Sifter of Skulls

Creature — Eldrazi

Devoid (This card has no color.)

Whenever another nontoken creature you control dies, put a 1/1 colorless Eldrazi Scion creature token onto the battlefield. It has "Sacrifice this creature: Add to your mana pool." ( represents colorless mana.)

Discussion (50)

Masterful on Necronomicon | Teysa Karlov | Primer

3 days ago

MilkBreath56 I've been experiencing a similar problem in that the deck has too many high CMC cards that can clog our hand. Now that the format is speeding up, we can't afford to play as many big creatures with redundant effects. For example, Luminous Broodmoth and Nightmare Shepherd are probably not both needed, and neither are both Pitiless Plunderer and Sifter of Skulls. I used to prioritize the infinite combo a lot more back when the format was slower, but now, cheap fodder and card draw are king. The combo should still be accessible with our many tutors even though we'd have less redundancy. I'm working on an update to overall lower the curve of the deck, introduce more cheap fodder and card draw, and cut down on redundant 4+ CMC cards.

Despite the potential of lowering the curve, Teysa will never be as fast as the likes of Lathril, Blade of the Elves who can rely on tons of cheap mana dorks, or Magda, Brazen Outlaw who generates fast treasure from the command zone. Teysa's advantage is that she's a lot more resilient. Aristocrat boards will get a ton of value even if they're destroyed and can sometimes be brought back while elves or Magda just lose everything to a wipe. And if your Magda player is winning too consistently on early turns, their deck might be too strong for your meta.

The balance of death triggers to fodder to sacrifice is definitely a tough one. Thankfully many cards do multiple jobs. I'm glad you've been able to adjust the power level using the tutors. Another easy way to cut power would be cutting cards like Necropotence or Bolas's Citadel or fast ramp like Chrome Mox or Mana Crypt. Even cutting Skullclamp reduces power by a ton. Cards like Sign in Blood (or Marble Diamond/Charcoal Diamond for the ramp) are great replacements. If you ever need to increase power, stax cards like Opposition Agent and Dauthi Voidwalker could do a lot, but it's at the cost of making the deck more oppressive. If you ever find yourself up against precons, this list would need a lot of down-tuning, and some easy downgrades might be to remove Reassembling Skeleton, take out all the ramp, take out all the control cards, etc.

To answer your question, I agree with you that running out of fodder is probably this deck's #1 problem. It's mostly the same as our high CMC problem. We don't have enough cheap fodder, and too many of our creatures are 4+ mana. The update I'm working on should hopefully solve some of those problems. If you want to do some tuning yourself, I recommend trying different 1-2 drop creatures with useful death triggers, especially ones that create tokens.

Glad you're enjoying the deck and cheers again!

SOTC on Chatterfang´s Karre

1 week ago

Hey Fridulina, what a cool deck! I love the theme; token shenanigans are a particular favorite of mine. As it stands, this deck has 105 cards - let's shave it down to a legal 100, and see if we can't make it a bit more focused to boot :)

Cards to Add
- Additional recursion and protection cards keep Chatterfang and your other combo pieces in the game. I have to say I love the addition of Gyome, Master Chef - he interacts excellently with all your deck's pillars, and keeps both you and your important creatures alive. Economical ways to keep your general around are Kaya's Ghostform and Aspect of Mongoose. The former recurs him no matter what; the latter keeps him from being targeted, and should he get board-wiped, you still get the Aura back! In a general sense, picking up a Regrowth is just an all-round good idea: you can go fish for anything you lose.
- Consider using Mycoloth, as it synergizes fantastically with this deck. As a mass sacrifice outlet, a big stompy creature, and a prolific token generator all in one, this Fungus has it all.
- Though expensive at , Nadier, Agent of the Duskenel can get huge real fast in this deck, and removing him only worsens your opponents' problem.
- For reliable card-draw, an Idol of Oblivion and a Species Specialist will do tons of work here. They also have supplemental uses in providing creature bodies to swing and block with.

Cards to add: 7

Cards to Cut
- I'd say Squirrel Sanctuary & Squirrel Nest don't really work fast enough to warrant their mana costs. Additionally, this deck doesn't exclusively lean on Squirrels but has a general token-value theme, diminishing the synergy they may have had in a pure tribal deck.
- Mitotic Slime is somewhat over-costed for its effect. If there would be a reliable way to keep sacrificing and recurring it, it would be quite a bit better.
- Avenger of Zendikar works better in a landfall or Plant deck; here it's a token maker that only occasionally buffs those tokens, provided it and they even stick around. For , that's not very spectacular.
- Sifter of Skulls and Golgari Germination both suffer from the 'nontoken' element in their rules text. While this deck is all about tokens kicking the bucket, you don't really want to lose any of your 23 creature cards - most of them only provide value while they are alive, and you want to save recursion for your commander.

On single-use spells in EDH
This deck runs into a problem many Commander players encounter: that of smaller, value-providing instants and sorceries underperforming in EDH. Cards like Read the Bones, Sign in Blood, Chatter of the Squirrel, Skeletal Scrying, Village Rites and Scatter the Seeds can be played only once or twice, unless your deck runs permanent-based recursion effects to keep bringing them back. As a rule of thumb for EDH, if you want to include an instant or sorcery, its effect should be at least one of these:

1. Dramatic: powerful game-changing effects, as on Kindred Dominance;
2. Permanent: ramp spells such as Three Visits are a good example;
3. Reactive: capable of selectively enhancing or protecting one of your cards, negating an opponent's (more expensive) spell - i.e. a Professor's Warning to stop a removal effect.

These criteria are born from necessity - in EDH, you don't have a single opponent to defeat, but three. In a two-player game, a Village Rites gives you a one-card advantage over your opponent - you spend one, and gain two. In a four-player game, with each of your opponents drawing a card for turn, you have accrued a one-card deficit.

With that in mind, I'd recommend culling the aforementioned instants and sorceries. This deck already has powerful card-drawing (Toski, Bearer of Secrets) and token-making (Chatterfang) effects available to it. Trust that they will do the job well.

Cards to cut: 12

Wrapping Up
And with that, we're down to 100! I hope this helps you streamline the deck, so you may overrun your foes with a horde of vengeful rodents. Good luck!

Epicurus on Mazirek's Nut Sac

3 months ago

IHATENAMES, I touched on this in a previous comment, but also your edit hit it on the head. This is a squirrel tribal deck that just happens to have Mazirek as the commander. Thus, there's a lot of Mazirek-ey cards out there that there's no room for in here. It's meant for fun more so than competition.

That said, Sifter of Skulls might be helpful late-game, and Neverwinter Dryad is an effective sac outlet if nothing else, so I'll consider them both but don't know what I'd want to lose to add them in.

As for tutors, I own more Demonic Tutors than I have decks to put them in, but this deck doesn't really need them. The one infinite combo in there was accidental, and I don't try to pull it off unless it just kinda happens. Maybe to get to removal cards when I need them, but I'd much rather have that spot in the 99 filled with another removal card than something to fetch one with.

Dread Return is cool, and I'll playtest it. I'm sacrificing Squirrels so crazily as it is. I considered Victimize and Blood for Bones, but couldn't decide what to cut for them.

Cheers!

IHATENAMES on Mazirek's Nut Sac

3 months ago

Suggestions:

More ramp like Neverwinter Dryad to start doing bigger things earlier and that sac trigger or perhaps a creature that can help ramp like Sifter of Skulls it synergies well with your commander

More recursion like Dread Return to help in the long game also a free spell with all your squirrels

perhaps a tutor effect like Mausoleum Secrets or Rushed Rebirth for consistency

My Dina deck that has a similar game plan squirrels

lessidor on elves of the shadows

6 months ago

carpecanum thanks for the comment! Rogue's Passage is indeed a must! i thought about Palace Siege to, but i cuted it for Gray Merchant of Asphodel since i already have more than one way to recure creature from my graveyard, and the life gain on gray merchant is more relevant in my opinion. Sifter of Skulls is already in my list, and i was wondering which card you would cut for Corpsehatch ?

carpecanum on elves of the shadows

6 months ago

Rogue's Passage in case your boss gets big enough to end the game. I second the motion for Black Market .

Maybe Palace Siege ?

Corpsehatch , Sifter of Skulls

king-saproling on Syr Konrad's grave mistakes

6 months ago

You might like these: Forever Young , Neko-Te , Nim Devourer , Wake the Dead , No Rest for the Wicked , Skirge Familiar , Songs of the Damned , Death Denied , Restless Dreams , Altar of the Brood , Millikin , Extractor Demon , Sifter of Skulls , Awaken the Erstwhile , Champion of Stray Souls , Dread Summons

BlackGtitan on Yawgmoth, *Lite*

7 months ago

Nice deck! I'd suggest Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools for Villis,Broker of Blood so as to lower your CMC

As on point Yawgmoth's Vile Offering is for theme, I do believe I'd cut it for No Mercy .

I use Ophiomancer for token generation, as well as Bitterblossom . Sifter of Skulls works well with creatures dying and same with Pawn of Ulamog .

I also built Yawgmoth, Check out The Good Dr. , but did go the way of life loss for creature death. Hope those ideas help!