Skullclamp

Artifact — Equipment

Equipped creature gets +1/-1.

Whenever equipped creature dies (is put into the graveyard from the battlefield), draw two cards.

Equip

Discussion (46)

enpc on Fixing White in EDH

2 days ago

mccabej140: While I can understand that you're miffed that the thread got sidetracked, it does raise an important point here; it's important to get your basis correct.

You posted in a forum about commander where the premise was that white has a deficit on card draw compared to the other colours and that it was somehow a problem that needed fixing. The counter argument was that white's card draw is plenty fine considering the colour as a whole and the other things that it does.

Your premise was fixing a problem, not "hey, I came up with a cool new mechanic that white (and potentially others) could have" which was posted under the Custom Cards section of the forum, so the response is talking about whether there actually is a problem and if it does indeed need fixing. Context matters and we (as in all of us, myself included) can get caught up wasting a lot of time and energy trying to fix problems that don't actually exist.

If you're keen on the mechanic and think that it's got potential, I would recommend that you keep developing it. But some feedback on the design idea:

• For a white ability, your tokens should have at least 1 power. I doesn't make sense for white, a martial colour to make tokens which have no teeth.

• Exiling cards off the top of your library so you can play them is actually quite a red mechanic. The red design is very much a "use it or lose it" attitude which fits with the colour scheme.

• If you do want to adapt this to white, I would have the ability only every exile 1 card, however it can create multiple tokens. When at least one of them dies/leaves the battlefield, then you can flip the exiled card. This way you're not giving white the ability to dig super deep but your are giving them token, which is a white thing.

• Skullclamp exists and is a very strong card, but don't be afriad of its existence. There are lots of cards which are broken with clamp, that's the fault of clamp, not your card. It's like saying that Elspeth, Sun's Champion + Skullclamp become a card draw beast. Of course it does, but that's not becuase of Elspeth.

• Figure out how the mechanic gets triggered. Are you going to tie it to ETBs, or mainly instants/sorceries? Are you going to have repeatable versions of it on a card?

Those would be my thoughts on the ability itself. I would also recommend creating a new thread over in the Custom Cards forum and don't talk about this "fixing white", just talk about the mechanic. I would also look into the ability not just being white, you might have white/blue and white/red cards which can do this too.

mccabej140 on Fixing White in EDH

2 days ago

Good point. I honestly never considered Skullclamp haha.

Omniscience_is_life on Fixing White in EDH

2 days ago

TriusMalarky is right, one toughness would make Skullclamp cost 4 billion dollars as I believe SynergyBuild mentioned a page prior

Profet93 on Xenagos, God of Revels and obscene power

3 days ago

ZerglingRushWins

Agree with Plush, this is the lowest CMC Xenagos deck I have ever seen +1

Thoughts on adding Deflecting Swat in place of either pyroblast/red elemental blast or even vines of vastwood? Both blasts are only good against blue while requiring mana open. Swat is free and is much more versatile - Counter counterspells, reditect targetted draw, extra turns, removal, etc.... works on abilities too. Very good utility

I count about 5 draw effects, do you feel that is sufficient given your low CMC? It feels like you will dump out your hand, then maybe get board wiped and then be stuck with little/no draw. Can you give us a breakdown of what your typical T1-3/4 looks like?

I wanted to recommend Yavimaya Hollow but given your blood moon package and mana dorks, I feel it is unwarranted despite being Xenagos.

While anti-synergetic with null rod/ouphe, have you considered Skullclamp? It can provide value with your dorks when you are done with them and can draw you cards when your beaters get removed (assuming they don't remove in response to equip).

I noticed you took out life's legacy but have momentous fall in? I believe it would be easier to cast life's legacy after casting a beater rather than holding up mana for momentous fall. While legacy cannot be used in response to removal, I feel the above points hold more value.

I personally feel Elder Gargaroth > Hydra omnivore, as hydra makes you more likely to get removed as none of your opponents want to take damage. Elder comes down more quickly, is more versatile and draws you cards without making the table hate you.

I count about 13 beaters that put in damage, how often do you find yourself struggling to find a beater?

_Arra_ on [[Primer v3.5]] - OM_RATH!!! (M21 Update!!!)

4 days ago

Hey BenWin, thanks for the shout out. As you wrote a long post I thought it fair I do the same in reply.

I want to respond to your comment as I think there is a lot you are overlooking in your analysis, most of which is on point. However, you mentioned a few cards now a couple of times so I want to break these down a bit as you have gone to the effort to write an extensive comment.

1. Firstly I'd like to address your comment on Burgeoning + Ghost Town which you've shown your self to be an big advocate of. These are great cards and on paper seem to be great additions to the deck as they appear to enable one of our main objectives which is landfall triggers. However, the reason I think these cards have fallen out of favour is because they're very situational. Let me expand on that. If you do not have an opening hand with Burgeoning and a number of lands and a way to refill your hand (a very specific situation) the card is lackluster. Yes it is great if our opponents are constantly playing lands and we have Ghost Town and Burgeoning but this is honestly rarely the case. They are a weak draw 90% of the time. Even with Burgeoning in our opening hand as we do not have built in card draw we stall. Even with the increased draw effects provided by Zendikar Rising I do not think it is worth the spots.

2. Calling the removal of Perilous Forays crazy talk seems strange to me. The CMC of this card is 5, ideally we want to wait until Omnath, Locus of Rage is out before we play it so dodge removal. Even more ideally we want Amulet of Vigor in hand/on the battlefield too. My second gripe with the card is that once we have ramped a couple of times, played land each turn and then got into a position to 'combo off' with Perilous Forays most of the time the number of basics in our deck barely makes it worth while as it effectively switches off all our remaining ramp spells. There have been so many times I have 'gone off' with Perilous Forays and not killed a single opponent and left myself in a worse position. In my experience as this deck has evolved, and I have actually been playing it weekly since BFZ launch this card no longer packs the punch it once did.

3. I agree with you on Force of Vigor, this deck is extremely lean on interaction and removal as it is. This card is too strong to exclude.

4. Regarding Ancient Greenwarden and Doubling Season being enablers for 'overrun' type strategy I can't disagree with you more on this. We want to make 5/5 tokens on mass as we want to either trigger Warstorm Surge, Terror of the Peaks or Where Ancients Tread and/or we want to sac then to Omnath, Locus of Rage to bolt our opponents to death. We need a critical mass of 5/5s so that we can deliver enough damage to face. Mass elemental tokens also gives us sudo protection from board wipes. I know you're playing devils advocate here but no, in my opinion these cards generate huge value for Omnath generally not for a specific strategy.

5. Your comment on Nahiri's Lithoforming I find interesting as this is exactly my point on Perilous Forays and Burgeoning but my opinion is that Nahiri's Lithoforming is a great card almost all the time whereas the other cards I have mentioned are not. This card is gas with Titania, Protector of Argoth on the battlefield, if we have a decent hand already we are 80-90% certain to have lands to replay or draw into a land recursion effect like Crucible of Worlds or Splendid Reclamation. Not as good as Scapeshift obviously but I think you are underestimating the power of the card. Of course, play testing will tell us either way and I'll be interested to see if this card doesn't work out, which is might not, but I think until another land-centric draw card comes out this one is going to do Omnath just fine.

6. I haven't decided whether I am going to play Roiling Regrowth yet but I don't agree with your pros and cons analysis. The assumption that is worse than Springbloom Druid I don't think is accurate. Instant speed is a premium and shouldn't be under valued especially if you're playing with a pod with interaction etc. Getting Omnath triggers at instant speed is great and you can dodge opponents interaction. Your comments on the 4cmc ramp spells, I think these cards are just fine and fair. Not exceptional but not bad, Migration Path with cycling is a nice bonus. If these 4cmc ramp spells were instant, what would you think then?

7. Moraug, Fury of Akoum might just a be great additional line this deck can take. If the board state allows for it Chord of Calling this beast into play on an end step might be game winning. I am really on the fence as I'd really want a haste enabler to really break the card but honestly it might be fine by itself.

8. I ran Tooth and Nail for a long time with various different finishers and yeah it wins but it is not that fun a victory unless you count the time I have Omnath and Titania out and entwined It That Betrays and Keldon Firebombers into play, that was fun! It really depends what you want from Omnath. Omnath isn't my competitive deck. It is my pubstompy deck to pull out when people are bitch about one thing or another. If I want to combo to win I play one of my other decks. Each to their own though. Tooth and Nail wins games its just not for me and Sekki, Seasons' Guide is pretty weak the rest of the times you draw it.

9. I think your comment on non basic land search is spot on, we need more. I just don't think that there is currently any ones good enough for the deck other than Crop Rotation and Scapeshift, we just need to wait for better non basic search to be printed. A 2cmc Crop Rotation would be nice.

10. My issue with Skullclamp and Sensei's Divining Top is that they are not actively winning the game. If I were to include Top in my deck it would more often that not end up being a 2 mana brainstorm as I would likely shuffle it away with a fetch. Green Red doesn't have the draw that other decks have that can really abuse Top, it ends up slowing us down. Skullclamp is great value but I just don't think we'e a Skullclamp deck. I'd rather the slot for something that is enabling a win by synergising with the rest of our deck, Skullclamp doesn't, it is just value. Sure you can play it but it is detracting from what Omnath is trying to do in my opinion. You're also going to get a lot more hurt from Null Rods and Collector Ouphes out there. We have an advantage that a lot of hate doesn't really effect us. Apart from Humility of course which kinda hard counters Omnath most of the time :(

All of this discussion is what makes Omnath such a great general as there are so many viable build options.

SynergyBuild on Fixing White in EDH

4 days ago

enpc And with newer colorless card draw becoming much better, modern playable Mazemind Tome, EDH specific Endless Atlas, and older Sensei's Divining Top/Scroll Rack always being powerful options!

Things that synergize with white's effects like counters with Mindless Automaton, lifegain with Well of Lost Dreams, and tokens or small dudes with Skullclamp, that or Sword of Fire and Ice for equipment strategies, Smuggler's Copter and Bonders' Enclave for other strategies.

And in white, after looking it up for Omniscience_is_life, here is my new, semi-educated package:

Land Tax, Mangara, the Diplomat, Alms Collector, Weathered Wayfarer, Mesa Enchantress, Kor Spiritdancer, Sram, Senior Edificer, Stonehewer Giant, Dawn of Hope, Puresteel Paladin, Mentor of the Meek, Bygone Bishop, Luminarch Ascension, Emeria, The Sky Ruin, Sun Titan, Sevinne's Reclamation, Ranger of Eos, and Castle Ardenvale

Not to mention tutors being Weathered Wayfarer/Ranger of Eos being tutors, alongside Steelshaper's Gift, Open the Armory, Recruiter of the Guard, Ranger-Captain of Eos, Academy Rector, Arena Rector, Call the Gatewatch, Idyllic Tutor, Enlightened Tutor, Heliod's Pilgrim, Quest for the Holy Relic, Three Dreams, Boonweaver Giant, Auratouched Mage, Djeru, With Eyes Open, Taj-Nar Swordsmith, Thalia's Lancers, Totem-Guide Hartebeest, Relic Seeker, Priest of the Wakening Sun, Forerunner of the Legion, Ignite the Beacon, Plea for Guidance, Kithkin Harbinger, etc.

Oh, and there is more, just look!

SynergyBuild on Fixing White in EDH

4 days ago

Incoming Skullclamp price hike.

Peoyogon on Ratatouille

5 days ago

I found Patriarch's Bidding to work wonders for my rats!

Since most of your rats are 1 toughness, Skullclamp is also a consistent card draw outlet. It is especially great when a Dictate of Erebos or Grave Pact is out :)