Phyrexian Arena
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena 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
Freeform Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Pre-release Legal
PreDH Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Standard Legal
Standard Brawl Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Phyrexian Arena

Enchantment

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

clayperce on The Black Deck

1 week ago

ALostWanderer -
Saw your help tag so thought I'd reach out. As a disclaimer though: I've never played Tergrid (vs or myself) and I'm still working on my first Bracket 4 deck myself. So please take all this as "brainstorming", not as "recommendations" ! :-D

FIRST THOUGHTS: MANA BASE AND MANA CURVE

  • I love Salubrious Snail's manabase tool for analysing my lands, mana rocks, and rituals as I tweak a deck. If we plug your decklist in, it reports "your manabase is struggling, playing your spells 0.99 turns late on average" (with Tergid over 1.3 turns late). For Bracket 4, you'll probably want to aim for something like "... strong playing your spells [~0.2] turns late on average."
  • As you tweak the deck, I rec' taking an especially hard look at your 5-drops (which compete directly with Tergrid) and your 7-drops (which compete directly with her re-cast).

MORE B4 STAPLES? Some options to help find the cards we need and play them quickly …

MORE DISCARD EFFECTS, MAYBE?

MORE PROTECTION, MAYBE? If you find yourself needing just a touch more protection for your Bracket 4 meta: Cavern of Souls, Imp's Mischief, and oc Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots.

MORE COMBO PIECES, MAYBE?

  • As far as I can tell, you only have 2x combos in the deck (any lifegain effect + Exquisite Blood + either Sanguine Bond or Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose) ... increasing the combo potential (and Tutor effects, to find the pieces) is definitely solid approach to make the deck more competitive in Bracket 4.
  • The Find my Combos page over at Commander Spellbook is a great tool, if you want to lean into combos more.

MORE STAX EFFECTS, MAYBE?

  • It’s hard to go wrong with the namesake card (Smokestack) in a Stax deck :-)
  • If you wanted to lean into Mass Land Denial a little more, I like both Contamination and Desolation.

A FEW FINAL THOUGHTS:

  • You might consider adding Feed the Swarm and/or Withering Torment ... they're IMO the best tools we have to deal with enchantments in Mono-B.
  • Braids, Arisen Nightmare maybe? I play Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER and she's amazing there ... I don’t get that many sacs from her (so she may not be as good in your deck), but her card draw is always superb.
  • I'm a fan of Malakir Rebirth, as protection when I need it and a Land when I don't.
  • I don't see anything that benefits from Reliquary Tower ... it would honestly be my first drop.
  • It's a totally small thing, but if you don't already have very distinct deck sleeves, you might consider getting some ... the last time I played vs a steal-your-things Commander everyone at the table had blue matte sleeves, and sorting out the cards afterwards was a bit of a pain :-D

Anyways, I really hope something in there ^^ proves useful, and I’m very sorry for the spam if it doesn't!

Good luck (and good skill) with the deck!
Cheers!

hyalopterouslemur on Which Mono-Color is the Most …

1 month ago

has the best card draw, and as a consequence of early Magic's design philosophy (Basically, every color could do anything but some colors would suck at it; the exception is blue, which could even be demonstrably better at it than the color that's supposed to be best at that thing, e.g. Prodigal Sorcerer existing.) you can find a good card to do just about anything you want.

has all the mana accel. People are surprised by mana dorks being so powerful, but do you doubt Bloom Tender or Devoted Druid or Kami of Whispered Hopes? In addition, green card draw can sometimes be even better than blue; I've drawn ten cards (and gained 12 life) off Shamanic Revelation before. (Which, I suppose I could do with Distant Melody, minus the lifegain.) Green also has the best recursion, and, yeah, green can tutor creatures; Birthing Pod, Chord of Calling and Green Sun's Zenith all exist.

is next. It has the best tutors, including the only universal tutors in the game. (Yes, I know about Prototype Portal. Does anyone use Prototype Portal?) It has some good boardwipes, unlike green and blue. (Just put a Sword of Light and Shadow on one of your creatures and then activate Pestilence over and over.) While black's card draw leaves something to be desired—I still play Phyrexian Arena in Stax decks and practically nowhere else—the ability of black to pay life in exchange for things is at double strength in a 40-life format.

is fourth. Basically, the only thing white has going for it is boardwipes, though experimenting with white card draw is nice; just remember, "once per turn" applies to your turns as well.

is, to be candid, red doesn't really impress me at all. It has some boardwipes. some spot removal, but even when I'm playing multiple colors, it feels like I'm including red only because my Commander is red, and I want to justify having enough mountains to reliably cast from command zone.

Asder on Kaervek, the Enchantress

1 month ago

I'm not sure how many of these are pet cards that you wanna play no matter what, but if you're taking suggestions, there's quite a few staples you could be playing over stuff like Raiding Party. Phyrexian Arena and Black Market Connections are the first that come to mind, but you could totally to some boardwipes in the form of The Meathook Massacre and Spiteful Banditry. Curse of Opulence is always a fun way to get some politics started. Painful Quandary is a card I always consider running when im in black.

I'm just going to quick fire some more: Blood Moon No Mercy Sunbird's Invocation Powerbalance Unholy Annex / Ritual Chamber Polluted Bonds Oubliette Grave Betrayal Possibility Storm Necrodominance Burning Earth Hopeless Nightmare Case of the Stashed Skeleton Smoke

Sorry if thats too much lol

Crow_Umbra on greyninja

2 months ago

Your (wife's) list is solid greyninja. I've checked it out a few times before, and upvoted it sometime in the past year or so. How do you feel about Phyrexian Arena and Twilight Prophet? They're not bad by any means, but cards I've personally moved away from.

Only other thing I can think of is maybe swapping out Ravenous Chupacabra for another instant piece of removal, especially since the Chupacabra has equal P/T and doesn't really fit that aspect of the theme either.

hyalopterouslemur on Competitive card Draw in Mono …

2 months ago

Necropotence probably costs too much (It's around $20.), but if you have one, play it. As long as you're drawing at least 2 cards per turn (and a rat deck should be playing at least that many cards per turn), you're getting an advantage. (That said, I don't typically play Necro on turn 3. I typically play it later.)

Skullclamp is another obvious recommendation for typal decks. You're essentially sacrificing a creature to draw two cards.

Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood, Read the Bones...those are some of my favorite "draw X cards". You can throw in Damnable Pact for big plays. I also like Stinging Study, but it's kind of expensive.

Erebos, God of the Dead (a bit expensive) or Greed is useful as well.

Now, a word about Phyrexian Arena: I'm not sure you want it in an aggro strategy. It's great for controlling strategies, especially Stax (decks which essentially make it impossible for most decks to do anything and then do a point or two of damage every turn) and landfall, but aggro? It's still good, but not insanely overpowered. There's also Dark Confidant, which is Phyrexian Arena #2.

capwner on Competitive card Draw in Mono …

2 months ago

Phyrexian Arena and Greed are classic card draw, Insatiable Avarice is decent and I am a big fan of Increasing Ambition though it is a little slower. Peer into the Abyss also slower but basically ad naus #2...these effects are typically paired with a lot of fast mana like Chrome Mox Lotus Petal Mox Opal etc. which are cheap and explosive after casting Ad Nauseam <-- this card usually takes some build around. IDK if that's better here vs. Skullclamp which provides repeatable card draw for cheap. If you have a lot of life loss effects, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is a good hedge which fits your beatdown strat and hates on opposing card draw. Maybe also Phyrexian Altar and Ashnod's Altar to juice those rat tokens.

pookypuppy6 on Overrated cards?

2 months ago

As someone who plays both Phyrexian Arena and Underworld Connections in his Mogis, God of Slaughter deck (and admittedly a lot of my decks are pretty out-of-date), I definitely come from the angle of "why not both?". I agree it's worse than Arena, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as an alternative in most decks unless budget is an issue. But exchanging 1 life and 1 mana for 1 card on any of your turns is still powerful, so I see it as a second Arena (in a deck that focuses on control and consistently blowing stuff up).

hyalopterouslemur on Overrated cards?

2 months ago

So I've been thinking a lot about overrated cards. Not bad cards, just...overrated.

An example I can think of is Underworld Connections. People recommend it as an alternative to Phyrexian Arena, but it costs a mana every turn you use it (tapping a land = paying a mana for all intents and purposes). While there are ways to use it more than once, I've never seen it played with Earthcraft or Seedborn Muse or some other land untap card. It's not the worst Arena variant. (That would be Pain Seer.) It's not even bad. But it just doesn't seem that good in a format that also has Arena. (And yes, I acknowledge Arena's flaws, and think it should mostly be limited to Stax and other slow, controlling decks. Thing is, Underworld Connections has all the same flaws and costs you mana to use.) Is it just for people who are worried about paying life?

Any other cards that always seemed overrated to you guys?

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