Profound Journey

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Profound Journey

Sorcery

Return target permanent card from your graveyard to the battlefield.

Rebound (If you cast this spell from your hand, exile it as it resolves. At the beginning of your next upkeep, you may cast this card from exile without paying its mana cost.)

griffstick on Elspeth is the cmdr

2 years ago

I went with Profound Journey over Brought Back because through testing I find the deck to be less reactionary then you'd think. I often find holding 2 mana easy only after I'm set up. Considering Elspeth is 6 mana. Paying 7 mana to put it directly back on the battlefield seems just fine. It has rebound for added bonus. Also brought back brings it back the turn it went to the graveyard. That can be a problem if 2 more players have a shot to attack and destroy Elspeth befor its your turn to use her.

griffstick on Elspeth is the cmdr

2 years ago

Idk MugenTensai I suppose you just play the deck. I guess I could add Profound Journey, or Brought Back

enpc on White's issues in Commander

4 years ago

Tzefick: I read through the original post, but I want to circle back to it later. And you will have to excuse the order in general, I was responding to this across the course of a day.

On artifact removal

There are a few points to unpack here. The first, and most importantly, is that removal is a big part of Magic, the Gathering and honestly, is what makes games (and deckbuilding) interesting. IF MtG was just about amassing board states and then slamming big creatures into other big creatures, the game would be much more boring (not to mention take much longer). But your argument here basically boils down to "artifacts are bad because they die to removal". I get that there are a bunch of good artifact removal cards, but that doesn't mean that we should stop leaning into artifacts because of it.

As for dealing with removal (especially mass removal) - there are still many options that white already has access to which does actually allow them to ramp. Wayfarer's Bauble , Burnished Hart , Solemn Simulacrum , Kor Cartographer , Knight of the White Orchid are all perfectly valid land ramp cards. Sure, the average CMC of these spells is higher than their green counterparts, however green is THE ramp colour, so it would be expecteded that there would be hihger costs/more contitions to be met for other colours to do a similar thing. And that's without even touching on cards like Sword of the Animist or Explorer's Scope which are both equipment and what white excels at.

In addition to this, while not ramping, white already has access to cards like Weathered Wayfarer , Land Tax , and Tithe which allow you to consistently hit your lands. While not as good as outright ramping, if you're hitting your lands each turn, you're genereally not doing too badly. And when combined with other ramp effects, by mid to late game you still end up with as much mana as most players.

Now onto the artifacts. Yes, there are a lot of good artifact removal effects which can slow players down. But I would also point out a few things here too.

Mana dorks are a very common form of ramp in commander. Most green decks will run a bunch of them and there are even strategies (elf ball) which almost solely relies on them. But just as artifacts can be hated on, white has some of THE best creature removal in the game. This includes both single target but also mass removal, which can severely hamper your opponents with regards to ramp. And unlike green (who is the main comparison point here), white doesn't rely on mana dorks, leaving you relatively unaffected from a mana standpoint.

In addition to this, white has a lot of ways of protecting your stuff from being destroyed, whether it's indestructible, hexproof, just an outright Teferi's Protection (which yes you did mention), or more importantly shutting down an opponent's removal source using Torpor Orb effects, of which white has many. Sure, this doesn't stop everything, but it can shut down a lot of (especially green) big bad ones. We are seeing a lot of these printed in new sets, to the point where WotC are really trying to drive home the point that "this is what white does".

Ok, now circling back (And I will do this more than once) and picking up on my previous paragraph. On the topic of land ramp - white is very good at shutting down this. between all of the MLD, Balance type effects and library shutdown effects like Aven Mindcensor , white hating on green's land ramp is to green hating on artifacts (i.e. white's main ramp source). Again I reiterate, this is what white does. It has been made abundantly clear, since we have time and time again seen printing of cards that equalise the board, to take away other players' advantages. So again I push the point that white is capable, however the issue here is that it's not the way you (or some other casule commander players) want it to be. But again, that's not white's shortfall.

On Graveyard Recursion

This topic follows on from the whole artifact removal thing. Yes, white is very strong in graveyard recursion. And just to touch on one of your points, even recently white got a bunch of graveyard recursion via cards like Daring Archaeologist and Restoration Specialist . Not repeatable sure, but still decent. And let's face it, any mono-white commander product is going to see Sun Titan reprinted. But back to the whole recusrion thing in general - while white is good at recursion, it's permanent based, not specifically land based. Yes, this overlaps (especially in the case of Sun Titan ) but here it's just a bit of nice value.

Land recursion is very much a green thing (I'm not even going to list the cards) and that makes sense. But for white, the recursion is generally symmetric if en masse. And again, this makes sense. White is good at wrecking stuff, so it's also good at bringing stuff back. But the point is that just because you wreck stuff and bring it back symmetrically doesn't mean that you can't exile a graveyard or two in the middle. Ok, but what's my concern with what you're recommending (both across the board but let's talk specifics)?

So, fundamentally I have no issues with the release of white cards which can return permanents from the graveyard to the battlefield, and fundamentally I have no issues with pairing these cards with any kind of fetchlands to ramp. As you mentioned, we have the new Sevinne's Reclamation and Brought Back alongside Sun Titan and Profound Journey .

Where I have issue in this case is not with the concept of having a cheaper spell that hits smaller stuff, but in this case your suggestion. Unforntunately, ther is a fine line between being able to be used early game for ramp purposes and just being broken. The card you proposed is similar in effect to Unearth , though it being able to hit any permanent for 2 mana (yes, even CMC 2 or less) is super good. That means that in legacy it can hit cards like Young Pyromancer , Snapcaster Mage (to get other spells even at sorcery, like itself for example), Thalia, Guardian of Thraben , Wasteland , etc. as well as potentially getting another permanent too. It just seems way too powerful. Sure, we could start tweaking the mana costs/effects but I think you would end up with effectively a functional reprint of Sevinne's Reclamation . And look, if that's what you're going for then that's fine. But that's the danger with working under the guise of returning permanents while focusing on lands.

As for the land sepcific recursion effect though, this just seems out of charater (and heavily moving into green's territory). Just because one card was printed, which again did a symmetric effect (almost seems good with Armageddon + Tormod's Crypt ...) does not mean that it's a shoo-in for more cards to be printed like that. Planar Birth was printed inthe same set as Catastrophe and it seems like those cards were designed to play well with each other. As for hitting land drops each turn, I have no issues with this (hell, I even mentioend it before) and to aid in the available "non-good fetch" fetches, you have Terramorphic Expanse , Evolving Wilds , Myriad Landscape , Grasslands , Flood Plain , Bant Panorama , Esper Panorama , Naya Panorama , Warped Landscape , Terminal Moraine and Thawing Glaciers . That's a pretty good collection of budget fetch effects that already exist. And between Scaretiller , Sun Titan , Sevinne's Reclamation and Crucible of Worlds (and in conjuction with other ramp) there are already options there.

Again, I will double down on my argument that if you look, these cards already exist and can be made to work together in a deck. Yes, Crucible of Worlds has ~$25 USD price tag (at the time of writing this) however that is not too exorbitant for a strong EDH card.

On Other Colours

I get that each colour has its strengths and weaknesses and that when you put all of them alongside each other there will always be a worst colour. But I don't think that's a bad thing. White is an incredibly powerful colour outside of commander, and as a second colour, white is still super good. But mono-white has to have a weakness. In this case, it's slow. Buat again, that's done for a reason - because white represents balance. White might be slow, but it will do a really good job of slowing you down with it. And again, I get that ther will be a group of players who don't want to play all of the stax cards for fear of getting other poeple's backs up. But what about the players who don't care about that? you've now just armed a bunch of people with ramp and draw with their existing supply of stax. Think of how much worse that will be.

Now onto red (since you touched on it) - yes, WotC have come up with a nice balance for red's card advantage (in that it matches red's ramp style) - momentary bursts of value. Rituals and exile - you use it or you lose it kind of effects, which makes sense (and which you pointed out). But it's all done within the bounds of the colour pie still. But everything about white screams that it's card advantage is making sure your opponents don't have cards.

On Budget

While I believe that commander should be avaialble to anyone, there are some cold, hard facts: Some people can spend more than others, and, not everybody within a playgroup has the same budget.

The cards I listed before were budgetless and in most cases, the best of the best. And I understand that only a small portion of commander players actually own said cards. But there are always alternative cards at all budgets, they just may not be as desirable. But that's where my double standard comment came in, which is "if you want to play a colour that doens't have good ramp, but still want the best ramp then either pay the money to buy the good (read "expensive") stuff or deal with the fact that you can't/won't buy it." I don't think that's an unfair statement, and it's a slippery slope once you start pandering to it.

But again, if ther is a budget discrepency within a playgroup then I also don't think that it is WotC's responsiblity to fix it. This is something that the players have to own and is an entire discussion point in an of itself, so I will leave that there. But I think most players would agree with me on this.

On Other Players

Here's where we get to brass tacks (if we haven't already), I wouldn't agree with you on the comment that "a large portion of the commander community" thinks that mono-white needs fixing. Ther eare some poeple, sure. And those people might make a lot of noise about it, but that doesn't mean it's the majority of players. I know that most players who I interact with would agree wiht my viewpoint on it.

And don't get me wrong, I play both casual and competitive lists, I work full time and have funds available to afford nicer cards. A casual list for me sits in the $400-500 range. But before you discount my opinion becasue fo that, hear me out. I have looked at many, many, many lists on tapped out, ranging from <$100 to >$5000 and have learnt a lot over the years. Typically the things I notice is that the kinds of poeple who complain about a lack of XYZ have also employed a lot of bad deck-building practices (no, I'm not implying this on your lists). Really heavy mana curves, little ramp to begin with, high CMC ramp, lack of focused win conditions, all that good stuff. And I'm not saying that the decks are completely unplayable, but a lot of them are really clunky and slow. And I won't begrudge people for building those decks. But if your average CMC is 4.5 and then you're complaining that your deck is slow, that's becasue of the card choices you made. However bad deckbuilding is not WotC's fault.

So compared to those poeple, I will be a bit arrogant and say I undstand balance better than them, yes. But, and more importantly, so does WotC - because they seem to be printing more stax cards for white as sets come out, but not more ramp and card advantage which would fix the non-problem.

neuroesoterica on The Great Creator Lock

4 years ago

I did some digging and white does currently have several cards that can return planeswalkers: Emeria Shepherd Obzedat's Aid (also black) Faith's Reward Profound Journey

Blue has gotten a form of planeswalker retrieval in the form of Monastery Loremaster

epajula on Green-ramped Angels

5 years ago

Luminarch Ascension, Heirloom Blade, Herald's Horn, Vanquisher's Banner, Zendikar Resurgent, Profound Journey, Angel of Serenity, Karmic Guide, Sunblast Angel, Angel of the Dire Hour, and Marshal's Anthem. I have found great value with every card listed. Let me know if you need me to go more in depth.

theosZA on

6 years ago

I personally don't bother with the boarding feature of tappedout - my tappedout lists are the ideal version of each deck that I can trade towards.

There quite a few cards that don't really synergize that can be cut: Ixalli's Keeper, Jaddi Offshoot, Jadecraft Artisan, Howl of the Horde, Profound Journey, Sigil of the Empty Throne, Prismatic Strands, Darksteel Pendant, Scroll of the Masters. You don't need spells to pump up your dinosaurs as they're already plenty big: Buccaneer's Bravado, Giant Growth, Crash the Ramparts. Some weak dinosaurs can be cut: Orazca Frillback, Raptor Companion. My thinking is that you don't need the weaker cheap creatures if you spend your early turns ramping so that you can start playing scary dinosaurs from turn 4.

My ideal version of a Gishath deck would be something like: 37 land, 3 mana rocks, 11(!) mana ramp spells, 10 answer spells (removal, board wipes), 4 protection spells (mainly stuff that can keep Gishath safe like Lightning Greaves), 30 dinosaurs, 5 non-dinosaurs that synergize well with the dinosaurs (e.g. Forerunner of the Empire).

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