Kraken's Eye

Artifact

Whenever a player casts a blue spell, you may 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
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (23)

legendofa on AI Chaos

11 months ago

This is beautiful. It's basically a subpar Izzet spellslinger with Aetherflux Reservoir slotted in. The strategy notes are desperately trying to convince us that there's some lifegain synergy with Soul-Scar Mage and Electrostatic Field, with random mentions of Revitalize and Curiosity. Not even a Lifetap , let alone Kraken's Eye or Dragon's Claw. It's definitely an Izzet deck, but the life gain is almost an afterthought.

Thank you for doing this.

TawfulEvil on Venture Deeper

1 year ago

Thanks for commenting on my deck! This is my first time posting one.

The spells may be a little inefficient, but I chose them mostly for how they work together. I use the Oculus, Unsummon, and Thought Collapse to hold back whatever I can, while I use the Kraken's Eye to try to keep my life total high enough that I don't promptly die if something has trample. (My little brother favors green creatures)

The Sage's Row Denizen and the Murmuring Mystic both have abilities to help the Merfolk Secretkeeper, netting me chump tokens and a bit more mill when it enters.

Fractured Sanity is an excellent idea! I don't believe I've seen that card. Maybe I'd replace it for the Startled Awake  ^Flip cards?

The creatures conundrum is interesting to me though. I don't play super competetively, but I use the creatures for the mill, both when they enter and when they die. I actually do have Ruin Crab, but the Merfolk Secretkeeper is critical to the deck in my opinion, with it's adventures and re-entering the field.

Profane Memento... I Love It!!! Why have I never seen this beautiful evil creation!!! I may need 20 of them. Well not twenty, but definitely replacing the Kraken's Eye.

It does not have much removal, which I have encountered as a problem before. I would like to keep it mono-blue though if possible. I've mostly just handled threats through Unsummon-ing massive attacking threats, and through Thought Collapse-ing any main combo starters I see. I would love suggestions though, especially blue ones.

You're probably correct with the mana curve though... I'm just unlucky about having lands when I need them, so in frustration, I probably put in to many... Cutting back some lands is a wise suggestion, thanks.

The three costs I actually haven't had a problem with. (Probably because of the extra lands) I could maybe pack a couple of Mind Sculpts if I had to, but for my two cost department I simply wait for a Murmuring Mystic before I cast Winged Words. Unless I feel I have to of course!

wallisface on Venture Deeper

1 year ago

Some suggestions below. I’ve kept your budget in-mind, so nothing i’ve suggested here costs over $1.

• The best way to think of mill is like a burn deck that attacks a library instead of a life-total. In the same way that Shock is useless in a burn deck because it doesn’t deal enough damage to be worth the spent-card, “mill” cards also need to reach a threshold of being able to mill at least 7-8 cards to be worth it. It feels like you have a LOT of these really inefficient spells which will make it really hard to win a game.

• I would suggest finding room for Fractured Sanity.

• Mill generally doesn’t want creatures in its deck, as it’ll just slow down your ability to mill, and often doesn’t buy any kind of tangible time. The only creature i’d suggest you run is Ruin Crab.

• Profane Memento will be massively stronger than Kraken's Eye.

• you need some form of interaction (killspell). Mill generally isn’t great at just-racing for a win. Adding a second colour to be able to kill important threats feels pretty important.

• i think you need to lower your mana curve. 26 lands is painfully high (23 would be more ideal) and your number of 3-mana cards feels super-steep (more 1-2 mana stuff would be better).

• try to cut your deck back to 60 cards. 63 might not seem like much over, but it’s still going to weaken your hands.

wallisface on Mono Blue Control

1 year ago

As you’ve already eluded to, the sideboard reads more like cards you wanted to fit into your deck, as opposed to being anything helpful towards shoring-up bad matchups. Specifically, i can’t see any reason for any of Cryptic Command, Kraken's Eye, Lone Revenant, Spellskite, Stubborn Denial, Swan Song, or Telepathy. It just feels like a collection of other needless counterspells… you want to be running flexible cards that deal with decks that threaten you - like Damping Sphere for Tron/Storm, graveyard hate for Murktide/Dredge, Engineered Explosives for Rhinos/HammerTime, etc. The exact cards you’ll need will be entirely meta dependant, but if you know what you’re likely to face i can give you some suggestions.

I think 20 lands is fine with 20 cantrips, but what you’re building doesn’t lean well into a control archetype - your creature quantity and spell selection lends into wanting to play a fast tempo based game. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does suggest that you should dial-back a bit on your quantity of counterspells. Personally i’d say to just run Counterspell and not any of the other counterspells.

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?

momikulski on Niv-Mizzet, Parun

4 years ago

All of these cards work well when you are running basically just mountains, running blue splits their power, and using non basics reduces their effectiveness even further. Downhill Charge , Granite Grip , and Seismic Strike .

These cards are ok, but don’t really work with your primary concept. Titan's Strength I like this for the scry, and if it drew a card it’d be fine, but as a combat trick it’s pretty meh. Kavu Scout is at most a 2/2 for two in this deck. Kraken's Eye is pretty passive life gain, but it’s not going to win the game for you, and it is pretty unlikely to save you too (it does improve with some of the buy back spells I list later). The problem with Akroan Crusader is that if we cut the combat tricks this card becomes way weaker, and even with the tricks, it’s not got a high likelihood of having both at the same time. Why would we run that when we can run cards like Crackling Drake ?

Strider Harness is good, but it is over costed for what it does.

These cards are neat, but there are better options that are better suited to what you are trying to do. Lava Axe , and Warbringer .

Whisk Away I’m not loving this card, it is alright. It’s just low bang for the buck.

As for some cards that might help things, the issue I see is that your plan has a lot of draw, and some control, but not a lot of ways to win. As it is your commander is basically the only way you have of making use of the draw, out side of trying to win with Jace. Winning with Jace is gonna be tough cause you have to draw him, and then mill through your deck, it is possible just hard. So most of the suggestions are cards that work well with casting a lot of draw spells, or removal. This makes your plan of drawing a lot of cards do something other than drawing a lot of cards. Just like your commander they are all going to do something when you draw, or cast a spell. Talrand, Sky Summoner , Saheeli, Sublime Artificer , Murmuring Mystic , Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind , Guttersnipe , and Psychosis Crawler are all great for your deck.

You’ve got a bunch of good draw, but you missed a few older cards that are incredible like Arcanis the Omnipotent , Brainstorm , Opt , Treasure Cruise , and Faithless Looting .

Swarm Intelligence is great for casting a lot of spells.

A thing that might happen is running out of gas. So cards that give repeated use like flashback and buy back are huge. They mean you’ll always have something to do, and offer more value because of your cards that trigger on spell cast, or card draw. Some good examples include Mystic Retrieval , Fanning the Flames , Whispers of the Muse , Shattering Pulse , and though it is a little bit more expensive Capsize which is incredibly powerful and super annoying for other people to deal with if they can’t outright counter it.

AEtherize is just a super good card for the deck.

Your deck should basically just draw a whole lot of cards, and having the mana to play them is super important. I’d likely look at increasing the number of mana rocks (artifacts that make mana) in there, and making sure that you’re never hurting for your second color. Some solid suggestions for that are Izzet Signet , Izzet Cluestone , Commander's Sphere , Izzet Boilerworks , Terramorphic Expanse , Desolate Lighthouse , and Memorial to Genius is just great for your draw plan.

APPLE01DOJ on Speed issue in new deck

5 years ago

How do you feel about a green splash?

R/B are arguably the worst 2 colors for sideboards (with white then green being the best).

Green would give you access to stuff like Raking Canopy as well as Simic Keyrune which is highly valuable to your deck.

As for Tron, pick your flavor of land destruction. Crumble to Dust is my pick. They can win through almost any form of hate, even Blood Moon and Pithing Needle effects so you just need to be quicker than they are. Keeping them off Tron will makes things easier.

Your actually decently tech'd against burn with Izzet Charm , Rune Snag , Lightning Bolt and Remand . If you need something more Kraken's Eye or Dragon's Claw can work wonders. I'm a personal fan of Amulet of Safekeeping as it's useful for against many decks and great against Storm. I also like Fountain of Renewal since it can be played turn 1 and involves no additional investment, plus can be cashed in if it gets to a point its not needed.

As far as the graveyard decks, you could run Relic of Progenitus or Surgical Extraction without splashing. You could run Leyline of the Void but if you side it in you would have to commit to mulling for it. Sentinel Totem and Tormod's Crypt are decent as well.

Liliana's Caress is good against Hollow One but you could use Hurkyl's Recall or Echoing Truth against it.

Dissipation Field and Anger of the Gods can be good against Izzet Phoenix & Humans but you need to survive long enough for them to be effective. Damping Sphere can slow Phoenix.

BraxTune on Megan's Fishyfolk

5 years ago

My little lady demanded some more changes to the curve and creature base. Things are getting scary if I'm honest. New to her build are three copies of Serum Visions and Gitaxian Probe and one additional copy of Cyclonic Rift. She seems to really appreciate torturing me with those copies of Spreading Seas however she felt four copies was a bit much so we tuned it down a bit to 3.

Her sideboard is a bit more chaotic and incomplete so for now I will leave it unposted. I will mention that she decided to move Kraken's Eye to her main build.

She's looking at running four copies of Lord of Atlantis with heavy breath and maybe a little bit of drool... :-/ but for now she'll just have to wait.

The next real plan for now is to figure out a mana base that can help propel her game. Anybody out there with ideas for such a build would be greatly appreciated. Beyond this monstrosity I really have no experience building Merfolk.