Giver of Runes

Creature — Kor Cleric

: Another target creature you control gains protection from colourless or from the colour of your choice until end of turn.

Discussion (51)

Gadianten on Orzhov Inquisition (WB Cleric Tribal)

5 days ago

I am glad to be seeing more cleric tribal decks starting to show up, it seems the solid increase in cleric legendary prints has really helped. In my own experiments with tribal clerics, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim being my original cleric commander, have found that clerics excel in defense, resurrection and life gain but not offense compared to tribes like soldier and goblin tribal. That in mind I do have some recommendations to help maximize their potential.

Beat Sticks and offense: You have Doubtless One and Vile Deacon but don't forget to add Custodi Soulbinders and Mikaeus, the Lunarch to round out the heavy hitters. But there is more to offensive then just beat sticks, so I would consider Frontline Medic for no fear attacks and non cleric offensive aids like Reconnaissance, Dolmen Gate and Cover of Darkness to keep the clergy moving and Tymna earning her keep. From my experience in using Tymna you need evasion to keep drawing cards as trample is scarce in tribe. If you are feeling savage you can try Archangel of Thune and with the life gain available to the tribe it can get hilarious fast.

Card Draw: Most tribal decks I see have the same weakness and its card draw, even with Tymna the Weaver you can still get ground down to a halt, avoid that with some in tribe options to fuel the attack like Bygone Bishop, Custodi Lich, Twilight Prophet, Mangara, the Diplomat, Alms Collector, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. Yawgmoth is a must have in my opinion as he removes the sting out of board wipes and allows removal if you really need it and can even discard one of your cards for reanimation abuse as well.

Defensive Options: Clerics probably have the best defenses out of all the tribes and at very low costs, some options I you should consider are Devoted Caretaker, Giver of Runes, Selfless Spirit and Songstitcher if fliers are a problem for you.

Tricks and Value Combos: An amusing combo I have played with before and found pretty funny was Hedron-Field Purists or Daunting Defender along with Pestilence. It can take a bit to assemble but is pretty funny when you do. Another value combo is Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Ancestor's Prophet.

Resurrection: To many options to list but I would recommend looking through the large amounts available and pack as many as you can in to increase endurance and grind opponents down. I can say from experience this can really clinch a victory.

Drcfan on Devotion to White Angels

3 weeks ago

@ DrCinnamon

• Grand Abolisher can help a lot against control decks and suits the devotion plan as well. If you face control often, you can also include other anti control cards. Fell free to experiment with Eight-and-a-Half-Tails, Favor of the Mighty, 4x Cavern of Souls, Giver of Runes, Greater Auramancy, Ranger-Captain of Eos, Pristine Angel, Voice of All, Pentarch Ward, Spectra Ward. Control has always the upper hand over you, this helps to bind their hands.

• Luminous Broodmoth it's not an Angel and you control not enough non flyers that are worth to keep alive. You can run a creature only strategy. I suggest you look at death and taxes decks and draw inspiration from there.

• Angels do not synergize with anything. You play Angels only because you like Angels not for competitive reasons. There is an option for a lifegain Angels deck (I'm working on it right now) but it uses very different kind of Angels Angel of Vitality, Resplendent Angel, Archangel of Thune, Lyra Dawnbringer and a lot of 1 life passive trigger cards.

• If you add another color or colorless, you destroy the devotion plan. Therefore you need another strategy to get Angels out. See "Other strategies" in description

Fibonachos on Orah Cleric Tribal

3 weeks ago

Good looking list! One or two suggestions, if you are going for life-gain Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim might be better value than Pitiless Pontiff. That being said, I'm not sure there is enough life gain to make Speaker of the Heavens worth. Other great 1 costs would be Mother of Runes and Giver of Runes. A sweet tutor to consider is Buried Alive, and good recursion in Victimize. Hope that helps!

TheVectornaut on Searing Infection

1 month ago

Most of my experience with infect comes from playing simic, but I have played the mechanic in all 5 colors. In terms of power, green is the most effective color to play by a very VERY large margin. You get access to the best infect creature in Glistener Elf (along with the slower and safer option of Blight Mamba), you get trample sources to push through damage with Ichorclaw Myr such as Rancor, Predator's Strike, and Larger Than Life, you get protection bundled with buffs in the form of Vines of Vastwood, Ranger's Guile, and Blossoming Defense, and you get the largest pool of very strong power boosts in the form of Mutagenic Growth, Invigorate, Scale Up, Might of Old Krosa, Berserk, Become Immense, Groundswell, Phytoburst, Noble Hierarch, and Pendelhaven. Since infect is an all-or-nothing sort of archetype, even when running the less aggressive versions, the most important characteristics that you need are speed, protection, and evasion. Green offers two of those things in spades but can struggle with evasion. This is why blue is generally considered the next best color to run. You get the insane threat of Blighted Agent, unblockable buffs with Distortion Strike and Aqueous Form, and protection from spells via Spell Pierce, Dispel, Turn Aside, and the odd Spellskite. Black is the next best. Plague Stinger's flying isn't as good as the unblockable on a Blighted Agent but it's still very powerful evasion as illustrated by the ubiquity of Inkmoth Nexus in every non-budget infect list ever made. Black also nets useful control tools like Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Fatal Push, Dismember, and Assassin's Trophy. White was considered the worst infect color for a very long time since its best option (Apostle's Blessing) can be used in any deck, but the recent introduction of Giver of Runes has breathed some life back into the color. Additionally, I've seen a lot of equipment lists popping up that use Colossus Hammer, Kor Duelist, Sigarda's Aid, and Kor Outfitter to see some success. Unfortunately, that leaves red as the current worst color to run in infect. It has some decent buffs but they pale in comparison to green's offerings. The result is that most red infect decks rely on gimmicks like using Razor Swine's first strike to wither enemy creatures, generating infinite mana to pump into an unblocked Ogre Menial, or putting Phyresis on something like a Spikeshot Elder to bypass combat altogether. Your instant tricks definitely fall in this category. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. If your meta is casual enough, red should still work and it will be much more interesting to play with / fun to play against than a more traditional deck. How competitive you want to be is always up to you.

To answer your specific questions, I would probably start by cutting a few creatures. Most lists run about 12 infect sources (and that's including a playset of Inkmoth Nexus). With Hand of the Praetors on your top end, running 16-20 isn't that unreasonable, at least as long as all of them are good. Infect creatures usually become "bad" when they cost more than 2. That's why I wouldn't usually recommend running Ichor Rats or Septic Rats. Both Necropede and Plague Myr are perfectly acceptable inclusions with very similar power levels. They'll rarely be better than Plague Stinger or Ichorclaw Myr but that's okay if you just want more guys to play. As for Vector Asp, it's honestly a pretty bad choice in most circumstances. While you usually won't need to activate it more than 2 or 3 times to win the game, that mana would be better spent elsewhere, and it doesn't even trigger the Hand. However, given the choice of it and a 3-drop, I'd probably take the snake, especially since it would be your only proactive play on turn 1 (barring the inclusion of Glistener Elf or Inkmoths). Better though would just be to run neither and invest in more buff spells to assist in combat and trigger Livewire Lash. I do like the idea of those spells having cycling in theory, but in practice, the mana needed to cycle can short you of the resources needed to close out the game. Plus, cycling spells tend to cost more to account for the added ability. Cycling lands on the other hand should be fine as long as they come in untapped, although it looks like that only describes Ash Barrens and Blasted Landscape. Just like with creatures, I wouldn't run any spells that cost more than 2 unless they can win you the game like Soul's Fire can. This will also allow you to run 20 lands or fewer, opening up even more slots for gas. I apologize if I'm repeating myself about the low-cost-high-speed thing but that is basically the reason the infect mechanic exists. If you prefer a slow and more controlling style, Rakdos wither built around Necroskitter is a fun option that has some overlap with infect.

Davinoth on Sram's Serious Sword [Stoneblade EDH]

1 month ago

     Wiizy: Indeed, that's true! You're definitely not wrong, but there are a number of creatures in this deck that I don't have much interest in stacking equipment on that are still worth protecting (Mother of Runes, Bastion Protector, etcetera).

     Having the ability to give haste for no additional mana in a White deck is quite valuable with things like Giver of Runes or Stonehewer Giant as well. The Shroud part of Lightning Greaves can definitely be annoying at times, but they still draw me a card, grant haste and equip for zero. In my mind the Greaves are just too useful to not include. =)

abby315 on Clerics WIP

1 month ago

I definitely agree with GoblinElectromancer's suggestions - Clerics were given a lot of new tools to actually win the game in the new set, rather than be supporting characters. I think you need 4x Angel of Destiny, 4x Fiend Hunter, and 4x Cleric of Life's Bond as a good lifegain and removal core. I also recommend 4x Soul Warden.

Here are some other good Clerics in addition to the above that you should consider. In general, I think going a lifegain, rather than a damage prevention, route will be more successful for you. There's a reason they've moved away from damage prevention in white.
Auriok Champion
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
Bishop of Rebirth
Bygone Bishop
Edgewalker - but please don't buy any now, as they've spiked and will go back down.
Giver of Runes/Mother of Runes
Mangara, the Diplomat
Selfless Spirit

These cards I think are weak that you can definitely cut for new cards:
Daru Healer
Oriss, Samite Guardian
Pulsemage Advocate
Shieldmage Elder
Ancestor's Prophet
War Report

SynergyBuild on Best 1-drops?

2 months ago

Here are my favorites per color, and of course, colorless!:

(Not including obvious cards like Sol Ring, Skullclamp, Swords to Plowshares, Swan Song, Elvish Mystic, because... duh)

Colorless:

1. Bag of Holding

2. Pyramid of the Pantheon

3. Expedition Map

4. Shadowspear

5. Silent Gravestone

6. Soul-Guide Lantern

White:

1. Weathered Wayfarer

2. Fragmentize

3. Argivian Find

4. Deafening Silence

5. Mother of Runes

6. Giver of Runes

7. Silence

8. Mana Tithe

9. Porphyry Nodes

Blue:

1. Breakthrough

2. Curious Obsession

3. Curiosity

4. Enclave Cryptologist

5. Flood

6. Soothsaying

7. Telepathy

8. Trusted Advisor

Black:

1. Cruel Sadist

2. Deadeye Tracker

3. Guul Draz Assassin

4. Will-o'-the-Wisp

5. Ulcerate

6. Cling to Dust

7. Cremate

Red:

1. Goblin Welder

2. Grim Lavamancer

3. Magus of the Scroll

4. Molten Vortex

5. Slumbering Dragon

6. Spikeshot Elder

Green:

1. Elvish Reclaimer

2. Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter

3. Permeating Mass

4. Savage Summoning

5. Scute Mob

6. Nature's Claim

7. Natural State

8. Shapers' Sanctuary

9. Ulvenwald Tracker

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Now, as I mentioned, there are plenty staples I didn't mention, here are some of the less common, more budget cards. If you want a list of all the dorks, draw engines, etc. that are at 1 cmc and should be run, just ask!

Player3.14 on Sword of Body and Mind …

2 months ago

DuTogira - I actually do already have Swiftfoot Boots and Lightning Greaves in the deck; they're awesome. Cheap and efficient protection. Yet consistency is redundancy, so in addition to Mother of Runes and Giver of Runes, I thought having the swords in there too would make it even more likely that Avacyn isn't bounced/exiled/stolen/etc. The nice thing about the Mirran swords is that they grant a bit of a boost as well as some removal protection and unblockability (though admittedly, as you mention, green removal is almost nonexistent, green flying is pretty rare and green reach is fairly uncommon in practice, so the pro-green for Avacyn doesn't mean as much).

However, given that the cheap protection boots are already in the deck, I was thinking of following Peligrad's advice and using Champion's Helm instead for more comprehensive protection, or maybe just abandoning maintaining that slot as an equipment and adding a creature in there instead. I liked the prospect of having cheap wolves that become indestructible blockers or sac fodder to Plaguecrafter and friends, but that's a pretty small benefit.

Thanks for the advice!