Winter Orb

Artifact

As long as Winter Orb is untapped, players can't untap more than one land during their untap steps.

Combos

• Loxodon Gatekeeper + Winter Orb
• Orb of Dreams + Winter Orb
• Thalia, Heretic Cathar + Winter Orb
• Nature's Will + Winter Orb

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Oldschool 93/94	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (48)

treeforcorvus on Make this better

1 month ago

Cataclysm can work against you based on opponents' picks and though Enter the Infinite is impressive & works with Omniscience, I don't see Thassa's Oracle or Laboratory Maniac, nor do I see Grapeshot. Consider instead Boros Charm + Armageddon which most people will hate & sometimes outright scoop after.

Mana Vault is more of a risk than you might think without untap mechanics (See Derevi, last paragraph). Consider Thought Vessel or even Library of Leng.

Replace Lion's Eye Diamond with Land Tax. The latter also helps offset the pain from Need for Speed, which is a cool find.

Consider Smothering Tithe instead of Mystic Remora: Remora usually only nets a few cards at beginning, and will often slow you down more than it helps. The former performs MUCH more consistently, and will net you more mana to focus on spells and counters.

Concerning your SB: If you want to go maximum lock-stax, I'd recommend Derevi, Empyrial Tactician. Use Winter Orb, Static Orb & Stasis, use Kismet and Loxodon Gatekeeper, maybe even Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines. Use fetches + basic lands, huge ramp, and Back to Basics just to spite opponents. NB: Mana Vault smacks with Derevi.

Profet93 on 50 Shades of Annihilator

1 month ago

SufferFromEDHD, did you say profet? :)

KingLonsur, Perhaps a Crucible of Worlds to go with sac lands, particularly buried ruins for artifact recursion.

I am not too familiar with the newer cards but there was a 12 mana card that seems right up your alley given all your ramp.

Scroll Rack and Sensei's Divining Top to manipulate topdeck and ensure land drops?

How about some super mild control like Winter Orb to keep your opponents in check and bait removal prior to you ramping unaffected by artifacts?

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SaberTech on Atraxa Stax

1 month ago

I think that this deck list is still a bit unfocused. It is basically saying that it wants to stall things out and win with poison counters, and it has the Magistrate's Scepter + Coretapper + Atraxa, Praetors' Voice combo for infinite turns, but there are a number of cards included that will only do synergistic things some of the time that will water down your meaningful draws.

Some cards to consider to increase your potential to kill with poison counters include Evolution Sage, Tekuthal, Inquiry Dominus, Inexorable Tide, and Phyresis Outbreak. I'm also kind of partial to Viral Drake. Tekuthal can act as an alternative to Coretapper for your Magistrate's Scepter combo.

I think that a lot of your STAX stuff will often feel lackluster since you aren't running any support to help you break parity on them. To get the most out of Winter Orb and Stasis it helps to have cards such as Nature's Will or Sword of Feast and Famine. There are also cards that tap down permanents/artifacts that you can use to tap down the Orbs at the end of your opponent's turn so that you can untap all your lands on your turn.

Cards that drain life like Scheming Aspirant and Bloodchief Ascension probably aren't worth it if you are trying to kill with poison counters. The life gain that you get off them is also pretty negligible. Although, if you had Mindcrank to combo with the Ascension it could function as a backup win condition.

You don't actually run that many cards that put counters on themselves or other cards you control, so Power Conduit and Soul Diviner look pretty lackluster on the basis of them not likely being consistent value when you draw into them.

I don't know what your commander meta is like, but in general there isn't a lot of targeted land destruction in casual games. Tomik, Distinguished Advokist will rarely be of any worth in most casual groups unless you regularly play against someone who uses cards like Crucible of Worlds to net value off of fetch lands and utility lands.

You have very few artifacts that send themselves to the graveyard. I think there is an argument to be made that you will rarely get much value out of Glissa, the Traitor's ability, even taking into consideration the possibility of getting back artifacts that opponents destroy. Still a decent blocker I guess. A more general effect like Eternal Witness in that slot may provide more consistent value though.

Those are just a few suggestions. I could think of more once I have a better idea of how you are looking to develop the deck further.

Icbrgr on Modern Horizons 3 Predictions/Wishlist

1 month ago

@wallisface would a new and improved Imperiosaur help 5 color soup or just make it better? lol

color shifted Blood Moon could be neat... especially for black acting like a differnt/additional Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth?

Frankly after getting hit with rakdos scam decks I almost don't even think Smokestack/Winter Orb would be any worse lol... but with all do respect please no i pray those cards don't come to modern.

@nbarry223 I also really could do without anymore "POWER" added to modern... at least in the generic sense... i like your take on sideboard cards and power boosts to niche archetypes

wallisface on Modern Horizons 3 Predictions/Wishlist

1 month ago

I’m really hoping they implement some cards/strategies to incentivise playing less colours in a deck, as we’ve been increasingly migrating towards a 5-colour-soup environment.

To that end i’d really like them to have devotion as one of the larger themes of the set. I’d also very much like to see a colour-shifted Blood Moon style effect in Black (or possibly Blue?).

Outside of that the only cards i’d like to see added to the format are degenerate nonsense like Smokestack and Winter Orb. Imo Smokestack would be pretty safe in modern, but also conceivably far too miserable to play against to probably warrant adding to the format. Winter Orb could probably only come in as a “fixed” version of the card, like what was done with Lions-Eye.

DreadKhan on Need help ruining a combo players day

2 months ago

Thorn of Amethyst, Glowrider, Sphere of Resistance, Vryn Wingmare, and Eidolon of Rhetoric all exist, but I'm guessing they didn't make the cut?

Retribution of the Meek might be a reasonable wipe with so many smaller creatures, ditto Elspeth, Sun's Champion. If a wipe is one sided it's not just resetting the board, not sure how many of these you're willing to run. Elspeth makes a small army, much better at blocking than the Samurai from Wanderer fwiw, but Wanderer is really strong too. Smothering Tithe is great with Stasis out, Brago, King Eternal might be fun too. If people are running obnoxious stuff, you could run Enlightened Tutor to find your Stasis/Tithe cards as needed, Muddle the Mixture can find both Stasis or Brave the Sands, while also being a counterspell. If you like Stasis, you could also try Static Orb, Meekstone, Crackdown or even Winter Orb/Rising Waters, not sure how hostile you want to be but Stasis is harsher than these. How often do you cast Approach of the Second Sun in here? I ask because there are a lot of tax effects, but if it's not trouble have you thought about running some tutors to find it? The best ones I can think of are Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, and Solve the Equation, they can also find other cards as needed, handy if you need removal, a wipe or a counter.

As for alternatives that can do similar things, you might look at either Zur the Enchanter or Hinata, Dawn-Crowned as alternatives that offer more offensive punch while still offering a solid route to shutting the table down. Zur can dig out enchantments like Rule of Law, Stasis (and Black Market Connections) and various ways to fairly quickly win the game, all while being able to hold up lots of mana for interaction, be it counters or removal. Hinata is another tax effect, but you get access to Red as well, and Red has some interesting additions to the Stax department, you'd definitely want Grand Arbiter in your Hinata deck, and you'd run most of the same cards, but you also have the option of running a bunch of cards that care about Hinata's discount, Hinata makes interaction better, especially if it has multiple targets, the annoying thing for both is that they're much harder to cast than Grand Arbiter, so you'd have to raise your budget to have the same consistency. The big problem with Zur is protecting him. If there are literally specific players you know are a problem you can run either Baral, Chief of Compliance or Talrand, Sky Summoner, Baral is better at playing 'Counter Everything' but Talrand can be just offensively good vs a specific player since he also is generating evasive bodies while interacting with that player's win attempts. The nice thing about he mono-Blue approach is you can just brutalize a player or two while letting the others play a smaller (but more normal) game.

Oh, if those players run specific colours (and nobody else likes them as much) there are old school colour hosers, cards like Karma can make life extremely hard. They exist for all colours, and they were so staggeringly unpopular that the developer stopped printing cards like it.

Profet93 on Emrakul, The Promised Turn

3 months ago

Ardees - It's been a while, I hope you're doing well.

How has thaumatic compass worked for you given you only run 3 wastes? Would you not be better served by something in your maybeboard such as Chromatic Orrery? Orrey acts as ramp and another potential combo piece with rings + voltaic key. Krark-Clan Ironworks has huge combo potential as I'm sure you're aware. Myr retriever seems decent should you find yourself needing more recursion.

Torpor Orb and Winter Orb are other potential considerations as well. Torpor only effects Duplicant. Winter orb can be mitigated by 1) All of your ramp 2) Blinkmoth Well (also note, Blinkmoth Urn). I'm unsure of your meta, deck weaknesses (aside from mass artifact hate) but I think winter orb is the best card for the deck. It allows you to stabilize and get set up. Your only issue would be the green deck with dorks IMO.

legendofa on Help me torture

5 months ago

Hand = hurting: Black Vise, Ebony Owl Netsuke, Iron Maiden, Misers' Cage, Sword of War and Peace

Bounce: Blood Clock, Crystal Shard, Surgical Skullbomb, Umbilicus

Standard stax/tax effects: Smokestack, Tangle Wire, Winter Orb, Thorn of Amethyst, God-Pharaoh's Statue, Damping Sphere, Trinisphere, Sphere of Resistance, Cursed Totem, Static Orb, Meekstone, Norn's Annex, Mindlock Orb

Artifact creatures with these effects: Viseling, Neurok Replica, Esper Sentinel

Pulled mostly from EDHrec, and I only hit the highlights. https://edhrec.com/themes/stax