Fog

Instant

Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn.

Discussion (41)

Balaam__ on Killer Krab Kult of Innistrad (Azorius Eldrazi)

1 week ago

You could run Kami of False Hope as a one drop for a repeatable Fog, protecting your side of the table from any combat damage. You’d still have to worry about targeted removal, but I think it’s worth considering.

Mana_Mythic_Legendary on Pursuing Perfection, Part 8: Rakdos …

2 weeks ago

Brothers, sisters, and assorted non-binary siblings, welcome to the riot! You like throwing waves of frothing, hasty lunatics at your opponent AND profiting when said lunatics die? We got you! You like watching the world burn and don’t mind getting caught in the flames? We got you! You like anarchy? The purge movies? Gender reveal parties? We got you! Rakdos is the proud home of those who take pleasure at the expense of others, the sort of people who like to mix Skittles and M&Ms in the same party bowl. If that sounds fun, then just you wait: in the house of red and black, that sort of misbehavior is only the appetizer.

Haste and sacrifice. Vampirism and burn. Discard in both barrels. This is a beautifully synergistic color pairing that belongs in the same league as peanut butter and chocolate. Heath Ledger’s joker undoutably played a rakdos deck: things like Havoc Festival, Last One Standing, and Sire Of Insanity are all up the clown’s alley. There are a number of themes we can cover here, but as usual we’re settling for three: Discard, WAAAAGH, and Pain. As always, please bear in mind that the point isn’t a discussion of the competitive but rather as a celebration of the thematic.

Discard

This is both red’s primary draw resource and a uniquely black removal technique. Combining those aspects makes for a deck that both ruins opponent’s hands and digs through your own cards at shocking speed. Granted, you won’t have a big hand, but who cares? Suddenly you've got an overpacked graveyard at your black-hearted beck and call. Red self-mill and black reanimation, people, with just a naughty touch of haste. Discard a pile of hate and then pitch said pile straight into combat. You won’t be sorry.

A regular teddy bear, Chainer’s second coming is a real treat for anyone who left their graveyard hate at home. Haste on a stick is only a perk: suddenly your graveyard is only as full as you want it to be, and probably full of friendly, group-huggy things like Ravenous Chupacabra or Combustible Gearhulk. Yes, the table will certainly love you and your unending, undying deck of unbearable hellbeasts. Undoubtably.

Ok, this guy is horrifying, as you would expect of the king of Grixis. Anyone not running tokens is going to be mighty twitchy about seeing this guy hit the field, and who needs a hand anyway? Rakdos evidently loves empty hands, and rewards you for ensuring that particular misery has company. Consider, if you will, the fulsome, vicious suite of cards tied to poking those who discard. Consider Experimental Frenzy. Consider all the madness cards you could play (or, you know, just play Anje Falkenrath instead). And, if you get tired of the simple gains synergy can win you, you can always Demonfire someone.

THIS. This is neat. Leave aside the look on the face of that certain someone who steals everything on the board. Pay no mind that Seize the Day and all it’s red cousins can make Blim an unholy terror. Forget that you can pass off Demonic Pact, Grid Monitor, and whatever other obnoxiousness you can think of. None of that matters, no. This, for all you glorious nutters out there, is an excuse to finally play Nuisance Engine. That’s the takeaway here.

WAAAGH

Anyone can run tokens or big creatures, but only in Rakdos do you find the conjunction of boardwide haste and sacrifice. Harnessing right, proper WAAGH energy means not just drowning opponents in a tide of zippy little shits but also capitalizing on all that death to cause even more mayhem. Did you ever want to hold a bundle of fireworks, light them all at once, and watch whatever you point them at turn into a smoking, shredded pile of giblets? Here’s the lighter, fellas.

Treasure tokens. Nuff said.

There are a number of nasty combos here that I’d rather not spread. I’ll just say that long ago, I played many, many depressing games against a Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund deck. There was self-milling involved, and Living Death. Evidently, someone decided what the deck needed, rather than burning, was fewer moving parts. That someone deserves a long, interesting life in all the worst ways.

This guy makes me laugh. The idea of ruining the table’s carefully laid plans to off you and instead throwing them into combat with each other is absolutely hilarious. It’s like a Fog designed by someone with pyromania-by-proxy syndrome, and that second block of text the equivalent of throwing gasoline on an already burning house. Get a Conjurer's Closet in there and watch the fun.

Pain

Forget destroy effects. Those are too easy. Direct damage. -X/-X. -1/-1 counters. Life loss. All of the nastiness you can fling at opponents and creatures is under the umbrella of this color pairing. If you like blasting the unholy hell out of your opponents and their minions, this is the arsenal you’re looking to plunder. Stuff like Blasphemous Act, Toxic Deluge, or Orcus, Prince of Undeath will leave a smoldering crater of a battlefield, across which you’ll doubtless be stepping with appropriate gribbliness. Or launching that demonfire we talked about. Whatever works.

Ah, the original Mr. Stop-Hitting-Yourself. I’ve had my eye on this guy for over a decade. Do I own the deck? No. Do I intend to? Again, no. But the prospect here is so, soooo satisfying to think about. To hell with infinite combo fruitwaffles. Damned be those green jackasses ramming X cost spells down the table’s collective throat. Kaervek’s mean, but keeps it clean. Like, nuclear fire sterile clean, and the best part? It’s all self-inflicted!

We really can’t talk red-black without discussing demon himself (hehehe). This guy’s been piloting one of my decks for years, and for good reason. The lord of riots likes to pass out rewards for smacking people. Do you like to be rewarded for smacking people? I do. Rewarded with free things... Eldrazi things. Eldrazi things that tutor more things (Conduit of Ruin), reanimate more things (Artisan of Kozilek), or… well, you can always go for broke and just ruin someone else's things (Void Winnower). Run artifacts, like Hangarback Walker. Run X drops, like Maga, Traitor to Mortals. Run anything you like. Run everything you like. Just have fun running them for next to nothing.

-1/-1 counters, magic’s analogue for injury and agony. We really shouldn’t talk red-black without talking about Wither, the Everlasting Torment of a keyword that was a precursor to the dark days of Infect. It’s safe to say we all have opinions, for good or ill, about Infect’s place in commander. That said, if you want to play with -1/-1 counters and aren’t fond of green or dealing with those opinions, Scorpy’s first line of text makes this guy an overwhelmingly safe bet. Rocking crap like Black Sun's Zenith is the easy answer: let’s make this fun, discard a crapload of cards, and watch your opponent’s boards melt into obscene card advantage while your Archfiend of Ifnir giggles in the corner.

And for my personal favorite...

There is an unfortunate element of “screw you in particular” to Xantcha: declaring open season on somebody’s life total sends a particularly unpleasant message. This is another commander that, laying aside the card advantage, doesn’t bolster your deck, which makes for an interesting challenge. I’ve said it before, one hallmark of a good deck is the capability of functioning without its commander… though if you build this hateful beast, I suggest you pack lots and lots of ramp. Just ‘cause.

That's it for this round. Thoughts and questions are welcome. I hope you enjoyed it, and will come back next week for Gruul!

Prior Articles:

Dimir

Azorius

Green, with links to the other mono-colors

Epicurus on Card creation challenge

1 month ago

Granny Weatherwax

Legendary Creature - Human Warlock

Hexproof

Other Warlocks you control have Evolve

Coven - , Discard a card, : Choose a card name from among Pongify, Lightning Bolt or Fog. Create a copy of that spell. You may cast the copy without paying its mana cost. Use this ability only if you control 3 creatures with different powers.

2/5

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Bonus points if you know the reference.

Make a non-legendary creature with coven and one other named ability.

TypicalTimmy on Xytheria, Empress of Stone

1 month ago

Xytheria, Empress of Stone

Legendary Creature - Gorgon

Deathtouch, Menace

Whenever Xytheria, Empress of Stone destroys another nontoken creature, you may pay 3 life. If you do, exile that creature and create a colorless artifact token named Petrified Statue. It has ", , sacrifice this token: Prevent all damage dealt by target source this turn."

Xytheria, Empress of Stone gets +1/+1 for each token you control named Petrified Stone.

2/4

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Probably a really nice Precon Commander. First thoughts that come to mind are putting Fight cards in the deck with her, so she doesn't actually have to attack. Cards such as Epic Confrontation would be beautiful. Another solid pairing with her is Foe-Razer Regent for some additional +1/+1 counters. You could also introduce Doubling Season for that as well, and Parallel Lives and Primal Vigor. Once she's thiccer than your library, you can begin attacking relentlessly for some combat damage as your primary wincon via 21 Commander Damage. Slapping some Lifelink onto her is a great way to not die to the -3 payment, and adding on Trample is a good way to ensure she connects.

There are plenty of enchantments, equipment, instants and sorceries to ensure she always gets through. Basically, she's Voltron with an appreciation for tokens. For example, Thornbite Staff and Sword of Fire and Ice immediately come to mind.

Thematically, the tokens are being destroyed when damaged, and that's what is "taking the damage".

I was originally going to make the tokens be Artifact Creatures - Constructs with Defender, but then I decided to drop Artifact and changed Construct to Golem as that was more appropriate flavor-wise. It was going to be a 0/0 with toughness equal to the exiled creatures. Exiling a massive 10/10 should yield a 0/10 statue, not a 0/1 statue or something like that. The thoughts are that a bigger creature should be able to brunt more damage before being destroyed. But, this turned into word-soup and became very clunky. I also was not a fan of the idea that the statue you just created could also attack if you remove Defender. That felt cheesy and not thematically appropriate. It was also going to be difficult to track who was what toughness and what they exiled, so I settled on just a generic 0/3, but again that felt horrible. I compromised by going the route of noncreature artifacts that can be sacrificed to prevent damage, if you are willing to pay the . Basically it's a really shitty Fog, but it does allow you to precisely pinpoint when and where you want to stop the hurt, which is something I feel is actually pretty powerful and has room for design growth.

A hidden special power of her deck is that, with this current iteration, the Petrified Statues are immune to wraths. Because they aren't creatures, when the boardstate blows up, they remain intact (pun purposefully intended).

What's interesting with this wording and structure is you can play politics and sacrifice a token to stop another opponent from taking some serious damage, in exchange for a called-in favor later on. For example, you could prevent 12 incoming damage from a very large creature or spell, and in exchange you don't want to be attacked for the next turn, or you want a spell to resolve, or something. Clever players will spot appropriate moments to call these favors in.

Balaam__ on Fungus Amongus

1 month ago

This isn’t Standard legal (that’s why everything’s in bright red), but with the exception of Spore Flower this would be Modern legal. I’d recommend Fog over Spore Flower anyway, as it’s cheaper, faster and less prone to interference.

RebelGenius on No Souls, Only Shadows

1 month ago

magwaaf and wallisface, thank you both for the comments.

magwaaf, here is the explanation for the sideboard cards: Damping Sphere for tron + storm, Fog for any aggro decks, Gaea's Blessing for mill, Negate for combo + control, Tormod's Crypt for any decks that rely on graveyards (Dragon's Rage Channeler and stuff), Void Mirror for cascade decks, and Tombstalker and Gurmag Angler just to change up the threats in the deck.

wallisface in my playtesting of the deck, the mill cards have been pretty consistent. I agree that sorcery speed cards aren't good in a control deck, however I like Chart a Course because I both draw and discard, and it's the only discard effect. I'll do some research on some instant speed looting effects. I run 3 of each of the creatures so I'm less likely to draw them, and for room for other cards. I'm so dumb, I love both Bone Shards and Collective Brutality, I can't believe I forgot about them! You're probably right about the lands. I'll playtest with all the cards you suggested, thanks!

GrimlockVIII on Goreclaw's Wild Kingdom

2 months ago

I'd replace Bristling Hydra with something else since you don't seem to have any other energy counter synergies.

Universal creature buffs like Return of the Wildspeaker and Overrun will help you feel more confident about swinging in with all your creatures.

Fog will always be a great for saving your ass in a pinch.

I'd focus a bit more on land ramp like Cultivate , Sakura-Tribe Elder and Kodama's Reach since relying on mana dorks in a deck full of expensive CMC creatures might make it more difficult for you to recover in the event of a board wipe. Vastwood Surge is actually really good too in the late-game since you can kick it to buff all your creatures.

Scavenging Ooze and Deathgorge Scavenger are great options for graveyard hate.

I would add in a few cheap Eldrazi for their Annihilater abilities. Bane of Bala Ged and Ulamog's Crusher come to mind.

Display of Dominance and Wrap in Vigor are decent budget alternatives to Heroic Intervention .

otttism on Thrasta and Erayo's brunch

3 months ago

lagotripha Apologies for taking some time to respond to your comment. Thank you for all that you suggested. I decided to change things up a little to help stall and set up for an explosive turn.

I took your suggestion of adding Erayo, Soratami Ascendant  ^Flip. I used them to replace the Fog 's and one of the Frogmite . With it having a mana value of (2) it fits well with the Manamorphose and I can see it being flipped early on. Because of this blue addition I also changed up the lands a bit for supplementation.

Your suggestions helped me to think of the deck in a different light and have allowed me to take things in a more stable direction, thank you.