Idyllic Tutor
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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
Pioneer Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Idyllic Tutor

Sorcery

Search your library for an enchantment card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.

SaberTech on Help me to build a …

2 weeks ago

Yeah, I agree with Crow_Umbra. Slowing the game down with a bunch of wrath spells is going to get at least some of your opponents salty. If that's acceptable to you though, an option that pops to mind for me is Oloro, Ageless Ascetic.

  • Lends itself well to a deck with a bunch of wraths because it can do something while still in the command zone.
  • The deck can focus around planeswalkers and/or enchantments so you aren't as affected by your own wraths.
  • Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood can be your main combo.
  • Something like Virtue of Persistence is early removal and a potential late-game win condition by reanimating your opponents' dead creatures to use against them.
  • Idyllic Tutor isn't on the Game Changers list but is still a good tutor to help you find your combo.

The downside is that it isn't exactly the cheapest deck to build if you don't already have a bunch of the cards.

Apollo_Paladin on Boros Lockout

3 weeks ago

Yeah that's kind of where I'm at as well. I'd been wanting to work Possibility Storm into a deck for a while, but I'm not sure it's needed here either when comparing to the Mono-White version.

I feel like Possibility Storm would work a lot better in a Commander/Brawl deck since you could make use of stuff like Idyllic Tutor & Moon-Blessed Cleric, or even splash black for proper tutors like Grim Tutor or The Cruelty of Gix to really rely on getting it cast most games.

If the Possibility Storm was even 1 less mana to cast I think I could make it pretty reliable in a 60-card build, but I agree that playing this version of the deck feels like waiting on the Possibility Storm more for the novelty value than as a useful finisher given all the existing control options.

5-CMC just seems too high a cost for an Enchantment that doesn't directly interact with the current boardstate, just future turns -- and its quality is also deeply worsened if there is no Magistrate in play (to the point where it could just as easily work against you as help you depending on the opponent's deck.) It can be a pretty dangerous card to play if opponent's casting isn't shut down. I'll keep tweaking the mono-white version to see what I can come up with to strengthen it.

Thanks again bud!

legendofa on The New Commander Brackets Beta

1 month ago

I've been struggling with this for a couple of my decklists recently, and I'm trying to summarize my thoughts here without starting a new thread. So this is semi-stream-of-thought, and I apologize if it gets a little rambly.

There are several criteria being tracked by the current bracket system, including resource generation, speed, reliability, and oppression, and possibly others.

Game changers: A combo like Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact + Thassa's Oracle gets a key card on the game changers list, because it's fast and reliable, ending a match on turn 3-4. These are speed game changers. Other game changers generate resources just by playing the game, like Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe. This group often also includes oppression, since a lot of them tax the opponent. Another group is cheap (1-2 mana) tutors, like Vampiric Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, or Survival of the Fittest, that increase a deck's reliability for very little opportunity cost. Most game changers can be sorted into one of these four categories. Ancient Tomb and Gaea's Cradle are speed and resource generation, Drannith Magistrate and Force of Will are oppression, and so on.

Bracket Guidelines: From Gavin Verhey's announcement article, here's what each of the brackets mean and expect. Important to note that the system is still in beta testing, so this is probably going to be different in the future.

  • Bracket 1: Decks with more focus on a gimmick than on winning. "Winning is not the primary goal here, as it's more about showing off something unusual you've made. Villains yelling in the art? Everything has the number four? Oops, all Horses? Those are all fair game!" This bracket doesn't allow extra turns, two-card infinite combos, mass land denial, or game changers, and restricts tutors.

  • Bracket 2: Decks that can win, but are not tightly focused, or slow to develop. "While Bracket 2 decks may not have every perfect card, they have the potential for big, splashy turns, strong engines, and are built in a way that works toward winning the game. While the game is unlikely to end out of nowhere and generally goes nine or more turns, you can expect big swings." This bracket doesn't allow any game changers, mass land denial, two-card infinite combos, or multiple extra turns in a row, and restricts tutors.

  • Bracket 3: Decks that are focused on winning efficiently, but are not optimized. "They are full of carefully selected cards, with work having gone into figuring out the best card for each slot. The games tend to be a little faster as well, ending a turn or two sooner than your Core (Bracket 2) decks." This bracket does not allow mass land denial or multiple extra turns in a row, and restricts game changers and two-card infinite combos, and allows tutors freely.

  • Bracket 4: Decks that are optimized for their strategy. "Bring out your strongest decks and cards... This is high-powered Commander, and games have the potential to end quickly. The focus here is on bringing the best version of the deck you want to play, but not one built around a tournament metagame." This bracket has no restrictions.

  • Bracket 5: Decks that expect to win at the most competitive levels. "There is care paid into following and paying attention to a metagame and tournament structure, and no sacrifices are made in deck building as you try to be the one to win the pod." This brackets has no restrictions.

Deck Analysis 1: The deck I've been struggling most with is Clear Waters. As I listed in another thread, it has an infinite turns combo (Wanderwine Prophets + Deeproot Pilgrimage + Merfolk Sovereign) and mass land denial (Opposition + Seedborn Muse, Quicksilver Fountain), and a selection of tutors to pull these together (Forerunner of the Heralds, Idyllic Tutor, Merrow Harbinger, Seahunter, and Sterling Grove). This should put it squarely into Bracket 4.

My concern is that it's neither high powered nor optimized. On the axes of speed, resource generation, reliability, and oppression, I would score it high on oppression, pretty good on reliability, and low on speed and resources generation. Looking at examples of other Bracket 4 decks around the internet, all four of those criteria need to be high in this bracket. The infinite turns combo is slow and easily removed, and the land denial is optional (Opposition can have other targets) or temporary (Quicksilver Fountain can remove its own effect).

It would be easy to simply add a big pile of game changers to improve all of these facets. Right now, it has one game changer in Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, and that one's not essential to the deck. That's not the direction I want to go with the deck, though--I want to keep it reasonably budget, and even adding the three least expensive of the game changers I'm considering would basically double the deck's cost.

I know that people in brackets under 4 want to be able to play their deck, and the infinite turns and land denial shut that down. These are clearly stated in the announcement article -"A single extra-turn spell can be fun and splashy. However, extra-turn spells take a ton of time away from other players and their ability to play the game and tend to be unfun when repeated."- that's why they're forced into brackets 4 and 5. But if a deck isn't able to compete against high power, optimized Bracket 4 decks, can it be considered Bracket 4?

Deck Analysis 2: Another deck that I've been struggling with is an enchantment deck, Do Not Mistake Peace For Passivity. The point of concern for this deck is land denial. Blood Moon is classic mass land denial, and the deck is designed to play around it with Abundant Growth, Fertile Ground, Prismatic Omen, and similar cards. It also has a combo that doesn't directly deny lands, but punishes their play and use: Manabarbs + Citadel of Pain. Otherwise, the deck fits all the criteria of a Bracket 2 deck--no game changers, no infinite combos, few tutors, and no extra turns.

This deck can be converted into a pure Bracket 2 deck without much effort by replacing Blood Moon and Manabarbs. But as it stands, a single card pushes the deck up two brackets, according to the guidelines. Again, I don't feel the deck is high powered or optimized, and would not be able to compete in a Bracket 4 match. It could probably survive in Bracket 3, since it's highly synergistic, but nothing any higher.

In this case, adding a bunch of game changers and power cards would somewhat dilute how the deck functions. A few, like Smothering Tithe or Trouble in Pairs, could slot in, but most others would be more gratuitous.

Conclusion: To quote the article again, "There's some wiggle room, and while playing against decks that are all inside your bracket is ideal, you can usually wiggle within one bracket away from you safely." "You should play where you think you belong based on the descriptions." All of this can be discussed in a Rule 0 talk. I strongly believe the brackets are intended to help this conversation, not replace it. As an example, for the Clear Waters deck, I would say that the deck is not optimized to Bracket 4, and I think it fits best into Bracket 3, but it's controlling and has a potential three-card infinite turns combo. I'm willing to announce when the combo is assembled and ready to start, to give everyone a turn cycle to react, and reduce the use of Opposition to creatures and artifacts.

I feel like the current setup is a little too restrictive of the kind of combo-control decks I like. I can have fun smashing big creatures into each other and outmaneuvering everyone else, but I will enjoy locking down the board and establishing my inevitability, and I'm having a harder time trying to find ways to do that in lower brackets. Some people have already offered me excellent feedback and suggestions that I'm taking into consideration, but I'd also like to see how people are responding to the bracket system so far.

For comparison, here's a few more of my decklists:

legendofa on Testing brackets with Merfolk combos

1 month ago

I just finished detailing this deck.

deck chart

Clear Waters

Commander / EDH legendofa

10 VIEWS

It has an infinite turns combo with redundancies. Wanderwine Prophets + Deeproot Pilgrimage + Merfolk Sovereign

It has land denial. Opposition + Seedborn Muse, Quicksilver Fountain

It has a game changer. Grand Arbiter Augustin IV

It has multiple relevant tutors. Forerunner of the Heralds, Idyllic Tutor, Merrow Harbinger, Seahunter, Sterling Grove

By all measures, this deck falls under Bracket 4. But I think it better fits Bracket 3, because Wanderwine Prophets is the most expensive card. It simply can't compete with decks whose individual cards are worth more than this whole thing, or decks with six game changers and "I win" combos that land on turn 3. It just isn't up to that level. The turns combo in particular is slow and highly telegraphed, since Prophets needs to survive a turn cycle before it can go off.

So where does this fall? Bracket 3? Low-end Bracket 4? The fuzzy gray area in the middle? Would you accept a Bracket 3 match with potential infinite turns and land locks?

kamarupa on Cumulative Fire

2 months ago

hmm, I'm not sure I see what you see, Cloudy2024. I can't know how familiar you are with the Turbo Fog archetype, but typically, it relies not just on packing a ton of Fog spells, but also a lot of draw card (usually group draw), which are an essential component to keeping your hand full of Fog spells. It's just not enough to have lots of Fogs in a deck. A deck must also have a way of getting all those fogs into our hand. There's simply no avoiding the need for land, so even if a deck had 40x Fog and 20x Land, there's a 33% chance every draw step yields a land. Which means that it's likely an opponent is going to get to hit us eventually. Unless we can draw more cards each turn. So in my mind, adding more Fog spells at the expense of draw card will actually make the deck work less well.

I did consider dropping Ghostly Prison or cutting it back to fewer copies, but that doesn't yield a lot of slots and more importantly, the advantage Ghostly Prison gives the deck is a static defense that allows us to have a chance of tapping more mana on our own turns without being completely defenseless. I'm not 100% sold on that strategy, namely because I really don't like dropping 3 mana on it, but I know it works, so the real question is how much weight can it pull in this brew.

When it comes to other non-fog spells, the most slots are devoted to Ashling, Flame Dancer and Leyline Tyrant, which are basically 33% of the combo. Without those creatures, the cumulative mana we get from Braid of Fire evaporates before we can use it to cast Banefire at Sorcery speed. Since neither red nor white really have anything I'm aware of for creature tutoring, there's no way I can see cutting them.

I really don't like Idyllic Tutor as it's not only quite narrow in a deck that requires more than just an Enchantment to win, but it also costs 3 to cast. At least with Ghostly Prison we can a static defense. With Idyllic Tutor, we get a single use out of that 3 mana while also exposing the card we need, which, in many cases, won't get cast until the next turn. If I could grab anything and not reveal it (like Mastermind's Acquisition, I could see the possible value of adding more tutors. But it's just too inefficient to add more tutors that are so specific. I'd have to devote space in the deck for Sorcery, Enchantment, and Creature tutors. Which bring us back to the value of simple card advantage spells. I need all the spells in the deck. United Battlefront gets us slightly closer than Idyllic Tutor, but still misses on creatures (and my essential creatures are too big anyway). So my verdict is still out on that spell, but I'd likely not choose to run a full set if I thought there was even room for it at all.

I suppose I could try to run more creatures like Kami of False Hope and go the Tocasia's Welcome route, but that seems... I dunno... convoluted.

So to sum up - in my mind, "focus[ing] more on the strategy of the deck is probably the opposite of what you suggested - not more fog and white control spells but less. I could drop the Fog spells altogether and resort to creature based defenses. Not the worst idea, but I think it would come at a higher mana cost, which slows down Banefire.

The only other thing I'd add to all this is that the biggest issue Turbo Fog faces is decks that aren't creature driven. Things like Burn, Mill, Life-drain, etc go right through Fog. That's the primary reason I included Riot Control - because it doesn't just stop combat damage - it stops ALL damage. I mainboarded it because it also has the potential to result in a big lifegain, which is a good stall tactic against lifedrain (keep in mind this is intended to be a multiplayer brew, so it could very easily be facing threats from both creatures and lifedrain in the same game). And that's the other major issue with going in even harder with the Fog strategy (which is itself a secondary, defensive strategy). Granted, the sideboard can help a bit to shore up Turbo-Fog weaknesses.

Bottom line - While I really don't expect this brew to be top tier in any sense, I do like exploring with brews and try to make them the best I can. It's probably clear that I think about strategy, uh, let's just say, "enough." I want to be clear about this though - I'm not saying "I'm right and you're wrong" or that I don't appreciate your advice. It's quite the contrary - I write all this because I'm [overly] interested in these things and want to have conversations about all of it. I understand if you're not interested in that. I just don't want you to feel like I have any intent of antagonizing you, etc. It's just so easy to give/get the wrong impression over the internet.

kamarupa on Cumulative Fire

2 months ago

I'd love to get more of your input, Cloudy2024 - my thinking with Hyena Umbra was that Esper Sentinel is going to draw me more cards if opponents have to pay 2 (or more) instead of 1. Since there are so few creatures in the deck, instead of going with something like Ethereal Armor, I thought it made sense to double down on the functionality of the Aura and go for some static protection (Totem Armor). I have a lot of reservations about this strategy, namely that it's a bit convoluted. Ideally, I like to include 2-4 card advantage spells in most of my decks. That said, red doesn't offer much in the way of card advantage, and I don't like what it does offer as too often it requires a high amount of available mana to utilize otherwise cards end up in exile or the graveyard. Similarly, white offers very little as well. As much as I love Tocasia's Welcome, that's obviously not the answer here. And that leaves me with Esper Sentinel, which is nice, but a major target for removal and a pretty low tax that opponents can easily pay. You can see I've already included 1xIdyllic Tutor, but I consider that much too narrow and it's really acting more as a placeholder for United Battlefront, which itself still doesn't fully meet what I'm looking for. And I suppose I have the final option of adding a 3rd color for a card advantage spell, but I'm very unlikely to do that as I'm a firm believer in limiting a deck's colors to as few as possible for consistency, efficiency, and cost reasons. So ya, I'd love to hear your thoughts on all that - is there a better card advantage spell? Does it really make sense to forego both pump and protection for an instant that only offers temporary effects, keeping in mind this deck is intended on being able to go up against 2 or more other decks in multiplayer matches? Is there another strategy I'm not considering? Much apprecaited!

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

3 months ago

Great deck. I only have one suggestion: Perhaps cut Idyllic Tutor in favor of Mastermind's Acquisition? While I see the primary impetus for wanting the tutor is Unbound Flourishing, limiting your tutor to strictly Enchantments for the relatively high MV of 3 AND including a 4th color for just that spell doesn't seem that "ideal" to me. For just 1 more mana, you can tutor any spell in your library - which seems like a big upgrade for almost no extra cost - while also keeping your deck sultai, thereby saving you a lot of manafixing. The biggest argument against Mastermind's Acquisition that I see is the double black casting cost. But you already have such a casting cost with Torment of Hailfire, so that argument seems rather weak.

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