Painful Truths

Sorcery

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

Discussion (51)

multimedia on Crosis, Hand of Blood

22 hours ago

Hey, I agree Nicol Bolas can be devastating repeatable discard in multiplayer Commander. It's a more powerful Grixis Commander then Crosis.

No matter the Commander choice here's some budget cards $2 or less each to consider adding. Several of these suggestions are in the maybeboard. When you're playing a high CMC Commander then more low CMC ramp helps.

• Talisman of Creativity
• Dark Ritual
• Izzet Signet
• Rakdos Signet

Crosis has flying and most Specters also have flying which makes Dragon Tempest a two drop haste enabler for the majority of your creatures. Consider cutting the other Dragons and high CMC creatures for more Specters or creature that can give you more value?

• Thief of Sanity: amazing in multiplayer Commander since you have more opponents to steal cards from.
• Kess, Dissident Mage: get more value out of draw spells and discard spells, she's a very good Grixis flying creature.
• Sedraxis Specter
• Needle Specter
• Blizzard Specter
• Scythe Specter
• Fell Specter

Whispering Madness is a wheel and it can be repeatable with cipher which can be powerful with flying creatures. Read the Bones, Painful Truths, Brainstorm are mana efficient draw spells. In multiplayer Commander the versatility of Mirrormade is great, especially on a budget. With all the discard from multiple opponents The Eldest Reborn can do a lot and have many targets to choose from to reanimate.

Mask of Memory and Mask of Riddles is low CMC equipment that can be repeatable draw with flying creatures. Sunken Hollow, Dragonskull Summit, Grixis Panorama, Ash Barrens are lands to consider adding.

Cards to consider cutting:

• Hideous Visage
• Slate Street Ruffian
• Fill with Fright
• Traveler's Amulet
• Phantasmal Dragon
• Territorial Hellkite
• Boltwing Marauder
• Hypersonic Dragon
• Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury
• Arcanis the Omnipotent
• Moltensteel Dragon
• Tyrant's Familiar
• Gruesome Deformity
• Fear
• Foresee
• Ambition's Cost
• Mind Rot

Good luck with your deck.

Azeworai on Syr Gwyn, Hero of Ashvale

3 weeks ago

As for cordialities, welcome to the format! First decks are always a crucible, so I shall do what I can to aid.

I will abstain from mana-base suggestions, for I don't know the deck's potential budget.

I don't have an equipment deck myself, so I shall do my best. Seeing the commander, rather than a single creature being stacked with everything on it, Syr Gwyn seems to prefer many creatures, perhaps endighted by a single equipment.

Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots are both phenomenal.

There are some cards I am unsure of.

Masterwork of Ingenuity is dependent on there being equipment on the field, so you may prefer something such as Sculpting Steel.

A card I run in my black decks is Painful Truths, which is fantastic for fastly paced decks.

Having a package of cards for each tutor is always a great plan. Seeing as that you run Open the Armory, granting the tutor utility outside of just equipment seems wise. Darksteel Mutation and Prison Term are favourites of mine, so now the tutor can be a kill spell.

Auriok Steelshaper seems like a given, and Blacklance Paragon is a fine trick. Gideon, Ally of Zendikar propels your militia of knights whilst being a lovely threat after a wrath resolves.

Now, Haakon, Stromgald Scourge is a splendid engine for the deck to have, but this means a graveyard sub-theme would be relevant. Faithless Looting may aid in card draw; Cathartic Reunion fills a same role; Entomb, Dread Return and Unburial Rites are similar to find with entomb; Buried Alive finds Haakon and some fuel for it; Cavalier of Night and Cavalier of Flame may suffice; Corpse Knight is prolific in its affliction; Dauntless Bodyguard has utility for cheap; Hero of Bladehold just gets scary far too quickly, as does Hero of Oxid Ridge; Midnight Reaper is fantastic; Marton Stromgald is selcouth to most and absolutely destructive; and Khorvath Brightflame could be quite the finisher; Worthy Knight can swarm quickly; and Ashenmoor Liege bestows power across the board.

Skullclamp and Grafted Wargear could be a fun package to run. Equip Skullclamp, then Grafted Wargear to the same creature. Attach the Wargear to another creature, the other one will die and you draw two cards, all for one mana.

For the bromidic staples; Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, and Despark are all great.

For an aggressive deck, as I'd assume this to be, Tymna the Weaver can draw cards abound. Alesha, Who Smiles at Death, who may not be a knight, is quite the reanimation engine. Buried Ruin to get back equipment could be a worthy inclusion.

As for your decklist, the only cards I would consider ablating are Order of Midnight, Vona, Butcher of Magan, Heirloom Blade, and Helm of the Host. Of these, Order of Midnight has the most utility. It brings something back, then can become an evasive threat to put some junk onto. Heirloom Blade just seems far too slow. Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord is interesting. I'm not too big of a fan, but the lifelink seems relevant. Vona, Butcher of Magan doesn't actually do all of that much. She gives a deck that is attempting to swarm, equip, and maybe reanimate another hole to jump down. Now, Utter End is (in my humble opinion) an overplayed card. It's four mana to kill something Four. Sure, it's an instant, but it's four mana. I prefer Vindicate

That shall be all from me. My condolences if this sounded blunt, but I had a lot to say and I attempted to be as laconic as possible.

May fortune be with you!

LastEdegy on TOP 3 from Theros, Beyond ...

1 month ago

I haven't dissected each card yet, but on the first look these 3 are what I see becoming a staple or a fun commander to build a deck with:

As most of you also noticed, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is a possible staple for decks with green. It's a similar version of Oracle of Mul Daya but instead of possibly playing a land card from the revealed top card of the deck to a Prismatic Omen effect. I would definitely add this to my Willowmaker, Doran the Siege Tower deck, since it has toughness greater than it's power plus the effects mentioned above.

So far I haven't seen this card being hyped for EDH as much as I would suspect, but Treacherous Blessing is a great card draw spell! 3 mana for draw three?! That's a great deal! You can target the enchantment with an ability, so you don't even lose a life.. It's typical to Painful Truths but without using a 3-color commander to draw 3 cards.

Storm's Wrath is straight-up a mass removal for red! You can compare it to Wrath of God , Damnation or Day of Judgment but using the characteristics of red in the color pie plus it deals with planeswalkers too! No more other conditions to consider, like Blasphemous Act or Chain Reaction for them to wipe the board. Granted 4 damage isn't that big of a deal with EDH creatures, but it's still a great mid game mass removal or against token decks..

Honorable Mention: Heliod, Sun-Crowned - it's the best possible mono-white commander in my opinion, even though it will be obvious that the deck will definitely have the game ending Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Walking Ballista or Heliod, Sun-Crowned + Triskelion combo. But it's still a step to improve white as a color in EDH, especially mono-white..

patrickd117 on Edgar Markov

1 month ago

Main things I'd cut: Sangromancer , Vindictive Vampire , Bloodcrazed Paladin , Blood Seeker , Temporal Extortion , Exquisite Blood . I don't think the lifegain does too much here.

Definitely add: Skullclamp (one of the best cards in the deck), Dusk Legion Zealot low impact, but you generally want to get a bunch of creatures out early, Viscera Seer super strong and again, this is a deck where you really want to start out strong, Painful Truths (the best draw spell in Mardu), Indulgent Aristocrat (super strong way to aggro people out while also getting a board presence early), Yahenni, Undying Partisan this just doesn't ever die and gets very big

I'd recommend: Nihil Spellbomb (I think this is almost always a mustplay in black.)

YuiHirasawa on Korvold

2 months ago

1. I think you should go all-the-way on a certain strategy rather than play a miss-mash of "okay" cards in various fronts. For example, you play mana dorks such as Gilded Goose and Deathrite Shaman , however u also run a few mana-rocks and land-ramp cards. I would play all the mana dorks I can to maximize the chance of getting a mana dork on my opening hand (aka for consistency). The whole point of early mana ramp is to get these ramp cards early on to speed your tempo on the game. If I see Gilded Goose turn 8, that would be much worse than casting the card turn 1. The same logic applies to land-ramp cards and mana-rocks.

2. You run a lot of premium cards, but this is counterbalanced by the fact that you also run a lot of "suboptimal" cards. For example, you run good lands that come untapped, but also run a lot of bad lands that come tapped. This would ruin the whole purpose of having lands like Woodland Cemetery that come untapped. The reason that untapped lands are good is that you get to speed the pace of your game. If you run a lot of tapped lands along with the untapped lands, you lose your speed and therefore lose the purpose of running these lands in the first place. This is also true for other card types. You run Dictate of Erebos but also run Butcher of Malakir over better cards like gravepact.

3. I think there are better options for some of your card choices. For example, Painful Truths draws you an extra card over Read the Bones . There are ALOT of good reanimtor spells in black yet you chose to run Blood for Bones .

4. I think your deck also lacks focus. What are you trying to do with your deck? It seems to me that you are running a lot of "generally good" cards, which is perfect for midrange, but running "good-stuffs" is good because it grants you flexibility: an ability to adapt to any situation. Your flexibility greatly decreases by you running very specific cards like Endless Ranks of the Dead and Scapeshift . If you want to play a zombie strategy, go all the way with other cards. If you want to play land-matters, focus on that. Just choose one.

Just a couple of cents from a stranger.

Magnanimous on Kiora: Cruelty Without End

2 months ago

Hey, I was working on a Field of the Dead deck in Pioneer and found that Kiora, the Crashing Wave fit absolutely perfectly. You could try it in Pioneer if you wanted (here's my start: https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/fog-of-the-dead/?cb=1574915555), or you could continue in Modern.

The idea is to delay the game with Fog , Spell Pierce , etc. while ramping up to seven lands for Field of the Dead . Kiora ramps, stalls, draws cards, and acts as a secondary win-con.

If you continued in Modern, the mana would be difficult and I actually think going three or four color could work given the constraints for Field of the Dead . White for Holy Day / Dawn Charm or black for Darkness / Abrupt Decay / Painful Truths are both good options. You could go up to crazy numbers of lands and play any of Arboreal Grazer , Explore , Courser of Kruphix , and Growth Spiral instead of your current creatures to ramp every turn so you can get the combo up and running by turn 5. Alternatively you could go for control instead of ramp with Thoughtseize , Abrupt Decay , Spell Pierce , Mana Leak , etc.

LastEdegy on Willowmaker

3 months ago

@Cloud777 - Thanks for the suggestion, but I don't know what to replace it with.. The deck already has a lot of enchantments for my liking.. I'll see how I can fit it..

@masayoshishido - no problem.. I'm just trying to find a seller of Slaughter the Strong , I'm going to replace Fumigate .. I'm already considering on including Phyrexian Arena as a constant draw engine itself.. Tune in for new updates, it will definitely be included.. Greater Good on the other hand, won't be effective, since most creature i have, has less than 4 power, which will only make me draw 1.. I also had tried Momentous Fall before, but it's a bit clunky for my taste.. It relies on me having 4 mana untapped for a possibility of sacrificing a creature to draw card/s.. both Painful Truths and Sign in Blood are lesser versions of Harmonize and Read the Bones in my opinion, I may include one of them, but will depend on the cards that can be replaced.. But thanks overall for the upvote and suggestions!

masayoshishido on Willowmaker

3 months ago

why don't you run Phyrexian Arena ? it's one of the black staple cards for constant card draw

Greater Good Momentous Fall Painful Truths or Sign in Blood are also good card draws for abzan colors

also why not Slaughter the Strong ?