Temple Bell
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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
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Temple Bell

Artifact

: Each player draws a card.

Gidgetimer on Is Staff of Completion a …

5 hours ago

Temple Bell is a bad card. There are reasons to play bad cards and playing a bad card (with a good reason) doesn't make you a bad player, especially in EDH. Most of the cards in my Jodah, the Unifier deck are bad, but they are cheap legendary creatures. So they just turn into insanely large beaters, which is what the deck wants to do. Shrieking Drake is an objectively bad card. It is a Flying Men with downside. But that doesn't stop it from being played in a cEDH deck.

wallisface on Is Staff of Completion a …

1 day ago

Gleeock I don’t think we’re ever going to see eye-to-eye here.

This thread was built around the OP asking for deck-building optimisation in a vacuum… i strongly feel that suggesting Temple Bell as a reasonable option in that regard is both incredibly misleading, and doesn’t help the OP in future card-assessment.

Gleeock on Is Staff of Completion a …

1 day ago

wallisface I don't believe I stated that the card was powerful. As far as <1% on EDHrec, I have played plenty of cards that help me on my way to winning in less overt ways & they probably show up in a low % decks as well.

Again, I don't really play Temple Bell, nor do I play traditional "hugs". But, I have seen specialist players be pretty effective at that playstyle. As far as: not EVER doing enough in the 99 I say "Never say Never" in a game with this much choice, variety, strategy, & personal preference. Your playstyle is not everyone elses' playstyle, even if it is the majority playstyle.

plakjekaas on Is Staff of Completion a …

1 day ago

The only reason I remember Temple Bell as a card is because I saw a Zurzoth, Chaos Rider player activate it trying to sneak in some extra devil tokens precombat (Anger in the graveyard, it made sense to try) while saying "What's the worst that could happen?" hinting at the disadvantage of giving your opponents extra cards. But by doing so, miracled an opponent into Devastation Tide, answering their own question while they took at least 20 devil tokens back to hand without the death trigger.

Very memorable game, horrible advertisement for the use of Temple Bell.

wallisface on Is Staff of Completion a …

1 day ago

StopShot, Gleeock if Temple Bell were even remotely as powerful as you two describe, you’d see it showing up in competitive edh decks… or semi-competitive edh decks… or even strong-casual edh decks. Or even casual decks. But you don’t, because outside of some extremely niche/narrow deck-builds, it’s just not doing enough to ever warrant being in the 99.

The stats speak for themselves. On edhrec it’s showing up in less-than 1% of decks. I imagine the vast majority of those decks are “grouphug”, with the remainder being a deckbuilding mistake.

Gleeock on Is Staff of Completion a …

1 day ago

Temple Bell is fine depending on your personal strategy as a player. If you build a lot of versatility & durability into your decks then a small amount of "benefit for all" is fine. Basically, in a 4-player (+) game, if you know you barely ever are the archenemy role & giving everyone potential "solutions" is just fine because what are they really "solving" on your side of the board? this is fine. I play so many group slug - "death by 1,000 cuts" decks, the commanders are rarely the main show, & I rarely have any one lynchpin to be "solved". I often play a lower single-target removal volume & more wipes & mass-durability cards because the more midrange the game & the more parity & "solutions" everyone has, the more single-target removal starts to become too "small fry" when every other player is the next big threat.

Now, if none of that describes your playstyle & you play more commander-centric deck & you don't tend to use your opponents as resources.. then I'd say to use a more me-centered card.

I play a ton of Descent into Avernus & regularly kick butt with it because I have years of deckbuilding & playstyle directed at building for durability & a mindfulness that I am not the only priority at the table. Players will have to address each other if they are constantly dropping the next big bomb. Of course this can be a little dependent on an opponent making a rational decision from their point of view, which can be tricky.

Not that I am saying one strategy is better than the other, just that I don't like when people say "hug" cards are outright bad. That being said, I don't play a lot of true "hug" either.

StopShot on Is Staff of Completion a …

1 day ago

@wallisface, Caerwyn, I get the criticisms, most of it is exactly why you wouldn't run Temple Bell in a 1v1 format and if the discussion was for its use in a 1v1 format I wouldn't be advocating for it at all. Do those same factors in 1v1 not exist in multiplayer? No, tempo and card parity are still there and relevant. My stance is that they aren't as relevant in multiplayer settings which is where I split and why I feel Temple Bell's usefulness is based more on personal preference as well as our own individual experiences at playgroups. (That's not to say I don't care about tempo or card parity either when it comes to deck building, I merely put less stress on it than I would in a 1v1 format.)

For me at least EDH is like a break from the 1v1 mindset rather than just another outlet for it. As for my own experiences, even if decks aren't running interaction, extra cards lets other opponents develop their boardstates better which has always had a higher aptitude of creating longer combat stalemates and prolonging games which has always served my decks well that prefer longer drawn out games rather than fast ones, and I like that more than simply running a prison deck for the same reason you wouldn't want to bring removal to this format.

I think it's also nihilistic to "hope for the best, but prepare for the worst." I mean, (unless my deck's power level is absurdly cracked over all my opponents,) if all my opponents decide to go after me in a game, I'm going to lose no matter what I put in my deck, and that's okay. It's unreasonable to build a deck that's meant to consistently beat three other random decks that target yours at the same time. The games you're going to win are the ones where that doesn't happen and it's those games that I build my deck around. Maybe I could win a few more of those games if I put more thought into tempo and card parity, but then again, I wouldn't get to experience the other tactical wins I've won. If my opponent draws that one thing that they needed to survive something lethal the game prolongs and that buys me extra turns I wouldn't have had. (As in if that opponent was KO'd the one that did the finishing blow would likely go for me next, but if the KO'd opponent survives or resists the push, that same opponent may become hesitant on attacking me if it leaves them open to being attack by the opponent they would have KO'd.) And thus, the cards I run in my own deck capitalize off of this prolonged state better than my opponents cards that would have wished to have ended the game much earlier.

Regardless though, this is comment and my previous comment are both just part of my deck building ideology. If you think my approach is dumb because it's playing too much with factors that are harder to control and not enough on the factors that are easier to control such as more focus on tempo and card parity that's cool. There is enjoyment and practicality in building decks that way, so don't get the impression I'm telling you you're playing the game bad because I'm taking a different approach. I stand by my views on Temple Bell because my own experiences reflect what I've said on it, and perhaps your own experiences with it are also reflected by what you've had to say on it. I'm just here to provide my perspective since I didn't see it here anywhere on this thread. If my words don't hold up for those reading them, that's fine, I'm not advocating Temple Bell is universally good for all decks, but that its value lies in preference and those that share similar preferences should consider it and those that don't need not give it a second thought. For me it sounded like the OP was okay with having Temple Bell in their deck up until the point enough people told them it was bad, which is why I feel so strongly about leaving my thoughts on the matter here.

Caerwyn on Is Staff of Completion a …

2 days ago

StopShot - I second wallisface’s analysis and want to add an additional point.

There is an old saying - you should hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. A lot of your analysis is based on hoping for the best while writing off the worse case situation.

When evaluating a card, it is important to look at its floor - what the worst thing that could happen might be. For Temple Bell and similar cards, the floor is that you give your opponents something that stops you - a pretty disastrous floor that could cause you to lose the game.

You write that possibility off as “they might not use the cards against you” - but that is looking at the best case situations while ignoring the distinct chance it makes the game worse for you.

While one can imagine situations where Temple Bell might help you win, there are also lots of situations where it helps your opponent win. That makes it a bad card.

Instead of playing a card that might help someone else win, that card slot should go to something which always helps you win.

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