Three Steps Ahead

Instant

Spree (Choose one or more additional costs.)

• {1}{U} — Counter target spell.

• {3} — Create a token that's a copy of target artifact or creature you control.

• {2} — Draw two cards, then discard a card.

Tokens

• Copy Clone

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Alchemy	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
Pre-release	Legal
Standard	Legal
Standard Brawl	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (3)

Ogrecorps on "Unbeatable" card combo, or so …

1 month ago

UPDATE: VICTORY!!

Here's the deck I used (warning, it is not great and I'm open to suggestions to improve it as a more general-purpose meme deck that strips out important things and leaves someone else to actually kill people in free-for-all format.) https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/18-06-25-SkD-grrr/?cb=1750236034

The story: 3 players, me with the meme deck, work friend with the "you cannot lose the game" mystery deck, and a third with a deck specifically filled with legendaries of as many types as he can make work.

My starting hand had Leyline of the Void and I kicked off hostilities with Bitter Ordeal and got to peruse through the "cannot lose" deck to see how it works. Key cards found: Herald of Eternal Dawn, Negate, Three Steps Ahead, Restricted Office / Lecture Hall, Virtue of Persistence. I took out one of the 4 Heralds. The legendaries deck built up nicely with about 6 or 7 big creatures with deathtouch (All-Out Assault) and flying and vigilance and lifelink and other such nonsense. This player normally likes to be fair (i.e. spread the damage around, not pick on anyone) when he feels like he's winning so I had to warn him off with the strongest arguments I could that I was absolutely not a threat to him, that I had built the deck specifically to counter the other player. Cannot Lose had no creatures out so Legendaries swung at him fully with enough to put him to -9 life. Looked like it was over already and then pop! Cannot Lose flashed out Herald of Eternal Dawn before combat damage was dealt, keeping him alive despite negative life.

Cannot Lose then quickly got out two lecture halls from Restricted Office / Lecture Hall, giving the herald and both lecture halls hexproof. Around here I realized a major weakness in my deck: it largely has to target something in the opponent's graveyard, making Leyline of the Void super not helpful. Happily, Cannot Lose Get Lostd it. Because nothing much was going to graveyards that I wanted to strip out, I built up a little supply of Extirpate and Surgical Extraction - this will be important later... Legendaries took about 6 turns and smashed Cannot Lose to about -30 life while enjoying all the lifelink that gave him.

It was at this point that Cannot Lose messaged me privately to say that he'd won, it was just going to take an hour. The next turn, he used Loran's Escape on his Herald and then used one of his Restricted Offices for a boardwipe. My defenses being so pathetic, were fine. Legendaries, however, got cleaned out, 7 or 8 big beasts in the graveyard... This left Cannot Lose as the only one on the table with any attacking power and a pair of Fountainports to slowly grow an army of fish with.

Somewhere in the excitement I'd stripped out all of his Get Lost, and Stock Up. I knew from searching his hand that he had a Negate still ready for something that might kill his Herald, the only thing keeping him alive. Then came the exchange I'm going to be hearing about all day today at work from Cannot Lose, the part where he's kicking himself for doing what he did: Legendaries brought out a planeswalker; Cannot Lose used Three Steps Ahead to counter it, putting a copy of one of his 2 counter spells in his graveyard. I targeted it with Surgical Extraction. He Negated. I surgical extracted his Three Steps and then Extirpated his Negate, successfully exiling all of his counterspells! He has already told me that he shouldn't have countered the planeswalker, that he should have just used fish from Fountainport to neutralize it.

And then Legendaries Ruinous Ultimatumd. Herald, hexproofs, and my two Wall of Vines all gone! Cannot Lose was at -30 something life and evaporated in a long silence followed by a drawn out frustrated groan. He'd nearly fought his way back and if only he could have had another Herald in hand to flash out or I hadn't stripped out his counterspells... He was also intimately familiar with Legendaries' deck because the two of them worked on it closely together so knew exactly how little strength he had left after all of those creatures got wiped with no serious options for bringing any back. Either way though, I still had 3 Sudden Spoilings in my library somewhere so chances were decent I'd get him killed for being in negative life sooner or later.

Thus began the long, slow final phase of the battle wherein I had only defensive creatures, and Legendaries had 40-something life but only one or two offensive options left in his deck which was down to about 27 cards to my 35ish. I used Liquimetal Coating and Splinter on one of his Plains, a generally useless move and one I probably should have saved for an actual threat but I was just happy Cannot Lose had lose'd. The end came when I fired off a kicked Sadistic Sacrament, ensuring that there wasn't going to be anything left to hurt me. Before I searched his deck, however, Legendaries capitulated and we called it there, official cause of death: inevitable milling out.

Taida on That's a real nice deck ya got there

3 months ago

Nice concept of deck. One thing that other comments have mentioned, you are a bit split between something more akin to a Voltron deck and killing everybody with Commander damage and gracefully "borrowing" their library. In my oppinion the latter is the more interesting one, so its good to see a few dose of unblockable effects and doubling the triggers. To follow with this, I would add some more like Prowler's Helm or Whispersilk Cloak for equipments, or Adric, Mathematical Genius and Lithoform Engine for the triggers.

Now for using the graciously conceded cards from your opponents, I suggest Gonti, Night Minister, you end up generating a ton of treasures for free; and you can also include Agent of Treachery, not really for the first effect, but for allowing you to draw a lot of cards, keeping your hand full. I also do not think you will struggle with paying 7 mana for it, seeing how much ramp you have already in the deck.

For counters, I do not like Arcane Denial. In its place (and in general) I like to add counters that do not stay dead in your hand if you don't have a good target for them. Three Steps Ahead, Spellgyre, Archmage's Charm or Sublime Epiphany.

I also feel that the deck could benefit greatly from some tutors, as getting some of the trigger doublers, a protection or interaction piece or just the more game-ending equipments/auras like Eldrazi Conscription whenever you need them makes such a difference.

Finally, I would heavily the inclusion of MDFC lands. Even very cheap Zendikar ones. They are so flexible and don't become a dead card in your hand if you end up drawing them later in the game.

Rebullet on GUb Ygra DoppelFacts

8 months ago

if making copies of your artifacts is something you want to do, then i suggest using Three Steps Ahead and Worldwalker Helm. in my simulacrum deck it goes on curve turn 3, 4, and 5 to start churning out simulacrums every turn. turn 1 and 2 vary a bit but turn three is usually either Simulacrum Synthesizer, Assimilation Aegis, Braided Net  ^Flip, Steel Seraph or Thran Spider. then at turn 4 i hold up mana for Three Steps Ahead and copy at instant speed. then turn 5 i play Worldwalker Helm for 3 and then hold up mana to copy the artifact token when i feel like it. you may like this. you definitely dont need to go white for this its just my preference. worldwalker is especially fun because it buffs the constructs by making the copy and also making maps.

here is my deck list for reference. https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/20-04-24-standard-artifacts/