Phyrexian Arena

Enchantment

At the beginning of your upkeep, you draw a card and you lose 1 life.

Discussion (51)

wallisface on Budget GBx

10 hours ago

Looks good! One suggestion is that you’re running a bit too many lands - you should be able to easily drop down to 22 or 23.

I think you only need a total of 5-6 hand disruption spells also, so you can probably shave off a few Thoughtseize/Inquisition.

Scavenging Ooze is also a card which is awesome, but which kindof hurts when you draw multiple copies, as they’re fighting over the same food source. I’d just run 2-3 of them.

Phyrexian Arena might be a good substitute for the lack of Bob. You probably want to have a few more creatures also to fill the Goyf-gap - Hexdrinker could be a good option. Courser of Kruphix might also be useful.

Kajarak32 on Teysa

1 day ago

Mana Ramp: Talisman of Hierarchy , Orzhov Signet , Smothering Tithe

Card Draw: Phyrexian Arena , Ancient Craving , Ambition's Cost

Recursion: Palace Siege or Oversold Cemetery

kozilex on 5-Color Mono-Black

2 days ago

I've considered Cataracts, but decided that I like the thematic purity of only being able to produce black mana from my lands. I'm ok that the Cabal Coffers in my command zone isn't also a draw engine, especially considering that I'm used to playing the deck with a 9-mana vanilla 6/6 ( Reaper King ) at the helm.

Necropotence tends to be better in more efficient decks. When I can only play one or two cards a turn, it's not much better than Phyrexian Arena . Once I start going off with mana doublers, I'd rather draw cards that I can use immediately, because I may well not have access to that mana by my next turn after I put a bunch of life into the Necro. I won't deny that it's very good, but it doesn't fit in here as well as it might seem in a vacuum.

Daveslab2022 on Slither into that Graveyard

3 days ago

Death Baron seems like the least essential card. It makes your Sidisi zombies, and your other few zombies bigger but other than that it’s just meh. I always recommend more ways to gain card advantage. Phyrexian Arena is the most common, but Rhystic Study and Mystic Remora are my personal favorites. Since they can draw you multiple cards in the first few turns, setting up for powerful and explosive plays.

PhotogenicParasympathetic on Enchantment question(s)

4 days ago

For your first question: Mirari's Wake will add one mana additional every time you tap a land. If you tap a land with Overgrowth on it, you will get (usually) one mana from the land, two mana from Overgrowth, and one mana from Mirari's Wake, four total. It's important to note that Mirari's Wake can only add mana of the color the land already produced, and that Overgrowth produces the two green, not the land being tapped. So if you Overgrowth an Island, you can tap to get two blue and two green, but not one blue and three green.

For your second question, yes, that is how Sylvan Library works - you may keep one of the three cards and pay 0 life, or 2 paying 4 life, or all three paying 8 life.

Two points of clarification: Sylvan Library does not differentiate between the first card you draw for turn and the two extra you draw from the Library. You can choose to put any two of the three back on top of your library, including the first one you drew normally for turn. In fact, if you have another effect that draws more cards before Sylvan Library's trigger (such as a Phyrexian Arena , which draws you a card during the upkeep step) ANY of those cards are eligible to be put back to avoid loss of life.

Second, you must keep all cards drawn that turn easily identifiable - meaning they cannot be placed into a pile with the rest of the cards in your hand, until after Sylvan Library has finished resolving (to prevent people from keeping all three cards they drew, but putting back a card that was already in their hand to avoid paying life). Usually, I put my hand facedown on the table, then draw three, look at them and decide what I want, then pick up my old hand to add the card/cards I'm keeping to it.

Finally. All Auras are enchantments. Not all enchantments are Auras. For example, Vow of Lightning is an aura, and is therefore an enchantment. Zendikar Resurgent is an enchantment, but is not an aura.

Auras are a special kind of enchantment that must be attached to another permanent (usually a creature) or a player. They are cast targeting another permanent/player (or in the case of Animate Dead a card in graveyard), and attach themselves to that target upon resolving. If the permanent/player they are attached to leaves the game, the Aura is put into its owner's graveyard.

Osbert on Marchesa Legends EDH (proposed upgrade)

5 days ago

There are a lot of unfocused or suboptimal cards in this list like Phantom General and Famine that could easily be replaced by more suited cards that help your game plan of: Play dudes, protect face, beat down, draw an additional card at EoT.

Equipoise is a very old card but it let's you dictate combat more effectively by controlling what your opponent has to block with. If you have deathtouch tokens then maybe phase out their small utility creatures and make them decide between having their big creature die to a 1/1 deathtouch token or lose monarchy. If you want to be more effective in combat maybe phase out their big guys and let your valuable legends swing in with their keywords giving them the edge in combat. Similarly Duelist's Heritage can give ANY attacking creature an advantage in combat. You can use it as a political tool by offering to give an attacking creature an opponent controls doublestrike as long as it doesn't attack you which further incentivises your opponents to squable among themselves while you sit back and draw all the cards.

You don't have any way of protecting your face by non-vigilance creatures so maybe consider Ghostly Prison , Baird, Steward of Argive , and Windborn Muse to make attacking you more difficult. Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker is also a fantastic rattle snake because each intake of damage makes them lose a permanent.

Your deck also seems like it has very few ways to draw cards outside of the monarch mechanic. Skullclamp , Phyrexian Arena , and Tymna the Weaver can keep your hand full with plenty of answers and creatures.

Icbrgr on Mono-Black Control (Budget$)

5 days ago

I think you could replace some spot removal with some draw via Phyrexian Arena or Sign in Blood / Night's Whisper .

bushido_man96 on meren

6 days ago

I think you need more lands. 33 is a bit low in my opinion. Cryptbreaker doesn't seem very good. Skullclamp should probably go in. The new Moldervine Reclamation would be another good card draw option, and could maybe replace Phyrexian Arena .