Staff of the Mind Magus
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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
Pioneer Legal
Planar Constructed Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Staff of the Mind Magus

Artifact

Whenever you cast a blue spell or an Island enters the battlefield under your control, you gain 1 life.

keizerbuns on Sea of Attrition [Physical] [Beta]

1 year ago

This is a very cool concept, however it seems a little scattered. With lifegain, mill, tokens, tap/bounce control, stat manipulation, and creature stealing, it seems like your deck is being pulled in too many different directions without enough focus on any one thing in particular to give it a clear identity. Mill especially is kind of an all or nothing strategy that requires the entire deck to be built around it in order to work. Unless you have a really good mill/graveyard payoff to justify splashing in some mill spells, milling your opponent for just a few cards here and there won’t do anything except take up slots in your deck.

The best advice I think I could give you, and probably the same advice most other people will give you too, is to find your favourite element or two of the deck, and make that the focus. However, if you don’t want to do that, and you do want to keep the deck as a little bit of everything, I do have some suggestions that I think you might like.

‎

My first suggestion would be to replace Dreadwaters with a lower CMC mill spell, because spending 4 mana to make one opponent mill for what I assume averages to be around 4-6 cards isn't a great rate. For just 2 mana you could use Maddening Cacophony and make each opponent mill 8 cards, and for an extra 4 you could make them mill half of their decks. You could also replace a couple of Islands with a couple copies of Ipnu Rivulet for some added milling consistency, although activating its mill ability would cause you to lose a land.

Talrand's Invocation also suffers from the same issue as Dreadwaters of just being too mana intensive for such a small effect. Paying 4 mana just to get 2 2/2 flyers is a little slow. I think Murmuring Mystic would suit you better as a long term token generator.

Ichthyomorphosis and Time of Ice both kind of get in the way of your plan to steal your opponent's creatures. Ichthyomorphosis turns your opponent's creatures into something not worth stealing and Time of Ice could potentially cause a creature you just stole from your opponent to be sent back to their hand. Instead of using Time of Ice to tap your opponents creatures, you could use an instant or a sorcery such as Downpour, Impede Momentum, Choking Tethers, or Sleep to achieve the same result. And instead of Ichthyomorphosis to permanently turn your opponents creatures into something small, you could use Turn to Frog which you can use to catch your opponents by surprise during the combat stage. Swapping both Ichthyomorphosis and Time of Ice for instants and sorceries would also synergize great with Murmuring Mystic to spam tokens.

You could replace Staff of the Mind Magus with Diamond Mare, which is admittedly a weaker life gain spell since it can't gain life off of your lands entering the battlefield, plus it's more susceptible to removal. However it is a cheaper CMC card and another creature to beat your opponents down with.

I think Niblis of Frost is better than Dragon Turtle at keeping your opponent's creatures tapped if you go with the previously mentioned replacements for Ichthyomorphosis and Time of Ice, plus with the Prowess ability, it can get pretty big with all of the instants and sorceries. And Sower of Temptation is a lower CMC version of Mind Flayer.

I also realized as I was looking back through my suggestions, that if you do end up going with all of them, then that would mean your deck would meet the deck requirements to add Gyruda, Doom of Depths as a companion, which would serve as a pretty good payoff for your mill cards!

‎

Hopefully this was helpful!

CasualCucumber on Blue/White

3 years ago

I really like the deck and it feels original! The one thing that sprang to mind was why you were running these lifegain cards: Nyx-Fleece Ram, Kor Celebrant, Soul's Attendant, Student of Ojutai, Staff of the Mind Magus, Staff of the Sun Magus. There don't seem to be too much payoff running these cards (perhaps I am missing some cards that greatly benefit from it) other than just basic lifegain over the game. Perhaps you should add Aetherflux Reservoir and Ajani's Pridemate if this is the route you want to take.

FenrisBurgess on Urza Cheerios

5 years ago

I find some of these choices pretty questionable.

Let's go through what you're obviously trying to do.

  • Golem's Heart gives you one life for one spell cast. I don't see know this helping much unless you are going straight for the Aetherflux Reservoir win-con. Even still, it's not very valuable. Staff of the Mind Magus isn't much better either.
  • Zuran Orb seems like a good choice if you are really going for that Reservoir.
  • I think you need to keep in mind you're playing a multiplayer format and the win-con itself isn't really a win-con unless you can gain stupid amounts of life (not something you're going to be able to do effectively in mono-blue), because you won't survive after paying 50 life to kill one player.

Next is your mana.

  • You honestly don't need Command Tower , you only use Blue. It counts as a non-basic land and is subject to more removal.
  • You have a lot of vanilla 0-drops. These are good as mana rocks if you have Urza out, and entirely useless if you don't (the moxen are fine). Look for more 1-drops that generate value.
  • Guild Globe is a mana fixer that gives slight card advantage. Since you're running mono-blue, this thing is only valuable for the one time draw and possibly sac with the ironworks.
  • Silver Myr is an alright option if you happen to need mana and are without Urza, but Palladium Myr is a more solid option.

This deck is lacking in control spells.

  • I see 2 counters and one of them is very conditional. I don't see your cruiser surviving long enough to actually do anything.

  • Since you're going for tokens, you should seek out more token generators. Look into myrs and station cycle.

  • In addition, you can also go for flicker or blink in order to spam Urza's Constructs.

  • I don't see why you would ever want Magosi, the Waterveil in a deck like this, especially without anything that grants Flash. That's just asking for death.

I won't suggest any cards because I'm not you, so I don't know what you want to put in here, but this deck seems all over the place and I think the reason you're "getting hated out of games" is due to this fact.

  • The most important thing of all, though...

  • Why is this called Cheerios?

Brutal_B on

5 years ago

Not so much a pointer as it is a share and "hey look at mine" deal but heres my take on Jori En, Ruin Diver. I have a lot of fun with my deck. Ever think about running Staff of the Flame Magus and/or Staff of the Mind Magus for some lifegain?

gorsloth1 on (Phen)X gonna Mill it to you

6 years ago

i run a similar list and find that just big butts with no real abilities just don't make the cut. I'd recommend droping Hover Barrier for the incredibly powerful Eater of the Dead, which pretty much goes infinite with Phenax as long as there's a few creatures in each players graveyard. I'd also drop Staff of the Mind Magus and Tome Scour for Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots to get combos going faster, I've often found I wont even play out my combo pieces without at least one of these two cards available to me. I also like the Traumatize with either Fraying Sanity or Keening Stone combo for the mill out, might be worth fitting those cards in as well. overall a really fun deck to pilot especially 1v1, if you can make it work it's an incredibly satisfying win

enpc on Bruna Tronomatic

6 years ago

I would drop the Isochron Scepter, you have 2 targets for it and both of them are meh. I would also drop the Paradox Engine, it doesn't do much other than with the aforementioned Isochron Scepter. Staff of the Mind Magus does basically nothing in this deck as well, I would cut it for more ramp.

You should be running more card advantage with Bruna so that you can see more buff effects (plus card advantage is just good in general). Sphinx's Revelation, Blue Sun's Zenith, Rhystic Study, Jace's Ingenuity, Mystic Confluence are all really good cards to help you dig.

sonnet666 on [List] The MTG Weapons Arsenal

7 years ago

Don't stop now. I believe in you!

Grind on Ghandi, The Ultimate Pacifist

7 years ago

some quick suggestions hopefully not too expensive;
Stunt Double > Clone.
Dream Fracture or Dismiss > Confirm Suspicions
Dissipate > Deny Existence
Arcane Denial > Spell Shrivel
Recurring Insight > Tezzeret's Ambition
Impulse or Brainstorm > Nagging Thoughts
Capsize > Select for Inspection
Sky Diamond or Star Compass > Corrupted GrafstoneWorn Powerstone > Staff of the Mind Magus
also Docent of Perfection  Flip is a nice token generator for chump blockers and Devastation Tide is usually a good play.
cheers and have fun

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