Mirkwood Bats

Creature — Bat

Flying

Whenever you create or sacrifice a token, each opponent loses 1 life.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (26)

Venum on Math is for Blockers

1 week ago

your average CMC is 2.83, i don't know if the three talisman and 2 signet are really worth it.

1. I would swap the 5 of them for something similar to Mirkwood Bats that you already have.
2. Agate Instigator for extra damage whenever you create a token
3. Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon + Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim + Blood Artist
4. Warleader's Call is a nice addition also since you already have All-Out Assault
5. Isshin, Two Heavens as One to trigger additionnal Mobilize/Myriad.
6. Feel free to look at my version Mardu, meat token dispenser

RufusTheGrufus on Anikthea's Enchanting Recycling Plant [Primer]

3 months ago

"That's just my 2cents, would love your thoughts.”

Oh boy, well I definitely have some thoughts!

“Creeping Ren - Yeah, it's definitely not as good as replenish. I suppose it depends on the amount of interaction/wipes in the meta and if you have enough card draw to bypass the grindy attrition.”

Yeah definitely, and on second thought it may be more appropriate to compare it to Phyrexian Reclamation. I'll probably have to playtest with Creeping Renaissance swapped in over it; I'm not sure yet which will be more cost intensive in the long run, and being able to hit different card types with Creeping Renaissance is really nice. I'm a bit hesitant though because it would dilute the enchantment count further and Phyrexian Reclamation is relevant way earlier in the game.

“Archon of Sun's Grace - It's nice, it makes tokens. For 4 mana, is there something better?”

Oh man, Archon of Sun's Grace is so much more than just a creature that makes tokens for four mana! Just In looking at it's stats, it's a ¾ with flying and lifelink, for four mana; which is an amazing cost rate. This list is pretty vulnerable to faster decks and/or decks with a lot of flying, so both the lifelink and the flying help keep me around till the mid/late game. On that same note, the tokens produced do the same exact thing. Because Archon of Sun's Grace triggers off of enchantments entering the battlefield, it's surprisingly easy to organically generate a game-winning number of tokens (either through combat damage or ping effects).

“Mindwrack Harpy - 4 mana, mill cards. I feel that there are other cards that can mill. I get it's an enchantment creature, I just wonder how impactful it is.”

Maybe it's just my playgroup in particular, but having flying creatures in a deck feels incredibly impactful on it's own. Like you've pointed out, it's an enchantment, so it will trigger the significant number of cards that care about enchantments that are built into this list. Additionally, it doesn't just mill yourself and provide you with more card selection for Anikthea's ability, it also mills each opponent. With just one Mindwrack Harpy, your opponents will likely be irritated and disrupted, but with a plethora of Mindwrack Harpy copies (which this deck is capable of doing!) you're also threatening to take players out of the game. It definitely has downsides in that it can assist other players who are also playing with their graveyard; but the fact that it happens on your turn helps balance that out a bit.

If I were to cut Mindwrack Harpy I'd want to slot in a similarly efficient, enchantment-based piece of card advantage. Flickering Ward could be interesting since it also doubles dips and acts as protection, but the card advantage efficiency is nowhere close unfortunately.

“I feel like in EDH, you are going to have a lot of stuff in your GY regardless."

Sometimes you will, sometimes you won't! There's so much variance just within a single deck, let alone across 4, that I wouldn't say it's guaranteed. And even then, I would rather be reliant on my own methods of getting cards into my graveyard, during my turn, rather than waiting for my opponents to interact with me in some way. For decks that rely on using their graveyard it's really important to be able to control when cards are put into the yard, rather than just passively waiting for your graveyard to fill, since graveyard hate is plentiful and easily accessible.

“Mirkwood Bats - As a finisher, do you need the redundancy? It cost a lot and without the setup doesn't seem too impactful.”

Mirkwood Bats I don't feel as passionate about but man, you really don't want me to have any flyers lol! The setup for this card is literally baked into the deck’s packages; and you wouldn't play any wincon cards before you're set up anyways (e.g., casting Craterhoof Behemoth with no other creatures)! Mirkwood Bats wasn't originally on my radar but eventually got added to this list back when I was more heavily playtesting it.

Because this list allows for a ton of tokens to be produced, oftentimes my turns would get obnoxiously long without being able to close out the game. Mirkwood Bats allows me to capitalize on tokens the second they're produced, as well as when I sacrifice them (which is way more rare, but definitely comes up).

In terms of redundancy I'm actually worried I may not have enough of these effects, but I also don't want to convert the list fully to an aristocrat build. I would not say that having four ping effects is redundant in a 100 card deck and, while I have various tutors to help mitigate that; I haven't found myself with an excess of pingers when playing this list (so far at least!).

ProgramIncomplete on The Mycotyrant

8 months ago

Sure thing!

When I decided to build this deck I really wanted to lean into the descend theme so I challenged myself to run as few non-permanent spells as possible. I think my initial list had like 1 or 2. Overtime, I ended up adding more since I realized I needed efficient self mill payoff cards like Reanimate and Overwhelming Remorse or else the deck was a little too clunky. Currently I'm running 9 but I'm looking for oppurtunites to cut some without losing power or efficiency.

But still, even though it isn't "pure permanents" I still tried my best to cover all of the deck's bases with permanent spells. We have permanents that can remove threats like Chupacabra Echo and Reclamation Sage; permanents that can draw cards like Skullclamp and Izoni, Thousand-Eyed; permanents that can ramp us like Sakura-Tribe Elder and Aftermath Analyst; permanents that mill like Mesmeric Orb and Ripples of Undeath; permanents that can bring stuff back from the grave like Journey to Eternity  ^Flip and Animate Dead; we even have The Meathook Massacre and Invasion of Fiora  ^Flip as our boardwipes.

One really nice upside to having everything our deck wants to do on permanent spells is that it makes cards like Malevolent Rumble and Cache Grab really consistent at grabbing something useful. And I recently added Revival Experiment which seems like a really nice payoff for going all in on permanents.

Anyway, the basic idea of this deck is self-milling and using my commander's ability to swarm the board with tokens. Usually we want to spend the first couple turns setting up, hopefully getting a repeatable mill effect on the battlefield like Mesmeric Orb or by pairing one of our dredge cards with a discard outlet like Matzalantli, the Great Door  ^Flip or Geier Reach Sanitarium. Once we've got our mill engine set up, then we can cast our commander. We want to make sure he triggers his end step ability the turn he enters so we can start getting our tokens online.

The tokens really are the core pillar of the deck. They can be sacrificed for value with cards like Skullclamp and Wight of the Reliquary; we can turn them into mana dorks with Insidious Roots; they can gain us a ton of life off of Essence Warden and Ayara, First of Locthwain; and they can present lethal by giving our Craterhoof Behemoth an army to buff. We also have the ability to drain the table to death with the aforementioned Ayara or Mirkwood Bats if we manage to mill enough cards. And of course, since they pump our commander, we can also win with commander damage.

Since we're milling so much the deck also has a reanimator subtheme. Reanimate and Animate Dead can bring back wincon creatures like Craterhoof and Ayara. Squirming Emergence can reanimate any permanent so it's an awesome way to put planeswalkers into play or snag an engine piece or even wipe the board with Invasion of Fiora  ^Flip. Similarly, Rise of the Witch-king let's us bring back any permanent while also forcing our opponents to sack a creature which is nice.

A new card that I'm actually testing right now is Chthonian Nightmare. The fact that it's a repeatable reanimate effect for only 2 mana seems really strong. And even if you don't "charge it up" by repeatedly reanimating creatures that cost less than 3, roughly 75% of the creatures in my deck are 3 or less anyway and among those are some really impactful targets like Eternal Witness, Reclamation Sage, Six, and Accursed Marauder just to name a few. Very excited to see how it performs!

Alongside the reanimator subtheme we have an aristocrats subtheme. As mentioned earlier the tokens make great fodder for stuff like Skullcamp and Wight. And we have creatures that either sack themselves, like Sakura-Tribe Elder and Aftermath Analyst, or want to be sacrificed, like World Shaper. All that sacrificing can net us additional value off of Liliana, Dreadhorde General or Mirkwood Bats since he triggers on token sacrifice as well. We also have Disciple of Freyalise  ^Flip, a great reanimation target that can draw us a ton of cards by sacrificing our creatures that grow in size as our graveyard does like Splinterfright and Souls of the Lost.

So yeah, that's the deck. It can be a bit slow and the lack of instant speed interaction is definitely a drawback but overall I like it a lot and it can have some explosive turns. You just have to be careful not to mill yourself out which is why I added in Kozilek, Butcher of Truth. He's a bit random so I might replace him with Elixir of Immortality. We'll see.

P.S. Apologies for the long winded reply, hopefully it was insightful.

RiotRunner789 on Death by Tokens

11 months ago

Tainted Remedy was in because a deck like this wins after a cascade of opponent life loss triggers. This can be easily disrupted by lifegain on the opponents side. However, y'all are correct in that it doesn't advance my game plan. Chop chop.

Bloodchief Ascension is a pet card. It is also a card that has won me numerous games on its own. It would be easy enough to get 3 counters with Kambal's trigger but again, not directly tied to tokens. Good suggestion albeit a painful one.

Halo Fountain just seemed like a fun and wierd alt-win con but your right that it is slow. It also requires me to have tapped creatures.

Going to take a closer look at the aristocrats support. I cut a lot of the sac outlets earlier which was a good observation. Nadier's Nightblade and Mirkwood Bats will definitely stay but a lot of the others can go. Also, Ophiomancer and Dreadhorde Invasion don't work at the level they should without a sac outlet on the board.

Not sure about Battle Angels of Tyr just yet, since just attacking creates token copies of himself. But he'll be close to the cut list.

Part of the reasoning on the number of board wipes was the number of indestructible options for Kambal. Will cut at least one board wipe tonight.

Refering to Basshunter's commnent, I haven't put the final mana base in just yet but Forbidden Orchard will be in there. Mana bases tend to only take me 5 minutes to build. I have some effects that give tokens to my opponents but I'm leaning more heavily into Kambal's second ability. I've generally been looking at consistent token generation instead of one off effects aimed at my opponents. However, Curse of Disturbance will get another look.

Thank you for all of the comments. It definetly gets me much further to completion.

Last_Laugh on Teysa Karlov’s Double D's

1 year ago

Delney, Streetwise Lookout, Mirkwood Bats, and Kambal, Profiteering Mayor are definitely worth consideration.

CickNason on Prosshy Prossh

1 year ago

I would add more mana dorks: Ignoble Hierarch adds Jund colors and gives exalted as a bonus Deathrite Shaman acts as graveyard hate and can drain/gain at instant speed on on top of exiling any lands from anyone's graveyard for mana of any color also at instant speed. Delighted Halfling adds colorless or any color for legendary creatures and makes them uncounterable.

I would also add more aristocrat/sacrifice effects: Korvold, Fae-Cursed King crazy draw engine with sac synergy and a potential one-shot kill if he gets big enough Mahadi, Emporium Master generates treasures EOT based on how many creatures died, setting you up for big plays in the coming turns Pitiless Plunderer generates treasures whenever another creature you control dies immediately Chatterfang, Squirrel General basically a 3 mana Parallel Lives. Goes infinite with Pitiless Plunderer 1.Activate Chatterfang by paying b and sacrificing two other Squirrels. 2.The Squirrels die, triggering Pitiless Plunderer twice, creating two Treasure tokens and two 1/1 Squirrel tokens. 3.Activate a Treasure token by tapping and sacrificing it, adding b. 4.Repeat. 5.Resolve all Chatterfang abilities, causing any number of target creatures to get +2/-2 until end of turn any number of times. This gives you: Infinite colored mana. Infinite death triggers. Infinite ETB. Infinite LTB. Infinite sacrifice triggers. Infinite Treasure tokens. Reduce all opponents' creatures to 0 toughness.

Some pay off for sacrificing Mirkwood Bats, Blood Artist, Garna, Bloodfist of Keld & Poison-Tip Archer are good win condition for infinite sac outlet effects

Some better tutor effects: You can replace Diabolic Tutor for some other options below Diabolic Intent Tutor for 2 mana for any card with an additional sac requirement for sac effect synergies Demonic Tutor The OG best tutor Diabolic Revelation You wanna be cheeky? If you have big mana you can dump it all to grab multiple pieces to win the game

Some ramp effects: Cultivate & Kodama's Reach puts one to hand one to battlefield Nature's Lore & Three Visits puts any forest card onto the battlefield Entish Restoration is a new card that is better than harrow because you sacrifice a land on the resolution of the spell rather than paying the additional cost upfront, which makes it more safe from a feels-bad counterspells which puts you down a land. If you have a big enough creature you get 3 basics to the field all at instant speed as well. Nissa, Vastwood Seer  ^Flip is a pet card of mine which allows you to search for a basic and when you have 7 lands she flips and generate lands and card draw for pretty much free. Oracle of Mul Daya Allows you to play an additonal land every turn and allows to play them off the top of your library. If you dont see a card you like you can shuffle it away with a fetch land to try to get another off the top.

Better Lands: Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth & Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth are must includes allowing all your lands tap for B/G respectively in addition to your other colors. The pain lands Llanowar Wastes, Karplusan Forest & Sulfurous Springs are cheap dual lands that give you all your colors The reveal lands Game Trail, Foreboding Ruins & Necroblossom Snarl are also good cheaper options which give you dual colors The shocklands Blood Crypt, Overgrown Tomb & Stomping Ground are fetchable and come into play untapped for a measley 2 life are some of the best lands in the game Verdant Catacombs is the last fetch of your color not included. I would include it if you could because it allows all three of your fetches to fetch any of your shocks or battlelands. You can also include other Fetchlands as well such as Arid Mesa, Misty Rainforest etc to fetch because they can fetch for one of the jund colors of lands at least, however, they aren't as efficient Ziatora's Proving Ground is a must include because you can fetch it out and it taps for jund as well as cycle if it comes too late. If you don't have a turn one play you can fetch it out as your best land with no plays.

Hopefully this helps

hound829 on Isshin in the Red Zone

1 year ago

Yeah, right now I'm looking for things to trim out in order to add more lands and mana rocks. I think Goblin Bombardment is better than Impact Tremors as it isn't so much always looking to deal more damage to opponents, but could for example, make blocks harder/less profitable (especially if Cathars' Crusade isn't on field), help protect the major pieces that need to attack. And if The Master isn't on field, squeeze more value out of myriad tokens and Mirkwood Bats. Warleader's Call will probably be a maybe and potential replacement for Warstorm Surge to bring down the mana curve.

I've been aware of Reconnaissance but not super sure if I want to go through the effort of getting a copy for $12 just yet. (Pretty much all the other cards on the list with that kind of price tag are ones I already own from grabbing in drafts and such).

king-saproling on Democracy is Fun!

1 year ago

Cool deck! Personally I would make these swaps:

Messenger Jays -> Academy Manufactor
Lieutenants of the Guard -> Coalition Flag (fun to put on Tivit since he has Ward 3)
Venser's Journal -> Auton Soldier (can copy Tivit!)
Winged Words -> Battle Mastery (double strike on Tivit to double his effect)
Propaganda -> Thorough Investigation
Warden of Evos Isle -> Worn Powerstone
Emergency Powers -> Anointed Procession
Fact or Fiction -> Spark Double
Dig Through Time -> Irenicus's Vile Duplication
Eligeth, Crossroads Augur -> Inspiring Statuary (can tap itself to reduce costs, also allows you to tap clues & treasures to reduce costs)
Sphinx Sovereign -> Brago's Representative
Treasure Cruise -> Sakashima of a Thousand Faces
Opt -> Sakashima the Impostor
Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign -> Time Sieve
Vexing Sphinx -> Mirkwood Bats
Aetherize -> Mondrak, Glory Dominus
Sphinx of Foresight -> Rise and Shine
Glyph Keeper -> Cyberdrive Awakener