Grand Abolisher

Creature — Human Cleric

During your turn, your opponents can't cast spells or activate abilities of artifacts, creatures or enchantments.

Legality

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

Discussion (51)

Azoth2099 on [KCKB] Kaalia Casual & Kind of Budget

2 weeks ago

jameswarlord

No problem dude! Glad to help, truly.

As a longtime brewer of this particular Commander, I'm definitely seeing a few cards here that I would cut in favor of more card draw, Ramp, Tutors, & Interaction to get you to your power pieces like Vilis, Broker of Blood. Please don't take this the wrong way, but it will be a shorter list to include the things that I would personally keep in the list, sans Lands. Here we go:

Creatures: Vilis, Broker of Blood, Rune-Scarred Demon, Burning-Rune Demon, Ancient Gold Dragon, Drana and Linvala, Mother of Runes, Giver of Runes, Grand Abolisher & Serra's Emissary

Artifacts: All Mana Rocks CMC 2 or less, Swiftfoot Boots & Lightning Greaves.

Enchantments: Dragon Tempest, Phyrexian Arena & Phyrexian Reclamation.

Instants: Boros Charm, Swords to Plowshares, h Path to Exile.

Sorceries: Damn, Diabolic Tutor & Seize the Spoils.

Everything outside of these ones should be replaced with value pieces imo! I'd also heavily recommend that you pick up a copy of Razaketh, the Foulblooded. It was just reprinted in Commander Masters, and is hovering around ~$8 at the time of this post! It was just like $25-$30 a little while ago. Insane. I'd also recommend looking through the Dominaria Remastered set, lots of spicy reprints in there that have taken a price plunge & could be great here like Sneak Attack & Gamble.

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

2 weeks ago

BIG REVISION + SIDEBOARD

I will post this comment then make the changes as specified in the list.

I have been studying a lot of cEDH meta, and found a lot of cards that I haven’t been using that are really great in Unesh. After a lot of consideration I have decided to pull the trigger on this revision.

• Replace Mystic Sanctuary with Otawara, Soaring City. Mystic Sanctuary is used to retrieve interaction and put it on the top of your deck. This is anti-deck thinning which feels really bad in this deck. Instead, lets have the interaction printed on the land itself. What is great about Otawara is that this interaction is an ability, not a spell. So it can be used even while cards like Grand Abolisher are on the field. You can remove the abolisher and then interact with your opponent.
• Replace Extraplanar Lens with Urza's Saga. The lens feels clunky. Sure it combos with Palinchron, but this combo requires lands to be on the field. Sacrificing a land has anti synergy with this. If the lens gets removed, you are out the double mana AND a land. It feels bad too often which is why it is getting cut. There are still 5 other combo pieces in the deck that you WILL see. You can even tutor for High Tide if you have to. Urza’s Saga is one of the best lands in the format and it isn’t hard to see why. More deck thinning. If its in your opening hand you guarantee Unesh by turn 3. Moonsilver Key seems to perform really well, so keeping this in as redundancy for this effect will turn out well I think.
• Replace 2 Islands with Mox Opal and Mox Amber. This deck has a lot of lands in it for cEDH. Although Unesh doesn’t mind being mana flooded usually, the count is still a bit high especially after adding Urza’s Saga. Fast mana in these spots feels nice. They aren’t necessarily going to get Unesh on the table faster, BUT they can effectively make your Thassa's Oracle win con cheaper. While you are rolling through your deck after Rite of Replication resolves, you can pick up these pieces to gain mana to cast Thassa’s Oracle.
• Replace Island with Gemstone Caverns. I goldfished this change a lot and found that Unesh will almost always prefer this in your opening hand over an Island. It makes early Unesh more likely, which is the primary goal of this deck.
• Replaced Trickbind with Mental Misstep. Mental Misstep is too good in the format. There are a lot of awesome 1 cmc cards. Sol ring, carpet of flowers, swords to plowshares, mental misstep, other 1 cmc counters, mystic remora, and more. Trickbind is a great card against the right opponent(ie Kinnan), so for me this goes in the sideboard.

Sideboard revision 0

This is my first stab at a sideboard. So constructive criticism is very welcomed. The main goals of the sideboard is to change out the interaction package to fit the pod better, and to shift to more of a midrange strat than turbo if necessary.

• Trickbind. Great interaction with other ability centered decks.
• Grafdigger's Cage. Unesh can play this card without consequence pretty much, and it is an effective stax piece in the meta. This card might even weasel its way in to the main board.
• Tormod's Crypt. More graveyard hate, nothing else to explain here.
• Flusterstorm for a spell heavy pod.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse also for a spell heavy pod.
• Pongify for a more creature heavy pod.
• Lotus Petal for better odds to cast Unesh first, making the deck more turbo. I think this card is possibly better than 1 or more of the mox’s, but I will leave it in sideboard for now.
• Perplexing Chimera. If you need to grind in the midrange more this guy can be a great option. Combining him with Homeward Path can be a good combo to soft lock your opponents in the mid game while you get to the bottom of your deck.
• Homeward Path for the above card.
• Ledger Shredder for making the deck more midrange with another card draw engine, allowing you to more likely get the interaction you need.

Caerwyn on Winding Canyon + Upkeep trigger

1 month ago

First, if you have questions about card interactions, please use the Rules Q&A section of this site. It has some added functionality, such as the ability to mark an answer when your question has been resolved.

I have moved this thread for you.

—

On to your actual question, no, you cannot do this.

The first part of the Beginning Phase is the Untap Step. As is stated in Rule 502.4 “No player receives priority during the untap step, so no spells can be cast or resolve and no abilities can be activated or resolve.”

The very next Step is the Upkeep Step. By that point, it is too late to do what you wish.

Now, if you want to do this, you could do something similar by activating Winding Canyons and casting Felidar Sovereign during the End Step of the opponent proceeding you. That would work and give about the same amount of time for responding. It would not, however, be on your turn, so things like Grand Abolisher could not protect your victory.

jakeelephant006 on Uril, Ultimate Bench-Presser

2 months ago

Missing Cards

Enlightened Tutor, Ajani, Mentor of Heroes, Argothian Enchantress, Birds of Paradise, Combat Celebrant, Grand Abolisher, Sigarda, Host of Herons, Burgeoning, Daybreak Coronet, Mana Confluence, Stomping Grounds, Sunbaked Canyon, Uril, the Miststalker Total: 13

Added cards: Arid Mesa

Azoth2099 on Narset's Work Out Plan

2 months ago

Bkotz

This version of Narset looks so fun, man!

One thing that I feel is fundamental when remembering Narset, Enlightened Exile's function as a Commander is that her ability gives you Graveyard hate as well as pseudo card draw by giving you access to your opponent's Graveyards as well as your own, meaning that you will always have card advantage as long as you protect your Commander.

That being said, I would definitely find room for Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Mother of Runes, Giver of Runes, & an abundance of Counterspells. Personally, I don't like spending more than 1 Mana for a Counterspell these days. Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, Dispel, Swan Song & An Offer You Can't Refuse provide a crazy ceiling of value for a single Mana. If you wanted to roll with 2-drops for budget reasons, though, Delay, Arcane Denial, Dovin's Veto & Negate are all easy to cast, & throw a wide net. Misdirection & Bolt Bend are also options here.

Secondly, Narset, Enlightened Exile can only trigger on your own turn, & you need to ensure that everything is going to go as planned. Grand Abolisher & Conqueror's Flail will lock your opponents out of your turn without giving your opponents the same utility like cards like Teferi, Time Raveler & Defense Grid notoriously do. Silence, Revel in Silence  ^Flip, Abeyance & Orim's Chant can do something similar for 1-2 Mana.

Speaking of Stax, there are a few concise, utilitarian pieces that you may want to consider. Drannith Magistrate, Sanctum Prelate, Archon of Emeria, Lavinia, Azorious Renegade, Boromir, Warden of the Tower, Aven Mindcensor & Containment Priest shut down a LOT of strategies. You'd be surprised how little most decks can do once you take away their ability to cheat stuff in, Tutor and/or cast things for free. Personally, every deck I have is heavily handicapped by all of those pieces. I wouldn't even be able to target them with removal if you played your cards right.

For noncreature Stax, you've got Chalice of the Void, Cursed Totem, Thorn of Amethyst, Deafening Silence, Grafdigger's Cage (which your Commander's ability gets around btw, very strong here), & Rule of Law as a few solid options.

You do need quite a bit more card draw, though. Scroll Rack & Sensei's Divining Top are obviously great, but the level of toolbox utility they actually give you in practice is even better than it seems! Archivist of Oghma, Faerie Mastermind & Ledger Shredder all give you card draw that scales with what your opponents are doing, which is fantastic. Other things like Deep Gnome Terramancer & Wandering Archaic  ^Flip do the same thing, though they technically aren't card draw. Hell, might as well throw Monologue Tax out there too since I'm talking about scaling.

There's also Careful Study, Frantic Search, Tolarian Winds, Faithless Looting, Cathartic Reunion, Burning Inquiry, Thrill of Possibility & Dragon's Rage Channeler, which are great synergy here!

Speaking of synergy, let's get into that! The foremost synergies for Narset, Enlightened Exile imho is Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + Brain Freeze & Intuition, and much of the deck should be geared towards maximizing on that. They're all very easy to Tutor up via cards like Enlightened Tutor, Mystical Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Solve the Equation, Fabricate, Reshape, Transmute Artifact, Reckless Handling, Goblin Engineer & Gamble, in addition to being easy to recur via your Commander's ability. It's actually absurd, truly busted. I wouldn't recommend throwing Wheels like Wheel of Fortune or Windfall into the mix, though. They're very overrated, & you can just run Brain Freeze for the combo instead. No need to give all of your opponents a bunch of cards for free if you don't have to! Queen Kayla bin-Kroog is for sure worth consideration, though, if you choose to run Artifact Stax.

Maximizing on Underworld Breach, however, means running Storm. I'd recommend Birgi, God of Storytelling  ^Flip, Storm-Kiln Artist, Urabrask  ^Flip, Desperate Ritual, Pyretic Ritual & Seething Song to keep your Storm engine from shutting off. I personally don't condone Runaway Steam-Kin, as it's just too freaking slow & conditional compared to other options.

Additional Combat Phases would also be of great use here as opposed to trigger doublers like Strionic Resonator or something. Aggravated Assault, Waves of Aggression, World at War & Seize the Day are the only ones I'd consider running, though. You don't wanna load up on too many synergy effects when you can just Tutor for the best of them when the time's right, ya know?

Since you're running Dockside Extortionist, I'd also consider Cloudstone Curio. With one other Creature (like Spellseeker for example), you can produce infinite Treasures & ETBs with little effort, which is usually more than enough to get you to the finish line.

Your ramp package is looking solid enough, but I'd include 2 more Rocks as well as the rituals I named previously. Fellwar Stone is, functionally, a 5-color Rock for 2 Mana, which is absurd. I tend to not condone 3-drop rocks, with the exception of Chromatic Lantern, which was just reprinted recently and is currently super cheap.

Oh man, now that I think of it Isochron Scepter + Dramatic Reversal gives your whole team infinite power and toughness via your Commander, as well as giving you infinite Mana if you have enough Rocks on the field. Maybe consider it lol.

Monastery Mentor seems to fit like glove here as well, offering some much needed redundancy and a surprising amount of board presence. It's kind of like Deep Gnome Terramancer or Wandering Archaic  ^Flip in the sense that it just provides waaaay more value while playtesting than you thought it was going to!

Also, consider giving yourself Hexproof with stuff like Witchbane Orb to protect your own Graveyard.

To summarize, I really think your best bet with this one is building a system that gets to either an Underworld Breach + Lion's Eye Diamond + Brain Freeze combo win or an Intuition win as quickly as possible, with other combos like Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter being strong potentialities on the way.

Cheers!

Azoth2099 on Esper Lounge Presents…

3 months ago

JackNavi

Oi! Sen Triplets is so busted lol, great choice.

Consider more {B} Tutors if you're looking to keep up with high-power pods more effectively, unfortunately there's really no way around it. Recruiter of the Guard could also pull a lot of weight here, considering all of the applicable pieces like Walking Ballista & Grand Abolisher.

Stuff like Paradox Haze, Mnemonic Betrayal, Praetor's Grasp, Mindslaver & Word of Command also offer value and pseudo-redundancy to this Commander, but they might be getting a little too cute with synergy too.

Card advantage pieces like Ad Nauseam, Dark Confidant, Dark Tutelage, Scroll Rack & of course Necropotence get around card draw Stax pieces like Notion Thief & Narset, Parter of Veils. You may also want to consider those two in this list! Lavinia, Azorius Renegade, Linvala, Keeper of Silence & Chalice of the Void will ruin a lot of game plans as well. If you were running Reanimator I'd also recommend Void Winnower, but this may not be the Commander for all of that...Definitely consider Silence & Angel's Grace, though! Perhaps some Rule of Law effects like Archon of Emeria as well, but it seems like you're trying to go fairly fast here so maybe not lol.

I know they're "boring", but cards like Brainstorm, Ponder, Careful Study, Tolarian Winds & Dark Ritual are just...really, really good haha.

Rhystic Study & Sensei's Divining Top are obviously absolute bangers. Same with Sea Gate, Reborn  ^Flip & Agadeem, the Undercrypt  ^Flip, can't recommend them enough.

Lastly, a piece that I don't see often but is definitely worth it in high-power pods: Deep Gnome Terramancer. This lil dude Ramps you so much you'll think you're playing a {G} deck, it's actually absurd.

Cheers!

Azoth2099 on Kaalia's Treasure Trove

3 months ago

lhetrick13

Nice Kaalia of the Vast list! Loving some of these picks, like Rune-Scarred Demon, Burning-Rune Demon, Vilis, Broker of Blood, Hoarding Broodlord & Ancient Copper Dragon.

I've found that a mix of Reanimator and Stax is the best way to not only keep the deck from being overtaken, but to also increase it's resiliency & reduce it's reliance on it's Commander cheating Creatures into play to get the wheels spinning, as the deck itself cheats them into play intrinsically with the Commander's effect adding extra spice for a very focused yet multipronged strategy. Far more powerful & consistent than doubling up on triggers as a deck philosophy imo.

Underworld Breach, Entomb, Buried Alive, Unmarked Grave, Persist, Reanimate, & Final Parting are all crazy good in this context. Certain key Stax pieces like Opposition Agent, Dauthi Voidwalker, Drannith Magistrate & Grand Abolisher will stop whatever your opponents are trying to do while you advance.

Razaketh, the Foulblooded is way too good not to include in the list, though. It's synergy with Dockside Extortionist can straight up win you the game immediately if you have enough life to pay for combo assembly in this theoretical Reanimator build. I'd also recommend Ancient Gold Dragon, as it gives you insane board pressure in addition to nuking everyone in conjunction with Dragon Tempest. Sneak Attack is also empowered in this Reanimator approach, especially with the emphasis on ETBs.

I think the deck needs a bit more card draw & Tutors, though, especially for the budget. Vampiric Tutor, Enlightened Tutor & Gamble just got reprinted, so they're decently cheap right now. Scroll Rack, Sensei's Divining Top, Esper Sentinel, Archivist of Oghma, Dark Confidant, Dark Tutelage & of course Necropotence are worth consideration. Tectonic Reformation could also be very powerful here considering how many lands you're running. Cards like Valakut Awakening  ^Flip & Into the Fire can be deceptively powerful with other utility outside of just drawing cards.

Lastly, I'd recommend both Mother of Runes & Giver of Runes. Excellent protection.

Azoth2099 on Green/Black toxic/proliferate need recommendations

3 months ago

Balvron Thanks, man! Happy to help, really.

So the core of the {G}/{B} presence in the deck should be devoted to Dorks, Ramp and Tutors so that you can quickly get the deck engine up and running. Getting your commander on the field and geared up as quickly as possible is everything in this new context. Some cheaper options for Tutors are Diabolic Tutor, Profane Tutor, Mastermind's Acquisition and Increasing Ambition. I'd really recommend just biting the bullet and slotting in the more efficient ones like Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Diabolic Intent & Wishclaw Talisman though. Cheaper card draw options like Phyrexian Arena & Dark Tutelage are also pretty solid. Necropotence, Black Market Connections & Dark Confidant are up there, but worth it.

The only thing you need {U} for is for card draw and interaction, with a few key Proliferate pieces that you'll be able to Tutor for when the time is right. Spells like Brainstorm, Ponder, Tolarian Winds, Impulse, Preordain & Serum Visions provide decent gas for cheap. Classics like Counterspell, Delay, Negate, & Dispel protect your game plan. Flux Channeler & Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus are probably the only Proliferate pieces you'll need, but I'd Throw a Serum Snare in there too. Mystical Tutor, Rhystic Study & Mystic Remora are always nice to have as well.

The few things you'll need {W} for here is to Tutor up gear for your Commander with cards like Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Steelshaper's Gift & Open the Armory, and occasionally control the board with Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile. I'd also recommend some Stax pieces like Silence, Grand Abolisher, Smothering Tithe, Esper Sentinel, Archivist of Oghma & Drannith Magistrate for good measure, & some more Commander protection with Mother of Runes & Giver of Runes.

Some good pieces of gear to retrieve slap on could be Swiftfoot Boots, Mask of Memory, Conqueror's Flail, Bone Sabres & Mask of the Schemer, for example.