Fog

Instant

Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn.

Discussion (51)

MagicMarc on Feelings On Fogs?

5 days ago

I personally think Fog effects even if repeatable are losing by design. And quite overrated especially in EDH.

What is the design goal of using them? I think not losing is better than winning?

Outside of very narrow archetypes, fog just does not win games. The last time I saw a decent turbo fog was like the end of 2018 maybe. And that was in a 60 card format. I have never seen an EDH deck built around fog win a 4 player or more game of EDH.

Given, there are fun fog cards and fun niche moments where you can turn the tables on someone but that does not make them consistant or reliable as a strategy.

NinjaKitty778 on Fight With The Power Of Ten (Exalted)

5 days ago

Hello! Thanks for the comment on my deck! I'll see what I can do.

Ok so I see a lot in the way of aggro and not a lot of answers to problems. Don't get me wrong, dedicated aggro decks can be devastating; but they need to be quick and those cards are almost exclusively in red. This deck looks like it kicks off around turn 3-5 so we want to be able to do stuff in the early game. Bant is a color scheme that lends itself well to defensive tactics rather than harming opponents; this can take the form of protection, buffing creatures, or stalling until our game-plan can get off the ground. Now at the end of the day that game-plan is still "turn creatures sideways", so we want to make sure that the creatures we select are aggressive; but, the control colors in our deck (white and blue) can provide us with a fair amount of answers to problems that we can use both early and mid game to ensure our victory.

So what we want from the deck is:

1) Board Control/Stall Tactics 2) Protection 3) Card Advantage 4) Aggressive creatures

Often times these categories can overlap. For example: a creature with hexproof. That fills the "aggressive creature" and "protection" categories so that means we're getting more value out of just that one card, which is what we want. Variety is both the spice of life and the answer to our deck-building conundrum. So we want to make sure that our card selection is refined. So lets break each category down.

Board Control/Stall Tactics

I love the options Bant gives us for board control. Green has a lot of artifact/enchantment removal, white has a lot of good spot removal in the form of "exile" which gets around that pesky indestructible ability, and blue often bounces things off the board or counters things. So what options are best? Honestly, its up to you. But remember that the more options that a card gives you the more value you get out of it. Here are a couple of my favorite board control cards in Bant:

Authority of the Consuls Bant Charm Cryptic Command Detention Sphere Disallow Dromoka's Command Exclude Krosan Grip Path to Exile Qasali Pridemage Remand Spell Pierce Unravel the Aether

That should give you enough options to play with and see which ones you like best.

Protection

Protection spells are many and can come in many different forms, but ultimately it comes down to making sure our permanents stay permanent. For us this is most likely gonna be about protecting our creatures. Some of my favorite protection spells in Bant are:

Fog Gods Willing Grand Abolisher Heroic Intervention Mark of Asylum Shalai, Voice of Plenty Simic Charm

The longer our creature(s) stay on the field the more likely we are to win.

Card Advantage

This can either mean card draw, digging through our library, or just straight up tutoring. Some good options are:

Ardent Plea Brain storm Curiosity Eladamri's Call Gaea's Blessing Impulse Serum Visions Wargate

By giving ourselves card advantage, we can find solutions to problems a lot faster.

Aggressive Creatures

And finally we get to the bread and butter of the deck, the creatures. Now the mechanic we're working with is the Exalted mechanic, which states that if the player attacks with exactly one creature, then each card with Exalted (including the attacker) will grant that lone attacker +1/+1. This aggro tactic minimizes casualties in battle but doesn't reduce the armies strength during the attack phase. So the more instances of exalted we have the more powerful our lone attacker is. Here are some cards worth looking at into for this combat style:

Finest Hour Invisible Stalker Knight of Glory Noble Hierarch Rafiq of the Many Sublime Archangel

With these creatures at our disposal, opponents will often find it hard to outgrow our aggressive playstyle.

Now keep in mind that the exalted mechanic itself is very aggressive and simultaneously acts as the "buff" aspect of our defensive tactics that mentioned near the top. So we need little in the way actual buffing spells like Giant Growth; that leaves much more room open for including a lot more control and card advantage spells. Ultimately what you pick is up to you but try using the cards I've listed above as the basis of your card selection and go from there. Cross reference which cards fall into multiple categories for the best options possible. I don't want to just straight up give you a decklist, I want you to choose the cards yourself and make a deck that's entirely your own. I hope my longwinded advice helped LOL happy deck building.

Profet93 on Xenagos Aggro

5 days ago

Interesting deck +1

Questions about Inclusions

What is your meta like?

Proud Wildbonder - Seems too unimpactful for 4 mana

Essence Warden - Whats the purpose of this?

Beast Whisperer - Seems cool, I tried him in my build. Does he get a chance to stick around long enough to draw you atleast 2-3 cards?

Ravager Wurm - Is this meta against maze of ith?

Shivan Wurm - Reusing ETB effects or something I'm missing? Seems weak

Voracious Cobra - Gosh this card brings back memories from my childhood. Curious how it's been for you, seems like a card they need to burn removal on if they want a chance of attacking you unless they go wide

Windstorm - Meta?

Unleash Fury < Berserk

Fog - Meta, if so, why not get the new green fog that came out recently?

Soul's Might - Return of the Wildspeaker would better serve you as you can draw cards in response to removal rather than your creature getting removed in response to might being cast.

Suggestions

Ancient Tomb , Castle Garenbrig are ramp

Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma - Trample and ramp

Heroic Intervention - Protection

Selvala, Heart of the Wilds - Ramp and draw

The Great Henge , Somberwald Sage, Shaman of Forgotten Ways are all good ramp

Inferno Titan - Removal

Kogla, the Titan Ape - Removal

Deflecting Swat - Utility! Counter counterspells, redirect targetted removal/draw/extra turns. Very powerful

Rishkar's Expertise, Bonders' Enclave, Elder Gargaroth, Greater Good, Life's Legacy, are all amazing card draw options, especially greater good. Seriously, don't sleep on greater good

I hope the suggestions werent too overwhelming, I just didn't see that much draw and I figured that adding more never hurts.

Snap157 on Korvold, Fae King, ruler of Eldrazi

6 days ago

This is so cool! Have you considered Rapacious One instead of Essence Feed? Maybe Ashnod's Altar? I feel like the altar would be able to net you twice the mana from your eldrazi spawn and can also provide on-demand death to your creatures, and a hit from Rapacious One can easily advance your board state towards something powerful and repeatable.

As backups, I would consider Quicksilver Amulet or Elvish Piper in case you can't get enough mana eldrazi.

Your land base looks good, however Korvold especially benefits from lands that can sacrifice themselves. Fetch lands like Wooded Foothills, Verdant Catacombs, Bloodstained Mire, Windswept Heath, Misty Rainforest,Prismatic Vista, Scalding Tarn and Polluted Delta could really speed up your mana base and let you draw cards at the same time! I get that they may be out of budget- proxies are always an option if your playgroup is cool with them. Additional lands like Spawning Bed, Lotus Field, Jund Panorama, Blighted Woodland and Fabled Passage work well too.

Harrow instead of Wild Wanderer would fit your sacrifice theme. Pitiless Plunderer would give you double value while Broodwarden only buffs some of your creatures. You're not really winning with spawn, and a lot of your best eldrazi produce scions anyway.

I like your removal package, but I feel like there are some unneeded spells that can also be cut for ramp/removal. Things like Fog, Spawning Breath, Prismatic Omen, and Wave of Vitriol don't really advance your game plan (at least not as much as you'd like them to), and I think things such as Breaker of Armies, Nature's Lore, and Corpsehatch, and Commander's Sphere would work some wonders.

This is a super cool concept and I'm eager to see it in the future. I hope this helps!

StopShot on Counteracting large hexproof creatures.

1 month ago

The subject of this thread revolves around dealing with and counteracting against the commanders: Uril, the Miststalker, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Dragonlord Ojutai, Lazav, Dimir Mastermind, Thrun, the Last Troll as well as commanders that consistently or typically give themselves hexproof through various equipments/auras.

While it may not be the most prevalent strategy these types of commanders can be annoying to deal with. I'd like to create a discussion on what are the best ways to deal with these commanders. Given how niche these commanders can be, running cards that exclusively dedicate themselves to their removal may be detrimental to draw into when playing a game where none of your opponents run them. Therefore cards that can both combat massive hexproof creatures as well as still being useful to have if none of your opponents are playing with big hexproof creatures should be taken into consideration when deciding what is the "best" or "most practical" solution to combating hexproof strategies.

The first cards that come to mind are Arcane Lighthouse, Detection Tower, Bonds of Mortality, Shadowspear and Glaring Spotlight. These cards entirely dedicate themselves to combating hexproof strategies, and while this may be a detriment when used against non-hexproof strategies, these cards do lend themselves some extra utility. Arcane Lighthouse and Detection Tower can be seeded into your manabase so at worst they're just a Wastes however they can be more inefficient in comparison. Given that both are lands, tapping them costs you an extra mana resource effectively making their abilities cost to activate. Not only that, but they have no effect at stripping indestructible which can be a common keyboard which may be used alongside most hexproof strategies. Cards like Bonds of Mortality and Shadowspear cost only one to activate and they can bypass indestructible, however given they're not lands you have to dedicate a nonland slot in your deck to accommodate either of them which means taking out a card that may better synergize with your deck's main strategy in their place. They also lend themselves targets for counter spells and given hexproof decks contain white and/or green, artifact/enchantment removal will pose a high potential risk. This is all not to mention you still need to provide a removal spell in tandem with these cards in order to remove the threat.

Another solution is board wipes. Cards such as Wrath of God, Damnation, Day of Judgment, Supreme Verdict, Blasphemous Act, etc. Mass creature removal is incredibly strong given that its always relevant in most metas making it a highly flexible solution that isn't too narrow to rely upon. It's biggest drawback however is if the massive hexproof creature that needs to be dealt with has indestructible, totem armor or Gift of Immortality. Even a card such as Toxic Deluge can be a risk as you may have to pay a huge amount of life if the creature is incredibly big. Cyclonic Rift is another effective card. One thing to note about boardwipes are they affect the whole table which makes them also more likelier to be countered than by effects that impact a single individual.

A more narrow solution would be through damage prevention effects such as Story Circle, Forcefield, Runed Halo, Rune of Protection: White, etc. Given each card never "targets" they can be used to infinitely "Fog" a problem creature that you can't put up with. These effects are more narrow than boardwipes but broader than hexproof removal. Cards like these still run into problems with artifact/enchantment removal and they don't run enticing side effects such as drawing a card upon entering the battlefield like Bonds of Mortality or giving a creature lifelink and trample like Shadowspear, however you won't need to exhaust your removal spells to keep the large creature(s) either. In more broader metas such as combo, stax and prison, these effects may not be as useful however. More broader variants of these protection cards exist as Ensnaring Bridge, Divine Presence, Peacekeeper and Meekstone though these cards may make multiple opponents unhappy enough to remove them than the more narrower options.

The last effect used to combat large hexproof creatures is sacrifice effects such as: Fleshbag Marauder, Innocent Blood, Vona's Hunger, Liliana's Triumph, Doomfall etc. These effects can bypass not only hexproof but also indestructible, regenerate and totem armor. Their drawback lies in if the player with the large hexproof creature has any other creatures to sacrifice in their place. Because of this caveat this effect isn't too strong unless ran in multiples which can be difficult to commit to in a 100-card format. Instead selective sacrifice effects may be the best way to devote to this solution with cards like: Crackling Doom, Soul Shatter, Slaughter the Strong, Council's Judgment, Renounce the Guilds and Wing Shards. While these cards won't always guarantee the large hexproof creature will be removed, they provide a stronger case than not compared to most traditional sacrifice removal.

Lastly there are counter spells to remove hexproof creatures. While they may be the best all purpose solution they can be rendered ineffective if a Cavern of Souls or some other can not be countered effect is in place. With exception to Withering Boon, the biggest downside to counter spells are they are entirely exclusive to blue meaning other color combinations without blue do not have this option available.

Which method do you rely on to stop massive hexproof creatures? Is there a card or solution set not listed here that you use? If you happen to play EDH decks with big massive hexproof creatures, which effects annoy/counter you the most?

Apollo_Paladin on ElfLand

1 month ago

Initial Thoughts:

• 2 mana for 1 Card Draw is not bad at all for Green, but unless you've got a way to return and/or recur Elvish Visionary in some way, it's not a massive benefit. I'm much more a fan of things like Vanquisher's Banner, Sylvan Messenger, and/or Regal Force since in each case you're dealing with more than 1 single draw (which especially if you're having reliability issues already; is just a roll of the dice).

• I would definitely recommend factoring in 4x Priest of Titania. They're a little pricier than I normally like to purchase singles at, but it's not like they're ridiculous either (common rarity helps). There is simply no better (or cheaper dollar-wise) way to generate mana early-on in Elf Decks unless you're prepared to drop 50-100 dollars per single on something(s) ridiculous.

• It looks like Ambush Commander could find a nice home here since you appear to use actual Lands more than my Elf build does. He'd add some additional synergy to the Elvish Pioneer/Sylvan Advocate theme you've focused on.

• I can't seem to find a single Elf Deck that wouldn't benefit from Vitalize. It's instant speed, cheap cost, and just combos beautifully with so many different Elf Abilities.

• I definitely feel that all 4 of your Overrun can be replaced with something better. Between both the mana cost as well as an identical (repeatable) ability on Ezuri, Renegade Leader, there's far better options here. Even something like Wirewood Pride could be a decent replacement...not only is it instant-speed to be used on either offense or defense, but its low cost means you can land early attacks in faster (I prefer to play it after blockers have already been declared and they've let some seemingly worthless 1/1 through).

• I don't see a reason to use Druid's Deliverance here at all...not ton of Token generation going on here except from the 4x Elvish Promenade...and even then you're only paying 1 mana to Populate a 1/1 token. If you had better Tokens you could use Populate on, that'd be one thing but since it doesn't work on Non-Token creatures I think you could just as easily use Fog or something similar to save yourself a mana to cast.

psionictemplar on Echo of Eons

1 month ago

There is a big part of the casual in me that wants to figure a way for you to get Omniscience in here. From there, combo as much as your heart desires. I don't really have a good way to suggest going about that yet though.

What I had considered to do this if you were wondering. (Nothing grand so far.)

1. Lotus Field and Twiddle type cards for a big mana turn.

2. Lost Auramancers to put Omniscience directly into play.

3. Enduring Ideal, but this wouldn't work because you couldn't cast any more spells after.

I guess the auramancer plan could work for a casual game with things like Holy Day/Fog to keep you alive. Nine Lives could be worth considering if you wanted to try this path.

MagicMarc on What is the Greatest Number …

1 month ago

DemonDragonJ; During that same tournament; someone cast the equivalent of Fog on me as I went infinite with the giants. So I ended my turn with thousands of the pact triggers waiting to kill me. My opponent took his turn, drew, and knocked,(ended his turn). Boom! I died.

But I loved playing the deck. It was very Izzet with the win explosively or die explosively gameplay.