Invasive Species

Creature — Insect

When Invasive Species enters the battlefield, return another permanent you control to its owner's hand.

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
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (22)

whales on Killing Lands to go smack

2 years ago

Profet93 Thanks for the suggestions and +1! So after looking at it I agree completely with what you said about Faithless Looting and Invasive Species. I think I will completely drop those two for other effects like Lightning Bolt and some Yavimaya Elder. I also like the Mire Boa suggestion so I think I am going to drop a Nimble Mongoose or two to add in that to have it as an option as well. I agree that Vines of Vastwood is definitely better than Ranger's Guile so I am going to swap those out. Rancor I like but am going to sit on for a little while to see how the deck functions with the pump I currently have. Finally the last couple suggestions for the sideboard I agree with and will throw those in as well.

Balaam__ Thank you for the suggestions and +1 as well! I forgot about Yavimaya Elder and defenitly will be using him in the deck thanks for the suggestion! And I think I am going to see how this deck plays for a little bit before I buy a playset of Utopia Sprawl but thanks for giving me a heads up on that one as well!

PhotogenicParasympathetic on REBIRTH OF THE STORM!

3 years ago

I suppose Temur Sabertooth cuts out the whole middleman, needing only the mana dork, untapper, and East Tree to go inifinte. So that'll be an option too.

And Weatherseed Treefolk can work instead of the Invasive Species, by picking up the Krotiq from grave if we sac in response to the East Tree trigger.

PhotogenicParasympathetic on REBIRTH OF THE STORM!

3 years ago

Hello friends!!!

Way back when, I built a mono-green storm deck, based around Jugan, the Rising Star - the deck required Paradox Engine to go off, and so was broken when the Engine was banned.

But guess what? Now, with the printing of Kodama of the East Tree, I think mono-green storm can be reborn!! Will it be good? Probably not! But will it be hilarious when it goes off? Absolutely!!

So here's what I've got:

I need a mana dork that taps for at least seven (I'm thinking Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Gyre Sage, Viridian Joiner, or Marwyn, the Nurturer) in play.

I need Quirion Ranger/Scryb Ranger in play.

I need Ambush Krotiq in hand.

I need Invasive Species in hand.

I need Paleoloth in play.

I need a sacrifice outlet in play.

And I need Kodama of the East Tree in play.

Tap the Mana dork, pick up a forest with the Ranger to untap, tap the Dork. 14 mana.

Use six to cast the Krotiq, putting the Invasive Species into play with the East Tree. Krotiq bounces the Quirion Ranger, Species bounces the Krotiq. Pick up something random with the Paleoloth.

Sacrifice the Species.

Recast the Quirion Ranger, put the forest into play with the East Tree. Untap the Mana dork, tap for seven, recast Krotiq.

With East Tree trigger on the stack, pick up Species with Paleoloth, then put Species into play off the trigger, bounce Quirion ranger and Krotiq.

Repeat for infinite mana (if the dork taps for more than seven), infinite storm, and infinite (whatever my sacrifice outlet does).

What I need from you all: 1) Praise. 2) Help. What other things can help refine this combo? What could serve as replacements for parts of it, in case of enemy removal?

I'm also tagging ThinkJank, as the originator of the Jugan combo, hoping they can help me out here.

MrCuddlefish on

4 years ago

This deck seems to have a lot of good concepts working for it. Invasive Species and Arcum's Astrolabe and Abundant Growth seem like excellent parings.

I think a Naya package with Glint Hawk and Kor Skyfisher would be more powerful. But I figure that you'd like to keep the current colour scheme.

I do think you need more cheap removal, more Lightning Bolt and Disfigure / Funeral Charm instead of Chainer's Edict and Blightning .

Also I personally like adding Cartouche of Ambition in my main board to remove creatures and to give your big creatures a lot of lifelink. I found this also really good when paired with cards like Kor Skyfisher and might be good with Invasive Species.

Tzefick on New Alara

4 years ago

I agree that having a critical mass of high cost creatures can be a fundamental flaw in the Naya design. However I also stated that the line didn't necessarily have to be at power 5. It could be power 4.

Additionally Caretaker also takes CMC into account, so it functions with any creature spell that is CMC 5 or higher. That grants a lot of open space to utilize the mechanic outside the strict nature of Naya's theme.

---

Recent post: "“Wanted [the soulbond] to be a restrictive pairing” is not what I want at all. I was suggesting that creatures who pair with specific types of creatures is ground worth exploring. I think, in fact, that most of them will just be plain ‘ol Soulbond."

Earlier post: "Soulbond's biggest strike against is it's a complex mechanic. Many players like it, though. and if you can follow what's going on, it has good gameplay. I really don't know if this mechanic will ever return, but its popularity makes me think there's a chance.

So you see where I’m going with this? If X is paired with a creature with power Y or less, ...

Maybe some will be normal Soulbond, some will care about power/toughness, maybe one or two will care about beasts."

You contradict your previous statement. I can understand if you changed your mind but you make an adamant statement that you did not want restrictive pairing for Soulbond at all... whereas you previously stated that you want Soulbond that cares about who they pair with and only some would be normal, now you want the majority to be normal Soulbond.

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How do you figure that Caretaker is played into a very different gameplay space than Exploit? Both requires a cost of a permanent on your board. Exploit is flexible in what cost it is, while Caretaker is locked and you have to play it before the benefit happens. Caretaker is definitely the weaker version of an Exploit cost due to those restrictions and setup, but I think it fits given that this kind of cost is not something that is normally within Green, so it does it worse. However because Caretaker is worse I think you can get away with granting higher payoffs.

As for breaking the color pie... No break is happening here to the color pie. Red, Green and White definitely have multiple sources of bouncing own permanents or creatures, so it is not a break of the color pie. You may argue about a break of what is traditionally Naya, but we are trying to make a new mechanic for Naya and after the conflux, Blue and Black mana have entered Naya. I wouldn't say it's a large stretch to have such a mechanic within .

Roaring Primadox , Stampeding Serow and its brother Stampeding Wildebeests , Temur Sabertooth , Ambush Krotiq , Invasive Species are some of them. Not bouncing a creature but bouncing none the less; Quirion Ranger Scryb Ranger I based these on mono green cards, but there's obviously a lot of others with other colors within the Nayan color pairing. Stuff like Fleetfoot Panther or Horned Kavu , Shivan Wurm . Red green had a lot of this stuff in the past. As far as I recall it was not a particularly liked mechanic in my LGS mostly because your opponent could interact with the "cost" and kill your only bounce target, so you had to bounce the creature itself. This was also back when creatures wasn't as pushed as they are now. Also having Caretaker as an optional cost that can't be interacted with and granting a benefit could make Caretaker work where the Red Green bounce for an undercosted big fattie failed.

Again; this is not a color pie break.

---

While I agree that Soulbond as a gameplay mechanic is more flexible in its core form, as it just requires a Soulbond creature and any other creature, I think Soulbond as a design mechanic is a lot more restrictive than you realize.

As for what decks are fun or not, I'm not going to go into that discussion. I would say most decks that are competitive are pretty linear in my eyes, because that is what makes them consistent and good.

---

Naya is exactly about the circle of life and normal predation to survive, not for sport like it may seem on Jund. I wouldn't say there's a bond between the gargantuans and their worshippers, as the gargantuans are the prime dangers to the humanoid inhabitants on Naya. The beasts prey on the populace and rampage through the jungle, destroying settlements.

I think for the gargantuans, it's more a tolerance thing. Like when a crocodile rests and opens its mouth to let birds eat out the scraps and clean for them. The crocodile doesn't care for the birds, but there's a symbiotic relationship that benefits both. I wont call it a bond. And certainly not one of the soul. That's why I called it a flavor break.

Thank you for the sauce on the popularity. I recognize that Naya is the least popular of the shards according to WotC's data. However it doesn't say that the mechanic is disliked. Shards of Alara fell into the top of the 25-50 percentile, which WotC classifies as a "liked" position, with the 0-25 percentile to be "disliked". They said some shards (like Esper) broke through the 50 percentile into the "popular" category.

So unless Naya is a vast outlier on the bad end, I don't think it's correct to say that Naya was disliked. Since they positively mentioned Esper to break the category but nothing else, I think it's safer to assume that Naya fell within the 25-50 percentile and is considered "liked, but not popular". You only know that Naya was the least popular of the shards. The rest is speculation.

And this speculation and personal bias is exactly why I kept going with this argument - which I reckoned was lost from the start. From your first post it is pretty clear that you don't consider the ideas applicable, so at first I wanted to know what thought went behind that, also to know what I might not have considered. From thereon it became clearer that some personal bias was present more than thought through criticism. I want people to argue with facts, and not use personal bias and present it as facts.

I don't mind you not liking my suggested mechanic and what it builds on. And if you have some factual or anecdotal evidence that supports a broader consensus which you claim to present, then I'll have to reconsider my position and revalue my viewpoints.

I thank you for our little discussion, but I think it is past time to end this.

sanddeviljack on Trostani Populate

5 years ago

I feel ya--it can be easy to go off the rails with deck building. You've got some good stuff to work with here, though, so if you don't mind some less-than-expert ideas, I'll throw a bunch of ideas your way.

I like your big finishers: Phyrexian Processor, Desolation Twin, the wurms (including Sandwurm Convergence), Giant Adephage, Trostani's Summoner. You're packing pretty much all the Populate spells--that's good. Let's protect that stuff with Heroic Intervention, Eerie Interlude, Cloudshift and--if you can justify the price tag--Teferi's Protection.

Hoofprints of the Stag works a little differently from Angelic Accord, but the result is functionally the same. Spawning Grounds is similar to Sandwurm Convergence, but let's you create the token before the end step (but also any end step) which will trigger Accord. Land aura, though, so you have to weigh that. But multiples of your tokens is always better than one, so if doublers are not too hard on your budget, you can't go wrong with those, either.

Eerie Interlude and Cloudshift can also be token doublers by giving you multiple ETBs from each Armada Wurm-style creature. If you go this route, Flickerwisp, Whitemane Lion, Jeskai Barricade, Eldrazi Displacer, Dust Elemental, even Roaring Primadox or Invasive Species will all help you get multiple ETBs. Other creatures that will benefit from this strategy include Hornet Queen, Regal Caracal, and Avenger of Zendikar. I've even used Fiend Hunter to "hide away" one of these (Trostani's Summoner is best) as wrath protection.

Herald of the Host and Nacatl War-Pride are both excellent Populate targets. Timing is everything, so you have to have mana and your Populater ready before the original tokens disappear. Loads of fun when you Second Harvest a board full of NWP tokens. :D

A couple wraths are good to have despite being a creature strategy: Martial Coup has the benefit of wrathing or not and creating some soldiers, while Phyrexian Rebirth gives you a huge threat that's definitely worth populating.

Finally, Garruk's Packleader and Elemental Bond draw you cards for every 3+ power creature that ETBs for you. You can't go wrong with card draw. If you do nothing else, add card draw.

Best of luck!

ariston on Green'd Lightning

6 years ago

I tried Cream of the Crop, which is a card I love, but card filtering just isn't as good as gas in this deck, imo, which is why cards I'm normally bearish on like Harmonize have found their way in. I'd probably even run something like Invasive Species over it.

Paradox Engine is great, sticking it to the board is usually a win because it usually gives you functionally-infinite mana while assembling a combo without the drawbacks of Umbral Mantle (and being a bit cheaper to get going).

BTW, if you haven't tried Prowling Serpopard, I really recommend it. It's more tutor-able than some of the other good options, has an efficient CMC-to-power ratio, and it can protect your combo turn on its own. It's a utility card I'm not angry I have to play on T3, which is great.

EgyptianSpaceGamer on Abuse and Reuse

6 years ago

More bounce effect like AEther Adept Arctic Merfolk Dream Stalker Invasive Species.