Mystic Sanctuary
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy 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
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Mystic Sanctuary

Land — Island

(: Gain .)

This enters the battlefield tapped unless you control three or more other Islands.

When this enters the battlefield untapped, you may put target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard on top of your library.

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

1 week ago

GHoag thank you for your most critical feedback. I agree with a lot you have to say on this. There are a few things I'd like to discuss further. I'll mirror your format so you know how I am responding to what. Thank you for the praise on the list so far, there is definitely some things to be worked out still. "The pinnacle is a concept only to the unambitious" -flavor text from a card I don't remember lol. (sorry for the novel below)

Regarding Fetchlands, I think the deck thinning is negligible or very hard to notice at most. This aspect of them definitely can't be a bad thing. But playtesting has shown that the negative effects of including them are negligible. I have never been upset about running all 4. Also, the synergy these lands has with Vantress Visions (Virtue of Knowledge) feels reeeally good.

Rite of Replication is expensive mana wise. The purpose of Rite is to get through your whole deck in one go assuming Unesh is on the field, which is not always the case. In my playtesting, it has been very hard to resolve due to mana cost, and when you do meet the mana requirement it is never safe from interaction. Given these flaws, this card might as well say "if you are targetting Unesh and this card resolves, you win the game." With the FOFs, you can pick up all counter magic and free mana rocks on the way down your deck to cast & protect Thassa's Oracle. A non-negligible side effect, this makes choosing piles easier to do because you no longer have to grab sphinxs or other wincons. This wincon is still relevant at this mana cost. I think the jury is still out if this is the best choice though. With inifinite mana you can do something similar, and I'll talk more about this below. Q: Why not add Personal Tutor? Simply because you don't need 3 copies of Rite. I already don't like Mystical Tutor, but the versatility to grab any instant makes it worth it. By the time you meet the mana requirement, you will have seen Rite or Mystical Tutor. Personal Tutor is too narrow to have in a slot, even on the 'Rite' plan.

cEDH meta talk, there is Turbo, midrange, and stax (early win, midgame win, lategame win respectively.) The average win without any interaction is turn 6-7 on this revision. This solidly puts Unesh into midrange. I think he can be sped up a bit with more revisions. Turn 4 is a late win for Turbo, but with enough interaction to stop the turbo player we can get to the midrange and win the game. Unesh suffers against a a few stax pieces. The main ones being Torpor Orb (which doesn't see a ton of play these days), and Null Rod and Collector Ouphe. Collectore Ouphe doesn't feel so bad with our interaction suite, and Null Rod is even more of a nuissance. If both are on the field, it is an absolute nightmare for Unesh.

Creatures: Yes a lot of fat was trimmed, and it took some time to really narrow down the best Sphinxs in these slots. There is still room for improvement here. For instance Vexing Sphinx feels awful. The reason I added it a while back was because he can be played early game for a bit of card draw. The card draw from this is not worth the mana spent, the fact that even with Unesh out he is 2 blue to cast also feels very bad. I will definitely replace him with another Sphinx, probably Argent Sphinx or Metallic Mimic. For 2 blue I am much happier to see the mana sink on Argent Sphinx. And for 2 colorless I am happy to see possibly the next cheapest sphinx not already in the deck. Enigma Thief though high CMC, I can reliably cast him for his prowl cost at 2 cmc, and his removal is top notch. Dream Eater though the removal is not the best, it is still good. The kicker here is honestly the surveil 4. You do Unesh FOF first, then surveil 4 and hopefully you can put all 4 in the graveyard. Still dream eater does feel a bit slower than everything else. Scholar of the Lost Trove, upfront I feel very strongly about this card. It's not because this is a pet card, it's because I think its very powerful in this deck. Even at 5cmc which is what I normally cast it for, it feels like insane value. You get the Unesh trigger, and a wincon from the graveyard that the opponents thought they didn't have to deal with anymore. After doing some math on this, the average cost of an Unesh trigger with Unesh on the field is ~2.25 cmc in the current revision (that is the cmc of a card generating the FOF divided by the total number of things generating FOFs excluding Rite). At 5 cmc, casting the Scholar gives you a 4 cmc game winning artifact and a ~2.25 cmc Unesh trigger. Not to mention, it gives you flexibility in choosing piles. For instance, If an opponent erroneously puts Panharmonicon in a pile by itself, you can shamelessly take the other 3 cards in that FOF. Palinchron is also rather expensive to set up, but not as expensive as Rite. I think it is a good back up win condition. If Rite doesn't resolve, or if Isochron w/ dramatic reversal doesn't resolve, we need at least one other way to combo off. With ways to tutor for High Tide this win condition has been online surprisingly often, and is definitely threatening. That said having this AND Rite feels too heavy mana wise. I think I am pretty much sold on Isoscepter because of how inexpensive it is. With recent mana rock additions as well as Mox Diamond and Grim Monolith (mentioned below) the wincon is online for far cheaper than Rite and effectively does the same job, also dramatic reversal can be used as a one time use now which makes it good on it's own.

Lands: After a day of listening to cEDH podcasts, this is what I came up with. Urza's Saga is nuts. After playtesting with these lands I felt a big power spike. Thank you for mentioning Mystic Sanctuary again. I didn't think about it being able to retrieve a wincon which is pretty relevant. I will consider slipping this one back in there. I also think that losing just one more Island wouldn't be very impactful. What do you think about Command Beacon? After playtesting, I think there is such a niche case when this card is good in cEDH. I think I prefer an Island here given the more recent revisions.

Enchantments: Agreed, all of these are great cards. Not much to change here.

Instants: I don't think there are any cuts to be made here. After playtesting I think I need to add more Instants to more reliably shut off early combo wins. Demonic Consultation and Ad Nauseum are rampant. Even fitting in a Dispel or Spell Pierce to the deck would go a long way.

Artifacts: Work needs to be done here. I agree with a lot of what you are saying. Lightning Greaves feels bad because board interaction is light and stack interaction is high in cEDH. Caged Sun is usually too expensive to play without cheating it in with Scholar. But scholar wants to hit other game winning cards anyway, so Caged sun needs to go. Grim Monolith and Mox Diamond need to go in. I have been reluctant to add them to the list because I don't have paper copies. You are spot on with these two though. I am not high on Moonsilver Key, but I do like Wayfarer's Bauble. The bauble putting a land into play is important to getting palinchron online, and this also sees great synergy with Vantress Visions similar to the fetch lands. Though bauable is definitely worse than mox diamond and grim monolith, it would be my last cut. Mox Amber indeed doesn't power Unesh out, but we don't need it to. I will say that my playtests have really favored this card. Being able to play more mana artifacts after a FOF for free will keep the FOFs rolling. Mox Amber feels very good. Mox diamond is superior, but I won't take out Mox Amber for it.

REVISION: After synthesizing both our viewpoints, here is a revision that I will go ahead and push. I think you will like this mostly, but let me know your doubts.

EXPLANAITION: This rev cuts the Rite wincon and adds the less expensive Isoscepter wincon. There is still backup wincon in Aetherflux. Isoscepter is backed up by Palinchron, and Aetherflux is supported by Palinchron. Obviously, the goal with infinite mana is to play Thassa's eventually. Dramatic Reversal is good enough on its own now because of the artifacts added recently. I honestly think this is the cheapest that the wincon package can be while still being robust enough to not fizzle out. With these wincons, Unesh doesn't have to be on the field, which makes the deck less reliant on him, mitigating one of the deck's biggest flaws. Cutting Lightning Greaves will likely be inconsequential due to low board state interaction. Muddle and Spell pierce add some more stack interaction while Muddle can find combo pieces. I went with Spell pierce over Dispel because it can hit stax pieces as well as stopping an early combo win. Cutting a sphinx now relies on Ghostly Flicker to be part of the 20%. Mystic Sanctuary and Scholar of the Lost Trove are used to retrieve wincons from the grave if necessary.

I heavily considered subbing Dream Eater for Argent Sphinx. I will need to playtest that change before committing to it.

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

2 weeks ago

BIG REVISION + SIDEBOARD

I will post this comment then make the changes as specified in the list.

I have been studying a lot of cEDH meta, and found a lot of cards that I haven’t been using that are really great in Unesh. After a lot of consideration I have decided to pull the trigger on this revision.

  • Replace Mystic Sanctuary with Otawara, Soaring City. Mystic Sanctuary is used to retrieve interaction and put it on the top of your deck. This is anti-deck thinning which feels really bad in this deck. Instead, lets have the interaction printed on the land itself. What is great about Otawara is that this interaction is an ability, not a spell. So it can be used even while cards like Grand Abolisher are on the field. You can remove the abolisher and then interact with your opponent.
  • Replace Extraplanar Lens with Urza's Saga. The lens feels clunky. Sure it combos with Palinchron, but this combo requires lands to be on the field. Sacrificing a land has anti synergy with this. If the lens gets removed, you are out the double mana AND a land. It feels bad too often which is why it is getting cut. There are still 5 other combo pieces in the deck that you WILL see. You can even tutor for High Tide if you have to. Urza’s Saga is one of the best lands in the format and it isn’t hard to see why. More deck thinning. If its in your opening hand you guarantee Unesh by turn 3. Moonsilver Key seems to perform really well, so keeping this in as redundancy for this effect will turn out well I think.
  • Replace 2 Islands with Mox Opal and Mox Amber. This deck has a lot of lands in it for cEDH. Although Unesh doesn’t mind being mana flooded usually, the count is still a bit high especially after adding Urza’s Saga. Fast mana in these spots feels nice. They aren’t necessarily going to get Unesh on the table faster, BUT they can effectively make your Thassa's Oracle win con cheaper. While you are rolling through your deck after Rite of Replication resolves, you can pick up these pieces to gain mana to cast Thassa’s Oracle.
  • Replace Island with Gemstone Caverns. I goldfished this change a lot and found that Unesh will almost always prefer this in your opening hand over an Island. It makes early Unesh more likely, which is the primary goal of this deck.
  • Replaced Trickbind with Mental Misstep. Mental Misstep is too good in the format. There are a lot of awesome 1 cmc cards. Sol ring, carpet of flowers, swords to plowshares, mental misstep, other 1 cmc counters, mystic remora, and more. Trickbind is a great card against the right opponent(ie Kinnan), so for me this goes in the sideboard.

Sideboard revision 0

This is my first stab at a sideboard. So constructive criticism is very welcomed. The main goals of the sideboard is to change out the interaction package to fit the pod better, and to shift to more of a midrange strat than turbo if necessary.

  • Trickbind. Great interaction with other ability centered decks.
  • Grafdigger's Cage. Unesh can play this card without consequence pretty much, and it is an effective stax piece in the meta. This card might even weasel its way in to the main board.
  • Tormod's Crypt. More graveyard hate, nothing else to explain here.
  • Flusterstorm for a spell heavy pod.
  • An Offer You Can't Refuse also for a spell heavy pod.
  • Pongify for a more creature heavy pod.
  • Lotus Petal for better odds to cast Unesh first, making the deck more turbo. I think this card is possibly better than 1 or more of the mox’s, but I will leave it in sideboard for now.
  • Perplexing Chimera. If you need to grind in the midrange more this guy can be a great option. Combining him with Homeward Path can be a good combo to soft lock your opponents in the mid game while you get to the bottom of your deck.
  • Homeward Path for the above card.
  • Ledger Shredder for making the deck more midrange with another card draw engine, allowing you to more likely get the interaction you need.

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

1 month ago

New Unesh Card Printed in Wilds of Eldraine

Virtue of Knowledge to replace Gauntlet of Power. Pros of virtue of knowledge:

  • 2nd copy of Panharmonicon
  • Same CMC as Gauntlet of power, but has a devotion to blue. It benefits from Defiler of Dreams & Sapphire Medallion.
  • The effects are 1-sided. They only benefit you, not your opponents.
  • Still Combos with Palinchron.
  • Adventure modality. Can be used to copy fetch ability early game. Can be used as a one time mana stimulus with Frantic Search, Snap, Palinchron. This is modality not even Panharmonicon has.
  • Triggers when ANY permanent enters the battlefield, not simply creatures and artifacts. This deck doesn't make great use of this text, but it could more so in the future maybe. Mystic Sanctuary is the only additional card that benefits in this deck right now.
  • Pitchable to cards like Force of Will.

Notable Cons:

Nemesis on Sharuum's Salvaged Strikeforce

1 month ago

Geier Reach Sanitarium

Dark Deal

Bojuka Bog

Mystic Sanctuary

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

1 month ago

Minor Tweaks:

Icbrgr on Modern Horizons Light

1 month ago

@SpammyV Getting into Premodern is an interesting idea... I haven't really thought about or looked into that format before. Arent Lurrus of the Dream-Den, Mystic Sanctuary, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, Tibalt's Trickery, Oko, Thief of Crowns and Field of the Dead all Banned in Modern? Not saying that Omnath, Locus of Creation or Thassa's Oracle wouldn't be powerful; but most of what you said has already been addressed as problematic cards... I dont know if its a fact or just a rumor but I remember hearing when standard was going super crazy powerful WOTC said they were giving up on playtesting cards (at least for impact on eternal formats) before releasing them and would just ban them if they became problematic.

I agree with Modern Horizons providing good/crucial interaction... Force of Negation/Solitude are great... but when the opponent uses Violent Outburst and has a Force of Negation to protect it and I'm dealing with Crashing Footfalls/Living End I get big mad and big sad lol.... not that there wasn't nonsense before Modern Horizons or that I could say this theory format would be better in that regard; but the pursuit/goal of this concept was really just an opportunity to give the Original Modern a second chance to continue being what is was initially meant to be... sure we wouldn't have Solitude but eventually we got March of Otherworldly Light.

AcidicArisato on Pew Pew

2 months ago

I'd recommend cutting: - Hard Evidence - Hordeling Outburst - Stolen by the Fae - Octavia, Living Thesis - Niv-Mizzet, Parun - Izzet Chronarch - Izzet Chemister - Spellburst - Occult Epiphany - Prismatic Lens - Rogue's Passage

I'd recommend: - Mind Stone (This would probably be more flexible than Prismatic Lens) - Lorien Revealed - Mystic Sanctuary - Sokenzan, Crucible of Defiance - Skittering Invasion - Underworld Breach - Transcendent Message - Archmage Emeritus - Loyal Apprentice - Baral, Chief of Compliance (Potentially just doing a straight swap of this with Goblin Electromancer} - Storm-Kiln Artist - March of Swirling Mist - Crackle with Power (AWESOME win-con) - Apex of Power - Surge to Victory (This is hilarious) - Rise from the Tides - Mnemonic Deluge - Wayfarer's Bauble

KongMing on Wizard101 | FREE Download | Play Now!

3 months ago

Great question Frostfire524. There are a couple infinite combos (and a few power combos/cards) that win you the game.

Galecaster Colossus can be enough to lock opponents (even multiple opponents) out of the game with mass bounce. If someone tries to remove it, counterspell.

Cyclonic Rift is in a similar boat, and can be retrieved from the graveyard by cards like Archaeomancer and Mystic Sanctuary. Clone Legion is another great card that can make the game one-sided.

Stormtide Leviathan is a big beater that can finish games if opponents have been swinging at each other a bit and don't have many fliers. Just yesterday I used Rite of Replication on the Stormtide the turn after casting it - six 8/8s with Islandwalk are pretty good at winning the game.

Ultimately though, the goal for the deck is to hold off the opponents until it is ready to draw/mill itself out and win. Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and Laboratory Maniac allow you to win when you deck yourself. Those are obvious, how do you get there? We have a few options.

First, the mill. This deck has a LOT of scry, but not much shuffle. That is a very intentional design decision. You want to remember what your bottom card is at all times, because the spell Tunnel Vision will let you throw all the rest of your library into your graveyard, leaving only that card on top. So you go from having 70-80 cards in library to 1.

This strategy can also target the opponent. Our spells Hinder, Spell Crumple, and Vendilion Clique all let us put cards on the bottom of an opponent's library. Now we can target them with Tunnel Vision! Much fun ensues.

Now for drawing yourself out. This is accomplished through infinite bounce triggers. The card Naru Meha, Master Wizard goes infinite with bounce spells like Ghostly Flicker, Freed from the Real, Displace, and Illusionist's Stratagem. This can let you bounce another Wizard that lets you draw cards, or use other output cards like Kindred Discovery or Sage's Row Denizen to knock out libraries. There's lot of others combos too, like being able to use Naru Meha and Ghostly Flicker with Sunscorched Desert to ping opponents to death.

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