Sudden Spoiling

Instant

Split second (As long as this spell is on the stack, players can't cast spells or activated abilities that aren't mana abilities.)

Until end of turn, creatures target player controls lose all abilities and have base power and toughness 0/2.

Legality

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

Discussion (49)

Ogrecorps on "Unbeatable" card combo, or so …

4 months ago

UPDATE: VICTORY!!

Here's the deck I used (warning, it is not great and I'm open to suggestions to improve it as a more general-purpose meme deck that strips out important things and leaves someone else to actually kill people in free-for-all format.) https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/18-06-25-SkD-grrr/?cb=1750236034

The story: 3 players, me with the meme deck, work friend with the "you cannot lose the game" mystery deck, and a third with a deck specifically filled with legendaries of as many types as he can make work.

My starting hand had Leyline of the Void and I kicked off hostilities with Bitter Ordeal and got to peruse through the "cannot lose" deck to see how it works. Key cards found: Herald of Eternal Dawn, Negate, Three Steps Ahead, Restricted Office / Lecture Hall, Virtue of Persistence. I took out one of the 4 Heralds. The legendaries deck built up nicely with about 6 or 7 big creatures with deathtouch (All-Out Assault) and flying and vigilance and lifelink and other such nonsense. This player normally likes to be fair (i.e. spread the damage around, not pick on anyone) when he feels like he's winning so I had to warn him off with the strongest arguments I could that I was absolutely not a threat to him, that I had built the deck specifically to counter the other player. Cannot Lose had no creatures out so Legendaries swung at him fully with enough to put him to -9 life. Looked like it was over already and then pop! Cannot Lose flashed out Herald of Eternal Dawn before combat damage was dealt, keeping him alive despite negative life.

Cannot Lose then quickly got out two lecture halls from Restricted Office / Lecture Hall, giving the herald and both lecture halls hexproof. Around here I realized a major weakness in my deck: it largely has to target something in the opponent's graveyard, making Leyline of the Void super not helpful. Happily, Cannot Lose Get Lostd it. Because nothing much was going to graveyards that I wanted to strip out, I built up a little supply of Extirpate and Surgical Extraction - this will be important later... Legendaries took about 6 turns and smashed Cannot Lose to about -30 life while enjoying all the lifelink that gave him.

It was at this point that Cannot Lose messaged me privately to say that he'd won, it was just going to take an hour. The next turn, he used Loran's Escape on his Herald and then used one of his Restricted Offices for a boardwipe. My defenses being so pathetic, were fine. Legendaries, however, got cleaned out, 7 or 8 big beasts in the graveyard... This left Cannot Lose as the only one on the table with any attacking power and a pair of Fountainports to slowly grow an army of fish with.

Somewhere in the excitement I'd stripped out all of his Get Lost, and Stock Up. I knew from searching his hand that he had a Negate still ready for something that might kill his Herald, the only thing keeping him alive. Then came the exchange I'm going to be hearing about all day today at work from Cannot Lose, the part where he's kicking himself for doing what he did: Legendaries brought out a planeswalker; Cannot Lose used Three Steps Ahead to counter it, putting a copy of one of his 2 counter spells in his graveyard. I targeted it with Surgical Extraction. He Negated. I surgical extracted his Three Steps and then Extirpated his Negate, successfully exiling all of his counterspells! He has already told me that he shouldn't have countered the planeswalker, that he should have just used fish from Fountainport to neutralize it.

And then Legendaries Ruinous Ultimatumd. Herald, hexproofs, and my two Wall of Vines all gone! Cannot Lose was at -30 something life and evaporated in a long silence followed by a drawn out frustrated groan. He'd nearly fought his way back and if only he could have had another Herald in hand to flash out or I hadn't stripped out his counterspells... He was also intimately familiar with Legendaries' deck because the two of them worked on it closely together so knew exactly how little strength he had left after all of those creatures got wiped with no serious options for bringing any back. Either way though, I still had 3 Sudden Spoilings in my library somewhere so chances were decent I'd get him killed for being in negative life sooner or later.

Thus began the long, slow final phase of the battle wherein I had only defensive creatures, and Legendaries had 40-something life but only one or two offensive options left in his deck which was down to about 27 cards to my 35ish. I used Liquimetal Coating and Splinter on one of his Plains, a generally useless move and one I probably should have saved for an actual threat but I was just happy Cannot Lose had lose'd. The end came when I fired off a kicked Sadistic Sacrament, ensuring that there wasn't going to be anything left to hurt me. Before I searched his deck, however, Legendaries capitulated and we called it there, official cause of death: inevitable milling out.

legendofa on "Unbeatable" card combo, or so …

5 months ago

Somewhere in the depths of my profile, I have a theoretical combo that's something like 20 cards that I specifically made to be as "you can't lose the game" as possible, and people still poked holes in it.

Suggestions Show

If you want to beat the unbeatable, based on the description, I would go mainly {B}. There's not much that can survive a big -X/-X like Black Sun's Zenith or an unmorphing Bane of the Living. Leyline of the Void and Bojuka Bog are graveyard hate with different forms of uncounterability. Lier, Disciple of the Drowned shuts down counterspells, and stuff like Eyes of the Wisent punish blue spells (like most counterspells).

Praetor's Grasp and Sadistic Sacrament also punish combos with low redundancy, on top of Bitter Ordeal.

I'm not quite sure what the second clue could be. Assuming your interpretation is correct, there aren't that many cards that grant abilities from the graveyard, and most of them are offensive, not defensive. Arcane Lighthouse strips shroud and hexproof without being countered, and Sudden Spoiling strips inherent hexproof and shroud, if that comes up. Yixlid Jailer shuts down all graveyard tricks, on top of the graveyard hate above.

If you plan on making it 3v1, have two people run hard control while the third goes for combo breaking. Metaphorically, get two people to hold him down while the third goes through his pockets. Or just go triple aggro and attack before he can get set up.

Czarnian90 on Hellegion, Shadows and Flames (Raphael)

5 months ago

Commander Update: Shadows Rise, Flames Burn

After several games against tough opponents, I’ve made a few changes to the deck and, more importantly, swapped the commander of the Hellegion. The Balrog, Durin's Bane is still very much part of the deck—playing him as a commander was fun and flavorful, but I wanted a leader who can impact my board more directly and help set the pace of the game. The Balrog remains a force of nature, and having him lurking in the deck, ready to be unleashed, still feels great. I believe he’ll continue to be a major threat even when he's not always leading the charge.

Raphael, Fiendish Savior steps in as the new commander, supporting the game plan more consistently. He helps stabilize the board, buffs my army, and sets the stage for the Balrog’s arrival. I run several cards that can fetch him straight from the deck—Blood Speaker, Demonlord Belzenlok, Rune-Scarred Demon, Icon of Ancestry, Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted, and others—so even as a lurking horror, he’s never too far away.

I also added more damage-dealing spells for better control and direct pressure on opponents. Beyond classics like Devil's Play, Terminate, and Dreadbore, I’ve added Hell to Pay and Rakdos's Return to punish hands and boards alike. On top of that, I doubled down on devil token synergy and death-triggered burn effects. These little fiends now serve not just as blockers or sac fodder, but as a win condition on their own—especially when paired with Raphael’s lifelink boost. Every dying devil becomes pain for the enemy and healing for me.

I’ve now included four versions of Ob Nixilis — yes, it’s a bit much, but each fills a unique role. This one Ob Nixilis, the Hate-Twisted punishes card draw and bolsters removal. Tibalt, Rakish Instigator is still here too, classic devil support: fueling tokens and preventing opponents from healing the damage my demons and devils dish out. They don’t live long, but if timed right, their impact is massive.

I’ve also added some recursion (Oversold Cemetery) and a spicy alternate wincon in Liliana's Contract.

Some bigger demons were swapped out for stronger synergy or pure flavor—welcome Asmodeus the Archfiend, Balor, Kardur, Doomscourge, and others to the Hellegion.

Sadly, a few cards had to go — Imskir Iron-Eater, Archfiend of Sorrows, some regenerating skeletons, and a handful of artifacts are no longer marching with the legion.

I still have a few cards waiting on the bench—Burn Down the House, Rakdos Keyrune, Doom Whisperer, Overseer of the Damned, Skirsdag High Priest, Spawn of Mayhem, Breath of Malfegor — and I’ll be testing space for them soon.

In the long run, I’d love to add some heavier hitters and staples like Kindred Dominance, Altar of Shadows, Bontu's Monument, Krav, the Unredeemed, Rite of Belzenlok, Demonic TutorGC, Sudden Spoiling, Grave Pact, Dark Prophecy, Attrition, Vilis, Broker of Blood, Razaketh, the Foulblooded, Pestilence Demon, Lord of the Void, Archfiend of Depravity, and especially Karlach, Fury of Avernus.

We’ll see where the Hellegion marches next—and who joins, or falls, along the way.

Cynic14 on Chainer

8 months ago

I can recommend Sudden Spoiling and Imp's Mischief.

Flarhoon13 on Erebos' Totally Devoted to Death

11 months ago

May 3, 2024 I started a new quest. Having built 52 decks, I endeavoured to play them all, in roughly the same order as I created them.

May 31

Erebos' Totally Devoted to Death loss 8-11 Misplayed, had an out vs. Phenax, God of Deception and a Rogue's Passaged Guiltfeeder but I, honestly against my instincts, tapped out greedily for an Abhorrent Overlord in my pre-combat main phase before attacking my Corpse Augur into its death:  lost 9 life but drew Sudden Spoiling and 8 other cards. If I would have waited to play spells post combat, I could have had another turn and quite possibly recovered enough to win the game, but alas... .421 Then again, maybe if I wasn't tapped out, my opponent wouldn't have blocked and killed my attacking Corpse Augur.

Fux2209 on B/R Deathtouch Destruction

1 year ago

Hmmm, ok that's true... I will cut Hero's Downfall, thanks for the explaination

I really like Sudden Spoiling, but you're right, since it doesn't destroy anything, it doesn't fit so well in a deck, that wants to destroy... ^^

But I like that the card affects ALL enemy creatures... All my Sorceries and Instants destroy just 1 card, so I dont get any card advantage... Do you know some cards, that fit in my deck and destroy multible targets?

Fux2209 on B/R Deathtouch Destruction

1 year ago

Thank you zapyourtumor for all your advices

Please can you explain, why Sudden Spoiling and Hero's Downfall are not playable in Modern? I thought they are good cards... In my oppinion Sudden Spoiling is such a powerfull card, and its an Instant, so I can use it for both attack and defense

Once I had 4x Blightning in my deck, but I needed the place for other cards... Its a cool card, but yeah, you're right... with just 1 card like that unfortunately it doesnt fit well anymore in my deck. I will cut it

Yes i know, most deathtouch decks are BG, but I wanted to try something else when I started building the deck... ^^

Thanks again for all the tips, I'm deffinitiv gonna try some of your cards... Lets see

Neotrup on Animation: Layers and Timestamps

1 year ago

Since both Titania's Song and March of the Machines specify noncreature artifact they are both dependent on eachother, forming a dependency loop that means they must be applied in timestamp order rather than dependency order. This means that whichever entered the battlefield first is the one that applies. In the first example March of the Machines does nothing since Sol Ring is already a 1/1 artifact creature with no abilities, but if it had entered first it would be a 1/1 artifact creature with "{T}: Add {C}{C}."

Starfield of Nyx does not turn itself into a creature since it says "other nonaura enchantements." However, assuming they control two Starfield of Nyx it would be a 0/2 creature with no abilities. This is because its ability starts to apply in layer 4 when it turns enchantments into creatures and doesn't lose its ability until layer 6 when Sudden Spoiling starts to apply. Once the ability starts in an earlier layer, it will continue to be applied in a higher layer, so in layer 7b Starfield of Nyx will give all enchantment creatures a base power and toughness, then that will be overwritten by Sudden Spoiling also in layer 7b due to having a later timestamp.