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 (48)

DemMeowsephs on Power nap

1 month ago

I most certainly can! Archelos is super cool and can really warp a landbase, as now you can include so many tap lands that normally aren't too powerful, not only giving you that sort of ability but also making the land base WAY cheaper! You also have to think about the lands BEFORE you put our Archelos though, and so I'd say a balance between better lands and tap lands are what you probably want to head towards. What you have so far looks wonderful, and certainly efficient, though again, you may want to include one cycle of a certain land, maybe Breeding Pool, Overgrown Tomb, and Watery Grave? These guys can help get Archelos out, but after he's out you won't necessarily have to take the shock damage from them which I'd say deserves them a good spot in the deck. Other ones that aren't necessary but could be worth considering are Hinterland Harbor, Woodland Cemetery, and Drowned Catacomb, since again they can come in untapped with Archelos and still be relatively good without him, and of course the bounce lands Simic Growth Chamber, Golgari Rot Farm, and Dimir Aqueduct, since they can get pretty powerful when they come in untapped. Since you have Fabled Passage, Evolving Wilds, and Terramorphic Expanse I'd say it's worth it to slot in a Ramunap Excavator or Crucible of Worlds, since you'd then get two landfall triggers per turn guaranteed, since you can continuously play the sac lands again and again. If this trick proves to be very helpful, you may want to consider slotting in more fetch lands like Prismatic Vista, Misty Rainforest, Verdant Catacombs, Polluted Delta, etc. Speaking of landfall triggers, I think Myriad Landscape would work AMAZING with Archelos, as not only would the Myriad come in untapped, but so would what it searches for, giving you three landfall triggers just off of that one card if you have two mana to spare. So honestly, I don't have too much to say about the lands, I think it's pretty solid at the moment though you may need to playtest a lot to know for sure, however, I did find a bunch of great cards that could work well with Archelos!

• Amulet of Vigor: If Archelos isn't out yet and you have a ton of tap lands, this guy could be of great use, especially for just a single mana.
• Root Maze: SUPER amazing card, this guy can tax everyone but you! On your upkeep untap archelos, have everything come in untapped, then tap him before your next turn and boom now everyone's artiafcts and lands come into played tapped for one mana besides yours.
• Coldsteel Heart: Basically a 2 mana, untapped mana rock with Archelos
• Cryptolith Fragment  ^Flip: This guy can perform your goal of whittling away peoples health, as well as coming in untapped with Archelos. The flip side can also perform that whittling quite efficiently.
• Manascape Refractor: Comes in untapped- could be pretty fun to see how that works out!
• Arcane Signet: You should run this no matter what
• Orb of Dreams: Similar power and ability to root maze mentioned above, this can tax everyone else except you with Archelos
• Renegade Map: Basically 1 mana get a basic land if you have Archelos out
• Sphere of the Suns: Great with Archelos out and coming in untapped
• Terrarion: Seems pretty solid if it doesn't come in untapped
• Worn Powerstone: Like the rest, pretty sweet if it doesn't come in tapped and can be immediately used.
• Moss Diamond/Charcoal Diamond/Sky Diamond: Untapped ability again
• Honor-Worn Shaku: Allows you to tap archelos and get something out of it
• Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: It's amazing why not run it
• Retreat to Hagra: Can be a great way of slowly ruining your opponent's health, especially with the extra land triggers I mentioned before
• Stasis: If you already have the things you need to slowly remove your opponents health, this can pretty much ensure victory.
• Verity Circle: SUPER amazing if I'm understanding it correctly, basically whenever your opponents play a creature since it comes in tapped with Archelos you draw a card, and has the second ability if you are ever in need of it
• A great way to slowly get rid of your opponents health is with recurring triggers that happen every turn, such as curses. Here are some that I found: Trespasser's Curse, Torment of Scarabs, Cruel Reality, Curse of Thirst, and Curse of Fool's Wisdom
• ANY COMBO WITH RETREAT TO CORALHELM. Edhrec names 1000+ combos with this card, so I'd recommend looking through it and seeing if you find anything that would work if you haven't already!

That's all I have, sorry it probably wasn't too much regarding the lands, but I hope I gave you some good stuff to think about! I honestly love the deck it has a super cool theme, and seems like it could work very well! That said though, hope this helps, and have a wonderful day!

KongMing on Time Will Destroy Us All

1 month ago

No Training Grounds? If you can afford it, it's a super amazing card for Jhoira. Nevinyrral's Disk lets you wipe the board at upkeep, in response to removing the last counters from your suspended stuff, so you can clear everything before your stuff comes out. Omniscience combos really well with this deck, because you can cheat it out for cheap and then use it to cheat the rest of your stuff out, too.

Also, this deck is strangely lacking in consistent draw power for one that can cheat so much stuff out. You could use some more consistent cheap stuff that doesn't rely on Jhoira or die to a creature wipe, like Curse of Verbosity, Verity Circle, or Bident of Thassa (Rhystic Study if you have the $). Windreader Sphinx is a bigger one you would probably want to cheat out.

pretendingtoalright on Lazav Mill Commander

2 months ago

KCF_Blackout

not a problem! from one fan of mill to the other we gotta help each other out lol.

general cards that aren't too expensive that might fit in the deck Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and Dimir Signet for solid early ramp. Treasure Cruise and Verity Circle are some good blue draw. Speaking of drawing Teferi's Ageless Insight that's fun.

Seeing as you have Mindcrank already you might want to include Duskmantle Guildmage in the list it's first ability goes infinite with mindcrank after a mill effect or damage instance against an opponent. Though I understand if you aren't a fan of combos.

Other inclusions I think might fit in this deck are Syr Konrad, the Grim so your mill does damage, and is a mana sink in the later turns. Maybe Jace, Wielder of Mysteries?? Self-mill isn't the plan here but it might decent insurance plus, repeatable draw is with a small mill bonus.

Rogue's Passage or some other way to guarantee a creature connecting might be good. There's a few combat damage/attack triggers in the deck that would benefit from being able to consistently connect. Also Consuming Aberration and Wight of Precinct Six are a lot scary when they can be chumped block by a token or a mana dork. I specifically mention Rogue's Passage because it's a land slot over a spell slot which might make it easier to fit in. but Whispersilk Cloak and Manifold Key are cards that can help the same.

Altar of the Brood and Jace's Erasure are two pet cards of mine that assist in the mill strategy but the former isn't super synergistic with your deck, and the latter is just a worse redundant effect of cards that are already in the deck. but as they are pet cards had to mention them.

TriusMalarky on NOT Tribal

3 months ago

Sounds plausible. IMO, there's not much in elemental tribal that's all that great for edh. So it'd effectively be a 5-color interactive deck with a handful of ways to tutor out the entire combo.

Buried Alive, Congregation at Dawn, Hermit Druid with no basics(easy in a 5 color deck), and a couple other tools can help it out.

You should also go super heavy on green, and mana dorks. You'll also want a good number of 2-mana rocks, mostly talismans, Fellwar Stone and Arcane Signet.

Then, add some random high power draw engines. Rhystic Study, Mystic Remora, Verity Circle are great. Just draw, draw, draw off them. Ramp, and hold up high power interaction.

TheVectornaut on Blue/White Life and Defenders

3 months ago

I think a good place to start would be to evaluate what goals are the most important for your deck while making sure you don't have too many ideas that compete against each other. When I look at the deck now, I can see the general idea of a U/W control list that takes advantage of freeze and lifegain to prolong the fight until you can win. However, I see some major problems with the plan as it is now.

First, the deck lacks a clear win condition at the end of all the control. You'll either need to chip away over the course of a slow game with your smaller creatures or hope you have enough freeze effects to get your big guys in late-game. Control deck usually opt for some type of haymaker that can reliably close the game. Some like AEtherling and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar are designed to protect themselves, some like Celestial Colonnade and Shark Typhoon place emphasis on evasion, some like Torrential Gearhulk and Snapcaster Mage give you as much value as possible, and some like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Teferi, Time Raveler deny your opponents of counterplay. There's a lot of overlap within those categories and not all of these cards will be played as a wincon, but having a clear plan to win is better than only playing to not lose. The closest cards you have are probably Serpent of Yawning Depths and Archipelagore. Sea monsters are certainly a fine casual deck but slotting them into something else can be awkward at best and ineffectual at worst.

The second problem I see is the missed potential of your chosen colors combined with your chosen tribe. Right now, you have very few ways to take advantage of the clerics in the deck. Clerics are intended to be W/B since you get access to powerful new tools like Orah, Skyclave Hierophant, Taborax, Hope's Demise, and Cleric of Life's Bond along with classics like Sin Collector, High Priest of Penance, and Skirsdag High Priest. The lifegain/drain synergy in clerics also benefits from orzhov colors to play threats like Angel of Destiny, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, Marauding Blight-Priest, Speaker of the Heavens, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Twilight Prophet, Pious Evangel  ^Flip, Drana's Emissary, and Cruel Celebrant.

Incidentally, black also synergizes quite well with tapdown effects because of Assassinate cards like Royal Assassin, Deathbringer Liege, and Murderous Compulsion, although white does have its share of Vengeance with Sunblast Angel, Deadeye Harpooner, and Swift Response. Anyway, now that I'm on this tangent, it's worth mentioning that including strong freeze effects is important if you want to make such an underused mechanic work. I'm partial to Dungeon Geists and Icefall Regent as permanent taps, but there's also Guardian of Tazeem, Niblis of Frost, Tamiyo, the Moon Sage, Time of Ice, Lorthos, the Tidemaker, Frost Titan, and Hands of Binding. Alternatively you can use cheaper cards that can retap a creature each turn like Gideon's Lawkeeper, Blinding Souleater, Fatestitcher, Hidden Strings, and Minister of Impediments. The final category I'll mention are other cards that take advantage of tapping enemy creatures like Palliation Accord and Verity Circle, except I'd only ever recommend the latter.

In summary, I think you should decide whether you're more interested in clerics or in freeze since they don't synergize with each other that well. For clerics, switching to black and taking advantage of lifedrain and sacrifice is advisable. For freeze control, find ways to abuse tapping, implement a strong win condition, and generally include more card draw and countermagic. If you are dead set on combining these styles, I'd at least invest in some tribal support cards to give the clerics more impact than just weakly contributing to the party mechanic. Adaptive Automaton, Door of Destinies, Obelisk of Urd, and Coat of Arms are some popular options. Finally, if your budget doesn't allow you to purchase many new cards, prioritizing the acquisition of additional copies of your strongest but cheapest cards is a good way to upgrade. For this deck, I think those cards are Attended Healer, Cleric of Chill Depths, Hypnotic Sprite, Kor Celebrant, Luminarch Aspirant, Queen of Ice, Shepherd of Heroes, Skyclave Cleric  ^Flip, Concerted Defense, Dovin's Veto, Negate, Inscription of Insight, Staggering Insight, Trapped in the Tower, and maybe Silundi Vision  ^Flip. Good luck with your build and let me know if you have any questions!

Optimator on Giant's Deck

3 months ago

The amount of utility cards that facilitates for a large-creature/stompy deck (like giant tribal) is completely unparalleled and unrivaled. There are things--both budget and expensive--like Garruk's Uprising, Soul's Majesty, Hunter's Insight, Snake Umbra, Triumph of Ferocity, Lead the Stampede, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Return of the Wildspeaker, Abundance, Rhythm of the Wild, Selvala's Stampede, Shamanic Revelation, Elemental Bond, Colossal Majesty, Guardian Project, Rancor, Primal Rage, Heroic Intervention, Wrap in Vigor, Golgari Charm, Lifecrafter's Bestiary, Canopy Cover, Aspect of Mongoose, Alpha Authority, Asceticism, Defense of the Heart, Lignify, Lurking Predators, Bow of Nylea, The Great Henge, Eerie Ultimatum, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Seasons Past, Reap the Past, Genesis Ultimatum, Beastmaster Ascension, Overwhelming Stampede...

The list is huge, and it grows every year.

This is on top of the superior ramping ability of Green and it's above-average removal options. One big advantage of Green's land-based ramp is things like Planar Cleansing, Hour of Revelation, Play of the Game, Bane of Progress, Creeping Corrosion, and Merciless Eviction can't send you back to the stone age by destroying all your mana rocks.

Everything you will want to be doing with Giant Tribal, Green supports and supports well. I cannot stress this enough. Not to mention the good green giants that keep getting printed.

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Black doesn't provide too much in the way of utility specific to giant tribal or stompy decks other than recursion and good card draw like Greed, Phyrexian Arena, and Erebos, God of the Dead. Personally I like cards like Damnable Pact, Read the Bones, Ancient Craving and Ambition's Cost but if you're running Green and/or Blue you shouldn't need to lose life to draw cards. Painful Truths might still be useful due to it's great rate (three cards for three mana is good). Syphon Mind is a great rate and has the upside of making your opponents discard.

Obviously Black specializes in removal (but so does White!) so you could run things like Mortify, Despark, Utter End, Vindicate, Anguished Unmaking, Dreadbore, Terminate, Bedevil and Ruinous Ultimatum. In Garruk's Wake and Decree of Pain are probably good in your giant deck since you're ramping so hard. Since you're running White you shouldn't need Black's wraths, but those two stood out.

Things like Phyrexian Reclamation, Animate Dead, and Reanimate are great for creature decks. Palace Siege is all right on a budget. So is Twilight's Call. It's no Oversold Cemetery or Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Rise of the Dark Realms but those are pricey. Recovering from boardwipes will be important.

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Blue has some interesting removal options like Curse of the Swine, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Reality Shift. You have some Cyclonic Rifts in your trade binder, right? That alone is a great reason to run Blue in your deck (it's literally one of the best cards in EDH straight-up). Do it!

Blue also has all the card-draw--from per-turn stuff like Kumena's Awakening and Mind Unbound; chunks of cards like Concentrate, Treasure Cruise, Fact or Fiction, Fathom Trawl, and Tidings; huge hand-refillers like Overflowing Insight, Mind Spring, Stroke of Genius, and Pull from Tomorrow; and some sneaky stuff like Windfall, Keep Watch, Drawn from Dreams, Verity Circle, and Insight. Green has some amazing card-draw already but it wouldn't be a terrible idea to supplement it with Blue cards. Rush of Knowledge would be REALLY good in a giant-tribal deck--especially with Morophon, the Boundless at the helm.

Counterspells are very much not Giant/Stompy but I have a few aggro decks that run a silver-bullet copy of Negate or Swan Song just as anti-boardwipe tech. Not necessary though. Boros Charm, Golgari Charm, and Wrap in Vigor work well in that capacity. There are lots of 3-cmc options too but the mana difference between 2 and 3 is huge.

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You could even run some interesting charms like Abzan Charm or Esper Charm. There are some surprisingly potent options. Some are stinkers of course.

Temur Ascendancy would be reason alone to run five colors and be utterly fantastic in this deck.

Garruk's Uprising alone is reason to run at least Green.

Merciless Eviction is one of the best removal spells in the game. Four or five colors would allow you to run that.

Urban Evolution would be good in a big-mana deck like this. Inspired Ultimatum, while not amazing, is playable.

You get the idea.

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As you can see, there is a myriad of reasons to run more colors. Honestly, I really can't recommend it enough if true Giant-Tribal is the goal--whether Naya giants or five-color giants.

One extremely important thing for large-creature decks is to consider how you're going to recover from board wipes. Superior card-draw from Green, Black, and Blue cards will help immensely. Card advantage like Phyrexian Reclamation, Palace Siege, Seasons Past, All Suns' Dawn, Reap the Past, Reap, Creeping Renaissance, Eerie Ultimatum, and abilities like Mayael the Anima's, Golos, Tireless Pilgrim's, and Kenrith, the Returned King's reanimate ability will help you recover. These are things that Red and White simply can't do well. Sure there's Resurrection and Reya Dawnbringer, but they aren't great.

Brion Stoutarm is a legitimately good general--he really is!--but not for giant tribal. He brings nothing to the table for giant tribal other than being a decently-statted Giant himself and pigeonholes you into the worst color pair in EDH for essentially no benefit. As I mentioned, Iroas, God of Victory and, to a lesser extent, Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas would make better commanders if you are dead-set on Boros colors (which I do not recommend if you want to play maximum giants). If you were building around Brion's ability and had some giants around as support that would be one thing, but it seems that's not the goal. As such, please consider switching commanders :) I think that if you want Brion Stoutarm as the commander, you should make a Brion deck.

I really do think you'll be happier in the long run with a different commander It doesn't have to be expensive. Most of what you would need I can trade to you, including Morophon, the Boundless, and most supplemental cards I don't have are in the 25-cent to $1 range (Realm-Cloaked Giant, Mayael the Anima, etc). I actually have a shitload of this utility stuff on-hand, and you have some great staples like Cyclonic Rift on-hand--and probably more! I want you to be satisfied with your deck! It doesn't have to be competitive to be fun, but it doesn't have to be expensive to work better and smoother and be more competitive.

Feiryn on [Primer] – Amareth's Beautiful Baubles

4 months ago

UpperDeckerTaco

Hey there, thanks for the feedback!

I decided not to run Dramatic Scepter as they tend to be fairly dead cards on their own in this list. Unlike a commander such as Urza, Lord High Artificer we can't use Isochron Scepter as a rock, and Dramatic Reversal doesn't help dorks ramp when they just came into play.

I've actually never thought of that synergy with Basalt Monolith! While I'm generally not a fan of Basalt due to how slow it is, I'm gonna add it to my list of things to test so I can see how well it fits into the deck.

Walking Ballista is something that I've been on and off about. The main reason I haven't included it is because if I have infinite mana available and a tutor, I'm going to be fetching Thrasios, Triton Hero anyways. While Ballista is hit by artifact tutors, chances are if I have those tutors I'm going to be aiming for our Sensei's Divining Top line instead. Also it gets shut down by Null Rod effects which is part of the reason I have Thrasios as the deck's main backup, since he isn't affected by them.

I didn't include Incubation Druid since it's one of the weakest dorks IMO and takes too much to get set up in comparison with the other two. I feel like having Bloom Tender and Faeburrow Elder is enough when it comes to the untap combos.

Honestly the reason I didn't take Intuition is because I forgot about it lmao, I'm so used to playing Rest in Peace decks that I usually don't think about it. Will add it in ASAP.

Runic Armasaur I have a love/hate relationship with. It's great when it works and awful when it doesn't, but I'll probably sideboard it for matchups where I'm against decks it gets a lot of value from. I'd most likely swap it out for Verity Circle actually since currently my meta runs a lot of dorks hence its inclusion.

When it comes to Thassa's Oracle the reason I say it's a dead card is because it does nothing on its own. It's definitely a combo piece and an excellent one at that, but by itself it just sits in our hand if we draw it. Thought Lash and Paradigm Shift are also dead cards in the same fashion since their only purpose would be to pair with Oracle.

I actually forgot about Long-Term Plans as well which is funny since I actually like it a lot in general, so thanks for reminding me about it!

I'm personally not a huge fan of cards like Drift of Phantasms which only exist for their Transmute effect. The reason I include Muddle the Mixture is because it's also a budget counter as well.

Idyllic Tutor I've been on the fence about here. It could likely go into the list but I need to test it more to make a decision tbh.

For Stony Silence effects that's exactly why we have the Thrasios, Triton Hero / Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy line as our secondary wincon.

Once again, thanks for the feedback! I'll certainly add in Intuition and Long-Term Plans, as well as test out Basalt Monolith to see how that goes. Will mostly likely try Idyllic Tutor some more but I'll have to find space for it first.

UpperDeckerTaco on [Primer] – Amareth's Beautiful Baubles

4 months ago

Seems like a cEDH list...

Why no Isochron Scepter+Dramatic Reversal combo? You have the rocks and dorks to support it.

And if you're playing Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy, why not play Basalt Monolith?

With these additions you already run the tutors to seek them out, and then you can add in Walking Ballista as an alternate wincon.

And if you are running Neoform and Pemmin's Aura/Freed from the Real, why not run Incubation Druid as well as another infinite mana outlet to go with Bloom Tender and/or Faeburrow Elder.

Another good tutor is to run Intuition...and you go get the 1 card you really want, Noxious Revival and Eternal Witness (or Regrowth if you want to play it) and it guarantees you get your card you want to tutor for.

Also, I feel like adding Runic Armasaur could be good to go with your Verity Circle draw effects. Where Verity Circle doesn't do well is against Thrasios activations, but that is where the Armasaur shines.

And if you feel that Thassa's Oracle is a "dead" card, you could make it NOT a "dead" card by using Thought Lash or Paradigm Shift to make a 2 card combo with THORACLE.

Other tutor effects to consider:

Long-Term Plans = You already play most of the cards to support it: Sensei's Divining Top, Sylvan Library, Mirri's Guile...

Drift of Phantasms = Tutors for Pemmin's Aura, Freed from the Real, Faeburrow Elder

Idyllic Tutor = Search for your card draw specific enchantments to gain advantage or your Pemmin's Aura or Freed from the Real.

I noticed that Stony Silence effects shut you down quite easily, so aside from removing the stax piece stopping you, think about adding in a secondary win condition such as the previous mentioned options above to add into more consistency against bad match ups.