Verity Circle

Enchantment

Whenever a creature an opponent controls becomes tapped, if it isn't being declared as an attacker, you may draw a card.

: Tap target creature without flying.

Discussion (51)

Coward_Token on Gadwick, Wise Guy

1 month ago

You could use the tapping ability for stax, e.g. Static Orb , Storage Matrix , Dream Tides , Sands of Time

Verity Circle seems cost-efficient. Maybe Toothy, Imaginary Friend ?

th3d1v1n35h4d0w on Bant EDH Alt Win Cons

1 month ago

Verity Circle Brago, King Eternal Stasis Wargate Mistmeadow Witch Roon of the Hidden Realm Bant Charm Wrath of God Sylvan Library Captain Sisay Rising Waters Aura Shards Venser, the Sojourner Narset, Parter of Veils Karn Liberated

th3d1v1n35h4d0w on Bant EDH Alt Win Cons

1 month ago

Verity Circle Brago, King Eternal Stasis Wargate Mistmeadow Witch Roon of the Hidden Realm Bant Charm Wrath of God Sylvan Library Captain Sisay Rising Waters Aura Shards Venser, the Sojourner Narset, Parter of Veils Karn Liberated

TheDKnight on Tuvasa Flash Rector

2 months ago

dumbastic Just looking through the past 5 sets, these are the cards I think I would test in the deck.

Teferi, Time Raveler

Tiny Teferi is great. It shits on control and you can use his minus ability to bounce your own enchantments and it even draws you a card. This would definitely go in the deck. Tuvasa is a great blocker but we aren’t great at protecting walkers agains a lot of attackers. So if your meta has a lot of creature based decks, maybe reconsider this card.

Narset, Parter of Veils

I’m beginning to feel like Narset is an auto unclude in any blue deck that runs a lot of noncreature spells. She denies extra draws and impulses twice. That to me is worth the somewhat awkward casting cost in this deck. Same drawback as little Teferi. We aren’t great at protecting our walkers, so if you have a lot of creatures running around your meta this probably isn’t worth it.

Season of Growth

This card seems really good and I think has the potential to be a little busted at times but testing might also reveal it’s only ok and maybe not good enough. My thinking is it is cheap and green and it offers two relevant abilities that happen to trigger when you do the two things you frequently want to do in this deck, Scry when you cast your enchantress and Draw when you spam Flickering Ward. This card might be an incentive to run a couple more auras.

Dawn of Hope

Not sure about this one. I like that it is white so it is easy to cast off Sanctum and that it creates tokens that can help you draw more cards. The deck doesn’t run too many creatures so having a token generator seems fine especially when it might net you some cards. The deck doesn’t gain too much life though so it might not make the cut.

Verity Circle

This card also seems great. I’m not thrilled about it’s casting cost. It’s blue so it’s the hardest color to cast in our deck, but it is another enchantment that draws you cards. The added ability to tap something down seems really narrow but might come in handy some times. This reminds me of Rhystic Study and Runic Armasaur, which are both great cards.

Hard Cover This one is almost certainly not good enough, but I kind of like it. It’s cheap, and looting seems fine in this deck, especially since we run Replenish.

Cavalier of Dawn This one seems fine for control heavy or slower more casual metas. Our creatures kinda suck, so having a creature with good stats, that destroys a nonland perm on etb and gets an enchantment back when it inevitably dies seems just fine. It’s costing cast is too high for faster metas, but if your games last a little longer, you won’t have any trouble casting this thing off of Sanctum.

Also, there is now a not insignificant number of creatures who reduce the casting cost of of enchantment. It would take reworking the deck a little bit but I could see a build that incorporates them.

Paeldroth on Chunky Omnath Soup

2 months ago

Tightening up the mana base. Removed some cards that have proven a little wonky in play. Dropped a dime and added some new cards. Added Vigor , Roil Elemental , Fertilid , Omnath, Locus of Rage , Zendikar's Roil , River's Rebuke , Conjurer's Closet , Embodiment of Fury , Rapid Hybridization , and Undergrowth Champion . Swapped out Ghalta, Hydroid Krasis , Tezzeret's Gambit , Verity Circle , Karn's Bastion (in favor of Reliquary Tower ), Chandra's Triumph , Bolt Bend , Bond of Flourishing , Leyline of Combustion , Shimmer of Possibility , and Overgrowth Elemental . Still open to some adjustments.

SynergyBuild on Best cards to be added ...

2 months ago

All required enchantments for control-voltron:

Mystic Remora , Rhystic Study , Necropotence , Solitary Confinement , Verity Circle , Counterbalance (requires Sensei's Divining Top in deck), Rest in Peace , and Grasp of Fate

Wincons: Helm of Obedience + RIP, Empyrial Armor , Steel of the Godhead / Cartouche of Ambition (Your choice)

Possible enchantment: Arcane Laboratory (slightly better than Rule of Law , unless Pyroblast / Red Elemental Blast are played often), Aura of Silence , Imprisoned in the Moon , all dependent on metagame.

Otherwise, run a lot of 2cmc or less mana rocks, the best 0-2 cmc interaction, some hate, lands, etc. and win.

pdxginger on Teferi and Pals

2 months ago

Possible upgrades for your deck-

Creature: Deepglow Skate , Niblis of Frost , Spark Double , Laboratory Maniac , Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir *, God-Eternal Kefnet , Flux Channeler ,

Instant: Blue Sun's Zenith , Disallow , Engulf the Shore ,

Sorcery: Finale of Revelation ,

Artifact: Caged Sun , Thought Vessel , Extraplanar Lens ,

Enchantment: Back to Basics , Verity Circle , Propaganda ,

Planeswalker: Jace, Wielder of Mysteries , Ugin, the Ineffable , Narset, Parter of Veils *, Tezzeret the Seeker , Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer

Land: Forge of Heroes , Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx , Blast Zone

“*” denotes Cards that your fellow players will not be a fan of...

jaymc1130 on Looper

3 months ago

@ jeacaveo Hey, thanks for dropping by. I've certainly been finding that high quality card advantage sources are tough to come by for this deck and that this seems to be perhaps the most necessary addition for the deck to be as competitive as possible against the top tier decks in the format. I'm not finding that Urza is a deck that has too much trouble against tier 2 and 3 cEDH decks, but as with most decks in the format the tier 1 are pretty troublesome and they seem to simply out grind in a meta that has become very grind oriented.

Power Artifact is in as one more means of redundancy and resiliency. It's relatively easy to fetch with a handful of tutors, and can be used on either Isochron Scepter or Grim Monolith to good effect. In a meta where every last single U/B deck in competitive play is now running Ashiok, Dream Render it's vitally important to have redundant engine pieces in the event that some are exiled. The very printing of that card is perhaps the most fundamentally format warping aspect of this new set in cEDH. Long gone are the days where decks could feel comfortable running one primary win condition and one secondary win condition. Multiple layers of redundancy are a must to be competitive at this point. Until testing demonstrably proves an acceptable degree of redundancy Power Artifact is in to provide it.

Karn, the Great Creator does indeed have a hefty price tag, but this is perfectly acceptable in the new meta we find ourselves in. Also long gone are the days where Turn 3 was the all encompassing turn and cards with higher converted mana costs didn't have a role. In this new, long, grindy as all hell meta, Karn shines as a way to asymmetrically disrupt the best opposing PS decks in the format as a passive hate piece (as well as destroying any 0 cmc artifacts opponents have in play while ticking up), and a way to actively recover important required combo pieces that might be exiled with Ashiok or even Praetor's Grasp (as Karn does not differentiate between face up or face down exile). He is deceptively tough to remove from the board as being at 4 cmc means Abrupt Decay can't hit him, has a rather high loyalty count making removing him via combat also difficult. Meanwhile the best decks in the format will find he is a piece that typically needs to be removed in order for them to effectively combo off as he completely shuts down all Isochron related lines, SDT related lines, etc. If the format meta at the top levels was still as fast as it was a year and a half ago he probably would not have a place, but the fastest decks in the format have long since been supplanted by superior decks in the intervening time that are better at controlling pace of the game and the best grinding deck in the meta is the deck most likely to win these days. Karn can help in that regard, and he has performed admirably in testing in a surprisingly wide range of match ups.

Mishra's Workshop is actually a card I'm a bit on the fence over. I do not, by any means, consider this card to be a requirement for this deck. There are even some situations as you so astutely recognize where it's drawback can be significant (there are times where you cannot cast a turn 2 Urza if Workshop is one of the lands in an opening hand). I will say that the situations in testing where it has been effective have been terrific, however. Turn 1 Astral Cornucopia , Mox Opal , Mana Crypt into Turn 1 Urza is extremely powerful. Turn 1 Trinisphere is extremely powerful. And it certainly never hurts to cast Paradox Engine off Workshop mana. I'll need more testing with it in before I determine whether it's use cases are too narrow for play, or if they are flexible enough to warrant an inclusion. It seemed like an interesting thought so for now it's in to be tested.

Howling Mine does indeed need Urza in play, but since the deck sort of revolves around having him in play and protecting him to keep him active it's not usually a case where the symmetrical effect is a drawback. I've been much more concerned with it's level of performance overall as a card advantage piece for Urza than I have with the rare moments it acts as a card advantage piece for opponents. I did try some other pieces that could turn it off ( Merchant's Dockhand for example), but ultimately found them lackluster and the times where they would be needed quite rare overall. Quite frankly, I'd prefer better card advantage sources, but in mono blue the options are rather limited in terms of quality.

Genesis Chamber is a new addition, it's being used with Skullclamp and other token pieces to see how that package performs in terms of providing a grinding advantage. I don't think I honestly expect it to perform at the level I'm looking for, but I also don't want to overlook any potential options in the quest to optimize Urza against the top tier decks, so it's going to get a fair shake in testing.

Elixir of Immortality is important for a few reasons. Ultimately, it's a layer of redundancy (recall the issue present at the moment in the meta with Ashiok) that enables looping, and it is a card that can be retrieved with Karn (even if all spells, every single one, are exiled from this list as long as the deck has Karn it has the ability to retrieve every required piece of at least one engine to combo win). Mostly it was included at first as a way to circumvent a particular looping issue however. Consider: in a deck where looping is the way to finish off opponents that only one real option can win on the turn where Urza combos off without having to wait a turn cycle to attack with Swans, Apes, or Constructs; Windfall. Only the deck could not actually perform this function as the only viable way to loop is Narset's Reversal + Timetwister . Using that loop enabler would restore the graveyards of opponents and the Windfall win line would not be possible. This means we would need to run an alternate immediate win con, but Lab Man, Jace, and Aetherflux Reservoir are all REALLY bad cards in cEDH being completely dead outside of comboing off. The better, more efficient option, is to simply run a mana efficient loop enabler that at worst is a 1 cmc mana rock. Urza doesn't mind cheap mana rocks, in fact, Urza likes those, and on occasion Elixir can also directly protect the graveyard from an Ashiok activation. It's inclusion was a natural progression of this line of thinking. The Elixir might ultimately be cut if I decide the deck is redundant and resilient enough without it, but I'm betting against that being the case with the way the meta has changed post Ashiok's printing.

Cryptic Command and Archmage's Charm are certainly on the expensive side, but again, as the format has slowed down significantly and grindier, more interactive decks are the prohibitive favorites in any given pod, these cards have a warranted slot in testing and testing has so far proven them to be very solid inclusions. I don't know about you, but I LIKE stealing an opponents Mystic Remora . It's far better than just destroying it. I LIKE stealing an opponents Sol Ring . Dack Fayden is still run in some cEDH lists and primarily is used to steal away mana rocks outside of being a win on a loop. The Charm is an even more flexible version of what he does and the mana cost isn't going to be tough for a mono blue deck based around a commander that turns all artifacts into blue moxen. Cryptic Command is also ideal on a loop to return all opposing permanents to hand in the event the deck must wait a turn cycle to attack with an infinite army as the risk of having that army destroyed or disrupted is much less if opponents have no board state at all the turn they need to disrupt it. A year or more ago, these are likely not cards I would have expected to perform well in the meta, but in the current meta these are cards with significant value.

Academy Ruins is the all important tutor land. I initially had Tabernacle in here in the original iteration before discovering that including that hate piece at all was extremely counterproductive and not an ideal direction for a deck that ideally wants Urza in play on turn 2 as often as possible. But when I cut the Tabernacle I didn't cut the land tutors because I noticed a particularly nifty interaction with, at first, Aether Spellbomb . Urza is not a deck that can operate like other PS decks where it tries to stutter start it's engine by using it's commanders ability to chug along on a slim mana margin until it eventually hits the pieces required for critical mass to begin generating infinite mana in a deterministic fashion. The process simply isn't as efficient as Thrasios and Tasigur and most often results in a fizzle and tapped out board state. This means Urza MUST already be able to generate infinite mana in a deterministic fashion using resources already available to it rather than relying on top deck RNG to find the proper resources. One good way I found to do this was to simply recast spells the deck already had access to (Crystal Shard being the most important method of doing so) and reliably being able to get Academy Ruins into play with Candelabra of Tawnos and Paradox Engine allows the deck to repeatedly cast Mind Stone or Aether Spellbomb and generate infinite mana from a deterministic line. The same 6 or so mana that might be used to blindly activate Urza's ability and hope and pray the deck hits (which the math proves, undeniably, is a lower percentage chance than a misfire) could instead simply be used to sacrifice a known quantity, hold priority on it's draw trigger, replace it on top of the library, draw it, and replay it to untap everything and proceed with the loop indefinitely. As long as the loop produces 1 net positive mana the loop succeeds in winning the game. The land tutors are in as ways to reliably enable this back up plan in the event it is required, which hasn't been too common in testing but it has happened a significant number of times.

High Tide and Extraplanar Lens were actually both in my original iteration of the deck and it was only after about 10 games of testing that I realized these cards don't actually do anything for this deck. Urza doesn't care about land mana generation, it runs off artifact mana generation. Dramatically more often than not these cards wound up simply being dead spells that didn't provide any value at all and the times where they did provide value it was of a negligible amount. Ultimately I realized neither of these cards was important to the way the deck wanted to operate and so I cut them. I do not expect I will return either to the list at any point, Urza, at least as constructed, isn't a Storm style deck that regularly makes use of untapping lands to generate extra mana and in the situations where this can be done it means the deck has already untapped a half dozen or dozen artifacts that are providing the mana needed. Essentially, these cards were identified as "win more" in function and summarily cut. Unwinding Clock was another cut in the same vein, dead out side of winning and only helped win harder as opposed to just helping win.

Back to Basics is a worthwhile consideration, but I've never felt like this was a particularly difficult hate piece to navigate when playing against it. Urza already has more universal means of locking down opponents resources that aren't limited to just lands and these means also don't care about land type, and are also able to be tutored for and more reliably employed where Back to Basics cannot. Rhystic Study is a card I am less and less and less enthused about in the current meta. It's a card that is essentially dead outside of playing it on Turn 1 or Turn 2, and Urza has things it already wants to be doing on those turns. If I get desperate for card draw sources this is a card that could make it's way back onto my list, but I'm going to have to be very desperate indeed as this card is no longer cEDH worthy. If you want to understand why just watch the most recent Lab Maniacs S3 gameplay video on YouTube. Sigi's Rhystic Study legitimately generated no value at all and sucked up 3 mana to play. Not a position I want to be in and yet that is the type of position this card puts players in given the state of the meta at the moment. Verity Circle has significantly out performed it in testing, dramatically so the longer a game goes on. Trail of Evidence is out for the time being while I test some other card draw sources. It performed acceptably well, it just didn't stand out and I was curious if I could do better. I think this is a card that could very likely make it's way back into the list, but I want to give every other potential option a try as well in testing so for the time being it's relegated to the bench.

Well, that was a lot of words! Thanks for dropping by though, it's always worthwhile to vocalize and consider the reasons for various inclusions and go over the reasons behind the choices. I expect a number of ridiculous seeming ideas will be tried in my attempts to make this list as competitive as possible and I fully expect most of these ridiculous ideas to prove unworthy in testing, but anything that has some degree of potential should be looked at and verified in practice or else I'd still be running cards like Rhystic Study blindly believing they would improve the overall deck performance. I'll certainly keep you posted on what worked out well and what silly ideas proved to be rather too silly as testing continues and I hope you'll return the favor with the things you test.