Key to the City

Artifact

, Discard a card: Up to one target creature can't be blocked this turn.

Whenever Key to the city becomes untapped, you may pay . If you do, draw a card.

Discussion (50)

raefgall on Rise of the Machines

3 weeks ago

Some options to look at: Field of Ruin is technically an improvement on Ghost Quarter if you run a few Wastes.

Unwinding Clock is only ok unless you have a lot of things that get better when tapping, or with Vedalken Orrery. Shimmer Myr helps make it a little better.

Steel Hellkite is a strong top-end that can also help with removal/board wipes.

Rogue's Passage and Key to the City will make your X/X monsters more likely to connect, especially since a lot of them don't have trample or any kind of evasion.

Myr Battlesphere is a big creature that hits really hard.

Lightning Greaves and/or Swiftfoot Boots help you go off more efficiently (LG is especially good with ramp creatures) as well as finish off your opponents when you go off.

lagotripha on Hell's Kitchen

2 months ago

I like the deck, but a few quick goldfishes have left a lot of draws feeling awkward - something like a little more draw/discard would go a long way. Definitely deserves some tinkering. Something like Key to the City or Collective Brutality would be my go-to 1-ofs, possibly Raven's Crime to improve the control matchup?

It feels close but not quite there. Something in the lands, or 1-ofs should take it the rest of the way.

StarstormKK on An Old-School Nightmare

2 months ago

I have a reanimator deck (not as neatly budget as yours is though) and I have found one of my favorite discard outlets is Key to the City . It just has so much value in this kind of deck. Nice deck, man!

multimedia on Upgraded Breya

3 months ago

Hey, nice budget upgrade so far of the precons.

It looks like you've mixed the Osgir precon with the Breya precon which is interesting. Osgir kind of has some negative synergy with Breya or Silas as Commander because Osgir's best ability is to exile an artifact from your graveyard. With Breya and Silas you want to take advantage of being able to reanimate/recur artifacts meaning you don't want to exile them from your graveyard. Akiri has nice interaction with Osgir because he makes token copies of artifacts that make Akiri bigger. In saying this if you want to better utilize Osgir then play Akiri/Silas as Commanders.

Osgir's exile ability is powerful, but it doesn't go with Breya therefore in my opinion Osgir is out of place. I play budget Breya and not Akiri/Silas thus I may have some bias, but these Commanders seem very different in gameplay. With Akiri/Silas attacking seems important, using Commander damage as a source of winning and value. Breya is less about attacking with her and more about using her ability sacing artifacts for modes for value to control the game. Breya's best strength as Commander is being a win condition combo piece with the two Thopters she creates.

---

With Breya as Commander I would play Silas in the 99 because he's an artifact, but not Akiri. With Akiri/Silas I would play Breya in the 99 because she's an artifact who's three artifacts for four mana. Akiri/Silas want evasion to be able to do as much combat Commander damage therefore I would include more budget artifacts to give them evasion:

• Zephyr Boots
• Trailblazer's Boots
• Key to the City

You don't really want these with Breya instead budget combo pieces:

• Grand Architect + Pili-Pala
• Sword of the Meek + Thopter Foundry

---

All these Commander choices are better with less creatures and more artifacts. Lots of creatures is not what you want unless they're artifact creatures because all these Commanders abilities are only good with artifacts. 40 creatures is a lot of creatures for any Commander deck that's not tribal like Elves. Consider cutting creatures for more artifacts?

There are some exceptions here for nonartifact creatures:

• Hellkite Tyrant : can be a win condition.
• Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain : powerful repeatable draw with more artifacts.
• Chief Engineer : with more artifacts ramp for artifacts.
• Digsite Engineer : repeatable source of creating artifacts.
• Emry, Lurker of the Loch : repeatable cast artifacts from your graveyard.
• Padeem, Consul of Innovation : protect artifacts and can be repeatable draw.

Whirler Rogue seems very good with Akiri/Silas to make either or both unblockable, but is subpar with Breya. You could cut all the others that I didn't name for artifacts or other cards.

Some cards to consider cutting to get to 99:

• Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer
• Hellkite Igniter
• Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge
• Losheel, Clockwork Scholar
• Sydri, Galvanic Genius
• Thopter Engineer
• Alibou, Ancient Witness
• Sun Titan
• Osgir, the Reconstructor if Breya is Commander.
• Akiri, Line-Slinger if Breya is Commander.
• Whirler Rogue if Breya is Commander.

I offer more advice. Would you like more advice? Good luck with deck.

Dromar39 on Valduk & his Elemental Friends

3 months ago

What about adding Key to the City for more help with getting your commander through? And what about something like Daretti, Scrap Savant to switch equipment if they destroy the more useful ones.

Dromar39 on Getting Lathril Through

3 months ago

Key to the City Is great

multimedia on Your Local Aquarium

4 months ago

Hey, well done on a low budget, nice flavor of sea creatures.

Consider expanding on looting? Looting is draw and then discard.

• Windrider Wizard : repeatable loot by casting an instant or sorcery and it's a flying creature for Octavia's magecraft.
• Frantic Search
• Windfall
• Thought Scour
• Mental Note
• Strategic Planning
• Chart a Course
• Compulsive Research
• Key to the City : can make Octavia unblockable until end of turn.

A reason to play more looting is to have more instants or sorceries in your graveyard for Octavia. Another reason is Wonder which is a card you want to discard and when it's in your graveyard and you control an Island gives all your creatures flying especially Octavia. Pair the flying effect of Wonder with Stormtide Leviathan who's a big sea creature upgrade. He makes all nonflying creatures unable to attack, but Wonder gives all your creatures flying.

Whelming Wave will consistently wreck your opponents creatures and not bounce your creatures including Octavia. Sol Ring and Arcane Signet are staple budget mana rocks in Commander. Kefnet's Monument reduces the mana cost all of your blue creatures and each time you cast a blue creature you get to tap an opponent's creature who could be a blocker.

Sea-Dasher Octopus and Thought Sponge are some small sea creature upgrades. Deep-Sea Kraken is another budget big sea creature upgrade. It's ability to remove time counters from itself whenever any opponent cast a spell is good in multiplayer Commander.

Good luck with your deck.

Tzefick on None

5 months ago

While the effect in essence is powerful, especially for white. I don't think this is a good route to achieve it for white. It becomes too mana intensive to achieve card draw, and the worst part would be to cast this, only to have another player nuke it with a Reclamation Sage or well... a Counterspell .

---

Personally I always found it a bit puzzling, seeing as white is bad at card draw and mana acceleration, the "solution" is often to pair card draw with high mana costs - either through straight cost ( Staff of Nin , Mind's Eye ) or through activations - like Dawn of Hope .

Red gets their impulse draw on a 4-mana enchantment Outpost Siege with no additional investment and red is the second worst color in Magic to draw cards.

If WotC had made Dawn of Hope with a 1 mana activation, I think it would have been an interesting card. As it is, it's pretty poor. And yes it can create tokens at a very poor rate as well, but that is unrealistic to matter in constructed formats, so that isn't much of a positive.

---

I believe it would be more interesting to attempt to craft a better solution for white's lack of card draw than simply putting high costs and drawbacks on it.

White has always been a combat focused color and I think it would be appropriate to create at least some kind of synergy that results in card advantage. We have cards like Sun Titan and Bishop of Rebirth that directly reanimates smaller permanents/creatures whenever they attack. However this is bound behind there being anything in your graveyard and seeing how white doesn't deal in discarding, or selfmilling, or having an oversized hand the only way they get cards into their graveyard is by casting them and having them destroyed - or utilize a small array of artifacts like Key to the City .

What if we made other mechanics that combines with White's strengths and ideology?

Now we're just entering brainstorm mode

brainstorm Show

One time combat-trigger

Conquer X (This creature enters the battlefield with a Conquer counter on it. Whenever it deals combat damage to a player, you may remove a Conquer counter from it. If you do, Scry X then draw a card.)

Building up to benefit

Whenever a creature you control attacks, put a Scout counter on X.

Remove three Scout counters: Draw a card.

---

This plays well into white board wide strategies and plays fairly well with their ability to protect their creatures through indestructible and with Reconnaissance .

Protect the king / Luminarch Ascension

White has a taste for combat, but also for defending themselves - having the highest amount of Vigilance creatures and enablers.

At the beginning of each opponent's end step, if you didn't lose life this turn, put a counter on WhatsHisFace.

Then either

Remove X counters: gain card advantage (draw, scry , self-mill)

--Or--

At the beginning of your turn, if there are X counters on WhatsHisFace, do A. If there are Y counters, do B (instead or in addition).

---

It could be

Lawmaking

Enchantment

At the beginning of each opponent's end step, if you didn't lose life this turn, put a counter on Lawmaking.

At the beginning of your upkeep, if Lawmaking has at least 2 counters on it, you may have each player mill three cards. Then if it has at least 5 counters on it, you may draw a card. Then if it has at least 10 counters on it, you may return a permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield.

---

There's some milling to enable white's reanimation tools, there's straight card draw for a moderate amount of effort, there's a large payoff for having it stick around for a long time that also ties in with the self-milling.

It would be better to restrict the condition to only count combat damage dealt to you, so you cannot just be kept out with a Pestilence or afflict or any kind of non-combat damage that white has limited means to counter. But then again it would require the opponents to play white's game of creature combat to counter this enchantment. That is not necessarily a bad thing, having a card that "forces" the opponent to play at a game white is already pretty good at, and if they don't you reap some benefits.

symmetrical draw

We have already seen Secret Rendezvous as a way for white to get card draw by giving a similar benefit to an opponent - which in a multiplayer format is not as bad as it is in a 1v1 scenario. However this card is giving more advantage to that opponent than it does you. The white player is down 3 mana and a card and then both players draw 3, leaving the white player at net +2 and the other at +3 cards with no payment.

It could be more interesting if the opponent had to do something to get their benefit.

Picture

New rendezvous

Sorcery

You draw two cards and target opponent draws a card.

That opponent may pay or have you create a Treasure. If they do, you and that opponent each draw three cards instead.

---

This means if they want the goodies, they'll have to pay up or grant you some additional benefits to get their part - both prosper the most when they are willing to give fair compensation.

The catch-all with the Treasure could be removed so the White player can choose to just draw 2 and have an opponent who can't or wont pay the draw 1. Pretty similar to Divination but that card is already seen as poor in blue - at least in the Commander format.

However the Treasure token does present itself as a possibility for white early mana ramp in addition to the card draw, if you target someone who cannot pay the mana. The choice between giving the caster a Treasure and netting two cards for yourself is a deal that most players would take.

Anyhow, that's just a brainstorm on ideas how to give white some card draw/advantage mechanics that ain't just plastering high costs on a card draw engine. I would love to see some more creativity in that direction.

Not to discredit your suggestion Mcat1999, it is a strong card for multiplayer formats, but I also feel like it is a trap. Both in terms of gameplay and in design. The latter mostly because simply gating card draw behind mana requirements is just attempting to fix one of white's issues by forcing them to do something else they are poor at performing.