Gray Ogre

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy 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
Oathbreaker Legal
Oldschool 93/94 Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Gray Ogre

Creature — Ogre

Gidgetimer on Eldrazi Monument and obliterate

4 years ago

At the moment that Obliterate resolved Gray Ogre had indestructible. He will not be destroyed.

Jmmtthws on Eldrazi Monument and obliterate

4 years ago

I have Eldrazi Monument in the battlefield and a Gray Ogre. I cast Obliterate. What a happens to gray ogre?

Spleenface on Chulane CIA (cEDH Chulane Primer)

4 years ago

AshenONe Apologies for the late reply, I was away for the holidays.

I'd probably just play walking ballista. After you draw your deck, get Chulane out of play with Curio or similar (or even path or swords if necessary), then you can make mana with some combination of Earthcraft, Intruder Alarm, Village Bellringer etc.

If you want to be able to win post combat or with Finale exiled, I'd probably recommend Walking Ballista. It's a hard wincon, it has marginal utility as an anti-combo rattlesnake, and can start Chulane chains as a 0-cost creature.

Alternately, if you want your life to be simple, Labman should do the job, it's just that I don't like having Gray Ogre in my decks :P

Jhed1 on [Community Discussion]: What makes a …

7 years ago

I'll state my answers in the order that questions were asked.

  1. There are several qualities that make a card "bad" - the biggest examples for me would just be limitations in effectiveness, mana cost too high for the impact provided from the card, or a multi-color combination that provides little to no benefit outside of the card in question.

  2. Two cards with similar functionality - this one has always just been a meta call for me. The best and most frequent discussion I have with this locally is... Supreme Verdict or Wrath of God. Regeneration clause or playing around counter magic - the factors that go into deciding which one you want to play, is determined by the rest of your deck. If they counter my wrath of god, can I recover? If they land a Thrun, the Last Troll can I win through it?

  3. There are always going to be cards that are objectively good regardless of any context. Deathrite Shaman Ponder Brainstorm Tarmogoyf Liliana of the Veil. I don't think there's objectively universal "bad cards" outside of like - high mana cost grizzly bears that don't have any unique mechanics to them, but even that just opens of a question of why play a Gray Ogre when you can play a Simian Spirit Guide.

  4. To me there's a huge difference between being good and being playable. Everything in MTG is playable (as long as it's legal in whatever format you choose) - to me what makes a card "good" is if someone else is playing with nothing but "good cards" can you still win a game outside of extreme variance in your favor. I have my fair share of pet-cards that are objectively bad, or less than optimal, but in the shells I build around them, it compensates for the individual weakness. If you just jam a bunch of "good cards" into a deck, that doesn't make your deck good.

Vasseer on Dralnu Suicide Control

7 years ago

I've played a lot of dralnu and you have waay too many ways to protect him. Honestly in my last list didn't run any of the equipment like lightning greaves and stuff because they're just useless without dralnu and extra copies are redundant, it's usually just better to either counter the burn or just kill dralnu in response. Niv-Mizzet shouldn't really be an issue for dralnu since they ping him one point at a time so you can just sac him if you don't have anything you don't care about. I mean I guess if you're meta is just mono red decks it's reasonable to have that much protection but otherwise it's just a waste of space. I would cut all of them except pemmin's aura and maybe swiftfoot boots since the rest can put you in a bad place against a boseiju'd blasphemous act (except magebane armor, but that card is way too expensive).

Time warps are the nuts with dralnu, Time Stretch lets you take 4 extra turns Time Warp becomes time stretch etc. They're absolutely disgusting. And highly recommended. (some people will just scoop when you say take 8 extra turns).

The deck seems really light on actual card advantage generating spells; there are only 5 or so and even those ones only get you up a card or two. Windfall, Whispering Madness, Fact or Fiction, Epiphany at the Drownyard and Treasure Cruise are all very solid cards.

Wydwyn is not really interchangable with dralnu at all, she favours tempo-control decks that usually kill with hatred or something, she's still weak to a lot of the same match ups as dralnu and if the plan when playing her is just to find dralnu asap, then isn't it just better to play dralnu as the commander.

I actually don't know how you win, for real, you have an entire section dedicated to it but all the win cons seem to suck, Ashiok does nothing and why are you milling your opponents and yet still playing Lab Man for a natural deck out? Lab Man himself is actually just terribly unplayable, you're playing a Gray Ogre, Gray Ogre is a bad card, you won't win with this because A) You have so little self-mill and card draw that you'd run out of answers before your opponents ran out of threats especially in a multiplayer game since you only have 4 board wipes and no way to lock people down. B) Because you run beacon of unrest and C) because it's a Gray Ogre probably the easiest thing to remove in magic. Jace is ok but planeswalkers are generally pretty inconsistent at ultimating. Stealing your opponents creatures is not really a win-con especially given that you aren't stealing more than 2-3 a game. Talrand - now I might be underestimating how many spells you play in a game but a deck with an average cmc of 3, 35 spells and only 8 counterspells isn't going to get a lot of value out of Talrand. Ulamog dies astoundingly easily and yet is the closest thing to a win con this deck has.

How to make dralnu a true beast: Locks, not infinite combos so much because at that point he's just a bad Oona, Queen of the Fae but things like Knowledge Pool + Arcane Laboratory are what make him nuts (you can flash stuff back but nobody can cast spells from hand). Playing Animate Dead without Kederekt Leviathan in UB seems almost always incorrect. As I said Time Walk effects are insane. Mindlock Orb + Maralen of the Mornsong can be good but requires a little more set up. Zur's Weirding is sweet though, I totally forgot about that card last time I built dralnu.

More tutors would probably be good, they tutor twice so ya. Entomb is a bit expensive but is actually just the most powerful card in dralnu, like absolutely busted. 1 mana instant Demonic Tutor but better because you can bin Kederekt Leviathan.

Dimir Cluestone just costs too much mana to be good, in 2 colours you shouldn't need the fixing and so Mind Stone works much better.

Riptide Laboratory can bounce dralnu and is really all the protection he needs.

Ponder > Preordain

booradleypwns on Foam padded clerics

7 years ago

If you're going deep on Clerics, here are some of your payoff cards: Vile Deacon, Shieldmage Elder, Rotlung Reanimator, Akroma's Devoted, Battlefield Medic, Celestial Gatekeeper. It feels like all of those provide more value to doing cleric things.

Otherwise Felidar Sovereign seems like a great addition to the deck in terms of the lifegain synergy. Blazing Archon is really synergistic with the fort strategy, but isn't a cleric. Meekstone can also be pretty effective in the pillowfort plan. Ensnaring Bridge is also pretty good at that but might be a little pricey. Add something like Juntu Stakes or Reverence to build your own Blazing Archon. Also consider some additional interaction with opponents' permanents, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Revoke Existence, Dawn to Dusk.

Potential cuts:

Ghostway - I guess I just don't see enough ETB effects to support the inclusion of this card.

Holy Day - I don't know if Fog does enough for you to support taking up a whole card slot.

Intervention Pact - I suppose this could have some corner uses, but I think you can do enough of this effect with your clerics that this might not be necessary.

Celestial Convergence - Cool card but without a way to cheat the counters off, I feel like it would cause too much trouble politically. 7 turns is a long time to make sure you're at the highest life total.

Story Circle - Seems like there are too many possible colors that people could have that could mess you up. Also doesn't do anything against colorless creatures.

Norn's Annex - Pretty bad against white decks, could be effective against others.

Blinding Souleater - Can only lock down one creature at a time, not a big enough body to make it worth it in EDH.

Banisher Priest - Makes boardwipes feel bad when everyone loses their stuff and your opponent gets back their fatty that you were trying to save everyone from.

Devout Chaplain - You have 14 humans currently... it's not impossible that you'll have 3 of them on the battlefield at one time, but if you don't then this is just a Gray Ogre

Inquisitor Exarch - Doesn't feel like you get enough value out of this for it to be a whole card in your deck.

Harsh Mercy - Potentially ineffective against 1 or more decks... for example if someone in the group is playing a zombie deck, then they just laugh when you cast this.

Cool deck idea. I probably wouldn't have picked out clerics as a good / powerful strategy, but this looks like a really good deck.

TheRedMage on Pattern Recognition #8 - Bears

7 years ago

I think in your discussion of vanilla p/t you forget to mention a fairly important aspect - that being power creep.

Creatures are slowly becoming better and better as years go by. Alpha had Scathe Zombies and Gray Ogre, now we get Walking Corpse and Falkenrath Reaver. Does being an uncommon factor into the extra point of stats that Kalonian Tusker gets? Probably. But Tusker is also a much more recent card than either Elvish Warrior or Gnarled Mass, which explains why it's more pushed. A more apt comparison for Gnarled Mass would be Watchwolf - uncommon, from the same period, but also in two colors. Mass saw constructed play in its time if I recall correctly. These days even 3/3 for 2 is not good enough for standard without significant upside or good synergy.

Re: Rarity as a balancing factor. I think it's actually perfectly fine for rarity to to be used that way because it allows to point different cards at different formats. I agree with you that in a world in which people routinely use websites to acquire their cards rarity is a non-factor when it comes to constructed formats. That is fine. Maybe 5% or 10% of all cards in a format are intended for constructed play, and those that would completely warp a limited deck or be useless because o how much synergy they require should be put at rare or mythic which largely keeps them out of most drafts and sealed pools and keeps the limited environment balanced.

Basically I think the rarity symbol on a card is irrelevant unless you are viewing the card in the context of Limited play. And in draft, it makes perfect sense for uncommons to be a bit more pushed - it's a way to set the average power level of decks. Cards that are aimed at constructed play often have a power level that is problematic for limited, so putting them at rares or mythics make sense. You don't want every other draft deck to have a titan in it.

matfoxbidule on My first deck

7 years ago

Like Verbatiam said, you should have at a maximum 60 cards in your deck. To help you get there, let's start by removing the worst cards.

  • Armory Guard: This guy doesn't have enough power and toughness for his cost, and his ability is irrelevant since you have no gates in your deck.Hundred-Handed One would fill armory guard's job in a much better way.

  • Aven Battle Priest: As above, he isn't powerful enough for his cost. Creatures with a cost of 6 mana should usually be good enough to win you the game if they are left unchecked, which this guy does not. A classic example of a winning 5-drop is Serra Angel.

  • Ephara's Radiance: there are much better ways to gain life than this enchantment. It will usually be a dead card and you will be much better off without it. You already have Chaplain's Blessing which is much better for the same cost.

  • Common Bond: As good as the art is, this card just is not worth it. It only gives a minimal boost and would need to cost less to be remotely good. Strength of the Tajuru is a more costly but better version of this.

  • Greatsword: instead of using so much mana to give a creature +3/+0, you should focus on casting the creatures you already have in the deck. Behemoth Sledge is much stronger despite giving one less power, since it gives evasion (the trample ability), which is very important, and lifelink which is great at keeping you safe.

  • Griffin Sentinel: This one might deal a bit of damage and block some, but the advantage he gives you is definitely not worth the mana. For example, Deadly Recluse and Omenspeaker do a much better job on defence.

  • Eagle of the Watch: This creature is too small for its vigilance ability to matter and will be killed the first time it blocks. Not worth your mana. The Spectral Shepherd you already have is better than this.

One thing you will need to learn to build a strong deck is to evaluate cards and cut off the weaker ones. A rule of thumb is that any creature card with a power and a thoughness lower than its mana cost needs to have good abilities to be worth putting in a deck. For example, no one runs Gray Ogres, since they are garbage, but some decks might use Gigantomancer, a 1/1 for 8 mana, for its incredible ability.

The best way to evaluate cards is by playing them, and so it is in games that you will notice which cards you should cut from your deck.

As a final note, the average amount of lands for a deck is 24 out of 60, or 2/5 of the deck.

I hope this will be helpful to you and that you will have a blast playing Magic!

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