Ponder

Sorcery

Look at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order. You may shuffle your library.

Draw a card.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

scotchtapedsleeves on EDH: Saheeli's Mana Rocks You

1 day ago

Coming from the Advertise your Deck forum.

I like the ideas you've thrown in with for the upgraded precon, but your mana base could use some work. I'd cut lands down to 35-36 and replace a few of your slower rocks (eg. Magnifying Glass, Unstable Obelisk) with an Izzet Signet, Darksteel Ingot or Honor-Worn Shaku. Remember, you're not just playing colourless spells!

Additionally, your mana curve is a bit out of wack. Throwing expensive cards in your deck looks fun, but it won't play well unless you have consistent ramp. Spine of Ish Sah doesn't seem to be doing much unless you have a combo in mind. I don't love Planar Bridge. Myr Battlesphere doesn't have much use unless you add more Myrs (speaking of, Palladium Myr, Silver Myr, Alloy Myr).

You don't have much card draw, I'd add Brainstorm, Fabricate, and Ponder.

I'm also not a huge fan of the 4 planeswalkers, those slots could probably be better used with more artifact generation or counterspells.

Hope this helped!

Dencoan on Spirit Squad building

3 weeks ago

For Draw:

Cut:

• Occult Epiphany
• Spectral Sailor if kept not good source of card draw

Add:

• Mystic Remora
• Rhystic Study
• Archmage's Charm fills multiple possible needs in one card
• Esper Sentinel
• Ponder
• Brainstorm or maybe Windfall

sylvannos on Hoax Storm v2

3 weeks ago

To start with, there's a few cards that have better Vintage equivalents. Overmaster and Spell Pierce should be the 3rd. and 4th. copies of Force of Will. Leftover space from cutting those can be Red Elemental Blast, Pyroblast, or Flusterstorm. You don't need Faithless Looting because we have Paradoxical Outcome, Sensei's Divining Top, Gush, Dig Through Time, Treasure Cruise, and Brainstorm to choose from. Merchant Scroll also belongs in here, because you can use it to grab Ancestral Recall at the very least. Usually you want it to make sure you have protection in hand by grabbing countermagic.

Library of Alexandria isn't good in this deck. And you're not the type that needs 8x {UR} sources, so Steam Vents can go, along with a few copies of Volcanic Island (1 or 2). Replace all of these with four copies of Scalding Tarn and basic lands. Or even just play 6x fetches. You need to be able to shuffle after using Brainstorm, Ponder,and Sensei's Divining Top.

From here, you have a solid U/R Storm shell. However, I wouldn't play straight "Modern U/R Storm, but Power 9" dot dec. 2 mana is a lot for Goblin Electromancer, there are easier ways of winning than Grapeshot, and so on. The question then becomes "Where to go from here?"

• Paradoxical Outcome is just the nuts. By bouncing moxen and cheap artifacts, it's a ritual (since you can replay everything for {0}, untapping it all) and it's a draw spell. However, Paradoxical Outcome requires Mox Opals, Lotus Petal, Lion's Eye Diamond, etc. so you'll have to cut rituals (likely Seething Song). The upside is you get an extremely powerful engine that can often end the game with a single Paradoxical Outcome.
• Thassa's Oracle is the new hotness for Vintage combo cards. You can win the game by casting Brain Freeze on yourself, then casting Thassa's Oracle. It also opens up more combos using Demonic Consultation and Doomsday. Sometimes you've just drawn a bunch of cards and have ~3 cards left in your deck.
• Tinker is too good in Storm not to play it. You're either getting Memory Jar, Bolas's Citadel, Time Vault (Voltaic Key is already good in Storm when combined with Mana Vault and friends), or a random wincon like Sphinx of the Steel Wind boarded in for game 2. Bolas's Citadel will essentially flip the top half of your deck into play.
• You can also play draw 7s (Wheel of Fortune, Timetwister, Memory Jar, Diminishing Returns) in combination with Narset, Parter of Veils and Hullbreacher.
• Mana Drain is good, but you may find it too slow if you make any of the above changes. It definitely does more work in a more control-oriented Storm deck with Narset, Parter of Veils, Dack Fayden, Grim Tutor, etc.
• Lastly, there's the question of Underworld Breach, Yawgmoth's Will, Monastery Mentor, or some combination of these. Underworld Breach will mean you can stay in two colors. Playing black for Yawgmoth's Will allows you to play Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Yawgmoth's Bargain, Necropotence, Doomsday, Tendrils of Agony, and hardcasting Bolas's Citadel. Monastery Mentor both scales up and goes sideways. A single token is enough to kill someone combined with Paradoxical Outcome or a draw 7. Monastery Mentor is like casting Tarmogoyf and Empty the Warrens for three mana and one card.

Hope this helps! Welcome to MtG's oldest and greatest format.

NV_1980 on Be'lakor tribal demon deck

2 months ago

This looks nice but I think you could add some more (cheap-to-cast) draw-resources to increase the speed of your deck somewhat. I would consider Ponder, Preordain, Mystic Remora, Faithless Looting, Night's Whisper, Sign in Blood, Read the Bones. Please note that aside from Chaos Warp, the deck has nothing to deal with opposing enchantments. Therefore I'd really consider adding Feed the Swarm. Maybe also a Blast Zone and/or Nevinyrral's Disk, just in case.

wallisface on Question about cards that utilize …

3 months ago

The strongest card with this effect is probably the one dominating Standard at the moment - Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

However, assuming you're trying to make tweaks to this deck of yours, you have much bigger issues to worry about:

• Ponder is banned in Modern, you can't run that card.

• You're running 79 cards, which is waaay over the 60 card limit, and will lead your deck to being very inconsistent and clumsy.

• Dialing your currently landbase to 60 cards, you're only running the equivalent of 18 lands, which is WAAAY too low considering your mana curve. Burn decks run 19 lands and only play spells costing 1-2 mana. Your deck looks like it needs to be able to reliably hit 3-4 lands to be able to do much of anything. imo you need to be running at least 23-24 lands in a 60-card deck (that's 30-32 lands in a 79 card deck).

• You're running some really suboptimal spells here. In modern you never want to be spending more than 2 mana for a counterspell - Essence Backlash and Ionize are both severely underwhelming (control decks never win by dealing 2 damage. They will however often lose by not being able to counter an important spell in the first few turns of the game). There are also a ton of much better drawspells than Deliberate (like Serum Visions or Consider)

• Your deck has no clear direction. Cards like Basri Ket and The Wanderer are both really weak and have no real purpose here. It's very hard to tell what this deck is actually trying to achieve, and that is going to make it play really awkwardly and make it harder for you to secure wins.

• Harmonic Prodigy and Spellweaver Eternal both want to be in aggressive, pro-active decks, but that's not what they've been allowed, as the rest of the deck looks like it wants to be playing super defensively. However, if you're aiming to be playing something more controlley, you're running waaay too many creatures, and waaay too little interaction.

legendofa on Balefire Sorcery

3 months ago

This is a solid start to a deck. I do have some concerns about the land count; I don't think twenty lands are going to be enough to support the 5+ mana value cards. Gisela, Blade of Goldnight in particular will be hard to get out.

Do you intend to use this deck in love tournaments, or is it for more casual play? If you're going to use it competitively, I highly recommend dropping those high-mana cards and adding more lands, making it faster and more consistent.

As a final note, Ponder actually isn't Modern-legal, so that will have to be switched out to bring it in line with the Modern format.

DreadKhan on unthinkable apocalypse

3 months ago

I'm not certain the Commander has enough explosive power to consistently win vs 2 decks, but I have very good results in 1 v 1 with my Rakdos deck, and it often has spare cards by the end of the game, be it wipe or removal, because the deck just runs so much of those, with lots of the removal hitting more than 1 target (I love stuff like Phyrexian Purge, Fire Covenant, Make an Example, and Volcanic Offering can each be a terror of a card, and a deck running all of them has lots of pinpoint removal that will clear lots of stuff out. Ashes to Ashes and Reckless Spite also exist fwiw, and if you aren't certain you'll have creatures out, Tergrid's Shadow can do a bit of work, as can Plaguecrafter or Demon's Disciple, cards Sedris can recur for 2B even. Another value card is Dredge the Mire, which can cheat in the 3 worst creatures in people's graveyards, note certain creatures will kill you if you control them, so check before playing! Necromantic Selection not only clears the field, it also gives you back the best thing, this is extra juicy if you use some sort of Indestructible creature(s) that won't die. If you consistently have a fairly big creature, or one with Deathtouch and Lifelink, Chandra's Ignition is one sided by definition, one of many cards that shines brightly with Basilisk Collar (which is also very good with Jaya Ballard, Task Mage or even good old Banshee, Jaya's 6 damage wipe really is amazing if you've got Collar on her, though it'll kill her too). If you expect to have multiple opponents, Goad is a very strong effect, Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant is potentially pretty solid, lots of card draw. There is also Kardur, Doomscourge that will force everyone's hand. Spectacular Showdown is a great card if you've actually got a board of your own to finish people off, keep in mind that on your next turn, you not only won't have been attacked by any pre-existing creature, everyone else will have swung for the fences with Double Strike, and they will likely have nothing left to defend with, making your Double Strikers very effective. Another Goad source that is great with a creature heavy board is Agitator Ant, which is hilarious a lot of the time. If you're using Goad effects, War Tax can let an opponent have a way around them, if there is a tax to attack Goad fails, and War Cadence is absolutely devastating with Goad, even a tax of 1 to block can make blocking impossible for weenie decks, and you can use either on anyone's turn.

As you've got access to Blue, there are a few non-Rakdos tricks you can use, the most hilarious I know of is Mass Diminish, note that it lasts until your next turn and have a good laugh. There is also Sudden Spoiling, which is powerful but lasts for that turn, or Polymorphist's Jest, which is similarly a 1 turn solution. I use Mass Diminish more aggressively, to make a player hyper-vulnerable to attackers (and make them unable to counter attack), getting two casts is just savage. Visions of Duplicity can create some chaos with it's two casts, Cultural Exchange is obscene if someone else has better creatures. Bident of Thassa is glorious if you want both of it's effects, forcing people to attack is incredibly mean, and this doesn't require you to run a weenie like Goblin Diplomats, but that's also a fun card fwiw. If you're going to run Oriq Loremage, you might slip in a huge creature to Unearth, something like Dragon Tyrant can be huge and not break the bank, Double Strike and Firebreathing are really good together, and you won't have to pay the upkeep with Unearth, he's dead before that matters.

I was looking at your land count and average Mana Value and I think you probably are running too few lands at this point, it's very tempting to cut them, but 30 is probably too few for a MV that is over 2.5. You might get away with adding 2 mana ramp, but I'd still aim for at least 36 lands (or MDFCs that count as a land, you probably already have the best two MDFCs in those colours, but people also run Malakir Rebirth  ^Flip) to ensure you can consistently cast stuff. There is a smattering of ways you can run less lands/ramp, but these all come with downsides, but in Grixis you can run 4 solid Bounce Lands, Dimir Aqueduct and Guildless Commons should be in here as well if you want a lower land count, these let you hit another land drop when you draw them. You might also run stuff like Thran Dynamo or Worn Powerstone to help you hit higher MVs sooner, ramping by only 1 mana feels bad compared to hitting a land drop most of the time, there is also Gilded Lotus, but hitting 5 mana can be rough. Coalition Relic can charge for 1 turn, Skyclave Relic is super versatile/rugged, and Everflowing Chalice can be huge if you want, 6-10 mana is absurd but sometimes comes up. Cantrips like Ponder and Preordain are also good at digging for a land, but I know in Talrand it stings pretty bad when you Preordain and don't find a land and I needed one. As for some cards to remove, I'll take a look, but if I'm trying to build a deck that can handle attention, I look first at cards that will hurt only 1 player, unless that card will almost certainly end that player, either right away or in a few turns.

A few to consider removing (I may be missing why you have them in, so user discretion is advised or something): Archive Trap, Outpost Siege, Palace Siege, Ponder, Preordain, Haunting Echoes, Cruel Ultimatum (this seems insanely hard to cast, and hits only 1 player, unless you can copy it I'd run Captive Audience if I want to hose one player hard), Cranial Extraction, Cormela, Glamour Thief, Kess, Dissident Mage, Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger, Lobber Crew, Loyal Subordinate, Nekusar, the Mindrazer, Obeka, Brute Chronologist, Phenax, God of Deception, Runo Stromkirk  ^Flip, Spear Spewer, and Thermo-Alchemist.Some maybe cards include Angrath, Captain of Chaos, and Cryptolith Fragment  ^Flip (for another land, maybe a better rock, there is Thought Vessel, but fixing is sweet in Grixis).

Hope some of this is helpful!

wallisface on My zombie tribal deck

4 months ago

Dead_Blue_has already provided a great list of killspells. Fatal Push is usually the default go-to, though depending on your budget Infernal Grasp might be the most viable option.

The legacy cards there at the moment are Brainstorm, Ponder, and Bad River. I think for any kind of aggressive creature build those blue drawcards aren’t great anyway (because they’re not applying pressure).

As far as alternate strategies, Zombies usually do well in incorporating sacrifice and/or the graveyard. As an example that’s in the wrong colours and probably over-budget, my zombie list here is a good example of a zombie deck taking full-advantage of sacrifice mechanics, to give itself more options when it can’t win a direct beatdown. Your colours are a bit trickier to work around, but something like Blood Artist might help alongside the Carrion Feeder/Gravecrawler package. Blasting Station could also be useful. Blue-zombies in particular have access to Skaab Ruinator, which is a pretty efficient/chunky body, and possibly something to build your deck around - and going down that route both Mire Triton and Stitcher's Supplier might help get it out faster. Cryptbreaker is another interesting zombie that could be considered, depending on what you’re doing - it does play better in midrange strategies so if your deck ends up being one of attrition then its worth including.