Combos Browse all Suggest
Legality
| Format | Legality |
| 1v1 Commander | Legal |
| Archenemy | 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 |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Planechase | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Tiny Leaders | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Thrull Wizard
Creature — Thrull Wizard
(1)(Black): Counter target black spell unless that spell's controller pays (Black) or (3).
griffstick on Is Competitive Phage Possible?
3 years ago
Withering Boon, or Thrull Wizard, or Nether Void, or Dash Hopes to counter phage, then retrieve her from the grave to cast her from your hand.
dingusdingo on How is Red Elemental Blast …
3 years ago
Mark Rosewater joined Magic in 1996, from Alliances forward. This means that there are a lot of counter spells in non-blue colors that predate him joining.
Red
Green
Black
White
There are also a handful of countering abilities in non-blue from pre-Rosewater sets
Richard Garfield had intended colors besides blue to have access to counter spells. Garfield also built the game to have a greater focus on interactions between colors, with hosers such as Tsunami and Acid Rain being another example, or the frequent Protection from X Color cards that are rampant in the early sets. Maro has moved away from viewing the colors as interactions and relationships between colors and towards trying to define the colors in relation to themselves (a la color pie). Whether or not you agree with Garfield's vision for the game or Rosewater's, we can't ignore that Red Elemental Blast predates Rosewater even working for Wizards. Red Elemental Blast also predates Maro's theory of the color pie, which must be applied retroactively to REB.
We also have numerous examples of non-blue counter spells in sets even after Maro started designing cards or even becoming a lead set designer. I think that while counter spells and interacting with spells/abilities on the stack is primarily a blue ability, other colors need to have access to this powerful and necessary tool. While I agree that blue should be the market share, we need closer to 85-90% of counter spells printed as blue, instead of the current ~98%
Mrmysticobvious on
Phage Voltron
4 years ago
I used to play Thrull Wizard but I found it too weak. Putting in more graveyard retrun cards would also weaken the deck in my opinion.
squadcarxmar on
Phage Voltron
4 years ago
If you included some cards that retrieve cards from the graveyard as well in the deck you could counter your own Phage with things like
Dash Hopes
and
Thrull Wizard
. Your
Withering Boon
would also compliment this.
Things to put Phage into your hand from the graveyard could be
Aid the Fallen
,
Call to the Netherworld
,
Cemetery Recruitment
,
Disentomb
,
Ghoulcaller's Chant
,
Grim Discovery
,
March of the Drowned
, and the new
Order of Midnight
. There are plenty more with the same effects but I'm only listing the 1 and 2 CMC options since less mana is always better!
Phurex on
Just a Touch
4 years ago
Yeah,
Endless Whispers
can be tricky sometimes but it's enough to cast it only if necessary, and same goes for the
Platinum Angel
, so i try to never have them out at the same time.
Both
Lich's Mastery
and
Stunning Reversal
were in previous iterations of the deck, I decided to cut them because they weren't reliable enough.
Lich's Mastery
because the deck doesn't focus too much on lifegain and tends to have a small board (not taking artifacts into consideration since they are often very much needed and I wouldn't want to exile them); and
Stunning Reversal
because in my meta being at 1 life pretty much equals being dead anyway, so I ended up never wanting to cast it. Maybe in the future I could at least try giving the Mastery another chance, but right now I feel comfortable with the amount of ways I have to cast Phage.
Withering Boon
was also in a previous version of the deck, alongside with
Imp's Mischief
,
Thrull Wizard
and other more controlly-ish cards. I ended up cutting them in favor of board wipes or combo pieces; they weren't reliable enough as actual disruption and I never used them to put Phage in the yard and pull her back later. The only way I have to get her back to my hand from the graveyard is with
Phyrexian Reclamation
, so if I were to use
Withering Boon
to put her there I would basically find myself spending 11 mana, 5 life and 2 cards just to "draw" her, and then I would still have to cast her for 7 more mana. It just wasn't worth it.
Thanks for the suggestions!
sonnet666 on
Commanders by Power Level [EDH Tier List]
6 years ago
For starters, I have already looked at your's and ay.lobo's Purphoros lists at least 10 times. You don't have to keep posting them. I know you've submitted them, and they're on my mind.
Secondly, Purphoros was the first EDH deck I built when I first got into the format, and I've played and updated the deck ever since then, so I know the ins and outs of the deck very well. And believe me when I say you are still using some sub-par strategies in your list. For instance, I can say with certainty that Glitterfang and Lightning Berserker are too slow to be of any real use.
Third, goldfishing Turn 6 wins is no longer enough to get you higher than T3. Since the advent of Paradox Engine, Aetherflux Reservoir, Walking Ballista, new efficient combos like DramaticScepter, and the Protean Hulk unban, nearly everything in the top tiers have gotten a significant uptick in power level. Nearly everything in T2.5 and above is capable of goldfishing T4 wins. The top tiers have so many overpowered cards right now that they could unban Tinker without shaking up the format too much. Purphoros gets a little bit of leeway, since he screws over AdNaus decks so badly, but if I were to put your list up as the example for Purphoros right now, I would have no choice but to demote Purphoros to T3, since it's unrealistic to expect a deck that wins on turn 6 to compete with the upper tiers in this meta.
If you still think that your deck is between T2 and T1.5, then I challenge you to playtest the Arcum Dagsson and Azami decklists from T1.5 and T2 in the description. Both of those can go off on turns 2 to 4 easily, with occasional T1 wins. A Purphoros list would lose to those decks without a doubt 99 times out of 100.
That being said, I appreciate the contention with the current Purphoros list in the description. As ay.lobo has brought up, restricting the deck to just goblin tribal cuts out a lot of cards that synergize really beautifully with Purphoros. However, there are a lot of things that play well with Purphoros, and unfortunately, not all of them play well with each other. The reason we have a goblin tribal deck up right now is that the tribal synergy speeds up the clock of the deck by about 1 turn because of the extra rituals, tutors, and things like Warren Instigator or Goblin War Strike. It's that little bit of speed that's keeping Purphoros in T2.5 really.
I think what needs to happen going forward is to work out how to add the non-goblin cards that Purphoros shines with to a goblin shell that will continue to speed up the deck. Could be super tricky. I've been planning on taking a crack at it for a while now.
spudman3d, A while back I suggested a six tier system in the interest of separating the moderately (mostly) Janky commanders like Chisei, Heart of Oceans or He Who Hungers from the complete trash like Barktooth Warbeard or Myojin of Infinite Rage. (Also, to keep stuff like Chisei from clogging up T4, which clogged up T3, which actually bothered people.)
We tried it for a little while, but ultimately thegigibeast decided that T5 and T6 were so close that functionally no one cared to separate them. He combined them into the current T5, and I think that's fine the way it is.
Also fyi, there are actually some pretty functional Phage decks. Black has the best tutor power and the best graveyard recursion, so you can easily get one of the six ways to get Phage out of the command zone: Sundial of the Infinite, Command Beacon, Null Brooch, Thrull Wizard, Withering Boon, and Kozilek, the Great Distortion. It's stupid and over-complicated for what is essentially a mediocre Voltron deck, but it does function.
Gattison on Help With Thrull Tribal
7 years ago
In Commander, there are in fact more than two black thrulls. There's Armor Thrull (one of my favorites), Necrite & Mindstab Thrull, Blood Pet, Basal Thrull & Blood Vassal, Exhumer Thrull, Thrull Champion, Thrull Parasite, Thrull Surgeon & Thrull Wizard... and that's pretty much all the good ones in mono-black.
The best thrulls are WB, such as Mourning Thrull, Kingpin's Pet and Treasury Thrull (which kinda sucks, anyway), but then you wouldn't be able to keep Endrek as your Commander if you went .
Also, don't forget to check out cards like Breeding Pit, Ebon Praetor, Orzhov Keyrune, Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII, Soul Exchange (awesome card), Thrull Retainer & Tourach's Gate.
I love thrulls, btw. =)
Also, check out this link for excellent tribal support: The Bones To Build Your Tribal Deck
NotSquishedYet on
Anticipate Stick
7 years ago
I think my point was missed. :/
Say you have Torpor Orb out and play your commander. I play Krosan Grip . If you have Thrull Wizard , you pay 1B and wait a turn. If you don't, Phage resolves and you lose.
About blue, you have Torpor Orb . You cast Phage. I cast Cryptic Command bouncing the Orb. If you don't counter Phage, Phage resolves before you can play something else, and you die.