Plumb the Forbidden
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Brawl Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Pre-release Legal
Standard Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vintage Legal
Casual Legal
Custom Legal
Quest Magic Legal

Plumb the Forbidden

Instant

As an additional cost to cast this spell, you may sacrifice one or more creatures. When you do, copy this spell for each creature sacrificed this way.

You draw a card and you lose 1 life.

Last_Laugh on Teysa Karlov’s Double D's

56 minutes ago

KibaAlpha - I'd consider Plumb the Forbidden over Phyrexian Arena personally. Arena is great in really casual metas where games go 20+ turns but I personally find it lacking in anything resembling a competitive game.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Chitter Chatter Nut Splatter

3 weeks ago

This looks intense, veeery very cool!

I just finished a Chatterfang EDH list, but I have to admit, a 60-card casual list would've been way cooler (Toski's just that expensive...). Maybe I'll still build that.

In the meantime, Plumb the Forbidden instead of Deadly Dispute would be incredible in here. Besides that, how about Realmwalker?

Still, I love this! Have fun going nuts with it!

Ojallday on Dealing with politics as an …

1 month ago

I have a friend that ran Markov who had a similar problem. Due to the nature of the deck you drop all of your creatures and kill one player. His solution was to transition to a mid-range strategy. Simply put he would cast early game threats to put pressure on other players, but they didn't win him the game or kill a player, so that he could win the game on later turns. Since I don't know how you are losing I'll put forward a few ways players stop Markov decks and how to counter those strategies.

First, are players killing you when all of you creatures are tapped down? Keep some of your creatures back as blockers, this is obvious and the strategy goes against how agro players operate in most formats but is needed in multiplayer environments. Along the same lines are white spells that can untap all of your creatures on other players turns like Battle Cry and Call to Glory leading to fun combat tricks to kill off important creatures and more importantly save your life total.

Second, are players board wiping constantly to knock down your board state? This was the problem my friend had and after two board wipes he would be out of cards in hand with no board state top decking hoping for some sort of Windfall. There are a few ways to counter this which can be focused on individually or can be mixed for similar results. Making it so your creatures don't die is one method featuring spells like Boros Charm and Teferi's Protection. Another is mass reanimation spells like Faith's Reward, Patriarch's Bidding and Living Death. Finally are flexible spells that essentially replace the creatures you lost. Those being Reprocess, Plumb the Forbidden or Village Rites.

Third, playing politics. Like you said there is not much stopping the rest of the table from ganging up on you, you can however influence other players decisions based on how you play and how others at your table play as well. Hold back threats, it's tempting to dump your hand and start swinging but as you mentioned this makes you a huge target. Instead put down a Coat of Arms or another value spell and hold the rest of your mana open for interaction, which leads to my next point interaction. You have some of the best removal spells in the game in your colors like Fracture,Dreadbore, Anguished Unmaking and Swords to Plowshares all of which are great bargaining chips to use as favors for other players, as well as being useful to take care of things causing problems for you. Last of all are less card choices but more how you address the table, having a good pokerface helps a lot with this. At the start of the game address the commanders others are playing and talk to the group about the powerful synergies they employ. Whenever an important combo or synergy price is played by an opponent point it out to the other players and if it's very strong stress it needs to be dealt with, which may incline the other players to use spells on it, reducing what they can use against you and making it so you don't have to deal with the problem. When a Tutor is cast discuss what spell the player could be gettng, this will draw attention to them and away from you. Finally when players address your board shift focus away from it, point out another player with the winning board state or the deck that won the last game. Downplay that you are a threat until you are ready to win the game. Keep in mind you are still an agro deck, so you can always lean into dumping your hand to kill a player fast if the game match up calls for it.

This final section is just general deck construction. Vampire selection: make sure you vampires are doing more that entering the battlefield to create an extra Vampire through eminence. Things like Blood Artist and Viscera Seer give value when opponents interact with the board and thing like Twilight Prophet draws cards. There are also the vampire lords that buff all of your vampires and tokens. Things that have synergy with your strategy are good includes too like Sanguine Bond, Impact Tremors or Goblin Bombardment and go a long way. Finally is "normal" card advantage that doesn't rely on you having vampires out and will shine in the early game as well as add value late game, Greed, Phyrexian Arena and Wheel of Misfortune.

I hope some of my thoughts help you work out a good game plan.

awatts30 on Varina

2 months ago

Thanks, Guerric! There’s a lot to parse here, so I may take it in parts.

Firstly, the extra lands are temporary. My target is 36, but I had 13 extra spells, so I added 7 basics (35% rate) to be able to goldfish effectively. Sometimes I can learn a bit more about the deck and make changes that way. As I pare down spells, I’ll take out lands too. I thought about Crucible of Worlds, but opted against it because it would change my play style, but without tutors or duplicate effects it’s too high-variance.

The Stifle is mostly there to stop graveyard hate, which tends to be one-off abilities (Bojuka Bog, Scavenger Grounds, Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus) and which could really mess up my plans. That’s a good point on Dovin's Veto; maybe I’ll swap it for a Negate.

I really like Reconnaissance because it not only allows me to attack into unfavorable board states but also gives pseudo-vigilance, allowing me to commit all my zombies without worrying about the crack back. Anything to maximize those Varina triggers! Flawless Maneuver might need to come out, though.

I’ve used Plumb the Forbidden to great effect in my Mazirek deck. Since it’s instant speed, it’s really good at turning creatures that would die to unfavorable combat or a board wipe into card advantage, and since it’s 2 CMC I can always just put the mana into Varina if I don’t wind up needing it. I had Kindred Discovery in there originally, but in a deck that’s both ETBing and swinging this much it seemed like overkill (plus it’s crazy expensive). A lot of my perspective on card draw may need to change, too. Like I said, I’m not used to using my graveyard, and while Varina let’s me look at a lot, I’m still uncomfortable throwing cards away. After all, they’re all in there because I want to cast them! I need to get better at choosing what to pitch (which is kind of the whole point of making this deck), but corollary to that is figuring out how much draw-to-hand I need and how much I can lean on my ‘yard.

A lot of the deck techs I’ve looked at leaned into Varina’s activated ability. I didn’t much like that because (1) it makes her into a glorified token factory, (2) I want to push myself to use the cards in my graveyard, and (3) why would I want to spend 2 mana and two cards for a vanilla zombie when I can spend 2 mana and one card for a Corpse Knight, a Wayward Servant, or 3 mana for a Diregraf Captain. In the little bit of goldfishing I’ve done, though, she’s dumping cards so fast that exiling two of them isn’t even a problem. I had originally taken Tormod, the Desecrator out, but wound up putting him back in because of the number of cards I was exiling. I’d like to bring it back toward a reanimator strategy, and I think Syr Konrad, the Grim would be a good payoff for that.

You have a ton of good suggestions, including Crashing Drawbridge, Dusk / Dawn, Necromancy et al. (I knew there were others, I just couldn’t remember them!), Living Death/Rise of the Dark Realms, Haunting Voyage/Patriarch's Bidding, and the talismans, but I still need to cut 13 spells to even get down to 100 cards, and then more to make room for any of them. This is my problem!

Guerric on Varina

2 months ago

I think I can help with this deck! I've built a lot of tribal decks and have pondered building Varina myself. I like to help thoroughly, so I am going to give a bit of feedback, and might separate the posts out for convenience. I'll also upvote it and draw some others to this page to provide feedback as well!

To begin with, I commend the choice of avoiding infinite combos. Though Varina has a few, she can be plenty powerful without them and while I play a lot of combo decks myself, it gets boring sometimes. I guess we'll start with cards to cut, and then we'll get to direction and cards to add! To begin with, the first thing to cut is lands. 43 is way too many for any deck that isn't a landfall deck. I realize that you are playing Field of the Dead and that lands help it, but you won't see that card every dame due to no tutors, and its potential is limited without access to green. Playing Field is fine, and you may even want to play Crucible of Worlds so you can just discard your lands and play them from your graveyard and for synergy with Field, but don't get too excited about it. 37 is the golden mean for most decks in EDH, and with an engine commander like Varina I'd play 35 personally, though 36 could be a compromise. I also don't think you need Flawless Maneuver. When your zombies die you can just bring them back! I don't think you need Reconnaissance either. Your Zombies are fodder for the horde, and you can just bring them back. Just don't attack with Varina and you have nothing you need to worry about protecting. Lazotep Plating is fine, but you'll mostly use it to protect Varina, so I'd think of it as a protection spell. Void Rend's mana cost is prohibitively highly (3 colors is too much). I'd just play Generous Gift instead. Smothering Tithe is a great card that I play in three of my decks, but I wouldn't play it in Varina. Its a slow grindy card more suitable to control and combo decks, and you'd rather be casting Varina on turn 3 and Zombies or Zombie spells every turn after. I'm not sure if cEDH is what you usually play, but cards like Stifle and Songs of the Damned are often a bit one off and limited for standard EDH. The latter could maybe be fine for flavor, but I'd definitely cut the prior. If you want a more flexible spell play Disallow which will be a lot more flexible. Nykthos Paragon is a neat idea because it does something with your life gain, but it is pretty high costed at six and isn't a Zombie, so I might not play it, but it will bring slow value if it isn't killed.

I'd also cut down on your card draw pieces. I never say this, but with Varina you'll see lots of cards, and can play a lot from discard or the graveyard, so I'd focus on the highest impact one and cut some of the bad ones like Plumb the Forbidden. Cards like this have limitations because you have to sac them (versus letting them die in combat), and you won't always want to do that. The best ones are the high impact ones like Teferi's Ageless Insight and Alhammarret's Archive. I'd also cut Bontu's Monument. The ramp isn't very good and the aristocratic effect isn't as good as you think its going to be.

Now for what's great here- all of your Zombies. Seriously, it's a great list, all of them! You also really want to play a few cards from your maybe board too. Syr Konrad, the Grim is a must play. Seriously, it'll be the best card in the deck bard none. It's not an infinite combo, but he's amazing with recursion cards, board wipes, and death (more on that below). You also need to play Haunting Voyage and Patriarch's Bidding. They are in your maybe board and are must plays!

Strangelove on Shirei token

2 months ago

Hey Lucas_honorio_ !

Shirei was also my first commander deck. Its a really fun commander. Although she's a glass cannon, looping 1/1s is still my favorite. Here's my last budget build: Shirei/ Budget; and another that has a bunch of cards: Shirei/ Soft Stax [EDH].

You already have a lot of fun interactions, but you're gonna want consistency. I would play more draw and ramp, try to play almost exclusively low cmc, and only keep the best effects that are focused on your strategy. So -1 Open the Graves, -1 Genesis Chamber, etc... (you don't need tokens as much as you need sacrifice outlets and draw).

You want all your draw and ramp BEFORE Shirei hits the board. It'll help smooth the early game. Look for cards like Village Rites, Deadly Dispute, Plumb the Forbidden... pure gas to set up your wincon (Shirei).

My top includes are Sultai Emissary, Skullport Merchant, Fume Spitter, Mindless Automaton, Thoughtpicker Witch, Dusk Legion Zealot, and Carrion Feeder.

Pro tip: Expect to play some archenemy. This is a deck that's "taking turns" on everyone's end step and is very easy to disrupt by forcing out Shirei.

btw you can list shirei as your commander like so:

1x Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker *CMDR*

Last_Laugh on Isshin, Two Triggers as One EDH

2 months ago

Hanweir Garrison  Meld and Hanweir Battlements  Meld are worth running. I see Hellrider in your maybeboard but it deserves a spot in the deck (probably in Inferno Titans place tbh). I'd also work on weeding out underperformers and getting in your Orzhov Signet and your 3 talismans. Fireflux Squad is nuts here and just exiles 2 tokens to vomit 2 actual creatures from your deck into play for free. Ogre Battledriver costs 1 more than fervor but the buff it applies buffs all your enters tapped and attacking tokens which adds up fast. Plumb the Forbidden is an excellent draw card here.

Anyways, most of these suggestions are either in my deck or in my maybeboard so feel free to check out my list for ideas. Upvotes on any of my decks are appreciated. Isshin - Army of Darkness

Crow-Umbra on Isshin: Mardu for Dummies

2 months ago

No worries! I'm glad you liked my first couple suggestions ACapo18.

I've played my Isshin deck about 5-7 times IRL with some more games on the horizon for this weekend. I think I swapped out Cunning Rhetoric after my first couple of games. In my experiences, it wasn't much of a deterrent, and the cards it exiled weren't particularly useful.

I love Prosper, Tome-Bound; he's one of my recent favorite commanders. I understand how he can be a card advantage engine, but I think him and the other Impulse draw sub-theme is kind of disjointed with the aggro, go-wide stuff that Isshin wants to do. If you needed to, you can likely keep Prosper and Laelia, but Bell Borca, Spectral Sergeant feels kind of out of place compared to the other 2. If you like Impulse draw, have you looked at Florian, Voldaren Scion? He can dig down and pseudo-tutor depending on how much damage you're throwing around each combat.

I can see what you're going for with the creatures that care about Modified status, but I don't think they synergize enough, or have enough support with the rest of your deck to keep included. I personally like Breena, the Demagogue the most (I run her in my own list), but I don't think you're running enough Modified enablers to keep some of the others. That's ultimately your call depending on which ones you like most.

Mirror Box also feels kind of out of place as an anthem effect, since it only helps your Legends. The only other card in your 99 that this really benefits is Rionya, Fire Dancer

Underworld Sentinel also seems really slow for the payoff that it can potentially achieve.

I think if you cut any of those cards, you could likely include a bit more: token productions damage anthems, draw, and board protection. Here are some cards I've played with in my list that I like:

Hopefully these additional suggestions are helpful. Would be happy to keep exchanging ideas if you would like. I have an Isshin primer write-up on my profile where I discuss some card options, in case that's of any interest to you. I've generally found that keeping Isshin's mana curve fairly low allows him to rebuild pretty quickly after waves of removal.

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