Warstorm Surge

Enchantment

Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, it deals damage equal to its power to target creature, player or planeswalker.

Discussion (45)

Mana_Mythic_Legendary on Pursuing Perfection, Part 9: Gruul …

1 week ago

In the last article, I referenced the opinion that Heath Ledger’s Joker is a Rakdos player. Here, I further submit that Godzilla is a Gruul player, or would be if you could find cards big enough. Big, stompy, and gloriously unsubtle, if you like mind games then maybe this isn’t for you. The rest of us will have a grand old time stampeding over you in the true Rhythm of the Wild.

Parsing out themes within Gruul commanders was a little more challenging than the past color pairings. While there are obvious trends like ramp and damage, I’d prefer to discuss things that are more in line with both colors rather than one or the other. To that end, we’re discussing X, Power, and Unsubtlety. As always, please bear in mind that the point isn’t a discussion of the competitive but rather a celebration of the thematic.

X

Bear with me. There are only six legal Red-Green spells with X in the cost, and not all of them are playable. However, there are currently eighty red X spells in print, sixty-eight in green. The other colors all have less. Of those 148 cards, 71 do some sort of damage. My point is this: In the Green corner, we have the undisputed champion of ramp, while in the Red corner we see, by inference, the most willing color to serve as a mana dump. Klauth's Will is probably the only Gruul X spell I’d play, but there are lots, and I mean LOTS, of mono-colored choices for channeling your inner flamethrower.

A 4/4 for four? Not bad. That taps for four? Woot! Heck, I run every Gilded Lotus I own, and that’s only good for three mana! If you like X spells, Rosheen is a nice, reliable bet that probably won’t draw much hate.

This guy? Unlike Rosheen, he might draw hate, and in spades. Doesn’t look relevant to X at first glance, does he? All that draw is magnificent, and an excuse to finally go tribal werewolves is well and good. Come nightfall, though, and he suddenly turns into a Kessig Wolf Run. Crack enough mana and you can kill everyone with one wolf token each. Good times.

This card was made for Goblin Bombardment and all it’s disgusting relatives. Sweet mercy, what a load of combo this is. Crack infinite, Make a pile of tokens, play it, empty it, play it again.

Power

Green’s fatties tend to be just that: well-rounded. Most of them have equal power and toughness, or near to it. In Red, however, you see things like Spark Elemental frequently: potent attackers made to die quickly, loudly, and messily. Both colors, though, have a passion for dominating in the combat phase. From Runes of the Deus to Fires of Yavimaya, there’s a fine sweep of support for storming enemy lines, and there are a number of Gruul commanders who do the same.

Whoa nelly, let them fight is right! Suddenly all those glass cannons Red gave you are made mighty, mighty thick by offense being, after all this time, the best defense. Flowstone Slide is suddenly tempting to play, frighteningly so. I don’t know what other chicaneries you might get into, but this is something I’d love to see played.

Omnath, Locus of Mana had a flying, hasty baby. I’m just going to leave this here and remark that any other commentary I would have made is being drowned out by maniacal laughter.

You like command damage, right? Of course you do. Well, that’s not the point here. However, playing big toys is strongly endorsed, especially when paired with Unnatural Growth and all those delightful parallels to the Pathbreaker Ibex. Get tall, go wide.

Unsubtlety

One could argue for the elegance of simplicity, but there’s nothing elegant about clubbing your opponents with chonks or hosing them down with napalm. Black, now, black’s plenty elegant. Blue is stupid elegant. Green and Red, though, lean towards an extremely direct approach. Here, we’re talking commanders that reward simplicity, encouraging unorthodox deck construction in order to reap some sort of reward.

Lands and critters, critters and land. And SUCH land! I always loved Heartbeat of Spring, but most similar effects double everyone’s stuff, or a particular kind of stuff. Not Nikya. Nikya gives only to you, provided you want to spend it on creatures. Props if you start pulling crazy tricks with Ashaya, Soul of the Wild.

Always swing? Ok. Reach and Vigilance? With two heads, I’m not surprised. 6 damage to anyone not playing a proper spell? Gloriously unsubtle, and less prohibitive than Nikya. Faced with the prospect of self-immolation in seven spells, Blue is going to be very, very cross with you, to say nothing of artifact decks.

The big guy puts me in mind of a line from X-Men Origins: Wolverine. “I'm coming for blood; no law, no code of conduct. You put me in the right direction, you get the hell out of my way.” This looks hard to pull off, but lordy the work it’ll do when you manage! I know from experience that green has all the kit necessary to fill a hand with land: give ol’ Borbor a deck excessively stocked with lands, a few choice options to shuffle your graveyard back in, stick him with Basilisk Collar and get to work.

And, for my personal favorite...

We HAD to discuss him at some point. Nobody is going to look at this guy piloting your deck and wonder what’s going to happen. You are going to spam land drops like nobody’s business until you can afford to plunk his expensive ass on the field, and then you are going to start making an EFFORT. You are going to throw thiccness at absolutely everyone. And, above all, there will be a delightedly murderous glint in your eye whenever someone suggests boardwiping. I know because this is an old, old deck of mine; there’s a bare-bones toolkit, then 40-odd lands and a massive pile of land-rush and “whenever you play a creature.” Think Warstorm Surge, Animist's Awakening, and an excessive collection of the actual token.

That's it for this round. Thoughts and questions are welcome. I hope you enjoyed it, and will come back next week for a real favorite of mine, Selesnya!

Prior Articles:

Rakdos

Dimir

Azorius

Green, with links to the other mono-colors

TrashWolf95 on Wolf Army

2 weeks ago

As a fellow wolf/werewolf player myself I have a few suggestions to make your deck a bit better. First I would remove Meteorite it's a high mana cost for not a lot in return I would suggest replacing it with The Celestus as it's cheaper mana rock and has synergy with your werewolves and the draw/discard ability is super useful. I would also remove Burn the Accursed in favour of maybe Lightning Bolt, Moonlight Hunt or Banefire.

A few other cards off the top of my head that I play in my wolf/werewolf deck that are very useful are Rampant Growth, Warstorm Surge, Atarka's Command, Destructive Revelry, Nightpack Ambusher, Cult of the Waxing Moon, Cultivate, Wolfcaller's Howl, Master of the Hunt, Shamanic Revelation, Elemental Bond, Beast Whisperer, Wild Defiance, Scorned Villager  ^Flip, Overwhelming Stampede and Rhythm of the Wild.

Overall for your first edh deck you have some good picks and synergies I like the midnight hunt theme

TypicalTimmy on Where do you personally draw …

3 weeks ago

My general strategy is to have more spells than the table has removal. I don't worry about one or two people holding up a counterspell or a path to exile. Similarly, I tend to not worry about their plays either.

I get my stuff out faster than the rest of the table, then overwhelm with a force they can't hope to stop.

This tends to make all of my decks very heavily reliant on combat damage and combat tricks, but there are ways to mix that up. In my aforementioned Lathliss deck, I have a bit of cruel control such as with Mudslide and Citadel of Pain, as well as Blood Moon and some others.

Then I passively create damage via Chandra, Awakened Inferno, Impact Tremors, Dragon Tempest, Warstorm Surge, Scourge of Valkas, Terror of the Peaks, Purphoros, God of the Forge and more. Also Sarkhan the Masterless

Ramp, I've got Mana Crypt, Ancient Tomb, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Mox Amber, Chrome Mox, Mox Tantalite, Mox Diamond and other staples.

Even cost reduction via Ruby Medallion, cloudkey, Urza's Incubator, Herald's Horn, Dragonlord's Servant and Dragonspeaker Shaman.

I can cheat via Sunbird's Invocation, Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast and Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded - who also serves as a haste enabler on top of like the six other haste enablers in the deck. Oh and Spinerock Knoll.

It even has recursion. For example, Haven of the Spirit Dragon, Vesuva and Thespian's Stage.

...it's like a $1,000 deck... For a $4 Commander, lol

Stardragon on Feisty Gruul Mother

1 month ago

Crucible of Fire, Obelisk of Urd,Vanquisher's Banner or Jugan, the Rising Star to buff your dragons and give you more card draw, Gruul War Chant or Goblin War Drums to give them even more evasion Purphoros, God of the Forge, Impact Tremors and Warstorm Surge for more ETB Burning, Balefire Dragon for massive field clearing potential (the bigger it get the damage it to the field) Moonveil Dragon for a field firebreathing effect, Dragon Broodmother for big tokens, while not dragons Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion and Neheb, the Eternal both ramp you very well, Ryusei, the Falling Star, Star of Extinction, Savage Twister, Starstorm and Blasphemous Act for board wipes. Red rituals like Pyretic Ritual, Seething Song, Mana Geyser or Battle Hymn quick mana and Braid of Fire for steady ever increasing mana. Can't go wrong with the Bird duo of Birds of Paradise and Gilded Goose for mana nor is Archetype of Endurance bad for protection Gratuitous Violence and Fiendish Duo are both one sided Furnace of Rath. Fervor or Fires of Yavimaya make dragons hasty, and Glorybringer and Combat Celebrant can be massive boon and if you Seedborn Muse you can alway have them untapped as exerted creatures only don't untapp during your phase but since seedborn untaps during opponents turns they also untap so you can get 4 free damage and an extra combat step ever turn. Savage Beating + Spellbinder can give free extra combat and if you use this combo the entwine also happens so you get both Savage Beating's effect's each time it goes off.

seshiro_of_the_orochi on Feisty Gruul Mother

1 month ago

Ok, so Sol Ring is a powerful card. I can understand when you leave it out on purpose, but otherwise, I'd heavily suggest adding it. Great ramp for dragon decks are Dragonspeaker Shaman and Dragonlord's Servant.

Warstorm Surge is a second Terror of the Peaks. Cryptic Gateway can cheat dragons into play for basically free.

Chaos Warp is red's Beast Within. Draconic Intervention is a great, on flavour boardwipe.

Playing four Dragon's Approach makes no sense. You have to exile five of them for the effect, so that's the minimum. But as you'd want to have a big number of it, you'd basically have to play at least twenty. So maybe drop these and add at least some more lands. 34 is very few. 36 or 37 should be ok.

The rest looks fine. Have fun playing it.

multimedia on Draconic Rage Precon Upgraded

1 month ago

Hey, well done with upgrading the precon on a budget.

Greater Good and Goblin Bombardment let you abuse Dragon Spirits before they're saced after doing damage. When a Dragon Spirit does damage it makes a sacrifice trigger that has to resolve from the stack before the token is saced. When the trigger is on the stack you can response to it by sacing the token for value. Greater is draw 5 cards and Bombardment is do 1 damage to Vrondiss to create another Dragon Spirit. When Vrondiss is indestructible, Bombardment can be part a combo to do infinite damage to opponents with any two of Dragon Tempest, Scourge of Valkas, Terror of the Peaks, Outpost Siege or Warstorm Surge.

• Greater Good --> Wild Endeavor
• Goblin Bombardment --> Indomitable Might

Wild Endeavor is a six mana ramp spell with only d4 rolls, you don't really want to be casting ramp with six mana.

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Consider more repeatable draw sources which the precon really lacks. More effects that draw a card whenever a Spirit Dragon is created and from other enrage: Ripjaw Raptor, Garruk's Packleader, Elemental Bond.

Ripjaw Raptor is another good creature to make indestructible because then you can draw cards by doing damage to it. Garruk's Packleader draw is a may, you can stop drawing at any time. With Packleader in your control and Vrondiss is indestructible then one of Dragon Tempest, Scourge of Valkas, Terror of the Peaks, Outpost Siege or Warstorm Surge will create as many Dragon Spirits who will do damage/sac itself as you want which is draw as many cards as you want.

• Ripjaw Raptor --> Wulfgar of Icewind Dale
• Garruk's Packleader --> Chameleon Colossus
• Elemental Bond --> Neverwinter Hydra

Wulfgar of Icewind Dale is out of place in the precon and here because there's very few cards that trigger when the creature attacks. He's not worth keeping really just for Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient.

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One area from the precon you haven't upgraded is the manabase, it's still 39 lands and 27 basic lands. Some lands to consider adding in place of some basic lands and Underdark Rift:

• Karplusan Forest
• Fire-Lit Thicket
• Grove of the Burnwillows
• Rootbound Crag
• Rockfall Vale
• Cragcrown Pathway  ^Flip
• Highland Forest
• Naya Panorama
• Jund Panorama
• Tyrite Sanctum
• Rogue's Passage
• Bonders' Enclave

I don't think you need 39 lands, some of them could be cut for lower CMC ramp such as Farseek, Talisman of Impulse and Sakura-Tribe Elder. Because you have Cinder Glade and could add Highland Forest then Farseek has a dual land to search for. For two mana Tyrite Sanctum can repeatedly put a counter on Vrondiss to make him bigger. Once he's a God then Sanctum can be saced to make Vrondiss indestructible. Both these effects are helpful coming from a land.

I offer more advice. Good luck with your deck.

Profet93 on Hyperbolic Genesis Chamber Norin

1 month ago

CaptainKidd

+1 nice control Norin build with a low AVG cmc. I'll try to suggest ideas that might work for your deck

War Room - Draw, albet expensive. You have room for flexibility in your mana base despite valakut

Mind Stone - Ramp/Draw

Chain Reaction - Wipe/Removal

Ignite the Future/Light Up the Stage - "Draw." While ignite's flashback is expensive and less of a payoff in a low CMC build, draw is crucial in red so you don't run out of gas. Especially without a wheel of fortune. Activating top to draw the top card prior to activation allows you a guaranteed card to cast.

Curse of Opulence - Ramp and politics. Dont overlook this

Outpost Siege - Draw or removal

Warstorm Surge - While expensive, puts in work. I like it more than pandemonium personally as pandamonium usually backfires due to the green or reanimator player

Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Draw/Removal/Ramp/Wincon all in one!

Should you wish, you can check out my deck Norin Naughty Nonsense copy for other ideas. My build is different than yours due to our meta and playstyles. I focus my build on ramp and draw rather than cheaper control cards. This helps ensure a powerful lategame. Mana doublers + Draw can get out of hand fast.

griffstick on Zombie lords

1 month ago

We had Rooftop Storm in the deck I don't remember why we removed it. Warstorm Surge is red. Door of Destinies was pulled because door was to slow.