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
Freeform	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
PreDH	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (51)

legendofa on How good are Gideon's Lawkeeper …

1 month ago

Unless you specifically want to get into politicking and making deals with the table (and that's great if you do), or you have a specific commander like Hylda of the Icy Crown (which can throw a wrench into politicking, since you gain an obvious advantage from the intended action), I think Goad effects or Ghostly Prison effects would generally be more effective. You have more control over a longer-term outcome that way, and you don't have to rely on other people keeping their word for you to direct traffic.

That being said, the deck you're describing sounds like it could potentially be a lot of fun, and it doesn't sound super oppressive. As long as you stick to the rules that you're setting, it's exactly as restrictive as you want it to be. Make deals, control the flow of battle, and don't do anything permanent until it's time to win.

One concern is that is can easily turn into a kingmaker, always-second-place-never-first deck. If you favor one person, you could let that person run away with a game without really developing anything tangible for yourself. On the other hand, if you support everyone equally, you might be seen as a liability rather than an asset and be targeted. So play style would be very important here--let other people open negotiations as well, and stay truthful. Nothing hurts a political deck more than a reputation for dishonesty. I would recommend some direct removal to keep everyone else honest and remind them what happens when they break the rules, and decide on a clear and independent win condition.

Vulnoth on Equestrian Friendship Initiative

3 months ago

Suggestions:

• Ash Barrens, Evolving Wilds, and Terramorphic Expanse with Command Tower, Command Power Plant, and Command Mine. 3 land swap to replace land consistency with mana flexibility.
• the 10 Ravnica signets with: Reliquary Tower, Reflecting Pool, Path of Ancestry, The World Tree, Second City, Exotic Orchard, Reflective Gate, Commander's Sphere, Vexing Puzzlebox, and Guided Passage. 10 artifacts for 7 lands, 2 artifacts, and 1 sorcery [10 total]. This reduces rate of low/no-land hands while still offering mana flexibility and other utility.
• 2 of each basic land for the OG duals: Savannah, Scrubland, Taiga, Bayou, Underground Sea, Plateau, Tundra, Tropical Island, Volcanic Island, Badlands. This increases consistency in mana flexibility.
• Kibo, Uktabi Prince with Yes Man, Personal Securitron. Direct group hugging that ultimately rewards you when Yes dies.
• Harrow with The Ring Goes South. Due to the high density of Legends, this will simply net more lands.
• Tempt with Mayhem with Brass's Tunnel-Grinder. This replaces a situational spell with a short-term hand filter that turns into a value engine land after transforming.
• Skyscribing with Choice of Fortunes. This swaps a costly recurring draw/big draw spell with a draw 2 that also grands infinite hand size.
• Noble Heritage with Noble Benefactor. This trades a temperamental protection for an easily activated tutor.
• Caged Sun with Chromatic Orrery. Caged Sun does not well benefit 5color decks, while Orrery perfectly mana fixes while flexing as a draw engine if necessary.
• Well of Knowledge for Dictate of Kruphix. Kruphix does it for free. Benevolent Offering for Selvala, Explorer Returned. Lower impact but Selvala is stable resource generation plus mana and life.
• Fact or Fiction with Defense of the Heart. Unfortunately FoF is a one-shot injection of cards while Defense pulls creatures of your choice to better toolbox situations.
• Alliance of Arms, The Second Doctor, and Acorn Catapult with Ghostly Prison, Propaganda, and Norn's Annex. Pillow forting a little always helps.
• Plated Pegasus with Wheel of Fortune. Spell damage is less common than abilities, so better replace it with a hand refill.

Try these out.

NV_1980 on Blackblade Returned

5 months ago

In its current form, this deck is going to have a very hard time winning any games. The most important reason for this is that you're running a voltron deck with an expensive-to-cast commander with no alternative win-conditions. This could still work, but only when you make sure of the following:

1. Make your defense nigh impenetrable: make sure that attacking you is the last thing opponents want to do. There's a number of deterrents within the Esper colors. No Mercy is an extremely potent one. More taxation cards (like the Ghostly Prison that you've already included) will also work well. Propaganda, Windborn Muse, Archangel of Tithes and Norn's Annex are all great for this. To prevent opponents from going (very) wide against you, you could also consider Archfiend of Depravity, Crawlspace and even Silent Arbiter.
2. Make Dakkon very hard to kill: you've already added a few means to give him protection and hexproof, but since you're so dependent on him, it wouldn't hurt to add even more defensive measures. I'd consider main-boarding Bastion Protector, Darksteel Plate, Lightning Greaves and Champion's Helm. Instead of the equipment, you could also choose to add more counterspells in case opponents try to get cute with spot-removal. An Offer You Can't Refuse, Counterspell, Swan Song, etc.
3. Make Dakkon almost impossible to block: what you really want in the end, is to kill your opponents with commander damage. There are fun ways to make sure you succeed at that. Auras like Aqueous Form or Spirit Mantle for example. Equipment like Trailblazer's Boots work extremely well too. Instead of these one can add more trample (or flight) enablers like Loxodon Warhammer.

Lastly, I think you can cut down your lands to say 37 and replace the 3 lands you cut with Talismans (Talisman of Dominance, Talisman of Hierarchy, Talisman of Progress), so that you can get Dakkon out a bit quicker.

Tippycat on I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up

6 months ago

I feel like you could lean in harder to the 'tap my creatures and do stuff" effects if you wanted to?

• Adarkar Valkyrie is hilarious as you can use it to get your opponent's creatures back when they die. And if he's indestructible when he's tapped, all the better for you!
• Droning Bureaucrats is a funny political card. You could use it to your benefit or one of your opponents attacking another one of your opponents.
• Devout Invocation would be on theme here.
• Drumbellower would be fun and allow you to retap/crew every turn - or keep things tapped by just re-crewing.
• Field Surgeon (or Hair-Strung Koto allow you to keep unlimited creatures tapped with either damage protection or milling ops.
• Flight-Deck Coordinator gains life for tapped creatures and Chrome Companion or Compassionate Healer would be on theme here too.
• Hand of Justice because - who uses Fallen Empires(?) and creature destruction!
• Orphans of the Wheat gives you a way to tap all your creatures. And with Rogue's Passage...
• Rinoa, Angel Wing would be good recursion for your stuff.
• Sword of the Paruns also pumps your tapped creatures
• Endbringer is good utility on many fronts.

Maybe some more protection too like Ghostly Prison or Norn's Annex?

If you decided to go with more legendary creatures Relic of Legends could be funny as it would simultaneously ramp and allow you to keep most things tapped!

Tippycat on Aura-Farming with Galea, Kindler of Hope

7 months ago

Seems like Penance and Hidden Retreat might be interesting includes here. Would allow you to manipulate your top-decking of the right enchantment and stop a threat at the same time.

Your removal / protection seems pretty light. Propaganda or Ghostly Prison would slow your opponents(s). Maybe include a few counterspells? Louisoix's Sacrifice or Disallow would stop both spells and abilities like Bane of Progress.

What about some recursion if your enchantments get destroyed? There's Replenish but it's pricey or Resurgent Belief. Or Open the Vaults which gets your artifacts too.

hyalopterouslemur on Ta-ta-ta Tokens!

8 months ago

I'll treat yours as a Bracket 2 with no tutors.

Okay, so replace Savra, Queen of the Golgari with Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos. I'm assuming you want the card advantage, but this is better because 1) any of your creatures dying triggers it, and 2) it doesn't cost you life. At the same time, it won't gain you life either the way Savra will, but since lifegain is negligible...yeah.

Anguished Unmaking > Mortify Sure, you shock yourself, but you exile (which is permanent except for like, two cards that no one ever plays) any nonland permanent.

Morbid Opportunist is insane in Ghave. There is no reason you shouldn't be able to draw on each turn (not "each of your turns", each turn). The same goes for Welcoming Vampire.

Have you considered No Mercy? Ghave is kind of a KOS commander because of his potential for combos and Stax. No Mercy punishes players for attacking you.

Fertilid is just bad. I'd rather play Explosive Vegetation than Fertilid, and there are like, five strictly betters for Veggies.

Viscera Seer and Jar of Eyeballs are nice for consistency.

Blade of the Bloodchief gives you more +1/+1 counters.

Spike Weaver is another "just try and attack me" card. I like it more than Spike Feeder, which is only good in that it goes infinite with Archangel of Thune. Since you're trying to avoid infinite combos, I would avoid going that way.

Corpse Knight, Bastion of Remembrance, Cruel Celebrant, Zulaport Cutthroat, just pick a couple of these because they add a win condition in case an opponent uses Ghostly Prison and friends, or worse, Moat.

dr.kronski on

8 months ago

Going 100% Angel tribal is clearly a challenge, not only because of the high average CMC, but also due to the strategic limitations. A broader card pool would allow you, among other things, to streamline the deck and make it faster and more consistent (Bishop of Wings, Esper Sentinel, Mother of Runes, Selfless Spirit, Starnheim Aspirant, etc.). That said, there are a few other (not many) options worth considering, such as Lightstall Inquisitor or Inspiring Overseer, just to name a couple.

Pariah seems like a good idea to me, although I personally prefer Mithril Coat, as it’s more solid and less restrictive, to accompany it. If Pariah is staying, then Metropolis Reformer should definitely be taken into account.

I believe the creature count should be significantly reduced and replaced with more cheap interaction and possibly some assorted stax pieces (Aura of Silence, Ghostly Prison, Rest in Peace, among others — white has no shortage of options). This would slow down faster decks (which is almost all of them) and help you manage the game until you can either set up board wipes or reach the point where your Angels are established and fully online on the battlefield.

On top of that, Folk Hero would fit here like a glove. The same goes for Archaeomancer's Map, Akroma's Will, The Seriema (even if it strays a bit from the theme), and Throne of Eldraine.

Feel free to check out my Giada's deck as well if you'd like on my profile's page.

Go for it — cheers!

Crow_Umbra on Cookin' with Lightning

9 months ago

No prob, always happy to lend some suggestions. I've been playing Isshin since he debuted, but mostly as a tokens Go-Wide build with some Group slug and Goad mixed in. Nelly Borca was my first fully dedicated Goad deck. Squall, Gunblade Duelist is the closest that I'll get to a Mardu Goad commander that isn't Isshin, for now.

• Land counts are def one of those personal preference details that I don't lean on super heavily for suggestions unless someone is on thr lower side with a high curve. Def an "art meets science" aspect of deck building lol. For Isshin specifically, I've cut down on 2 cmc rocks to swap for newer 2 cmc creatures. In non-Green decks I usually rely on the color relevant "Talisman of __" cycle, Arcane Sig, maybe Fellwar Stone. For land edits I try to cut back on tapped lands without a condition that allows them to enter untapped.

• Yeah, I had fun with Etali in Isshin for a bit, but it ate removal more often than not without Lightning Greaves or something similar. I think you could swap Patron of the Kitsune for the Righteous Cause in your Maybe Board. It's slightly cheaper, but also more removal resistant.

• On the note of Goad enablers, something I've picked up on from playing Nelly, and against various Goad decks in my main playgroup, is that combat incentives can "encourage" folks to fight rather than force them. Donating creature tokens via the Hunted cycle & Combat Calligrapher can be risky. Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor and Frontier Warmonger are more examples of combat incentives in the vein of Karazikar & Breena that everyone can benefit from. The Firemane Commando in your Maybe Board is also solid. Carrots vs sticks. Give people carrots, then beat them over the head with them.

• On that note, the Hissing Miasma effects are def a "Your mileage may vary". Folks i regularly play with will tank the damage to kill whoever. The Ghostly Prison effects seem to be a bigger deterrent.

• Promise of Loyalty and Split Up can be interesting semi-symmetrical removal options that also allow for political wheeling & dealing.

Happy to provide feedback & chat. Isshin is easily my favorite commander, and Goad is something I enjoy playing with and against. If you're ever interested, The Rani is also a solid Goad commander. One of my friends runs her, & she's a lot of fun.