Silverglade Pathfinder

Creature — Dryad Spellshaper

(1)(Green), Tap, Discard a card: Search your library for a basic land card and put that card into play tapped. Then shuffle your library.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (32)

DreadKhan on The Mimeospasm [Reanimator Terminator] - primer

3 months ago

I've heard of people using Phyrexian Dreadnought in decks like this, it's easy to get into the graveyard if you draw it and it's always 12 counters, which is usually enough to be impressive. It is $$$ though!

It might be too cute, but if you have a huge Lord of Extinction in your bin it'd be nice if you also had a Triskelion in there, right? If its late enough you can just kill everyone, early maybe hold it over everyone's head, the ability to just wipe out one opponent on a whim can be entertaining. You can also use it as a nifty board wipe, but that'd be a bit of a let down IMHO.

It's almost certainly too cute, but I have a real soft spot for Scavenged Brawler, if you want it's a sweet buff from the graveyard, but since it also has all those abilities as a creature you can use it as a decent base body in a pinch I guess.

Is 12 enough power to matter consistently? Ghalta, Primal Hunger is an old beefy beater, and similar to Phyrexian Dreadnaught he can come out for very little mana, but this guy can technically stay around, and only costs GG if you have a few bodies out. GG for a 12/12 Trample could be helpful, but it's also a 12 power body when the opponent wipes the board you can use for counters.

Do you get targeted much? Dawnstrider is a repeatable Fog effect that can soak up your most dangerous opponent's attack while also putting a card in your graveyard! I love this card in my Meren deck, where I also use Silverglade Pathfinder, this offers Rampant Growth and a discard source, though it can only find a Basic (looks like you've got 5). Pathfinder is worse than Dawnstrider, but both are a useful effect to have access to situationally, I love an early Pathfinder (as long as I can pitch something useful), but Dawnstrider is better later game.

Do other people you play against use graveyard strategies? Even if they don't I wonder if Consuming Aberration ends up big enough to bother with as a counter source? I guess if you're planning to Jarad people you could make Aberration your base creature and mill people for a bit until it's big enough to end everyone?

I think this is my last idea, Necrogoyf can have a decent power if the game has gone long, not as good as Lord of Extinction, but you can't run two of that, right? Do the people you play against make a point of using lots of creatures? For that matter there is also Urborg Lhurgoyf. I can't see you ever wanting more than 1 of these, but I felt like giving you the option of upfront mill or discard over time.

Here's hoping you haven't already written off all of these, either way nice work on your list!

DreadKhan on Meren

1 year ago

I suspect you've probably got enough creatures to look at Lurking Predators, it's ramp and card draw rolled into one package, you just need to run a lot of creatures. If you like big reanimation effects their is Grave Betrayal, this loves your various forced sacrifice effects. Coffin Queen and Hell's Caretaker are some lower to the ground reanimators that might be interesting, Queen can also reanimate your opponent's stuff. Demon of Dark Schemes is a weird recursion option, though it can go infinite, usually with creatures that make tokens via ETB. I've always loved having stuff like Dawntreader Elk and Diligent Farmhand in my Meren deck, they find a land without further input and end up in the graveyard when they do it, so you can recur them if that's the best option. I like Silverglade Pathfinder as both a clunky source of ramp that lets you discard creatures, it might not be powerful enough for your build though!

DreadKhan on Beledros Witherbloom

1 year ago

I could be wrong, but since your deck cares about lands I would make an effort to include more land ramp, artifacts seem to get blown up a lot anyways. I would use Wood Elves over arcane signet (or Dawntreader Elk?), replacing Sol Ring is harder, but there is Crop Rotation. Finding a Coffer or Urborg at the right time is a much bigger effect than Sol Ring. Deserted Temple is a good card in here with Coffers. Since you have Urborg and Coffers in here I wonder about Hour of Promise and/or Tempt with Discovery, if you can cheat out 2 or 3 lands at once you can probably cast your Commander and go off.

Not sure if it's really a 'good' card, but Silverglade Pathfinder can dig lands out repeatedly, your Commander is high enough MV that this might be worth doing.

Ashaya, Soul of the Wild is interesting in here, but especially if you've got something like Selvala, Heart of the Wilds out. Ashaya also works very well with your landfall effects.

I'm not sure if you need to stack up activations, but if you reanimate your Commander you can activate him again, so maybe some of the lower to the ground reanimation effects, stuff like Reanimate, Life / Death, and Animate Dead. They are pretty big ramp if you have a sac outlet and your Commander out.

I'm not sure if it's outside your playgroups boundaries, but Pitiless Plunderer is very good with Chatterfang. It's not a combo, but if you've got lots of Pests kicking around there is Savra, Queen of the Golgari, she's budget compared to Dictate of Erebos and might fit in here.

DreadKhan on Meren, Clan of Nel Toth

1 year ago

One of my favourite things to do in Meren is to ramp (my deck is on the clunkier side, and it runs very few lands), and one of the better ways to repeatedly ramp is to use more stuff like Sakura Tribe Elder, variations include Diligent Farmhand, Dawntreader Elk, Yavimaya Granger, and maybe Burnished Hart/Fertilid. All of these can find a Swamp for you, each sacrifices itself and thus they have some nice synergy with Meren. I think the only Meren decks that don't want multiples of that effect is if they are building a very high powered list, where this kind of play 'isn't advancing your board' sufficiently. I often find that farming XP isn't a waste of time early, so these recursive ramp sources offer that as well. I think it's very hard to justify running land ramp Sorceries when you can run creatures that do the same thing, and arguably do a better job of it. I would also shave stuff like Arcane Signet or the Talisman for creature ramp, Meren can't recur your rocks for you when they get blown up. In addition to Meren there are tons of things that synergize with creatures, stuff like Beast Whisperer and Liliana's Standard Bearer can draw lots of cards via creatures, and you don't get that synergy with a 2 mana rock. Using Meren to recur Liliana's Standard Bearer is a pretty impressive bulk draw option.

Some generically good cards for a Meren list that I love are Buried Alive, Final Parting, and Jarad's Orders, each of these offers real tutoring power, and none are especially pricey. Buried Alive can find a whole combo for you to win with. Old Stickfingers is probably worth a look for the similar reasons, Meren feels really weak if you have no creatures in your yard to reanimate. I'm not sure if it's too high budget, but Fiend Artisan has a lot of synergy with Meren. You don't have to dig out a combo piece for the card to do useful things.

In my Meren deck it's a much better Rhystic Study (I run a very high creature count), but I suspect you'd get some value out of Lurking Predators. There is also Heartwood Storyteller, in my experience both belong in a deck with even more creatures but they could still be useful I think.

In my limited experience Callous Bloodmage offers pretty good graveyard hate on a very low budget, and if you don't need that it can do other stuff, it's a great card to use in infinite loop since it can do a few useful things.

Mitotic Slime offers you a ton of bodies for only 5 mana, it's not especially hard to go infinite with as a result. I like using it with Demon of Dark Schemes and Pitiless Plunderer (and a sac outlet) to win, the nicest part about using a combo like this is that each piece is independently good. Phyrexian Altar is better than Plunderer, but it's even more money (though the difference has dropped sharply).

Dawnstrider is an extra Spore Frog, one that doesn't require reanimation but offers a discard outlet, letting you put creatures in your graveyard. Silverglade Pathfinder is another discard outlet, but offers ramp instead.

I hope this isn't too try-hard for your deck, Meren is a very fun Commander to build.

DreadKhan on Erinis, Landfall Spawn

2 years ago

Any reason you're not running The Gitrog Monster in here, it seems staggeringly synergistic unless I'm missing something? Another one to consider is Baba Lysaga, Night Witch, it's a tap ability, and you've usually got spare creature tokens and lands, add in some treasures or clues and you are going to draw a ton of cards. There is also Braids, Arisen Nightmare, hitting each opponent for a land can hurt some decks, especially if Braids can do it a few times, when you eventually get 3 cards for a land, it'll feel pretty good I think, but netting 2 opponent's worst land and getting a card back is also worth a land.

Maybe Thunderfoot Baloth or Blossoming Bogbeast? Maybe not enough 'bang for buck', but Siege Behemoth can let your Commander get in as if it's not blocked, do you often end up over 20 power?

Stuff like Sakura-Tribe Scout or Skyshroud Ranger can be useful in a landfall deck, especially if you've got some card draw going on. There are also a few more, Scaled Herbalist and Llanowar Scout that are pretty budget. Since you might not mind pitching a land to dig one out, Silverglade Pathfinder can ramp you if you pitch a card, slow but grindy value. Oracle of Mul Daya is pretty cheap at the moment, a decent card if you run enough lands, Augur of Autumn and your Commander will only need 1 other power to let you play creatures off the top of your deck, that seems solid.

It's pretty high end, but I feel like you'd struggle to add more passive value generation to this deck than with Field of the Dead, that card is just so much synergy. Another to consider might be Ashaya, Soul of the Wild, then all your creatures are also landfall (other than tokens).

Great deck, I hope some of these ideas work!

legendofa on Lets Shape the Spell

2 years ago

I would suggest an option that includes {B} and {G}, with {R} as a possible third color.

{W} isn't great. Mageta the Lion is a repeatable board wipe, and the other two I would consider are Avenger en-Dal and Devout Witness as targeted removal options.

{U} has a couple of interesting control options. Waterfront Bouncer, Trickster Mage, and maybe Alexi, Zephyr Mage are passable tempo options, Stronghold Biologist and Stronghold Machinist are more color-heavy, and Dreamscape Artist hits color fixing and ramp, unusual for blue.

{B} Spellshapers are generally mana-heavy, but Undertaker gives you a lot of freedom in what you discard, allowing you to switch cards in your hand and graveyard as needed. Notorious Assassin and Greel, Mind Raker are further control options.

{R} offers mostly burn and evasion. Seismic Mage is repeatable land destruction, and Hammer Mage eats artifacts.

{G} is, as always, the best at color fixing, with Greenseeker, Harvest Mage, and Silverglade Pathfinder. Rushwood Herbalist and Dawnstrider protect your creatures, and Jolrael, Empress of Beasts works well with the red options.

DreadKhan on Ajani W/G/R - My First Deck - Legacy i think

2 years ago

If you want to run only 18 lands, you might want to look at some more ramp. An old staple for budget play is Rampant Growth, but Harrow might also be worth a look, since it can fix your mana effectively. There are also options like Farhaven Elf to consider if you really want the body, or Springbloom Druid, in a pinch you could try Silverglade Pathfinder, but it's very slow in Legacy.

Not sure if it's out of your budget, but some White removal might be good in here, the best option is Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile, but Generous Gift is versatile (and you shouldn't be too worried about a 3/3 compared to what you blew up), but there is also Fateful Absence if people run Planeswalkers. If you want really cheap cards, you might try Oblivion Ring, though that isn't always a permanent solution, it is cheap and versatile.

It's definitely on the pricey side, but Toski, Bearer of Secrets is probably a lot better than Rigo, who won't work with your 1 power creatures after they get a +1 counter on them, Toski pays you for each creature that hits. Ohran Frostfang is arguably even better, but it's more mana and easier to remove, Toski is Indestructible. If you use Toski, you could run x1 of him and use 1 or 2 Time of Need to help find him more consistently. It can also find Djeru, or any other Legendary creature.

A card I like on a budget is Blossoming Bogbeast, the +2/+2 and trample buff is pretty big, and if you've got some other way to gain life before you attack, you can make the bonus much bigger. Trample often ends games much quicker. It's clunky, but it's a pretty cheap repeating Anthem effect.

Another good staple to look at might be Once Upon a Time, which is amazing in the opening hand usually, and reduces how many hands you have to mulligan compared to just running a land or creature in my experience. Like Gitaxian Probe, it got banned in other formats but it's used in Legacy sometimes.

I hope you can have some good games with your new deck!

DreadKhan on Cheap dragon

2 years ago

Alright, I'll try to keep that in mind and minimize the jargon. One thing I'd say about running lands, it's easy to end up with less than you actually need. The difference between 36 and 38 is extremely minor in terms of how many lands you can draw, so the exact number isn't that important, but if you have a higher cost Commander (Tiamat has a Mana Value of 7, or MV 7), you'll want ramp. A higher cost is usually any Commander requiring more than 4 mana, and/or one that requires more than 2 colours, either makes a Commander harder to cast. I end up on 38 in a deck like Reaper King, but I also use a lot of ramp in that deck to generate the huge mana values that deck can require. This deck probably wants anywhere from 36-42 lands, with 42 being where you want to be if you run relatively few ramp effects, 36 would mean running more of them, at least 10. You should probably run Command Tower. Temple of the False God is a risky land in a deck that isn't running a lot of lands, I hate to run it with less than 40 in a deck unless I have a payoff for a land tapping for 2.

It's worth considering basing your mana base around Green, not because most of the cards will be Green but to use Green ramp spells/mana dorks. I'm guessing you aren't aiming to spend a lot on this, so the cheapest $$$ way to increase your mana available is to use Green spells which can find Basic lands for you. Circuitous Route, Harrow, Roiling Regrowth, Search for Tomorrow, and Dire-Strain Rampage are all very good ramp effects, with most of them being cheap and able to find you colours of mana you might need. Sacrificing a land can be a good thing if you've got several of the same Basic land, which can happen easily. There are a ton of other ramp spells, many quite cheap, especially if you don't mind 3 mana effects. Spells that find land can be much better than artifacts, because artifacts can be blown up very easily compared to lands. I would also look for ones that can find any Basic land compared to ones that can only find a Forest unless you want to raise the budget a bit, as these lands are generally more expensive, but Kaldheim has 10 Snow type dual lands, one for each pair, and they are fairly cheap, and ramping with one of these off of Three Visits or Nature's Lore feels really good, but it'll be more investment. There are a lot of effects that find Forests and can find non-Basic Forests like Breeding Pool or Rimewood Falls, and finding one of those can really help make sure you can cast Tiamat. I would still play cards like Arcane Signet and Sol Ring, and most 2 MV mana artifacts are good cards usually.

A card that should be very useful in Tiamat would be Maskwood Nexus, which makes all creatures, wherever they are (in your hand, library, graveyard, or in play) are all every creature type, including Dragons, so Tiamat can find any 5 creatures. If you end up playing many cards that care about Dragons, this is worth looking at. Silverglade Pathfinder and Dreamscape Artist are pretty helpful some games as creatures that can also ramp you, potentially repeatedly if you are playing Casual games where you have a few more turns.

Interaction to protect your creatures can be very useful, Bolt Bend and Stubborn Denial are interesting options for you in a deck that will often have a power 4 creature out. Disdainful Stroke can stop board wipes, and Saw it Coming can stop anything in it's track, involving only U to cast, I would watch out for counterspells that cost UU (Blue Blue mana) to cast, this can be hard to arrange. You might think of Vindicate and/or Utter End to have removal vs any type of permanent, AFAIK neither is very expensive atm. There are 5 'Signet lands', Darkwater Catacombs, Skycloud Expanse, Shadowblood Ridge, Mossfire Valley and Sungrass Prairie are all very cheap and pretty good dual lands. Ash Barrens is a very good way to find a needed colour, especially Green. The World Tree is getting up there a bit, but it's a card worth looking at in 5 colours, especially if you run plenty of cards that find lands for you. If you have especially good non-Basic lands, IE lands that tap for 2 or more, Crop Rotation, Hour of Promise and Reap and Sow are all worth considering, finding a World Tree or other especially good land can be much stronger than finding a Basic. Faeburrow Elder and Jegantha, the Wellspring are very good ways to generate mana, probably don't run Jegantha as a Companion, just put him in the deck and you have no restrictions from him.

Well, that's what I'm thinking of right now, I'll probably have more later for you. I'll try to think of cards that are cheap and work for your deck, it might be a few posts before I've run out of relevant thoughts.