Harmonize

Sorcery

Draw three cards.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	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
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

Snap157 on shelob spiders

1 month ago

you are very light on lands for having a 6 mana commander. I would say 38 minimum. I would cut your mana artifacts to make room. You will also want to prioritize jumping from 4 to 6 mana. Think about Explosive Vegetation, Market Festival, or Circuitous Route

With shelob being such a high cmc I would recommend some Undying Evil-style cards. Maybe Not Dead After All, or Undying Malice.

I'm a huge Nyx Weaver fan and it could be cool to have some graveyard synergies as well since you're in the perfect colors for it. Your card draw package is a bit weak and I'm worried about you running out of gas so I would add something like Moonlight Bargain or Harmonize with some Regrowth effects. I also love Arachnus Spinner and Arachnus Web as a removal pair, and Halana, Kessig Ranger is the creme de la creme of pissing off your opponents with everything having deathtouch.

kamarupa on Uren8

1 month ago

Oh boy. I have... uh... a lot of thoughts.

I'm going to start with ramp and mana base. I've been commenting something along these lines on a lot of decks lately. Ramp isn't much of a ramp if you're missing land drops regularly. Getting to, say 3 available mana on t2 is nice, but if you don't hit a land drop or dork on the next 3 turns, the ramp didn't really help. I'm generally not a fan of spells like Arboreal Grazer and even less a fan when there aren't a substantial number of lands in a deck to start with. At a mere 20 lands, you're going to be have to be very lucky to get both Arboreal Grazer AND 2+ lands in an opening hand. And even if you do, the likelihood of you continuing to draw lands just isn't very high. Basically, any effect that lets you "play an additional land" is just way too conditional to be consistent in my view, and therefore, I prefer to run with dorks and enchantments and rarely, rocks. You do have an enchantment that tutors you 2 lands, but at a pretty steep 4MV, I think it's going to function as much as a 'thinner' as it will a ramp spell. I do see some redundancy there with Prime Time, so I could see it be a useful spell. I should state that Prime Time isn't a creature I have much experience with, so I don't know much about what other spells synergize with it best, but I have a gut feeling that what you've brewed could have better synergy with it. It seems like it might be getting included because it's a well known and feared threat more than being a perfect fit. You also have Flare of Cultivation, which seems like your 3rd best ramp spell after your two dorks. While I like that you can cheat it into play, I don't like the required sac cost to do so as the only really good target is the Arboreal Grazer and that's just too conditional to be consistent. It's not a spell I have lot of experience with, and while I'm not a big deck thinner, I can't deny it has a lot of powerful potential. But I want more good targets for it, preferably ones that actually WANT to be sacrificed. The best part of your ramp is that you have 8 1MV dorks. Given your EXTREMELY high average MV of 4.35, I think 8-10 is probably the right number. To sum up, I would cut Arboreal Grazer and possibly reconsider both Prime Time and Encroaching Dragonstorm, either leaning into Prime Times most classically defined deck elements or cutting it. I'd try to find another 1MV creature for your Flare of Cultivation to target (6-8x 1MV non-dorks that want to be sacced) or I'd look for some other ramp choices. I'd also consider adding in something like Fertile Ground, or maybe Utopia Sprawl, as you do already have a good number of lands with the basic Forest type. If you do go for the Sprawl, then perhaps Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth might be a smart add. Finally, I'd like to see this deck reach for at least 22 lands if not 24. You've just got a hell of a lot of very high MV spells and these days I strive for 22 lands as my minimum. It's just more consistent.

Next, I want to follow up on some of what Balaam__ brought up - disruption. Disruption doesn't do much good in a sidebaord. It needs to be mainboarded or else your deck will not only end up unbalanced when sideboarding, but you'll also be tempted not to sideboard as much as you struggle to choose what spells to swap out of the mainboard. I believe almost all decks need at least 4x disruption spells in the mainboard, with 8 being best. Disruption comes in a lot of forms - counterspell is great, but I don't like tieing up mana playing the waiting game. Removal is classic for reason. Usually half of 8 disruption spells are a form a removal. Sideboards offer us different methods of removal so you can get past all the defenses opponents might use to prevent that removal. That makes sideboarding a lot easier to pull off, swapping removal for removal. I really like protection spells Heroic Intervention - while defensively, it can function like a counterspell, offensively it can do things counterspell can't. It largely comes down to preference, but disruption beyond removal is almost always essential. Of course, there's also discard, which is a solid choice, too, though I don't prefer it because it misses cards drawn after it's cast and so isn't as foolproof as a pre-emptive defensive play. I also like squeezing in 1x Fog spell when I can. I love the comedic flavor of it, but again, that's just my preference/sense of humor. Assuming you cut Arboreal Grazer, Flare of Cultivation, and at least a few copies of Encroaching Dragon Storm, even after adding 2x land, you should have room for at least 4x disruption spells in your mainboard. Incidentally, all these changes should also help bring down your average MV, which will make the deck not only faster, but more resilient as it will be able to respond to opponents.

One thing I do think you have right here is the number of creatures. But I'd like to see tighter choices that play off each other a bit more. I get that Prime Time and Flare of Cultivation support Ureni, the Song Unending, but at 3 copies and Legendary status, I'd want to solely focus on that creature or abandon that whole strategy - it's all or nothing with spells like that - run 4x of Ureni to maximize its odds it comes up when Breaching Dragonstorm when that hits. Maybe even look for spells that let you tutor it to the top of your library - Scheming Symmetry comes to mind, though I don't think that's exactly the right spell for this brew. Brainstorm might be a good option - not really a path to card advantage, but it would be useful in setting up Breaching Dragonstorm.

To return to Balaam__'s feedback, I also agree with him that Breaching Dragonstorm, especially at 5MV is too easy a target for opponents to thwart. I do think you've got enough ramp to hardcast some of your threats at least some of the time, but adding in a secondary (or even primary?) cheat-in spell would almost certainly make the deck more consistent. Elvish Piper, for example might be just as fast or even more consistent, though it wouldn't help with your big sorcery spells. Although I think this would be a significant departure from your current brew, Maelstrom Archangel would be a nearly identical backup to Breaching Dragonstorm. I'd probably go for 6-8 total "cheat-in" spells.

Overall, I feel like this deck isn't quite focused enough. It's not clear what it really wants to accomplish and doesn't seem completely committed to any one goal. At the same time, it also seems a little over-gunned - I sometimes say, "you don't need to bring a tank to a water-pistol fight to get a win" - when it comes to successful brewing, it's not the biggest threat that wins, it's the fastest fully effective one. So my broadstroke advice is to try to narrow the deck down to the core you really want to win with and try to support that core as much as you can.

I do love me some card advantage and I can see how Up the Beanstalk could have been useful here. As alternatives, you might consider Garruk's Uprising, Tribute to the World Tree, or even just plain old Harmonize

Sometimes I find I'll start a brew like this and realize I might have tried to squeeze 2 or more decks into one. It might be useful to fork this once or twice and explore different aspects in each fork. Make one with a lot more disruption mainboard, one with different ramp spells, one that really focuses on Prime Time, etc etc.

I hope some of this is helpful. I'm just spitballing off the top of my head. Don't take it as me being too critical. I'm really just throwing out the first thoughts that came to mind and I'm very likely to have missed nuances, etc.

Austin_Smith_of_Cards on Toughest Street in Town

1 month ago

I would try to eke out just a couple more ramp spells here with that average CMC of 3.5, Faeburrow Elder will tap for 3 mana at a time, Nature's Lore can grab nonbasic Forests like Mumuring Bosk for extra fixing.

Maybe a few more card advantage tools as well, Ulvenwald Observer and Abzan Beastmaster are creature options, otherwise Guardian Project and good old Harmonize would make solid inclusions as well.

kamarupa on Magnificence

3 months ago

You have a lot of singletons for the Modern format. I suggest you add "Casual" and "Budget" to the Hubs.

You're already at 70 spells. That, combined with the number of singletons, might make this brew better suited for Commander/EDH than Modern. It would also open up even more spells.

Alternatively, if you want to keep it modern, even with a casual and budget focus, you can get more power and consistency out of it by tightening up your focus. A good deck doesn't need to do everything, just a few things well. You seem to have a lot of Vampires, Angels, and Humans. You might try to pick one of those creature types, and focus on that tribe - cut all the other creatures and increase the best of your chosen tribe to a full set, keeping in mind you want most of your creatures to cost 1-3MV.

When it comes to non-creature, non-land spells, I find the most success with the following catagories: removal/disruption, card advantage, protection. I try to include 4-8 removal/disruption spells, 2-4 card advantage spells (draw 2 or more cards from 1 spell), and 1-4 protection spells (deny opponent's removal). Anything that doesn't fall into those 3 categories usually isn't helping a deck succeed. Of course, every deck is different and there are lots of ways of achieving essentially the same results - like Harmonize and Collected Company are different in approach, but essentially both card advantage.

Sign in Blood is about as good as it gets for card advantage. Path to Exile isn't that expensive anymore, but black has so many good removal spells - I won't list them here. Discard can function as removal, so if that's your preference, it's fine, too, but keep in mind removal spells are cheaper to cast to target creatures and don't require as much timing to use effectively. White is great for protection spells - Faith's Shield is great, but Ephemerate can be just as good in decks with lots of ETB triggers.

Artifact/Enchantment removal is usually reserved for the sideboard.

Pump and lifegain are usually peripheral mechanics.

A dual color deck needs dual lands. It looks like you're going for a budget deck here, so I suggest adding more budget dual lands. While it's generally preferred to avoid lands that enter tapped, if you're brewing a budget deck, I think it's better to include such lands than to rely on luck to get the basics you need to cast spells of both colors. Concealed Courtyard would be great. Caves of Koilos would be ok, too, especially with a tribes like Angels or Vampires that have lots of creatures with lifegain mechanics. If resorting to lands that always enter tapped, I think the Scry lands provide the most value - you could do worse than Temple of Silence. I love managathering.com as a land resource - https://managathering.com/duallands/orzhov.html

I recommend 8-12 dual lands, 1-3 utility lands and the rest basics.

I usually include Bojuka Bog in decks that use black mana, as there's so much graveyard recursion in my play group.

To sum it up: if not brewing EDH, reduce to 60 spells. Cut your enchantments, tighten your creatures, focus your utilities. Remember: you don't have to annihilate opponents to win - focus on making a fast, reliable kill, not an elaborate one.

Sliverguy420 on

3 months ago

kamarupa 5c was recently seeing play in modern, and i have a 5c deck that never has color problems. the vast majority of this deck is mana ramp or finishers, so saying i "might not" draw them is...odd. multiple Unbound Flourishing in play stacks, so i'm not sure what you mean by "dead cards". Torment of Hailfire was the main card i wanted to play in this deck. if even a single one resolves with an Unbound Flourishing in play, that pretty much seals the game. and i never said anything about the competitive meter. i'm not worried about revealing what i tutor. if the opponent has a counterplay, they'd have it regardless of whether or not i reveal what i tutor. i'm simply not playing Harmonize lol.

kamarupa on

3 months ago

I did mean jund, thanks for that correction. You're certainly free to ignore my thoughts and suggestions. But I do disagree that 5c can be played comfortably. I've certainly spent a lot of time brewing 4 and 5 color decks and they def come at a cost and lose consistency. Relying on green mana fixing certainly helps but the bottom line is 4+ colors is never as consistent as 3, just as 3 is never as consistent 2 and 2 is never as consistent as mono.

And yes, you might draw into what you need. Or you might not. You could draw Unbound Flourishing, too. Or not. The versatility of a broad tutor means there's no question.

Also, I meant to mention this before - I think it's a major drawback to have to reveal what you've tutored, so there's that against Idyllic Tutor as well.

And yes, 4MV is one turn slower than 3MV. However, both are on the steeper side of what anyone wants for a utility spell, but you do have some ramp to help with those costs.

You're running 4x of a tutor for a card that you only need one copy of in play, but include 4 copies. So if you draw that one copy, you essentially now have 7 dead cards, and those are cards you will draw when you want something else. And that will work out to being a turn slower, too.

You could take it step farther and not only cut white, but cut black as well. There are plenty of R/G spells with X in their cost - there's really no reason to include black just for Torment of Hailfire. Then you're looking at something like Harmonize, which wouldn't be bad at all, as at least then you're getting card advantage and not revealing anything to opponents.

And while TappedOut has a cute little "competitive meter," I wouldn't trust that to indicate any deck is really going to compete at the top tier. So while Modern is a very fast format, especially at the highest level, that doesn't mean it's always that fast or that every Modern deck has to compete with the top tier decks.

kamarupa on Don't

3 months ago

While I don't recommend it, as it really puts a target on your dorks, if you have Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy in play, a Freed from the Real on a Birds of Paradise or Noble Hierarch would generate infinite mana. There's certainly enough protection with current Instants, though, if you wanted to go that route. Bloom Tender would another solid choice to include then, if you felt so inclined.

I definitely think the manabase could be improved on. It seems there's no budget for creatures, but lands are all budget? So I was hesitant earlier, and didn't have the time either then to make a case for improvements. That said, 1x Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth is, IMO, always worth whatever mana-fixing it provides opponents. After that, I tend to prefer Botanical Sanctum, Dreamroot Cascade and Barkchannel Pathway  ^Flip to the perennially desired Breeding Pool and Misty Rainforest. I just can't stand the thought of burning 3 life to get one dual land. I usually also include Scavenger Grounds just on the off chance I face a deck that likes to bring stuff back from the graveyard.

I didn't see you asking for removal spells, but Beast Within is decent, IMO, and I wouldn't turn my nose up at any deck running Pongify or Rapid Hybridization, especially if the deck is also packing creatures that can block those 3/3 gift tokens.

While it's a bit gutsy to rely strictly on mana dorks for the white mana needed to cast Gods Willing, I rather like the idea of an unblockable swing thanks to its protection.

In my eyes, the biggest weaknesses are: Opt doesn't provide any card advantage. Divination would be better, and Harmonize better still. Hydroid Krasis, as I said before, seems to fit as well and comes with the bonus of a bit of lifegain which is never bad. And that leads to the next issue - the wincons are [almost] all legendary, and therefore rightly limited to less than 4 copies each. I do like that they come with their own means of preventing removal, though. And finally, that the mana base just isn't as premium as most the spells it supports.

kamarupa on Trample Tribal

3 months ago

I tend to get carried away. Please keep in mind my thoughts are just [verbose] suggestions. Garruk's Uprising would be, IMO, an improvement on Elven Farsight, too, though I do agree with you for the reasons already stated, Harmonize is still probably better. At least with Garruk's Uprising, you don't have a triple G MV like with Tribute to the World Tree.