Mind Flayer

Creature — Horror

Dominate Monster — When Mind Flayer enters the battlefield, gain control of target creature for as long as you control Mind Flayer.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Brawl	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
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Pre-release	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Standard	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (13)

ThassaUpYo@ssa on Davy Jones Locker

1 week ago

Profet93

The only real ways I have to deal with (all/most) Eldrazi are as follows:

1. Curse of the Swine
2. Cyclonic Rift
3. Raise the Palisade
4. Mind Flayer

I'll note that the above only work if they're on the battlefield and don't do anything for me if I mill a titan(s). I'm honestly torn because with Mill it seems that you have to focus on having the milled cards go to GY or exile from the top of the deck.

Definitely open to suggestions!

rwn1971 on Volo, Guide to Monsters (BUDGET)

6 months ago

2 budget creature cards good for this deck would be End-Raze Forerunners and Mind Flayer . Also Strionic Resonator is good for this deck.

UltimateRoxas40 on Eldritch Captain of the Deep [Lovecraftian Primer]

7 months ago

Made_Compleat Thanks for taking a look!

I had thought about Coral Atoll, but I ended up going with Halimar Depths to represent the underwater city of Y'ha-nthlei, and they both enter tapped, but I like the pseudo-Scry 3 effect.

Mind Flayer would be a good addition here, and fairly on-point thematically, but the main drive of this deck is Milling, not stealing other creatures. Mind Flayer just doesn't seem impactful enough here. If anything, I'd probably play Bribery for the same CMC and effect without the limits of 'as long as you control Mind Flayer'. But I appreciate the suggestion!

Made_Compleat on Eldritch Captain of the Deep [Lovecraftian Primer]

7 months ago

For the end of "The Shadow over Innsmouth," you could add Coral Atoll to represent the palace of corals from the protagonist's dreams, as well as Mind Flayer to represent the Old Ones reaching out to dominate the minds of mortals.

Love the deck!

keizerbuns on Sea of Attrition [Physical] [Beta]

1 year ago

This is a very cool concept, however it seems a little scattered. With lifegain, mill, tokens, tap/bounce control, stat manipulation, and creature stealing, it seems like your deck is being pulled in too many different directions without enough focus on any one thing in particular to give it a clear identity. Mill especially is kind of an all or nothing strategy that requires the entire deck to be built around it in order to work. Unless you have a really good mill/graveyard payoff to justify splashing in some mill spells, milling your opponent for just a few cards here and there won’t do anything except take up slots in your deck.

The best advice I think I could give you, and probably the same advice most other people will give you too, is to find your favourite element or two of the deck, and make that the focus. However, if you don’t want to do that, and you do want to keep the deck as a little bit of everything, I do have some suggestions that I think you might like.

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My first suggestion would be to replace Dreadwaters with a lower CMC mill spell, because spending 4 mana to make one opponent mill for what I assume averages to be around 4-6 cards isn't a great rate. For just 2 mana you could use Maddening Cacophony and make each opponent mill 8 cards, and for an extra 4 you could make them mill half of their decks. You could also replace a couple of Islands with a couple copies of Ipnu Rivulet for some added milling consistency, although activating its mill ability would cause you to lose a land.

Talrand's Invocation also suffers from the same issue as Dreadwaters of just being too mana intensive for such a small effect. Paying 4 mana just to get 2 2/2 flyers is a little slow. I think Murmuring Mystic would suit you better as a long term token generator.

Ichthyomorphosis and Time of Ice both kind of get in the way of your plan to steal your opponent's creatures. Ichthyomorphosis turns your opponent's creatures into something not worth stealing and Time of Ice could potentially cause a creature you just stole from your opponent to be sent back to their hand. Instead of using Time of Ice to tap your opponents creatures, you could use an instant or a sorcery such as Downpour, Impede Momentum, Choking Tethers, or Sleep to achieve the same result. And instead of Ichthyomorphosis to permanently turn your opponents creatures into something small, you could use Turn to Frog which you can use to catch your opponents by surprise during the combat stage. Swapping both Ichthyomorphosis and Time of Ice for instants and sorceries would also synergize great with Murmuring Mystic to spam tokens.

You could replace Staff of the Mind Magus with Diamond Mare, which is admittedly a weaker life gain spell since it can't gain life off of your lands entering the battlefield, plus it's more susceptible to removal. However it is a cheaper CMC card and another creature to beat your opponents down with.

I think Niblis of Frost is better than Dragon Turtle at keeping your opponent's creatures tapped if you go with the previously mentioned replacements for Ichthyomorphosis and Time of Ice, plus with the Prowess ability, it can get pretty big with all of the instants and sorceries. And Sower of Temptation is a lower CMC version of Mind Flayer.

I also realized as I was looking back through my suggestions, that if you do end up going with all of them, then that would mean your deck would meet the deck requirements to add Gyruda, Doom of Depths as a companion, which would serve as a pretty good payoff for your mill cards!

‎

Hopefully this was helpful!

thefiresoflurve on

1 year ago

Nice brew! I find Lavinia of the Tenth does a ton of work in my Esper blink deck - maybe test it out in place of Exclusion Mage, or Barrin?

Also, what do you think of Cavalier of Dawn to replace Meteor Golem? It works well enough for me in Esper, so I would think {W}{W}{W} would be easy enough to cast in dual color. IME, giving someone a 3/3 body is 100% worth saving the 2 mana.

And finally - Ghostly Flicker and/or Illusionist's Stratagem could be solid includes if you want to change up how your "value" works: Since you have lots of creatures that return instants/sorceries, it goes from {1}{W} with Momentary Blink to {2}{U}, but repeatable as long as you have Archaeomancer or friends out. These also fill a different role than Semester's End since they return the targets to the field immediately, and not at the next end step. (Can also go infinite mana/draw with Peregrine Drake as the second target).

Lastly... (I promise, lol) how well do you find Mind Flayer works in blink, out of curiosity? I run Agent of Treachery and I find if it isn't immediately removed after casting, I pretty much win.

Happy blinking!

thegreatwizard on Spooky Tasha Girlboss Deck

1 year ago

ADD Sepulchral Primordial Nightveil Specter Intellect Devourer Memory Plunder Zellix, Sanity Flayer Sphinx's Tutelage Shadow Kin Mindcrank Preordain Serum Visions Solemn Simulacrum Coalition Relic Prismatic Lens Exotic Orchard Tainted Isle Temple of Deceit

REMOVE Treasure Cruise Rogue Class Dream Fracture Mind Flayer Notion Thief Wrong Turn Commander's Sphere Thought Vessel Nephalia Drownyard Forge of Heroes Island Thieving Skydiver Arvinox, the Mind Flail Ornithopter of Paradise Oblivion Sower Diluvian Primordial

bignickenergy7 on Volo-ptuous Diversity

1 year ago

Mirrorhall Mimic  ^Flip and Peregrine Drake are must haves in a Volo deck from my experience. Mirrorhall is a clone without the shapeshifter creature type. So Volo’s restriction won’t affect it. Copying peregrine makes boatloads of mana. You tap the lands between the first one untapping them, the 2nd one coming in, and untapping them again. I would also recommend Desolation Twin for your Eldrazi slot as filling the board with a bunch of 10/10s is always nice. Mind Flayer is a salty card, but it’s a spooky monster and “clears” the board. Primordial Sage is a more expensive beast whisperer, but it’s worth having if you aren’t going to run Mirrorhall.