Ghostly Prison

Enchantment

Creatures can't attack you unless their controller pays for each creature he or she controls that's attacking you.

Discussion (51)

plakjekaas on What, Exactly, is Wrong with …

1 day ago

What's white known for?

Lifegain? Green and black are as able as white at gaining life, while also progressing the game/board while doing so.

Removal? Black deals with specifically single target creature better than white can. Enchantments and artifacts are removed as easily, if not more so, by green. Oblivion Ring effects? Not a permanent solution, often suboptimal. Boardwipes? Damnation, Toxic Deluge, Blasphemous Act and Cyclonic Rift are more popular than Wrath of God. But Planar Cleansing is a purely white effect right...? Hello Boompile, Oblivion Stone and Nevinyrral's Disk, which are playable in every deck.

Tokens then? But Doubling Season and Parallel Lives are green cards. White has the best non-tribal anthems, like Glorious Anthem, but most commander decks that actually win by those effects, usually are tribal, and have plenty of lords that synergize better with the deck.

So what does a deck need to actually be functional? Most will say you'll need a decent amount of carddraw and ramp. White ramp is actually catching up lately, but almost all white ramp is dependent on artifacts or your opponents (Knight of the Reliquary effects). Smothering Tithe helps though. White carddraw is either the Monarch, which every other color has cards for, or it's Mentor of the Meek and Bygone Bishop, which impose fairly heavy restrictions on your deck, to play low-impact creature cards in your 99. There is no white Rhystic Study, Outpost Siege, Guardian Project or Phyrexian Arena.

And finally, what else is white lacking? A (big mana) spell that can win the game on the spot. Like Torment of Hailfire, Craterhoof Behemoth, Insurrection or Thassa's Oracle. White splashy spells will create an imposing boardstate, but you'll need to actually untap to attack and win the game, giving your opponents a full turn to respond. The closest white has is Approach of the Second Sun which you can see coming 7 cards in advance.

So there's no real unique reason to play White in your deck. White only shines in being annoying, with Rule of Law, Drannith Magistrate, Ghostly Prison, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Blind Obedience and Armageddon, which not everyone (understatement) likes playing against. So if you'd ask me, the lack of carddraw, unique strategies & finishers, and the play-stax-or-lose image, are the main problems white is dealing with right now.

aholder7 on Modern Mogis Lockdown

6 days ago

okay so a few things of note here.

first. i'd suggest running 4-ofs for your best cards. there isn't any clear reason why you'd want 3 ofs in this scenario except mogis who is legendary in which case it's fine.

second. Lightning Bolt. it's one of the best red cards in the game and it's cost effective way of solving problems cannot be understated. i think it's important that it gets a slot in this deck.

third. your win con appears to be Mogis/burn. Mogis is a very slow way to win. normally for a control deck you are controlling them until you can drop some threat that you can protect that will win the game shortly after that or at least create such a lock as to make getting out of it futile. mogis will never turn on in your deck so at most it's going to be 2 damage a turn from mogis assuming they aren't doing a wide strategy. perhaps a planeswalker like Liliana, the Last Hope who you can +1 to help remove creatures and win off of her ult.

fourth. your mix of control spells is heavily weighted towards destroying creatures after they hit the field. thats something you want to respond to but people play other cards that you'll need to deal with. enchantments like Wilderness Reclamation, artifacts like Amulet of Vigor and non-permanents of all kinds. you also will lose pace with decks that use creature that have ETBs such as Omnath, Locus of Creation and Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath which yes you can kill but you'll be losing card advantage. you need a few more proactive responses and ways to gain incremental advantage over your opponent. discard spells like Thoughtseize or at least multipurpose cards like Kolaghan's Command and Collective Brutality can help. other proactive cards such as Blood Moon and Ghostly Prison can shut down or at least slow opposing decks to keep them from racing ahead of you.

with the above things in mind i'd suggest something along the following changes.

cards to remove:

-3 Crackling Doom: soul shatter and other remove should be sufficient

-3 Lightning Helix: lifegain is great for stabilizing but the power removal comes from it's mana efficiency. on turn 2 being able to play a discard spell and hold up a Lightning Bolt for their creature is much more powerful than the life gain from helix. still a great card for sideboard to bring in against lightning fast agro decks like burn or zoo.

-1 Soul Shatter: i'm not sure you need any of these in the mainboard. you have Anguished Unmaking to get around indestructible should it come up. Dreadbore and Anguished Unmaking can kill planeswalkers. That leaves hexproof is the only thing that this gets around that you don't have an answer for already. hexproof is uncommon enough that i'd personally put this in the sideboard, but considering how many of this effect you have in your deck i'm assuming your meta has enough hexproof to warrant 2 mainboard slots.

-4 Divine Gambit: 1 for 1 at best, 1 for 0 at worst. the ability to exile most types of permanents is powerful but the downside seems too risky and likely to set you behind.

-3 Anger the gods: you don't need 7 soft sweeps. with the amount of removal you have a board wide damage spell is likely for hitting tokens or other wide strategies. for most of these scenarios 2 damage should be enough. in the scenarios where 2 isn't enough, 3 likely isn't either. Wrath of God or similar would be a better bet for those situations.

-1 Pyroclasm: you probably don't even need 4 soft sweeps in the main unless you are expecting a dearth of going wide strategies in your meta.

-3 Mogis, God of Slaughter: without a way to turn him on or a way to create a true lock outs like teferi-pool you aren't going to get as much value out of mogis as you need to make him your win con.

cards to add:

+4 Lightning Bolt: this is solid removal or a damage to face if you don't need to use it as such.

+2-4: Thoughtseize: considered one of the best discard spells in the game because it hits basically everything at the cost of 2 life.

+2-4: Duress: you can choose Inquisition of Kozilek or Raven's Crime or another discard spell of your choice. i'd suggest at least 6 discard spells and you can decide the split between your discard spells depending on how aggressive your meta is.

+2 Kolaghan's Command: small creature removal, artifact removal, discard spell. very versatile.

+4 Liliana, the Last Hope, a strong contender for win con. i went with 4 copies because it doesn't have innate protection and you want it early if you can as it provides good value.

+1 Path to Exile: to make it a 4 of.

+1 Fatal Push: to make it a 4 of.

??? Tibalt's Trickery: I don't know if this is a good idea in control. you are giving up a card to change what card your opponent is casting. but they are still getting something. so you are 1 for 0ing them in a way. if they are casting a spell like Scapeshift for the win then obviously this will help but the risk of them flipping an equally scary threat off the top is very real. but your choices in counterspell are pretty limited.

if you are willing to mess around with your mana base you can probably make good use of Blood Moon as well but that would require some careful maneuvering in a 3 color deck.

Pellaeon on Kathril

1 week ago

Hi bushido_man96

thanks for the hints. The first four cards you mentioed sounds very intersting. I think about adding two of them into my deck: No Mercy and Ghostly Prison.

To include The Great Henge I removed one plain resulting in 36 lands. I think this is still ok. To insert Carnage Tyrant I removed Sunblast Angel. There are enough creatures with flying and the ability to remove tapped creatures didn't worked very well in my games. So I think no great loss. At last, I removed Selective Adaptation to add Rise of the Dark Realms as an additional win condition if Kathril is blocked by opponents actions.

I looked on your deck Kathril Voltron Reanimator and noticed that you have much less creatures than me. How hard is it for you to get the keywords in the graveyard? A lot of Kathril decks include around 36 creatures. I reduced it to 32 to add some sourceries and enchanment. But you 25 feels very less (therefore my question). So perhaps that would be an option: remove 2-3 creatures to add some of the cards you suggested.

bushido_man96 on Kathril

1 week ago

No Mercy, Dread, and Ghostly Prison, and Koskun Falls can help from getting attacked.

I added some sac outlets to my version. I still need an early board state, and the sac outlets help me set up for when I cast Kathril. Greater Good is great for drawing and filling the yard.

I think you could cut Kaya's Wrath for The Great Henge, and pick a less good creature to cut for Carnage Tyrant.

Last_Laugh on How to play aggro?

1 week ago

Ghostly Prison and Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker can help deter attacks.

Reconnaissance will allow you to attack with EVERY creature safely, still deal combat damage in most situations, and you'll have EVERY one of those creatures untapped by the end of combat. (Check my decks description for more details of how to abuse this card Edgar's Dega Vampires)

SimicVisionRy on How to play aggro?

1 week ago

So, if am reading this correctly, you like to play stax, or a more control based strategy, yes? I know of two ways of handling it:

The first treatment I know of is something my group calls "Pillowfort"; essentially, you use tax like effects to make your opponents pay mana for each time they want to attack you, making them have to spend mana on something other than the spells they can cast. See Ghostly Prison for example.

The another method We call "Winter" or "Stasis". Named partly due to the card of the same name: Stasis and Winter Orb. These already play heavily into a more Stax playstyle, although, this is fair warning: most players in your play group will defintely target you more. It is almost fact. When you as a player affect everyone, versus a single player, you earn everyone's ire.

The last method I know of is what we call "Nope Magic" or, lockout. You simply tell people what they can, or cannot cast. For example, by using Ethersworn Canonist.

Now, in regards to the whole "picking who to attack" part of your question, I always recommend, as a control player, to focus or keep an eye on the player that disrupts you most, or can evade your control. I typically look at a player whose deck or playstyle directly affects my means of winning the game. As with most things, certain decks tend to perform better than others. just find out who in your group tends to get the W, and why. Kit your deck around that a little, and hopefully that should help.

Hope this info helps, and let me know if there's anything else you'd like help with!

Sid_the_sloth on Queen Marchesa

1 week ago

i have several questions about "how to build" her. there may be no technical proper way but i have several ideas and at the root of my questioning is, is there such thing of having too much going on inside a deck? that being asked. my first run with her was a "control" super friends. by that i was using the typical mardu removal package to "control" the board, and generally winning by gideon's being gideon's and becoming creatures. also small win percentage came from cards like. Elspeth, Sun's Champion Anointed Procession and Divine Visitation etc etc

my though is i have a mogis deck could i take the core of the Mogis, God of Slaughter deck that i have and remove the small chunk of filler rakdos cards and replace with white for the obvious spot removal, board wipes, and extra slug cards that white offers, or better yet tax like cards?? while using the monach ability, and cards that support that. for example rakdos group slug now mardu because of queen marchesa for cards like Court of Grace Court of Ambition Court of Ire

white enchantments ...(to name a few)

Ghostly Prison Sphere of Safety Karmic Justice

and due to the white addition. you have access to WAY better spot removal not just in mono white but white/black. also access to more wraths.

that being said what would the win cons be in this made up deck??? my assumption would be between the damage from group slug effects, keeping some planes walkers to make dudes or swing with themselves. on top of the fact of having a few creatures in the deck. it all comes down to my original question is all of this going on in side the deck too much of different things going on to be a hindrance or are these 3 or 4 things actually decent enough to work together with out the deck tripping over it self??

PeriodicalFits on Legendary Samurai

2 weeks ago

Hey! I love samurai and have a few tips you may like. I would probably say that adding 2 Sensei Golden-Tail and taking out a Hand of Honor and a Inner-Chamber Guard would help. Sensei is a legendary samurai but is still only a 2 cmc. On top of that, you can use it to give more bushido to other samurai, which would be helpful once you drop Takeno, Samurai General. I would also recommend that you replace Hold the Line with Righteousness. yes, righteousness only targets one blocker, and not all, but it is only a 1 cmc, and you can target just Bushi Tenderfoot  ^Flip to cause it to flip easier. And finally, a cheaper alternative to Angel's Grace is Worship. Or if you want to stay in the Kamigawa block for your defense, you can use the kamigawa printing of Ghostly Prison.

Hope this helps! you can check out my Long Live the Samurai Deck or my Long Live the Monarch EDH deck for some nice ideas.