Thornbite Staff

Kindred Artifact — Shaman Equipment

Equipped creature has "{2}, {T}: This creature deals 1 damage to any target (creature, player, planeswalker or battle)" and "Whenever a creature dies, untap this creature. (Dying is being put into the graveyard from the battlefield. Tokens enter the graveyard before they cease to exist.)"

Whenever a Shaman creature enters the battlefield, you may attach this equipment to it.

Equip {4} ({4}: Attach this to target creature you control. Equip only as a sorcery. This enters the battlefield unattached and stays on the battlefield if the creature this card is attached to leaves the battlefield.)

Combos

• Marrow-Gnawer + Thornbite Staff
• Avatar of Woe + Thornbite Staff
• Hell's Caretaker + Thornbite Staff
• Thornbite Staff + Visara the Dreadful
• Sling-Gang Lieutenant + Thornbite Staff + Whisper, Blood Liturgist
• Ruin Rat + Thornbite Staff
• Gravecrawler + Soldevi Adnate + Thornbite Staff

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
Modern Beyond Horizons	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (50)

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Arachnophobia, Webs of Fear (Shelob)

5 days ago

I've had a deck around Shelob for a while. It has since made room for Ygra, Eater of All, but Shelob can definitely do some rather unique things.

First, there is neat tech when having a commander with Ward. Including a number of spells like Snakeskin Veil, Fake Your Own Death and Not Dead After All always make fir great "Gotcha"s when an opponent tries to remove your commander.

Cards like Viridian Longbow are powerful for deathtouchers in general, and for Shelob, it can be easy removal. For even more shenanigans, Thornbite Staff with Longbow can be a one-sided boardwipe.

Finally, Shelob goes infinite with Devoted Druid. Just kill the druid with a spider to get an artifact that untaps infinitely to get infinite {G}. I don't know if this works for your playgroup, but it's quite powerful. Protean Hulk can do similar things, the only problem lies within it being 7 mana to get out.

I wish you all the fun with the deck!

SlayaZes on Zombies.

1 month ago

multimedia I took a break from magic for a while, but i have now updated the deck! My LGS banned infinite combos so i had to make some changes like not including warren soultrader and removing Pitiless Plunderer, but the deck does play well now, the Alter of Bhaal combo is really good. I'm considering adding back the cards Gempalm Polluter, Gruesome Fate, and Skemfar Shadowsage as alternate win cons when attacking isnt viable, and maybe cutting the Thornbite Staff. Any suggestions for Non infinite Combos/upgrades?

SlayaZes on Zombies.

6 months ago

multimedia Thornbite Staff is the most powerful combo piece in the deck, Ghoulcaller Gisa requires tapping and sacing a creature as a cost, after which the staff will untap her. This lets you dump all your mana into her to make zombies, also it goes infinite when combined with cards like Pitiless Plunderer or Gravecrawler + Bontu's Monument. Now Warren Soultrader while not infinite with this combo by it self, it is still good value.

multimedia on Zombies.

6 months ago

Hey, those are good changes since Warren Soultrader is an infinite sac combo with Gravecrawler + Bontu's Monument, this gives you a wincon without needing to attack.

Three cuts to consider are Bad Moon, Stoneforge Masterwork and Gruesome Fate since these cards do nothing without having creatures in your control and even then I don't think they are needed. Now that you may be adding Soultrader then I don't think you need Fate. Fate could potentially be a wincon if you can't attack with your Zombie horde, but now Soultrader combo can be the nonattacking wincon and you don't need a Zombie horde to win.

For other cuts to consider, some of the lesser removal spells Murder, Poison the Cup, Assassin's Ink since the others you have here are better. Next cuts could be switching recursion Ghoulcaller's Chant, Cemetery Recruitment, Stitch Together for more lower mana cost reanimation. Stitch could be reanimation, but not in the early game where you want it.

You could cut two cards that are only good with Gisa Thornbite Staff (is there a combo here with Staff that I don't see?) and Patriar's Seal, replacing them with more haste enablers. The haste enablers are good with Gisa plus they can protect her, but also with any creature you reanimate as well as protecting Soultrader when combo.

Other cuts to consider could be some of the lesser creatures Gempalm Polluter, Nested Shambler, Death Tyrant for some better reanimation targets. Consider cutting the 3-4 drop ramp Heraldic Banner, Nyx Lotus for draw?

Feed the Swarm can be an important removal spell for mono black since it can remove an enchantment. Vile Mutilator can be reanimated and it makes each opponent sac an enchantment as well as a creature. Bubbling Muck with 30x Swamps could produce a lot of mana on your turn. If you want more ramp then Muck/Mind Stone/Jet Medallion are good options.

SHADOW_PHOENIX on Goblin Rush and Burn

6 months ago

I'd recommend a Thornbite Staff to get additional untap triggers

Craeter on Deathtouch Abuse

8 months ago

The Viridian Longbow + Thornbite Staff + deathtouch creature board wipe combo is just like the Goblin Sharpshooter + Basilisk Collar one. Pretty cool to see this again, especially with the colorless options.

Nice work with this one, the overall price of the deck is impressive too as Thornbite is not a cheap card.

legendofa on Commander Story Circle

9 months ago

Maybe not unexpectedly resourceful, or finding a new way to use a card, but definitely unexpected. I was on Vampires, opponent was using Grixis Chaos, and the other two aren't relevant to the story other than they were there. I had my Vampire Nighthawk holding a Thornbite Staff online, pinging and killing all the creatures, but there were still the usual array of mana rocks and miscellaneous enchantments out. Grixis Chaos casts a Scrambleverse. We all get our dice out and start rolling for control of everything. Several minutes later, when the dust settled, the results were in and somehow, every permanent stayed under the control of whoever had it. The net effect of a {6}{R}{R} spell was that my Nighthawk dropped the Staff. Probably one of those things where you had to be there, but in the moment, we had to stop the game just to wonder how that had happened. I guess this is the story of something we didn't expect that didn't change anything at all.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Hazel Supreme Leader of the Villains of Redwall

9 months ago

For a while, my Chatterfang list was a squirrel/rat mash-up. Now, I have a separate Chatti and just build Wick, the Whorled Mind as a rat deck.

No matter how you play it, having Marrow-Gnawer without Thornbite Staff in sight feels wrong. Maybe give it a shot?