Thrasios & Alena
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Aug. 22, 2020, 8:05 p.m. by davidsays1
Seeing as Alena,Kessig Trapper goes infinite by herself with Haste, and Umbral Mantle Should we see this as a dangerous partner pairing?
SynergyBuild says... #3
I mean why either with cards like Thassa's Oracle xD
Just easier then having people with hexproof, just have infinite mana, draw your deck, play every Simic Signet effect to get blue mana, hold up countermagic, cast an oracle, win the game easy.
Not a problem in my own opinion, but yes this deck seems SWEET
August 22, 2020 8:57 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #4
It's just like Thrasios & Kydele.
The combo existed in the command zone, now it has red added. It wasn't a problem before this, and I don't think Vexing Shusher, Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast/Deflecting Swat, Faithless Looting/Izzet Charm, Dockside Extortionist, or Blood Moon is gonna break the deck.
Red has good cards, but it isn't like adding Black to the list with all the tutors, or white which has a ton of equipment tutors, it's red, which is probably the safest color to add to the deck. Yes I know Goblin Engineer can get Umbral Mantle, but is that really gonna be the thing that breaks every game? doubtful xD
August 22, 2020 10:02 p.m.
davidsays1 says... #6
SynergyBuild i was thinking that too, just couldn't figure out how to get the blue for some reason i spaced on mana rocks. Yeah i remembered Kydele i just figured red was better then colorless at that point.
TypicalTimmy idk i thought it sounded cool i know it can be responded to i figured the haste would be swiftfoot so you can't target her, she doesn't need another creature to enter though i think she does it herself so you just keep generating 1 red nonstop. You can respond to the untap? Ive always abused the stack by untapping before the creature gets the buff from the mantle then retapping everyones always told me they cant respond to that
I also figured it would be cool to get extra combats with unblockable and a huge Alena lol if your other direct damage somehow failed.
August 22, 2020 10:59 p.m.
davidsays1 says... #7
TypicalTimmy from what i read right now them paying 3 is part of a cost to untap which also can't be responded to, you can however respond after the cost is paid to which they can just tap the commander again and keep the cycle going.
August 22, 2020 11:46 p.m.
There is no point to thinking about the combat step if you combo off with Alena, Kessig Trapper + Umbral Mantle + Thrasios, Triton Hero
. If your opponent cannot stop it then this combo lets you play or cast your entire library in one turn including all of your lands. Thrasios, Triton Hero's ability uses colorless mana to activate. So you can go infinite red mana, with just Alena and the mantle. Then with Thrasios added in, you then activate him X times where X is your library card count and put all of your land into play tapped, Scry X and draw X of not-lands. After that, with your non-land library in your hand, you cast a mana filter like Gemstone Array. Then you pump like 10,000 mana into the array using Alena. Then cast your library that is in your hand. I would expect something in there could win the game.
August 22, 2020 11:49 p.m.
davidsays1 says... #9
MagicMarc yes! That is exactly what i envisioned it sounds amazing to me. If someone trys to counter your win con you have Red Elemental Blast for example
August 22, 2020 11:52 p.m.
SynergyBuild says... #10
Umbral Mantle is interesting, you can make infinite mana before passing priority with it, but then you have to pass it like infinite times.
August 23, 2020 12:04 a.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #11
Priority is a fun thing, yes. The thing with red's "counterspells" is that they are very limited (obviously), but what that means is a blue player can just hold up Force of Will Pact of Negation Fierce Guardianship and Foil and just counter your commander, and then counter your counter, and then combo off and kill you. Still powerful though, just intractable like TypicalTimmy said
August 23, 2020 12:16 a.m.
As a Pili-Pala combo player in modern, y’all need some help with this. Alena, Kessig Trapper + Umbral Mantle works exactly like Grand Architect + Pili-Pala. Allow me to explain exactly when you can and can’t interact:
1) alena doesn’t have haste. You may interact when the combo player tries to give her haste (if they do). If they don’t, you may interact when they pass priority.
2) you may interact when they go to equip Umbral Mantle.
Once the mantle is on and Alena can tap, it’s over. Alena’s tap ability generates mana, which means it bypasses interaction. Mantle untaps as part of the cost, so you can’t stop the untap, and as explained, you can’t stop follow-up tap/untaps. You CANNOT stop alena + mantle + thrassios once it gets going. You may only stop it in aforementioned ways. Combat isn’t how you win with this combo, the mana and thrassios plus a wincon is. Idk why people are bringing in combat, it’s irrelevant, as is responding to the mantle. All you’re actually responding to is one instance of +2/+2 which ultimately doesn’t matter.
This all said: Alena lacking haste is huge. From a competitive standpoint, even one point of interaction is enough. Having both the haste enabler/full cycle survival of alena (parallels with Pili-Pala’s restrictions) AND the equip activation (similar to Grand Architect turning pili blue), your opponents are just way too likely to be able to stop this combo one way or another. Genuinely, if GA + pala isn’t good enough for modern, I don’t see how alena + mantle (which costs more mana) is gonna make a splash in cEDH, a faster format with superior interaction.
August 23, 2020 12:32 a.m. Edited.
you cannot respond to the untap activation. That is considered a cost. You can, however, respond to whatever ability gets activated when the creature untaps. In the rulings section for Umbral Mantle at the gatherer:
5/1/2008 When you activate an Untap ability, you untap the creature with that ability as a cost. The untap can’t be responded to. (The actual ability can be responded to, of course.)
August 23, 2020 12:36 a.m.
Ugg headache from loops
Ok so you are correct the +2 does go on the stack and can be responded to
BUT its not that easy.
K first no more infinite if you say infinite the game is a draw
You declare a deterministic loop and claim idk 10k
Then priority will shift 1 time and everyone will pick a number of loops the wish to respond
then the loop will run till lowest number and that player gets priority then next lowest etc. etc.
Now that loop can not be run again untill there has been a "meaningfull change" to the game
Easiest explanation of meaningfull change is someone else did something else
Example: you casting a path to exile in response to the the +2
which basicly means they can just declare the loop another 10k times in response
so the path to exile will resolve and pop it but not till after they already got the mana out of it
Hope thats helpfull
August 23, 2020 3:46 p.m.
Omniscience_is_life says... #15
That is true.
But you're an idiot if you Path after they begin looping, just remove Alena as soon as she enters!
davidsays1 says... #2
DeinoStinkus i was thinking more oh infinite mana turn 2-4 use thrasios to find for example Comet Storm and win
August 22, 2020 8:16 p.m.