Sword-Point Diplomacy

Sorcery

Reveal the top three cards of your library. For each of those cards, put that card into your hand unless any opponent pays 3 life. Then exile the rest.

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
Historic Brawl	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

legendofa on How to Capture and Consume a Soul

1 month ago

kamarupa Short version is, what I have now is pretty much what I considered, minus a few redundant keyword creatures.

Self-mill is an interesting option, but in my very personal experience, I seem to be better at self-milling the cards I want to keep and drawing the cards I want to toss. I learned Dredge to try to weaponize that. So it's definitely on the table for someone with better luck, but I'm not sure I trust myself with it.

Skipping ahead to Pull from Eternity, I did look at it a little bit. Urborg Scavengers wants its cards to stay exiled while Soulflayer doesn't care, but if either one gets removed somehow, it's the best option to recycle the exiled card.

Counterspells are perfect sideboard material. Probably focus on the single-{U} ones like your Mana Leak thought so the land budget doesn't explode.

Vampire of the Dire Moon got in specifically because it was castable as a 1-drop in this deck. Right now, there's no sac outlets, but I'm pretending it's a viable blocker or worth using removal on. I'll have to check out cheap self-saccers more carefully, but what I remember is that a lot of them have Selfless Spirit-style keyword granting.

More Collective Brutality. Noted and agreed. Sideboard artifact and enchantment removal. Noted and agreed.

Sword-Point Diplomacy can feed Ketramose, the New Dawn, but can also conflict with Flayer and Scavengers. I'll probably start with the 2-for-2 cards, maybe a Diplomacy in the sideboard.

I'm still working on the balance of keyword creatures to body creatures to support, so I'm not sure where this is gonna end up. Thanks for the suggestions!

kamarupa on How to Capture and Consume a Soul

1 month ago

I gotta be honest, I feel like they've printed quite a few of such cards ('has X ability of X graveyard targets') and as decent as they seem in theory, I've always felt the payoff was never good enough to warrant the effort. But you sir, have proven me wrong because this deck is nice.

I'm curious - did you consider self-mill cards like Stitcher's Supplier? and perhaps in combination with spells like Brainstone or Mystic Speculation?

Conversely, did you consider trying to overdraw to discard? It seems like a pretty unlikely strategy, but there is Inspired Idea... Maybe a fork brew might explore that more...I do think some broad spectrum counterspell might be useful, if only in the sideboard - your creatures have a goal of entering with some kind of built-in protection, so only a counterspell could offer anything extra. Rebuff the Wicked seems like a rough fit with your color scheme as is, but it doesn't really do anything Hexproof doesn't do. Whereas a general counterspell like Mana Leak could stop a Priest of Forgotten Gods from entering play or a Diabolic Edict from resolving.

I wonder if you plan on occasionally casting discard targets like Vampire of the Dire Moon - that strategy seems dynamic (good) but also less focused/committed (bad?). To that end, did you look into spells that might both sacrifice themselves and also provide abilities once in the graveyard? I didn't do any searches to see if those even exist, but imagine at least one or two does.

Collective Brutality seems way too good to only include 2x copies.

As good as Collective Brutality is, I still want to see at least 2 more slots devoted to removal. I see you have two in your sideboard, but I have a sideboard rule that violates: You have to have mainboard spells to remove to have a functioning sideboard. Extrapolate from that: mainboard removal sideboards out for sideboard removal.

I wonder if something like Pull from Eternity might be useful in the sideboard. I'm thinking that since both your beatsticks need to exile creatures themselves, being able to reuse the same creature could be useful?

So long as there's a splash of white, I'd like to see some Enchantment/Artifact removal in the sideboard. Those spells can sometimes wreck mono-black and white is the best at that. To that end, I'd probably try to run more dual lands. There are just so many useful white spells!

I'd love to see some more draw card here. I like Sword-Point Diplomacy because it has a chance of drawing 3 cards for 3 mana, which is pretty much as good as it gets for card draw. Otherside, Night's Whisper or Sign in Blood are among your best options, which are both decent.

kamarupa on Orzhov's Ally Debt Collectors

2 months ago

Love me some Allies! Nice! +1

Raise the Past might be worth considering - 4MV to hit so many creatures is just value town.

Ephemerate seems like it would be nice, especially with Tocasia's Welcome, which would probably draw you enough cards to be worth the slightly higher MV than Sign in Blood and slower, more conditional requirements. Sword-Point Diplomacy might be worth considering, too. And given how few dual lands you're running, I might opt for Night's Whisper over Sign in Blood. While technically you can kill an opponent with a Sign in Blood, I think in practice we almost never do. But we do often not have BB to cast a Sign in Blood when we need it most.

kamarupa on LongLegs

3 months ago

Just to be "clear" (lol), Silent Clearing is not card advantage. It would have to draw at least 2 cards to qualify as card advantage. I'd probably go with with Sword-Point Diplomacy or Night's Whisper. Esper Sentinel would probably come in as a very distant 3rd choice for me, being too conditional and easy to remove for my taste.

Given how integral The Sibsig Ceremony is to your deck, I would count on opponents sideboarding every enchantment removal spell they have in the second game. In my experience, getting a Hall into play makes opponents feel completely defeated before they can even cast enchantment removal.

Andramalech on Darkest Heart Challenge - Horror Tribal

4 months ago

Sword-Point Diplomacy is a card that regardless of the list, I'll likely upvote because it's such a gutted f@#$%ing card. We're going to get what we want. I'm looking over the rough draft and love what I see already. Don't diminish the value you bring to the challenge. Even a Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man provides some value when you look at it from the right perspective..

..anyways, get some rest and we'll get around to each deck eventually!

plakjekaas on Is Black Allowed to have …

4 months ago

Sword-Point Diplomacy is as close as I can get, which is the whole point of what Maro posted, there's not many of them.

Kjartan on 101% Mono Black Burn

11 months ago

Even though you probably have one of the best shells for it, Bond of Agony looks pretty bad.

Red burn decks usually don't play Fireball or any of its superior versions, even though they are way better than Bond of Agony

You have 18 lands, meaning you scale very slowly into a range where Bond can deal any more damage than your other spells, and once you get there, 5 mana + pay 4 life to cause a 4 point life loss? That seems just awful. And it's especially bad since you have Syphon Life which means you'll just be discarding additional lands when you hit your curve stopper unless you're sitting with Bond of Agony in hand.

If you want some late-game potential, I would look into adding a single B/R source to flashback Bump in the Night because the opportunity cost of doing to is so low. Alternatively, consider Sword-Point Diplomacy as a card that can pull you ahead in stale-mate against another deck that didn't quite manage to do its thing.

PhyrexianPraetor on Ravnican Slime

1 year ago

Have you considered Blitz of the Thunder-Raptor, Sword-Point Diplomacy or Tasigur's Cruelty?