Mana Leak

Instant

Counter target spell unless its controller pays {3}.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Big Apple Highlander	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Freeform	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

Balaam__ on Blue-Green Deck

1 week ago

It’s coming together. It’s still a bit unfocused imo, with a few cards pulling different directions. Parallel Lives only affects Scute Swarm and Chasm Skulker for instance, and without a better ramp shell you won’t get it into play fast enough for it to even matter. I’d cut Parallel Lives and Chasm Skulker entirely since they don’t contribute toward Landfall in any meaningful way. Same for Foundry Inspector and most of your artifacts. They aren’t necessarily bad cards, but they don’t fit well here. As far as countermagic is concerned, I’d run Spell Pierce and Mana Leak or Remand in place of Narset's Reversal.

Ideally you’ll want to hit your land drop each and every turn, and maximize the types of landfall triggers you’re building with. The crabs might not be a good fit if you aren’t geared toward milling out the opponent’s deck, and might be replaced with traditional ‘this creature gets +x/+x whenever a land enters play’ stuff instead.

There are bounce lands to consider too, lands that return a land in play to your hand when they enter. Normally that’s a downside but it can be advantageous in Landfall decks.

Simplify and streamline what you have until it runs like a well-oiled machine. Oh, and this isn’t immediately evident but with the way the site works people won’t see your replies in the deck comments unless you tag then by name. Put the user’s name inside double square brackets and they’ll get a notification they’ve been mentioned. I only saw these new posts because I happened to check back.

legendofa on Should the Number of Mana …

1 week ago

Mana Leak vs. Counterspell. Murder vs. Vanquish the Weak. Greenweaver Druid vs. Llanowar Tribe. There aren't a ton of cards that are directly comparable for color weight and effect, keeping rarity the same, but my general statement is that the more specific the mana cost is, the better the effect is. There's probably a handful of counterexamples, but I submit that not only should it be the case, it generally is the case.

legendofa on How to Capture and Consume a Soul

3 months ago

kamarupa Short version is, what I have now is pretty much what I considered, minus a few redundant keyword creatures.

Self-mill is an interesting option, but in my very personal experience, I seem to be better at self-milling the cards I want to keep and drawing the cards I want to toss. I learned Dredge to try to weaponize that. So it's definitely on the table for someone with better luck, but I'm not sure I trust myself with it.

Skipping ahead to Pull from Eternity, I did look at it a little bit. Urborg Scavengers wants its cards to stay exiled while Soulflayer doesn't care, but if either one gets removed somehow, it's the best option to recycle the exiled card.

Counterspells are perfect sideboard material. Probably focus on the single-{U} ones like your Mana Leak thought so the land budget doesn't explode.

Vampire of the Dire Moon got in specifically because it was castable as a 1-drop in this deck. Right now, there's no sac outlets, but I'm pretending it's a viable blocker or worth using removal on. I'll have to check out cheap self-saccers more carefully, but what I remember is that a lot of them have Selfless Spirit-style keyword granting.

More Collective Brutality. Noted and agreed. Sideboard artifact and enchantment removal. Noted and agreed.

Sword-Point Diplomacy can feed Ketramose, the New Dawn, but can also conflict with Flayer and Scavengers. I'll probably start with the 2-for-2 cards, maybe a Diplomacy in the sideboard.

I'm still working on the balance of keyword creatures to body creatures to support, so I'm not sure where this is gonna end up. Thanks for the suggestions!

kamarupa on How to Capture and Consume a Soul

3 months ago

I gotta be honest, I feel like they've printed quite a few of such cards ('has X ability of X graveyard targets') and as decent as they seem in theory, I've always felt the payoff was never good enough to warrant the effort. But you sir, have proven me wrong because this deck is nice.

I'm curious - did you consider self-mill cards like Stitcher's Supplier? and perhaps in combination with spells like Brainstone or Mystic Speculation?

Conversely, did you consider trying to overdraw to discard? It seems like a pretty unlikely strategy, but there is Inspired Idea... Maybe a fork brew might explore that more...I do think some broad spectrum counterspell might be useful, if only in the sideboard - your creatures have a goal of entering with some kind of built-in protection, so only a counterspell could offer anything extra. Rebuff the Wicked seems like a rough fit with your color scheme as is, but it doesn't really do anything Hexproof doesn't do. Whereas a general counterspell like Mana Leak could stop a Priest of Forgotten Gods from entering play or a Diabolic Edict from resolving.

I wonder if you plan on occasionally casting discard targets like Vampire of the Dire Moon - that strategy seems dynamic (good) but also less focused/committed (bad?). To that end, did you look into spells that might both sacrifice themselves and also provide abilities once in the graveyard? I didn't do any searches to see if those even exist, but imagine at least one or two does.

Collective Brutality seems way too good to only include 2x copies.

As good as Collective Brutality is, I still want to see at least 2 more slots devoted to removal. I see you have two in your sideboard, but I have a sideboard rule that violates: You have to have mainboard spells to remove to have a functioning sideboard. Extrapolate from that: mainboard removal sideboards out for sideboard removal.

I wonder if something like Pull from Eternity might be useful in the sideboard. I'm thinking that since both your beatsticks need to exile creatures themselves, being able to reuse the same creature could be useful?

So long as there's a splash of white, I'd like to see some Enchantment/Artifact removal in the sideboard. Those spells can sometimes wreck mono-black and white is the best at that. To that end, I'd probably try to run more dual lands. There are just so many useful white spells!

I'd love to see some more draw card here. I like Sword-Point Diplomacy because it has a chance of drawing 3 cards for 3 mana, which is pretty much as good as it gets for card draw. Otherside, Night's Whisper or Sign in Blood are among your best options, which are both decent.

doc_frank_18 on A mill-ion

9 months ago

Maybe take out Mana Leak because it's conditional and maybe not as good in late game and put in Fireshrieker

wallisface on uuu

11 months ago

Some thoughts:

• as a monocolored deck, there’s no point in running Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse, in fact as they make lands enter tapped, they actively hurt you by slowing you down.

• cards like Lofty Denial and Lookout's Dispersal are incredibly weak and unreliable - you’re better off running Mana Leak.

• your creature count is very high for a control deck, which will often mean you run out of ways to disrupt your opponent and get overwhelmed. Mist of your creatures are all incredibly underwhelming also, all being very small, easy to kill, and do-nothing. You would be far better-off running much less creatures, but then having those creatures that you do run be threatening, like Tolarian Terror.

• cards like Stern Dismissal, Unsummon, and Divide by Zero are all really, really bad in a control deck, as the archetype only really wins by attrition and card advantage, and these bounce spells are giving you card disadvantage - meaning you’ll run out of resources first and lose the game. If you’re having problems answering stuff on-board, you’re better-off with something like Witness Protection

wallisface on I need help creating a …

11 months ago

It looks a lot more viable! I’m not sure you’d want to run more than a single copy of Inexorable Tide, I still think Infectious Inquiry is going to hurt you more than help you, and I still think Corrupted Resolve is a worse Counterspell… to the point that if you're not sure your manabase can handle double-blue, i’d still be picking Mana Leak before it (i’m just not seeing how you’ll reliably be able to get a poison on the opponent by turn 2, which is when you’ll start needing countermagic).

Everything else looks decent though

RiotRunner789 on

1 year ago

Since Mana Leak is your jam:

Wizard Replica, Spiketail Hatchling, and Cursecatcher work well-ish on offense with your commander.

Power Sink is fun when you don't want them casting anything else.