Tormod's Crypt

Artifact

{T}, Sacrifice Tormod's Crypt: Exile all cards from target player's graveyard.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Oldschool 93/94	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Casual	Legal
Custom	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal

Discussion (49)

Quickspell on Does this infinite combo with …

2 weeks ago

Thank you Niko9, I suppose this means the combo works. Thank you for your suggestions, using Lightning Bolt is a great idea and additional wincon that should work with any other :)

My deck is not going for storm. Aetherflux Reservoir is a classic and great wincon, but I built my deck specifically to go for Chandra, Awakened Inferno and Worldfire. Displacer Kitten also combos with Teferi, Time Raveler - which I use to protect Worldfire - and some zero Mana artifact. I run Tormod's Crypt and Spellbook which work just as well as any Mox. I run Ral, Storm Conduit and two copy spells like Reverberate as a backup.

lagotripha on Counter Everything?

1 month ago

Jwari Disruption  ^Flip is great as it sits in land slots - sandbar will do fine in its place so long as your spell count is high enough. Even a one of in your list massively improves tempo if your opponent plays around it.

Mana leak has some sweet alternatives - Lose Focus in particular lets you scale up as the game draws on, and is hard to protect against due to copies.

Thassa's Intervention is both cheaper than memory deluge and acts as a counterspell.

I'd give a little thought to old Grindclock style decks, where you just play protect the artifact until you can win - or play something like Zur's Weirding where you reach a point where you just lock out the game and win on life. As is, you'll need to use recursion on mill spells which isn't being used holding up counterspells.

The main thing I'd consider going outside budget for is Surgical Extraction - hitting the shuffle eldrazi is essential to mill decks, while being able to remove a deck's main threats or answers when you see them in the graveyard is incredible. On that note, Gut shot/Void mirror is a nonbo- you'll want one of them in the sideboard to swap into. Tormod's Crypt or similar will do on a budget, but you do need to have an answer for milling a Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger or similar somewhere in the 75.

Baral's draw/discard is mostly land filtering here, and the cost reduction isn't as crazy as it is when ramping - you could safely swap it for more draw power.

Broken Ambitions is traditional for counter/mill.

I'd want a wrath effect or comparable card in the side or main - as is you have 4x suspend, 4x gut shot for creature matchups, which doesn't feel like enough what with the time counter thing meaning you need another card afterwards - its a great synergy with void mirror, but I'd want a bit more.

More important than any of this advice is this - target your meta. Put sideboard cards maindeck to win your FNM - the control decks that make it through tournaments aren't the ones that have the best 'generic answers' (though they feature them), but ones that target metagame weaknesses - the maindeck Steel Sabotage or Narset's Reversal or for example. The void mirror setup is an incredible start for that - build out from there.

ThisIsMyAccount on Mono Red Prowess

1 month ago

Just my opinion but I think the sideboard could be tuned a bit better. So, Leyline of the Void is a good card and everything, but because you don't have any looting/discard effects you just can't afford to draw it. I would run 3 Surgical Extraction or Tormod's Crypt instead because it isn't a dead draw and will activate prowess effects on your creatures. Then, Magus of the Moon can be 3 Blood Moon instead because playing the noncreature will activate prowess. With 2 extra cards in the sideboard now I would say cut a Kozilek's Return for 3 Dragon's Claw. Finally, Chandra, Dressed to Kill is good in those more grindy matchups but I feel like Shrine of Burning Rage would be better in that situation but also Roiling Vortex is something to be highly considered just because of the current modern META.

For the flex slots, all I can say is that 2-3 Bedlam Reveler seems to be fairly standard for prowess, but its up to you if you want to get experimental with it :)

Decrepit_Angel on [Primer] Colored Mana is for the Weak

2 months ago

Profet93 Thanks for the recommendations.

I have messed around with Mystic Forge and it's associated combo a bit but I ended up cutting Sensei's Divining Top as I felt that it was unnecessary more often than not and not having ways to shuffle consistently made it way worse if I didn't have a way to go infinite with it. I mighy try Mystic Forge again but I felt that it was too slow in my testing. cEDH nowadays has the "turn 3 rule" where you need to be threatening a win or overwhelming advantage by turn 3 consistently by turn 3 if you want to be relevant. From my testing, cutting a lot of the random value pieces for extra ramp has allowed for a lot more turn 2 or 3 Eldrazi Titans and a lot more success against cEDH decks.

Manascape Refractor has been very good in testing. Mishra's Workshop is my personal favorite but it also copies Inventors' Fair pretty frequently. Ancient Tomb or City of Traitors makes it into a Worn Powerstone (which I already run). Bazaar of Baghdad and Eye of Ugin are useful as well, especially when I have access to Unwinding Clock and can repeatedly activate a random tech land every turn. At one point, this deck ran Candelabra of Tawnos as a way to repeatedly use tech lands but I would argue that Manascape Refractor is a much better way to accomplish that. High Market, Homeward Path, etc. are also surprisingly useful. On that topic, using it as a High Market with access to infinite mana through Rings of Brighthearth + Voltaic Key + Chromatic Orrery (also gives infinite untaps of all artifacts) allowed me to win once as I didn't have access to a different way to sacrifice and recast Kozilek, Butcher of Truth.

I had no idea that Soul-Guide Lantern even existed. I'm not sure if I would call it a strict upgrade to Relic of Progenitus but it is definitely good. I might swap out Tormod's Crypt for it so that all of my graveyard hate can be cycled if it isn't relevant.

Regarding the Metalworker combo, a lot of the primer is outdated. I tried updating it a few times but I ended up changing out 20ish cards so I figured I would wait until I had a pretty stable list to update it. The Metalworker combo is absolutely a backup option though. Typically by the time I would go for that combo, I would have access to casting Kozilek. As for Field of the Dead, I am not a fan of tap lands and roughly 1 out of every 20 games with this deck would even go long enough to get to 7 lands for it's ability to be relevant. I think Field of the Dead would be good in a casual meta but I try to play this at cEDH tables as this deck is ridiculously unfair to play at casual tables.

Reliquary Tower is a good budget option but it might as well be a Wastes with the way the deck runs most games. I typically mulligan for some form of acceleration and try to immediately get to 10 mana which usually empties my hand. Kozilek will get me a new hand, but very rarely will I pass with more than 7 cards in hand, and if I do, I haven't had the scenario yet where I had to ditch anything useful.

The main form of drawing power in the deck is my commander. Mikokoro, Center of the Sea, War Room, Ugin, the Ineffable, sacrificing Mind Stone, Hedron Archive, or Dreamstone Hedron are the only other ones I have for card advantage. This deck is basically an all or nothing deck intent on playing really early Eldrazi Titans, going infinite, or playing stax to slow everyone else down (usually some combination of the 3). As colorless does not have access to particularly great interaction, I have tuned the deck to be about as fast as physically possible. Most games I am able to cast Kozilek, Butcher of Truth on turn 3 or earlier (admittedly almost always at least 1 mulligan for fast mana). Although some times people will have answers, that early in the game is enough to cause problems for most decks. The plan from there is to either just kill my oponents or do as you said where I cast Kozilek, draw some cards, ramp some more, and repeat. Although the situation will occasionally show up where the game goes long, this deck absolutely shines when it is doing terrifying things really early.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask.

jaymc1130 on What New Capenna card is …

2 months ago

hejtmane

Drannith Magistrate

Grafdigger's Cage

Dauthi Voidwalker

Deathrite Shaman

Rest in Peace

Soul-Guide Lantern

Tormod's Crypt

Deafening Silence

Ethersworn Canonist

Stony Silence

Null Rod

Collector Ouphe

Uh huh...

awatts30 on Varina

2 months ago

Thanks, Guerric! There’s a lot to parse here, so I may take it in parts.

Firstly, the extra lands are temporary. My target is 36, but I had 13 extra spells, so I added 7 basics (35% rate) to be able to goldfish effectively. Sometimes I can learn a bit more about the deck and make changes that way. As I pare down spells, I’ll take out lands too. I thought about Crucible of Worlds, but opted against it because it would change my play style, but without tutors or duplicate effects it’s too high-variance.

The Stifle is mostly there to stop graveyard hate, which tends to be one-off abilities (Bojuka Bog, Scavenger Grounds, Tormod's Crypt, Relic of Progenitus) and which could really mess up my plans. That’s a good point on Dovin's Veto; maybe I’ll swap it for a Negate.

I really like Reconnaissance because it not only allows me to attack into unfavorable board states but also gives pseudo-vigilance, allowing me to commit all my zombies without worrying about the crack back. Anything to maximize those Varina triggers! Flawless Maneuver might need to come out, though.

I’ve used Plumb the Forbidden to great effect in my Mazirek deck. Since it’s instant speed, it’s really good at turning creatures that would die to unfavorable combat or a board wipe into card advantage, and since it’s 2 CMC I can always just put the mana into Varina if I don’t wind up needing it. I had Kindred Discovery in there originally, but in a deck that’s both ETBing and swinging this much it seemed like overkill (plus it’s crazy expensive). A lot of my perspective on card draw may need to change, too. Like I said, I’m not used to using my graveyard, and while Varina let’s me look at a lot, I’m still uncomfortable throwing cards away. After all, they’re all in there because I want to cast them! I need to get better at choosing what to pitch (which is kind of the whole point of making this deck), but corollary to that is figuring out how much draw-to-hand I need and how much I can lean on my ‘yard.

A lot of the deck techs I’ve looked at leaned into Varina’s activated ability. I didn’t much like that because (1) it makes her into a glorified token factory, (2) I want to push myself to use the cards in my graveyard, and (3) why would I want to spend 2 mana and two cards for a vanilla zombie when I can spend 2 mana and one card for a Corpse Knight, a Wayward Servant, or 3 mana for a Diregraf Captain. In the little bit of goldfishing I’ve done, though, she’s dumping cards so fast that exiling two of them isn’t even a problem. I had originally taken Tormod, the Desecrator out, but wound up putting him back in because of the number of cards I was exiling. I’d like to bring it back toward a reanimator strategy, and I think Syr Konrad, the Grim would be a good payoff for that.

You have a ton of good suggestions, including Crashing Drawbridge, Dusk / Dawn, Necromancy et al. (I knew there were others, I just couldn’t remember them!), Living Death/Rise of the Dark Realms, Haunting Voyage/Patriarch's Bidding, and the talismans, but I still need to cut 13 spells to even get down to 100 cards, and then more to make room for any of them. This is my problem!

Gidgetimer on The "A" Team (Tayam Rube Goldberg Combo)

2 months ago

Hey, thanks for taking the time to comment. First I am going to address the questions and then move onto the suggestions.

Gift of Granite is there to combo with Tayam and Devoted Druid. Making her toughness 4 allows you to tap for mana and untap by placing a -1/-1 counter 3 times completely fueling infinite Tayam activations. There are other card that can enable this line, but I like the aura because I can find it off of Lost Auramancers and flash I feel is the most useful of the +0/+2 for a single mana enchantments.

Oblivion Ring is there as a removal that can be returned with Tayam. Returning Eternal Witness to return an Anguished Unmaking might be a slightly stronger play, but would require more mana and more cards to have been milled if we encounter mid-combo permanent based disruption.

Lotus Bloom is there to make 3 mana incase we are able to establish a "counters only" loop with Tayam. You can repeatedly do the loop returning the Lotus Bloom until you are able to find one of the altars, or one of the Druid lines. It enables more varied versions of the engines. I have not taken the time to list them with all the other ones because I feel the primer is long enough at this point, I should probably put it in the line where I mention counters only engines. I'm not sure of another similar card outside of LED (price prohibitive) that would fill a similar role.

Pull from Eternity is because I am paranoid about things getting exiled and the entire fragile machine falling apart. I have never had it happen. I have actually never had a single integral piece exiled. But it is a security blanket for me. I might be making the deck strictly less powerful by doing this, but power level is quite high enough for my meta.

Sun Titan and Angelic Renewal are both good cards, but I'm not sure what I would cut for them. There is just so much redundancy already and i'm not sure that they would make any of the lines more resilient or more compact.

Soul-Guide Lantern is a great suggestion! There are so many new and varied variations of activated graveyard exile effects that I haven't kept up with all of them. I pulled the Tormod's Crypt from a M21 booster when I was intending to order a Nihil Spellbomb for the deck and just slotted it in and left it. I will definitely have to order a Lantern.

MagicSteve6 on $5 Pioneer Improv

2 months ago

What about Tormod's Crypt for another cheerio?