Ophiomancer

Creature — Human Shaman

At the beginning of each upkeep, if you control no Snakes, create a 1/1 black Snake creature token with deathtouch.

Combos

• Ophiomancer + Warstorm Surge

Tokens

• Snake 1/1 B

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	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
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (47)

Sleepysherlock on Spell-Slinging Mardu Copies

2 weeks ago

Lot of my suggestions are leaning into tokens because Blood Avatar clearly wants that, and if i can find a spell that makes tokens than Extus will be happy too. Thats my idea.

Big Score, Unexpected Windfall, Blood for Bones, Rakdos Charm, Fiery Confluence, Crackle with Power, Storm King's Thunder, Bonus Round, Sram's Expertise, Electrodominance, Jaya Ballard, Liliana, Dreadhorde General, Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Assemble the Legion, Secure the Wastes, Call the Coppercoats, Fury Storm, Ashnod's Altar, Prosperous Partnership, Divine Visitation

Let's take a short break here, because you need better creatures. Creatures that have VALUE as you recast them over and over, maybe even discard outlets. I hate to say it (and i'm not going to list them) but Aristocrat creatures are ideal here because they are cheap, and gain life which can then be used to cast wild stuff like Bolas's Citadel.

Dragonmaster Outcast, Viscera Seer, Cathar Commando, Leonin Relic-Warder, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, Lagomos, Hand of Hatred, Pitiless Plunderer, Mahadi, Emporium Master, Woe Strider, Ophiomancer, Mayhem Devil, Children of Korlis, Insolent Neonate, Elenda, the Dusk Rose, Sengir Autocrat, Syr Konrad, the Grim, Sun Titan

Also if this just ins't the direction you wanna go thats ight

DawnsRayofLight on Korvold, Fae-Cursed King of Feasts

3 months ago

You might as well run Devoted Druid With Melira

Temur Sabertooth to go with Dockside

Descent into Avernus: is a super underrated card, great in grindy decks.

Nadier's Nightblade and Mayhem Devil can help with the grind (it is good to have a backup plan if the combos are a no go for whatever reason)

Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools is another great token producing and card draw PW

Black Market Connections is prime in this list (really any deck with black) (would recommend it over Ophiomancer

Fiend Artisan is another tutor that works with your list

a lot of treasure producing cards like The Reaver Cleaver, Ancient Copper Dragon, Old Gnawbone, Goldspan Dragon, Tireless Provisioner help, treasures are great in Korvold.

Hi_diddly_ho_neighbor on Call of Souls

4 months ago

Cool deck! Thalisse is a pretty fun commander. I am sorry to continue to beat a dead horse here, but I would also suggest the inclusion of Smothering Tithe. It's objectively one of the strongest cards in Thalisse (and most white decks to be honest). I see that you are worried about your opponents paying tax, but I want to re-frame it in this way: Smothering Tithe reads as "Either tax your opponents at least 2 mana or create at least 2 tokens on each of your opponent's turns". And that is just the baseline case. Any additional card draw continues to further tax your opponents mana base or advance your board state. The card is very, very strong.

Similarly, you might consider running Ophiomancer. You have enough sac outlets to reliably make tokens each turn.

I also found instant speed token creation to be very strong in my old Thalisse build. Cards like Grand Crescendo (doubles as board wipe protection), Inkshield (a fog that produces an instant army) and Secure the Wastes were pretty good.

One fun interaction that I used to run was Noosegraf Mob + Cathars' Crusade. It's a lot of mana initially, but it's such a dirty token engine.

DreadKhan on Generously Hellbent

4 months 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.

TheOfficialCreator on Meren of Clan Nel Toth

5 months ago

Have you considered Moldervine Reclamation, Bitterblossom, Ophiomancer, or Harvester of Souls?

DreadKhan on Lyzolda's Bloody Sunday

5 months ago

Basilisk Collar seems like it'd be pretty good with Lyzolda, she can then remove target creature by sacrificing any red creature (and you gain 2 life). Note 100% on this, but I really like Mask of Griselbrand in a deck that has creatures dying regularly. Mask is really, really good with Rite of the Raging Storm, which was reprinted recently and is amazing value in most metas, on top of which you can just sacrifice the Elemental to Lyzolda before it dies, too bad it's not also Black!

I wouldn't hesitate to run either Ashes to Ashes or Reckless Spite over something like Assassinate. I also would think about Chaos Warp to deal with any permanent that can be targeted.

Not 100% if they're worth it, but Rakdos Cackler, Manaforge Cinder and Footlight Fiend are each small bodies that offer you some utility on a 1 drop while also offering you 1 drops that are both Red and Black.

Not sure if you run into a lot of problematic artifacts, but Viashino Heretic seems really funny with Obosh and some high MV artifacts.

It's pretty pricey, but I'm not sure if there are many better fits for this deck than Ophiomancer, 2 mana to draw an extra card on each player's turn isn't bad value, and you still can block with the 1/1 Deathtouch if necessary (it mostly deters people in my experience). There is also Ogre Slumlord that makes 1/1 Deathtouch tokens, but you need to be killing other people's creatures to make it truly work, though just getting a Rat whenever you sacrifice one of your non-tokens might be good enough.

Very fun Commander IMHO, and always neat to see someone bother with a Companion, pinging is strong enough to be interesting without being obnoxious, and getting built in card draw seems really strong.

Metroid_Hybrid on Card Analysis #1 - Dreadhorde …

5 months ago

Dreadhorde Invasion's similarity to Bitterblossom and Ophiomancer was mentioned, but this trio of cards also represents what is generally available in Mono-Black to establish a soft-lock with Contamination and/or Smokestack..

TheOfficialCreator on Card Analysis #1 - Dreadhorde …

5 months ago

Hello, everyone!

I thought I would try my hand at creating an article series centering around the beauty of different card designs, as each card truly is unique in its own way, and I wanted to make my appreciation of that into a tangible form so that everyone could experience it.

A general outline of how this article series will go is this: a basic introduction (similar to what you’re reading now), cost versus effect, the flavor of the card, how the card interacts with its limited environment, cards that are similar to it and a short little blurb on what makes them different, a custom card inspired by the analyzed card and a short explanation of the process used to create it, the legacy of the card, and finally, a conclusion to round it all out.

That being said, let’s begin!

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The card of today’s analysis is Dreadhorde Invasion, a card I chose to kick off the series with not only because War of the Spark is my favorite set, but also because it will give us a good platform to walk through the steps of this article series.

Dreadhorde Invasion is an oft-overlooked card that provides its user with a Zombie Army (a mechanic introduced and incredibly localized to War of the Spark, excluding a few exceptions such as Lazotep Chancellor) at the cost of a single life each turn. Obviously this adds up quickly, and the Army that is produced is rather clunky, as it is easier to remove (a la Fading Hope), non-evasive, and rather small even in its beginning stages. For {1}{B} it gives you a 1/1 creature on turn 3. That’s not a great payoff, especially for more advanced formats.

This is where the second clause comes in. If your Army can make it to six power, then Dreadhorde Invasion rewards you handsomely with an added lifelink, allowing you to gain back all that lost life and quickly breaking symmetry with your life versus your opponents. It’s not incredibly cost-effective (heck, a Forced Adaptation is more cost-effective in general), but it’s very fun to play with and can provide a lot more when juxtaposed with the rest of the game. But we’ll get into that later.

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The flavor of Dreadhorde Invasion is perhaps my favorite part of the card. The Eternals are probably one of the most unique MTG villains (I mean, come on, they’re blue metal zombies that can cross between worlds and steal planeswalker sparks), and definitely one of my personal favorites. The idea of Dreadhorde Invasion is that Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is executing his plan to become Nicol Bolas, Dragon-God, invading the plane of Ravnica with his army of Eternals empowered by The Elderspell in order to steal the sparks of the planeswalkers, trapped there by The Immortal Sun and invited there by the Interplanar Beacon. The invasion is eventually quelled by a joint effort by Liliana, Dreadhorde General, Gideon Blackblade, Ugin, the Ineffable, God-Eternal Oketra, and God-Eternal Bontu, with the defeat of Bolas wrapped up in the brilliant card Despark. Dreadhorde Invasion more than anything flavor-wise represents the whole of War of the Spark, perhaps better than any other individual card in the set (except maybe Enter the God-Eternals). And that is why I love it so much; it is a testament to my favorite set of all time.

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As far as Dreadhorde Invasion’s performance in Limited goes, I must say that it has quite an unitive feel to how it operates in multiple deck strategies, similar to how it unites the flavor of the set. It has the keyword amass on it, which is the new ability introduced in the set, and which synergizes well with proliferate. Zombie Armies themselves receive gracious tribal support in the form of Gleaming Overseer, Eternal Skylord, Widespread Brutality, and the like. Beyond this fairly obvious synergy, however, there are many more options for how Dreadhorde Invasion can function in this set. For example, the creation of a creature every turn lends itself very well to sacrifice strategies revolving around Spark Reaper, Ahn-Crop Invader, and Spark Harvest, or even Liliana, Dreadhorde General and God-Eternal Bontu. In addition, the lifelink that can be attained on later turns goes well with Ajani's Pridemate and fits into a subtheme of life gain that the set has.

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Dreadhorde Invasion-style effects are somewhat rare, but there is precedence for their existence. The most obvious example is Bitterblossom, an enchantment well-known for its splashes in Modern and which creates small flying threats every turn at the cost of some life. However, there is also Ophiomancer and Endless Ranks of the Dead, or more recently Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia. The thing that sets Dreadhorde Invasion apart from these other cards is its unique combination of losing life and gaining life alongside its ability to make a token larger versus just creating a new token.

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Here is a custom card that I made that was inspired by Dreadhorde Invasion.

The process I went through to design this card went something like this.

1) Look at Dreadhorde Invasion and think about what the card is wanting you to do. What's the general theme of the card?

2) Build a general shell around the idea of losing life to gain life, pulling in inspiration from cards like Bloodghast.

3) Adding a tribal element to make it feel like a Dreadhorde card.

4) Adding a fitting name. "Vowmage" gives a feel of some kind of sacrifice to fufill an obligation, especially to a being like Bolas.

5) Adding flavor text that is both quippy and fits the situation. In this case, I chose to show who the Vowmage's vow is to.

6) Finding some art from DeviantArt that fit the theme. This art is from user Ryushadow, and is the only Eternal art I could find.

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Dreadhorde Invasion, like most of its amass kin, is largely forgotten especially in competitive play where it is not a contending strategy. Zombie Armies are incredibly weak to removal and usually aren’t very cost-effective, so their weakness of being a single lone creature that just gets bigger and can be chump-blocked can’t really be ignored. War of the Spark as a whole is a largely forgotten story arc, and despite its misgivings it’s still a shame. Dreadhorde Invasion does not truly have a legacy, though it was reprinted in the Midnight Hunt commander set as a part of Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver’s commander deck. Hopefully, one day, we will see Amass return in a future set with greater support so that Dreadhorde Invasion may one day be viable.

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Alright, everyone! That is the end of my article for today. Please let me know what worked for you and what didn’t so that I can sculpt this new article series to your feedback!

Speaking of user feedback, I would like to have every tenth card be voted upon by the community. If you want to submit an idea for what card we will go over, just let me know in your comment. The comment with the highest number of upvotes will have their card in the tenth article of the series.

Thank you all for the wonderful community we’ve made together! See you soon.