Preordain

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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
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Preordain

Sorcery

Scry 2, then draw a card. (To scry 2, look at the top two cards of your library, then put any number of them on the bottom of your library and the rest on top in any order.)

wallisface on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

3 weeks ago

If I were building a deck with your colour and budget restraints, it’d be this. I’d suggest your list look very close to this, if you’re wanting to end up with an ”Azorius Aggro-Control deck”.

If you’re going down the route of specifically wanting to build around Ethersworn Canonist, it’s a completely different deck - neither aggro nor control, but instead some kind of artifact-based tempo build.

wallisface on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

3 weeks ago
  • Preordain is miles better than Serum Visions

  • yes you can trigger Lion Sash multiple times. You’d presumably always do it in the opponents end step.

  • I should reiterate as I have been this whole thread that your artifact creatures aren’t very-well suited for a control or aggro shell at-all… this is why i’d suggested a bunch of creatures that would actually help you. I know you like Ethersworn Canonist but this is a really bad home for it - trying to force it into this deck is going to make it’s performance bad, and the deck worse.

  • Haughty Djinns 3-mana cost can be a little awkward, but i’ll note Murktide Regent is two mana and survives fine. The trick is to know the matchups well enough to gauge when to ”shields down” to cast it - or wait till you have 4-5 lands so you can also Spell Pierce or Counterspell.

  • Tolarian Terror is 1 mana and wins the game on its own. You’re in no massive rush to dump it down, but tempo-control builds could often get it down by turn 3-4 no problem.

  • Touch the Spirit Realm is fine, but not great. You’re unlikely to ever channel it, but it’ll still be decent-enough.

  • Detention Sphere is decent.

  • of course opponents will be paying 2 mana to crack clues, but only if its the best thing for them to be doing fir their turn. Them gaining clues is an advantage for them.

9-lives on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

3 weeks ago

Ahhh! Thank you so much for the recommendations!! This is what I'm talking about; getting positing feedback!

Stasis Snare is amazing! I love the art on it as well. This card is perfect!

Which one is better? Preordain or Serum Visions? I don't know in what order is better for scrying and drawing. I like the art for Preordain better.

If I'm running Ethersworn Canonist and stuff, Lion Sash would be good. I really want to play my artifact creatures, especially Ethersworn Canonist. Also, I have a newb question: would I be able to use Lion Sash's activated ability multiple times per turn?? If so, that would be sweet.

wallisface on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

3 weeks ago

9-lives Cool, i'll keep all my card suggestions to $3-or-less per card.

Being one card-down is not worth it for only really knowing what your topdeck is. If you are using Assemble the Players you are wasting resources for almost no gain. Added to this a point which hasn't been mentioned yet - drawing a second copy of this card is absolutely disastrous, as you can't do anything useful with it.

Lawmage's Binding is worse that Oppressive Rays because 3 mana for a card that's still not removing a creature is just really bad value. Far better spells to remove the opponents creatures are Skyclave Apparition, Stasis Snare, Oblivion Ring, Fateful Absence, Declaration in Stone, Prismatic Ending, and Path to Exile

Opt, Preordain, Serum Visions, and Consider are all cheap and are overwhelmingly better than Defiant Strike.

If you're trying to be aggressive with control, your current creatures are really lacking. The current creatures you're running would fit better in a tax-like build, where the aim is to mess with your opponents tempo but ultimately just slowly chip-through damage. If you're trying to play an aggressive-control deck (like the Murktide Regent list) in , then your best bet for creatures on a budget would probably be Tolarian Terror, Delver of Secrets  Flip, Spell Queller, Haughty Djinn, and maybe Lion Sash

wallisface on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

3 weeks ago

9-lives

For Defiant Strike you yourself even admit that Opt and Preordain are better - and that's the exact reason why this card is bad.

I have no idea what you mean by "And, no, I don't have to cast two creatures for it to be worthwhile, as whenever i cast it I would lose nothing if I didn't keep it for over 2 turns.". Assemble the Players does effectively nothing on its own. You play it, and now you have 1-less resource in-hand, for no inherent board-state advantage. Once you play the first creature from the top of your deck with it, now you've at-least "broken even" - that is, the cards you've invested into it have equaled the gain in boardstate you have acquired (albeit, costing 2 additional mana and having to wait an undetermined number of turns, so still being more hassle-than-value). Only once you've cast your second creature from the topdeck, has the card made any kind of net-advantage. The problem is that the sheer amount of time it would take to achieve that is ridiculous.

You are saying "Oppressive Rays is far underrated" but this is just your unfounded opinion. There's good reason why it sees no play at all, even in budget decks or in Pauper (where you can only play commons... if it's not even seeing play there then alarm bells should be ringing!).

Spell Pierce is infinitely better than Miscast, simply because it hits a much, much wider berth of spells. The difference between an opponent paying or is far less-wide of a gap than the one between only being able to target instants and sorceries, versus being able to target instants, sorceries, planeswalkers, enchantments, artifacts, and battles.

Mishra's Bauble doesn't let you look at the opponents hand at all, just their topdeck (which may get shuffled away before they draw anyway). Urza's Saga can only specifically search for artifacts costing exactly or , which none of your artifact creatures are, so you cannot grab them with this card.

I am looking at the whole deck. Some of the cards I have said are bad here can conceivably work in different shells. Just not remotely this one.


I have asked you twice now already what your budget is for this deck, so that people giving you card suggestions can cater this for what you are wanting to spend. If you want people to be able to help you, you need to include this information!

The biggest problem holding your decks back at the moment, as far as I can see, is that their constructor is too stubborn and not-open enough to feedback. By getting super-combative with every suggestion/response people give you, these decks are not going to be able to improve, and instead cycle around in a rut indefinitely. The best thing you can do to help strengthen your deckbuilding is learning to be more open to healthy non-combative discussion, and being more open to listening to others ideas. Coming to a pre-determined decision that everything you've done is correct from the start only serves to leave you exactly where you began.

9-lives on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

3 weeks ago

What is so bad about Defiant Strike if it's simply a addition to having the ability to draw a card? It's no Opt or even Preordain, but it's good for my purposes.

And, no, I don't have to cast two creatures for it to be worthwhile, as whenever i cast it I would lose nothing if I didn't keep it for over 2 turns.

Oppressive Rays is far underrated for its power.

I have 13 counterspells out of around 70 cards. Miscast is not better nor worse than Spell Pierce. Spell Pierce is targeting other things, and also has a different mana cost to the opponent.

Urza's Saga and Mishra's Bauble are great. The latter lets me look at the opponent's hand. The former is good for artifacts, and can search for artifact creatures as well as Mishra's Bauble.

wallisface on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

3 weeks ago

Some thoughts:

  • Last time you started a thread about a deck, it was described as you wanting to make a deck more competitive, but when those suggestions came through you decided you'd rather the deck be casual than strong. Is this the same scenario, or are you legitimately looking for advice on making a strong control deck.

  • Azorius Conrtol already exists as a well-defined meta archetype, consistently hovering between 1-5% of the meta. There is an established deck list here

  • The kind of deck your describing (being aggressive while also controlling the board state) is basically what the current Murktide Regent lists do - deck here. I think it is going to be very hard to justify playing white over red in such an archetype, because red brings most of the aggression, but it's probably still achievable with some concessions.

Some thoughts on your current list specifically:

  • For the deck to work, you need to be running the minimum amount of creatures possible - between 12-15. Running more than this makes it too hard to control the board, and running less than this puts you at risk of not being able to threaten damage.

  • All the creatures you run need to be able to quickly close-out the game on their own. If you check the Murktide list linked above, you'll notice all of those creatures are able to dish out extreme pressure. So far, NONE of your creatures are even remotely threatening. You want to be playing creatures that can end the game fast and can do everything they need to by-themselves. You should really be playing cards like Murktide Regent, Ledger Shredder, Tishana's Tidebinder and Solitude/Subtlety instead of these extremely weak creatures.

  • Any number of Academy Ruins is excessive when you have no real reason to want to recur any of these artifacts.

  • 3 mana countermagic is always bad - there's no reason to run Render Silent especially when you still have room to play another Counterspell instead.

  • Assemble the Players is a terrible card and shouldn't be here.

  • you need waay more wawys to powerfully interact with cards that the opponent resolves - Oppressive Rays is too weak for this. You need cards like Prismatic Ending and Leyline Binding.

  • You are severely lacking in efficient draw. I would expect Preordain instead of Peek at a bare minimum.

wallisface on Turtles goes brrr

3 weeks ago

Some thoughts:

  • 20 lands is extremely low considering how steep your mana curve is. I’d suggest going to at least 24.

  • you’ve got 11 cards that let you assign combat damage with toughness, and while you obviously want that effect, you’ve currently got such-high density of these cards that you’re bound to draw into multiple redundant copies. I’d drop the number of these effects down to 8-9 (ditching 2-3 of the enchants).

  • Glaring Aegis seems like a really bad card. You’ll almost never need the extra 3 toughness, and this just lets the opponent 2-for-1 you with a killspell.

  • Skeleton Key is cute, but imo not particularly strong. You never want to draw a second copy of it. I’d suggest running an absolute maximum of 2, if at all.

  • Fading Hope is almost always just giving you card disadvantage (the opponent still has all their cards, you just lost one).

  • I know i’ve just dismissed all your 1-mana cards as being bad, but I do think you need some actually playable 1-mana cards so that you can do something turn 1. Spell Pierce, Preordain, and Utopia Sprawl are all good options.

  • you really need more ways to interact with the opponent, your only viable option at the moment is Mana Leak… you need more options!

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