Inquisition of Kozilek

Sorcery

Target player reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonland card from it with converted mana cost 3 or less. That player discards that card.

Discussion (51)

zAzen7977 on Alchemy Balcony

2 weeks ago

Next I suggest swapping out expensive utility cards like Drift of Phantasms, Perplex, Muddle the Mixture, etc. for 1 drops to reduce your mana curve and allow turn 1 plays. Good candidates include Mishra's Bauble, Serum Visions, and Opt, which do not tutor for a card, but the additional card draw accomplishes the same objective without setting you back a whole turn.

You need to protect your combo proactively instead of reactively, so I suggest running Thoughtseize and/or Inquisition of Kozilek to remove threats before they are played. Force Spike and Spell Pierce are the best 1-drop counterspells, you may consider incorporating some into the main deck or sideboard. Removal like Fatal Push (in conjunction with fetchlands to trigger revolt) and Dismember are critical for dealing with creature-based decks and you should run at least 2 mainboard or on the side.

As far as the sideboard goes, great Karn targets are Wurmcoil Engine and/or Batterskull to gain life, which is critical against aggro and especially burn. Damping Sphere shuts down storm and ramp/Tron simultaneously. Ratchet Bomb wipes tokens or low cost permanents...

Flooremoji on Budget Suicide Black

2 weeks ago

Although pretty high in price, Thoughtseize is exactly what these decks want to be doing. (Inquisition of Kozilek, in addition to being cheaper might be worth playing over TS becuase you can't afford the extra life).

I can't imagine playing this deck without 4 Death's Shadow and maybe even some number of Scourge of the Skyclaves.

Cheers!

Destroyerbirb on You Have To Call Me Nighthawk

2 weeks ago

ANub1s90 Very nice deck. I just have a few suggestions listed below.

Duress and Vicious Rumors are decent discard spells, but a bit lacking when compared to other discard spells. Try out Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek or even Appetite for Brains.

Why not 4x Nighthawk Scavenger in the mainboard? It's a better Vampire Nighthawk.

Last thing, mana base. Fetchlands are good for getting basics and increasing your chances of getting a non-land card. Nurturing Peatland is card draw in the late game, and you might want some "Man-Lands" such as Mutavault to keep the hits coming even when you are at the late game with no cards in hand. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is great with colourless lands as it turns them into swamps if needed. Another spicy thing you could try out is Cabal Stronghold, a modern-legal, slightly worse Cabal Coffers.

+1 from me.

DeltaMoth on 『Grixis Prowess』Suicide Salesman

3 weeks ago

Gracco

Interesting thoughts, I've found early Lava Darts to facilitate easy kills when gold-fishing but I assume in a game scenario they'd be far less useful. I mainly use Lightning Bolt / Monastery Swiftspear to push their life down and squeeze out a Scourge of the Skyclaves to put on the pressure.

However, I can see how Death's Shadow would be a good draw in the later game, around T3 to T5, to clean things out.

I don't agree with dropping Dismembers mainboard, they prove to be very useful at both dropping my life total and killing threats like Gurmag Angler and Stormwing Entity. Also, more Thoughtseize in the side wouldn't help as I'm already running 4 mainboard. I could replace Inquisition of Kozilek and 1 Kolaghan's Command with Cling to Dust and Spikefield Hazard  ^Flip for Uro cucking.

ThisIsMyAccount on Mono Black Pox Control

3 weeks ago

I would suggest playing something like Chimeric Mass instead of Mutavault because if you have to sacrifice mutavault because of Smallpox then you might be putting yourself in a position to be unable to win the game.

What happens if your opponent uses Path to Exile or Surgical Extraction on Nether Spirit? You basically just have Liliana, the Last Hope ultimate and The Rack as the only ways to win. I wouldn't say you really want to be betting on your opponent having no way to deal with that.

Chimeric Mass isn't vulnerable to Smallpox or other cards you see fairly often in modern like Ghost Quarter and Molten Rain.

Finally, I would suggest at least considering Tectonic Edge. You're running 4 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth so tectonic edge is basically just going to be another swamp most of the time and it is better than Field of Ruin if the opponent has 4 or more lands. It also has good synergy with Inquisition of Kozilek.

marowak_city on Tricksters in Arms - Dimir Rogues

3 weeks ago

Just gonna say that Mind Drain seems really Bad. Yes I understand that filling your opponent's graveyard is important, but this is an aggro deck, so mind rot type effects are just not what you want to be doing. Discard spells like Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek have traditionally been good because you take the best card out of your opponent's hand, and even then two mana versions like Agonizing Remorse and Lay Bare the Heart have been reserved for midrange decks and sideboards

Wizard_of_the_Broke on Upkeep, Reveal land on top, flip Delver

3 weeks ago

Did some playtesting too. Really good. But- Snapcaster didn't do much. I might rather have more Stubborn Denial or another bit of counter/protection, or maybe 2x Inquisition of Kozilek in most matchups. But this was literally just 3 games so I could be way off. Really strong deck in any case, well done.

TheVectornaut on Searing Infection

4 weeks ago

Most of my experience with infect comes from playing simic, but I have played the mechanic in all 5 colors. In terms of power, green is the most effective color to play by a very VERY large margin. You get access to the best infect creature in Glistener Elf (along with the slower and safer option of Blight Mamba), you get trample sources to push through damage with Ichorclaw Myr such as Rancor, Predator's Strike, and Larger Than Life, you get protection bundled with buffs in the form of Vines of Vastwood, Ranger's Guile, and Blossoming Defense, and you get the largest pool of very strong power boosts in the form of Mutagenic Growth, Invigorate, Scale Up, Might of Old Krosa, Berserk, Become Immense, Groundswell, Phytoburst, Noble Hierarch, and Pendelhaven. Since infect is an all-or-nothing sort of archetype, even when running the less aggressive versions, the most important characteristics that you need are speed, protection, and evasion. Green offers two of those things in spades but can struggle with evasion. This is why blue is generally considered the next best color to run. You get the insane threat of Blighted Agent, unblockable buffs with Distortion Strike and Aqueous Form, and protection from spells via Spell Pierce, Dispel, Turn Aside, and the odd Spellskite. Black is the next best. Plague Stinger's flying isn't as good as the unblockable on a Blighted Agent but it's still very powerful evasion as illustrated by the ubiquity of Inkmoth Nexus in every non-budget infect list ever made. Black also nets useful control tools like Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, Fatal Push, Dismember, and Assassin's Trophy. White was considered the worst infect color for a very long time since its best option (Apostle's Blessing) can be used in any deck, but the recent introduction of Giver of Runes has breathed some life back into the color. Additionally, I've seen a lot of equipment lists popping up that use Colossus Hammer, Kor Duelist, Sigarda's Aid, and Kor Outfitter to see some success. Unfortunately, that leaves red as the current worst color to run in infect. It has some decent buffs but they pale in comparison to green's offerings. The result is that most red infect decks rely on gimmicks like using Razor Swine's first strike to wither enemy creatures, generating infinite mana to pump into an unblocked Ogre Menial, or putting Phyresis on something like a Spikeshot Elder to bypass combat altogether. Your instant tricks definitely fall in this category. That's not necessarily a bad thing though. If your meta is casual enough, red should still work and it will be much more interesting to play with / fun to play against than a more traditional deck. How competitive you want to be is always up to you.

To answer your specific questions, I would probably start by cutting a few creatures. Most lists run about 12 infect sources (and that's including a playset of Inkmoth Nexus). With Hand of the Praetors on your top end, running 16-20 isn't that unreasonable, at least as long as all of them are good. Infect creatures usually become "bad" when they cost more than 2. That's why I wouldn't usually recommend running Ichor Rats or Septic Rats. Both Necropede and Plague Myr are perfectly acceptable inclusions with very similar power levels. They'll rarely be better than Plague Stinger or Ichorclaw Myr but that's okay if you just want more guys to play. As for Vector Asp, it's honestly a pretty bad choice in most circumstances. While you usually won't need to activate it more than 2 or 3 times to win the game, that mana would be better spent elsewhere, and it doesn't even trigger the Hand. However, given the choice of it and a 3-drop, I'd probably take the snake, especially since it would be your only proactive play on turn 1 (barring the inclusion of Glistener Elf or Inkmoths). Better though would just be to run neither and invest in more buff spells to assist in combat and trigger Livewire Lash. I do like the idea of those spells having cycling in theory, but in practice, the mana needed to cycle can short you of the resources needed to close out the game. Plus, cycling spells tend to cost more to account for the added ability. Cycling lands on the other hand should be fine as long as they come in untapped, although it looks like that only describes Ash Barrens and Blasted Landscape. Just like with creatures, I wouldn't run any spells that cost more than 2 unless they can win you the game like Soul's Fire can. This will also allow you to run 20 lands or fewer, opening up even more slots for gas. I apologize if I'm repeating myself about the low-cost-high-speed thing but that is basically the reason the infect mechanic exists. If you prefer a slow and more controlling style, Rakdos wither built around Necroskitter is a fun option that has some overlap with infect.