Force of Will

Instant

You may pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand from the game rather than pay this spell's mana cost.

Counter target spell.

Discussion (48)

Metroid_Hybrid on 1st. Legacy tournament: what to …

2 weeks ago

If you're going to spend a bunch of money, then at least spend it in the right places (a new stereo system doesn't make a car faster, for example). If you are going to run a Tribal deck in Legacy, then invest in a playset of Cavern of Souls so that you can have an answer to THE defining card of Legacy: Force of Will..

Last_Laugh on How Did EDH Become So …

2 weeks ago

@DemonDragonJ - Teferi's Protection, Academy Rector, Consecrated Sphinx, Deadeye Navigator, Temur Sabertooth, Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite, Survival of the Fittest, Food Chain, Cloudstone Curio, Ashnod's Altar, Phyrexian Altar, Seedborn Muse, Loyal Retainers, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Palinchron, Force of Will, Mana Drain, Cavern of Souls, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos, Sylvan Library, Fierce Guardianship, etc. etc. etc.

Kalavas on No Tutor Kinnan

1 month ago

Added Archmage's Charm and Force of Will to the deck, because the deck wasn't quite gross enough. Now it's getting there...

Daedalus19876 on BtheChemist

1 month ago

You kind of caught me at a bad time, haha. Over the last few days I've been moving over to Moxfield.

In the future I'll mostly be active on that site. My Araumi lists -- budget and full power, both updated -- exist over there as well, so if you want to ask future questions I'd do it there: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/Cx0f3NJkDU203YLF6K3kqQ and https://www.moxfield.com/decks/bW0uHT957kORx7N5V1uCPA

But before I go, I can answer your questions real quickly :)

Araumi is honestly my trickiest deck to pilot. Have you read the primer in my full-power version? It helps a bit.

In the early game you want to prioritize dumping cards into graveyard -- either by self-mill, looting, or Entomb effects.

IF you can get Araumi to survive on the battlefield, everything is great: nearly all the creatures in the deck have overwhelming effects when encored. Nearly all of our "spells" (removal, ramp, etc) are on creature ETBs.

If you can't get Araumi to survive, that's fine -- in that case, you want to prioritize finding reanimation spells in hand, then assembling a combo from the cards you've milled into graveyard. This is the part where the primer is very helpful. Some common combos are Mesmeric Orb + Aphetto Alchemist, or Scholar of the Ages + any reanimation spell + Sacrifice, or Glasspool Mimic  ^Flip + Cavalier of Night + any sac outlet.

In response to your other question, about improving your own decks... The guiding rules that I live under are:

1. I want to ramp as fast as I can, so I run almost zero tapped lands, and I like mana rocks which cost 2 and produce 1 and come in untapped. Similarly, draw is good, particularly repeatable effects which say "Whenever X, draw a card".
2. Any spell which you're paying 4+ mana for should threaten to win the game very quickly, if not answered. Something like Force of Will would count as zero mana for this sort of rule, by the way.
3. Play lots of removal, but mostly at 2 mana or less. You don't usually want to hold up huge amounts of mana for removal / interaction, because you waste those resources if you don't have a good opportunity to use the "trick" you're holding up.
4. It's very tricky to win non-casual games via combat damage. This is because most cards are balanced for "I need to deal 20 damage to an opponent", and in Commander you have to do 120 damage instead. TLDR, combat is weak in Commander, though certain commanders can make it work.
5. Combos and tutors are great, and help win games without paying attention to life total (thus, dodging the problem above). However, I would not run ANY card which is bad outside of a single combo. If you're building with combos, I'd try to find redundancy where you can, multiple cards which can all fill different roles and replace each other. That way, you're less vulnerable to a single point of failure!

I hope all that helps!

DrkNinja on Ninja fury

1 month ago

Ok so I didn't check to see if any of these were in the deck already but... here's my list of suggestions!

It's a lot of cards so...

• Imperial Seal
• Personal Tutor
• Vampiric Tutor
• Liliana Vess
• Cruel Tutor
• Diabolic Vision
• Nephalia Academy
• Library of Leng
• Aqueous Form
• Ashiok, Dream Render
• Augury Owl
• Baleful Mastery
• Bolas's Citadel
• Brainstorm
• Cabal Coffers
• Castle Vantress
• Commit / Memory
• Connive / Concoct
• Curse of the Cabal
• Darksteel Pendant
• Dauthi Voidwalker
• Deadly Rollick
• Devastation Tide
• Dig Through Time
• Discovery / Dispersal
• Draco
• Far / Away
• Fierce Guardianship
• Foil
• Force of Will
• Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar
• Gudul Lurker
• Into the Story
• Invisible Stalker
• Jace, the Mind Sculptor
• Key to the City
• Krydle of Baldur's Gate
• Looter il-Kor
• Misdirection
• Mist-Cloaked Herald
• Murderous Cut
• Nether Traitor
• Never / Return
• Nexus of Fate
• Opposition Agent
• Phantom Ninja
• Rags / Riches
• Rogue Class
• Sage Owl
• Scroll Rack
• Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip
• Sensei's Divining Top
• Siren Stormtamer
• Spire Owl
• Spite / Malice
• Strionic Resonator
• Submerge
• Temporal Trespass
• Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
• Thalakos Seer
• The Cauldron of Eternity
• The Magic Mirror
• Thespian's Stage
• Throatseeker
• Tormented Soul
• Treasure Cruise
• Triton Shorestalker
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
• Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire
• Whispersilk Cloak
• Deserted Temple
• Taigam's Scheming

Again some of these may be cut worthy but off the cuff this is what I came up with. Also I didn't include any ninjas... I figure they are easy enough to find

Balaam__ on Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Clyde

2 months ago

Fireshaw if this were Vintage, they’d probably have been Mana Drains or Force of Wills.

Virlym on Yuriko (Optimized) Primer

2 months ago

Hello, been a while since I've really done much here, but I saw a highlight for your deck and thought I'd stop by. Your Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow seems to be designed for a higher-end playgroup than mine (given the Force of Will, Mana Crypt, etc.), but I figured I'd throw in a couple of fun things to consider.

First: 2-piece combo, Library of Leng + Unfulfilled Desires. Unfulfilled Desires is basically the only repeatable card that makes you discard as part of an ability instead of a cost so it can actually work with Library of Leng. You have 3 Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow triggers on the stack and 3 open mana? Vampiric Tutor up a bomb like Draco before the first trigger resolves. After the trigger resolves and you dome your opponents, activate Unfulfilled Desires to draw a card and discard Draco back to the top of your library. Then repeat for the rest of your triggers (mana allowing). While it's a tad slow, it packs a huge punch. It also allows for some extra enablers such as Looter il-Kor. So even if you don't have any ninjas to go around, you can resolve Looter il-Kor before a Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow trigger and discard something big in your hand to the top of your deck with Library of Leng to reveal for Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow's trigger.

Another 2-drop enabler to consider is Nether Traitor. While it does cost 2 mana, it has haste and shadow, so it's not really that bad. The only issue with it is the double black cost when you're building heavy blue for Force of Will. But it also has the upside of being able to come back to play on its own when something else of yours dies.

Due to my friends liking graveyard decks, I also opted to run some disruption in the form of Weathered Runestone. While it does turn off Nether Traitor's last ability, it also lets me run Dimir Infiltrator as an enabler and tutor. The 3-cost, sorcery speed tutor is a little slow, but being able to get things like Weathered Runestone, Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive, Scroll Rack and Cyclonic Rift for games when I've been faced with someone stalling out my early aggression is nice.

Whether you add anything in or not is up to you and how they fit in your playgroup. Was just nice being able to share. Hope you continue your shadowy fun. :)

azja on Yuriko (Optimized) Primer

2 months ago

It's great to hear from ya again Snake57! I've been a bit busy with school, and getting back into in-person modern events, so I haven't been playing much edh lately :( but here's what I think of the cards I'm testing:

• So far Gingerbrute feels like a good fit for Yuriko. I think the upside of having haste outweighs the downside of having to pay to make it unblockable. I chose to cut Tormented Soul because it also can't be pitched to Force of Will and I want to keep my density of blue cards high, but I still think it's a solid enabler.

• I've also been pretty happy with Ponder over Personal Tutor. The problem I have with Personal Tutor is that I don't have a ton of sorceries that aren't just big, clunky extra turn spells. In contrast, Vampiric Tutor and Mystical Tutor have a lot more targets and provide utility at every point in the game, not just on the final turn. I would definitely suggest Ponder over Consider because you can also control what's on top of your deck, not just the card you draw.

• I have mixed feelings about Chain of Vapor. It's awesome in the early game when your opponents don't have enough lands to reasonably sac one to copy it, but it feels pretty bad in the mid-late game when they do. Also at 1 cmc, it doesn't do Yuriko any favours. I chose to cut Spire Owl in its place because I had 4 2-mana enablers, and it felt like a bit too many. From what I can tell, I think 3 is the right number.

• Dauthi Voidwalker has been an awesome addition to the deck. It hinders graveyard strategies, can be used as enabler if needed, and most importantly, steals an opponent's removal spell or counterspell. I chose to cut Throat Slitter because my meta used to be filled with black aristocrat decks. But lately it's been shifting from that, so I may try to find a spot for it again.

Now for the cards you mentioned:

• I've tried Opposition Agent in some other decks, but not in Yuriko. I've found that it mostly ends up stealing someone's ramp or fetchland, rather than an actual tutor. This makes me think it might be a bit underwhelming in Yuriko.

• I've really been liking Street Wraith so far. It's a heavy hitter when you reveal it with Yuriko, and you can immediately cycle it for a more useful card. It also fuels your delve spells, and you can use it to set up a miracle Temporal Mastery.

• I also feel like the overall cmc can be a bit low, so I think adding Boon of the Wish-Giver could be a good call. At 1 mana it's pretty easy to cycle, plus it's not too bad of a card either.

• I would hesitate to play Scion of Draco because we can only reduce it to 8 mana, making it almost uncastable. If you need another big card for burn, I would maybe go with Enter the Infinite because both Mystical Tutor and Vampiric Tutor can tutor for it, and it can be exiled to Force of Will.

As always, thanks for commenting and let me know if you have any more suggestions from the new sets!!