Royal Assassin

Creature — Human Assassin

: Destroy target tapped creature.

Discussion (51)

TheVectornaut on Blue/White Life and Defenders

3 months ago

I think a good place to start would be to evaluate what goals are the most important for your deck while making sure you don't have too many ideas that compete against each other. When I look at the deck now, I can see the general idea of a U/W control list that takes advantage of freeze and lifegain to prolong the fight until you can win. However, I see some major problems with the plan as it is now.

First, the deck lacks a clear win condition at the end of all the control. You'll either need to chip away over the course of a slow game with your smaller creatures or hope you have enough freeze effects to get your big guys in late-game. Control deck usually opt for some type of haymaker that can reliably close the game. Some like AEtherling and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar are designed to protect themselves, some like Celestial Colonnade and Shark Typhoon place emphasis on evasion, some like Torrential Gearhulk and Snapcaster Mage give you as much value as possible, and some like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Teferi, Time Raveler deny your opponents of counterplay. There's a lot of overlap within those categories and not all of these cards will be played as a wincon, but having a clear plan to win is better than only playing to not lose. The closest cards you have are probably Serpent of Yawning Depths and Archipelagore. Sea monsters are certainly a fine casual deck but slotting them into something else can be awkward at best and ineffectual at worst.

The second problem I see is the missed potential of your chosen colors combined with your chosen tribe. Right now, you have very few ways to take advantage of the clerics in the deck. Clerics are intended to be W/B since you get access to powerful new tools like Orah, Skyclave Hierophant, Taborax, Hope's Demise, and Cleric of Life's Bond along with classics like Sin Collector, High Priest of Penance, and Skirsdag High Priest. The lifegain/drain synergy in clerics also benefits from orzhov colors to play threats like Angel of Destiny, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Marauding Blight-Priest, Speaker of the Heavens, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Twilight Prophet, Pious Evangel  ^Flip, Drana's Emissary, and Cruel Celebrant.

Incidentally, black also synergizes quite well with tapdown effects because of Assassinate cards like Royal Assassin, Deathbringer Liege, and Murderous Compulsion, although white does have its share of Vengeance with Sunblast Angel, Deadeye Harpooner, and Swift Response. Anyway, now that I'm on this tangent, it's worth mentioning that including strong freeze effects is important if you want to make such an underused mechanic work. I'm partial to Dungeon Geists and Icefall Regent as permanent taps, but there's also Guardian of Tazeem, Niblis of Frost, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Time of Ice, Lorthos, the Tidemaker, Frost Titan, and Hands of Binding. Alternatively you can use cheaper cards that can retap a creature each turn like Gideon's Lawkeeper, Blinding Souleater, Fatestitcher, Hidden Strings, and Minister of Impediments. The final category I'll mention are other cards that take advantage of tapping enemy creatures like Palliation Accord and Verity Circle, except I'd only ever recommend the latter.

In summary, I think you should decide whether you're more interested in clerics or in freeze since they don't synergize with each other that well. For clerics, switching to black and taking advantage of lifedrain and sacrifice is advisable. For freeze control, find ways to abuse tapping, implement a strong win condition, and generally include more card draw and countermagic. If you are dead set on combining these styles, I'd at least invest in some tribal support cards to give the clerics more impact than just weakly contributing to the party mechanic. Adaptive Automaton, Door of Destinies, Obelisk of Urd, and Coat of Arms are some popular options. Finally, if your budget doesn't allow you to purchase many new cards, prioritizing the acquisition of additional copies of your strongest but cheapest cards is a good way to upgrade. For this deck, I think those cards are Attended Healer, Cleric of Chill Depths, Hypnotic Sprite, Kor Celebrant, Luminarch Aspirant, Queen of Ice, Shepherd of Heroes, Skyclave Cleric  ^Flip, Concerted Defense, Dovin's Veto, Negate, Inscription of Insight, Staggering Insight, Trapped in the Tower, and maybe Silundi Vision  ^Flip. Good luck with your build and let me know if you have any questions!

FormOverFunction on Archelos, Lagoon Mystic EDH

4 months ago

I forgot to mention: Royal Assassin would be a good way to thin the tapped herd.

RambIe on Attack Me But Don't Hurt Me UwU

6 months ago

tutors are only good if your fetching an insta win
never under estimate the power of strong card synergy with card vantage

Not Needed But Food For Thought:
Quest for Renewal & Royal Assassin

Shabompistan on Monster Hunter: Chevill

6 months ago

Labone I'll preface this by saying I have not quite developed this deck to its fullest potential. My casual playgroup finds this deck very frustrating to play against in the casual meta, so I've abandoned it for now unfortunately.

For the planeswalker, Vraska the Unseen was originally in Garruk, Cursed Huntsman's spot. I choose Garruk for two reasons: he has card draw attached to removal which can net two two cards per dead creature when combined with Chevill. And secondly I simply like the theme of Garruk better. Any Vraska would still be a good addition, but I would personally not use Vraska, Swarm's Eminence for reasons I will explain below.

This is not a deathtouch tribal deck, this is a removal tribal deck. The difference being that this deck values simple removal spells such as Doom Blade over good deathtouch creatures such as Vampire Nighthawk.

From the cards you mentioned: Hooded Blightfang, Leyline Prowler, Vampire Nighthawk, Poison-Tip Archer, Ochran Assassin, Hornet Queen, Archetype of Finality, Gifted Aetherborn are all deathtouch creatures. While they are good creatures on their own, they are not the focus of this deck so they are left out for lower CMC removal spells.

Titan Hunter isn't a bad idea, lifedrain is a viable win condition for this deck.

Twinblade Assassins: Essentially a worse Deathreap Ritual. It would be a good add if the deck was in need for more draw, but I'm okay with the amount of draw this deck currently has.

Ravenous Chupacabra: A very mana inefficient removal spell. Without any recursion in the deck to make it shine, it doesn't stand up to the many 2 drop removal spells.

Royal Assassin isn't bad, but it is very conditional. I would rather go for a Stronghold Assassin or something else that has no conditions.

Hope this helps.

MagicMarc on None

7 months ago

My favorite artifact:
A very long time ago, my favorite artifact was Icy Manipulator. The original artwork hooked me. Back when artifacts got turned off when they became tapped this card was a great answer for nearly everything that would get put into play that could hurt you. And it was always relevant.

My favorite creature:
Once Arabian Nights happened, The Khabal Ghoul became my favorite creature. For 1 mana, a creature that could just keep growing? Pair them with Royal Assassins and grow them like crazy. If playing with white, add Spirit Links to the ghouls. They just added an ever growing threat to your board and were very flavorful.

My favorite instant:
Capsize has been my favorite ever since it's first printing back in 1999. This is repeatable denial at instant speed in an opponent's end step, targets any permanent and is in a color filled with protection for it. I believe it's a perfect example of what blue magic is. Versatile and another form of permission. And if unanswered, it will stop any strategy across the table from you. Since it can even bounce lands, it's never a dead draw really.

Tarzunga on Victory or Seppuku

7 months ago

MrKillStar

As for Royal Assassin, yeah I get it. I wasn't sure about adding him but at the same time I like having an instant way to kill a creature without paying mana to allow me to cast an instant from the grave.

Had a mistake there, said creature instead of instant.

Tarzunga on Victory or Seppuku

7 months ago

MrKillStar Yeah I see, you got fair points there, regarding Liliana and infect, I'll reconsider both cards for sure.

I didn't know Gravepurge, it's a better Bone Harvest, need to get a copy to replace.

As for Royal Assassin, yeah I get it. I wasn't sure about adding him but at the same time I like having an instant way to kill a creature without paying mana to allow me to cast a creature from the grave.

Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho is a thematic card that also protects Toshiro from removal, for example if I am forced to use a wrath he comes back without me having to spend extra mana to recast him. Basicly it is there as a safety net and for flavour (a samurai with a katana/daisho), plus it's one of those cards people stop to pick up and read to know what it does, it's always nice. Another thing is, Whispersilk Cloak is a bigger target for removal, while the Daisho people don't bother removing most of the times, they just leave it there and save their artifact removal for something more impactful, and Kaya's Ghostform only works once.

The intention of having Castle Locthwain is to draw if I end up with no cards in hand, so I'd lose 1 life to draw 1, basicly, but yeah most times I won't be using it probably. Emergence Zone is a nice addition for sure, even for that instant speed Bontu's Last Reckoning right before my turn starts for example, would make the drawback of the lands not untapping a little less punishing.

MrKillStar on Victory or Seppuku

7 months ago

Tarzunga - I totally understand, I have problems to cut cards in my decks aswell, even after so many changes I still keep changing cards.
Thing about Liliana of the Dark Realms is, it tighten your deck, so there is smaller chance to draw some crappy land when you dont need them anymore. Her ultimate is definetly great, but I think even if she gets removed before you pull out her ultimate, she eats some removal. Same goes for some other cards.. they are strong, can help you a lot, but opponents may waste some removal for them, so your next card can be a bit more safe.
Even if your playgroup changed infect damage from 10 to 20, infect still counts from any creature that dealt the infect damage, so every creature can deal a potentional lethal damage out of nowhere, not just commander damage.
That combo Dango mentioned is pretty decent, but Im not a fan of Reseirvoir+Sensei, even they are good cards for sure :D I actually made a different infinite combo with Bolas's Citadel, but its more derpy.
Necropotence - Depends how many discard effects you got in your deck and what your opponents are playing, but its a beast card for sure, that could easily win you the game. But Im considering to cut it out of my own deck, since it kinda breaks my important discard combo cards and replace it with some other card draw.
Oh, and I would also replace Bone Harvest for Gravepurge.
Also, Bitter Ordeal is a sorcery, yeah, so it doesnt really work with Umezawa, but it can be pretty fatal if you use it right.

I would considere cutting:
Royal Assassin - 3 cmc 1/1, requires haste or extra turn and tapped creature. Some insant removal/maybeboard card could be more useful.
Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho - I might be wrong, but it feels kinda wrong... Something like Whispersilk Cloak or Kaya's Ghostform.
Castle Locthwain - draws ONLY one card and you lose (most likely) a lot of life, since black has a lot of card draw is kinda meh. I would replace it with Emergence Zone to give your spells flash (Bitter Ordeal says hello) when you would need it.