Omen of Fire

Instant

Return all Islands to their owners' hands.

Each player sacrifices a Plains or a white permanent for each white permanent he or she controls.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	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
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (20)

MLS91 on Deforestation Techniques

2 weeks ago

DreadKhan

Phenomenal insight into Altar of the Brood totally overlooked that! As soon as I can stop by my LGS to pick up the copy I literally just traded in for credit, it will find its way back into the deck like it originally was.

As for Omen of Fire, I’m playing this deck in the cEDH community. The more I look at this card the more I do still want to play it but as we both I’m sure agree it is in fact very meta, but the only real thing holding me truly back at this point is that I’m running Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. Although it’s only a single copy I can’t risk bouncing my own lands. Looking back at Tectonic Break now and maybe even potentially Epicenter

DreadKhan on Deforestation Techniques

3 weeks ago

Just getting back to you about Omen of Fire, I've tried to slip it into a few decks, and the biggest complaint I had was that the decks I wanted to use it in were low enough in power level that people would sometimes balk if they were hit too hard by the land hate aspect. I think if you're allowed to use Game Changers (Bracket 3) you shouldn't get too much negative attention for Omen (expect some though). It's also a meta call, if nobody uses White or Islands then the card can do absolutely nothing. The Instant speed nature of it can matter in some lists, if you play it on a Blue player's end step then they can't replay any of the Islands that turn (and might have to discard a bunch), whereas a White player might have to choose between losing their blockers for the turn or sacrificing their aggro creatures, especially if they don't have a lot of Plains. FWIW a LOT of 'go wide' type token decks use White tokens, this will wipe out those tokens.

Omen plays well with cards that help your interaction get through, like Vexing Shusher for example, because you might find that the decks you most want to hit with it are best suited to just counter the spell.

Omen gets a lot worse if you're playing against people who use untyped duals, but I will note that more and more people like using things like the Surveil lands and Triomes, meaning even if people aren't on OG Dual Lands they can still have access to plenty of playable typed duals, and FWIW Omen is MUCH better vs ETB tapped Islands. If you find people react to you running Omen by running more of these untyped duals you can start using Primal Order that punish people for using non-Basics (I feel like you could probably get away with running a lot of Basic lands in a Gruul list, ymmv), so people are hurt either way.

Hopefully that can help give you insight into running Omen in a deck of your own!

I'm not sure if it's really an issue in your metas, but I found that when I built infinite combos it was often a big asset if I had some different types of payoff; this could help me get around protection effects in some cases. Anyways, Altar of the Brood allows infinite creature ETBs to mill out each opponent, all without targeting, and they die when they draw their next card. If nobody ever has Protection or some from of damage immunity then this isn't relevant and sorry for wasting your time!

I have a fancy Inkmoth Nexus that does essentially nothing ATM, but your idea of using it with Kessig Wolf Run seems reasonable, I think I might add it to my own Gruul list, it even wants some Colourless lands. Thanks!

MLS91 on Falconer of the Forbidden Way

4 weeks ago

Tell me more about your interactions with Omen of Fire 10/10 have always wanted to see it work somewhere but need to have proof of concept so to speak

Looking to stash it into my deck, Deforestation Techniques, lemme know if you’ve think it’s viable

DreadKhan on Adding brackets to commander decks

4 months ago

I can see not counting stax like Meekstone atm, but 'mass land denial' is probably supposed to include fun stuff like Stasis and Static Orb (also Winter Orb and Rising Waters, maybe Mana Web, but I don't know about stuff like Choke atm, or Omen of Fire). I've heard 'affects 4 or more lands' as the gold standard, hence me not being certain if 'targeted' land hate (vs a single colour's Basics) should count.

Apologies (and thanks) if you're already working on it!

DreadKhan on Which is More Important: Total …

6 months ago

In my limited experience, most decks want it's 'key pieces' to be as low to the ground as possible, this is why Night's Whisper is a very good card, it works in hands where you are short of key resources (but not so short that you couldn't risk the hand), and it's still completely worth playing if you draw it fairly late in the game; drawing 2 cards is almost universally a good thing, and only paying 1B to do it means you can either play it early or play it late and follow it up with something you drew. In contrast a card like Tower of Fortunes is a trap in almost every list because you need to input a grand total of 12 mana to draw ANY cards, meaning it's a dead card until you can generate 8 mana in one turn. That makes the card a lot worse in practice, since every game has early turns and only some games go long enough for Tower to really shine.

The same is true about ramping, something like Utopia Sprawl (or Crop Rotation might fit better lol) is incredibly efficient, it can be played turn 1 in many games and if it's drawn late it's literally mana neutral, making it a 'free roll' in decks that can count on having a Forest early. In contrast Explosive Vegetation is unplayable turn 1 in almost any situation, ditto for turn 2, and you will need to have ramped to play it by turn 3. This means that if you're stuck on 2 lands something like Farseek could find you a key land but Explosive Veggies will just sit there making you feel stupid. This makes Explosive Veggies a relatively unimpressive card, and that's why you don't see as much ramp that costs more than 3 (and many Spikey players hate paying more than 2 for ramp), it plays a lot worse in hands that would otherwise be keeps, and they can actually cost you games.

In contrast though there are 'value cards' (usually MV 4-6), these aren't necessarily going to win the game by themselves but these are important in metas that don't expect anyone to win too early. These types of cards can cost more mana because they're doing a lot, but most deck builders quickly realize you can only include so many of this type of card, specifically because they WILL clog your early hands. These types of cards drive up your average MV, most people like something in the 2.5-3.5 range (most prefer lower fwiw). It's worth noting that spells that cost 7-10 mana are often WAY more powerful, but most of these aren't necessary to win games, and due to their sky high MV these are even worse about clogging your hand. People are generally fine with Expropriate from a power level perspective, even if many find it boring, but I think a plurality of decks that are power level 7 and up eschew big mana stuff because they don't need it, if you can win with Rite of the Raging Storm then you don't need Expropriate. In cEDH people actually skew even lower on MVs, especially Ad Nauseam lists, and it turns out it's very possible to win games using almost nothing but MV 2 and under stuff, and unsurprisingly these incredibly fast and low to the ground win cons are the most powerful.

Ultimately the less resources you need to put into an effect the better that effect. It's equally true that all things being equal doing the exact same thing a turn earlier is MUCH better, and it keeps getting better each turn sooner (in an exponential manner). The complication for me is that cards aren't very equal, and it's actually possible to build decks that assiduously ignore all of the conventions I mentioned here (my Pavel Maliki deck has 17 5 drops and an average MV of 4.20, while my Sunastian Falconer deck has a gobsmacking MV of 5.35, both are functional decks IMHO) if you simply run better cards that have relatively high MVs, and run enough of them that you will consistently have one or more to choose from. The Pavel deck happily runs some stuff like Omen of Fire that can be completely dead because the deck can usually afford to have dead cards and still be a threat, and the Sunastian deck runs some pretty derpy 'big' creatures, many aren't even cost effective, it just doesn't matter because if you have enough huge creatures it doesn't matter if you paid extra for them, they're still huge creatures that will stomp the opponent into gravy! In effect both decks win the games they win via scale, Pavel tends to have a lot of cards that trade for multiple cards, and Sunastian's effects are often so bulky that they just go right over other decks.

Even in 1v1 some of my weird Legacy decks sneak in some pretty high MV cards, and often these cards can steal games when I'm in topdeck mode (in Legacy anything over MV 2 is considered 'really high' fwiw), even if they cost me a few when I draw terribly and have 5 3 drops in my first 9 cards and I scoop. Ball Lightning is a really bad card by many metrics, but if you playtest a Burn deck in throw one or two in they WILL steal the odd game due to card efficiency (Burn's biggest problem has always been running out of Bolts).

DreadKhan on Mishra's attackers

2 years ago

Berserkers' Onslaught is pretty handy if you've got big attackers, double power and first strike is sweet for 5 mana. Rite of the Raging Storm can help by giving you a 5/1 every turn to swing with, while also giving everyone else one to swing at anyone but you, which helps create some chaos as long as people don't run big blockers, and even if most people do, just someone not having a blocker will make that 5/1 a slow, steady source of damage, and people must hold back a blocker for it or take the 5. I like Onslaught with Rite, and if I can get a Mask of Griselbrand and Exquisite Blood you can do a tremendous amount of work with a 5/1, including drawing 5 cards when it dies. Mask is good in general in my experience, evasion is helpful in Rakdos, as is Lifelink for various 'pay life' effects that you might want to run. Some of those include Phyrexian Purge and Fire Covenant, both very strong old cards in many metas, but they work best with some life gain. 2 more cards that cost life and tend to feel pretty good in EDH are Ashes to Ashes and Reckless Spite, hitting 2 bodies is pretty helpful, and black Exile isn't super-common.

Kyren Negotiations are an interesting option if you have lots of goblins but can't swing through a Propaganda. Make an Example is very good value, you choose what dies (not targeted), and each player loses at least their best creature, maybe more). Volcanic Offering is a really solid card that can deal with 4 things that are bothering you if someone else is feeling helpful, but it can never directly hurt you, this can shut down an archenemy with one spell. If you find yourself troubled by Blue decks, there are Boil, Boiling Seas, Omen of Fire, and Citadel of Pain that are pretty helpful vs Blue and 2 colour Blue decks.

DreadKhan on Generously Hellbent

2 years ago

You might look at Rite of the Raging Storm and Exquisite Blood, maybe Berserkers' Onslaught, even a Mask of Griselbrand as a backup to your Skullcap idea, paying 3 to draw 5 always feels great in my Pavel build, and the Evasion/Lifelink are often relevant. I run a ton of wipes and removal, perhaps the best of which is Make an Example, which is just backbreaking to any deck reliant on having a specific creature on the board, and it hits each opponent in such a way that it's almost impossible to protect against short of countering it. As my deck hates being interacted with itself (it's full of chonky spells/effects just begging to get countered) I run Boiling Seas and Omen of Fire, alongside a Citadel of Pain, Pavel can soak up a lot of spare mana anyways. Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast might be more reasonable than adding Boil, but the deck loves hosing Islands for some reason. Since I run lots of board wipes, I tossed in Tyrite Sanctum and Daring Fiendbonder to give stuff Indestructible. I mostly run utility creatures like Agitator Ant or token generators like Ophiomancer and Ogre Slumlord, I'm presently at 16 creatures in the 99, so it doesn't usually matter if I'm wiping the board 3 or 4 times in a game. It's not unusual to win off of a timely Thieves' Auction, it's funny when you have a deck full of questionable permanents, some people will just scoop to it as well, it's a salty card to some. I mean if you're already running Omen of Fire, why not throw in Thieves' Auction?

Hope some of these ideas can synergize with your build, Pavel is a great under-utilized Commander, I built him more janky, but the deck is truly a blast to play.

dingusdingo on Looking To Build 5 Color …

5 years ago

You're going to have to run a lot of symmetrical effects (hit all players) and then run cards to get around them yourself. In a 4 player pod, if you 1 for 1 trade cards from hand for opponents lands, you're going to be really far behind. You start with 7 cards, while your opponents collectively have 21 cards. 1 for 1 trades are not the way to go about building this deck.

First, some cards that hate on lands. Winter Orb Static Orb Hokori, Dust Drinker

Now, some ways to negate the drawback

• Boros Garrison and other bouncelands -> lets you get more from untapping just 1 land, and the bounce resets a land to enter untapped again
• Lands that tap for 2+ mana -> Ancient Tomb City of Traitors Gaea's Cradle most of these are expensive-ish. Also check out depletion lands Remote Farm its a full cycle and they cheap.
• Permanent untap effects -> Seedborn Muse and similar
• Lots of artifact or creature based mana. Signets and Talismans are great in five color budget.

Next, some cards that destroy lands or hate on lands. Armageddon Boil Choke Flashfires Acid Rain Ravages of War Destructive Force Contamination Blood Moon Magus of the Moon Tsabo's Web Omen of Fire Strip Mine Wasteland Impending Disaster Tectonic Break Ruination Wildfire

Then we run some cards that let us recur lands, or like when lands break Ramunap Excavator Crucible of Worlds Life from the Loam Terravore The Gitrog Monster Titania, Protector of Argoth Splendid Reclamation

Add some lands matter cards, some ramp, and some good beaters, and you have a deck.