Grafdigger's Cage
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander 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
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vintage Legal

Grafdigger's Cage

Artifact

Creature cards in graveyards or libraries can't enter the battlefield.

Players can't cast spells from graveyards or libraries.

Slashdance on Woodland's Wrath

2 weeks ago

The Bond Beetle was to sub in for the Young Wolf if I need to also put in Grafdigger's Cage. I'll see what I can do, or maybe I just won't use Grafdigger's ... it seems a little problematic with the deck atm. Not sure, lol.

StoryArcher on Don't Let Em Breathe (Quick)

2 weeks ago

Slashdance (love the name btw)

I appreciate the kind words. The fetch lands are there to make sure I get a trigger on the Narnam Renegade and to thin out the deck a little so that any draws I get from Werewolf Pack Leader get the most bang for their buck. You could probably go with straight forests to save some cash, but if you do I'd probably pull the Renegades for +1 Experiment One, +1 Pelt Collector and 2x Young Wolf. Going with more basic lands will protect you a bit from cards like Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon as well.

As far as some other budget options, Boseiju, Who Endures is also a very expensive, fairly new card. It's a very strong addition for what it does but is in no way necessary for the deck to operate. That could easily be a Forest as well. If you go all Forests, consider adding in a couple of Treetop Village or Lair of the Hydra and maybe a Dryad Arbor.

Sideboards are largely a product of your local meta and the one I have listed is just a handful of quality generic options. Prowling Serpopard, Scavenging Ooze, Beast Within, Damping Sphere and Grafdigger's Cage are just a few budget options out there, depending on what you're trying to stop.

thefiresoflurve on Sounds About White to Me

1 month ago

If you're looking for help making cuts, the first step I would take is to look at your symmetrical stax pieces and see which ones hurt you the most:

Deafening Silence, Grafdigger's Cage, Containment Priest, Ethersworn Canonist, Hushbringer, Kataki, War's Wage, Leonin Arbiter, Rest in Peace, Sphere of Resistance, Spirit of the Labyrinth, Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Trinisphere, Sanctum Prelate, Rule of Law, Thorn of Amethyst, whew I think that's all.

Of these, you want to look at the ones which most hamper what you want to do, or have negative synergies with other cards you run. You have a few cards that say "draw", so Spirit of the Labyrinth is IMO the very first cut you should make.

Another negative synergy I saw is Hushbringer and Authority of the Consuls. I like Authority a lot better since it synergizes with Heliod.

The next ones I'd cut could take one of two routes: so, I'm thinking of cards like Ethersworn Canonist and Sphere of Resistance. These kind of innately have negative synergy - if people are paying more for spells, they're less likely to be able to cast multiple spells in the first place, meaning the Canonist's ability is wasted. You should consider going for one type of effect or the other, not both. (I wouldn't run either symmetrically in mono-white, personally).

Council's Judgment can probably be cut - you have great enough removal without running it.

kataki definitely needs to go with how many artifacts you're running.

multimedia on Blue/white merfolk tribal deck

1 month ago

Hey, you're welcome.

If you're new to sideboarding then some advice is to start, build a sideboard of 15 cards that are good in broad matchups: control, midrange and aggro. These three archetypes can be considered super archetypes as most decks go into one of these. For control matchups more counterspells, noncreature removal, creature protection, Planeswalker hate. For midrange other creature removal, a creature board wipe. For aggro a bigger creature that's hard to remove, creature protection, some life gain.

You want to think about what strategies are going to be difficult for you to beat with Merfolk and use your sideboard to help against these strategies. You want to be attacking with Merfolk therefore opponent strategies that put a lot of creatures onto the battlefield as blockers especially token creatures can be difficult. Board wipes wreck little tribal creatures. Merfolk are small creatures, bigger creatures can be a problem. 4x Swords to Plowshares main deck helps a lot against big blockers, but some times you need an effect that removes more than one creature.

In your main deck you have several cards that I would consider sideboard cards, not cards that belong in the main deck because they're narrow. Wash Out is a hate card that belongs in the sideboard because you might be against a blue opponent and then it also bounces your Merfolk. However, it can be a game winning effect against a nonblue opponent who has a lot of blockers. Disenchant doesn't do anything if opponent isn't playing a problematic artifact or enchantment. Angelsong can deny a big swing of damage from attackers by opponent and then you swing back at them on your turn, but you don't need this effect main deck even with cycling.

If you know about the decks that you're against such as a playgroup of friends who you always battle then you can be much more specific in what cards go in the sideboard. Cards that are good against decks your opponents are playing. Cards in the sideboard can be much narrower for only certain matchups if you know of those matchups and are against that type of deck a lot.

If you can use some Merfolk as sideboard cards then that will help your strategy of tribal Merfolk. Tidebinder Mage is for against green or red midrange or aggro. Hullbreacher against control. Kopala, Warden of Waves can make it more difficult for opponent to target a Merfolk you control. Sygg, River Guide can protect from chosen color and make that Merfolk unblockable against that color. Master of Waves is great against red, having protection from red and against aggro it can create a token army of blockers. Judge of Currents can be a life gaining Merfolk to bring in against aggro.

Example of a budget tribal Merfolk sideboard:

Have you heard of the term "hate card"? A hate card is most of the time found in the sideboard because it's very good against a certain color/colors. The good hate cards are lower mana cost because then you're getting amazing value for the cost against that color. Tidebinder Mage is a Merfolk example of a hate card against green or red creatures, but you don't play it main deck because if you're not against an opponent who has a green or red creature then it doesn't do much and there's better two drop Merfolk to play. Blue Elemental Blast is an example of a powerful hate card against red. Celestial Purge is white's hate against black or red.

A hate card doesn't have to be against a certain color, you might want it to shut down an entire deck strategy. Grafdigger's Cage is hate against reanimation strategies where opponent is bringing any creature from their graveyard onto the battlefield. Pithing Needle can shut down a certain card such as a Planeswalker or anything nonland that has an activated ability. Echoing Truth can wreck tokens because all token creatures of the same types are the same name and when a token is bounced it ceases to exist in the game.

AstroAA on Should I Keep Luminarch Ascension …

2 months ago

Luminarch Ascension is just slow. I used to run it in my Sythis, Harvest's Hand enchantress prison deck as a backup method to get beaters out, and most of the time I'd play it and it'd just sit there as I'd use my mana for other things. It's not worth it most of the time.

I do not know why you aren't already running Esper Sentinel. In your deck you're running a bunch of anthems, and Esper Sentinel can easily draw you a ridiculous amount of cards rather quickly if his tax gets up to 4~5 mana. He's easily one of the best white cards in Magic, and your deck seems likely to support him. Plus he's only one mana, and you have an absolutely ridiculous CMC of 3.87 with only seven mana rocks - two of which are 4+ CMC.

My advice? Fuck Smothering Tithe. I personally think the card is overrated and is one of the most "kill on sight" cards in Magic. A quarter of the time you play it and it's countered. Another quarter of the time you play it and it gets blown up immediately. Another quarter of the time you play it and it does nothing. The last quarter of the time it does something. If you wanted to play some cheaper "kill on sight" cards to bait out counter magic and kill spells, Food Chain, Survival of the Fittest, and even something like Grafdigger's Cage against certain decks. But, take what I say here with a grain of salt - I just don't like Smothering Tithe, and I think the CMC of it won't help you that much since you don't run a lot of ramp. I'd honestly rather run Yasharn, Implacable Earth over Smothering Tithe in your deck right now.

Now, you asked for feedback and suggestions, so here are my main suggestions. I'm not sure your budget, but considering you're asking us to decide between two $20~$30 cards, I'll assume it's higher than the average Magic player's. Here is a basic list of things you can do to improve your deck:

  • Go through your deck and individually look at every card in it. Think to yourself "How often do I play this card? Does this card make an impact whenever I play it? Is it just immediately answered? How does this fit into my game plan?" etc. Cut cards that you think aren't up to par or properly fit into your deck.
  • Your deck seems to lack a proper direction. You say you want to pillowfort and focus on building up an army. Cards like Windborn Muse and Ghostly Prison can help you prevent people from swinging at you. If you wanted to prevent people from swinging at all, Crawlspace and Dueling Grounds can work, and you can just pop them with a Nature's Claim or something before you want to start attacking. If you wanted to focus more on the army aspect, you could go with stuff like Avenger of Zendikar, Rhys the Redeemed, or Tendershoot Dryad.
  • Lower your Converted Mana Cost. You currently have a CMC of 3.87, which is rather high. In addition, you are only running seven pieces of ramp - all mana rocks - and two of them are four or more CMC, which does not help you much. Cut cards that don't do much and replace them with either cheaper mana rocks or mana dorks. A few that I immediately see that I would cut are cards like Treva, the Renewer, Skyward Eye Prophets, Empyrial Archangel, and Archon of the Triumvirate. Cards you should add are like Avacyn's Pilgrim, Birds of Paradise, Sylvan Caryatid, and Noble Hierarch. This will lower your CMC and provide additional mana ramp.
  • Lands. You are currently running 38 lands, which is definitely on the high end. However, I think this is a product of having a CMC of 3.87. I think should you end up reducing your CMC to around 2.75 to 3.00 while adding in at least ~7 sources of mana acceleration you can go down to 32~33 lands, which is much more reasonable. However, I also want to talk about your land choices. You aren't running any fetches and many of your lands have a chance to enter tapped. I would look at adding in more fetches such as Prismatic Vista, Windswept Heath, Misty Rainforest, and Flooded Strand at least. In addition, I'd also look at lands such as City of Brass, Mystic Confluence, and the Battlebond lands such as Bountiful Promenade, Rejuvenating Springs, and Sea of Clouds should you reliably play with 3+ people pods. Cut cards like Seaside Citadel and the check lands, as they're kind of feelsbad turn one plays.
  • Removal. You aren't running much removal to deal with threats. Cheap removal such as Nature's Claim, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Return to Nature, and On Thin Ice are all super good in EDH. I would definitely look at improving your removal suite outside of 3+ mana counterspells. Also, look at cheaper counterspells. Cards like Mana Drain would be super good here as it provides you mana acceleration while stopping your opponents.

There is more I would like to add, such as talking more about card advantage, but I've spent damn near close to an hour typing this so I'm gonna call it here. Now, take what I've said with a grain of salt. I'm a high-powered player; I like to optimize my decks, and with optimization comes homogenization. I.e; your decks become less unique. You've got a pretty unique deck here, and if you like it then you like it. Ultimately it's up to you on making that call of whether or not you want to optimize and change everything. If you need more help, feel free to ask. Good luck, and sorry for the wall of text.

jaymc1130 on What New Capenna card is …

5 months ago

hejtmane

Drannith Magistrate

Grafdigger's Cage

Dauthi Voidwalker

Deathrite Shaman

Rest in Peace

Soul-Guide Lantern

Tormod's Crypt

Deafening Silence

Ethersworn Canonist

Stony Silence

Null Rod

Collector Ouphe

Uh huh...

AstroAA on [EDH][Primer] Sythis Enchantress Prison

5 months ago

Hello SynergyBuild! Thank you for your comment, I really appreciate it!

You've raised some valid concerns, and given me a lot to think about. For that, thank you!

I'll be honest, I don't have that good of an excuse for not including Blind Obedience or Song of the Dryads beyond not owning them and more recently not getting a proxy made of them.

As for Generous Gift/Beast Within, I think their effects of being able to destroy a permanent are really powerful. I do think that I want to replace one of them with Song of the Dryads in the near future. I think I might end up replacing the other with Seal of Cleansing.

As for Sylvan Tutor vs Green Sun's Zenith, I'm still torn on this. I think they both have their time and place - I do find myself tutoring for either Collector Ouphe or Sanctum Weaver most of the time with Sylvan Tutor, so I do think Green Sun's Zenith is a better card in this regard as both creatures are green. However, I really like Sylvan Tutor as I think it's a strong turn one play and I don't run Dryad Arbor to make Green Sun's Zenith a strong turn one play.

After thinking about it, you're right in regard to the number of fetchlands I run. I'm going to replace Misty Rainforest with a Forest.

Finally, as for Regrowth - you're right. In a deck running things like Rest in Peace and Ground Seal it does indeed not make much sense why I'm running it. I just like it because of possibly getting something back. After thinking about it, perhaps I should lean more into the graveyard hate, running things like Grafdigger's Cage or Weathered Runestone, but then those turn off a potential Green Sun's Zenith. This is a deck designed to shut off opponent's resources, and inadvertently we will hurt ourselves; a 100% cohesion rate among cards and interactions is impossible. I just think having access to potentially bringing back something is too strong.

Regardless, thank you very much for your comment! It's gotten me thinking again about the deck, which I had kind of written off as finished. In reality, no deck is ever truly finished. Thank you!

LeonSpires on Sexy Bird Boy: cEDH Teshar

5 months ago

@ McToters Thank you for checking out my list and taking the time to comment! Most of the time the goal of my list is to find a loop utilizing Teshar that goes infinite as soon as possible. Example (1) Teshar + Myr Retriever + Ashnod's Altar + Memnite. Example (2) Teshar + Lion's Eye Diamond + Salvage Scout. These are only a few examples of many as the deck gets its consistency by running numerous redundant effects.

The only time this is not the plan is when a silver bullet like Grafdigger's Cage, Rule of Law, or Null Rod is in play. In these cases the goal is to dig for removal for the silver bullet.

I don't often sac my entire board. But I have sometimes sacrificed most of the artifacts I control in response to another player casting Dockside Extortionist.

Roar of Reclamation: Not only is it's CMC too high but in cEDH I would be worried about returning opponents silver bullets or cards like Lotus Petal, Jeweled Lotus or Lion's Eye Diamond.

I do think Second Sunrise is a fantastic card in a casual Teshar list where the goal isn't to combo out as soon as possible but to create value engine and win in the long run.

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