Whispering Wizard
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Alchemy Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Brawl 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
Pioneer Legal
Planechase Legal
Pre-release Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Standard Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Whispering Wizard

Creature — Human Wizard

Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, create a 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying. This ability triggers only once each turn.

multimedia on Urza’s legion

9 months ago

Hey, good start on a budget with what you have so far. Command Tower is a budget staple land for multicolored Commander decks and Arcane Signet is a budget staple mana rock.

Ramos, Dragon Engine can only be played in a five color deck using it as Commander or another five color Commander. It's activated ability has all five mana symbols and those symbols count toward it's color identity. Urza's color identity is only three colors Esper (black, white, blue). Because Urza doesn't have red and green that's why Ramos can't be played with Urza as Commander.

If you want aggro with Urza lets look at the beginning of the mana curve first, cards spots of 0-3 CMC only then we can look at the higher end of the mana curve. The first changes to consider is to remove all the nonartifact creatures and then later determine if they are worth a spot in your deck because they have abilities that help artifacts or Urza. I think you'll find that you don't need any of these creatures because artifact creatures can take their places. If you want to be aggro with Urza then you want to utilize Urza's artifact creature affinity to cast Urza quicker. To do this consistently Urza wants 0-2 CMC artifact creatures and some 3 CMC artifact creatures more than the rest.

Some of these creatures may be added back in later, most likely not, but for now lets build the creature base with only artifact creatures. For making upgrades lets look at best cards here with Urza and build around them? Arcbound Ravager and Portal to Phyrexia are the two best cards here with Urza because they're artifacts and they're abilities are more powerful compared to most other cards here. Ravager brings the aggro, but if aggro doesn't do it and you need more reach to win the game then Portal can do that. Lets start with Ravager and what makes it better with Urza? Modular and you have some here, more one drops can help toward Urza's artifact creature affinity and Ravager.

Steel Overseer adds to the +1/+1 counter strategy, it's powerful but only for artifact creatures and if trying to be aggro it's a good reason to play very few nonartifact creatures. Silas Renn, Seeker Adept goes well with Arcbound Ravager since with Ravager you want to sac artifacts and Silas lets you cast an artifact from your graveyard. It's deathtouch combined with Urza's menace makes it a creature who opponent is not going to block and lose two or more creatures blocking it. Baleful Strix, Triarch Praetorian, Malcator's Watcher are two drop artifact creatures who fly and who draw when enter the battlefield (ETB) or dies.

Some artifacts here are worse than others.

Think about limiting the amount of nonartifact spells to just the better ones you have here?

Equipment that increases the equipped creature's power equal to the amount of artifacts you control really ups the aggro since then any little artifact creature can become huge which combined with menace can make it a great attacker. I see Silver Myr and it's good here since counts twice for Urza, artifact creature affinity and ramp. Consider adding more artifact creature mana dorks who can make colored mana?

The budget Signets can help for ramp as well as color fixing which is really needed because the manabase here is pretty much all basic lands. Arcane Signet is a staple budget mana rock for ramp in Commander. Chromatic Lantern is fine for color fixing, but you're going to want more than that.

Some nonartifact creatures at the beginning of the mana curve can really help aggro and Urza.

Losheel, Clockwork Scholar is powerful with artifact creatures when attacking is what you want to be doing especially Constructs. Your artifact creatures don't take damage in combat meaning that opponents will have a difficult time choosing to block since their blockers might die, but your creatures will be fine. Losheel is also repeatable draw, once on each players turn when an artifact creature ETB you draw this includes when a Construct is created by Urza if you didn't have an artifact creature ETB before your end step.

Sai, Master Thopterist can be a repeatable source of artifact creatures, Thopters, to be attackers or sac fodder. Emry, Lurker of the Loch is like Silas Renn, Seeker Adept more ways to cast artifacts from your graveyard is good with Arcbound Ravager and other sac outlets.

That's it for this comment, but if you're still interested I'll give advice about the high end of the mana curve here to take more advantage of aggro into mid game and Portal to Phyrexia late game as well as some budget land options for the manabase. Would you like more advice?

Good luck with your deck.

LandoLRodriguez on Talrand No-kens

1 year ago

thefiresoflurve First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to look over my list and put some real thought into these last cuts. I truly appreciate it. I understand all of what you had to say, and was having some of the same thoughts myself. As I said before, all these cards made it through several rounds of cuts so I have my reasons for them still being here. That said:

Minn, Wily Illusionist is still here because I like playing the quirky legendary creatures in my colors. There's not much else here that pumps the team the way she does and she would interact nicely with Murmuring Mystic. All this still probably isn't good enough reason to keep her though. Unless I'm drawing 2+ cards on each opponents' turn (which I'm probably not), her token output comes up short. Whispering Wizard is on the block for the same per-turn production limitation. Plus, I don't have much as far as scary permanents to cheat out with her second ability (nor a reliable way to kill my illusions to do so). It'll hurt to cut one of my token producers, but yeah, she's on the block for sure.

Wizard Class because I loathe having to discard for hand size, and I plan on drawing a lot of cards. Taking this one out means I'm left with only Reliquary Tower, Sea Gate Restoration  Flip, and possibly Venser's Journal. I suppose that the amount of draw I hope to produce means I'll come across one of those other options, but it still worries me. Probably still not a good enough reason to keep it in though.

I like Capsize because I love having repeatable options in commander decks, and because it can target any permanent. It's great to have options to bounce a troublesome land if the need arises. Paying 6 total mana to do so (and keep Capsize) is probably not worth it though. I included Field of Ruin and Strip Mine to deal with problem lands, and I have Boomerang and Cryptic Command to bounce any permanent still.

I really like Guile because it does a lot of things for me I think. Besides its mega-menace, I like that it exiles my opponents' spells should I choose not to cast them. I'm guessing that opponents may steer away from casting big splashy spells while Guile is out though for fear of having them turned against them or losing access to them in exile. It also provides just a little bit of mill insurance with its last ability. I hate mill as a strategy and while I'm running a few recursion spells, I'm not going to have much graveyard interaction. I suppose Nexus of Fate does the same thing much better though, since ideally I could cast it every turn if I wound up being milled down to 1 and it would wind up back in the library. Anyway, I was excited about running Guile as I was putting this together but you may be right, might be more than I need.

Ominous Seas I figure will drop its token every other turn on average if the game is going at all the way I want it to. While I should be pumping out an army of small tokens, I figured it would be nice to have some big chonky bodies out there as well. Without trample existing in the deck though, an 8/8 without flying is no different than a 1/1 tentacle as long as you've got a plant to block it. You're right, probably win-more. I do want to win more though...

I certainly understand that Aetherflux Reservoir really shines in storm decks (which no, this one most certainly is not). While I wouldn't be working it as well as storming does, I do plan to cast a lot of cheap spells, sometimes several in a turn in a good game. Something mono-blue is not good at is gaining life, so I really want to include at least one or two pieces that can do that for me for matchups that are pinging down the whole table. So the reservoir serves both as a way to gain life, and as a possible alternative win-con in a pinch. Between reservoir and Venser's Journal though, I probably lean towards the journal to retain as an emergency life gain option. I run it in my Pheldagriff deck and it has proven itself a workhorse.

Finally, I see Psychosis Crawler as another possible win-con. At my LGS where I play at least, I run into a lot of decks that efficiently pump out tokens. This means that if beating face with tokens is going to be my only strategy to win games, there's gonna be some games where that just won't get me there. I can see crawler coming out late-game when life totals have dwindled, and being able to finish everyone off with a big Gadwick, the Wizened or Blue Sun's Zenith cast. I was honestly seeing crawler as a mortal lock to make the final cut, but you've given me something to think about for sure.

Thanks again for your input, I really do appreciate and you've definitely helped by reinforcing some stuff I was already thinking and giving me reasons to think about cutting some stuff I was not.

9-lives on HELL MILL

1 year ago

I would say that you could cipher a card onto Slither Blade, to make it doubly useful, but I can't seem to find anything that is as good as Sword of Body and Mind. What would you like to use to defend yourself with? Generating tokens are prohibitive considering that Dimir only has a few options, like Murmuring Mystic, Talrand, Sky Summoner, or Whispering Wizard which are expensive MV wise.