Walking Ballista

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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Walking Ballista

Artifact Creature — Construct

Walking Ballista enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it.

: Put a +1/+1 counter on Walking Ballista.

Remove a +1/+1 counter from Walking Ballista: It deals 1 damage to any target (creature, player, planeswalker or battle).

Spell_Slam on This Is Going To Hurt

1 day ago

Good list! I got some ideas for my own, so thanks!

In terms of enablers, Keen Duelist and Descent into Avernus are quite strong. Walking Ballista (and to a lesser extent Hangarback Walker) also makes a great enabler in the early game or a giant threat in the mid/late game. Cryptolith Fragment  Flip is great as a ramp spell that fixes and also enables casting Rakdos. I am also playing Insolent Neonate, which has worked out surprisingly well, though there may be better options out there. I see you're not running Heartless Hidetsugu, which I think is a must-have for this deck. It makes dumping out your hand and killing every opponent trivially easy.

When it comes to payoffs, I really like playing as many colourless cards as possible to really take advantage of Rakdos. I see you're missing Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Emrakul, the Promised End in your top-end. In terms of other colourless cards, I like Duplicant as a potentially free removal spell, Wurmcoil Engine for the value, Myr Battlesphere for early damage output and Steel Hellkite as a flying threat that can wipe out huge chunks of the board.

When it comes to coloured payoffs, I stopped playing cards that cost more than or in their costs, as they wouldn't play well with the Rakdos discount. I do like Sheoldred, Whispering One, Knollspine Dragon and Balefire Dragon.

With Whip of Erebos and Exquisite Blood in the deck, is seems like Sanguine Bond would be a great include as a combo finisher.

In terms of cuts, Lightning Bolt seems like an easy one to let go. I stopped playing haste-givers because I found myself playing creatures post-combat most of the time anyways, so something like Rising of the Day could be an easy cut. Read the Bones seems like a really weak card that could be replaced with better card draw or recursion (Necropotence?). I see the combo with Tectonic Hazard and Death-rattle Oni, but that seems pretty niche otherwise and could be replaced with more reliable/repeatable enablers instead. Spawn of Mayhem seems pretty awkward in this deck, as you'll rarely be able to cast it before turn 4 even with Spectacle (and we know what turn 4 is for! :) ). The triple-black on Bloodletter of Aclazotz and Dread Cacodemon are pretty restricting, in my opinion. Indulgent Tormenter seems very unreliable and probably not worth the cost.

Jet Medallion and Ruby Medallion are not at their best here, as they reduce colourless costs instead of adding mana, which means that with Rakdos out they may not even do anything.

JimboSliceJr on Braids: Infinite Death and TaXXXes

3 weeks ago

Profet93

Sure thing! Bloodchief Ascension & Mindcrank create an infinite mill and damage cycle.

Mikaeus, the Unhallowed & Triskelion create an infinite damage cycle where you remove counters from him to do 1 damage to a player & the rest to kill himself. Then he is returned to the battlefield and you repeat. This also works with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed & Walking Ballista, but he needs a third card like Zulaport Cutthroat or Blood Artist to create the infinite cycle of damage/life gain. If you can’t get one of those two cards, Grave Pact or Dictate of Erebos will create infinite sacrifice cycles. Then you could also create infinite Eldrazi tokens/treasures with either Pitiless Plunderer or Pawn of Ulamog.

Next is the Ashnods alter & Pitiless Plunderer combos with either Bloodsoaked Champion or Reassembling Skeleton that can infinitely sacrifice to create infinite colorless mana for cards like Exsanguinate.

Finally if you have Sensei's Divining Top, Bolas's Citadel, & Sheoldred, the Apocalypse you can draw a card with Sensei’s, gain 2 life, then pay 1 life to cast Sensei’s, and repeat until you can find a combo while gaining life with each draw.

Hope this helps!

bluusteem on INFINITE MANA COMBO AND CREATURE COMBO

1 month ago

I do agree with wallisface with the removal spell's. I need a lot of time and removal so I can continue trying to get the combo. Thanks so much wallisface for the suggestion of Walking Ballista I have been trying to find cards I can mana dump.

Im not saying IXALAN_Crazy that your suggestion is wrong. I do believe that your card suggestion is great but I do not see it working in this deck. Because of its high mana cost.

wallisface on INFINITE MANA COMBO AND CREATURE COMBO

1 month ago

Contrary to IXALAN_Crazys thoughts, having 12 pieces of interaction seems good to me, as your deck needs to assemble a lot of pieces, and as part of that you need to buy yourself a lot of time.

I also don’t think Collected Company is ideal here, your creature density is too low even if you add in a few more, and it’s more important to get the right creature to complete the combo, rather than a random smattering.

I think Eladamri's Call could be good here for finding you the pieces you need to get the combo rolling. Duskwatch Recruiter  Flip could also be very strong for both finding the combo pieces and also digging for a wincon once you have infinite mana (it can only grab creatures, so you’d want to swap out Gelatinous Genesis in place if auto-win creatures like Walking Ballista or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn).

Last_Laugh on Animar Tyrrhydras

1 month ago

What kind of budget are you working with? A combo Animar list can be a pretty expensive undertaking thanks to things like Palinchron, Cloudstone Curio, Walking Ballista/Purphoros, God of the Forge, etc. More of an aggro build can be done a budget though.

I have an Animar list here on tappedout but it's retired and hasn't been updated for a few sets. It's a combo list built around Ancestral Statue and Cloudstone Curio combos. Animar, Gaea's Hemorrhoid ⫷PRIMER⫸

wallisface on Arcbound Scales

1 month ago

Some thoughts:

  • your land count is very low, especially when you’re running 3 copies of a legendary land. For reference, the meta hardened scales runs around 24 lands and has an average mana-cost of only 1.5 (treating cards like Walking Ballista as worth ). You’ve only got 19 lands and your average mana-cost is a much higher 1.9 (assuming Thought Monitor and Thoughtcast only ever cost ).

  • Shadowspear is generally only ever good because it can be grabbed with Urza's Saga - without Saga it’s much harder to justify.

  • 4 mana is very steep, especially considering your land count, and I don’t see either Arcbound Crusher or Vannifar, Evolved Enigma doing nearly-enough to justify their cost.

  • Fabricate feels very slow/clunky when Ancient Stirrings exists.

Last_Laugh on ambinar i guess

1 month ago

Rose Room Treasurer gives you a game finishing mana outlet for any infinite mana combo here since they all involve bouncing and replaying creatures. I'm not sure why this is so overlooked, it's honestly amazing here.

Neoform, Walking Ballista, and Phyrexian Metamorph will enable the most mana efficient combo line in Animar (you already run the rest). It only needs , Imperial Recruiter in hand, 4 life, and 2 counters on Animar. Imperial Recruiter for looks up Phyrexian Metamorph. Metamorph for 2 life copies Recruiter to look up Spellseeker. Spellseeker for looks up Neoform. Neoform for sacs Spellseeker to look up Ancestral Statue. Statue does its self bounce until Animar is double your opponents life totals then use Statue's final bounce to return Phyrexian Metamorph to hand. Metamorph for 2 life again copies Imperial Recruiter to look up Walking Ballista for the win.

Last_Laugh on Animar Go brrr

2 months ago

Nice to see the deck still kicking around. I know Neoform is in your maybeboard, but it deserves a spot because it enables a very efficient combo line here.

It just needs 2 counters on Animar, , 4 life, and Imperial Recruiter in hand.

Imperial Recruiter for looks up Phyrexian Metamorph. Metamorph for 2 life copies Recruiter to look up Spellseeker. Spellseeker for looks up Neoform. Neoform for sacs Spellseeker to look up Ancestral Statue. Statues does its' self bounce until Animar is double your opponents life totals and the use Statue's final bounce to return Phyrexian Metamorph to hand. Metamorph for 2 life again copies Imperial Recruiter to look up Walking Ballista.for the win.

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