Thought Vessel

Artifact

You have no maximum hand size.

: Gain .

Discussion (51)

multimedia on Fuck You Blues

23 minutes ago

Hey, I like the changes. Nice job, you found several good cards in your collection.

You still need to cut two cards to make 100. My suggestions of cuts to consider are Selective Snare and Power Taint . Snare is very situational and a sorcery. Unless you're against a lot of tribal decks in your playgroup it's not worth playing. Especially since you're already playing Icy Blast which is the same mana cost, an instant and can target any amount of creatures. The 2 life drain of Taint is not worth playing in 40 life Commander. Your opponent can just ignore it or if they want to pay the 2 mana to prevent the 2 life.

Other cards to consider cutting are:

• Spellbook : you have Thought Vessel which gives you no max hand size as well as ramp, don't also need Spellbook. Another no max hand size card that also gives you mana to consider is Reliquary Tower . It doesn't take up a valuable deck spot since it's a land.
• Brine Elemental : not worth the mana cost.
• Fog Bank : a strategy is to attack with unblockable creatures, Bank can't attack and has no power.
• Claustrophobia : very lackluster removal spell since all it does is tap the creature, both Imprisoned in the Moon and Deep Freeze are the same mana cost and much better.

SideBae on I Play For Free, You Don't Get To Play!

7 hours ago

The first thing I notice when looking at this list is that you run 41 lands. I strongly advise against this. In my experience, unless you’re a green landfall deck like Azusa, Lost but Seeking , there is little utility in running more than 34, maybe 35 lands. There are budget options for fetching, such as Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse , which you might find helpful for color fixing. Also, you might consider running the shock lands in your colors ( Hallowed Fountain , etc.). These can be grabbed by slow fetches like Flood Plain , and add a level of consistency to your mana base without breaking the bank. Hall of the Bandit Lord is also a consideration, though it can be pricey. Temple of Epiphany , Temple of Enlightenment and Temple of Triumph may be helpful to find more/fewer lands early, before Narset is down, and remove ‘dud’ lands from the top of your deck after she is ready to attack. Command Tower , Mana Confluence and City of Brass are also good additions.

My second piece of advice is to add top deck manipulation. While many of these kind of cards are expensive, like Jace, the Mind Sculptor , Scroll Rack and Sensei's Divining Top , card’s like Ponder , Brainstorm and Preordain are very affordable. I especially advise the first two, as they permit stacking up to two spells on top of your deck before attacking with Narset, where Preordain only stacks one. However, all three are great in an opening hand looking for lands or action cards, and I would run all three in virtually all blue decks. Telling Time and Serum Visions are also contenders for this slot, though I don’t think as highly of them.

Mystical Tutor , Enlightened Tutor and Personal Tutor are also great ways to stack cards you need on top of your deck before a Narset trigger resolves. These are in the $20-$30 range though, so they may not be super accessible.

Strionic Resonator copies your generals ability... just sayin’.

If you don’t want to run counter magic, you should at least consider counter counter magic measures like Defense Grid or Price of Glory . These will make it way more difficult for your opponent to counter your general on her way down, or your free spells during the resolution of her trigger. Silence is also a good card from that view. Some interaction is always good, though. Here, I recommend Wrath of God , Supreme Verdict and/or Swords to Plowshares . The first two are board wipes that will hold back wide decks and give you time to cast your general; Swords is just the best spot removal in the game. Wear / Tear is another great piece of interaction in RUW.

With respect to your ramp: I see you’re running all three cluestones. I think the signets ( Azorius Signet , Boros Signet and Izzet Signet ) are better. In my experience there is a tremendous difference between 2- and 3-mana rocks in EDH. Similarly, I advise Talisman of Progress , Mind Stone , and Thought Vessel as ramp options. Coldsteel Heart is also a good idea.

Depending on your board presence during each game, you might consider Restore Balance , as a Narset trigger allows you to cast it immediately. This may be helpful if you can’t go off that turn, and just want to keep opposing boards in check.

If you want to get SUPER spicy, Mind's Desire and Volcanic Awakening are also good options to hit off Narset triggers. Temporal Manipulation is an extra turn card you may have missed.

Card draw and selection is a premium in EDH and decides most games. Chart a Course , Faithless Looting and Dack Fayden all come to mind when viewing your list. Ancestral Vision is about $10 these days, and is a fun flip off a Narset trigger, though Concentrate may be just straight better, as you can cast it from your hand as well. Mystic Remora is a good enchantment for drawing cards. If you choose to run a counter counter magic package, Dictate of Kruphix or Howling Mine may help; however, be weary of playing them when you have no counter protection, as they are symmetrical effects.

Finally, depending on how mean you are, Ravages of War , Armageddon and Cataclysm are possibilities. Nuke-ing all the lands means that Narset is very likely to take over the game, and resolving one of these spells may win the game on its own. Cataclysm is, in my experience, even more brutal than the other two, as it kills walkers and removes armies of blockers.

I hope you find this helpful; let me know if you need clarification on any of my comments.

Good luck with deck building!

SideBae on Tymaret, the Duke of Death

3 days ago

So the first card that comes to mind is Mindslicer . In Rakdos decks, you can typically tune your 99 to make you the king of top-decks; this is part of the reason reanimating Sire Of Insanity is such a brutal play in decks like Xantcha, Sleeper Agent .

You're likely to be sacrificing a whole butt-ton of creatures. I advise ways to exploit your guys dying: Dictate of Erebos or Grave Pact come readily to mind. Skullclamp is pretty busted if you're going to be sacrificing creatures anyways, and its especially good seeing as you're running Gravecrawler already.

Zombies is one of the oldest archetypes, and thus it has access to a LOT of tribal effects. Cemetery Reaper , Death Baron , Zombie Master , Undead Warchief , Lord of the Accursed and Lord of the Undead are all good ways to pump your team and/or give them extra abilities. (Depending on the meta, you may want to run Bad Moon as well.) Call to the Grave is really good if you can tune the deck to have 2 or fewer non-zombie creatures. Dark Salvation and Liliana's Mastery are both viable cards in this deck. Graveborn Muse is another good card draw engine next to Phyrexian Arena , which I see you're already running. Unholy Grotto gives you a measure of recursion over your zombies. Noxious Ghoul also comes to mind, as does Withered Wretch as a form of one-sided graveyard hate.

One common issue I've seen in a lot of EDH decks is the prevalence of 1-for-1 instant and sorceries. In a majority of EDH games, you're going to have 2-3 opponents, rather than just one; this means you are facing roughly 2-3 times as many cards as you yourself have access to. Cards like Dreadbore and Terminate are good in 1-on-1 formats like Modern, but in EDH I have frequently found them to just not be good enough. I advise you run cards like Fire Covenant , Ashes to Ashes , Volcanic Fallout or Toxic Deluge instead. These have the potential to take out several creatures at the cost of one card, leaving you up that many cards over your opponents.

On a related note, since most games of EDH are decided by card advantage, anything you can do to draw cards will always be welcome. Ambition's Cost , Night's Whisper and the like are good ways to refill your hand. Wheel of Fortune is another good card, but it's about $100 now, so... consider carefully. Light Up the Stage is another one to consider. While Rakdos is good at topdecking, managing to draw extra cards means it is more likely to hit.

Black has access to many great tutor effects. You may want to consider running Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor if you're able to get ahold of the cards. Gamble is a good red tutor.

Looting effects tend to be very good in zombie decks, which have access to graveyard recursion. Faithless Looting is essentially card advantage in your deck, because you can discard things like Gravecrawler at no cost. Similarly, I advise running a bigger reanimation package (supplementing your Animate Dead ) to get back fatties your opponents may have killed or you may have discarded. Reanimate , and Necromancy are good cards -- if you want to get spicy, Dance of the Dead is a card most people have never played against before, mostly because it isn't nearly as good as the other three. But I figured I'd mention it. Also, a bigger reanimation package means things like Entomb or Buried Alive become exponentially better.

With regard to planeswalkers, Liliana, Death's Majesty is a good card for any zombie deck.

With regard to your lands: I don't think Blighted Fen is very good, and Temple of the False God should be replaced with Ancient Tomb if at all possible. If you want good utility lands that can kill pesky creatures, I advise Blast Zone . If you are able, I advise running Bloodstained Mire and/or the off-color fetches in order to grab your Blood Crypt or Smoldering Marsh . These fetches are in effect extra dual lands.

If you have a lot of recursion, which I see you do in things like Phyrexian Reclamation , you may have luck with pox-style cards. Pox is one of the most brutal cards to resolve in EDH, and Smallpox and Innocent Blood also can be played to great effect. Note that these get around hexproof, shroud and indestructible.

Depending on how hateful your meta is, you may want to consider some pretty mean red cards. Changing your land base slightly will give you access to Blood Moon , Magus of the Moon and Ruination , while Price of Glory will make people think twice about casting counter-magic. If your meta is as blue-heavy as mine, Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast are also fine considerations. If you end up running a lot of lord effects, you may want to consider Pyroclasm or Anger of the Gods , as your guys won't die if they're big enough. Possibility Storm is a good way to disrupt combo players -- I should know, as I play Storm in cEDH.

Because black has literally only one card designed to destroy artifacts ( Gate to Phyrexia ), red is a welcome addition to the team. By Force is a favorite of mine, but Shattering Spree , Vandalblast and Shatterstorm are also good ideas.

Rocks are great in EDH, especially if they're only 1 or 2 mana. I advise Talisman of Indulgence to replace Rakdos Locket and Mind Stone to replace Commander's Sphere . Coldsteel Heart is good as well, though it enters tapped, just like Charcoal Diamond and Fire Diamond . Thought Vessel is also worth considering.

Good luck with deck building!

SideBae on Vial Smashes Affinity

3 days ago

So my first thought is that you should run a LOT of instants, rather than just 2. Vial smasher can trigger on ANY turn, not just one, so running something like Dig Through Time would be... really good. Generally, you'll want these instants to draw you more cards, so Fact or Fiction and Glimmer of Genius are also fine choices. Cards with alternate casting costs also tend to have high CMCs: for example, Force of Will is a Lava Axe in this deck, as well as a counter spell. While Force may be a pricey card, other cards from the same cycle aren't. Contagion is well under a dollar, and can potentially also 2-for-1 with opposing creatures, while Pyrokinesis is even stronger. Misdirection and Commandeer also come to mind. If you want to get REAL spicy, Mind's Dilation is another good way to cast spell on your opponents' turns, but bear in mind this card tends to be killed pretty fast.

Flash creatures like Torrential Gearhulk also seem like pretty good ideas.

I suggest replacing Vedalken Orrery with Leyline of Anticipation . It's (very) slightly harder to remove an enchantment than an artifact, but more importantly if Leyline is in your opening 7, you avoid having to pay its cost. I can see a world where you play both, though.

I see you're running a few mana rocks, but I advise more. Two mana rocks tend to be far superior to 3 mana rocks, so Dimir Signet and Rakdos Signet are likely better than Thought Vessel or Worn Powerstone . Talisman of Dominance and Talisman of Indulgence also come to mind. Being in green means you have access to a whole host of dorks, like Llanowar Elves , Fyndhorn Elves , Arbor Elf , and Elves of Deep Shadow . These 1-drops may not look like much, but being able to accelerate you into quickly casting your general and then the following high-cost cards is a good thing. Orcish Lumberjack is a personal favorite in any red-green deck. However, if you choose to go via artifact ramp and not dork-ramp, this opens you to using effects like Pyroclasm or Volcanic Fallout to keep opponents' creatures in check. Ancient Tomb tends to be REAL nice for powering out turn-one 2-drop rocks. Depending on how blue-heavy your meta is, Carpet of Flowers can range from good to a straight-up powerhouse. If you take this part of my advice, your curve will drop significantly and you will be able to run 32-ish lands with no real problem.

You'll also probably want a good card-draw package, if you're planning to cast a lot of spells. Azra Oddsmaker is a goldmine if you have an open opponent to attack, and black has access to enchantments like Phyrexian Arena . Night's Whisper and Ambition's Cost are also good, and work well with Kydele.

Delve spells will act sort of like X-cost spells, but be easier to cast late-game and harder early-game. Empty the Pits may be interesting, but you should also consider Logic Knot , Treasure Cruise and Tasigur, the Golden Fang . Tasigur will give you an out later in the game for excess mana, and will allow you a level of recursion. In order to make these cards powerful, you need cards in the graveyard. For that, I recommend Faithless Looting , Jace, Vryn's Prodigy  ^Flip and Dack Fayden . While these last two are pricier cards, I think looting is the best here of the three, as you can cast it turn one to filter out a hand that may be too heavy in lands or spells. The flashback is also very significant. Jace is a powerful card in that he allows more card filtration on a permanent, and allows you to snap back a spell if you want. Dack Fayden is a boss in EDH, where stealing a Sol Ring is very common. So even if you don't need to filter your draws, stealing a rock should be an option about 98% of the time.

Speaking of card filtration, Ponder , Preordain and Brainstorm are all potent cards in any blue deck. While they may not work particularly well with Vial Smasher, they all work rather well with Kydele while also giving you a cantrip to cast turn 1. A lot of times, these are the cards that make a boarderline-keep hand into a keep hand for me, as they are extremely good at finding lands and/or spells as need be.

With Kydele, cards like Windfall , Wheel of Fortune and Winds of Change all become rituals in addition to their usual effects. Running Notion Thief in conjunction with these 'everyone draws' spells is... good. Similarly, targeting an opponent with Dack Fayden 's +1 while Notion Thief is on the field is a pretty good way to tip the card-advantage scales in your favor.

I like Whip of Erebos . You should consider running some Entomb or Buried Alive effects with it, as that would allow you to get some one-shots in with powerful creatures when hitting an opponent or just when entering the battlefield. Nicol Bolas and Massacre Wurm comes to mind.

Good luck with deck building!

create812 on Pir and Toothy

3 days ago

I see! I missed that obvious ETB interaction.

Also, how does the Pir, Imaginative Rascal / Hardened Scales + Give / Take work? I assume it's only with Toothy, Imaginary Friend :

• If Toothy is at no counters, Give + Pir (or Scales) puts 4 counters on Toothy. Then Take removes those 4 counters and you draw 4. Each draw adds 2 counters, so Toothy is left with 8 counters, right?
• If Toothy starts with 3 counters, Give + Pir (or Scales) add 4 more counters. Then Take removes 7 and you draw 7. Toothy is left with 14 counters.
• If both Pir AND Scales are out, and Toothy starts with no counters: Give + Pir + Scales add 5 counters (right?). Take removes 5 and you draw 5. Each draw adds 3 counters to Toothy, who ends up with 15 counters!?

Also, What do you think about Reliquary Tower and Thought Vessel in here?

dingusdingo on Excuse me while I Kess this guy

3 days ago

Here are my thoughts, in no particular order

Your land base is just 1 card away from running Tainted Pact for use with Labman lines. You should ditch that 2x island and run it. Also run the new Jace as a back up.

Omniscience + Show and Tell should be cut. Replace with Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter . Its a more compact win, doesn't have the opportunity to blow up in your face, combos with Top and Copy Artifact, and both pieces have higher quality than the pieces they are replacing.

You run a lot of large CMC junk cards that will either end as dead draws or don't win upon resolving. Consecrated Sphinx should be put into play with reanimation, but since you don't run you should cut. Bolas's Citadel is just a bad Ad Nauseum. The handful of wheel cards over 3 CMC should be cut. Why spend that time giving your opponents cards on a soft combo when you could be tutoring and winning with the very easy A + B of Labman + pact? Specifically, Time Spiral Wheel and Deal Reforge the Soul Whispering Madness . Replace those cards with more format staple counterspells and removal. Swan Song Dispel Flusterstorm Red Elemental Blast Abrade Shattering Spree .

Really not wild about Molten Psyche or Winds of Change either. You are losing card advantage on both (-1 to be precise). Notion Thief and Waste Not are both strong when used with a wheel, but it isn't worth devoting that many deck slots to combos that don't explicitly win. You would be better off running tutors instead, which will help you get whichever A or B part of the Notion Wheel combo you don't have in your hand.

You really don't need to run Mission Briefing if you are running Snapcaster AND yawgill AND past in flames.

You should highly consider Chain of Vapor as well as Hurkyl's Recall . Both allow you to gain mana and storm when combined with the mana positive rocks, which feeds into your Aetherflux Reservoir line. They also double as removal and can combo break opponents who are trying to win.

You should include Mana Vault , its much better than Basalt Monolith . Thought Vessel should also be cut, even Prismatic Lens is better. The no maximum hand size will literally never be relevant, because if you are drawing that many cards you should be able to win instead of passing the turn. If you do have to discard down to 7, just keep the 7 that allow you to win and protect the win. You should also run Chrome Mox because of the high card advantage you generate.

28 lands means you're in danger of getting staxed out, very easily. Any artifact hate with early taxes means you're caught and discarding cards for multiple turns. The land base you're running could also use a tune up. You should include the painlands Underground River etc. as they enter untapped and provide color diversity without extra requirements. The two-or-more-opponents lands I'm not a fan of, but playing in a pod means they'll be live. The two-or-fewer-lands lands I'm not a fan of, and firmly believe you should cut. Checklands are fine, but replaceable long term. You should also run more rainbowlands, specifically Forbidden Orchard Gemstone Caverns Tarnished Citadel . If you are running Tolaria West as a 0 drop tutor, don't count it as a land towards your total, if you're running it as an island, it comes out tapped so cut it.

You should get a creature sweeper. Earthquake is great and can double as a wincon if you're above opponents in life, also ignores Kess. Pyroclasm clears opposing mana dorks for very cheap.

Your cantrips are a bit goofy too. Thought Scour should be replaced with Sleight of Hand , which gives you more flexibility about the card you get as well as gets around draw restrictions such as Alms Collector or Spirit of the Labyrinth . Fact or Fiction is simply too much CMC. I'm personally not a fan of Scroll Rack but that's entirely your call.

Terminate should be Pongify or Rapid Hybridization . Its 1 cmc cheaper and less color intensive, and if you lose to a 3/3 token you were going to lose anyways. Notably, Kess can kill the token by blocking.

exec-MTG on Another Muldrotha deck

5 days ago

A few others but depends on you, and your meta! :)

• Thought Vessel , when your commander it's out, do you need an infinite hand?...
• Elixir of Immortality , good against graveyard hate, but do you really feel like your meta had that?, even if they do, will you use only 1 card to ger arround that?
• Executioner's Capsule yeah you can put it into the battlefield again... but isn't better a Nevinyrral's Disk instead? (just blow everything up and then rebuild with Muldrotha, the Gravetide , also you can answer with something like an Heroic Intervention
• Dimir Aqueduct Darkwater Catacombs i feel like 36 lands it's my sweet spot with a few dorks/rocks, but since you can ramp be more efficient with your taplands, you can always could search for the mana base in http:www.mtglands.com
• Carrion Feeder even as a sac outlet it's horrible xD
• Glen Elendra Archmage it's amazing, but i don't feel like it's gonna make a big difference there's much better options in the 4cmc
• Phyrexian Delver consider a better Phyrexian... Sheoldred, Whispering One
• Fellwar Stone it's a great rock... but Sol Ring it's about to get Banned because a reason...

SideBae on Emrakul

6 days ago

Ancient Tomb is likely to help you a lot. I don't think the Urza's lands are particularly good, simply because they take far too much to get all out at once; Wastes don't need to worry about Blood Moon or other non-basic hate.

Timesifter is possibly one of the most absurd cards in EDH, especially in conjunction with Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack . In my experience, many EDH decks have low curves when compared to a colorless, eldrazi-based deck; if your meta follows the same pattern, then Timesifter will be broken.

Ideally, you're the big-mana deck at the table. I can see you're running a lot of artifact ramp, and depending on which cards are available to you, you should try packing more in ( Thought Vessel , Mind Stone , Voltaic Key , Mana Vault and Prismatic Lens all come to mind). Trinisphere and Sphere of Resistance are relatively expensive cards, but if you have access to them I would definitely run them ( Damping Sphere is a cheaper alternative, though it does hurt your own land base). If you have much more mana than your opponents, making them overpay for their spells is generally a good way to make sure you're the only deck moving at a reasonable pace.

In the vein of excess mana, Blinkmoth Urn is likely to help you way more than your opponents. Metalworker is also a colorless all star, but he's $50 now... which blows.

Drownyard Temple is an interesting include. I suggest pairing it with Dust Bowl . This can frustrate greedy mana bases and give you an outlet for excess mana.

Strionic Resonator is dumb when copying eldrazi cast- or annihilator-triggers. You should run it.

Finally, Sculpting Steel is another copy of whatever the best artifact on the field is at a given moment.

Good luck with deck building!