Phyrexian Arena

Enchantment

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

Discussion (51)

DemMeowsephs on Karlov life gain

2 hours ago

Howdy there! You might like some of these land suggestions. They could make your deck smoother.

• Ancient Tomb
• Prismatic Vista
• Concealed Courtyard
• Isolated Chapel
• Mana Confluence
• City of Brass
• Wasteland or Strip Mine
• Exotic Orchard
• Reflecting Pool
• Gemstone Mine
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth + Cabal Coffers
• Tarnished Citadel
• Vesuva

• Gemstone Caverns

• I would also recommend Arcane Signet, Jet Medallion, Pearl Medallion, Land Tax, Lotus Petal, and Smothering Tithe for ramp.

• Dark Confidant, Phyrexian Arena, and Necropotence are all fun too.

These are all cards that can make your deck run smoother! Necropotence is amazing with lifegain as well. If these help, be sure to check out and give feedback on some of my decks! (Double Trouble EDH, A Deal With the Devil EDH, etc!). Anyways though, I hope these help, good luck on your deck, and have a great day! Happy tapping!

azja on Gisa and Geralf Zombies

1 day ago

Creatures:

• cut Doomed Dissenter since it can't be recast with your commander, and there are plenty of 2/2 zombies for 2 which can
• cut Festering Mummy because in commander, most creatures will not die with a couple of -1/-1 counters. Consider keeping it if your opponents play lots of mana dorks such as Llanowar Elves
• cut Ghoulraiser, your commander casts a zombie of your choice from the graveyard anyway
• cut Liliana's Steward, targeted discard is bad in commander. You and the targeted opponent lose a card, but your other two opponents don't.

My suggestions for possible replacements are Cemetery Reaper, Cryptbreaker, Rot Hulk, Sidisi, Undead Vizier and Undead Warchief.

Sorceries:

• cut Increasing Ambition, it simply costs too much mana for the effect in my opinion
• cut Sealed Fate, it's pretty bad unless your opponent just used a Worldly Tutor or something
• cut Shamble Back, you don't want to exile your own creatures, and it's a pretty poor form of graveyard hate.

Suggestions: Demonic Tutor or the budget replacement Diabolic Tutor, Windfall, Night's Whisper, Reanimate and Buried Alive

Instants:

• cut Remove Soul, if you're paying 2 mana for a counterspell, you want it to hit more than just creatures
• cut Spell Snuff, 3 mana counterspells are too expensive
• cut Vile Rebirth for the same reason as Shamble Back

Suggestions: Cyclonic Rift, Entomb, Swan Song, Pull from Tomorrow

Artifacts:

• cut Manalith and Nyx Lotus. When you're in 2 colours, you generally don't want to pay more than 2 mana to ramp. Plus if you ramp on turn 2, you'll have 4 mana on turn 3, allowing you to cast your commander early

Suggestions: I think you're a bit low on ramp, most commander decks want 8-10 ramp pieces. Try Arcane Signet, Dimir Signet, Talisman of Dominance, Fellwar Stone, or Mind Stone.

Enchantments:

• cut Telepathy, it's not worth using a card to see your opponents hand unless you're playing something specific like maybe Sen Triplets.

Suggestions: Animate Dead, Phyrexian Arena, Rhystic Study

Lands:

• For semi-budget 2-colour deck, your mana base looks pretty good. I would just cut Skyline Cascade, having it come in tapped isn't worth it for it's effect in commander. You can probably just play a basic island in its place.

If you want to upgrade your mana base, avoid lands that come in tapped like Dimir Guildgate. A few suggestions would be Command Tower, Choked Estuary, Darkwater Catacombs, Drowned Catacomb, Tainted Isle, Underground River, Watery Grave.

I hope that was helpful! Here's a link to my The Scarab God commander deck which has a pretty similar zombie tribal theme to what you have. Take a look through it and maybe you'll find more cards that I forgot to mention. If you have any questions don't be afraid to ask!

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/27-08-19-scarab-god-edh/?cb=1597359288

Sultai_Sir on Marchesa, The Black Rose - Primer

1 day ago

Hey man, I love the deck! Just one question: Why no Dusk Legion Zealot? It's an MVP in my Marchesa deck, sort of like a Phyrexian Arena for one less mana with a sac outlet.

Omniscience_is_life on Lemures Citadel

2 days ago

Looks like a very powerful deck. My only recommendations are as follows:

Remove: (let me know if your meta makes any of these cards better than they might usually be, btw)

Mana Tithe. This card will too often be dead in your hand, as a 1 mana tax is, at most points in the game, equivalent to nothing.

Disenchant/Seal of Cleansing. There are just more powerful versions of this card(s?), it's just too narrow for 2 CMC

Fragmentize. Um... sorcery speed? No, thank you

Serra Ascendant. As far as I can tell, this card has very little synergy with the strategy of the deck, I know you want to be gaining life but this card doesn't care as long as you're just barely staying around your starting life total. Don't get me wrong: Serra Ascendant is busted in the format, but a more synergistic piece would be better in its place.

Add:

Phyrexian Arena. Great repeatable card draw, and works great in decks that A. don't care about a little life loss, and B. want the game to go longer anyway.

Slaughter Pact. Awesome spot removal, can get you out of sticky situation where you want to cast spells, but also hold up answers.

Dismantling Wave. Works best in our 4-player format, kind of a lot of value in one card. Nice to be able to "overload" it, too.

Teferi's Protection. Great for keeping your combos pieces safe if someone tries to wrath or something, also can just keep you from dying to direct damage and the like ;)

O-stone/Nev's Disc. Great way to be efficient with mana, you can play 'em out on a turn that you don't have any other actions on, and then crack them with the situation gets tight.

Abolish. Similar theory to Slaughter Pact.

hope this helps, good luck with the deck! (also, definitely tell me if I missed any key interactions or anything like that. Thanks)

Scallywallwest on Drain 'N' Gain

2 days ago

Hello! Since you'll be draining people with this deck, I'm sure you'll be able to lose a few life for certain things, right? I think you should consider Phyrexian Arena for card draw. I know it's sometimes not the best in situations, but if you just want a quick boost, you could toss in Read the Bones or Ambition's Cost. In my opinion, I think you might want to playtest without Ayara, First of Locthwain. She's quite heavy on mana, costing to play, meaning you won't always be able to cast her on turn three.

Serra Ascendant is quite powerful in commander, and is useful late-game, too. In looking over your list, I notice that you don't seem to have the most targeted removal. A great removal spell in Orzhov is Vindicate, which is a good price to pay for destroying any permanent. You could also put in an Anguished Unmaking. I notice that you do have things to make your opponents sacrifice creatures, but you don't seem to have many wraths. You'll probably need this most against token decks, but having a wrath on hand while your opponents are jumping ahead is usually a good thing for you.

By looking at your curve, I'd say you could take out at least 3 lands and replace them with mana rocks. If you're planning to lower the 5-mana spells, add in cheaper spells, etc., you could easily lower the land count to 35 or such.

Otherwise, your deck looks really good! I'm personally a big fan of lifegain, and I'll admit, I do try to sneak it in to many decks that...let's just say...don't really need it. :b Take my opinions with a grain of salt if you feel you need to, but I do hope that at least one suggestion was useful to you! Farewell, and good luck with the deck!

DeinoStinkus on Hawk Red/Black Tribal Dragon Deck

6 days ago

Minions' Murmurs, Dark Confidant, Phyrexian Arena, Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Vile Offering

EleshNornsFs on Hatred vs. Howl From Beyond

1 week ago

That brings me to yet another question (sorry, I have many.) Dark Confidant versus Phyrexian Arena. In cEDH, it makes sense because it is a lot faster, but outside of that, it doesn't seem as good. You trade one black mana for the vulnerability of being a creature and the potential for quite a bit more damage (again, not as relevant in cEDH due to lower costs). The only downside I see on the arena is the word "draw," which is only problematic against Nekusar, the Mindrazer decks.

(Moment of Self-Awareness: Dear God I probably sound like a noob timmy.)

zAzen7977 on Harrison's Life Spend Deck

1 week ago

Hey keizerbuns, I like your deck! I’m not sure if you are on a budget, but I have a few suggestions you may like:

I would move the Surgical Extraction to the sideboard and drop the Cathedral Membrane and Phyrexian Arenas. In their place I would run 4 Street Wraith for “free” drawing and include 4 Thoughtseize to preemptively remove threats.

I would also include at least 2 Bitterblossom on the sideboard to boost your defensive capabilities against decks with flyers. I don’t see any creature removal in the 75. You may want to make room for a few Dismember too.