Ghostly Prison

Enchantment

Creatures can't attack you unless their controller pays {2} for each creature they control that's attacking you.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (51)

kamarupa on Cumulative Fire

1 month ago

hmm, I'm not sure I see what you see, Cloudy2024. I can't know how familiar you are with the Turbo Fog archetype, but typically, it relies not just on packing a ton of Fog spells, but also a lot of draw card (usually group draw), which are an essential component to keeping your hand full of Fog spells. It's just not enough to have lots of Fogs in a deck. A deck must also have a way of getting all those fogs into our hand. There's simply no avoiding the need for land, so even if a deck had 40x Fog and 20x Land, there's a 33% chance every draw step yields a land. Which means that it's likely an opponent is going to get to hit us eventually. Unless we can draw more cards each turn. So in my mind, adding more Fog spells at the expense of draw card will actually make the deck work less well.

I did consider dropping Ghostly Prison or cutting it back to fewer copies, but that doesn't yield a lot of slots and more importantly, the advantage Ghostly Prison gives the deck is a static defense that allows us to have a chance of tapping more mana on our own turns without being completely defenseless. I'm not 100% sold on that strategy, namely because I really don't like dropping 3 mana on it, but I know it works, so the real question is how much weight can it pull in this brew.

When it comes to other non-fog spells, the most slots are devoted to Ashling, Flame Dancer and Leyline Tyrant, which are basically 33% of the combo. Without those creatures, the cumulative mana we get from Braid of Fire evaporates before we can use it to cast Banefire at Sorcery speed. Since neither red nor white really have anything I'm aware of for creature tutoring, there's no way I can see cutting them.

I really don't like Idyllic Tutor as it's not only quite narrow in a deck that requires more than just an Enchantment to win, but it also costs 3 to cast. At least with Ghostly Prison we can a static defense. With Idyllic Tutor, we get a single use out of that 3 mana while also exposing the card we need, which, in many cases, won't get cast until the next turn. If I could grab anything and not reveal it (like Mastermind's Acquisition, I could see the possible value of adding more tutors. But it's just too inefficient to add more tutors that are so specific. I'd have to devote space in the deck for Sorcery, Enchantment, and Creature tutors. Which bring us back to the value of simple card advantage spells. I need all the spells in the deck. United Battlefront gets us slightly closer than Idyllic Tutor, but still misses on creatures (and my essential creatures are too big anyway). So my verdict is still out on that spell, but I'd likely not choose to run a full set if I thought there was even room for it at all.

I suppose I could try to run more creatures like Kami of False Hope and go the Tocasia's Welcome route, but that seems... I dunno... convoluted.

So to sum up - in my mind, "focus[ing] more on the strategy of the deck is probably the opposite of what you suggested - not more fog and white control spells but less. I could drop the Fog spells altogether and resort to creature based defenses. Not the worst idea, but I think it would come at a higher mana cost, which slows down Banefire.

The only other thing I'd add to all this is that the biggest issue Turbo Fog faces is decks that aren't creature driven. Things like Burn, Mill, Life-drain, etc go right through Fog. That's the primary reason I included Riot Control - because it doesn't just stop combat damage - it stops ALL damage. I mainboarded it because it also has the potential to result in a big lifegain, which is a good stall tactic against lifedrain (keep in mind this is intended to be a multiplayer brew, so it could very easily be facing threats from both creatures and lifedrain in the same game). And that's the other major issue with going in even harder with the Fog strategy (which is itself a secondary, defensive strategy). Granted, the sideboard can help a bit to shore up Turbo-Fog weaknesses.

Bottom line - While I really don't expect this brew to be top tier in any sense, I do like exploring with brews and try to make them the best I can. It's probably clear that I think about strategy, uh, let's just say, "enough." I want to be clear about this though - I'm not saying "I'm right and you're wrong" or that I don't appreciate your advice. It's quite the contrary - I write all this because I'm [overly] interested in these things and want to have conversations about all of it. I understand if you're not interested in that. I just don't want you to feel like I have any intent of antagonizing you, etc. It's just so easy to give/get the wrong impression over the internet.

Veghelia on Combat Superiority

2 months ago

Hey Crow_Umbra, sorry for the radio silence. Become a bit more busy with non-MTG stuff, so I got less time for brewing, sadly.

"Support" suspicions are just going to be part of playing this deck, so I've accepted that's going to be something I'm gonna run into. I do mostly play with a relatively consistent group of friends (read: like 5 different groups, some with some overlapping players, but all with similar vibes), and they do look at me with suspicion, but are most of the time greedy enough that they'll take advantage of my almost-symmetrical support cards. If they ever choose to destroy them or otherwise turn them off for the others, that tends to draw the table's ire, so most of the time they don't unless everyone agrees they're becoming an issue, in which case I can hardly blame them. I'm currently still mostly feeling that I'm going to try to leave goad out of it as much as possible, safe for a few choice cards (Taunt from the Rampart hasn't shined yet, but I'm feeling it will at some point).

Alright, now on to the card discussions.

• I'm leaving Xantcha, Sleeper Agent and Emberwilde Captain in the maybeboard. Your arguments are very valid, but I do feel like the don't vibe enough with the "support" idea.

• I had Nelly Borca, Impulsive Accuser in my deck before and removed her, because she's an odd play. With my lack of goad or other ways to force attacks, I have very little control over the amount of cards I draw with her, if I draw any. I imagine she'd work great as a commander, since you can reliably have her on the field in the early to mid game, where plenty of people attack each other, but I think she does a lot worse as a late-game topdeck.

• Kambal, Profiteering Mayor feels like a "one step too far" kinda card. If my entire point was to give my opponents tokens, then he'd be amazing, but I feel like he's going to not do anything far too often (although I will admit that I don't quite now how often my playgroups play tokens).

• Master Warcraft has one mayor flaw that I'm pretty sure a good chunk of my playgroup will notice: I can force an attack, but I can't force them to not attack me, and my playgroups are spiteful enough that that is exactly what will happen :P

• Batwing Brume is interesting. It's going on the maybeboard for now, since I'm not sure if the problem it fixes is one I run into all that often, but it does feel like a beautiful blindside.

Currently, Ghostly Prison and Brutal Hordechief are most likely going to be in the next version.

Besides that, I'm reviewing:

1. The beaters I have in the deck, since they don't feel strong enough. It's not like I didn't know Skysovereign, Consul Flagship and Tajic, Blade of the Legion weren't the best in slot, but the little hope I had for them has been dashed.
2. Different graveyard hate (I'm recently formed the opinion that Bojuka Bog really only works in a lands deck), and Kutzil's Flanker is currently my most considered option.
3. Lands and ramp. Thran Dynamo was way better when Endbringer was going to be a part of the deck, and the deck feels too color-heavy to run it otherwise. Similar thoughts about the pain-lands. Also, I've adopted the "Chromatic Lantern is bad" position.

kamarupa on Defensive Ink Humans

2 months ago

Perhaps Ghostly Prison over Crawlspace

Crow_Umbra on Best color for this type …

2 months ago

My main play group runs various flavors of Goad, or combat manipulation (we love swinging at each other). Why swing at other people, when you can force them to hit each other? A few suggestions off the top of my head:

• Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant/Kardur, Doomscourge - Either of these could be the commander of the deck. Karazikar simultaneously incentivizes and punishes your opponents for smacking each other. Playing in Red/Black also opens up access to all the direct burn stuff in Red, as well as attack trigger group slug like Hellrider, Vicious Conquistador, or Far Fortune, End Boss.

• Breena, the Demagogue - Help your opponents draw cards from hitting each other. The access to white also gives you plenty of options for the Ghostly Prison effects in white, plus its suite of removal.

• Gonti, Night Minister is a new option that could also slot into the 99 of some of the other commanders mentioned above. The theft aspects will likely draw the ire of the table, but if everyone is stealing from everyone...

• Alexios, Deimos of Kosmos or Slicer, Hired Muscle  ^Flip- You could donate a big Voltron threat around the table and make the table kill each other for you. One of my friends runs Alexios, and it feels like a game of hot potato with Voltron damage. Technically, you're not the one hitting people.

• Nelly Borca, Impulsive Accuser can Goad your opponents creatures, but also rewards your opponents for hitting each other. You can Goad everyone while hiding behind the Ghostly Prison/Propaganda effects.

• Isshin, Two Heavens as One can be built as a combat control deck, since he checks the attack triggers on most stuff I previously mentioned, and house those all in his 99. Additionally you can run stuff like Lightmine Field and Caltrops.

• The Lord of Pain is a lot of fun to play as a commander, and to play against. Maybe my friends and I are just masochists. A couple of my friends run the Lord of Pain as a commander, and typically play it very politically, where they "donate" the option to target the damage. You don't have to swing, and can run all the burn and damage multipliers to your heart's content.

lil_cheez on Best color for this type …

2 months ago

Hiya friend, I assume you're talking about Commander Format.

Blue and white are the colors for buying time: Propaganda, Ghostly Prison, AEtherize, Holy Day, Silence, Counterspell.

Green has "Fogs", namesake Fog, Spore Frog, etc.

If you want to slowly "burn" your opponents, red and black are your friends: Impact Tremors, Blood Artist.

I'd recommend to do a little research and be creative, but, top of my head, maybe you'd like a Kykar, Wind's Fury deck, play the "buying time" enchantments, hold countermagic and other interaction, use the tokens to burn players, etc!

Veghelia on Combat Superiority

3 months ago

Crow_Umbra, thank you for your feedback and suggestions!

If you're interested in sparring a bit, I've looked into your feedback and I have some thoughts. If any of this brings up other ideas or you have other suggestions, I’d love to hear it.

Regarding using more goad and embracing "being the villain":

I'm very much still experimenting with being as "supportive" with this deck as I can be, since that is really the desire I have that got me to make this deck. I derive enjoyment from seeing the table enjoy what I do and playing with me, and not forcing them to play along is an important part of that. I've made another deck (Death or Mogis) that a lot of my friends love to play against or play themselves, and I'm trying to do a similar thing here, but more combat-focused. I’ll leave the idea of embracing "being the villain" open, but I first want to figure out if I can make the "I'm your best friend in a game without allies" approach work before I fully switch (or more honestly, probably retire the deck).

Regarding Boros Battleshaper and Endbringer:

Yeah, you're right. I've noticed in goldfishing already that they don't feel good enough. Boros Battleshaper just feels like a cool idea that could work but doesn't, and Endbringer really is a remnant of the older version of this deck where I was more going for a mafia-style “broker” vibe, capable of “solving problems” on other people’s turns. Sadly, that’s a couple of steps removed from what the deck is now. I want them to be cool, but you’re right in that they really don't work in the deck.

Regarding your suggestions:

• Xantcha, Sleeper Agent creates a bit of a weird situation. I have to give it to someone, making me the bad guy in their eyes, and then they do get to benefit from my attack triggers (forcibly), but they are also the victim of the "drain and draw" ability. I think it's a bit too much of a mixed bag emotionally, and although it is not a bad card, I'll probably leave it out of the maybeboard, at least for a while or until I switch to embracing villainhood.
• Slicer, Hired Muscle  ^Flip is just not my jam aesthetically. I can appreciate some Universes Beyond stuff, but this is a no-go for me. I also think he might be too good and closing out the game himself, drawing too much ire as a result.
• Assault Suit has been on my list for a long time, and I've only really removed it from this deck's maybeboard because I'm thinking of trying it in a different, more equipment focused deck. I might re-add it later though.
• Ghostly Prison feels spot on. I hadn't considered it yet, and it feels like it would slot in reaaaaal good.
• Emberwilde Captain goes back on the maybeboard. It also gives a reason to attack me, and that's anti-syngery, but it could also be good recurring draw + punishment for trying to take it from me, and the deck is likely good enough at taking the crown back if necessary.
• Kardur, Doomscourge also goes back on the maybeboard. By far the best way to force my opponents to fight each other and have them break parity rather than have to try doing it myself :P. I had removed it together with some other goad cards, but he could be one of the few that still make the deck.
• Vengeful Ancestor has my doubts, mostly because its effect doesn't really excite me. I'm leaving it out for now, but I'll look down here if I ever can't find other good options.
• Brutal Hordechief is probably also a great suggestion. As I mentioned, I want Boros Battleshaper to work, but I've already noticed that it doesn't really, and I'm currently more fighting with the copium than leaving it in for good reasons. This would probably be the replacement. Both having some drain to add to the combat damage pressure is nice, and I could also force blocks on somebody else's turn, which is pretty cool.
• Enduring Courage is a great option. I've mostly not included it yet because it feels a bit off aesthetically, but it might just be the best option. The deck can use more haste enablers, and I’ve really just not found the one that feels the best yet.
• Hellrider probably doesn't make the cut, since the deck doesn't go-wide enough IMO, and the tokens I put in during combat don't trigger this effect, where I can buff them to hit harder.

Again, thanks for the feedback and the suggestions!

Crow_Umbra on Combat Superiority

3 months ago

I don't see combat control variants of Isshin as often as I do other variants, so kudos to you for taking a less conventional build path. My main play group plays with Goad pretty frequently, and Aggro in general, and I understand your concerns about "being the villain" for playing a lot of it. In all honesty, I think it's something that you should lean into if you're going to do it. Being the "table villain" can be fun.

I haven't read through all of your change logs, so my bad if I missed them as past edits, but have you considered any of the following:

• If you want a couple more "donation" creatures to support your Alexios, both Xantcha, Sleeper Agent and Slicer, Hired Muscle  ^Flip could be worth checking out. Assault Suit is also in line with this theme and what you're going for.

• It might be worth it to throw in a Ghostly Prison to further deter attacks at you. Emberwilde Captain is another deterrent that triggers with Isshin.

• Depending on the success you have had with them, it could be worth considering swapping out Boros Battleshaper and Endbringer for creatures in the 3-4 cmc range that can produce more tokens for your own defensive/aggro purposes. Kardur, Doomscourge and Vengeful Ancestor could be additional Goad pieces worth including as potential swaps if you don't go the token support route.

• Looking at stuff already in your Maybeboard, I think Brutal Hordechief or Enduring Courage could be worthy inclusions. Hordechief and similar group slug/drain effects, like Hellrider can help send damage straight to faces, especially since Isshin gives them an additional trigger. Takes some of the pressure off your reliance on combat damage for a deck like this.

Best of luck with the deck. I think a bit more Goad could help spice your deck up, especially if other players don't really want to "buy into" the support that you're offering them. Sometimes you have to pivot from suggesting they fight each other to actively forcing them to do so lol.

RiotRunner789 on Archetype Name and Card Recommendations

3 months ago

If you had both Fumiko the Lowblood and Ghostly Prison on the board, the end result would be that your opponents not being forced to attack.

They would just choose you as the player their attacking then not pay into Ghostly Prison, since Fumiko or even goad, can't force them to.