Stubborn Denial

Instant

Counter target noncreature spell unless its controller pays {1}.

Ferocious — If you control a creature with power 4 or greater, counter that spell instead.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Block Constructed	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
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (47)

multimedia on Braids & her Interdimensional Friends

2 weeks ago

Hey, thanks for all the upvotes at my decks.

Nice start for mono blue and interesting Commander who I don't see played much. You have 101 cards, Desolation Twin could be cut to make 100. It's a much worse Eldrazi then the others.

Your deck could be less price, it's not overpriced garbage, but you could cut the price in half and it would be just as good. Three of the most expensive price cards here are Blightsteel, Ulamog and Betrays, but without more protection, counterspells and some more haste these creatures can be subpar to cheat with Braids because they don't give you value unless they can attack. Each of these creatures is a must kill by opponents. If you don't get to attack the first turn you give your opponents an entire cycle of turns to find an answer which in multiplayer Commander is a lot time. Treasure Mage is another creature who can tutor for Blightsteel.

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Consider some more lower mana cost hard counterspells such as Arcane Denial and some creatures who can protect such as Spellskite? Protecting Braids is not as important as protecting what you cheat onto the battlefield because opponents are getting value from Braids too. More one mana instant protection is helpful such as Stubborn Denial and Slip Out the Back which is phasing and it's powerful with Braids.

Swiftfoot Boots is a lesser Greaves, but still fine and wanted in blue that doesn't have haste options. Akroma's Memorial is more price, but it's a big artifact to cheat with Braids that helps to setup other big creatures since it gives haste as well as other attacking abilities. Might also want to play Tribute Mage because can tutor for Greaves.

If you play Blightsteel, Ulamog and Betrays also consider playing some big creatures who give you value without attacking such as Hullbreaker Horror and Tidespout Tyrant? Each are much less price and can pack a punch without attacking. With Braids you'll have mana open to cast spells after your upkeep, use this mana for protection while also getting value from each spell you cast.

Bounce the permanents that your opponents cheat with Braids because the first turns cycle opponents get to trigger Braids before you. Bounce your own clones to clone something else or them. Both of these creatures when you control two them can infinite combo with Sol Ring. Bounce your own creatures who draw to cast or cheat them to draw again. Bouncing Braids can be a smart strategy because sometimes you don't want to give opponents the upkeep trigger and maybe you don't need the trigger.

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Phasing, when you can control when a creature phases out is a busted effect with Braids. Vanishing can repeatedly protect Braids if you need that or deny your opponents her trigger because of how phasing works, only phasing in at your untap step. With Vanishing you can phase out Braids at any time or after your upkeep trigger which skips all your opponents upkeeps. It also protects her from opponent's sorcery board wipes which are plentiful in multiplayer Commander. You don't have to phase out Braids, but having the option can be helpful and you can politic with it by letting one opponent have the upkeep trigger and skipping the rest.

A phased out creature also phases out all auras/equipment that's attached to it, Vanishing is protected from removal when Braids is phased out. Vodalian Illusionist can also repeatedly phase out Braids. Combine phase out with Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir to protect during your turn especially any hasty creatures you cheat with Braids. If you can get Teferi down before you cast Braids then you can flash Braids in before your upkeep to trigger her before your opponents.

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Consider more draw especially from creatures such as Nezahal, Primal Tide or artifacts such as The Magic Mirror that Braids can cheat? Nezahal is Mystic Remora which is excellent in multiplayer Commander with a big body who can protect itself. With Mirror you can stack the upkeep triggers to draw before Braids trigger. Mulldrifter is a budget creature for draw who can also be easily cast and is a nice target to clone/create token or bounce.

Braids is a Wizard you could take advantage of some Wizard only effects such as Azami, Lady of Scrolls can repeatedly draw two cards by tapping her and Braids. Galecaster Colossus can repeatedly bounce two nonland permanents opponents cheated with Braids. Riptide Laboratory can repeatedly bounce Braids. Combine this effect with Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir to deny your opponents Braids triggers by flash cast her at last opponent's end step and then after your upkeep bounce her with Riptide. Teferi is also a Wizard.

Vedalken AEthermage can Wizardcycle to get any Wizard including Orvar, the All-Form who does count as a Wizard while in your library/hand/graveyard. Vodalian Illusionist is also a Wizard. Wizard's Retort is Counterspell with Braids.

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I like the secondary strategy of cloning your own or opponents permanents and/or gaining control of your opponents permanents that they cheat with Braids. You could expand on this strategy with Agent of Treachery, who is more price, but he can gain control of any permanent. He's also not legendary making him an excellent clone/create token target since the more of him you have the easier to control three permanents you don't own to then repeatedly draw. He's a good target to bounce because you don't lose the permanent you gained control of. Clever Impersonator can clone any nonland permanent.

Instants with buyback that target such as Mind Games and Capsize are good with Orvar, the All-Form to repeatedly trigger it. Capsize can be a win condition when you create infinite blue mana which mono blue is quite good at doing. If you want go this route you wouldn't have to add very many cards. In fact Orvar + Peregrine Drake + any buyback instant that targets is a combo for infinite blue mana from Islands as well as infinite Drake tokens as a potential win condition.

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Consider more ramp? You're playing a lot of high CMC spells that you're counting on Braids to cheat them, but if you don't control Braids then more ramp could help to cast these spells. More ramp can also help to be able to cast Braids and have mana up for instant interaction the turn you play her.

High Tide is a favorite of mono blue since it's only one mana and playing so many Islands. Caged Sun with or without Braids can help to repeatedly cast almost any spell. Combine Tide/Sun with a draw spell such as Pull from Tomorrow or Blue Sun's Zenith to draw a lot of cards at instant speed, giving you a lot of options of permanents to cheat with Braids.

Good luck with your deck.

MEINEID on Generic Dragondeck

3 weeks ago

Thank you for your feedback. I saw your lost tomorrow morning and wanted to comment on your deck since then. You might be right with your suggestion because if i can't trigger ferocious there is probably nothing to protect. I ran Stubborn Denial instead of Swan Song first, but maybe An Offer You Can't Refuse is the worst out of the 3...

faustodemambo on Generic Dragondeck

3 weeks ago

could I suggest Stubborn Denial in stead of a offer you can't refuse?

broooja on ALL Counterspells in MTG

1 month ago

Stubborn Denial... Supreme Will... Thassa's Intervention... Whirlwind Denial... Spell Shrivel... Metallic Rebuke... Mindswipe... Malevolent Hermit  ^Flip... Mausoleum Wanderer... Make Disappear... Lose Focus... Revolutionary Rebuff... Mystical Dispute... Miscast... Mirrorshell Crab... Admiral's Orders... Lookout's Dispersal... Jwari Disruption  ^Flip... Countervailing Winds... Concerted Defense... Decisive Denial... Geistlight Snare... Reject ... Quench... Clash of Wills... Calculated Dismissal... Anticognition...

KBK7101 on Cheap dragon

5 months ago

I think Manalith and Mana Geode are both fine for now. They aren't the best and would probably need to be swapped out later but I think they'd be fine in a first draft. Same with Terminate.

For possible cuts... Temple of the False God has sabotaged me more times than it has helped me, though. Definitely recommend taking that one out. The five single color (and Adult Gold Dragon) AFR dragons, while cool, don't really do much in commander, sadly. I'd recommend taking them out as well. Gratuitous Violence is a great card for mono-{R} decks but gets increasingly more difficult to cast with more colors. It will end up being uncastable in most situations. Should probably also be cut.

As for recommendations... Hellkite Courser would be fantastic in this deck! "Blinking" Tiamat in for a turn to trigger it's effect seems really good. Unclaimed Territory and Exotic Orchard would be help immensely with color fixing issues. Temur Ascendancy is great for giving all your dragons haste and helping you draw cards. Stubborn Denial (and to a lesser extent, anything with the keyword Ferocious) works really well in decks with big creatures. See the Unwritten is a way to possibly cheating out some creatures if you're looking for a bit of randomness. Lastly, Sarkhan's Unsealing can help you get rid of some enemy creatures or just blast someone in the face (or both!) just for casting dragons.

I think your first goal should be to getting the deck to 100 cards. Once there, you can use all the stats this site provides to see if you need more cards that help fix colors, what your mana curve is, how many spells you have etc. You can also create custom categories by putting #(yourcategoryname) after the card name in the deck builder. You can better organize your deck into categories like card draw, dragons, removal etc. You can even put them in multiple categories if you want. Here's a few so you can see what I mean :

1x Lathliss, Dragon Queen #Dragons #Tokens

1x Terminate #Creature_Removal

1x Command Tower #Lands

1x Arcane Signet #Ramp

Hope this helps! Best of luck!

DreadKhan on Cheap dragon

5 months 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.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on

6 months ago

Cool idea, but I think you might have overloaded on fatties. See Beyond is a great addition for this type of effect to shuffle a creature back in that you don't want in your hand. Also, how about some copies of Gaea's Blessing and/or Clear the Mind to reload your deck?

With these additions, you could focus on your best fatties and play more control cards such as Stubborn Denial. You could even include Commune with the Gods or Benefaction of Rhonas to dig for Defense of the Heart.

Bmphipps14 on Criminally Underplayed EDH Gems

7 months ago

While I do have a bunch of niche pet cards that are really good in specific situations, I tried to keep this list to cards that I just never see across the table yet jam into most of my decks that can play them. Some of which are already climbing in value so maybe they aren't as underrated as I think but still worth spreading the word about. Caveat that I'm mostly a budget/casual player but cards like these are how I build 50-100 dollar decks that go to bat with 2-400 dollar decks

W Glorious Protector If your deck doesn't have Blue and has ANY level of ETB synergy, this card is amazing. Helps your team dodge all manner of board wipe: bounce, exile, -X/-X, good ol' destroy.

U Plea for Power Pay 4 draw 3 is an acceptable rate and there are situations in which you might be able to convince two of your opponents to give you the extra turn to deal with the third. Metamorphic Alteration I've never seen anybody else play this card- I only play it in Zedruu the Greathearted and Callaphe, Beloved of the Sea which have permanent/Enchantment synergy and would recommend doing the same but the sky's the limit on this bad boy. There's the obvious use of removal (I've turned someone's Commander into a Humble Defector before) but it's got the flexibility of copying someone else's Eldrazi or Avacyn for 2 mana. Stubborn Denial Does your Commander have 4+ Power? Are you already playing Negate? Well here's that for half off!

B Vona's Hunger Instant speed Asymmetrical Board Wipe for 3. Do I need to say anything else? This is one I used to be able to pick up for 80 cents and is now 4 bucks :( Incarnation Technique Any time I've cast this I've negotiated a specific creature in an opponent's graveyard that I know won't be too threatening and gotten two bangers for myself for 5 mana. Additionally, if your deck has any kind of graveyard synergy already, the mill 10 is outstanding. Virtus's Maneuver I'm a sucker for political cards as this list can totally indicate, but this 3 mana spell that pays for itself has the option to remove a pesky Voltron Commander or make some friends around the table. Or both! Court of Ambition Why this isn't in every non-cEDH Black deck is beyond me- If you're able to maintain Monarch (and with it board position) for 2+ turns it will essentially seal the deal on anybody trying to challenge you. Even if you aren't, sending Monarchy around the table encourages them to hurt each other while you're draining a sneaky 3 life every turn from every opponent. This card does serious work (in any game expected to go past turn 6).

R Rousing Refrain Best case scenario you're able to play this turn 2 and then have a pretty blowout-y turn 5 (I use it to cast Niv Mizzet while holding mana for counters) but worst case this is essentially a free spell that helps you rebuild from board wipes or push extra hard for a win. Doesn't go in every deck but consider whether yours is right Chandra, Fire Artisan Repeatable card draw isn't super common in Red, plus she comes with her own discouraging rattlesnake clause.

G Sigardian Zealot I love this card! You're in Green so you probably have creatures- my biggest issue with team-buffers like this is that a lot of them only give the buff on swing. This is at worst a 6/6 Vigilance for 5 that boosts your team the turn he comes down, at best he boosts your team to make killing blows while leaving you all the blockers you need. If you natively have any Trample synergy (this dude rips in my Zilortha, Strength Incarnate deck) then take a look at this guy. Blossoming Bogbeast Budget alternative to Pathbreaker Ibex. Guaranteed +2/+2 and full team Trample: not as mana-intensive or clunky as Dragon Throne of Tarkir and more repeatable than Overwhelming Stampede. Are Stampede and Ibex better? Totally. Are they 70 cents? Nope! And that's all assuming you aren't playing any Lifegain synergy- if you are, this absolutely deserves a slot. Wrap in Vigor If you're playing a non-Blue, non Nikya, non-Voltron Green deck (read: most Green decks because even some of those criteria aren't absolute) this card is awesome! Heroic Intervention is one of the best Green spells ever printed imo and while this is clearly its little brother you should still consider doubling up on 2 mana protection like this. I've won tons of games cause someone else wipes the board for me and the "Creatures can't be regenerated" clause is becoming less and less relevant as cards like Vanquish the Horde become the new standard.

L Bonders' Enclave Does your Commander have 4+ Power and you're playing 3 or less colors? This card deserves a slot. This is the other card I've grabbed 5 of for 40 cents and now are 2 bucks a piece. Is it inefficient? Totally. Does it give you options when it's turn 8 and you're looking at your Commander and an empty hand while coming at the low low cost of being a colorless land in every other situation? Totally.

I got a lot of good ideas from this thread, hopefully mine can help somebody out!