Raffine's Tower
Set Price Alerts

Combos Browse all Suggest

Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Brawl 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
Pre-release Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Standard Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Raffine's Tower

Land — Plains Island Swamp

(: Add , or )

This enters the battlefield tapped.

Cycling (, Discard this card: Draw a card.)

Almios on Blessed Perfection [1.3/MOM] - Suggestions Wanted!

3 weeks ago

My suggestions are based on not spending an arm and a leg to make improvements but maybe a finger or toe.

At a quick glance the first comment I have is lands seem a little low. I personally lean towards 36 if the deck isn't mono colored.

I know they are a bit slower but I would suggest using the tri colored lands as you are already using fetches. These lands add some real good color fixing early on and if they do become dead in hand cycle them away. Spara's Headquarters, Zagoth Triome, Indatha Triome and Raffine's Tower. I would replace your lands that reference the opponent count to come in untapped.

A land that goes on theme is Mirrex since it can get you mites as the game drags on. A second land I recommend since your land base is so varied is Field of the Dead, the zombies can add up and are nice little chumps if need be.

With the above changes I would say Crucible of Worlds but if you find sometimes you struggle to have something to play Conduit of Worlds is an extra mana but has the ability to give you the chance to cast something when you might not have anything else to work with.

I would personally go full Praetor and run each variation if possible for the big flavor. The added benefit is each one of them is practically game warping, but be warned it can attract a lot of attention. The newest Vorinclex is probably the odd man out though since he only finds basic forests and Dominaria Sheoldred simply because of price. Added benefits of the new praetors is you can accelrate their saga. Realmbreaker, the Invasion Tree would then make a very nice inclusion if you go that way.

Cards to consider dumping for them from what I can at a first glance are Flesh-Eater Imp, Plague Stinger, Septic Rats and Slaughter Singer. I chose these because I don't feel once they hit the board they are something that people say "this needs to die".

Norn's Choirmaster is a recent card that gives your commander even more of a presence on the board.

On the sorcery since the only card that I don't like the look of is Nature's Lore, sure it is a cheap way to get you your colors especially if you have dual typed lands but if we are upping the land count I would switch it to a Skyshroud Claim since it can find you the same lands but untapped if the land can come in untapped for mana efficiency.

The biggest suggestion on the instant side would be to add Krosan Grip over Infectious Bite. Sure the bite is a form of removal and poison generation but I find having one of the best artifact/enchantment removals is the better option.

I understand the suggestion fromm KongMing as a strong one but I don't think it works the way he intended it Temporal Distortion does put counters on their lands but it removes ALL of them not just one so even if you proliferate it doesn't keep the lands tapped down longer unless you destroy your own enchantment.

Astral Cornucopia is nice with since you can keep building it but getting only one color out of it can be problematic at times. I suggest replacing with a Crystalline Crawler if you are find being a little off theme.

I would find a home for Chromatic Lantern, having one artifact to fix all of your mana problems is very nice especially when in more than two colors.

Overall there are a couple of other cards I would recommend to consider but unsure of an exact home without taking apart every step. Grafted Exoskeleton, Tainted Strike, if you go the praetor route Geth's Summons is a great reanimation spell of you have the corrupted. Yawgmoth's Vile Offering is also a very strong spell for reanimation and removal. Inexorable Tide should probably have a home somewhere, it is a bit high CMC but it gets the job done. As Foretold also helps a lot of mana problems, do keep in mind it can also be used off turns if you have instant speed spells.

legendofa on Card Cost/Land Mana

3 weeks ago

The pie chart should be reasonably balanced, although a couple of factors can skew it one way or another. If your 1-2 mana cards are heavily dominated by one color, your lands should be weighted toward that color to ensure you can reliable use your low-cost spells when you need them. If a lot of your cards have heavy color weight, you need more lands of that color. If you have a lot of higher-quality lands like shocklands, ABUR duals, or triomes, these can help smooth out color curves and make a perfect balance less necessary.

The tool I use most for adding lands by color is a calculator. My process is a little involved, but has given me very reliable results.

  1. Count the number of pips of your first color.

  2. Count the total number of all colored pips.

  3. Multiply the number of pips of your first color by the number of land slots in your deck.

  4. Divide the number you got in step 3 by the total number of colored pips. Round up or down to the nearest whole number.

  5. Put in that many basic lands of your first color.

  6. Repeat for your second, third, etc. color.

To put this in algebraic form, Pc/Pt = Lc/Lt, or (Pc x Lt)/Pt = Lc, where Pc is the number of pips of a given color, Pt is the total number of colored pips, Lc is the number of land slots that provide a given color, and Lt is the total number of land slots. As an example, if I have 25 blue pips, 19 black pips, and 16 white pips, and I want to fill 24 land slots in a Modern deck, I multiply 25 (# of blue pips) by 24 (# of land slots in deck) and divide by 60 (total # of pips) to get 10 blue land slots. Repeating for black and white, this formula gives us 8 (rounded up from 7.6) black land slots and 6 (rounded down from 6.4) white land slots. I use 6 Plains, 10 Islands, and 8 Swamps as placeholders.

At this point, check for skew. To continue the example, are most of my 1-2 mana cards black, and most of my white cards higher cost? Cut a Plains and add a Swamp. Do many of my blue cards require ? Cut another Plains and add an Island. Now, we have 4 Plains, 11 Island, and 9 Swamp. This step is part observation, part feel, and part placeholders.

Once you have the color curve set, start adding nonbasic lands. If your nonbasic land provides a color, replace a basic land of that color. If it provides two or more colors, I cut whichever basic land I have the most of, then the second most, then the third most. If I want to add a playset of Raffine's Tower, I see that I now have the most Islands, followed by Swamps, then Plains. I cut two Islands and one of each of the others, leaving me with 9 Islands, 8 Swamps, and 3 Plains. If I then want to add three Watery Graves, I cut two Island and one Swamp, cutting Island first to maintain the chances of starting with black mana available on turn 1 and because more Islands are available. Fetchlands, including Evolving Wilds and similar cards, should be treated as whichever basic lands they're able to find.

Colorless utility lands need more consideration--does it needs a color to use? What colors do I need least? What colors do I need most? Let's say it's an artifact deck leaning heavily on the Alara block. I want to add two Academy Ruins. My current land base is

7x Island 3x Plains 4x Raffine's Tower 7x Swamp 3x Watery Grave

I know that I don't need Plains early in the game, that I do need Swamps early in the game, and that Academy Ruins needs to use. I cut one Plains for the first Academy Ruins and consider cutting a Swamp, but the need for early pushes me to cut an Island for the second Ruins. The land base is now

2x Academy Ruins 6x Island 2x Plains 4x Raffine's Tower 7x Swamp 3x Watery Grave

This would be a good point to pause and playtest. Make sure you hit the colors you need when you need them, you're not overloaded on a color, and everything flows smoothly. Tweak lands as needed test some more, and keep tweaking and testing until everything's locked in.

As a personal preference, I try to leave as many basic lands as needed to pay any colored cost in the deck. If I have Mechanized Production, but none of my cards need more than one black or white pip, then I will leave a minimum of two basic Islands and one each basic Plains and Swamps. Every format has some form of nonbasic land destruction (and I include Blood Moon in this), and basic lands are reliable and harder to negate or remove.

Apollo_Paladin on Bounce Back - Dimir ETB

4 months ago

Heya, nice to see another Arena player on here, so +1 just for that!

If this were me, I'd make this Esper-colored (Black/Blue/White). Adding White opens up a lot in terms of flicker effects, including (not limited to): Cloudshift, Ephemerate, Charming Prince, Flicker of Fate, Hallowed Respite, which would make re-casting them unnecessary since I see you're using stuff like Unsummon to work that mechanic.

It also opens up some other options like Meddling Mage who can be a real fun one to bounce and re-name cards with to mess with your opponent. This effect combos well with Black's Thoughtseize type cards and a couple blue Counterspell effects like Test of Talents which let you look at your opponent's hand to better pick things to name.

Other rare Wildcard options for Esper colors are Raffine's Tower and Fabled Passage to help secure a good tri-colored mana base, Void Rend for reliable universal permanent destruction, or just search through White/Blue gold cards as there is a LOT to choose from in the way of flicker / enter the battlefield effects for those colors.

Either way, hope to see ya around in the shuffler, or add me if you feel like hashing out some more decks and/or playtesting! Good luck!

Maccano1 on Urza's Artifact Buddies

5 months ago

1ST ROUND OF CHANGES:

REMOVED: Preordain, Sharding Sphinx, Hexavus, Wreck Hunter, Wire Surgeons, Sanwell, Avenger Ace, Whirler Rogue, Phyrexian Rebirth, Urza's Ruinous Blast, Ash Barrens, Evolving Wilds, Kayla's Music Box,

ADDED: Sword of the Meek, Thopter Foundry, Organic Extinction, Their Name is Death, Raffine's Tower, Academy Ruins, Reality Heist, Cyberdrive Awakener, Scrap Trawler, Foundry Inspector, Emry, Lurker of the Loch, Kappa Cannoneer,

wallisface on Yorions gone - what cards …

7 months ago

So, this is my current thinking for this list - basically moving Thalia to the sideboard, and trimming some cards i’d rather not see multiples of. Also ditching Ephemerate:

Land (23)

Creature (31)

Artifact (6)

Sideboard (15)

Apollo_Paladin on Arena Esper Control Deck

7 months ago

Another thought I had while building an esper-colored deck: Gift of Estates will let you fetch 3x Raffine's Towers since the spell doesn't specify a basic type & Raffine's shares basic land types.

I can potentially see it being a little problematic if played too early in midrange/tempo builds as it could potentially result in you having to discard since your low-mana plays are all control/removal, but since the Towers can be Cycled I think it's worth it none the less.

I'm using it just to help guarantee a good mana base, but in the case of your build I can see it also having value late-game potentially (provided you meet the condition) in giving you land-ammo to discard to Chromium (should your hand be drained, or if you're holding 1 or 2 good removals & nothing else).

Anyway, it might be another fun card to try out a copy of and see how you like it. My early testing is working quite well using it to guarantee Esper mana, but the deck I'm going with has low-mana permanents to drop so casting it even on Turn 2 isn't generally an issue so me thus far.

I like cards that give a beneficial effect in the event you don't get to go first.

Vicarian on Raffine Metaschemer

8 months ago

Got to thinking a bit more - wouldn't hurt to drop one Plains for a Swamp so you can fix with an Evolving Wilds if you haven't found Raffine's Tower by the time you have Raffine himself in hand.

Vicarian on Raffine Metaschemer

8 months ago

It looks like you might have a lot of trouble coming up with a blue source, when nearly half of your mana symbols are blue. Land bases are unfortunately expensive, but it looks like some of your dual-colored lands weren't that necessary. I copied your deck and experimented a bit: 1x Adarkar Wastes 4x Deserted Beach 3x Evolving Wilds 7x Island 3x Plains 4x Raffine's Tower 3x Tranquil Cove

You're needing 1x Adarkar Wastes and 3x Deserted Beach over what you've already got, which shouldn't be too rough on the wallet. Could potentially trade the Caves of Koilos 1:1 for the Wastes.

As far as counterspells go, as a cruel control player, I'll let most critters hit the field, then remove them at instant speed. I keep my counterspells for more dangerous things, like walkers or annoying creatures that have powerful ETB effects, or huge Enchantments.

Load more