Gemstone Caverns
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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
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Gemstone Caverns

Legendary Land

If Gemstone Caverns is in your opening hand and you're not playing first, you may begin the game with Gemstone Caverns on the battlefield with a luck counter on it. If you do, exile a card from your hand.

: Add . If Gemstone Caverns has a luck counter on it, instead add one mana of any colour.

SufferFromEDHD on Antique Shop

4 months ago

Gemstone Caverns Gemstone Mine Archaeological Dig

sergiodelrio on Ways to STOP T0 GRIEF/FURY …

5 months ago

Good day fine people of Tappedout.

Today, without going into a rant because it has all been whispered into the wind 1000 times, I would like to Brainstorm with all of you ways to defend against the aggression in-game, for I believe in an MTG universe where the Johnnies/Jennies can handle any oppressive strategy that chose to infest their meta.

In case your memory is rusted, the SCAM deck uses Grief and Fury alongside multiple Not Dead After All effects for extra value to pick your hand quickly and/or killing your small creatures and PWs but they get to keep their evoked creatures anyway.

What I ask for in this thread are either specific cards and/or combos that can negate their 2for1 lines of play, preferably on our own T0 or T1. Another option could be describing a shell that could have the potential to entirely nullify their strat for one reason or another and does itself need not be reliant on quick execution (T0/T1) by default.

I'll start:

  • The reason I even included T1 and not just T0 is Gemstone Caverns. This card, however inconvenient to work with, opens up 1 mana of any color in case they go first so for example Mana Tithe, Spell Pierce et al could counter their Not Dead After All (and yes, I see how that is absoluely not optimal, we're just putting any idea on the table) or maybe a Stern Scolding can counter at least a Grief.

  • Chancellor of the Annex is like a conditional one-shot leyline Mana Tithe but comes with obvious drawbacks.

  • Leyline of Sanctity prevents them from targeting you alltogether, which is nice, but that card is a really bad topdeck.

  • I guess there are multiple ways to exile their GY with the undying trigger on the stack, but that also just solves half the problem. Leyline of the Void stops the reanimation part.

  • Then there are cards like Loxodon Smiter that just GOTCHA discard strats, but what would the rest of the deck look like? Kinda meh?

  • Disrupting Shoal is pretty interesting imho and has always been a secret weapon of mine. Sure, it is still 2for2 but we're not losing tempo? Hard to judge.

EDIT:

So I'd like to hear your thoughts and ideas on this, please!

If you want, in addition to mentioning cards and shells, it might be interesting to also discuss what the rest of the deck would look like, or a general strat of that deck, since obviously a pile of removal spells and hate cards still need a way to close the game.

sergiodelrio on

5 months ago

Very nice list of "big red" cards. I enjoy this line of play myself. Regarding the Gemstone Caverns, 4 are indeed too many. Since I've playtested a lot with that specific card my conclusion is even 3 is pushing the odds imho.

Secondly, I feel like the dragon is an underperformer here... have you looked at Koth of the Hammer? Mutagenic growth also feels like a very niche effect for your deck, why not Lightning Bolt?

Either way, I do like me some mono Big Red, so +1 from me!

EDIT: I see you have indeed looked at Koth, never mind

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

7 months ago

BIG REVISION + SIDEBOARD

I will post this comment then make the changes as specified in the list.

I have been studying a lot of cEDH meta, and found a lot of cards that I haven’t been using that are really great in Unesh. After a lot of consideration I have decided to pull the trigger on this revision.

  • Replace Mystic Sanctuary with Otawara, Soaring City. Mystic Sanctuary is used to retrieve interaction and put it on the top of your deck. This is anti-deck thinning which feels really bad in this deck. Instead, lets have the interaction printed on the land itself. What is great about Otawara is that this interaction is an ability, not a spell. So it can be used even while cards like Grand Abolisher are on the field. You can remove the abolisher and then interact with your opponent.
  • Replace Extraplanar Lens with Urza's Saga. The lens feels clunky. Sure it combos with Palinchron, but this combo requires lands to be on the field. Sacrificing a land has anti synergy with this. If the lens gets removed, you are out the double mana AND a land. It feels bad too often which is why it is getting cut. There are still 5 other combo pieces in the deck that you WILL see. You can even tutor for High Tide if you have to. Urza’s Saga is one of the best lands in the format and it isn’t hard to see why. More deck thinning. If its in your opening hand you guarantee Unesh by turn 3. Moonsilver Key seems to perform really well, so keeping this in as redundancy for this effect will turn out well I think.
  • Replace 2 Islands with Mox Opal and Mox Amber. This deck has a lot of lands in it for cEDH. Although Unesh doesn’t mind being mana flooded usually, the count is still a bit high especially after adding Urza’s Saga. Fast mana in these spots feels nice. They aren’t necessarily going to get Unesh on the table faster, BUT they can effectively make your Thassa's Oracle win con cheaper. While you are rolling through your deck after Rite of Replication resolves, you can pick up these pieces to gain mana to cast Thassa’s Oracle.
  • Replace Island with Gemstone Caverns. I goldfished this change a lot and found that Unesh will almost always prefer this in your opening hand over an Island. It makes early Unesh more likely, which is the primary goal of this deck.
  • Replaced Trickbind with Mental Misstep. Mental Misstep is too good in the format. There are a lot of awesome 1 cmc cards. Sol ring, carpet of flowers, swords to plowshares, mental misstep, other 1 cmc counters, mystic remora, and more. Trickbind is a great card against the right opponent(ie Kinnan), so for me this goes in the sideboard.

Sideboard revision 0

This is my first stab at a sideboard. So constructive criticism is very welcomed. The main goals of the sideboard is to change out the interaction package to fit the pod better, and to shift to more of a midrange strat than turbo if necessary.

  • Trickbind. Great interaction with other ability centered decks.
  • Grafdigger's Cage. Unesh can play this card without consequence pretty much, and it is an effective stax piece in the meta. This card might even weasel its way in to the main board.
  • Tormod's Crypt. More graveyard hate, nothing else to explain here.
  • Flusterstorm for a spell heavy pod.
  • An Offer You Can't Refuse also for a spell heavy pod.
  • Pongify for a more creature heavy pod.
  • Lotus Petal for better odds to cast Unesh first, making the deck more turbo. I think this card is possibly better than 1 or more of the mox’s, but I will leave it in sideboard for now.
  • Perplexing Chimera. If you need to grind in the midrange more this guy can be a great option. Combining him with Homeward Path can be a good combo to soft lock your opponents in the mid game while you get to the bottom of your deck.
  • Homeward Path for the above card.
  • Ledger Shredder for making the deck more midrange with another card draw engine, allowing you to more likely get the interaction you need.

nbarry223 on Modern Horizons 3 Predictions/Wishlist

8 months ago

We don’t have any early accelerator cards left in the format beyond Chancellor of the Tangle and Gemstone Caverns (which both weaken consistency at the cost of explosiveness, completely balanced). A 2 cmc card that only punishes fetches and cards like that wouldn’t be too broken.

Also, people could adjust away from fetches if they saw the card too much, but like I said that makes Blood Moon more powerful. The problem with fetches is they can fetch basics against the hate, basically blanking it in most cases.

This would allow them to still play fetches, but they wouldn’t be able to produce mana with them without some type of Prismatic Omen, Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, or Dryad of the Ilysian Grove effect.

There’s enough ways to work around (or remove) such an effect, but attacking greedy manabases from multiple fronts is something I think we need.

ultima333 on Azusa - Land Rush

10 months ago

Some minor changes with the LotR set and Aftermath-

Out: Caged Sun - In Nissa, Resurgent Animist Possibly controversial decision, but IMO Caged Sun is the weakest by far of any of the mana doublers as without Yavimaya out, about half my lands aren't affected by it- nor are any of the rocks. Nissa will allow my curve to be smoother as well as provide some card advantage.

Out: Fyndhorn Elves - In: Delighted Halfling Pretty much a straight upgrade here. We only ever need like one out of three mana sources to provide a green pip usually, and the "can't be countered" is amazing as it works on pretty much every payoff that's not Genesis Wave. Additionally, with the Nissa change above, we actually don't want any mana-dork elves if we can help it as those are "bad" hits with Nissa's second trigger. Only bombs left.

Out: Tectonic Edge - In: Gemstone Caverns Tectonic Edge's art has kept it in this deck for a long time, but with Wasteland and Strip Mine and Dust Bowl, we don't really need it. I've finally gone and grabbed a Gemstone Caverns with sufficiently pretty art to replace it.

wallisface on Sliver Aggro

1 year ago

Some thoughts:

  • 16 lands is waaaay too low, even factoring in Manaweft Sliver, Aether Vial, and Lotus Bloom. As a reference, Burn decks run 19 lands and only run 1-2 mana spells... but importantly can function on having only 1 land for several turns (and this often happens in their games). You need to go to at least 20, probably 22 lands, to have any chance of functioning.

  • Gemstone Caverns is a card that is only really useful in combo decks that can't afford to wait until turn 2. Choosing to go second in an aggro creature-based deck is a recipe for disaster, but furthermore it makes the Caverns only any good if its in your opening hand - and useless in most other situations. This is particularly scary because you're a 5 colour deck. I'd say to ditch the Caverns for something more reliable.

  • If you're running any number of Aether Vial, then you should always be running the full playset (4-of).

  • Your sideboard just looks like extra cards that couldn't make the main - and additionally quite a few have too-high mana-costs to ever reliably get cast. I would suggest changing your sideboard to better accommodate for your bad matchups, instead of it just being a bunch of random Slivers.

Balaam__ on Sliver Aggro

1 year ago

The odds of getting a 3-4 land opening hand (let alone a Gemstone Caverns) is practically nonexistent with only 16 lands. I’d really recommend cutting a number of slivers and bumping up the overall land count.

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