Inquisition of Kozilek

Sorcery

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

Discussion (51)

zapyourtumor on Moderndeck Killer

10 hours ago

I agree on the lands. This looks like a control deck - it should have at least 23-24 lands at the minimum.

Not sure how good "can't cast spells" effects actually are, especially without hand disruption such as Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek . I would cut Meddling Mage and Circu and Silence.

Sweepers are your best weapon against tribal decks. Best ones are for this deck would be Engineered Explosives , Supreme Verdict , Damn .

zapyourtumor on Vito & vamps Deck

10 hours ago

Too many lands. Cut 3-4.

Ajani's Mantra is bad.

Ajani's Welcome isn't needed here in my opinion, if you really want this kind of effect put in Soul's Attendant since it gives you life off of Cleric of Life's Bond. I probably wouldn't add either though.

Boon Reflection way too slow. Definitely cut this. Same with Beacon of Immortality .

Brave the Sands probably not worth it.

Cradle of Vitality . Even worse than Boon Reflection. Costs 4 mana to get it out and then requires a 2 mana investment everytime for not that much payoff.

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You need 1 drops. Vampire of the Dire Moon , Knight of the Ebon Legion , Inquisition of Kozilek .

Additional vampires: Gifted Aetherborn , Gatekeeper of Malakir , Drana's Emissary

Need some removal: Path to Exile , Fatal Push , Vindicate

hungry000 on GB Rock ($30)

13 hours ago

Danny66 Hey, thanks! I'm glad you like them. GB Rock is part of an archetype of decks called "Midrange" that generally seeks to win the mid-game with value-generating cards and efficient threats. Black-based midrange decks like this one typically use discard spells like Inquisition of Kozilek and efficient removal spells like Bloodchief's Thirst to slow the opponent down, then establishes a big threat such as Longtusk Cub to beat 'em down or something that makes a lot of value like Glint-Sleeve Siphoner and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar .

zAzen7977 on TINY PUNISHER - Discard/Stax [cEDH Primer MH2]

1 day ago

Hey MrNoodlesworth, sorry for the super late reply. I haven’t had a chance to play much lately due to work. I added Grief (cutting Inquisition of Kozilek ), Dauthi Voidwalker (cutting Planar Void ), and Tourach, Dread Cantor (cutting Tainted AEther as you suggested, since I’m running more creatures). I added additional Planeswalker removal in the form of Baleful Mastery and Murderous Rider , since lately I have had difficulty dealing with them. To make room I cut Slaughter Pact and Force of Despair . I also swapped Thought Vessel for Reliquary Tower so I can have infinite hand size for 0 mana. Sometimes I needed infinite hand size but didn’t have the 2 mana to spend on Vessel.

zapyourtumor on Hell's Gates

2 days ago

Cool concept! Here are some of my initial thoughts and comments after reading through the list a few times.

I really don't like Blood Speaker . A 4 mana 3/2 vanilla that tutors a demon to hand for 4 mana everytime - if it let you tutor one onto the battlefield it might actually be playable. I would cut all of these.

The main issues I see with the deck are your disruption package. I would add more efficient removal like Lightning Bolt and Fatal Push over a lot of your Go for the Throat s and Terminate s (I'd leave 1 Terminate for Murktide decks). Grim Return doesn't seem super great either.

I'd also include hand disruption in a playset of Inquisition of Kozilek , since I assume Thoughtseize is out of your price range. Discard is just a staple in any black midrange deck like this. While these cards might be a little more expensive than the other cards in the deck, Bolt/Push/Inquisition are all modern staples that can slot into most red/black decks and are unlikely to lose their value anytime soon.

Mark of the Oni is cute, so if you really have fun with it in the deck then of course that's fine, it just doesn't seem very good because the best time to drop it is earlier in the game to survive and you can't really play it early game. The only cheap demons I could find are Dream Devourer and Scourge of the Skyclaves which could slot in if you want to keep Mark of the Oni. Only run Scourge if you are running a playset of bolt though. If you have the money for Scourge I'd definitely get it, although it's pretty expensive.

Since you have Skirsdag High Priest , you probably need some lower costed creatures. While Fetid Imp fits the theme, its really bad. I'd cut it. Honestly something like Dark Confidant would be great here since you can tap it to Skirsdag and it gives you some much needed draw power, but it's really expensive. I can't really think of any other good 1-2 cmc black creatures that fit the hell theme (except asmor but she doesn't count lol), but there are definitely some good ones out there.

Some other devils/demons are Sin Prodder (need that draw engine?), Desecration Demon , which gets really brutal with Archfiend of Depravity, and Doom Whisperer . I'm sad that Master of Cruelties probably doesn't fit here since he's my favorite demon.

zapyourtumor on Braids pox

1 week ago

I've always wanted to build a braids modern deck, but casting a 4 drop in a smallpox deck always seemed a bit risky to me, while running braids without smallpox always seemed too slow. Here are my comments on your list:

You have some cards that don't add enough to your gameplan.

1) Greater Harvester looks cute, but it sucks. A static ability that only affects you, while the only way for it to cause your opponent to sacrifice stuff is to deal combat damage with a 5/6 vanilla creature without any evasion or trample or anything. Even with Braids wiping your opponent's board this card will definitely hurt you more than them. World Queller is still pretty expensive, but has a much nicer effect that lets you choose the permanent type. I probably wouldn't run either but having another 5 cmc Braids is cool.

2) Tergrid, God of Fright  ^Flip definitely seems too slow as well but maybe the flip side is okay. I doubt it though.

3) I know you run Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to tax your opponents and make it even harder for them to cast spells along with braids, but you have so many noncreature spells that it's probably not that good here either.

4) Leyline of the Meek synergizes with your token plan, but doesn't help you stretch out the game, deny your opponent resources, or create more tokens for yourself. If you really want to play something to buff your tokens I'd use Intangible Virtue , but I don't recommend it.

5) Timely Reinforcements definitely doesn't fit here. There's a reason it usually isn't played in decks with a lot of other token producers - because then its effect would be useless. Add in braids wiping the opponent's creatures and it becomes even worse. 4 Souls + 4 BB already seems like a good token package to me. It could maybe be a one-of in the sideboard though against hyper-aggressive decks.

6) Cabal Coffers is very questionable, since your land count is probably not going to be that high. If you are going to keep it, definitely add more Urborgs. Also 25 lands is a little high even for a pox deck like this one, I think 24 is the perfect number.

7) Crucible of Worlds does have nice synergy with sacrificing lands (and replaying Flagstones is pretty cool) but a lot of the time you would probably be sacrificing tokens instead. I don't think the card is that great here unless you have Flagstones of Trokair on the field, so if you need space for other cards I would recommend cutting these.

You should probably have more early game resource denial, lower your mana curve, and have more pieces that break symmetry.

1) Braids is a four drop, and doesn't have any impact on the board unless she survives a turn. You definitely need something early game that has a similar effect to braids. I don't think this deck can function without 4x Smallpox .

2) 4x Flagstones of Trokair . No questions asked. Also 2-3 Urborgs (esp if you keep Cabal Coffers). T1 Urborg, Inquisition/Thoughtseize into T2 flagstones + smallpox is backbreaking.

3) Bloodghast gives something to discard to pox, and you can repeatedly sacrifice it to braids as well. Nether Spirit is another option but I don't think it works well here.

4) Multiples of Braids suck, so I'd go down to 3 copies.

5) You could consider Sedgemoor Witch as a token producer instead of Bitterblossom. Not quite as sure about this one; it does something even if you only use the tokens to feed braids and gains life while BB loses life, but it also costs 1 more mana and acts as a juicy removal target. However, with braids on the field you already have removal targets so it probably isn't as much of an issue as it seems.

Your only early game disruption is Thoughtseize. This is definitely not enough.

1) I'd run 6-8 discard spells total between Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek . Honestly, In my opinion the best is a 4 IoK/2 Seize split, since IoK is better early game and you should be able to prevent your opponent from casting 4+ cmc spells anyways.

2) I understand that you are running Vindicate so you can blow up your opponent's lands, but you should definitely have some cheaper removal. I'd probably cut one and run 2-3 Fatal Push . Bloodchief's Thirst or Prismatic Ending could also work, just anything that isn't Path to Exile .

About the sideboard cards

1) Definitely Kataki, War's Wage for artifact hate, make sure to side out Crucible if you decide to keep it though. Stony Silence is another alternative that you can't sacrifice to pox or Braids.

2) Some boardwipes are probably needed, even though they don't synergize that well with tokens or braids. Without them, you'll just get run over by aggressive decks. Best ones are Damn and Bontu's Last Reckoning (first one is more of a 1-2x mainboard card, while second one is probably a 2-of in the sideboard).

3) Grave hate, Rest in Peace is best but Leyline of the Void also works.

4) Kor Firewalker for burn and/or other aggressive red-centered strategies (like rakdos aggro). Dragon's Claw also works if you don't want to sacrifice it to Smallpox, or if the WW is hard to cast.

TheMeadiator on Spiteburn Awakener (Modern Budget Burn Combo)

1 week ago

Bone Shards is a great include! Swapping out some axes, or maybe even some of the enchantments like you said would be great.

I understand about the enchantments being too slow, but synergy is kind of my thing in all my decks. As soon as I exclude them and include Lightning Bolt and Inquisition of Kozilek , the deck starts losing its uniqueness in the modern space. Don't get me wrong, they're great cards and likely highly effective at winning games, but I'm less about winning and more about playing for fun.

Really great advice - thank you! I'll keep all suggestions on a list so I can change up the contents as I playtest! Now I just need to convince my playgroup to actually play a 60 card game instead of EDH...

zapyourtumor on Spiteburn Awakener (Modern Budget Burn Combo)

1 week ago

I forgot that you would discarding skelemental a lot of the time, so 8 duals is probably enough. Of course, it isn't optimal, but no one wants to burn 40 extra bucks just to improve their manabase by a little.

For another discard outlet, Bone Shards seems like it would work really well here and could probably replace some copies of axe. It's sorcery speed, but it destroys all creatures unconditionally, can be a discard outlet, and you can also cast it in your second main phase and sacrifice something that you reanimated with thunderkin.

Furnace Celebration and Where Ancients Tread have cute synergy but they are too slow for modern, I'd cut them. That probably makes Vessel of Volatility unneeded as well. To replace them, I suggest some Lightning Bolt for additional removal and to help burn out your opponent midgame, plus some hand disruption in Inquisition of Kozilek so you have more turn 1 plays besides flamekin.