Sign in Blood

Sorcery

Target player draws two cards and loses 2 life.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

Snap157 on Budget Meren

5 days ago

Meren as a commander really pushes you to build with a high density of creatures-which are currently only a third of your deck. In this case I would cut most of your non-creature ramp for cheap mana dorks (Somberwald Sage, Arbor Elf, Fyndhorn Elves, maybe even Viridian Emissary, Solemn Simulacrum or Springbloom Druid).

I would also do the same with your other critical deck areas such as removal, draw, boardwipes, sac outlets. I would cut Alesha's Legacy, Overwhelming Remorse, and Putrefy in favor of Merciless Executioner, Insidious Fungus, Grist, the Hunger Tide, Foundation Breaker, and Acidic Slime. Also with more creatures gives us better tutor options: Fauna Shaman is worth the money here, and Jarad's Orders is super efficient. Mausoleum Secrets is kinda cool but it only grabs black creatures which I don't like- up to you if you want to keep it.

Drawing cards is overrated in this deck- your hand IS your graveyard. I would lose the Village Rites, Read the Bones, Sign in Blood, Bastion of Remembrance and Disciple of Bolas to bring in cards like Golgari Thug, Stitcher's Supplier, Skull Prophet, or Satyr Wayfinder. Nyx Weaver and Golgari Grave-Troll are an absolute must.

Not sure terastadon belongs here, as much as I love it. It's nice as a reanimation target but meren will have trouble bringing it back and the deck isn't ramp heavy enough to reliably have the mana to cast it. Instead, maybe a Skullwinder or Junji, the Midnight Sky to give you some added recursion.

You may want to also add in about 5 cheap nonbasics. Temple of Malady, Woodland Cemetery, Dakmor Salvage, Tainted Wood, Twilight Mire, Viridescent Bog, Necroblossom Snarl are all very solid choices. Lands entering tapped won't be a super large issue if you stick to 5 or so but you will definitely notice the mana smoothing and appreciate it.

Hope this helps!

FauxFaux on Card creation challenge

1 month ago

As a side note, seshiro_of_the_orochi a new art for Sign in Blood would be great for that card as a reprint with new art. I digress.

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Demonic Procession {3}{W}{B}

Enchantment

At the beginning of each upkeep, create a 1/1 white and black Cleric creature token with Lifelink.

Demon spells you cast gain Devour X, where X is its mana value.

"Valgavoth's faithful came upon a tear, an Omenpath. To them, it was yet another prominence of their lord. To Valgavoth, it was but a fence to a field of sheep, ready for slaughter."

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Ninja'd. Well.

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Padraic, Coilscourge {G}{W}

Legendary Creature — Human Cleric

Vigilance

When Padraic, Coilscourge enters the battlefield, exile all Snake creatures and cards from all graveyards.

Opponents can’t cast Snake spells.

Whenever a Snake enters the battlefield under an opponent’s control, you may pay 2 life. If you do, exile that creature.

"He raised his crook, the serpents fled, No coil nor fang did dare be shed. With whispered prayer and steady hand, He drove them far from hearth and land."

1/3

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Continue with more cards from this Innistrad 4 set!

kamarupa on Darkest Heart Challenge - Horror Tribal

1 month ago

Wow, Andramalech, it's been so long since anyone's offered such thorough comments on one of my decks. I have so much gratitude for the time and thought you put into it. My sincerest thanks!!

You're probably right that I ought to add Dismember - it's certainly useful and the deck would benefit from it's ability to get around indestructible. I kind of half-consciously considered it when I was adding Tragic Slip and [tragically?] it's usefulness slipped my mind.

I have to say, I'm not really a fan of the flavor of Chart a Course (or really quite a few sets in the last 5 years) I like my MTG to be Goblins, Elves, Dragons, and the ilk. So I've decided to swap out CaC for Sign in Blood, which is much more flavor-aligned.

I'm a tyro when it comes to Commander, so if you're saying Mastermind's Acquisition wouldn't be allowed in a tournament, I'll defer to your experience. That said, Wizards lists it as Commander legal. And the text of the spell doesn't require its caster to search outside their library, it just offers that as one of two options. Truth be told, I've gotten so used to including it instead of Diabolic Tutor I really didn't think about how Commander decks aren't allowed a sideboard for it to search. Given that it's 4MV cost is really higher than I want for a tutor, I'm happy to just cut it. It makes room for Dismember anyway. Also, I have no interest in playing any tournaments, so there's really no issue there anyway.

I hear what you're saying about the decision to include Shapeshifters. I wouldn't say your conclusion isn't rational or fair, but I would say that it's an opinion. I mean, they are Horrors, if not exclusively, then undeniably by choice - "...choose a creature type. This creature is the chosen type..." I have to say, when I view other people's decks that claim to be tribal in both their deck title and hubs and I see significant numbers of creatures that are not only not that tribe, but not even thematically adjacent or relevant - I'm usually pretty off-put. However, given that spells like Adaptive Automaton and Metallic Mimic are strictly printed to enhance tribal builds and are very frequently included, especially in tribes that lack tribal support, I'd say I consider them fair game, if not of the best flavor. It's a good debate if nothing else.

kamarupa on Magnificence

2 months ago

You have a lot of singletons for the Modern format. I suggest you add "Casual" and "Budget" to the Hubs.

You're already at 70 spells. That, combined with the number of singletons, might make this brew better suited for Commander/EDH than Modern. It would also open up even more spells.

Alternatively, if you want to keep it modern, even with a casual and budget focus, you can get more power and consistency out of it by tightening up your focus. A good deck doesn't need to do everything, just a few things well. You seem to have a lot of Vampires, Angels, and Humans. You might try to pick one of those creature types, and focus on that tribe - cut all the other creatures and increase the best of your chosen tribe to a full set, keeping in mind you want most of your creatures to cost 1-3MV.

When it comes to non-creature, non-land spells, I find the most success with the following catagories: removal/disruption, card advantage, protection. I try to include 4-8 removal/disruption spells, 2-4 card advantage spells (draw 2 or more cards from 1 spell), and 1-4 protection spells (deny opponent's removal). Anything that doesn't fall into those 3 categories usually isn't helping a deck succeed. Of course, every deck is different and there are lots of ways of achieving essentially the same results - like Harmonize and Collected Company are different in approach, but essentially both card advantage.

Sign in Blood is about as good as it gets for card advantage. Path to Exile isn't that expensive anymore, but black has so many good removal spells - I won't list them here. Discard can function as removal, so if that's your preference, it's fine, too, but keep in mind removal spells are cheaper to cast to target creatures and don't require as much timing to use effectively. White is great for protection spells - Faith's Shield is great, but Ephemerate can be just as good in decks with lots of ETB triggers.

Artifact/Enchantment removal is usually reserved for the sideboard.

Pump and lifegain are usually peripheral mechanics.

A dual color deck needs dual lands. It looks like you're going for a budget deck here, so I suggest adding more budget dual lands. While it's generally preferred to avoid lands that enter tapped, if you're brewing a budget deck, I think it's better to include such lands than to rely on luck to get the basics you need to cast spells of both colors. Concealed Courtyard would be great. Caves of Koilos would be ok, too, especially with a tribes like Angels or Vampires that have lots of creatures with lifegain mechanics. If resorting to lands that always enter tapped, I think the Scry lands provide the most value - you could do worse than Temple of Silence. I love managathering.com as a land resource - https://managathering.com/duallands/orzhov.html

I recommend 8-12 dual lands, 1-3 utility lands and the rest basics.

I usually include Bojuka Bog in decks that use black mana, as there's so much graveyard recursion in my play group.

To sum it up: if not brewing EDH, reduce to 60 spells. Cut your enchantments, tighten your creatures, focus your utilities. Remember: you don't have to annihilate opponents to win - focus on making a fast, reliable kill, not an elaborate one.

capwner on Compost Pile (Help Wanted)

4 months ago

I think this sort of deck really wants to do 3 things:

1. Get dredgers into the yard quickly so you can start dredging. There are 2 main ways Modern decks have done this, traditional dredge decks which use Faithless Looting vs. Crabvine decks that use Hedron Crab and Stitcher's Supplier to self-mill

2. Multi-draw spells to enable dredge so you start snowballing FAST. Again, Faithless Looting in classic dredge. But black has access to some decent draw spells too like Sign in Blood or Cling to Dust

3. More payoffs that come out of the yard. Usually this comes in the form of Prized Amalgam, Silversmote Ghoul (off of creeping chill), Bloodghast, and Vengevine. Nethergoyf and Souls of the Lost are new contenders but unlike the others you don't get them from the yard for free.

If you do all of these things, you'll have a deck which looks pretty close to a competitively built dredge or crabvine list. Which maybe isn't the "head held high fair game of magic" you're looking for. But maybe you can take partial inspiration from some of these decks while keeping true to your theme!

multimedia on Zombies.

4 months ago

Hey, Gisa only having one haste source here makes her really slow to get going, if at all. Lightning Greaves, Swiftfoot Boots, Lavaspur Boots, consider maxing out on these haste sources? If you already control one then have more ways to discard away the others Collector's Vault, Putrid Imp?

There's some 2 drop mana rocks/cost reduction you could add to increase ramp Mind Stone/Jet Medallion, but I think you would be better off using these deck spots to improve potential early game reanimation. You have some reanimation, but what I don't see here are effects that can get Zombies into your graveyard to reanimate before you get Gisa as a sac outlet.

Collector's Vault, Diresight, Entomb, Unmarked Grave, Buried Alive, Lively Dirge, Putrid Imp these are spells you could potentially cast long before you control Gisa. Getting some cards into your graveyard a little faster helps Stitch Together's threshold. Can even play more potential early game draw Night's Whisper/Sign in Blood to get more than 7 cards in hand which then you can at your Cleanup step discard down to 7 cards as free discard to setup reanimation. If you're discarding creatures to reanimate then consider increasing lower mana cost reanimation Reanimate, Animate Dead, Persist, Necromancy?

Consider adding an earlier game reanimation plan to get Grave Titan onto the battlefield? Titan being a repeatable Zombie token source can hold down the fort until you get Gisa going. In the meantime, Titan could do damage to opponents. Archon of Cruelty also isn't a Zombie, but is an excellent reanimation target, who if you can control it in the earlier game can give you a huge advantage. When your Commander can create creature tokens and with Grave Titan, Altar of Bhaal is powerful repeatable reanimation when you have creature tokens to exile.

I hope this advice was helpful and if you're interested I offer more advice about what cards to consider cutting.

FormOverFunction on Brew ideas for Scrawling Crawler

5 months ago

It’s pretty broad. This would be another asymmetrical damage vector for The Council of Four, even. Even my favorite burn spell Sign in Blood!

DreadKhan on Maga, Draining the Swamp

5 months ago

I think the general 'rule' around here is to never bring up politics in an existing discussion (or use it to harass people in their own spaces) because it's super off topic and poisons the well so to speak. I've got political decks (generally lefty stuff) and haven't had too much trouble, and I've seen people with some pretty right wing stuff that is acceptable on here.

In light of the present election I took another look at Maga, Traitor to Mortals and I was a bit surprised to realize (as you did) that it's a fairly playable card to build around. The card's name is objectively hilarious now, so I do wonder if it'll be a fun card to build, seeing this list illustrates the potential, but I have a few ideas that might be worth a look!

This might sound weird, but are you sure you want stuff like Exsanguinate and Torment of Hailfire? Ditto for Sanguine Bond stuff, I think you should leave in Exquisite Blood (it's amazing with your Commander), but I feel like making this a combo deck will make it much less fun to play (obviously ymmv, just my thoughts!). Anyways, your Commander already gives you an outlet for big mana, and with all your ramp it should be fairly easy to eliminate an opponent; have you thought about some Flash sources, maybe Emergence Zone and/or Vedalken Orrery? If Maga has Flash you can potentially hold up enough mana to eliminate an opponent that is about to win (or simply eliminate you!). I'd rather play against that than Torment of Hailfire!

I rarely regret including stuff like Night's Whisper and Sign in Blood, these can do a lot of work. I don't think I'd bother with the Fallen Empires one, but Subterranean Hangar is a fairly good card if you want to store mana, I look at it as a ramp card instead of a land. I'm not sure if it's too much of a hassle, but Diabolic Revelation is a pretty crazy tutor if you dig out more than 2 cards. Maybe War Room? Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief is a great sponge for extra mana, she can remove creatures (including blockers) and then hit the opponent like a truck. Morbid Opportunist can draw a decent number of cards. Once Maga is out either Scavenged Brawler or Mask of Griselbrand can offer a lot of value for mana, maybe Shadowspear? I don't know if you have enough Demons to make Liliana's Contract a viable win con (though TBH I think it's a reasonable one because it's so telegraphed, and more decks can interact with it) but it's also a good card draw effect. I can't decide if Mandate of Abaddon is worth it, if Maga is big he just wipes out EVERYTHING except himself, so he can probably kill a player the turn you play Mandate and swing.

Hope these ideas help!