose life to draw cards. Painful Truths might still be useful due to it's great rate (three cards for three mana is good). Syphon Mind is a great rate and has the upside of making your opponents discard.

Obviously Black specializes in removal (but so does White!) so you could run things like Mortify, Despark, Utter End, Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Dreadbore, Terminate, Bedevil and Ruinous Ultimatum. In Garruk's Wake and Decree of Pain are probably good in your giant deck since you're ramping so hard. Since you're running White you shouldn't need Black's wraths, but those two stood out.

Things like Phyrexian Reclamation, Animate Dead, and Reanimate are great for creature decks. Palace Siege is all right on a budget. So is Twilight's Call. It's no Oversold Cemetery or Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Rise of the Dark Realms but those are pricey. Recovering from boardwipes will be important.

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Blue has some interesting removal options like Curse of the Swine, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift. You have some Cyclonic Rifts in your trade binder, right? That alone is a great reason to run Blue in your deck (it's literally one of the best cards in EDH straight-up). Do it!

Blue also has all the card-draw--from per-turn stuff like Kumena's Awakening and Mind Unbound; chunks of cards like Concentrate, Treasure Cruise, Fact or Fiction, Fathom Trawl, and Tidings; huge hand-refillers like Overflowing Insight, Mind Spring, Stroke of Genius, and Pull from Tomorrow; and some sneaky stuff like Windfall, Keep Watch, Drawn from Dreams, Verity Circle, and Insight. Green has some amazing card-draw already but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to supplement it with Blue cards. Rush of Knowledge would be REALLY good in a giant-tribal deck--especially with Morophon, the Boundless at the helm.

Counterspells are very much not Giant/Stompy but I have a few aggro decks that run a silver-bullet copy of Negate or Swan Song just as anti-boardwipe tech. Not necessary though. Boros Charm, Golgari Charm, and Wrap in Vigor work well in that capacity. There are lots of 3-cmc options too but the mana difference between 2 and 3 is huge.

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You could even run some interesting charms like Abzan Charm or Esper Charm. There are some surprisingly potent options. Some are stinkers of course.

Temur Ascendancy would be reason alone to run five colors and be utterly fantastic in this deck.

Garruk's Uprising alone is reason to run at least Green.

Merciless Eviction is one of the best removal spells in the game. Four or five colors would allow you to run that.

Urban Evolution would be good in a big-mana deck like this. Inspired Ultimatum, while not amazing, is playable.

You get the idea.

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As you can see, there is a myriad of reasons to run more colors. Honestly, I really can't recommend it enough if true Giant-Tribal is the goal--whether Naya giants or five-color giants.

One extremely important thing for large-creature decks is to consider how you're going to recover from board wipes. Superior card-draw from Green, Black, and Blue cards will help immensely. Card advantage like Phyrexian Reclamation, Palace Siege, Seasons Past, All Suns' Dawn, Reap the Past, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Eerie Ultimatum, and abilities like Mayael the Anima's, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim's, and Kenrith, the Returned King's reanimate ability will help you recover. These are things that Red and White simply can't do well. Sure there's Resurrection and Reya Dawnbringer, but they aren't great.

Brion Stoutarm is a legitimately good general--he really is!--but not for giant tribal. He brings nothing to the table for giant tribal other than being a decently-statted Giant himself and pigeonholes you into the worst color pair in EDH for essentially no benefit. As I mentioned, Iroas, God of Victory and, to a lesser extent, Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas would make better commanders if you are dead-set on Boros colors (which I do not recommend if you want to play maximum giants). If you were building around Brion's ability and had some giants around as support that would be one thing, but it seems that's not the goal. As such, please consider switching commanders :) I think that if you want Brion Stoutarm as the commander, you should make a Brion deck.

I really do think you'll be happier in the long run with a different commander It doesn't have to be expensive. Most of what you would need I can trade to you, including Morophon, the Boundless, and most supplemental cards I don't have are in the 25-cent to $1 range (Realm-Cloaked Giant, Mayael the Anima, etc). I actually have a shitload of this utility stuff on-hand, and you have some great staples like Cyclonic Rift on-hand--and probably more! I want you to be satisfied with your deck! It doesn't have to be competitive to be fun, but it doesn't have to be expensive to work better and smoother and be more competitive.

Optimator on Mermaider

3 years ago

Owned:

Brainstorm - Deepfathom Skulker - Mind Spring - Fathom Trawl - Patient Rebuilding - Fact or Fiction - Divination - Borrowing 100,000 Arrows - Fascination - Loyal Drake - Thought Sponge - Insight - Ancestral Memories - Kumena's Awakening - Opportunity - Verity Circle - Arcanis the Omnipotent - Deep Analysis - Rush of Knowledge - Keep Watch

broccolus on Budget Metallurgic Summonings

6 years ago

Eye of the Storm + Temporal Trespass + Fathom Trawl would combo really well together, would add a fun secondary win condition. Essentially infinite turns until you run out of instants, at which point you've likely already won.

Enlightened_Magi on THE MANLIEST 95 LAND EDH DECK YOU'LL EVER SEE

7 years ago

pickelchu I was thinking the same thing, I don't understand why there is Gitaxian Probe in the deck besides for intimidation purposes and to trigger the card draw for 0 mana, which is fine. However I almost want to reccomend replacing it with Personal Tutor so that on turn 1 or early game you can guarentee that Fathom Trawl is in your hand by turn 5.

Tyrannosary on WINNING WITH A 6$ DECK (GONE WRONG) (GONE SEXUAL)

8 years ago

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO CONSISTENTLY GET Fathom Trawl!!!?!!!

PookandPie on Alternate play mode for commander

8 years ago

The tutor limit would prevent cards such as Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, etc. (any, "Search your library" spell) from finding things such as Cabal Coffers or any other land while being Strip Mined. "Find any card" tutors should still be able to tutor any card (otherwise they are made weaker for no reason), but it gives away important strategic information by simply allowing your opponents to know which deck you're searching.

If you search the lands 'library' with Demonic Tutor, that could be a clear sign to your opponents that you're mana screwed, thereby giving them information they would not have in normal Magic: The Gathering, which could easily cause you to be the target of multiple Strip Mine/Wastelands, simply because they would have the most impact being used against you in this situation (also, it could be very easy to see when someone is going for their Gaea's Cradle or Cabal Coffers, which is information you would not normally have). Similarly, should your opponents be destroying lands and you use it to search the spells 'library', then they know you're either stopping whatever is causing lands to go to the graveyard or your hand is full of lands, meaning you are not scared of them (which is information the opponents would not normally have).

One of these instances hurts more than the other, but it is a loss of what typically makes black tutor-alls powerful. It eliminates the guessing game of, "What exactly did he go grab that can stop me?" and replaces it with, "He grabbed nothing to stop me since he checked the land library."

Sometimes, you need to Intuition for three lands. Sometimes, you need to Green Sun's Zenith for Dryad Arbor. Sometimes you need to spend an Arcum Dagsson activation to grab a Darksteel Citadel. Deck size restrictions stop fun combos from functioning with Ad Nauseam, notwithstanding, Ad Nauseam would either be overpowered as a 5 mana draw 30 for 0 life, or it would be reduced to being half-worthless.

Coiling Oracle either draws a card, guaranteed, ramps a land, guaranteed, or it does both depending on which library it can check (making it significantly more powerful than before, since it required topdeck manipulation to always get your desired result). Countryside Crusher either does nothing or gets 30+ counters immediately. Druidic Satchel, Courser of Kruphix, Erratic Explosion, Erratic Mutation, Fathom Trawl, Goblin Machinist, Explorer's Scope, Into the Wilds, Nissa, Sage Animist, Abundance, and more, become either significantly weaker or stronger. Other problem children were mentioned above, like Goblin Charbelcher, Mind Grind, Trepanation Blade, Mind Funeral, etc.. Cards like Selvala and Woodvine Elemental would be guaranteed value, while Treasure Hunt and Scouting Trek do nothing. Hermit Druid and Avenging Druid become guaranteed, giving Hermit Druid decks a leg up as they no longer are required to have a Wasteland weakness.

Honestly, I just don't see why you don't begin the game with an Abundance token on the battlefield. Keep the 1 library setup, but if you need lands, get them until you are satisfied. Using lands is integral with tons of cards in MtG, and segregating the libraries seems unnecessarily messy. What you want to do is guaranteed by Abundance, so why not just start with a token of it in play if it's really that important? Seems like it would break fewer things and be a more elegant solution than "Some tutors work, some don't, some cards work way better than they used to, a fair number don't work at all." Sure, the guy with a dubious starting hand (no colored mana producing cards, but all combo pieces) can keep the hand rather than shipping part of it away, but that still seems like a better solution, to me.

Problem summary:

-Loss of strategy when tutoring in multiplayer games
-The sheer number of cards that don't work, are now guaranteed value, or are significantly weaker is not worth this library split. Abundance does what you want, begin with a token of it in play (or in the Command Zone, if you don't want to ever let it get destroyed).

Take my skepticism with this, however: