Royal Assassin

Creature — Human Assassin

: Destroy target tapped creature.

Discussion (51)

kellpiece on Mono-Black Devotion

1 month ago

love the idea and got a lot of great cards you should consider: Erebos, God of the Dead i might run 3 of these boys. obv choice with black devotion.

Crypt Ghast is gonna pop off in this deck, no doubt. Royal Assassin as well. I'd ditch the Nightveil Specter since they could easily be replaced with Vampire Nighthawk for way more value. also consider Bloodsoaked Champion

Liliana of the Dark Realms is a bit pricey but god damn if she isnt UNREAL with black devo decks. also maybe crank it to 4 Phyrexian Obliterator and 4 Gray Merchant of Asphodel

mono black has a lot of strong control, as well. Inquisition of Kozilek , Hero's Downfall , Fatal Push are all cheap and CRAZY effective.

As far as sweet hybrid cards go, I'd consider Fiend Artisan and Ashenmoor Liege , otherwise not too many other cool ones come to mind but hopefully this advice helps!

TheVectornaut on Black and White - please help!

1 month ago

I'll go ahead and play devil's advocate here and suggest that orzhov humans is a great budget deck archetype that can be both aggressive and controlling at the same time. It also easily supports Grand Abolisher , Kambal, Consul of Allocation , and even Starfield Mystic if you have a critical mass of Oblivion Ring s, Pacifism s, and such. Champion of the Parish is a key card of the deck, as is Thalia's Lieutenant . After that, it depends on what kind of gameplan you want to build around. My take on orzhov humans, Assassination Squadron makes use of tappers like Gideon's Lawkeeper and Minister of Impediments to combo and destroy creatures with assassins like Royal Assassin and Gideon Jura . With access to the legacy card pool and a bigger budget, King's Assassin and Deathbringer Liege could be on the table too. Tribal support like Adaptive Automaton , Metallic Mimic , or Door of Destinies is nice, but it certainly isn't a requirement. (Fun fact: when I built this deck years ago, Lieutenant cost much more than the Door. Funny how things can change so drastically.)

Creating tokens tends to work well in this kind of deck because both human lords can buff and/or be buffed by them. Gather the Townsfolk and Thraben Doomsayer are the usual suspects, and I personally like Mentor of the Meek as a way to keep the hand topped off. If you want to go for a lifegain plan with Kambal at the helm, Vizkopa Guildmage is a budget Sanguine Bond on a stick. While certainly not budget, Serra Ascendant and Westvale Abbey  ^Flip can also work in such a build. Now that I think about it, a lot of soul sisters staples happen to be humans ( Auriok Champion , Martyr of Sands , Ranger of Eos , Soul's Attendant , Soul Warden , Speaker of the Heavens , etc.) Another idea is to focus on maximum destruction and exile. High Priest of Penance is a good way to make opponents think twice about their decisions in combat, and I've been having reasonable success with Mangara of Corondor as a sort of slow O-Ring that happens to trigger the lords. Humans are such a common tribe that there's no end to the number of directions you can steer them in if you really want to.

Polaris on Multiple copies in play of …

2 months ago

Yeah, activated and triggered abilities are different. Activated abilities are written "cost: effect" and can be activated as many times as you can pay the cost. For example, Royal Assassin and Shivan Dragon both have activated abilities; you can use Royal Assassin over and over again if you have ways to untap it and you can pay as much as you want to boost Shivan Dragon's power.

Triggered abilities start by specifying a time (whenever, at the beginning of, etc), and then say to do something. These abilities go on the stack if their trigger event happens, and if they have a cost you pay it while they're resolving. For example, if you have an artifact come into play while you control Era of Innovation , it will trigger. When the trigger resolves, it gives you the option of paying . If you do, the rest of the effect happens. You can't pay multiple mana bacause you can't just use triggered abilities at will, you have to instead set up the event they're looking for.

TheVectornaut on Blue/White Life and Defenders

6 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

7 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

9 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

10 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

10 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.