Psychic Puppetry

Instant — Arcane

You may tap or untap target permanent.

Splice onto Arcane (Blue) (As you play an Arcane spell, you may reveal this card from your hand and pay its splice cost. If you do, add this card's effects to that spell.)

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
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (20)

legendofa on Why is Untapping Lands a …

3 months ago

In blue, the Urza's Block hugely skew land untapping, and that block is widely considered to be an overpowered mistake, especially for blue. Urza's Saga and Urza's Legacy alone have ten cards that allow land-specific untapping, more than half of all the blue cards that allow untapping lands without untapping all permanents. They'll be included for the sake of completion, but I wouldn't take them as any sort of precedent. Pioneer legality is just five cards, with one of them being Standard-legal. Blue is the undisputed king of untapping permanents in general, but doesn't have any special focus on lands.

{U} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "land": Twiddle, Reset, Infuse, Jolt, Twitch, Mind Over Matter, Great Whale, Peregrine Drake, Rewind, Time Spiral, Turnabout, Cloud of Faeries, Frantic Search, Palinchron, Snap, Treachery, Trickster Mage. total 16

{U} Modern Border, "untap" + "land": Oboro Breezecaller. total 1

{U} 2015 Border, "untap" + "land": Pore Over the Pages, Unwind, Finale of Revelation, Kelpie Guide. total 3

{U} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "permanent": Telekinetic Bonds. total 1

{U} Modern Border, "untap" + "permanent": Dream's Grip, Psychic Puppetry, Toils of Night and Day, Tidewater Minion, Rimewind Taskmage, Coral Trickster, Merrow Reejerey, Pestermite, Fatestitcher, Merfolk Skyscout, Reality Spasm, Deceiver Exarch, Captain of the Mists, Ghostly Touch, Hidden Strings, Curse of Inertia, Tidal Force. total 17

{U} 2015 Border, "untap" + "permanent": Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Clever Conjurer, Nimbleclaw Adept, Ioreth of the Healing House, Forensic Researcher. total 6

{U} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "Island": none.

{U} Modern Border, "untap" + "Island": none.

{U} 2015 Border, "untap" + "Island": none.

There's 44 mono-blue cards that can untap lands in some capacity, with 20 of them being more specific than untapping permanents in general. If Urza's Block is taken out, then there are 34 blue cards that untap lands, with just nine of them having any sort of restriction.

So in final summary, I see green land untapping increasing in recent years, and blue permanent untapping actually falling off slightly. There were 18 blue untap cards in the 12 years of the modern border, and nine cards so far in the nine years of the 2015 border. Discounting Urza's Block, there are slightly more green cards that can untap lands than blue cards, and many more green cards that untap lands than blue cards printed in the last ten years.

If I missed anything in this breakdown, please let me know. But I think the cards are there to support my initial position. Both green and blue are primary in untapping lands, if lands are counted as permanents, and blue is secondary in untapping lands specifically. Mark Rosewater's answer is is at best incomplete and missing nuance, and at worst totally wrong.

---

Keeping the above because it took me a long time write and I don't want to undo the effort.

In response to wallisface, percentage of cards with a given effect doesn't matter to primacy of color.

• Primary – This is the color (or colors) the ability is seen in most. That means it shows up in the highest volume and usually at the lowest rarity that the type of effects get used at. The primary color will almost always get this effect in a set if it's an ability we do every set. It also tends to be the color that most often pushes the power level, if it's an effect we push the power level on. There's a wide range on what primary means, because different types of effects exist at different levels. A card secondary in flying can show up way more than a card primary in taking extra turns, for instance, because we have so many more flying cards than extra-turn cards.

• I want to stress one more time that primary, secondary, and tertiary are relative to how often an effect is used. Things that are secondary in a color, for example, may be far more prevalent in that color than things that are primary if the items in question occur at a higher frequency.

Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021

For example, MaRoo has repeatedly stated that red is primary in extra combat cards, with white as a contender for secondary.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021

https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/760377485190938624/can-any-color-aside-from-red-get-extra-combat

There are only 36 cards that grant an additional comabt. If primacy was considered as a proportion of cards that grant additional combats was considered only as a proportion of total cards of that color, I don't think any color would be considered primary.

So while there might be fewer cards that untap lands in green as a proportion of total green cards in recent years, that's not a relevant measure to color primacy. The relevant measure is how often cards that untap lands show up in green compared to other colors, which I think is demonstrated by the above lists that green has more land untap effects than any other color, with blue being nearly equivalent. That, according to MaRo's definition, means that land untapping is primary in green.

turkinaa on Elsa but She Can't Let it Go

8 months ago

Might I suggest a Ghostly Prison (or maybe also a Teferi's Moat for some more pillow fort protection.

Other ways to get taps in are Thassa's Ire, Puppet Strings, Staff of Domination, and some tricks with an Isochron Scepter. Some cards to use with the Scepter would be Psychic Puppetry and Twiddle as well as many of the ones you have already in your deck list. If you used Dream's Grip you can entwine with the Scepter (as well as kick cards).

zachz on Tap 'em Out!

2 years ago

Really enjoy the concept of the deck. I think you have, if you pardon the terrible pun, an untapped potential that can be added to your deck.

Untap mechanics can accelerate your own card tap abilities, and give you the rare opportunity to tap an opponent creature multiple times per turn. There's several that I found worth suggesting:

• Kelpie Guide
• Innocence Kami: More expensive Ballynock Trapper
• Teller of Tales: Faster Innocence Kami in Blue
• Captain of the Mists: You have 13 other humans to utilize
• Deceiver Exarch
• Puppeteer
• Silkbind Faerie
• Stinging Lionfish
• Tideforce Elemental
• Vizier of Tumbling Sands
• Instants:
• Psychic Puppetry
• Dream's Grip
• Reality Spasm
• Toils of Night and Day
• Unwind: More expensive but reimbursed form of Negate
• Enchantments:
• Retreat to Coralhelm
• Curse of Inertia
• Turnabout $
• Hidden Strings is a Sorcery but deserves to be included
• Artifacts:
• Unbender Tine
• Puppet Strings
• Magewright's Stone$
• Maze of Ith $ a Land but gives untap for both your creatures and opponents.

Lowenstein on Solitaire: the Gathering -the way it's meant to be

4 years ago

Howdy! So JW398 I find that the reason I won't win on T3 is because I am missing an important combo card, be it Lotus Field, Psychic Puppetry, or some cards for digging, but not because I choose to wait. Usually the only difference between comboing T4 instead of T3 is one extra draw to hit a combo piece I don't have. So, if I have what I need, I generally won't wait until T4 to go off. All you need is a single Twiddle or Dream's Grip to get the Lotus in motion on T3, which is also the reason I run 4 of each.

I think the biggest reason you would go off T4 instead of T3 is so you can start off with an untapped Lotus Field, but like I said, that usually doesn't make a problem. When I fizzle on T3 it is almost always just because I ran out of cantrips, not because I ran out of mana.

Hope all that made sense haha.

Yeah Stormcaller is definitely cool because it can hit those big draws that you really need. I've been testing with 1 Ad Nauseam though, and it actually is pretty sweet. It provides a similar effect to stormcaller. You will probably draw more depending on how much life you can lose.

Lowenstein on Twiddle Storm - The Worst Oiled Machine

4 years ago

I've done some testing with it, seems pretty interesting. As far as I can tell it just helps the combo, allowing you to draw 9-14 cards with it. I guess maybe you would bring it in against decks that aren't burn and the like to help with consistency? Not totally sure though. It definitely helps though. The times I've tested it, after casting it your chances of fizzling are way low. The good thing is that a black splash isn't even necessary, because if you have 2 Twiddles/Dream's Grip or 1 Twiddle and 1 Psychic Puppetry then you will haven enough mana for Ad Nauseam and at least 1 left over to cast another untap spell.

Wizard_of_the_Broke on Dig for Fire 2.0 (Twiddle Storm)

4 years ago

Lowenstein - I honestly have only been able to use Halimar Depths if it's in my opening hand, in which case it's very good, because I'm not really doing much but setting up my hand anyway in the early turns, and it's nice to be able to set up natural draws or a cantrip draw, and it helps inform which cantrip is best at a given juncture. But I probably would never want more than 1. Evermind is weird. It's a nice thing to have in hand as an insurance policy to avoid fizzling by assuring a lot of draw power, let's me take an extra draw if I see something with Serum Visions I don't want to chuck to Sleight of Hand, and as long as you're making plenty of mana through Psychic Puppetry, the high cost just isn't relevant that often, but the extra draws are. I still haven't gotten when to use Evermind down to a science though, and have certainly spent mana on it when it probably wasn't needed, and have been hesitant to use it, then fizzled. I am thinking of splitting between Tolaria West and Sylvan Scrying though. Tolaria's speed is too often an issue, and forces me to survive by Twiddling opposing creatures more than I'd like. I also think Sylvan Scrying would make Peer Through Depths a lot more useful for setting up early, and would probably run it as a 4-of with Scrying in the mix.

Just made some updates to test.

JW398 on Twiddle Storm - The Worst Oiled Machine

4 years ago

Wizard_of_the_Broke

Thanks, it honestly was a toss up between the two. Although I will admit being able to tutor pact part is an upside, that is what I mostly use Merchant Scroll for now that I dropped Peer Through Depths - First targets would be Psychic Puppetry/Echoing Truth.

I have time to proxy it before Zen Rising so I'll give it a shot. Thanks

Lowenstein on Twiddle Storm > UR Storm …

4 years ago

Flooremoji good stuff. Psychic Puppetry is indeed very essential for Twiddle Storm.

Dealing with Damping Sphere before playing Lotus Field is true. Recently though I had a game against Eldrazi Tron where I had to get rid of Chalice of the Void and Relic of Progenitus on the same turn before really comboing off, but i did get it. So yeah that would be more tricky, it would probably just add an extra turn.