Swarm Guildmage

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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
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Swarm Guildmage

Creature — Elf Shaman

, : Creatures you control get +1/+0 and gain menace until end of turn. (They can't be blocked except by two or more creatures.)

, : You gain 2 life.

rekkim on Ritual Mill

1 year ago

V2.0: Shifted aim toward answers from threats. Tokens aren't anything to worry about before turn seven, anyway.

Armored Skaab: Down by one.

Blex, Vexing Pest  Flip: Cut. Buffing the tokens to speed up lethal is counterintuitive to much of the rest of the deck's intention to stall. Rarely, if ever find reason to use the back side, and life is valuable to this deck only so far as delays are concerned. Once you're stable, you don't need to fish so desperately for pieces.

Boneyard Wurm: Down by one.

Combine Guildmage, Swarm Guildmage: See: Blex.

Lotleth Giant: I really like this because it dodges blockers, but it's never decisive like a seven-drop ought to be. Dropped.

Decisive Denial: Dropped. Couldn't justify its use when creature-based iterations can be used to keep the effect and fuel other spells.

Drown in Filth: Dropped. Part of the issue is the mana requirement. It's hard to reliably draw all three colors in the first two turns, so a lot of my starts were awkward with this. It could also fizzle early on by not having enough of the right thing in my graveyard.

Spider Spawning: Reduced by two. Slow, and the deck is pretty heavy on recursion. Despite issues with the tap requirement, Vilespawn Spider is a body, on or off the field, and anything in the way of attackers or pumping spells is important.

Spiketail Hatchling: Added four copies. Might look for one I like with a mana cost to make the tax a greater burden. Or maybe something with lower CMC and no flying.

Winds of Rebuke: Added three copies.

Spore Frog: Added four copies.

Svogthos, the Restless Tomb: Added another copy. Realized somewhere down the line that it plays really well with Crop Sigil to return two creatures to play.

Deadbridge Chant: Added one copy. Still not wholly sold on this, but it makes sprinting against other stall decks much more viable. Valid target for Winds of Rebuke, if you happen to need to reset with elixir.

Land: Reduced prominence of black and green for blue.

MagicMarc on Favorite non meta creature

3 years ago

For White: Preacher. My all time favorite white creature. This guy has gotten more popular over the years but I never saw it in anyone else's deck until commander got popular. The fact you make them choose just sweetens how messed up this card is.
For Blue: Horseshoe Crab. People don't throw removal at it, until they've seen what I do with it.
For Red: Spikeshot Goblin: It is so easy to make this guy oppressive and it's activation is 1 mana. Combined with Grafted Wargear this goblin is better than Lightning Bolt.
For Black: Festering Goblin. It can 2 for 1 early game and sometimes screws combat math for surprise kills of creatures.
For Green:Fertilid has become less unmeta but great card. I even have combo decks built around abusing this guy.

For Multicolor: Swarm Guildmage. No one remembers or hears when you say +1/+0 and menace.
For Multicolor: Tamanoa. This card screams at you to abuse it. I have half a dozen decks abusing this card. Outside of my immediate playgroup

seshiro_of_the_orochi on The Ebon Legion GET-BUFF-QUIK Training Programâ„¢

4 years ago

It's all fun and games until the vampire starts flexing ;D

You've been asking for creatures with lifegain abilities. Many creatures with such an ability want you to sacrifice other creatures. What I found were these:

Essence Depleter , River Hoopoe , Swarm Guildmage , Urborg Syphon-Mage and Vampire Neonate .

I hope this helps.

SoulsSlayerKnight on Vraska Regal Gorgon

5 years ago

Hi, somewhat of a interesting deck, My primary suggestion is to considerably lower or take out a bunch of the 1x's. The ones in which you need most should always be put at a 4x or at least a 3x.

I'd start off with something like this in a way to revolve around Undergrowth and Vraska. Someone else can help out and build upon this idea for later if they like or improve upon it for I don't often play Golgari. Hopefully it helps out a bit.

Creatures

4x Glowspore Shaman 4x Attendant of Vraska 4x Rhizome Lurcher 2x Lotleth Giant 4x Swarm Guildmage 4x Beast Whisperer 3x Ironshell Beetle

Sorceries

2x Vraska's Stoneglare 2x-4x Find / Finality

Instants

2x-4x Necrotic Wound 2x-4x Status / Statue

Artifact

1x-2x Golgari Locket

Planeswalker

1x-2x Vraska, Regal Gorgon

Lands

4x Overgrown Tomb 4x Woodland Cemetery 7x Swamp 7x Forest

Hopefully some of this helps out :). Good luck with the deck building

Boza on The Guildmage Cycle

5 years ago

Additionally, the OG ravnica guildmages were weak as hell and/or more useful because of their mechanics and interactions with other guilds:

Selesnya Guildmage vs Conclave Guildmage - they both have comparative token making abilities, since the token on the one is bigger. Trample for 1 mana vs +1/+1 for 4 mana - trample is way weaker, but not in the context of GRN. The payoff for the selesnya guild in OG Ravnica is a wide board - convoke on Scatter the Seeds vs GRN's payoff of Rosemane Centaur. GRN Selesnya is tall, compared to RAV's wide Selesnya.

Izzet Guildmage vs League Guildmage - League guildmage's copy ability is better than izzet mages. There are likely no turns where you can use Izzet's ability twice, since paying 6 mana on top of another 4 mana for decent spells is a lot. Getting to copy any spell, not just 2 CMC or less is a big plus in League's favor. When you do not cast a spell, Izzet guildmage is a bear. League can at least draw you into spells to copy.

Golgari Guildmage vs Swarm Guildmage - Golgari's abilities cost entirely too much - paying 5 mana for a counter or a worse Raise Dead is not really a worthy investment. Swarm has two relevant abilities and both put you further ahead in the game that shore up what the guild lacks.

Dimir Guildmage vs House Guildmage - is 4 mana draw a card vs 3 mana surveil 2 comparable? Yes, in GRN, the House guildmage has better abilities. The tap ability is rarely useful, but potent when the opportunity arises, but instant speed surveiling is very powerful. Dimir guildmages's abilities are both sorcery speed, which limit their uses significantly.

Boros Guildmage vs Legion Guildmage - Boros' abilities are a bit overprised, especially the haste ability for 2 mana is rarely useful. The first strike ability is very powerful though and makes for tough combat math, but has very limited cases in which it allows you to actually win combats, because it is open information compared to a combat trick. Legion on the hand is much better at pushing damage with its (overpriced) 3 mana tap ability, which actively changes combat whether you are attacking or not. The 6 mana ability is a game ender and mana sink for a guild made up of low-cost aggressive cards. Legion guildmage is more versatile than its RAV counterpart.

I would say all of the new guildmages are better than all of the oldest ones. However, none of them are better than Ravnica 2's guildmages.

TLDR: Powerlevel of guildmages goes Ravnica 2 -> Ravnica 3 -> Ravnica 1

Boza on The Guildmage Cycle

5 years ago

There is a difference, but honestly, Guildmages were never playable outside of Limited and maybe a few in commander, but never in standard. There is no difference between tapping and not tapping for the ability, unless you want to activate it two or more times. And if you can afford to activate your guildmage twice in any format, you are probably already winning.

In constructed, even though the guildmages have to tap, I think that it is OK. League Guildmage is great in Limited and both abilities are OK in Standard, where you can never realistically expect to activate the ability twice.

Legion Guildmage having the ability to push early damage with its first ability and late game damage with its second one is exactly what the guild wants to do in Limited.

Selesnya Guildmage is less useful, but your Rosemane Centaurs having trample or not is a really big deal. Heck, your Flight of Equenauts being chumped by a Bird token from Murmuring Mystic feels awful. And the second ability takes over the lategame in a stalemate.

Swarm Guildmage has two very useful abilities. The small ability is useful versus aggro, where golgari really struggles to trade efficiently. The large ability is useful as a game ender. Making Vigorspore Wurm unblockable is a huge deal that has won me multiple games. And in combination with something like Izoni, Thousand-Eyed, it is amazing.

House Guildmage being an instant-speed source of surveil at a good price is incredibly important in the early game to power up your Disinformation Campaign and Dimir Spybug and filtering away lands in the late game. Locking down a powerful creature is an underestimated ability.

TLDR - They have uses which you have chosen to dismiss for unknown reasons. Maybe not as much in commander (though I would still have both Swarm Guildmage and Korozda Guildmage in my izoni deck) though.

LordBlackblade on The Guildmage Cycle

5 years ago

I just looked at the Golgari cycle: Golgari Guildmage, Korozda Guildmage, and Swarm Guildmage. Looking at them I feel they support your original point that the Guildmages have weakened over time with this most recent Guildmage being the weakest in the pseudo-cycle.

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