Painful Truths

Sorcery

Converge — You draw X cards and you lose X life, where X is the number of colours of mana spent to cast Painful Truths.

Discussion (51)

Draknoz on Dragon Storm

1 month ago

Dragonspeaker Shaman seems good here Dragon Arch is only working for one of your dragons so maybe swap it out? if this is casual and you can run anything Sol Ring seems like a bomb. Also some card draw would be nice, Painful Truths might suit you well being cheap to cast

enpc on Greed or Erebos, God of …

1 month ago

MagicMarc: Night's Whisper is probably the go to "draw 2, lose 2" sorcery in black. And the cheap (and easy) to cast mana cost makes it pretty enticing over Phyrexian Arena. In a multi-coloured deck, Painful Truths is super good and I would tend to lean towards it before Phyrexian Arena, as having the cards now generally trumps having them later and you've just cashed in 3 turns worth of addtional draw for no extra cost.

It definitely does come down to how long games go and what your meta is like of course. Don't get me wrong, a T1 Dark Ritual into a Phyrexian Arena is bonkers, but you can't always count on a turn 1, or even a turn 3 PA. It's awlays worth keeping a mental note of whenever you draw these kind of cards to see how much value you actually get from them. If you find you're typically seeing 3-4 cards before the game ends or it gets blown up, you might find you just get more value from a single draw spell. But effects like Phyrexian Arena or Greed are still worth testing in most decks (cEDH not withstanding).

abby315 on Markov Estate

1 month ago

I have some thoughts about the overall gameplay, but I'll make some easy suggestions first:

Painful Truths > Read the Bones in a 3-color deck. Similarly, Mathas, Fiend Seeker is a great way to turn all of your removal into 2-for-1s, or can even draw you cards without spending any cards because it incentivizes your other player to remove things for you.

I agree with King_marchesa about cutting some vanilla vampires for ramp and removal. I noticed you said one of your players really likes hexproof creatures; spells like Soul Shatter and Crackling Doom will probably be better than spot removal like Utter End in that case. Anowon, the Ruin Sage is good for that, too, and Patron of the Vein is removal on a big-ol' Vampire stick!

Nighthawk Scavenger and Nullpriest of Oblivion will be good includes that are aggressive but also good in the lategame (this will be a theme in this comment). Olivia Voldaren is cheap and a good mana-sink to use the extra ramp you're putting in.

Bloodline Keeper  ^Flip is a little on the expensive side at $9 but if you can get a copy, it'll be a great way to upgrade your army from 1/1s to evasive 2/2s, or 4/4s if he flips. Vampire Nocturnus is another good Lord in this vein. (Pun intended!) Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose can function as a damage-doubler using his activated ability.

Finally, Forerunner of the Legion is a great tutor that also gives +2/+2 to an attacker whenever you play a vampire, thanks to Eminence.

You'll notice that all of these suggestions will raise your curve. I think that's necessary to address the problems you're having. I started EDH running a Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury Elfball deck that had a similar goal: Make a lot of small Elves and run down one opponent. Ran into the same problems you have: You get outscaled. The changes I outlined above are also similar to what I did to turn Freyalise into a more streamlined Ezuri deck. You have to add a lategame. This is also why I recommend adding ramp to more reliably cast Edgar; he's an extremely powerful finisher with a board full of small vampires, and the deck relies on him for more than just 1/1s!

That's why most of my changes encourage you to add more removal and ways to buff your board with stronger creatures. This is the great thing about Edgar: you don't need to focus on making an army of small vampires, because he does that for you! Instead, you can play vampires that buff and help your other vampire tokens.

So, I'd recommend making swaps for the following low-drop creatures that aren't evasive/strong and don't do anything for your board besides being a vampire to trigger Edgar (which most of the above suggestions also do):

Bloodthrone Vampire
Guul Draz Assassin
Guul Draz Vampire
Pulse Tracker
Quag Vampires
Vampire of the Dire Moon
Duskborne Skymarcher
Ruthless Cullblade
Vampire Interloper

And also Goblin Bombardment, which I don't think is a good rate for what it does.

Add some more Vampire lords where you can get them (many of the above are just $1-2), removal, and ramp. You should find that instead of getting a hand with 2-3 lands and all 1-2 drops, you'll start finding a hand with something to do on every turn as you work up towards Edgar. I hope that helps!

Crow-Umbra on Brokkos Buried in this Jungle

2 months ago

Forceofnature1 thank you! I own this deck as listed in paper, and have played it irl about 3-4 times so far in the past 2 months. I haven't won with it (yet), but since it is a more Voltron-y build, I don't really expect it to.

I tend to play this deck as like "Threat Police", I usually only swing at the commanders in our meta that I know can snowball & run away with the game ( Korvold, Mimeoplasm, anything that's really group sluggy & oppressive to the table). I do this in part to try to build some good will, but also let everyone else know what can happen on a crack back.

In the couple games I've played, I've consistently had Cephalid Constable and/or Sawtusk Demolisher in my opening hand, or in the first couple draws. Mutating Sawtusk onto Cephalid on Turn 4, and making someone pick up potentially 6 permanents can be backbreaking and a special kind of filthy.

I haven't pulled it off yet, but I am hoping some future games will give me the opportunity to create some Mutate stack clones with Mist-Syndicate Naga or especially Scute Swarm with 6+ lands on board.

Cards I'm kinda on the fence about after a couple of plays: Drana, the Last Bloodchief and Wilderness Reclamation. The one time I've played Drana, I had a graveyard with Birds of Paradise and 2-3 other smaller, but more threatening creatures. I think of my friends was playing Mogis, God of Slaughter, so I kept saccing Birds of Paradise, would swing with Drana, and my friends would always return Bird to my field instead any of the other creatures. I'm considering replacing Drana with Phyrexian Reclamation, Painful Truths, Spawnwrithe, or even Wash Out. I want to play it a bit more to get a feel for what I really need.

Wilderness Reclamation & Seedborn Muse are more here to help me keep mana open for removal, or to flash in a creature before my turn if I have Leyline out. I pre-ordered a Court of Bounty, so that might take Wilderness Rec's slot.

The last game I played, I had a Cephalid Constable/Sawtusk Mutate stack swinging at my friends playing Mogis, God of Slaughter, God-Eternal Kefnet, and Otrimi, the Ever-Playful. I essentially took Kefnet out with the Cephalid bouncing, and was in a position to continue swinging away and keep everyone's boards clear, but was eventually bled to death from Mogis' various group slug effects. My Mogis friend had a creature that was bigger than my Sawtusk stack, so I couldn't connect to remove his bleeding effect enchantments.

My friends have told me this deck is scary to play against.

Optimator on Giant's Deck

2 months ago

The amount of utility cards that facilitates for a large-creature/stompy deck (like giant tribal) is completely unparalleled and unrivaled. There are things--both budget and expensive--like Garruk's Uprising, Soul's Majesty, Hunter's Insight, Snake Umbra, Triumph of Ferocity, Lead the Stampede, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Return of the Wildspeaker, Abundance, Rhythm of the Wild, Selvala's Stampede, Shamanic Revelation, Elemental Bond, Colossal Majesty, Guardian Project, Rancor, Primal Rage, Heroic Intervention, Wrap in Vigor, Golgari Charm, Lifecrafter's Bestiary, Canopy Cover, Aspect of Mongoose, Alpha Authority, Asceticism, Defense of the Heart, Lignify, Lurking Predators, Bow of Nylea, The Great Henge, Eerie Ultimatum, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Seasons Past, Reap the Past, Genesis Ultimatum, Beastmaster Ascension, Overwhelming Stampede...

The list is huge, and it grows every year.

This is on top of the superior ramping ability of Green and it's above-average removal options. One big advantage of Green's land-based ramp is things like Planar Cleansing, Hour of Revelation, Play of the Game, Bane of Progress, Creeping Corrosion, and Merciless Eviction can't send you back to the stone age by destroying all your mana rocks.

Everything you will want to be doing with Giant Tribal, Green supports and supports well. I cannot stress this enough. Not to mention the good green giants that keep getting printed.

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Black doesn't provide too much in the way of utility specific to giant tribal or stompy decks other than recursion and good card draw like Greed, Phyrexian Arena, and Erebos, God of the Dead. Personally I like cards like Damnable Pact, Read the Bones, Ancient Craving and Ambition's Cost but if you're running Green and/or Blue you shouldn't need to lose life to draw cards. Painful Truths might still be useful due to it's great rate (three cards for three mana is good). Syphon Mind is a great rate and has the upside of making your opponents discard.

Obviously Black specializes in removal (but so does White!) so you could run things like Mortify, Despark, Utter End, Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Dreadbore, Terminate, Bedevil and Ruinous Ultimatum. In Garruk's Wake and Decree of Pain are probably good in your giant deck since you're ramping so hard. Since you're running White you shouldn't need Black's wraths, but those two stood out.

Things like Phyrexian Reclamation, Animate Dead, and Reanimate are great for creature decks. Palace Siege is all right on a budget. So is Twilight's Call. It's no Oversold Cemetery or Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Rise of the Dark Realms but those are pricey. Recovering from boardwipes will be important.

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Blue has some interesting removal options like Curse of the Swine, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift. You have some Cyclonic Rifts in your trade binder, right? That alone is a great reason to run Blue in your deck (it's literally one of the best cards in EDH straight-up). Do it!

Blue also has all the card-draw--from per-turn stuff like Kumena's Awakening and Mind Unbound; chunks of cards like Concentrate, Treasure Cruise, Fact or Fiction, Fathom Trawl, and Tidings; huge hand-refillers like Overflowing Insight, Mind Spring, Stroke of Genius, and Pull from Tomorrow; and some sneaky stuff like Windfall, Keep Watch, Drawn from Dreams, Verity Circle, and Insight. Green has some amazing card-draw already but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to supplement it with Blue cards. Rush of Knowledge would be REALLY good in a giant-tribal deck--especially with Morophon, the Boundless at the helm.

Counterspells are very much not Giant/Stompy but I have a few aggro decks that run a silver-bullet copy of Negate or Swan Song just as anti-boardwipe tech. Not necessary though. Boros Charm, Golgari Charm, and Wrap in Vigor work well in that capacity. There are lots of 3-cmc options too but the mana difference between 2 and 3 is huge.

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You could even run some interesting charms like Abzan Charm or Esper Charm. There are some surprisingly potent options. Some are stinkers of course.

Temur Ascendancy would be reason alone to run five colors and be utterly fantastic in this deck.

Garruk's Uprising alone is reason to run at least Green.

Merciless Eviction is one of the best removal spells in the game. Four or five colors would allow you to run that.

Urban Evolution would be good in a big-mana deck like this. Inspired Ultimatum, while not amazing, is playable.

You get the idea.

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As you can see, there is a myriad of reasons to run more colors. Honestly, I really can't recommend it enough if true Giant-Tribal is the goal--whether Naya giants or five-color giants.

One extremely important thing for large-creature decks is to consider how you're going to recover from board wipes. Superior card-draw from Green, Black, and Blue cards will help immensely. Card advantage like Phyrexian Reclamation, Palace Siege, Seasons Past, All Suns' Dawn, Reap the Past, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Eerie Ultimatum, and abilities like Mayael the Anima's, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim's, and Kenrith, the Returned King's reanimate ability will help you recover. These are things that Red and White simply can't do well. Sure there's Resurrection and Reya Dawnbringer, but they aren't great.

Brion Stoutarm is a legitimately good general--he really is!--but not for giant tribal. He brings nothing to the table for giant tribal other than being a decently-statted Giant himself and pigeonholes you into the worst color pair in EDH for essentially no benefit. As I mentioned, Iroas, God of Victory and, to a lesser extent, Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas would make better commanders if you are dead-set on Boros colors (which I do not recommend if you want to play maximum giants). If you were building around Brion's ability and had some giants around as support that would be one thing, but it seems that's not the goal. As such, please consider switching commanders :) I think that if you want Brion Stoutarm as the commander, you should make a Brion deck.

I really do think you'll be happier in the long run with a different commander It doesn't have to be expensive. Most of what you would need I can trade to you, including Morophon, the Boundless, and most supplemental cards I don't have are in the 25-cent to $1 range (Realm-Cloaked Giant, Mayael the Anima, etc). I actually have a shitload of this utility stuff on-hand, and you have some great staples like Cyclonic Rift on-hand--and probably more! I want you to be satisfied with your deck! It doesn't have to be competitive to be fun, but it doesn't have to be expensive to work better and smoother and be more competitive.

Vlasiax on Kathril Keyword Soup

2 months ago

Unfortunately I only have one copy of Sylvan Library et al. so I'm more pushed towards explosive card draw like Painful Truths or Harmonize to get my grip full again. Most important card there is actually Geier Reach Sanitarium to filter my hand.

I wish I had more money for tutors but seeing newly spoiled Opposition Agent I might stick for now to excessive milling and saving my cash for better creatures like Doom Whisperer or that Elder Gargaroth (for now I have Ramunap Hydra instead).

Vlasiax on Kathril Keyword Soup

2 months ago

I've recently started looking for low cost creatures with 2+ keywords and I'd like to know your opinion about them:

• Mire Triton - Deathtouch and mills 2 cards, both things seem to be quite impactful in this deck
• Nullpriest of Oblivion - Menace (quite rare keyword) and Lifelink (uncommon keyword) + when kicked it can for reanimate another creature if Kathril already got her keywords or there's nothing better to do with lots of mana laying around lategame
• Winding Constrictor / Conclave Mentor - both make it easier for Kathril to become lethal voltron
• Danitha Capashen, Paragon - 3 keywords on 3 CMC creature, looks for me like a good bargain - I've personally swapped Aerial Responder for her, since I have lots of Flying creatures anyways

Also how do you feel with running only 34 lands? I run 37 and card draw spells like Painful Truths or Funeral Rites and still sometimes get to a point where I need lands or I have completely empty hand.

Lanzo493 on Ramp, Draw, Treasure, Ultimatum, PROGENITUS

3 months ago

Cool deck. Progenitus is a difficult card to handle. Since you're new to the commander format, I'll just give some general tips before saying more specific stuff.

The kings of EDH are card advantage and mana ramp. If you can do both, you'll probably win. Because a large portion of decks go towards these two categories, as well as spot removal and boardwipes and other interaction, commander decks don't have as many creatures as other formats do. Yes, your deck is creature light, but not terribly light either.

I would get rid of the curse cards altogether. They're only able to affect one opponent, which is an inefficient way to hurt people in a multiplayer format. The way I build my decks is with the intent to face off multiple people at once. Sometimes, I build my decks knowing that I'll be targeted by several opponents, so I just make my deck explosive enough to kill 1 opponent out of nowhere. Dealing with 2 enemies is easier than 3, anyway. But with a less cutthroat build, you'll be looking towards your opponents for help with a common enemy, so politics are important. Curses don't mesh well with that.

Niv-Mizzet Reborn just won't get you many cards. You don't have many 2 color cards, so he'll almost always get you nothing.

Bearer of the Heavens will hurt you as much as everybody else. It'll still kill your commander. It's no fun to restart a game from scratch like that.

Some great cards on a budget I would recommend are Faeburrow Elder, Firemind Vessel, Hedron Archive, Painful Truths, and probably some more creatures. Since you're running 5 colors, you can run whatever you want as long as it doesn't have too many pips of a single color. Unless it's Fiery Emancipation. That card's busted. One hit kill with your commander.