Purphoros, God of the Forge

Legendary Enchantment Creature — God

Indestructible

As long as your devotion to red is less than five, Purphoros isn't a creature.

Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, Purphoros deals 2 damage to each opponent.

: Creatures you control get +1/+0 until end of turn.

Discussion (48)

Last_Laugh on Animar Creatures

1 day ago

Exploration, Burgeoning, and Wild Cantor are 3 more options for turn 2 Animar.

Temur Sabertooth and Equilibrium are 2 more bounce enablers to abuse etb's.

Walking Ballista and Purphoros, God of the Forge make any infinite bounce combos lethal. I.e. Ancestral Statue or any Cloudstone Curio combo.

Palinchron goes infinite by itself if Animar has 4+ counters. Cloud of Faeries and Peregrine Drake are worth running also (Great Whale if Palinchron is understandably out of your budget).

Spellseeker/Neoform and Weird Harvest are worth running if you add Walking Ballista. Weird Harvest looks up Ballista/Statue for both combo pieces and Spellseeker/Neoform are the last pieces you don't already run for the most efficient combo line in Animar. It only requires Imperial Recruiter in hand, 2 counters on Animar, , and 4 life.

1. Imperial Recruiter looks up Phyrexian Metamorph

2. Phyrexian Metamorph for 2 life copies Recruiter and looks up Spellseeker.

3. Spellseeker looks up Neoform.

4. Neoform sacs Spellseeker to look up Ancestral Statue.

5. Bounce statue over and over til Animar's power is double your opponents life totals and use Statue's final bounce trigger to return Metamorph to hand.

6. Metamorph for 2 life again copies Imperial Recruiter to look up Walking Ballista for the win.

Feel free to check out my list for more ideas. Upvotes on any of my decks are appreciated. Animar, Gaea's Hemorrhoid ⫷PRIMER⫸

TypicalTimmy on How Good is Greed in …

1 day ago

Repetition is key to success, in all things in life. This is true with financing, learning a new skill like playing a guitar, pulling oneself out of depression, and yes winning in MTG.

The more reliable of a deck you have, the easier you will win. Reliability can often be found in using repetition. If you have multiple copies of similarly-functioning cards, the likelihood of at least drawing into one of them throughout the course of the game greatly increases - and your potency exponentiates as you get more and more online.

For example, in my Lathliss deck I have many, many cards that do ETB damage effects;

• Impact Tremors
• Dragon Tempest
• Scourge of Valkas
• Terror of the Peaks
• Purphoros, God of the Forge
• Warstorm Surge

I also have many, many cards that all enable haste;

• Fervor
• Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded
• Hammer of Purphoros
• Zariel, Archduke of Avernus
• Anger
• Hanweir Battlements  ^Meld
• Thespian's Stage which can copy Battlements
• Vesuva, which can also copy Battlements
• And Dragon Tempest which has nice overlap between these two

My point is, having repetition in decks is a great way to ensure your deck functions the way it should, at all times. Is Greed strictly worse than Necropotence? Sure. But is having a second drawable engine a good idea? Yes.

I think it's fine. If it's budget and that's what you can afford without proxies, keep it. If you can afford Necropotence, put that in instead. But if you can make room for both, or even a few more, go for it.

Even if you only get 1 card off of Greed per rotation of the table, because you leave a single pip of open at all times just in case, that's still a lot of advantage.

Consider it in this regards: The very first time you activate Greed, it effectively becomes a Cantrip - It replaced itself in your hand. Every moment thereafter is gravy. With just one activation per rotation of the table, you effectively double your draw:

• Draw step
• Activation

This is immense. Just that one card really does help out a lot. Greed isn't a terrible card - Necropotence is just better. But being "better" does not automatically make everything else "shit".

Dragon Tempest is strictly better than Impact Tremors, but being able to hit 1 damage to each opponent over-and-over-and-over-and-over-and-over again, it all adds up. Nobody's laughing when Impact Tremors dishes out 10 damage to three opponents - a total of 30 damage over the table. That is a HUGE, heh well, impact.

I'd say keep it. It does more good than you might think ;)

Mana_Mythic_Legendary on Pursuing Perfection, Part 10: Selesnya …

3 days ago

Every dual color up until now has been some sort of aggressive, negative experience for other players, and Selesnya certainly has the potential to be no different. Combining Green’s predilection for quality with White’s penchant for quantity (AND stacking board buffs) makes for a lethal pairing in the combat phase. Rhys the Redeemed, Captain Sisay, and Gaddock Teeg are just a few commanders with justifiable appeal for power gamers. And don’t forget the enchantments: Aura Shards, Mirari's Wake, and Hunting Grounds all have singularly disruptive board presence, and that’s just a few on a stellar list.

And yet, undeniable potency aside, this is an almost grandmotherly pairing: you don’t so much play Selesnya to ruin someone else’s day as to ensure you have the best one. A properly built deck in these colors should wrap around its pilot like a blanket fresh out of the dryer, basting you in a pervasive feeling of shelter, growth, and self-promotion. Another good analogy might be a garden tended by someone with an emerald thumb, game-breaking fertilizer, and the patience of Saint Francis. In summary, players running these are very much there to do their own thing without interruption: the problem is, once they’ve done their own thing, opponents find out that the “game-breaking fertilizer” is typically their own mulched remains.

It’s also oddly human-centric.

Ok, enough poetry. Now to the really fun bit: we’re here to talk thematic commanders, so let’s dive into that roster. Today, we’re discussing the Selesnya themes of Lifegains, Counterplay, and “Don’t Loot at Me!”. As always, please bear in mind that our focus here is not necessarily competitive but rather on thematic, archetypical commanders. Just don’t judge me harshly for including a lot of beasts.

Lifegains

I spelled with an "s" for a reason. Yes, as covered in a past article, Black has a more intimate relationship with the life total. Yes, Black both drains life and spends life. BUT… there is a profound difference between eating cookies and baking them. Black is the undisputed cookie monster (and a bit of a baker, to be fair), but Selesnya could, to continue the analogy, take any bake off by storm. Prize money, people: Selesnya’s about not only baking that cookie, but getting prize money for it. In other words, crossbreeding these colors gets you a thematic trend toward gaining life AND triggering something whenever you do. Think combotastic crap like the Accomplished Alchemist and Rhox Faithmender, or Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Spike Feeder. The possibilities are… well, a little scary.

The Oprah of lifegain. Who needs general damage when you can drown your opponent in creatures the approximate size of your life hack? Smack them with the Angel of Destiny, or… wow, there are a lot of relevant angels. Gather it. Just bring your lifelink and enjoy.

Direct, though the scry is a nice touch. This is a commander made for some sort of evasion, the Soul Warden cycle, and a pile of tokens. Like, maybe March of the Multitudes. Hehehehe…

… Sheesh. I mean, I’ve had this built on and off, but… still, sheesh. If you’ve never heard of the Phyrexian Processor, enjoy the pearl I just gave you. Green-White is token central: hell, their own private keyword about it is right on this commander. This is a definite instance of the Green penchant for chunks being over-synergized with the white predilection to breed like rabbits. Or, in this case, Phyrexian Minions.

Counterplay

I’ve covered stax twice by this point, once in White and once in Azorius. I don’t deny that the potential for oppression is there: one of my favorite cards in Selesnya is Glare of Subdual. However, I can’t help feeling that it’s coming from a different direction in this slice of the pie. While Blue and White are geared toward inflicting stagnancy, Selesnya’s stax are angled toward preventing thematically negative effects, kind of a mercy mission for your opponent’s resources. I think Quakers would like it here.

Mind control pervasive in the local meta? Not anymore! Second Trostani is actually a rather inoffensive commander for everyone who’s not a thief, offering both board support and considerable political clout. Other players may even go out of their way to keep her up and you in the game, just to screw over that one guy.

Ah, the man himself. I never found him especially oppressive, leaning more toward creatures by disposition. Not everyone will feel the same way. He cuts most conventional boardwipes out of the mix, and God help super-friends. You can almost picture the little hobbit raising his hands and saying “Let’s have a nice, simple game, shall we?” Which isn’t something you expect in a typical game of Commander, now that I think about it.

Land fixing is nice, but this is where things are downright hostile. Those may look like tusks, but those are really two giant middle fingers pointed at black decks.

“Don’t Look at Me!”

When we were little, my brother would build cereal box walls between us as we ate breakfast, then stare at me over them. Whenever I eyed him like the nutcase he was, he’d scream “DON’T LOOK AT ME!!!”

I don’t think I need to explain the point.

I always liked the aesthetic of Dosan the Falling Leaf, but not enough to make him a commander. Dromoka, meaty beast of two colors that she is, has a bit more appeal. All but guaranteeing an uninterrupted turn, combo players could do worse.

A 5/5 with flying for five would be nice. Hexproof on a general is competitive. Putting a kibosh on all offensive-sacrifice decks ever tagging you? Downright savage. I like this card a lot.

So… commander damage is a tried, true plan. Lots of people try it. Lots of people won’t be particularly offended by Mirri’s soft push for it. All the token-fiends out there, though, are going to flip their collective gourds when they find out the Silent Arbiter got legendary and started playing favorites. Word of advice: NEVER give her vigilance.

And, for a personal favorite:

As readers know, I like ramp. However, even I think this is broken. I genuinely feel guilty whenever I think of building it again. While she doesn’t approach the misery of Zur the Enchanter or Purphoros, God of the Forge, the power dynamic here is shattering. One turn with a Whitemane Lion or anything similar will secure you a lead. One turn with whitemane lion and a Lotus Cobra? Amulet of Vigor? Tireless Provisioner? God have pity on your tiny, shriveled soul, because your opponents won’t. At least, if they ever manage to catch up under what I assume will be a deluge of ETB and blink effects. There are so many degenerate, savage combos encouraged by this reaping wench that I couldn’t list them all and reasonably expect anyone to finish the article. Let me just close this by saying she turns any card with landfall into a gamechanger, and there are a LOT of good landfall cards.

That's it for this round. Thoughts and questions are welcome. I hope you enjoyed it, and will come back soon for Simic!

Prior Articles:

Gruul

Rakdos

Dimir

Azorius

Green, with links to the other mono-colors

Last_Laugh on Vampires!

1 week ago

Reconnaissance allows you to attack with EVERYONE safely, deal combat damage in most situations, and have every one of those creatures untapped by the end of combat. It's also extremely busted with first strike and makes combat entirely one-sided.

Purphoros, God of the Forge is a must have also and makes every vamp you cast dome all opponents for 4. Scapegoat pairs well with Purph too and pulls double duty as a finisher with him out and an anti wrath card that pseudo dodges tuck, exile, -X-X, and other hard to dodge wraths. I'd rather sac a token and eat a personal Evacuation than end up in topdeck mode.

Feel free to check out my list for ideas. Upvotes on any of my decks are appreciated Edgar's Dega Vampires

LeonSpires on Glimpse of Tomorrow: Codie Combo

1 week ago

At Sambo3975 thanks for the feedback / good catch. I had missed that.

Warp World is the back up win and most of the time I have won with this deck off of casting multiple copies of Glimpse of Tomorrow. From my research Purphoros, God of the Forge still works with Warp World as he enters with the creatures.

This is also why also strangely enough why Chatterfang, Squirrel General is better then Doubling Season in this deck.

ElendVenture on Five Color God Stuff

2 weeks ago

@kalanare I actually added both of those immediately! Just hadn't had time to update the decklist. Check out the new configuration with Esika, God of the Tree  ^Flip!

As for The World Tree and Purphoros, God of the Forge, the gods will enter as creatures if there's enough devotion. Since they're all entering at the same time the, they all see that there's enough devotion and enter as creatures.

PlupFan on Omnath, Elemental Flubber (2021)

3 weeks ago

rwn1971 Yeah, for my meta, Thawing Glaciers is just too slow. It does synergize well with Landfall, but the fact that it enters tapped really sucks. You'd have to have multiple land drops to even have this ramp you, and even then it's too slow. For me personally, unless I'm on a budget, tapped lands need to have a really nice upside.

By the way, I've been trying out Purphoros, God of the Forge and it has been super great.

TypicalTimmy on Where do you personally draw …

3 weeks ago

My general strategy is to have more spells than the table has removal. I don't worry about one or two people holding up a counterspell or a path to exile. Similarly, I tend to not worry about their plays either.

I get my stuff out faster than the rest of the table, then overwhelm with a force they can't hope to stop.

This tends to make all of my decks very heavily reliant on combat damage and combat tricks, but there are ways to mix that up. In my aforementioned Lathliss deck, I have a bit of cruel control such as with Mudslide and Citadel of Pain, as well as Blood Moon and some others.

Then I passively create damage via Chandra, Awakened Inferno, Impact Tremors, Dragon Tempest, Warstorm Surge, Scourge of Valkas, Terror of the Peaks, Purphoros, God of the Forge and more. Also Sarkhan the Masterless

Ramp, I've got Mana Crypt, Ancient Tomb, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Mox Amber, Chrome Mox, Mox Tantalite, Mox Diamond and other staples.

Even cost reduction via Ruby Medallion, cloudkey, Urza's Incubator, Herald's Horn, Dragonlord's Servant and Dragonspeaker Shaman.

I can cheat via Sunbird's Invocation, Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast and Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded - who also serves as a haste enabler on top of like the six other haste enablers in the deck. Oh and Spinerock Knoll.

It even has recursion. For example, Haven of the Spirit Dragon, Vesuva and Thespian's Stage.

...it's like a $1,000 deck... For a $4 Commander, lol