Swiftwater Cliffs

Land

Swiftwater Cliffs enters the battlefield tapped.

When Swiftwater Cliffs enters the battlefield, you gain 1 life.

: Gain or .

Discussion (50)

multimedia on Kess Combo

1 month ago

Hey, interesting start on a budget version of Kess.

Some cards to consider adding:

• Baleful Strix
• Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• Arcane Signet: at TCGPlayer can get it for less than $3.
• Izzet Signet
• Dimir Signet: can get it for less than $1.
• Rakdos Signet
• Crumbling Necropolis: Grixis Tri land.
• Shivan Reef: can get it for less than $1.
• Smoldering Marsh
• Grixis Panorama
• Opal Palace
• Dimir Aqueduct
• Izzet Boilerworks
• Rakdos Carnarium

Cards to consider cutting for these:

• Temple of the False God: it will not tap for mana until your fifth turn which is really bad.
• Vivid Marsh: when it runs out of two counters it can only tap for black.
• Dimir Guildgate
• Swiftwater Cliffs
• 4x Mountain
• Guard Gomazoa or Fog Bank
• Sage's Row Denizen
• Izzet Chronarch
• Mnemonic Wall
• Salvager of Secrets
• Possessed Skaab

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Baleful Strix is a two drop who draws a card when it ETB, that way you can blink it with Deadeye to draw many cards. When you assemble Deadeye + Drake for infinite mana then being able to infinite blink a creature who draws can draw your win condition or draw and cast all cards in your deck. It's possible you could have a win condition already on the battlefield or in hand or graveyard with Kess, but if not then infinite blinking Strix lets you draw it.

Gonti, Lord of Luxury can be a win condition with Deadeye + Drake. It's not opponent mill, it's better, it's opponent exile their libraries and with infinite mana you get to cast all your opponent's cards. Arcane Signet , Izzet Signet, Dimir Signet, Rakdos Signet are some two drop mana rocks so you're not only relying on lands to have enough mana to cast cards.

I don't think you need to play so many creatures who recur an instant or sorcery because isn't that what Kess is for? That's the advantage of Kess, you get to cast an instant or sorcery from your graveyard on your turns, but once you resolve that spell is exiled. An exiled spell is no longer in your graveyard to recur to your hand. Archaeomancer is the only creature you want for this effect because you also have blink spells as well as Deadeye and creature recursion/reanimation spells for Archaeomancer.

Good luck with your deck.

plakjekaas on Izzet Tempo - Tournament Ready

1 month ago

Pathways in this deck are probably as good as pathways will be. Since you don't want to lose tempo, you'll want as little "enter the battlefield tapped" lands as you can, so them coming in untapped, keeping up Shock or Opt from turn 1, depending which you have in hand, is probably worth 4 land slots.

I'd make this mana base with 4x Temple of Epiphany and 4x Clearwater Pathway  ^Flip, and then add basics according to your mana requirements in the deck. No Fabled Passage, no Swiftwater Cliffs, I think even the castles in your colors are too slow for your gameplan. Shatterskull Smashing  ^Flip is probably worth it, but Sea Gate Restoration  ^Flip most definitely is not a spell you're ever going to cast, so it's not worth paying 3 life for the land part if it's basically an island in your deck.

Balaam__ on Blue/Red Dragon Aggro

2 months ago

Looks nice overall. If it’s in the budget, I’d replace Swiftwater Cliffs with Steam Vents or Scalding Tarn. They’re quite expensive but perform significantly better.

I’d also lower the creature count just a touch to include maybe 4 more instants that either protect your own creatures, remove your opponent’s, or counter spells before they become a problem.

MindAblaze on Kess, HotWheels

2 months ago

This looks fun. Like a Nekusar deck but with constant access to flashback and without the hate Nekusar brings on sight. I like it. Although if I understand correctly Kess has her own haters too...

I’d be frustrated by your mana base, but it’s a decent budget start. When nearly half of your lands are basics, I would expect to struggle to cast Bolas, or when chaining together wheels it can be frustrating to find I have too much of the wrong colour, and not enough of the right one. You need red or blue, not red and blue, combined with a decent amount of black. I’d try to smash as many UR lands like Izzet Guildgate, Wandering Fumarole or Swiftwater Cliffs as your budget can muster in over basics.

The mana screw happens to my Nekusar deck The Mad King of Tristram often enough in its current state and I find Chromatic Lantern to not be enough although it helps for sure.

multimedia on Lightning-Butt Strikes Back!

2 months ago

Hey, my advice is choose one of Passage/Grounds/Lighthouse and cut the other two because lots of only colorless land sources can be problematic with Kalamax. Wolf Run/Settlement/Encampment are colorless sources and have much better interaction with Kalamax then other colorless lands.

In my opinion Passage is better than Grounds and Lighthouse, but I'm partial to attacking with Kalamax which Passage helps with. In my version I cut Passage for Reliquary Tower because I have lots more spells that can draw a lot of cards with Kalamax and I would rather keep those cards in hand than discard them. A reason to cut Passage is because you already have Wolf Run and it's an overall better land for repeatable evasion for Kalamax.

I presume you're playing Grounds because you're consistently against opponent graveyard strategies? If not then it could be cut since you don't have other Deserts and other than Encampment it's not worth including other Deserts. Lighthouse also doesn't seem worth it as a repeatable draw source since you can get better draw from many other sources.

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Some changes to consider with cards in the maybeboard:

• Survivors' Encampment > Rugged Highlands or Forest
• Holdout Settlement > Swiftwater Cliffs or Forest
  
  
• Turnabout > Ravenous Gigantotherium
• Sprout Swarm > Djinn Illuminatus
  There's a lot of high CMC creatures here; Gigantotherim and Illuminatus are not as good as the others.
  
  
• Wavebreak Hippocamp > Crackling Drake
  Drake has a difficult colored mana cost to cast having so many Forests.
  
  
• Double Vision > Clash of Titans
  I haven't played with Vision yet, but with your version of Kalamax not sure you need it since you already have Twinning, Intelligence and Melek.
  
  
• Return of the Wildspeaker > Might of Oaks

multimedia on Kalamax Precon Upgraded

3 months ago

Hey, nice budget version of Kalamax. Several good upgrades you've made to the precon.

Chord of Calling with Kalamax to tutor for Pili + Architect for infinite mana is interesting. Consider more ways to draw into a win condition when you have infinite mana? Without the draw making infinite mana with Pili + Architect or with Scepter + Reversal doesn't do enough. Expansion / Explosion is another instant Fork or Explosion with infinite mana can draw a lot of cards. Pull from Tomorrow and Blue Sun's Zenith are other instants that draw X cards.

Nivix Guildmage with infinite mana can draw into your deck until you find a win condition as well as counters to protect the combo. Guildmage with infinite mana can also infinite copy an instant/sorcery you cast which can make Banefire a win condition since you can copy it for each opponent and target a different opponent with each copy. If you can some how get a third copy of Chord when you cast it then you can also tutor for Guildmage.

Some lands in the manabase could be upgraded. Life lands from the precon and Scry temple lands are not worth ETB tapped. Survivors' Encampment and Holdout Settlement are unique lands with Kalamax because they're repeatable ways to tap him. These lands are like Springleaf Drum, they make mana when you use them to tap Kalamax or another creature. But unlike Drum you can tutor for and put onto the battlefield with Crop Rotation. Having more ways to tap Kalamax without attacking while also making mana is beneficial.

Some other good lands that are reasonable price to consider adding are: Rootbound Crag and Shivan Reef. The Filter lands: Cascade Bluffs, Flooded Grove and Fire-Lit Thicket are at lowest price due to just being reprinted in Double Masters. Can get these lands for as low as $5 each. Bluffs is helpful since it can make or , important color combinations to want to consistently make to cast instants for Kalamax.

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Cards to consider cutting:

• Rugged Highlands
• Thornwood Falls
• Swiftwater Cliffs
• Temple of Mystery
• Aggressive Mammoth
• Charmbreaker Devils
• Djinn Illuminatus
• Refuse / Cooperate

Good luck with your deck.

DanMcSharp on This Is America

3 months ago

Hello,

Winged Words is just a draw 2 for 3 mana in your deck since you don't have any (flying) creatures, so any other draw spell would likely work better. Omen of the Sea would be a good example.

Conclave Tribunal is also hard to justify in a deck with no creatures since you can't make use of the Convoke, might as well just run some Banishing Light instead.

Typically any control deck that plays will play a few copies of Teferi, Time Raveler and Elspeth Conquers Death, which I would highly recommend. It could even bring back Ugin, the Spirit Dragon from the graveyard if you discarded it to Chemister's Insight jump-start.

Chandra's Outrage is pretty expensive at 4 mana for what it does, you could run Storm's Wrath instead for something that has much more impact on the board.

Jaya's Greeting is fun but compared to something like Scorching Dragonfire, the scry1 really isn't worth it when you could have the option to hit a planeswalker and having them be exiled on top of it.

You could try to include some Fabled Passage in your mana base instead of some of the tap lands, I'm sure you'd much rather draw that than a Swiftwater Cliffs if you're waiting for your 8th land to play Ugin, the Spirit Dragon.

I really don't think this deck needs Clear the Mind. You won't mill yourself, and on the off-chance you'll happen to draw it against a mill deck, you might as well run anything else that will be far more useful to you.

Hopefully these suggestions are helpful, cheers!

gamercat98 on UR Kiln Friend

5 months ago

Balaam__ The Ash Barrens can come in untapped as a colorless source if I need them and color doesn't matter. I originally had a few Swiftwater Cliffs in the list, and if I find myself in trouble fixing mana would add them back in.