Quicksilver Fountain
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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
Modern Beyond Horizons Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Quicksilver Fountain

Artifact

At the beginning of each player's upkeep, that player puts a flood counter on target non-Island land he or she controls of his or her choice. That land is an Island as long as it has a flood counter on it.

At end of turn, if all lands in play are Islands, remove all flood counters from them.

Femme_Fatale on Commander bracket recommendation

1 month ago

It had not been implemented yet as I was asked to try and reduce some of the complexity. I don't think I succeeded.


Tutor:

"search your library for ... card..."
"searches their library for ... card..."
"may search their library for ... card..."
"search target opponent's library for ... card ... you may"
"search target opponent's library for ... card ... that card onto the battlefield under your control"
Exception: Any string that replaces the first elipses that has the words basic, Plains, Forest, Island, Mountain or Swamp.
Exception: Any string that replaces the first elipses that has a period in it.
Exception: Any string that replaces the second elipses that starts with "s named" or " named" or " with the same name"


This should catch instances of multiple cards being tutored. Note the lack of an inclusion of a period at the end for the first three.


All instances of the word "your" can be swapped for "target player" or "each player".

Individual cards: Demonic Consultation, Divining Witch, Emergent Ultimatum, Quiet Speculation, Tunnel Vision

Individual exceptions: AEther Searcher, Boldwyr Heavyweights, Hired Giant



Mass Land Denial:

"sacrifices ... lands"
"return ... lands to their owner's hands."
Exception: If the above ... has "two" or "three" in it for any of them.

"each player ... chooses ... land(s) ... sacrifices the rest."

"lands don't untap"
"players can't untap ... land"
Exception: If the card is instant or sorcery.


All instances of the word "land" dictated as a requirement in the strings above can be swapped for "permanent".


"lands are (land subtype)."


All instances of the word land dictated as a requirement in the strings above can be swapped with "nonbasic land", "Plains", "Forest", "Island", "Mountain" or "Swamp".
All instances of the word "sacrifices" can be swapped for "destroy" or "exile".
All instances of the word "player" can be swapped for "opponent".

A global expection for all Mass Land Denial is made if "nonland" is in any elipses.

Individual cards: Desolation, Equipoise, Hall of Gemstone, Land Equilibrium, Limited Resources, Mana Breach, Mana Vortex, Overburden, Pox, Quicksilver Fountain, Sands of Time, Storm Cauldron, Tangle Wire, Temporal Distortion, Thoughts of Ruin, Wake of Destruction, Ward of Bones, Words of Wind, World Queller

Individual exceptions: Hibernation, Scourglass



Nothing is case sensitive

Femme_Fatale on Commander bracket recommendation

2 months ago

note that the list hasn't been implemented yet. That specific part does hit Magus, Balance and Cataclysm but doesn't hit Razia's Purification, Balancing Act nor Pox. I can add in an additional option for permanents, Pox has unique wording so will have to be manually added.

This is what I have so far.


Mass Land Denial:


"sacrifice ... lands"
"each player sacrifices ... lands"
"return ... lands to their owner's hand"
Exception: If the above ... has "two" or "three" in it for any of them.
Note the requirement for the word land to be plural.

"lands don't untap"
"Players can't play lands"
Exception: If the card is instant or sorcery.

"each player ... chooses ... land(s) ... sacrifices the rest."

"return all lands to their owners' hands"


All instances of the word "land" dictated as a requirement in the strings above can be swapped for "permanent".


"Whenever a player .... that player returns a land they control to its owner's hand."

"lands are (land subtype)."


All instances of the word land dictated as a requirement in all the strings above can be swapped with "nonbasic land", "Plains", "Forest", "Island", "Mountain" or "Swamp".
All instances of the word "sacrifice" can be swapped for "destroy" or "exile".
All instaces of the word "player" can be swapped for "opponent".

A global expection for all Mass Land Denial is made if "nonland" is ever in the textbox.
Individual cards bypass exceptions.

Individual cards: Desolation, Equipoise, Hall of Gemstone, Mana Vortex, Mist of Stagnation, Parallax Tide, Pox, Quicksilver Fountain, Sands of Time, Smokestack, Storm Cauldron, Tangle Wire, Temporal Distortion, Thoughts of Ruin, Words of Wind, World Queller

Femme_Fatale on Commander bracket recommendation

2 months ago

Ah right I forgot there were three blood moon effects, I can syntax that one then. And yes I I'll add Quicksilver Fountain as an individual card.

legendofa on Commander bracket recommendation

2 months ago

Femme_Fatale How about Harbinger of the Seas for mass land denial, and your call on Quicksilver Fountain.

legendofa on The New Commander Brackets Beta

2 months ago

I've been struggling with this for a couple of my decklists recently, and I'm trying to summarize my thoughts here without starting a new thread. So this is semi-stream-of-thought, and I apologize if it gets a little rambly.

There are several criteria being tracked by the current bracket system, including resource generation, speed, reliability, and oppression, and possibly others.

Game changers: A combo like Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact + Thassa's Oracle gets a key card on the game changers list, because it's fast and reliable, ending a match on turn 3-4. These are speed game changers. Other game changers generate resources just by playing the game, like Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe. This group often also includes oppression, since a lot of them tax the opponent. Another group is cheap (1-2 mana) tutors, like Vampiric Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, or Survival of the Fittest, that increase a deck's reliability for very little opportunity cost. Most game changers can be sorted into one of these four categories. Ancient Tomb and Gaea's Cradle are speed and resource generation, Drannith Magistrate and Force of Will are oppression, and so on.

Bracket Guidelines: From Gavin Verhey's announcement article, here's what each of the brackets mean and expect. Important to note that the system is still in beta testing, so this is probably going to be different in the future.

  • Bracket 1: Decks with more focus on a gimmick than on winning. "Winning is not the primary goal here, as it's more about showing off something unusual you've made. Villains yelling in the art? Everything has the number four? Oops, all Horses? Those are all fair game!" This bracket doesn't allow extra turns, two-card infinite combos, mass land denial, or game changers, and restricts tutors.

  • Bracket 2: Decks that can win, but are not tightly focused, or slow to develop. "While Bracket 2 decks may not have every perfect card, they have the potential for big, splashy turns, strong engines, and are built in a way that works toward winning the game. While the game is unlikely to end out of nowhere and generally goes nine or more turns, you can expect big swings." This bracket doesn't allow any game changers, mass land denial, two-card infinite combos, or multiple extra turns in a row, and restricts tutors.

  • Bracket 3: Decks that are focused on winning efficiently, but are not optimized. "They are full of carefully selected cards, with work having gone into figuring out the best card for each slot. The games tend to be a little faster as well, ending a turn or two sooner than your Core (Bracket 2) decks." This bracket does not allow mass land denial or multiple extra turns in a row, and restricts game changers and two-card infinite combos, and allows tutors freely.

  • Bracket 4: Decks that are optimized for their strategy. "Bring out your strongest decks and cards... This is high-powered Commander, and games have the potential to end quickly. The focus here is on bringing the best version of the deck you want to play, but not one built around a tournament metagame." This bracket has no restrictions.

  • Bracket 5: Decks that expect to win at the most competitive levels. "There is care paid into following and paying attention to a metagame and tournament structure, and no sacrifices are made in deck building as you try to be the one to win the pod." This brackets has no restrictions.

Deck Analysis 1: The deck I've been struggling most with is Clear Waters. As I listed in another thread, it has an infinite turns combo (Wanderwine Prophets + Deeproot Pilgrimage + Merfolk Sovereign) and mass land denial (Opposition + Seedborn Muse, Quicksilver Fountain), and a selection of tutors to pull these together (Forerunner of the Heralds, Idyllic Tutor, Merrow Harbinger, Seahunter, and Sterling Grove). This should put it squarely into Bracket 4.

My concern is that it's neither high powered nor optimized. On the axes of speed, resource generation, reliability, and oppression, I would score it high on oppression, pretty good on reliability, and low on speed and resources generation. Looking at examples of other Bracket 4 decks around the internet, all four of those criteria need to be high in this bracket. The infinite turns combo is slow and easily removed, and the land denial is optional (Opposition can have other targets) or temporary (Quicksilver Fountain can remove its own effect).

It would be easy to simply add a big pile of game changers to improve all of these facets. Right now, it has one game changer in Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, and that one's not essential to the deck. That's not the direction I want to go with the deck, though--I want to keep it reasonably budget, and even adding the three least expensive of the game changers I'm considering would basically double the deck's cost.

I know that people in brackets under 4 want to be able to play their deck, and the infinite turns and land denial shut that down. These are clearly stated in the announcement article -"A single extra-turn spell can be fun and splashy. However, extra-turn spells take a ton of time away from other players and their ability to play the game and tend to be unfun when repeated."- that's why they're forced into brackets 4 and 5. But if a deck isn't able to compete against high power, optimized Bracket 4 decks, can it be considered Bracket 4?

Deck Analysis 2: Another deck that I've been struggling with is an enchantment deck, Do Not Mistake Peace For Passivity. The point of concern for this deck is land denial. Blood Moon is classic mass land denial, and the deck is designed to play around it with Abundant Growth, Fertile Ground, Prismatic Omen, and similar cards. It also has a combo that doesn't directly deny lands, but punishes their play and use: Manabarbs + Citadel of Pain. Otherwise, the deck fits all the criteria of a Bracket 2 deck--no game changers, no infinite combos, few tutors, and no extra turns.

This deck can be converted into a pure Bracket 2 deck without much effort by replacing Blood Moon and Manabarbs. But as it stands, a single card pushes the deck up two brackets, according to the guidelines. Again, I don't feel the deck is high powered or optimized, and would not be able to compete in a Bracket 4 match. It could probably survive in Bracket 3, since it's highly synergistic, but nothing any higher.

In this case, adding a bunch of game changers and power cards would somewhat dilute how the deck functions. A few, like Smothering Tithe or Trouble in Pairs, could slot in, but most others would be more gratuitous.

Conclusion: To quote the article again, "There's some wiggle room, and while playing against decks that are all inside your bracket is ideal, you can usually wiggle within one bracket away from you safely." "You should play where you think you belong based on the descriptions." All of this can be discussed in a Rule 0 talk. I strongly believe the brackets are intended to help this conversation, not replace it. As an example, for the Clear Waters deck, I would say that the deck is not optimized to Bracket 4, and I think it fits best into Bracket 3, but it's controlling and has a potential three-card infinite turns combo. I'm willing to announce when the combo is assembled and ready to start, to give everyone a turn cycle to react, and reduce the use of Opposition to creatures and artifacts.

I feel like the current setup is a little too restrictive of the kind of combo-control decks I like. I can have fun smashing big creatures into each other and outmaneuvering everyone else, but I will enjoy locking down the board and establishing my inevitability, and I'm having a harder time trying to find ways to do that in lower brackets. Some people have already offered me excellent feedback and suggestions that I'm taking into consideration, but I'd also like to see how people are responding to the bracket system so far.

For comparison, here's a few more of my decklists:

Balaam__ on kamarupa

4 months ago

Alright, I believe I’ve settled on a card. It’s a card which, like you and Quicksilver Fountain, I’ve personally struggled to build around and never managed to get anything even remotely playable off the ground. It’s been a headache and at this point I’d just like to see someone do something with it because it’s such an interesting card.

Before I reveal the card, would it matter that you’d pretty much be restricted to Legacy/Vintage? It’s an old card.

wallisface on Kamarupa’s Challenge

4 months ago

Sorry, one last idea. This one’s a little more gimmicky but also feels like it should perform well against a lot of decks just by being able to grind them down. It will require some savvy piloting as far as knowing when to play the Arbiter.

wallisface on Kamarupa’s Challenge

4 months ago

I think Choke is a card you’d probably leave in the sideboard to battle decks that use islands. But I think Power Conduit is a good mainboard addition:

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