Thoughtseize

Sorcery

Target player reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card. You lose 2 life.

Discussion (51)

wallisface on Nightmare Blossoms

21 hours ago

This deck idea actually looks pretty cool. Some thoughts:

• you don’t have nearly enough black cards to make use of Force of Despair, and even if you did i don’t see why your deck would want to run this. It feels like a sideboard card at best. In a similar vein, Cyclonic Rift is nice to slow things down, but doesn’t help you long-game, which is what this deck looks to be trying to do.. i’d drop that card down to a 2x max.

• Dismember seems like a really detrimental option for a control deck, it’s going to limit the number of hits you can take. I’d stick to Fatal Push.

• You mention Ashiok, Nightmare Muse working well with Bitterblossom but I really don’t see how these cards are gelling-well at all. Ashiok feels like sideboard tech

• I personally don’t think Shadowspear is a good enough card to run here.

• I think this deck would benefit from some hand disruption spells like Inquisition of Kozilek or Thoughtseize.

Silverdrake on Nightmare Blossoms

1 week ago

Looks fun! Surprised to see Dismember in place of Fatal Push though - with all your little 1 toughness creatures, Revolt will basically always be active. You could run Faerie Miscreant to start the beats early, help keep your hand full later in the game, and make a T2 Spellstutter counter a 2 drop rather than just a 1 drop. I don't think you need the shadowspears at all in mainboard, but if you're intent on keeping them I'd drop to 1 of at most. Cyc rift is pretty weak for modern - by turn 7+ you should already have killed your opponent with flying beaters. Consider runnning countermagic or removal in this slot - something like Drown in the Loch, Mana Leak, or Murderous Cut. Quickling is also pretty weak for modern - I'd consider replacing it with something like Vendilion Clique or Snapcaster Mage. Insidious Will is fun, but is outclassed in just about every aspect by Cryptic Command. Hand disruption would also fit nicely in this deck, something like 5-7 total copies of Thoughtseize, Inquisition of Kozilek, and/or Collective Brutality.

These are all just suggestions though - you should play the deck however you find it most fun! If you want more specific suggestions on what I'd cut and what I'd include, feel free to let me know! Whatever you decide to do, good luck and have fun!

Boza on Abzan Midrange in pioneer

1 week ago

Well, start with the obvious - 4 Thoughtseize and any number of Abrupt Decay, Anguished Unmaking and Assassin's Trophy; and the quintessential midrange creature 4 Siege Rhino. Everything else will depend on what you want to do with the deck.

janushif on Honorless Meren cEDH

1 week ago

pao2 Great work on the deck! I love it, I used to play the old Honorbru version, but I soon felt that the stax heavy build was too slow and not as entertaining to play unlike this list.

In terms of ways with dealing with Flash Hulk, I do not see other options than discard and Plague Engineer. How do you think that Plague Engineer fits into the deck? Sadly, it does not deal with the Spellseeker line, howeover it provides utility similar to Minister of Pain.

Plague Engineer can kill either Cephalid Illusionist or Nomads en-Kor. The card can also be used against most mana dorks if named elves. What do you think of this card as a possible inclusion?

The other options would be Duress , Thoughtseize or Praetor's Grasp. I am not sure that these options are as good as Plague Engineer, given that it strays away from the creature fokus of the deck. But I think I will test them out myself. How you considered som of these cards in the list given the current meta?

On a side note, spore frog can also be useful against Najeela.

UpperDeckerTaco on Inverting Pioneer, Dimir Style

1 week ago

LeBonco22 I can see what you mean. And I haven't been overly impressed with it. I might want more removal though. In testing, the only thing I feel that this deck has a poor time against is hyper aggressive, go wide strategies and against other Thoughtseize decks.

I am not a fan of Tasigur all that much because his ability is kind of lackluster, they would just give you back a spell that doesn't impact the board (ie. Opt or Censor), yeah it's a redraw, but 5 mana to draw 1 is "bleh". Filling the graveyard is also quite counter-intuitive as you don't want to fill it so much that you can't win with just casting 1 Inverter. As for Necropolis Fiend. It looks good on paper, but it takes a lot of effort to get there and it is quite slow on the activation due to you having to have delved most of your graveyard away just to cast him most of the time.

Definitely think there may be some wiggle room there to cut the Drowns. I'll be looking for something else to slot in. I also was thinking about moving the 2 Brazen Borrowers to the main. For 2 reasons: 1) it can stave off any particular threat (that's not a land) that my removal can't hit, and 2) adds more devotion for Oracle.

Darth_Savage on Mono Black Devotion

1 week ago

I've played mono-black devotion in both modern and pioneer, the decks big payoff is the Gray Merchant (gary), that doesn't necessarily mean you want to run 4 of them, it is a five drop, but it might make sense to run Nightmare Shepherd which can duplicate the merchant's trigger.

There are a few cards here that I would question as main-deck choices; Erebos's Intervention, Tymaret, Chosen from Death and Bolas's Citadel aren't great fits. The Intervention needs a fair bit of mana to be relevant, Tymaret is an oddly defensive card and the Citadel is both slow (Gary should be your top end) and awkward with the casting costs involved. There are also two obvious omissions Thoughtseize and Fatal Push which are big reasons to play black. If you don't have them, then yes they are expensive, but they are also 2 of the most powerful 1 drops in the format.

Traditionally Duress, is the second best discard spell after Thoughtseize, this isn't necessarily true in pioneer. Pioneer is a creatures based format, which also leans on planeswalkers, so Despise is often a better answer than Duress.

Hope this helps, good luck brewing your deck.

Silverdrake on Esper Control 2.0

1 week ago

Looks fun! If you're looking for suggestions I think there's definitely some things you can change to make the deck stronger.

If you're looking to be able to activate & attack with tarpit or play a planeswalker AND hold up countermagic /removal, you're going to need to run more than 21 lands. For example - if you want to be able to slam an Elspeth and hold up Logic Knot for your opponent's turn, you'll need 8 mana - so you want to hit your land drops all the way up to turn 8 at minimum, which is going to be exceedingly hard to do with only 21 lands. I'd recommend 23 at MINIMUM, but you'd probably be better off with 24 or 25.
Enter the God-Eternals is a fun card for standard or even pioneer, but in modern it's probably going to disappoint. I'd recommend cutting them for some more hard removal- consider the 4th path, some copies of Fatal Push, or a Detention Sphere or two. Maybe even a Blessed Alliance if you're feeling spicy (personal bias, I love that card)
If it's in your budget, Wrath of God is a straight upgrade over Day of Judgement.
Render Silent is a fun card to cast, but modern gives you plenty of better options for counterspells. Mana Leak is a catch-all that counters pretty much everything until turn 4+, at which point it can still be used to disrupt your opponent's plans. Dovin's Veto or Countersquall help you in the combo or control matchup. Disallow can snipe things you couldn't otherwise deal with, like eldrazi cast triggers, planeswalker ability activations, and land destruction like Field of Ruin and Ghost Quarter. Spell Snare and Remand are also powerful options you could try, but they tend to be better in faster, tempo-y decks rather than the hard control you're running. Archmage's Charm is also a possibility, but since you're running 3 colors it's going to be immensely difficult to cast.
Since you're running black in a control shell, you should almost certainly be running 4-7 copies of hand disruption spells. The go-to options are Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, but Collective Brutality is another good option.

And finally your lands - I assume you're on a budget here and that's why your mana is the way it is, but just in case you aren't on a budget I'll make some suggestions. Fetchlands like Polluted Delta, Flooded Strand and Marsh Flats help you fix your colors when you need to, and can trigger Revolt if you decide to run Fatal Push. They can grab non-basic lands too, so they pair extremely well with Shocklands like Watery Grave, Hallowed Fountain, and Godless Shrine. In a three color deck, any fetchland can fetch for any color you need by grabbing the appropriate shockland. With so many cards that cost double (or triple) blue or white, you might even consider a single Mystic Gate. Filtering white mana into blue or vice versa will make it infinitely easier to cast cards like Supreme Verdict and Cryptic Command.

Those are just some surface level suggestions - feel free to heed them or disregard them as you want. It's your deck after all! Whatever you decide to do, good luck and have fun!

GeminiSpartanX on Urza's Paradox

1 week ago

If you say that the deck is too slow, then I'd speed it up with a few more cantrips and black discard/counters while dropping the phantasms. Since you're running snow lands anyway, throw in a set of Arcum's Astrolabe in place of some lands (2x watery graves and the Urborg, as well as the 1st Phantasm) to dig through your deck faster. They also make Urza better. Many of the modern Urza decks get away with only using 20 lands, and with your vials plus not needing more than 3 lands in play I think you can shave a few. The other 2 phantoms can be Thoughtseizes or counterspells of some sort (Spell Pierce or Swan Song for mana efficiency's sake), or simply Mishra's Baubles for more cantrips and to add artifacts for Urza.

May I ask why Painter's Servant is in the deck? From what I can see, it's just to save a mana when you drop Grand Architect for the win, but do you need it as a 4-of? It may be another possibility if you need to shave something for additional controlling cards. Looks like a sweet list though!