Ivory Cup

Artifact

Whenever a player plays a white spell, you may pay {1}. If you do, you gain 1 life.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Oldschool 93/94	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (14)

carpecanum on Fae

1 year ago

Celestial Unicorn doesn't really fit. Ivory Cup isn't as useful as it sounds.

Gravitational Shift is great with flyers.

Get your land count up to about 34-35 and most of the other cards you add should be artifacts or enchantments if you want free fairies. Alexi's Cloak, Propaganda, white enchantments that exile things, Helm of the Ghastlord, Bident of Thassa, Contempt, Mark of Eviction, card draw etc are all good choices.

Rhadamanthus on When exactly is a spell …

3 years ago

Unfortunately no, this won't work. By the time you're able to activate Eight-and-a-Half-Tails' ability, you're already past the point where Ivory Cup would trigger.

For spells, "play" and "cast" mean the same thing (you can see in the current official Oracle text on Ivory Cup's Gatherer entry that it's been updated to use the word "cast"). A spell is officially "cast" after the player has finished making all the decisions for it and paying all the costs. Players get a chance to make responses after the casting process is completed but before the spell starts resolving. In your example that means you've already finished casting the spell when you get the opportunity to use Eight-and-a-Half-Tails to turn it white. The time that Ivory Cup would have triggered is already passed.

Tylord2894 on When exactly is a spell …

3 years ago

You can not use Eight-and-a-Half-Tails's second ability to trigger Ivory Cup.

It's important to remember that Magic is almost 30 years old, so the wording that is printed on cards is very much subject to change. The update Oracle text of Ivory Cup uses "cast" instead of "played". I don't know what this change occurred, but a spell is not considered "played" anymore. It is always considered to be "cast" (there's an "exception" to this that I'll talk about later).

When casting a spell, there's a series of steps that the caster goes through, selecting modes/divisions/targets, determining costs, paying for costs, etc. The very last step in the process is declaring a spell to be "cast". That is when Ivory Cup will trigger. Since there is not an opportunity for you to resolve before that point, you can not use Eight-and-a-Half-Tails to change that spell to be white.

Now, this "exception" to the rule that "spells are only ever cast." Some cards will allow you to "play cards" from somewhere. For example, most "Impluse" effects (like the eponymous Act on Impulse) say that you can "play cards exiled this way". What this is trying to say in only a few words is that "you may cast spells or play lands exiled with Act on Impulse".

Hope this helps!!

Redriver18 on When exactly is a spell …

3 years ago

I am running a deck with Ivory Cup and Eight-and-a-Half-Tails. My question is, if I use Eight-and-a-Half-Tails to turn a non-white spell on the stack white, does it trigger Ivory Cup? I am confused about when a spell is considered to have been played as opposed to cast.

DemonDragonJ on Why Has WotC Changed How …

4 years ago

The original “lucky charms” ( Ivory Cup , Iron Star , and so forth), as well as the Darksteel lucky charms ( Kraken's Eye , Wurm's Tooth , and so forth) triggered whenever any player cast a spell of the appropriate color, and both Paradise Plume and Golem's Heart followed that example, as well. However, the staves from Magic 2014 triggered only when their controller cast a spell of the appropriate color, and Diamond Mare from Magic 2019 followed that example, as well.

Now, with diamond knight from Magic 2020 following the later example, it is now clear to me that WotC does not wish for lucky charms to trigger when their controllers’ opponents cast spells, but I feel that that severely limits their power.

What does everyone else say about this? Why did WotC make this change, and does it annoy you?

superhuman21 on Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

6 years ago

Ok keithallenlaw I'll attempt to justify what I'd do.
Cards to Remove:
-Gray Merchant of Asphodel: This card is expensive and the ETB is the only highlight of it. Without reanimating it or cloning this isn't worth the slow IMO.
-Skirge Familiar: The ability of this card is counterproductive. You have a huge amount of mana stones, so 1 blk mana isn't ideal for the cost of a card which you don't want to discard.
-Thran Turbine: At the surface this looks ok, but there are alot of mana rocks already and you could be doing other things.
-Ajani's Pridemate:It sounds good but you're just not doing a lot of protection or focus on counters. There are better options for the slow.

-Psychosis Crawler: for 5 this is a gamble that you'll have cards in your hand to make it worth while. This is better in a blue deck with a large hand.

Cards to Consider Filling Space:
-Vampire Nighthawk: A staple in lifegain orzhova decks. a flying/deathtouch/lifelink for 3 is a steal.
-Test of Endurance or Felidar Sovereign: Obvious alt win-cons in a lifegain deck.
-Ivory Cup: This works with ANYONE playing a white spell. the 1life you gain for 1 can help you trigger lifegain combos which are important.
-Tablet of the Guilds: An overlooked 2 drop. You can easily start gaining life with this and use it to help activate/chain your lifegain combos.
-Debt to the Deathless: this can be very fatal if someone doesn't counter it.
-Lightning Greaves, Whispersilk Cloak, Swiftfoot Boots are all good to help protect your important creatures like drogskol and oloro, etc.
-Wrath of God, Nevinyrral's Disk, Planar Cleansing:Board wipes care great and can help you out in a pinch if you tutor for them.
-Kambal, Consul of Allocation: If you had to pick another commander for a deck it is this guy.
-Ephara, God of the Polis: This god is a great drop price. He also can allow you to get card draw. On top of this he is indestruct and has a decent strength/tough.
-Trigon of Mending: This isn't a superb card but it'll help you to keep gaining life which can combo with other cards for crazy effect.

Anyways those are some of my recommendations explained. Hope the explanation helps a bit where I'm coming from which what I play in Oloro.

superhuman21 on Hungry Karl

6 years ago

The below are cards I run in my Oloro deck for lifegain which I think would compliment your deck.Felidar Sovereign, Ivory Cup, Eternity Vessel, Trigon of Mending, Celestial Mantle, Ghostly Prison, Luminous Wake, Test of Endurance.

superhuman21 on Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

6 years ago

Ivory Cup, Celestial Mantle, and Eternity Vessel. Just a couple suggestions. For others and to check out a similar build of mine check out. http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/it-just-keeps-getting-biggerphrasingboom/

Otherwise +1