Walking Ballista

Artifact Creature — Construct

Walking Ballita 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 target creature, player or planeswalker.

Discussion (47)

Spell_Slam on Waking the Demon

3 days ago

I used to run haste-givers like Anger in my deck, but I found that because of Rakdos, I tend to play a lot of my creatures post-combat, which made haste useless for the most part. I would take Anger, Ogre Battledriver and Urabrask out.

Walking Ballista is an excellent choice for this deck. You can play it early and attack or ping the opponent to cast Rakdos, or you can sink your mana into it and make a huge Ballista later in the game. Hangarback Walker is good in the same vein, but not quite as powerful (though it's strong against boardwipes, which the deck can be soft to).

I think you could take out a lot of the single-target damage spells from your deck. Lightning Bolt, Incincerate, Lightning Strike, Skewer the Critics, Exquisite Firecraft, and Char are all fine in 1v1, but in a multiplayer setting they feel pretty weak, and they almost act as a commander tax if you use them to play Rakdos.

I am not sure what your budget is, but investing in all the legal Eldrazi Titans and mythics will really improve your deck. Emrakul, the Promised End, Void Winnower, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre are usually game-ending. If not, Rune-Scarred Demon, Duplicant and Knollspine Dragon are all pretty cheap and powerful cards to cast with discounts.

Cryptolith Fragment  ^Flip is one of the best mana rocks for this deck. It is both your fourth mana source (of any colour) to cast Rakdos and the damage enabler you need! Pilgrim's Eye is also similar in that it has good evasion and guarantees you a fourth land to both deal damage and play Rakdos the following turn.

I like Spear Spewer a lot more than Thermo-Alchemist or Nettle Drone usually because in multiplayer Spewer will guarantee 3 damage every turn and is much more flexible to play in the early turns at only 1 mana.

Last_Laugh on Animar Creatures

6 days ago

Exploration, Burgeoning, and Wild Cantor are 3 more options for turn 2 Animar.

Temur Sabertooth and Equilibrium are 2 more bounce enablers to abuse etb's.

Walking Ballista and Purphoros, God of the Forge make any infinite bounce combos lethal. I.e. Ancestral Statue or any Cloudstone Curio combo.

Palinchron goes infinite by itself if Animar has 4+ counters. Cloud of Faeries and Peregrine Drake are worth running also (Great Whale if Palinchron is understandably out of your budget).

Spellseeker/Neoform and Weird Harvest are worth running if you add Walking Ballista. Weird Harvest looks up Ballista/Statue for both combo pieces and Spellseeker/Neoform are the last pieces you don't already run for the most efficient combo line in Animar. It only requires Imperial Recruiter in hand, 2 counters on Animar, , and 4 life.

1. Imperial Recruiter looks up Phyrexian Metamorph

2. Phyrexian Metamorph for 2 life copies Recruiter and looks up Spellseeker.

3. Spellseeker looks up Neoform.

4. Neoform sacs Spellseeker to look up Ancestral Statue.

5. Bounce statue over and over til Animar's power is double your opponents life totals and use Statue's final bounce trigger to return Metamorph to hand.

6. Metamorph for 2 life again copies Imperial Recruiter to look up Walking Ballista for the win.

Feel free to check out my list for more ideas. Upvotes on any of my decks are appreciated. Animar, Gaea's Hemorrhoid ⫷PRIMER⫸

legendofa on Abiding Grace Turbo Frog

2 weeks ago

Can I suggest Sigarda, Host of Herons as a potential finisher? She's evasive, virtually immune to spot removal, and has decent stats to get the clock going. It's not as flashy as a Walking Ballista combo or crabmill, but she might be able to get the job done.

mdf64 on Abiding Grace Turbo Frog

2 weeks ago

So the turbo fog aspect of the deck works, fog creatures, Ranger-captain, and abiding grace. The main thing I wasn't sure about was the win con for the deck. One thing I was told might work better was Arbor Elf, Utopia Sprawl, and Freed from the Real to get infinite mana and Walking Ballista for infinite damage. I also thinking that just running 4 Tasha's Hideous Laughter might be better than running the crabs.

EVENcast on A Monster’s Guide to Volo [Primer]

2 weeks ago

Thanks for the suggestions rwn1971! Both cards are great at a 2 for 1 value, but I don't think they do much to support this particular build's strategy of going wide. Walking Ballista could be a solid removal piece, but seems too mana hungry outside of infinite combo situations. Wurmcoil Engine would be a decent defense option, but I think its better in decks that can abuse it through recursion. Having said all of that, I do believe both cards could be amazing in a different version of Volo, and I would love to hear if you have any luck with them.

wallisface on Rootha, Mercurial Artist Question.

2 weeks ago

It works, though it looks very frail. A 5-card-combo is already making this a precarious situation, but on top of that, a lot of the pieces are easy to remove, and a lot of the pieces do next-to-nothing on their own.

It’s worth noting that, assuming you already have the pili-archetect mana-combo in play, those other cards could all be wincons (like Walking Ballista), instead of extra gears complicating the engine

ThisIsMyAccount on Heliod-Ballista Companion

2 weeks ago

ProfEdelson are you sure Urza's Saga doesn't fit the companion rule for Zirda, the Dawnwaker. Like, even if it is a permanent card that cannot activate it's ability until chapter 1 (and as a permanent in the deck, graveyard, or hand I guess we can assume that is like chapter zero?) it still has activated abilities.

Then, with respect to Urza's Saga not being able to fetch Walking Ballista, fair enough I suppose! I totally missed that, actually.

Maybe instead of Urza's Saga, because it gets a lot worse if it can't tutor for the combo piece, just another mainboard Walking Ballista and another land would be better.

plakjekaas on Vanish into the Void

3 weeks ago

EleshNornsFs that is usually the case if you are tutoring a card, or finding it in a graveyard, or casting it for free.

A Spellseeker may find a Shatterskull Smashing  ^Flip because in your library, for the mana value of the card, is considered 0.

However, when you pay 8 mana to càst the Shatterskull Smashing  ^Flip, when it is on the stack, its converted mana cost is 8 and it can be hit with a Disdainful Stroke.

It's the difference between the converted mana cost of a card (in your hand, graveyard, library, in play), and the converted mana cost of a spell (on the stack) and they're only different for X spells. You can use Disdainful Stroke on a Walking Ballista being cast for =4, but when it has resolved, the mana cost of the permanent is , and anywhere but on the stack, is considered 0 to determine mana value. That is why it will die to Fatal Push without even activating Revolt.