Subtlety

Creature — Elemental Incarnation

Flash

Flying

When this enters the battlefield, choose up to one target creature spell or planeswalker spell. Its owner puts it on the top or bottom of their library.

Evoke—Exile a blue card from your hand. (You may cast this for its Evoke cost. If you do, this is sacrificed when this enters the battlefield.)

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
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (43)

wallisface on Azorius Aggro-Control deck

2 months ago

Some thoughts:

• Last time you started a thread about a deck, it was described as you wanting to make a deck more competitive, but when those suggestions came through you decided you'd rather the deck be casual than strong. Is this the same scenario, or are you legitimately looking for advice on making a strong {W}{U} control deck.

• Azorius Conrtol already exists as a well-defined meta archetype, consistently hovering between 1-5% of the meta. There is an established deck list here

• The kind of deck your describing (being aggressive while also controlling the board state) is basically what the current Murktide Regent lists do - deck here. I think it is going to be very hard to justify playing white over red in such an archetype, because red brings most of the aggression, but it's probably still achievable with some concessions.

Some thoughts on your current list specifically:

• For the deck to work, you need to be running the minimum amount of creatures possible - between 12-15. Running more than this makes it too hard to control the board, and running less than this puts you at risk of not being able to threaten damage.

• All the creatures you run need to be able to quickly close-out the game on their own. If you check the Murktide list linked above, you'll notice all of those creatures are able to dish out extreme pressure. So far, NONE of your creatures are even remotely threatening. You want to be playing creatures that can end the game fast and can do everything they need to by-themselves. You should really be playing cards like Murktide Regent, Ledger Shredder, Tishana's Tidebinder and Solitude/Subtlety instead of these extremely weak creatures.

• Any number of Academy Ruins is excessive when you have no real reason to want to recur any of these artifacts.

• 3 mana countermagic is always bad - there's no reason to run Render Silent especially when you still have room to play another Counterspell instead.

• Assemble the Players is a terrible card and shouldn't be here.

• you need waay more wawys to powerfully interact with cards that the opponent resolves - Oppressive Rays is too weak for this. You need cards like Prismatic Ending and Leyline Binding.

• You are severely lacking in efficient draw. I would expect Preordain instead of Peek at a bare minimum.

Icbrgr on Card Discussion: Grim Discovery

3 months ago

Recently I have Been inspired to brew/play 8-Rack in Modern specifically due to all the hype/buzz generated around Scam decks.

In my brewing/research I came across an old primer off of MTG Salvation and a card that caught my eye was Grim Discovery.

This really seems like a neat card but to my knowledge sees virtually no play... I did a quick search on MTG Top8 Modern and found one deck back in 2011 that used it in a {BG} Vampires deck.

Does anyone else think this card is worth revisiting as a niche tech choice for today? I remember after the Fury ban people placed bets on {UB} scam being a thing... could this maybe do to Subtlety what Undying Evil/similar does for Grief? Or perhaps at its worst just get the elemental/creature back in hand and or recycle a fetchland?... maybe some sort of application in a Yawgmoth, Thran Physician brew?

capwner on Snowbrawling ((MODERN // Competitive Sultai Snow))

3 months ago

legendofa The manabase generally feels pretty good, sometimes I am unhappy to see a tap land as it can effectively mean losing a turn, but the main concerns I've found are color fixing and maintaining snow perm count, where falling short could mean losing out on several plays or interactions. I cut a Scrying Sheets because of this, might cut Mouth of Ronom too but I like being able to toolbox with Into the North a bit. It was hard for me to add the Breeding Pool+Watery Grave because of snow count but I think it's necessary to be able to find untapped colors with Lorien. It would be nice to run 4 Lorien but the list was getting tight and I wanted to keep at least 3 ofs for some key sideboard cards. The deck does have a lot of 4 drops but 4 of those are Subtlety which is a flexible card and I think a real necessity in this meta. The deck feels like it curves pretty well, you are likely to have at least a couple 1 and 2 drops and the ability to either Blizzard Brawl or Dead of Winter or Subtlety or flash Ice-Fang Coatl to stall the board until your big 4 drops can hit. Or Force of Negation/Subtlety/Commandeer vs THOSE decks. Turn 2 Into the North feels really good, curves into 5/5 Treefolk or Coatl/Brawl with no land drop. I wish it was snow then I would run more. I think in a lot of matchups it ultimately comes down to who can out attrition the other, and the snow scry mechanic REALLY helps with that. Vs Yawgmoth I can aggro/tempo them out with Treefolk and Subtlety, vs Murktide I'm running them out of removal, clearing with Dead of Winter and when the game is stalled Avalanche Caller or a 7/7 Treefolk ends it. I haven't had a Rhinos match come up yet but the plan is to simply outmatch and outcontrol their board with Treefolk + killing/commandeering the rhinos. I'll likely update the description with some more specific matchup and card selection info over the next couple weeks! Thanks for the feed

legendofa on Dec 4th 2023 Ban announcement

4 months ago

Grief is the best turn 1 scam by far, in a tempo deck where play patterns matter. Fury was good because it had a pretty open window for targeting, and Solitude is kind of in the same boat. Fury's advantage there was that it could clear out a mid-sized target or a swarm of small targets, while Solitude removes one target, take it or leave it. Subtlety is fine, but highly reactive and has a narrow window of utility. Endurance has higher deck building requirements to make its (optional) ability relevant--a flashed-in 4/5 reach creature for {B} and a couple cards in hand is solid in a vacuum, but it's not on the same level as the other options.

I'm wondering if Esper Scam is a viable option. Lean harder into control, the {W} and {B} can be simply flash-evoked and sac'ed if needed (they're still free removal and pseudo-counterspells), and fill in with some of the go-to control cards. The color balancing would be a little harder to work with, but not impossible.

First pass, off the top of my head with minimal consideration:

23 lands

Scam set: 4x Grief, 2x Solitude, 2x Subtlety, 4x Not Dead After All, 1x Undying Evil, 4x Ephemerate

Control: 3x Teferi, Time Raveler, 3x Counterspell, 4x Thoughtseize, 4 Leyline Binding, 4x The One Ring

Finishers: 4x Orcish Bowmasters

Basically, take the Dimir and Orzhov Scam lists and add some of https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/wu-68d6e340-6601-4aab-9a70-4bdccc013e7e#paper.

nbarry223 on Dec 4th 2023 Ban announcement

4 months ago

Subtlety would not be used as a turn 1 clock, but as more of a control element. It would only be “scammed” as a 1 CMC 4/4 flier when used to still put a spell back into the deck.

Also, how the opponent chooses to put their spell gives free information about their hand and what they need in that moment of time, so it actually does some pretty powerful things in a control shell.

It actually requires timing and does more fair things than the rakdos version, so I’d be fine with it as an archetype. Turn 1 Grief scam just does too many good things to be passed up, so I can’t see it completely leaving the format. Hopefully I am wrong though, because I really don’t enjoy facing a turn 1 Grief scam because it doesn’t feel like you even get to play a game of Magic in a lot of cases.

wallisface on Dec 4th 2023 Ban announcement

4 months ago

nbarry223 imo scamming a Subtlety feels terrible, and the BW variant was tried a bunch at the release of MH2 and just didn’t work. My feeling is people will scramble to try and make a viable version of scam but fall short, and the archetype will fall out of the meta. The closest we’ll get is the existing mono-black lists, and perhaps some midrange BR lists not doing scam things at all.

nbarry223 on Dec 4th 2023 Ban announcement

4 months ago

I predict rakdos scam to transition to dimir scam with cards like Subtlety and Drown in the Loch alongside counterspells transitioning to more of a tempo control deck, which could actually utilize The One Ring if it wanted to.

People will probably try orzhov first, since it is mentioned in the ban announcement specifically, but I see dimir as more powerful and better positioned in the metagame.

IXALAN_Crazy on Izzet Murkttide

6 months ago

in my experience Subtlety is kind of lackluster in murktide and I think it would be better to go up to 18 lands or switch it for Brazen Borrower