Vedalken Certarch

Creature — Vedalken Wizard

Metalcraft — Tap: Tap Target artifact, creature, or land. Activate this ability only if you control three or more artifacts.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Block Constructed	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
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (12)

foxinsox on INSANE!▷ Slag Fiend ◁【AFFINITY!】 NEW! from【AFR!】

2 years ago

One more suggestion: I know Slag Fiend is the underdog in the deck - but Vedalken Certarch could add a world of pain in terms of denial of resources or blockers very, very quickly.

MTGplayer00 on

4 years ago

I think this is a really original concept for a Pauper resource denial deck. The inclusion of Fade Away I especially like with this kind of setup. That being said, I think there are a few basic things you can do, a few bigger things you can do, and some sideboard shenanigans you can get into to make this deck truly primo.

First, there are a few basic card subs I would make. First off, you can straight up cut Street Wraith for Gitaxian Probe , it just fits better in this deck and does the same thing but strictly better. The other main cards I would sub would be to add in Daze for Force Spike . I was skeptical of Daze 's power over Force Spike at first, but I was converted very soon.

That's it for basic changes, but here are some important structural changes. Firstly, the main problem I see here is keeping your hand full and repeatedly denying resources. I have no idea how competitive your local meta is, but all I can say is that higher-level Pauper is 100% Legacy-Lite, meaning it plays a lot like Legacy. This means lands don't matter that much to the average deck. Many decks are perfectly fine with you keeping them at 3 lands, so the trick is going to be denying multiple lands per turn rather than just playing 1 or 2 bounce spells at best.

So how do we get repeatable effects? Well Capsize is pretty good but also pretty expensive. One way we can do this is to play Snow-Covered Island s and Rimewind Taskmage . You can also add in the artifact lands (and maybe Tumble Magnet ?) to use Vedalken Certarch .

These are really the only halfway decent repeatable land denial cards in this format. Thus card draw is going to be key to drawing some of the one-time denial spells. Without the Pauper fetches (because this is a mono color deck) Preordain is probably your best bet. On top of this, you may want to run Gush to keep your hand full. Trading cards for lands that can just be replayed is not a very sustainable model in the long term, so these powerful draw spells can help you get there.

Finally, as far as finishers go you can run AEthersnipe as just a big boy that gets a blocker out of the way or Stormbound Geist as a flyer that's hard to put down. Canal Courier is also a big body that will net you a bunch of card draw, which will be useful to grind out your opponents.

Finally, in the sideboard, I would run Hydroblast to destroy red decks, Aura Flux to destroy Bogles, and maybe some Foil s to protect your cards from tricky tempo and control decks.

Anyway, I really like this deck, keep working at it!

Botanicum81 on Royal Assassin Out of Retirement

5 years ago

RoarMaster Vedalken Certarch is a possibilty because I am looking into using Investigate mechanic and using several artifacts in the deck.

RoarMaster on Royal Assassin Out of Retirement

5 years ago

Vedalken Certarch But you probs wont have the craft for it.

Rimewind Taskmage But 4 snow may be late to get.

Stonybrook Angler But paying 2 to tap a critter isnt really playable.

KongMing on Nothing, Upkeep, Draw

6 years ago

I'm really surprised I don't see an Unwinding Clock here. It combos with your board lockdown really effectively, giving you access to all of your artifact mana on everyone's turn. If you manage to get Teferi's emblem and The Chain Veil out alongside Unwinding Clock, you can activate all your planeswalkers' abilities twice on everyone's turn assuming you have enough mana rocks untapping to pay for it (which you should at that point.)

There's also Darksteel Forge to make your mana base harder to remove.

If you want to really play with Winter Orb, you can include permanents that allow you to tap it on someone else's end step. That way, you have access to all your lands while everyone else cries in their soup. Some options are Amber Prison, Clock of Omens, Merchant's Dockhand, Rust Tick, Vedalken Certarch, Inspiring Statuary, and Whir of Invention.

In fact, you should probably add Whir of Invention to the deck anyways, great way to tutor out an artifact and put it on the board.

You should have Arcum Dagsson as well. The ability to tutor out any artifact in your library simply by sacrificing an artifact and tapping him is OPAF.

Xica on

7 years ago

This is not even competitive in modern, let alone freeform.

Scourge of Fleets may be flavourful but at that cost its just bad.
Vedalken Certarch has no place in this deck, without artifacts its useless, maybe try something like Cursecatcher if you want to stick with the merfolk theme.

So if you want to make a merfolk deck, then maximise the number of merfolks, aka. no other creatures. This allows you to get the maximum out of your tribal lords.
Traditional merfolk list tend to heavily abuse the interaction of AEther Vial + Merrow Reejerey , and play as much cantrips as possible, like Silvergill Adept
If you want some distruption you could try adding red for Jori En, Ruin Diver, Blood Moon - which works nicely with the two blue cantrip land denials Spreading Seas & Aquitect's Will

Boza on Azorius affinity control

7 years ago

OK, let me rephase again: you have not made a control deck, but a tempo deck, which is good in its own but it is currently mislabeled as control. Tempo is a deck type that aims to trade resources like cards in order to disbalance the opponent and strike at an opportune time with small creatures.

For some more control, I would recommend Phyrexian Revoker - great against mana dorks and Lilianas, Hangarback Walker - great in the mid to late game, Vedalken Certarch to limit their options, Lodestone Golem - taxing the opponent is very good on 5/3 body and Stoic Rebuttal to control even more.

Owlteeth on Supporting Mycosynth Lattice and Stony …

8 years ago

also, Icy Manipulator and the Vedalken Certarch don't work as those are both activated abilities, and with a Mycosynth Lattice, they are both activated abilities of artifacts, which brings in the problem of Stony Silence stopping them.