Underworld Breach - New Era of Winning

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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

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I've been playing Underworld Breach in a number of decks and in a few different capacities. But the overriding factor is that it is commanders new powerhouse.

At first it looks similar to Yawgmoth's Will but there is a very real distinction. The fact that it doesn't exile the cards you actually want to cast, means that you only need a couple of action cards in order to get an engine going.
With Yawgmoth's Will if you wanted to generate lots of mana for example, you'd normally need quite a few different types of cards to do it, whether that be a mix of Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, and some number of other mana sources that provide more mana than cost to cast them like Lion's Eye Diamond, Lotus Petal.
But even if I had access to all these cards, generating mana is limited.
You also need specifically a number of these cards to be in your graveyard. Just having a single Dark Ritual as a mana source is not really going to be sufficient enough to string a big turn together.

Underworld Breach on the other hand only requires potentially one outlet for generating mana. As long as you can stock your graveyard you can keep recasting that mana generating source.

For example you only need a Lion's Eye Diamond to keep generating more mana.

What do you need to make Underworld Breach a good card in your deck?
Well at its very worst you can use it to recast say a single card from your graveyard. Is that good enough? Honestly that is not too bad. Especially in Red where getting non-artifact cards from your graveyard is very limited.

However there are three components to making Underworld Breach more dynamic in your deck.
  • Putting cards into your graveyard.
  • Generating mana.
  • Graveyard recovery. If Underworld Breach goes to graveyard, do you have a way to recover it?
Now within this there is also redundancy, meaning the more cards you have that do these particular things, the more likely you are to have access to them.
However a big part of this thread is to also show you that you can run small packages around the card in order to still get great use out of it.

Putting cards into your graveyard
Graveyard strategies are nothing new, and really is one of the cornerstones of Magic across all formats.
Trying to cover all the various ways to do this are going to be too numerous to mention. However I will highlight stuff that can get you thinking about how to use Underworld Breach.

There are cards that can put massive amounts of cards into graveyard all in one go; Oath of Druids, Hermit Druid, Mirror-Mad Phantasm, Traumatize, Fleet Swallower, Morality Shift, Doom Whisperer.

However a big part of Breach is that you find a way to keep recasting particular cards that can put further cards into your graveyard and also look to gain advantages or at least keep digging until you find the card(s) you need to close the game out. These cards also want to be of use potentially in games which you don't get to use Breach.
I've broken this thread into color-combinations and I specifically list cards that caught my attention within these.

Its important to avoiding spinning the wheels too much. If you are looking to cast Thought Scour a number of times for example, it only puts 2 cads into your graveyard and you need to escape 3 cards. If this is your only means of fueling your graveyard you will run out of resources. However you are drawing a card each time.
Say if you start with 7 cards in your graveyard (including the Thought Scour), then you can cast it 4 times. Not bad, but not great either.

Tome Scour is 5 cards, so is netting you 2 cards each time. Now this doesn't actually do anything on its own, costing you a u to put 2 cards into your graveyard essentially. There is going to eventually need to be more of a game plan.

How about some of the Green cards in Commune with the Gods or Gather the Pack? They provide both card advantage and putting cards into your graveyard. Lets say you keep aiming to put 4 cards into your graveyard. This means that as long as you have the mana you can keep casting these for the escape cost.

I feel at this stage its important to look at mana sources as it establishes what is capable with the cost of the graveyard fuel cards.

Generating mana
In order to keep casting cards, you are going to need a way to generate mana. Really anything that can produce more mana than it does to cast it.
In this thread I actually try and go into detail for color selections, but to get an overview of general concepts I'm going to list some cards that show off the ability to do these in a broad manner.

Artifacts Instant or Sorcery Now with ways to add additional mana to lands, you can use a suite of untap land cards to further enable these.
For example High Tide or Extraplanar Lens to produce additional mana.

Here is a list of cards that untap more than one creature. If you have creatures that can tap for more mana than it does to cast the card you can net. Just like untapping creatures there are other cards that untap various permanents, but you are going to probably need a number of them that produce mana in order to net gains.

There are plenty of other-ways you can combine cards to make mana, like cost reduction or creatures that generate mana, but you'd also need a sacrifice outlet.
Or maybe you have something that taps for lots of mana and any way to untap it is going to generate mana.

Also flicker cards can do it, but you need to combine them with very specific cards. Probably the best example of use would be Ghostly Flicker along with lands and/or artifacts that produce at least 4 mana together.

Now as you can see a lot of them are basically combos. That is you need a number of specific cards in order for them to work.

Untapping creatures requires some number of mana creatures in play. If you were to use To Arms! for example you'd need at least enough mana creatures to produce at least 3 mana and one of them White in order to gain.
In a deck that already has or might want to play mana creatures, this is of course fine.

If we look at a lot of these on an individual basis, then often they might only provide a net gain of a single mana. For example Lotus Petal.
Is this really good enough? If you wanted to produce 10 mana then that is 30 cards you need to exile!
Even if you look at Dark Ritual, its netting you only bb each time you cast it. Now this might be enough for what you are trying to do, but its certainly not a given.

I feel its important to identify where you really want to be at with efficiency.
Lion's Eye Diamond is certainly the most singular card that can guarantee 3 mana in all colors without the need for combining it with other cards. Its also over $200, so going to fall a bit short of being feasible for a lot of you. However this card is only ever going to get more uses and is "Reserved List" so if you want at least one take-away from this thread, just get yourself a copy as soon as possible and you can thank me in the future when of course its at least quadruple the price.

If you were looking for just Black or Red mana then Cabal Ritual or Seething Song will net you 3 mana as well.
Bigger gains might be through Songs of the Damned or Mana Geyser given the right setup.

Untapping lands I feel is a consistent and one of the "safer" options for generating mana as well.
Early Harvest, Rude Awakening and Turnabout with more lands than it cost to cast them will all produce mana.
Plus with effects that enable to tap lands for more than one mana also pile up.

At this stage some of you might be familiar with the Underworld Breach Pioneer deck that came in second at Worlds. It basically uses Lotus Field along with untap land effects in Hidden Strings, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Pore Over the Pages to generate mana and card advantages.

Identifying lands that tap for more than one mana and also cards that allow this is important. If you check out my Zacama, Primal Calamity primer in my signature below, then I cover a comprehensive range of cards within Naya that do this.
If you look at Black you have Crypt Ghast, Bubbling Muck, Nirkana Revenant, Cabal Coffers, Cabal Stronghold.
Blue has High Tide.
The cards I don't list in my Zacama build are Extraplanar Lens, Gauntlet of Power and Gauntlet of Might.
Lands that tap for more than one mana are varied as well, with Lotus Field, Lotus Vale, Scorched Ruins, along with "bounce lands", Azorius Chancery, Dimir Aqueduct, etc, as good examples.

You can see a card like Frantic Search becomes very good once you are able to generate mana and be able to fuel your graveyard.

When it comes to non-land permanents, then often it needs to be artifacts or creatures that produce mana.
Dramatic Reversal probably being the best of them for efficiency.
Intellectual Offering is more expensive, therefore needing a threshold of more cards in play to enable it. But you do get the draw to help with finding more cards, although you also allow an opponent to draw into further cards.

Graveyard recovery
Another important question to ask is "Do you have any control over putting Underworld Breach into your hand/play if it does get put into your graveyard?"

There are a lot of ways to put cards into your graveyard, but a lot of them are what is term "milling", meaning basically blindly putting cards from your library into your graveyard.
The problem is if you don't already have Underworld Breach then it could realistically be put into your graveyard.
However there are ways to recover cards from graveyard outside of the Breach itself, and in the following color sections I explain various ways you can go about it.

Does your deck NEED to be a graveyard dedicated deck and/or lots of "ritual" mana sources?
I'm just going to answer this simply, NO.
Really that is the beauty of Underworld Breach is that you can build as much around it as you like, but you can also have a very small number of cards in your deck to fuel it and you can still get incredible use out of it.
Sometimes because you are not dedicating too much of your deck to the strategy you avoid getting locked out too much by graveyard hate cards.

I've found that decks that didn't use the graveyard really at all, now have a means to use it as a resource by just using a small suite of cards.

The other really important thing about Underworld Breach is that you don't particularly need to invest your game in "stocking" up your graveyard.
A card like Yawgmoth's Will often needs to be cast after you've spent some time casting cards and putting cards into your graveyard.

Because of the way you can just use a few of literally the same cards to enable you to get a sizeable graveyard, you can actually just wait until you are ready to start a big turn. which means that you might not have much of a graveyard at the start of your turn at all. This avoids exile graveyard effects that might have been used in the earlier parts of the game, putting a spanner in the works.

Returning the Underworld Breach back to hand for further use
Another element I want to touch on quickly is using return enchantment/permanent cards to hand to return Breach before the end of the turn, and thus be able to use it again later on in the game.
An example is using Chain of Vapor or Winds Rebuke to return it to hand. If you have enough cards in your graveyard you can do this every turn, or maybe look at alternative type turns.
I will have to admit that I personally haven't used it in this way yet, as I've found that I when I'm casting it, I'm aiming on very much winning the turn I play it.
But it is worth considering what cards can do this.



Cards by color
My first disclaimer is that this is by no means meant to be completely comprehensive, its simply my theory-crafting for the afternoon. As such part of the goal is to get others to share their thoughts and experiences. I look forward to learning a lot. If you feel there are cards I've missed, hit me up.

My second disclaimer is that due to the nature of wanting to repeatedly cast cards with the Breach there is a strong focus on instant and sorcery.
I do mention other cards types at times, but because to recast permanents cards like creatures, planeswalkers and artifacts require some way to get them into your graveyard, my research doesn't go that deep into these other types.
I'm sure once you incorporate more elements to do with sacrificing creatures for example, there are going to be a lot more permanent cards you can add into potential engines.

I guess thirdly that I haven't listed all the cards that cropped up in my research, as I feel some of them are simply not efficient enough. There are a lot of cards that I have listed that I still don't think are efficient enough, but given that some decks can just produce infinite mana, sometimes cost might not be the overall factor, so its worthwhile listing most things down.


Colorless (Artifacts) c
Putting cards into your graveyard
Of note Painter's Servant with Grindstone will enable you to mill your whole library. Grindstone on its own in a mono-colored deck will trigger an additional time every so often.

Altar of Dementia can be combined with creatures that have high power. I actually go into depth about Greater Good later on in this thread which does a similar thing.
But Altar of Dementia is in all colors, so opens you to a lot of options. But the classic case would be to keep recasting Phyrexian Dreadnought as its sacrifice clause is actually an enter the battlefield trigger, which means you can respond to it before it resolves, in this case sacrificing it to put 12 cards into your graveyard. You can of course mill your whole library this way.

Grinding Station can be combined with almost any artifact that you are able to cast "for free". That might be something like Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Grim Monolith, Basalt Monolith, as they are able to tap to pay for themselves. Su-Chi, Cathodion, Myr Moonvessel also pay for themselves. You simply sacrifice it to the Grinding Station in order to recast it.
But obviously that also extends to anything that actually cost zero mana. Cost reduction might help with that as well.

There are non-indefinite mill type cards in Keening Stone and Mesmeric Orb, but can really put a lot of cards into your graveyard.
Mesmeric Orb combined with cards that untap mana sources like Dramatic Reversal, Early Harvest, Rude Awakening, Turnabout, Frantic Search, etc, are going to be self contained units to keep fueling your graveyard. This is a way to ensure setting up indefinite.

Other much less impactful cards are Grindclock, Millstone, Perpetual Timepiece, Sands of Delirium, Screaming Shield, Tower of Murmurs, Whetstone, Whetwheel which can be used as more like setup cards earlier on in the games, although I wouldn't recommend them.

Generating mana
I've already highlighted Lion's Eye Diamond as the king-daddy of producing additional mana, but what else?
Well the thing is that with permanents you need a way to put them back into graveyard, so this limits options a lot.

Krark-Clan Ironworks is a sure fire way to generate mana and be able to put the artifact back in graveyard for recasting. Being a combo enabler for a lot of things, its not hard to imagine there will be limitless ways to abuse it with Breach as long as you have a way to also fuel the graveyard for the escape.

Graveyard recovery
There are artifacts that can get back enchantments from graveyard in Crystal Chimes, Skull of Orm, Codex Shredder, Conqueror's Foothold.



Mono-Red r
Putting cards into your graveyard
Only the cards that can put 3 cards into your graveyard can be used as an indefinite engine on its own.
That is Burning Inquiry, Collective Defiance, Control of the Court, Fateful Showdown, Goblin Lore, Incendiary Command, Khorvath's Fury, Reforge the Soul, Shattered Perception, Wheel of Fortune.

If you can keep casting Wheel of Fortune then you of course get 7 cards into your graveyard, which would be enough for the mana producer and the Wheel each time.
Lets say Mana Geyser with this is going to allow you to do it as many times as you want.

Generating mana You could combine cards like Priest of Urabrask or Dockside Extortionist with Ashnod's Altar or Phyrexian Altar to generate mana.

Runaway Steam-Kin can be used to cast cards. For example you can keep casting Burning Inquiry as it only costs r.

Mana Echoes combined with a card that produces multiple creatures will give you access to lots of colorless mana. For example Empty the Warrens.

On that note Empty the Warrens with Phyrexian Altar/Skirk Prospector/Thermopod will get exponentially better with "storm" building up each time.

Graveyard recovery
Controlling what goes to your graveyard can be very important when you don't have Underworld Breach in your hand.
Now fortunately in Red, most of the graveyard fueling strategy is via drawing and discarding, so you get to choose in most of these instances.

Past in Flames and Recoup have flashback. Red by itself doesn't have any ways to get enchantments back from your graveyard other than Breach itself. But you can look to mix these cards with other colors to retrieve Breach.

Red specialty is getting artifacts back from the graveyard. Cards like Scrap Mastery, Goblin Engineer, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Goblin Wielder, to name a few.
There are artifacts that can get back enchantments from graveyard in Crystal Chimes, Skull of Orm, Codex Shredder, Conqueror's Foothold.
If you have a heavy mill plan then you can look to proxy getting access to the Breach by using Past in Flames/Recoup to cast Trash for Treasure or Scrap Mastery to get one of the artifact recovery cards into play.
Its a bit of a chain process, but in the end it means that you can freely mill your library and ultimately have access to all of it.



Gruul rg
Putting cards into your graveyard If you look at Benefaction of Rhonas, Commune with the Gods and Kruphix's Insight, they all have the advantage that you can put the Underworld Breach into your hand, rather than it simply getting milled like a lot of other ways to put cards into your graveyard.
They put between 4-6 cards into your graveyard which should be sufficient to fuel the escape cost of both the mana generator and these cards.

A classic example would be say having 7 lands in play and using Early Harvest to generate mana to cast both it and the Kruphix's Insight for example.
There are going to be times where you put enchantments into your hand for card advantage, so its not deterministic, but more than likely you draw/mill into additional ways to keep going indefinitely.

Lets look at something more expensive in See the Unwritten. At first this might seem to be too expensive to be a feasible way to get indefinite recursion going. But we can potentially put 7 or 6 cards into the graveyard. This means that is enough to cast a Lion's Eye Diamond, or Early Harvest/Rude Awakening twice, meaning enough to keep recasting it.

The other thing with the untap land cards is you can use land ramp to get better and better uses out of them. If you have access to something like Nature's Lore, you can cast it every time you net enough for it and to be able to cast the untap land card.
As long as you have a way to fuel your graveyard its worth casting the Nature's Lore as it exponentially makes the untap land card produce more mana, thus making it easier to cast the ramp cards as well more times before using the untap.

Green has dredge cards like Golgari Grave-Troll and Life from the Loam. But you need a way to both draw and discard them in order to put them back into the graveyard. Just casting them is probably not going to work.
The problem is that there isn't a lot of cards that have non-tap abilities that allow for both of these to happen.
If I was to list the best examples they are going into Blue as well; Compulsion, Mental Discipline, Mesmeric Trance, Unfulfilled Desires, Tomb Robber.

Oread of Mountain's Blaze or Merchant of the Vale is able to do it. Lets say you use Golgari Grave-Troll. Because you get to put 6 cards into graveyard you can cast a mana producer twice, therefore you may have enough to keep using the ability. But this is very much spinning the wheels, you'll eventually want something else or to at least be producing a reasonable amount of mana.

Greater Good can be used with some power to cost efficient creature(s) to fuel your graveyard. Phyrexian Dreadnought can be easily used to get through your deck. Vexing Devil, Lupine Prototype, Sheltering Ancient, Ball Lightning are other examples. But these are specialized creatures.
The thing is that because you get to use the cards you discard, it doesn't matter if you are even casting something that isn't so power to cost efficient.
Anything with 3 power is going to be enough make sure you can keep escape 3 as long as you have the mana producer as well.
These are some cards in Gruul that I thought might fit a build. Alright so there are still a lot of specialized creatures, but you could easily see a land-based deck with Alpine Guide, Evolution Sage, Thrashing Brontodon, Tireless Tracker, Turntimber Sower and Wayward Swordtooth in the build, along with the Greater Good of course.

Survival of the Fittest allows you to put 3 cards into your graveyard for the escape at the cost of ggg. So unless you have ways to gain advantages via putting creatures into your graveyard to then be exiled immediately, then you are spinning your wheels for no actual gains.
The exception is if you are simply looking to generate additional mana. But your source is going to need to be pretty good. For example casting Early Harvest would need at least 7 basics in order to net a mana once you spend the ggg on the Survival of the Fittest.

Graveyard recovery
A very important element is "If Underworld Breach goes to graveyard, do you have a way to recover it?".
Green has some of the best ways to do this.

Creeping Renaissance can be flashback naming enchantments.

I've already pointed out Past in Flames and Recoup in Red, and you can use these to cast cards like Regrowth or Seasons Past to get Underworld Breach back in the cast of milling (or whatever else puts it into your graveyard).

Green also has some creatures that can return cards from graveyard, so you can use Genesis to return a card like Eternal Witness or Greenwarden of Murasa so that you can mill freely to get Breach back.

You can imagine using Oath of Druids or Hermit Druid to dump a large portion (or all) into your graveyard and you can use these methods of Creeping Renaissance or Genesis in order to cast Underworld Breach.



Rakdos br
Black is probably the most infamous for creature graveyard recursion. But trying to get indefinite engines going with creatures with Underworld Breach is a little trickier as you need ways to get creatures back into your graveyard if wanting to recast them multiple times.

Putting cards into your graveyard
There are a few heavy hitters as far as putting lots of cards into your graveyard in Black.
Morality Shift can do it all pretty much in one go.

Others need very specific builds with Balustrade Spy and Undercity Informer having very few lands. I have actually built a 3 land commander deck around these cards in the past. Yes 3 lands total :P

Doom Whisperer just depends on how much life you can afford to invest. I made a deck based around this creature using Shadowborn Apostles. You can check out the list on MTGSalvation here. It essentially uses lifegain cards that you can use from your graveyard. There is nothing from using a similar idea in Mardu wbr to make something that utilized a similar strategy.

Buried Alive can get 3 cards to fuel escape but you'd need some other way to get advantages.
If you are able to not exile creatures initially to fuel casting Songs of the Damned, then you can get traction that way.
Lets say you have 3 creatures in your graveyard already and cast Buried Alive to bring that up to 6.
Casting Songs of the Damned will generate 6 mana. But if you cast it again, chances are you have to exile 3 creatures and then you'll only gain 3 mana.
As you can see you really need to be able to turn 3 creatures into more cards in your graveyard otherwise you are definitely just spinning the wheels.
You could use a dredge card like Stinkweed Imp in conjunction with Phantasmagorian and/or Kraul Swarm. The idea is that you use this to setup your graveyard over a number of turns (or draws). You can dredge for 5 in your draw step. Then you can discard the Imp along with other cards via the Phantasmagorian in your graveyard in order to dredge again.
Now you can use the ability of Kraul Swarm to put Phantasmagorian back into your graveyard and you can start all over again with Kraul Swarm and Stinkweed Imp being 2 cards you discard to usePhantasmagorian ability again. Its just a way to ensure that you can dredge each turn without needing any other cards or casting anything.

Undead Gladiator can also be used in a manner with dredge setting up over a number of turns. You can discard the Imp in your upkeep to then dredge again. Then you can cycle the Gladiator to dredge the Imp again. The net result is that you can put 10 cards into your graveyard each turn, allowing you to setup over the course of a few turns.

Faithless Looting or any of the draw discard with Stinkweed Imp and Golgari Thug in your graveyard is enough to dredge 9 cards.
Each time you cast Faithless Looting you will be able to discard the Imp and Thug. For each r you can get a net gain of 6 cards into your graveyard.

There are quite a few cards in Black and Blue that involve putting X cards from top of library into graveyard, like Dread Summons and Liliana's Indignation. I'm personally not sure how viable they are as from an engine perspective they are not mana efficient at all. If you compare them to a Tome Scour for example, they cost 6-7 mana instead of 1 mana.
Now granted they do actually provide potential resources (creatures in these case) so maybe it would be part of your own builds plans.

Generating mana Both Cabal Ritual and Songs of the Damned require cards in your graveyard so you just need to be careful about trying to keep these numbers high when having to escape to enable them better.

Cabal Coffers and Cabal Stronghold would need land untappers to generate mana indefinitely, so not really a Rakdos thing, but extend when you add other colors in Blue and Green.

Graveyard recovery
As I pointed out Black is known for its ability to return creatures from the graveyard, but not other types, especially not enchantments.

If you were to try a straight Rakdos deck and hope to use Morality Shift or Doom Whisperer to dump your library into graveyard without actually having the Underworld Breach already then your options to recovery it are limited. Again you have to string together some proxy ways to get it.
If you look at the methods I mentioned with artifacts and flashback cards in the Mono-Red section, you can use the same methods.
Black however does have a lot of tutors, so you are more likely to be able to find these cards.

Black gives you access to bringing creatures back into play with cards like Dread Return, Morgue Theft, Soul of Innistrad, Champion of Stray Souls.
You can return a creature like Goblin Engineer or Goblin Wielder, with the aim of getting Crystal Chimes, Skull of Orm, Codex Shredder, Conqueror's Foothold back from graveyard as well.
This is a lot of hoops to jump through, but when you are wanting fail-safe ways of milling your entire library into your graveyard regardless of whether you already have access to particular cards, you want to know what is possible.

The other thing is that this also shows you the pathway when you get into other colors. If you were to be in Mardu wbr then you can return a Sun Titan for example to return the Underworld Breach.
In Jund brg you can return Eternal Witness instead.

Increasing Ambition is a flashback card you can look to search for cards in library if you are still needing to find something after putting lots of cards into your graveyard.



Jund brg
There are some Golgari cards focused on putting cards into your graveyard. But a lot of them are creature ETB/LTB and I don't focus on creatures much because they are hard to cast multiple times as engines for Breach as you constantly need a way to get them back into your graveyard, whether that be sacrifice or other means. It just adds a layer of complication.

Putting cards into your graveyard I've done a case study for my Korvold, Fae-Cursed King that you can check out at the end of the post.



Boros wr
Putting cards into your graveyard
White is literally the weakest color for actually putting cards into your graveyard. At least we know where we stand.

Generating mana
Even though there are lots of untap creature cards in White, Boros is not know for its mana creatures.
There are a number of artifact creatures that tap for mana so you could look at some artifact brew to generate mana that way.
Gold Myr, Iron Myr, Metalworker, Palladium Myr being examples.

Flickering a creature that can generate mana is also possible. For example using Cloudshift on Dockside Extortionist.

Smothering Tithe and symmetrical draw will allow you to keep recasting. Burning Inquiry, Incendiary Command, Khorvath's Fury, Reforge the Soul, Wheel of Fortune.

Graveyard recovery
White has some of the best ways to get enchantments back from your graveyard.

I personally use Hall of Heliod's Generosity as a land to do this in some of my Jeskai decks.

Sevinne's Reclamation with flashback guarantees you can mill your library freely.

There are some mass recovery spells in Replenish or Open the Vaults and you can use other flashback cards like Past in Flames or Recoup to cast these in the case of milling.

There are a bunch of creatures that can return enchantments as well, Sun Titan, Archon of Falling Stars, Auramancer, Cavalier of Dawn, Emeria Shepherd, Griffin Dreamfinder, Lagonna-Band Storyteller, Lotus-Eye Mystics, Monk Idealist.



Naya wrg
Between untapping lands and mana creatures and the ability recover Underworld Breach itself from graveyard, you have everything you need to make are really powerful strategy. The White element isn't needed so much, so just depends on if you are already running a deck in those colors or have something specific in mind.
I have a particular configuration of using graveyard as a resource in my budget build for my Zacama, Primal Calamity primer, and I already have a number of the cards mentioned in this thread. Its a perfect case for slotting into that deck. I haven't made the changes yet, but I can make that part of being a case study for this thread and show you how you can extend the use of Underworld Breach given your deck setup already.



Mardu wbr
Orzov has some of the better ways of bringing back creatures (in Black) and enchantments (in White). So you can look to combine these two to produce an effective way to mill your library and have ways to recover the important Underworld Breach via recurring particular creatures.



Izzet ur
Izzet and Jeskai are the decks I have been running Underworld Breach so far.
You can check out my Elsha of the Infinite deck in the signature below which it features.

I've also been running a very precise Underworld Breach package in my Kykar, Wind's Fury deck. I haven't made a thread for the deck, but I posted my list in MeowZeDung Primer here.

I have a Will & Rowan Kenrith primer as well, and I have a configuration which utilizes instants and sorcery from your graveyard heavily, and Underworld Breach is custom made for that particular build.
However I haven't found quite the home for it yet in the Superfriends list. And this is as good a case for hypothetical theory-crafting around "how to make it good, and whether its then worth the slot(s)?" when the deck hasn't been designed around it in any manner.
I'll get back to this as a case study later on in this thread.

But first lets get into Blue cards that help Breach strategies.

Putting cards into your graveyard
Without a doubt one of the best cards to fuel Breach is Brain Freeze. Because of the nature of "Storm", each time you recast it stacks another one.
I've found that you only need to cast a few cards in a turn in order to get the graveyard train going. As long as you have a mana producer you can put all the cards into your graveyard. I often then just use Brain Freeze as my win condition as well, milling opponents out. I also play Stifle in the decks, just in case opponents have Kozilek, Butcher of Truth or Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to stop the shuffle effects.

As you can see however Blue has a lot of ways to put cards into your graveyard from your library.

There are some heavy hitter in putting large chuncks of your library into your graveyard in Mirror-Mad Phantasm, Traumatize, Fleet Swallower.
Just being able to cast/activate these once could be enough to win you the game.

Chronic Flooding is an interesting one, especially if you combine it with ways to untap lands. If you already are using these types of cards to generate mana then you also use it to fuel your graveyard.
Frantic Search, Turnaround, Snap, Pore over the Pages, Hidden Strings, are all cards to look to use with Chronic Flooding.

You could make a cheesy Persistent Petitioners deck to get the big mill. Sphinx of the Chimes and Thrumming Stone would then become a game winners, and you can look to use the flashback cards as mentioned already in Mono-Red section to ensure getting the Underworld Breach back from graveyard.

Some enchantments can be used as engines to put cards into your graveyard with Jace's Erasure and Drowned Secrets. These can go a long way if you don't quite have the perfect cards.

There are a lot of draw and discard cards in Blue. Some of the more efficient draw cards in Compulsive Research, Izzet Charm, Thirst for Knowledge, Thirst for Meaning do allow you to put 2 cards into your graveyard. But as we know when the escape is for 3, you'd need to find some other card to keep doing this indefinitely.

Breakthrough is effectively a mill 4 for u as you'll end up discarding the cards in your hand. You might think that this is strictly worse than Tome Scour for example, but Scour really only sets up the graveyard, where at other times you could cast Breakthrough with something to draw into in mind. I mean you can literally cast for X=1 and hope (or know, i.e Mystical Tutor, Long-Term Plans, etc) you are drawing into Underworld Breach, in which case it probably is beneficial that cards go to graveyard.

The discard and draw cards equal to cards in hand can be very powerful for this strategy. Blue has some of the best in Tolarian Winds and Windfall. If you can get 7 cards discarded each time, then you will setup yourself up nicely to fill your graveyard.
Look for Jeskai to have that added touch of Smothering Tithe to make Windfall a full blown combo.

Generating Mana If you were to go deep with artifacts then Blinkmoth Infusion is going to need to be reduced by enough to net mana. Lets do a break down of a setup that would allow this.
Say you have Darksteel Citadel, Seat of the Synod, Great Furnace, Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Arcane Signet, Izzet Signet in play.
Blinkmoth Infusion is going to cost uu5 and you can tap your artifacts for 3uuurr, which means that you can in fact gain a mana each time. But that is a lot of artifacts to be in play, realistically you are having a good game already.

Graveyard recovery
Blue specialty in recovering cards from graveyard are mainly instant or sorcery. So with Breach being an enchantment you have to look to proxy getting it back through chaining cards.

Recall is a Blue card that you can get any card back.
With Mystic Retrieval or Past in Flames/Recoup you can get the Recall back to then get the Breach.



Jeskai wur
Jeskai Ascendancy can become a great way to string together putting cards into your graveyard while getting more resources. You can also look to creatures that produce mana to keep paying for casting spells.

I've already mentioned that I have two Jeskai decks that run Breach with Elesha and Kykar, and I use a trump card in Wild Research to find me all the tools I need to win with Underworld Breach.
What I do is that I get quite a few cards into my hand and then search for Underworld Breach with Wild Research. If it accidentally gets discarded then I'll use Wild Research again to get Argivian Find to retrieve it. Then I'll use Research again for Brain Freeze, and at that stage it doesn't matter what you search for and gets discarded because you can cast it anyway with the Breach.



Grixis ubr
Dimir is probably the most notable color selection for "milling" cards into your graveyard from your library. The "mill king" as it were,
Phenax, God of Deception really being the stalwart for commander choices in this department.
But admittedly a lot of the mill is "opponent" only worded cards that these decks run, therefore less practical for Breach means.

Putting cards into your graveyard There are some good draw and discard spells which really help this strategy.


Temur urg
Simic has some of the best mill cards (in Blue) and the best graveyard recovery cards (in Green), so you can definetely make a deck that looks to mill as much as you can muster.



Example Case Studies
I thought I might as well show examples of my own decks, where I am trying to figure out if Underworld Breach is something that I want for them?

If you see my threads I have 8 decks with Red in them.



Image
I've already mentioned my Zacama, Primal Calamity primer in which Breach is the perfect fit for the budget build that looks to use the graveyard as a resource.
After theory-crafting this thread, its obvious to me some cards I can include.
Now the deck already has Oath of Druids, Early Harvest, Greater Good, Open the Vaults, Past in Flames, Seasons Past.

Therefore including the cards Underworld Breach (duh), Benefaction of Rhonas, Commune with the Gods, Kruphix's Insight, Rude Awakening, Creeping Renaissance seems like a perfect fit.
With key cards being mana doublers in enchantments and/or creatures being able to use the reveal cards to find them is useful during the course of the game and then they can be used to fuel the graveyard as combo cards later on.

Alright so it was easy accessing a deck that already has a graveyard theme. But how about my actual alpha primer that doesn't use the graveyard at all?
I also don't have any of the mana producers I've identified in this thread, nor many ways to fuel the graveyard.
I have Wheel of Fortune and Reforge the Soul. These can be constantly recast given the right setup.
There is also Genesis Wave, but honestly 99% of the time that goes on the stack I'm winning anyway.
Same with Greater Good, if I'm using that card it normally means I'm winning.

Ways I could use Underworld Breach in a proactive way is when I have a mana doubler in play it would allow casting Nature's Lore or Three Visits as many times as they can be escaped, because a land comes into play untapped and can be tapped for two mana.

Another way would be with the Genesis Wave as in the case if Underworld Breach is one of the cards you put into play, often you'll have lots more untapped mana. All the instant and sorcery will go to the graveyard and now you will be able to cast some of them for value. But again often I'm just winning off a Genesis Wave anyway.

I was thinking that with Zacama untapping lands, you could in fact let it go to the graveyard to then use Breach as a way to cast Zacama multiple times without having to spend commander tax. There are quite a few sacrifice creature cards (for draw or tutors), so this is definitely a thing.

Then it becomes a case of should I make slots for enablers? There are far too many non-basic lands to make Early Harvest good, but I could play Rude Awakening.
But without a way to fuel the graveyard it wouldn't be particularly good. If I was to go all-in on Oath of Druids and/or Hermit Druid, then I'd also want a way to recover the Underworld Breach.
At this stage I'm starting to think that would be dedicating too many slots to a very specific plan, of which my deck hasn't been designed for and more importantly I don't think needs.

Is it worth just putting in the Underworld Breach simply as a fail-safe, maybe against a board wipe? Rather than a straight proactive plan, this would be used in a worst case scenario.

After thinking about it, I could definitely see including Underworld Breach and Commune with the Gods as includes. And that's it.
I feel that with Zacama ability to produce incredible amounts of mana anyway, that I don't need to include Breach engine cards, except the Commune with the Gods which can draw you into a lot of action cards, which this deck is all about finding.
I don't need to worry about recovering the Breach itself if goes to graveyard as my methods for filling my graveyard are all controlled by me, meaning no blind milling.
And in there I think its a good case of showing people just how much or in this case little you can go to get value from the card.



Image
I've also already mentioned that I included Underworld Breach in a particular configuration of Will & Rowan Kenrith which uses the graveyard as a resource with instants and sorcery. The deck is full of ways to fuel the graveyard anyway, so I literally didn't have to change much.
I simply added Underworld Breach and Brain Freeze to the mix.

But just like my Zacama primer, my Will & Rowan primer is not based on the graveyard at all.
There are no obvious ways to produce additional mana in the form of instants or sorcery.
The cards that put cards into the graveyard are Fact or Fiction and Dack Fayden.
Now with Will [-2] this does mean FoF only cost 1u and with the way the split happens you can almost certainly keep fueling the escape to recast it a few times.

Now there are some tricky ways to generate mana given the context of the deck already with Breach and especially with Will [-2] cost reduction.
Heart of Kiran can actually be used to send your mana producing planeswalkers to the graveyard, to then recast again.
Imagine purposefully sending Teferi, Temporal Archmage to the graveyard, so that you can cast him for 2uu and then untap mana sources that produce more than 4 mana.

Release to the Wind is another powerful card like this as it only costs u with Will [-2] and you can keep casting a mana producing planeswalker to generate mana. This is actually an instant that can produce mana, but it needs to be combined with a mana producing walker.

Cards that could be included to help are Dramatic Reversal with 14 artifacts that tap for gains. The classic combo is Isochron Scepter with Dramatic Reversal, which honestly would probably be worth it as a two card combo.

The other untapper worth considering is Turnabout which can name lands or artifacts. With Will [-2] it only costs uu so it doesn't take many lands to net mana.

Finally there is Lion's Eye Diamond to consider. But there are no ways outside of Breach to really use it in the deck. I don't play Wheel of Fortune type cards. Casting Will 3 turns early is nothing to scoff at, but trading that for resources in hand is a bit too much all-in for my tastes.

If I included Dramatic Reversal and Turnabout I'd be comfortable with the mana needs, given other ways to also produce mana.
Really I'd feel the need for more ways to fuel the graveyard other than Fact or Fiction.
Candidates are Wheel of Fortune, Windfall, Collective Defiance, Faithless Looting, Fateful Showdown, Incendiary Command, Frantic Search.
The reason for considering cards like Collective Defiance, Fateful Showdown, Incendiary Command is that not only do they have the draw and discard, but they also have creature kill modes, which is a factor in playing the deck.
I'm often casting Mizzium Mortars for the 4 damage to a creature.
I'm also specifically not including "mill" cards as I want to control what goes to the graveyard, obviously including not putting the Underworld Breach there, as Izzet struggles and specifically my deck wouldn't have a way to recover it. Nor would I want to dedicate further slots to this.

With this all considered, I feel that the changes I'd make would be including; Underworld Breach, Wheel of Fortune, Windfall, Frantic Search, Dramatic Reversal, Turnabout.
Then further to accentuate these changes I'd include Isochron Scepter and Narset, Parter of Veils. Narset just helps to make the inclusion of Wheel of Fortune and Windfall a little bit more powerful.
Now remember with Will [-2] cost reduction, Wheel and Windfall cost only r and u respectively, which means that you hardly need much mana at all to get an engine going.
Should I play Lion's Eye Diamond now that I have Wheel of Fortune and Windfall? Honestly I still think no, as I'm happy with the other ways to produce mana. This might be incorrect, but I want the primer to be at least partially accessible to most people wanting to build it, and LED is a bit too much of specialist card.



I still have to evaluate what Underworld Breach might mean for my other decks in Greven, Predator Captain, Korvold, Fae-Cursed King, Feather the Redeemed and Kenrith, the Returned King.
I've run out of steam at this stage, but as I evaluate each deck for its potential worth to include, I'll update this thread as well as the primers themselves.

The whole point is just to show you thought processes that may help you with your own evaluations for your own builds, and potential cards to consider given how your deck works.

Feel free to ask for help with your decks. I'm always happy to look through your builds and see what can be done to make Underworld Breach potentially dynamic for you.



I've finally gotten around to analyzing it for my Korvold deck. So its of course a slam-dunk in the deck because I have so many ways to put cards into the graveyard in the first place.

The deck has the added advantage of also running other sacrifice outlets in Turntimber Sower, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, Viscera Seer, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, Sadistic Hypnotist, Phyrexian Altar, Ashnod's Altar.
This comes in potentially handy when looking at creatures you might want to recur with Underworld Breach.
The first one that comes to mind is Dockside Extortionist.

Brass's Bounty is another one that can combo to keep generating mana given enough lands. But even if you are just spinning the wheels say on 7 lands, with Korvold in play this means you draw 7 cards each time, which will win you the game anyway.

There are other ways to keep casting cards with Phyrexian Altar and Ashnod's Altar.
If you have Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder in play then you can just keep recasting almost any creature. Lets say its Burnished Hart, you can just keep sacrificing the thrulls for 6 mana to recast the Hart and you can even sacrifice it to get 2 basics with the other 3 mana.
Most of the creatures require colored mana however, so Phyrexian Altar could be used to cast Ingot Chewer for evoke with Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder in play to generate mana.

Note that I don't play cards like Dark Ritual, Cabal Ritual, Songs of the Damned, Battle Hymn, Mana Geyser, which can be used to generate mana. I could easily see running these and they are still good at specifically casting Korvold earlier as well as other cards.
Rude Awakening or Early Harvest could be other ways, although the land base has a lot of non-basics and there are no mana doublers in the deck so these cards seem out of place for this build.

Now there are not any cards specifically that put more cards into your graveyard in an Underworld Breach engine type of way.
You could keep recasting Scapeshift. In fact you could just use Breach as a way to cast Scapeshift just literally another single time, and honestly that is normally enough to have drawn enough cards to close the game out.

What cards make Underworld Breach better in the deck?
Well Lion's Eye Diamond is another way to generate mana, and I already play Lotus Petal because having low costed cards in play you can sacrifice to Korvold is really important. So LED is definitely a good card in the deck, and can be used to cast Korvold at times you are confident you can discard your hand.

Now there are mass graveyard to battlefield cards in Living Death, World Shaper, Splendid Reclamation, so it is possible that you could look for more library to graveyard cards as well as helping Underworld Breach become better.

Dredge with Life from the Loam, Golgari Grave-Troll, Stinkweed Imp could be an option.

Altar of Dementia is another creature sacrifice outlet and you can use it to target yourself. However a lot of the token creatures have 0 power (Plants, Kobolds, Eggs) so not that good really.

Grinding Station only does artifacts, but is an actual combo with Underworld Breach enabling you to keep filtering through your library until you get to key cards you'd want to cast.

Mesmeric Orb is just one of those cards that puts a lot of cards into graveyard over turns, but also might potentially help your opponents with their own graveyard strategies, so only include if you are really deep on graveyard recursion, which this deck isn't really.

Hermit Druid is a cheap way to put cards into your graveyard and finding a basic land is still card advantage. The deck has 8 basics, but you could easily put more non-basics into the deck if wanting to put higher number of cards into the graveyard each activation.

Greater Good is way to draw and discard, which ultimately fuels the Underworld Breach. Sacrificing Korvold to this might happen if your opponents have removal for him anyway.
But as I've already said a lot of the tokens have low power. But you could look to use it more like a milling engine, rather than putting cards into your hand.
For example even if you are sacrificing creatures with 1 power, as long as you are resigned to the fact that you will be discarding your hand altogether, then you can keep sacrificing to put more cards into your graveyard.

Creeping Renaissance is the sort of card you want when you end up having a milling strategy, as it allows you to flashback and get the Underworld Breach if it gets milled.

How about other big hay-makers like Morality Shift or Doom Whisperer? Again I don't really play enough graveyard strategies to warrant these although they are not outside the realms of possibility.
The deck would require more life gain elements to make Doom Whisperer have more potential I feel.

These are the changes I've ended up doing over the last few weeks.
There is definitely a version I could make that focuses on the graveyard more, but I don't feel like warping around that strategy too much, as the theme is sacrifice, and I'm already getting incredible use out of Underworld Breach potentially in this deck.

The cards I decided to add in the end were just Underworld Breach and Lion's Eye Diamond, and I still have a great build around just because so much of the deck is designed around putting cards into the graveyard anyway.
Last edited by darrenhabib 4 years ago, edited 2 times in total.

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MeowZeDung
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

As per usual with @darrenhabib productions, this is detailed and high quality. Well done!

I went through *some* of the relevant bits of this thought process in a long, klunky, winding fashion when Underworld Breach was spoiled, and you can see it in it's unrefined glory in the pages of my Kykar thread from the THB spoiler season starting here if anyone is interested (scroll down a bit in that post and you can't miss it). I am quite proud of the fact that I saw the potential of this card before its release and explosion in other formats. I kept seeing other players in the EDH community sleep on it, primarily because "it exiles your own cards!", and I'm glad I didn't listen, but looked for the best way to leverage it in Kykar instead!

There's really not much to add to what darren has exquisitely produced here, but I will give a few of my thoughts/experiences:

First, Underworld Breach really goes hand in hand with Kykar, Wind's Fury because Kykar produces mana to fuel the engine. I love what darren did in his Kykar list with Wild Research. Jeskai Ascendancy and Mindmoil are also great ways to churn through your deck and draw into breach. Until I was clued in to the stunningly great interaction of Brain Freeze + Underworld Breach, I was zeroing in on winning the game with Breach + Burning Inquiry + Stream of Thought or Tome Scour. Once I was hip to the Brain Freeze synergy, however, I ditched the Stream/Scour line and focused on Inquiry/Freeze. As darren states above, you can go all in on Breach, or just build a little package around it, which is what I did consisting of the following:
The beauty of this is that all of those cards have perfectly suitable utility on their own, even if you never see Breach. Additionally, they all nestle in together with some cards I was already running like Gamble, Past in Flames, Faithless Looting, and Frantic Search.

I never considered Mirror-mad Phantasm or Runaway Steam-Kin, but some Kykar builds could certainly use them to great effect! Nice catch darren.

Here is the relevant bit from my Kykar Primer regarding the combo with Breach:
Kykar/Breach/Inquiry
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MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
The first infinite combo is a three card combo consisting of Kykar, Wind's Fury, Underworld Breach, and Burning Inquiry. The way it works is by casting Breach while Kykar is in play, thus creating a 1/1 spirit. Sacrifice the spirit for to pay for Inquiry, thus creating a 1/1 spirit and making each player draw 3 cards and discard 3 at random. The end result is Kykar, Breach, and a spirit in play, and Inquiry + 3 randomly discarded cards in the graveyard. The loop can then be repeated by sacrificing the spirit for , exiling the 3 randomly discarded cards to pay the escape cost per Breach's text, and casting Inquiry from the graveyard. This will create a 1/1 spirit and make each player draw 3 cards and discard 3 at random into the yard with the now resolved Inquiry. Round and round it goes.

Should the combo be initiated while you are the player with the most cards in your library, you could just keep looping it indefinitely until the rest of the table has milled their entire library and you win with a tiny library! However, with this list it is unlikely that you have the largest library when initiating the combo, plus Blightsteel Colossus and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth exist and thwart mill strategies.

Also worth noting is that each time through the loop will give your opponents access to up to 3 new cards, one of which could be a Counterspell, Doom Blade or a Disenchant which will interrupt the combo. You can offset this reality by holding a counter up, casting Silence beforehand, or even Mandate of Peace during your combat step before initiating the loop post combat.

Given the way the deck is built, the great news is it really isn't necessary to continue the loop for too long. You can do it until you discard and can escape pretty much any of the following for a way to win without necessarily continuing the loop and giving opponents a window of opportunity:

-Silence to allow you to act with impunity moving forward with the loop.
-Impact Tremors to make your storm count translate into direct damage.
-Goblin Bombardment for functionally the same reason as Impact Tremors.
-The Locust God for a huge hasty combat step.
-Brain Freeze to mill everyone out, or yourself just enough to fill the yard with other win cons and escape fodder.
-Jeskai Ascendancy or its little brothers to make your army on board absolutely massive.

You can and should combine escaping any of these for a compounding effect that will win you the game on the spot, or at least set you up with a massive advantage should an opponent have happened to have found an answer during the loop.

Idyllic Tutor can get Breach, Gamble can get Breach or Inquiry (with some risk attached), and there are lots of loot effects that can put Inquiry in the yard earlier in the game so it is ready to be escaped when you get around to finding and casting Breach. Sevinne's Reclamation can bring back Breach if you play it earlier in the game, mill it, or loot it away.
Second, regardless of the colors/commander you are running, you need to take into consideration opposing interaction when using breach. Instant speed graveyard hate can't prevent you from loading the stack if your combo piece with Breach is also an instant, and you can escape in response, but it is nevertheless a relevant factor.

Probably more relevant, however, is opposing countermagic that a smart opponent might hold until you've blasted away most of your library before they try to interact. As with gy hate, you get to respond with your instants, so it may not be an issue, but if you're going off with something like Burning Inquiry or Stream of Thought it's important that you have a gameplan here.

The simple answer is to not exile cards indiscriminately when you're escaping spells. For example, when I'm looping Burning Inquiry I make sure to set aside something like Counterflux, Render Silent, or Absorb as soon as it hits the yard so that I have interaction of my own available. Sevinne's Reclamation is another that you shouldn't exile unless you absolutely must so you always have a way to get Breach back. Even better is escaping Silence as soon as it hits the yard. As I loop, I'm also keeping an eye out for a win con like Impact Tremors or The Locust God to escape.

Third, darren mentioned that there are ways to bounce/recur Breach so you can play it every turn, but you generally won't have to. It often wins outright the turn you play it if you've built around it even a little. That said, I've found it worthwhile to get a "value" Breach in early on in the game before following it up with the haymaker Breach a couple of turns later. For instance, I might Breach + Frantic Search/Faithless Looting until I run out of escape fodder early on and sculpt a powerful hand, or Breach + escape a valuable permanent or two, then use Sevinne's Reclamation a few turns later to get Breach back and go for the win. It is worth noting here that this does expose you to graveyard hate targeting Breach, but if your deck is like mine and doesn't *require* Breach to win, this is usually an acceptable risk, especially after sculpting your hand or building out a threatening board.

Great stuff. I honestly feel like Underworld Breach has dethroned Past in Flames as the red graveyard spell of choice, and that's really saying something given the explosive turns PiF can enable. I intend to keep running both in Kykar, but the power of casting one spell over and over can't be understated if it's the right spell. It's essentially "build your own storm mechanic".
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Man was this ever the breakdown that I didn't know I needed. I'd sort of been waiting for someone to do a high-level breakdown of the card and how to get mileage from it.

I picked up a foil Breach from the standard box the wife and I usually get, and thought to myself 'there's bound to some sort of way this gets gross'.

I haven't decided where I put it yet, it really looks like I need to carefully consider where it's most strong. I'd considered it for a Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded deck but from all accounts it doesn't really seem like Purph is going to need it. Of the other decks I have in listed there's Vial Smasher and Kraum, and in unlisted there's Korvold, Ur-Dragon, Yidris enchantress. I assume it could do gross things in Korvold, and potentially Ur-Dragon with its cheaty costs, but I think I might need to just give it a mull over.

Thanks so much for this breakdown, it's really thorough and appreciated.
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darrenhabib
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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Man was this ever the breakdown that I didn't know I needed. I'd sort of been waiting for someone to do a high-level breakdown of the card and how to get mileage from it.

I picked up a foil Breach from the standard box the wife and I usually get, and thought to myself 'there's bound to some sort of way this gets gross'.

I haven't decided where I put it yet, it really looks like I need to carefully consider where it's most strong. I'd considered it for a Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded deck but from all accounts it doesn't really seem like Purph is going to need it. Of the other decks I have in listed there's Vial Smasher and Kraum, and in unlisted there's Korvold, Ur-Dragon, Yidris enchantress. I assume it could do gross things in Korvold, and potentially Ur-Dragon with its cheaty costs, but I think I might need to just give it a mull over.

Thanks so much for this breakdown, it's really thorough and appreciated.
I had a look through your Vial Smasher the Fierce and Kraum, Ludevic's Opus and I can't see any obvious combinations unfortunately. Your only ways to fuel the graveyard are Dack Fayden and The Royal Scions and then you don't have any mana producers that you could constantly recast either.

Not sure what your Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded looks like? But the fact that you sacrifice at end of turn does lead into getting value from Purphoros later in the game with Underworld Breach. So I definitely would consider it.
Cards like Anje's Ravager, Bedlam Reveler, Book Devourer, Cavalier of Flame, Dragon Mage, Knollspine Dragon, Magus of the Wheel, Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion, Ox of Agonas, Rowdy Crew, Runehorn Hellkite, Seasoned Pyromancer, can really fuel it.

I too haven't actually looked at my Korvold deck yet either, but I already know its going to be great because so many things go to the graveyard. Honestly its going to be a slam-dunk, it just depends on what cards I can change to make it function slightly better? I'll do an assessment for that deck soon.

Again without seeing a list, not too sure with Yidris enchantress deck, but in a budgetless version if the only 0 cmc were Lion's Eye Diamond then this gives you access to the card with all your 1 cmc cards.
The other thing with Yidris is that in times where combinations are seemly "spinning the wheels", that is constantly recasting cards but not really gaining advantages, with cascade you are getting advantages.
So if all you're doing is casting Gaea's Touch for example multiple times you get the cascade each time.
Something like Frantic Search then becomes very powerful, because you can keep recasting it, and it allows to refuel the graveyard somewhat, and you get a cascade trigger each time.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

darrenhabib wrote:
4 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Man was this ever the breakdown that I didn't know I needed. I'd sort of been waiting for someone to do a high-level breakdown of the card and how to get mileage from it.

I picked up a foil Breach from the standard box the wife and I usually get, and thought to myself 'there's bound to some sort of way this gets gross'.

I haven't decided where I put it yet, it really looks like I need to carefully consider where it's most strong. I'd considered it for a Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded deck but from all accounts it doesn't really seem like Purph is going to need it. Of the other decks I have in listed there's Vial Smasher and Kraum, and in unlisted there's Korvold, Ur-Dragon, Yidris enchantress. I assume it could do gross things in Korvold, and potentially Ur-Dragon with its cheaty costs, but I think I might need to just give it a mull over.

Thanks so much for this breakdown, it's really thorough and appreciated.
I had a look through your Vial Smasher the Fierce and Kraum, Ludevic's Opus and I can't see any obvious combinations unfortunately. Your only ways to fuel the graveyard are Dack Fayden and The Royal Scions and then you don't have any mana producers that you could constantly recast either.

Not sure what your Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded looks like? But the fact that you sacrifice at end of turn does lead into getting value from Purphoros later in the game with Underworld Breach. So I definitely would consider it.
Cards like Anje's Ravager, Bedlam Reveler, Book Devourer, Cavalier of Flame, Dragon Mage, Knollspine Dragon, Magus of the Wheel, Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion, Ox of Agonas, Rowdy Crew, Runehorn Hellkite, Seasoned Pyromancer, can really fuel it.

I too haven't actually looked at my Korvold deck yet either, but I already know its going to be great because so many things go to the graveyard. Honestly its going to be a slam-dunk, it just depends on what cards I can change to make it function slightly better? I'll do an assessment for that deck soon.

Again without seeing a list, not too sure with Yidris enchantress deck, but in a budgetless version if the only 0 cmc were Lion's Eye Diamond then this gives you access to the card with all your 1 cmc cards.
The other thing with Yidris is that in times where combinations are seemly "spinning the wheels", that is constantly recasting cards but not really gaining advantages, with cascade you are getting advantages.
So if all you're doing is casting Gaea's Touch for example multiple times you get the cascade each time.
Something like Frantic Search then becomes very powerful, because you can keep recasting it, and it allows to refuel the graveyard somewhat, and you get a cascade trigger each time.
The Yidris is a theme deck and Breach doesn't really suit, so it's probably not a goer there. Ur-Dragon maybe, but there's probably enough gas there for it to be fine without.

Yeah, haven't got a full 100 for Purph yet and work is stupid busy, so I don't have the time to publish a list. I think it'd be good there as a failsafe in case of board wipe or just a way to explosively win. My main concern there is retrieving breach if it ends up in the bin. Conqueror's Foothold is a neat addition though, could be good. I am running some burst mana like Seething Song, Geosurge, Priest of Abraxas, Mana Geyser and such. They'd probably be needed as the curve for hardcasting in that deck will likely be quite high. I've got quite a few wheel effects in there already, but there are a few you've mentioned that I missed, so thanks again :)
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Yeah, haven't got a full 100 for Purph yet and work is stupid busy, so I don't have the time to publish a list. I think it'd be good there as a failsafe in case of board wipe or just a way to explosively win. My main concern there is retrieving breach if it ends up in the bin. Conqueror's Foothold is a neat addition though, could be good.
Hmmm... mono red enchantment recursion is certainly a pickle. . . Foothold is clever though.



I've always been a fan of Zada, Hedron Grinder, both as commander and in the 99. I used to play a Zada list, and I run a whole Zada/Mirrorwing Dragon package in my Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer deck. I plan to someday build an alternate Kykar list that is hidden commander Zada, and the same with General Tazri.

Breach in a mono red Zada list seems pretty straightforward: escape Fists of Flame as many times as possible, then win. But I'm curious, how would you approach including breach in a Zada centric list in 3, 4, or 5-colors @darrenhabib? The cards that overperform with Zada are pretty niche, and most of them in the vein of Shadow Rift, Bandage, Crimson Wisps, etc. will draw your whole deck after just a couple of escapes.
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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
I've always been a fan of Zada, Hedron Grinder, both as commander and in the 99. I used to play a Zada list, and I run a whole Zada/Mirrorwing Dragon package in my Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer deck. I plan to someday build an alternate Kykar list that is hidden commander Zada, and the same with General Tazri.

Breach in a mono red Zada list seems pretty straightforward: escape Fists of Flame as many times as possible, then win. But I'm curious, how would you approach including breach in a Zada centric list in 3, 4, or 5-colors darrenhabib? The cards that overperform with Zada are pretty niche, and most of them in the vein of Shadow Rift, Bandage, Crimson Wisps, etc. will draw your whole deck after just a couple of escapes.
I guess the first thing with Zada, Hedron Grinder/Mirrorwing Dragon/Ink-Treader Nephilim is that you are often drawing a zillion cards. So any discard outlets are going to enable recasting.
Black - Skirge Familiar, Zombie Infestation
Blue - Mind Over Matter
Red - Seismic Assault

Unfortunately I couldn't really find any good "target creature" spells which allowed to discard all that well.
The best of them being Vanish into Memory, but often Zada strategies are token creatures, so you'd lose them to the exile.
Same with a bunch that target but actually do damage, Kolaghan's Command, Collective Brutality, so unless they all have 3 toughness you just end up killing them.

Once again Lion's Eye Diamond would be the trump card here. Draw 9 cards from your Crimson Wisps, sacrifice LED (discard 9 cards), and recast LED and cast Crimson Wisps twice more and rinse and repeat as many times as you want.

The most other obvious (and affordable) options for a Zada style deck are Battle Hymn and Inner Fire. You should be able to keep generating tons of mana with these once you are setup.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Yeah, haven't got a full 100 for Purph yet and work is stupid busy, so I don't have the time to publish a list. I think it'd be good there as a failsafe in case of board wipe or just a way to explosively win. My main concern there is retrieving breach if it ends up in the bin. Conqueror's Foothold is a neat addition though, could be good. I am running some burst mana like Seething Song, Geosurge, Priest of Abraxas, Mana Geyser and such. They'd probably be needed as the curve for hardcasting in that deck will likely be quite high. I've got quite a few wheel effects in there already, but there are a few you've mentioned that I missed, so thanks again :)
I want to point out that even though I've put emphasis on graveyard retrieval of the Breach, that is strictly to do with decks that look to mill yourself.
If you have control over what goes to your graveyard, then there isn't the need to design your deck around doing that.
My Zacama and Will & Rowan decks don't actually have a way to get the Underworld Breach itself from graveyard, and this is fine because I don't actually blindly mill myself.

If you are already playing Mana Geyser and Seething Song with a few "wheels" then your deck is already well setup for Breach. Just on the cards you've mentioned alone its going to be good in your deck.

Of note however Geosurge doesn't help all that much because it can't pay for itself again.

But as I pointed out before some creatures, particularly Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion and Dragon Mage would be the icing on the cake for this strategy.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

darrenhabib wrote:
4 years ago
toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Yeah, haven't got a full 100 for Purph yet and work is stupid busy, so I don't have the time to publish a list. I think it'd be good there as a failsafe in case of board wipe or just a way to explosively win. My main concern there is retrieving breach if it ends up in the bin. Conqueror's Foothold is a neat addition though, could be good. I am running some burst mana like Seething Song, Geosurge, Priest of Abraxas, Mana Geyser and such. They'd probably be needed as the curve for hardcasting in that deck will likely be quite high. I've got quite a few wheel effects in there already, but there are a few you've mentioned that I missed, so thanks again :)
I want to point out that even though I've put emphasis on graveyard retrieval of the Breach, that is strictly to do with decks that look to mill yourself.
If you have control over what goes to your graveyard, then there isn't the need to design your deck around doing that.
My Zacama and Will & Rowan decks don't actually have a way to get the Underworld Breach itself from graveyard, and this is fine because I don't actually blindly mill myself.

If you are already playing Mana Geyser and Seething Song with a few "wheels" then your deck is already well setup for Breach. Just on the cards you've mentioned alone its going to be good in your deck.

Of note however Geosurge doesn't help all that much because it can't pay for itself again.

But as I pointed out before some creatures, particularly Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion and Dragon Mage would be the icing on the cake for this strategy.
Neheb and Mage are both in already. I'll have a list up in a couple of weeks once the last of my cards arrive and I can min/max a little and playtest. But yeah, sounds like it could be a pretty explosive addition.

Sundial of the Infinite is in the deck too, so I can bypass the sacrifice effect of Underworld Breach.
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

darrenhabib wrote:
4 years ago
I guess the first thing with Zada, Hedron Grinder/Mirrorwing Dragon/Ink-Treader Nephilim is that you are often drawing a zillion cards. So any discard outlets are going to enable recasting.
Black - Skirge Familiar, Zombie Infestation
Blue - Mind Over Matter
Red - Seismic Assault

Hmmm... I'll have to remember zombie infestation when I build Tazri/Zada. The bodies help the overall strategy. It's a pretty bleh card without breach though. Maybe nahiri's wrath and leave // chance?
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Post by Dragonlover » 4 years ago

I'm pretty sure there's no room for it in my Lathliss deck, although you're welcome to try and find a way for me to capitalise on it. Similarly, I don't think it does much for Golos, which is a finely balanced pile of sticks at this point in time that I'm trying not to disrupt too much.

I have considered it for both, but ultimately decided that it's one too many hoops to jump through to really make it work. Also it makes me want to run Mirror of Fate alongside it, and that's it's own ball of shenanigans.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Sundial of the Infinite is in the deck too, so I can bypass the sacrifice effect of Underworld Breach.
Unfortunately its at the end of every end step, including opponents, so that would only delay it for you next opponents turn.
MeowZeDung wrote:
4 years ago
Hmmm... I'll have to remember zombie infestation when I build Tazri/Zada. The bodies help the overall strategy. It's a pretty bleh card without breach though. Maybe nahiri's wrath and leave // chance?
Firestorm is a good one. You can target players as well to get more targets, therefore discard more cards.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

Dragonlover wrote:
4 years ago
I'm pretty sure there's no room for it in my Lathliss deck, although you're welcome to try and find a way for me to capitalise on it. Similarly, I don't think it does much for Golos, which is a finely balanced pile of sticks at this point in time that I'm trying not to disrupt too much.

I have considered it for both, but ultimately decided that it's one too many hoops to jump through to really make it work. Also it makes me want to run Mirror of Fate alongside it, and that's it's own ball of shenanigans.

Dragonlover
Yeah I had a look through and I agree, you don't have any enablers in your decks, for either generating mana or putting cards into your graveyard.

There are not many ways to cheat in Dragons onto the battlefield in mono-red. If you ever get sick of playing the fair game, then a combination of cards you could try is;
Underworld Breach, Grinding Station, Grimoire of the Dead, Dragonstorm, Wheel of Fortune, Mana Geyser.
The idea is that you can look to use Grinding Station with Underworld Breach to filter through your library. The artifact you want to be most sacrificing is Sol Ring (to Grinding Station), as you can cast it and tap it for mana, so you would be generating a mana each time. Mana Vault or Mana Crypt would be better (but understood they are expensive).
You can use Goblin Engineer as another way to access your Sol Ring.
The main idea is that eventually you'll mill Dragonstorm and you should have a bucket load of "Storm", so you'll probably be able to cast most of the rest of the Dragons in your deck.
Mana Geyser will give you all the mana you need as well, and honestly given your red color requirements in the deck, pretty good option with Underworld Breach in the deck or not.

The other plan would be to use Grimoire of the Dead. If you can set it up with 3 counters, then you can look to use Wheel of Fortune with Underworld Breach to keep filling your graveyard up with Dragons.
Again using Mana Geyser as the way to keep casting the Wheel of Fortune.
Now you don't want to be exiling too many Dragons for the escape, as this would be counter productive.

Add these Dragons to the mix to help the theme; Dragon Mage, Runehorn Hellkite, Hoarding Dragon.

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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

I was not fond of Breach when it was first spoiled, but once you reusing cards like LED, it's going to be silly.

One piece of tech I heard for it was Starfield of Nyx to repeatedly dig it up.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

Sinis wrote:
4 years ago
I was not fond of Breach when it was first spoiled, but once you reusing cards like LED, it's going to be silly.

One piece of tech I heard for it was Starfield of Nyx to repeatedly dig it up.
Yeah, I could imagine Boros (and extended colors) enchantment theme running Land Tax, Endless Horizons, along side Land's Edge, Seismic Assault, Tectonic Reformation and Starfield of Nyx and Underworld Breach.
You're just constantly discarding lands to fuel the Breach each turn to keep recasting some great spell.

I've personally been using Hall of Heliod's Generosity in decks to get the Breach back when I want.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

I've finally got around to analyzing Underworld Breach for my Korvold, Fae-Cursed King deck, and I've added my thoughts as a case study like I did for a few of the other decks.
You can check it out in the original post and the end if you are interested in some potential Jund interactions.

I'm actually really interested in making a Lord Windgrace that has a heavy focus on using Underworld Breach and I feel like this is going to be one of the best ways to really show off Breach to its full potential in Jund once I've built the deck.

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Post by Segrus » 4 years ago

I've got a couple decks I think could really utilize Breach, specifically a Feldon deck where I've already been running a bunch of the draw/discard effects. I haven't seen Breach come out in testing yet, unfortunately. I really enjoyed reading through your write up on this card.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

Segrus wrote:
4 years ago
I've got a couple decks I think could really utilize Breach, specifically a Feldon deck where I've already been running a bunch of the draw/discard effects. I haven't seen Breach come out in testing yet, unfortunately. I really enjoyed reading through your write up on this card.
Post a list if you get a chance at some stage and I'll see how you could maximize Breach potentially in your build, but regardless its going to be a slam-dunk as you say with discard elements anyway.

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Post by Segrus » 4 years ago

darrenhabib wrote:
4 years ago
Post a list if you get a chance at some stage and I'll see how you could maximize Breach potentially in your build, but regardless its going to be a slam-dunk as you say with discard elements anyway.
This is the list I've been working with currently: Rage Grave. This list hasn't necessarily been to be tooled especially for Breach, but I'm happy to hear what you think at the current stage. Feldon being focused on the graveyard already, with the discard effects, it just feels like the right place for Breach. It's focused mostly on taking advantage of powerful ETB effects and then getting into the red zone. I'm sure there's some ideal changes I could make, like seeing if I still have a loose Lion's Eye Diamond or something, but I wanted to leave the raw list for now.

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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

Segrus wrote:
4 years ago
darrenhabib wrote:
4 years ago
Post a list if you get a chance at some stage and I'll see how you could maximize Breach potentially in your build, but regardless its going to be a slam-dunk as you say with discard elements anyway.
This is the list I've been working with currently: Rage Grave. This list hasn't necessarily been to be tooled especially for Breach, but I'm happy to hear what you think at the current stage. Feldon being focused on the graveyard already, with the discard effects, it just feels like the right place for Breach. It's focused mostly on taking advantage of powerful ETB effects and then getting into the red zone. I'm sure there's some ideal changes I could make, like seeing if I still have a loose Lion's Eye Diamond or something, but I wanted to leave the raw list for now.
Well you have the Wheel of Fortune which can be a big one for refueling the graveyard.
Fateful Showdown and Khorvath's Fury are other ones.

The mana stuff unfortunately doesn't have ways to produce red mana.

For example you can keep looping Myr Battlesphere with Ashnod's Altar to net 3 each time by saccing all the Myr.
But if you're then looking to keep recasting Wheel of Fortune/Fateful Showdown/Khorvath's Fury you need red mana.

Of course Lion's Eye Diamond would do the trick. But there is not a lot of synergy with the card other than cracking it in response to Wheel of Fortune/Fateful Showdown.

Alternative ways would be Dockside Extortionist. But you'd need a way to kill it, and you only have Ashnod's Altar.
You could look at Twinflame as a way to keep getting the Dockside Extortionist ETB. So would just depend on how many Treasures you get from opponents'.

40 land is a lot (too much) so you could easily slot in Lion's Eye Diamond and Dockside Extortionist for 38 lands and be pretty happy.

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Post by Segrus » 4 years ago

darrenhabib wrote:
4 years ago
40 land is a lot (too much) so you could easily slot in Lion's Eye Diamond and Dockside Extortionist for 38 lands and be pretty happy.
OOF. Somehow I typed all that in this afternoon and didn't even realize I was running 40 lands. Absolutely no reason to be doing that. So, yeah, I'm going to be fixing that here soon with something to generate some mana.

Another option might be to use an untap effect to keep reusing Feldon's effect to copy something from the graveyard instead of having sacrifice effects for Dockside Extortionist. Obviously that would require a little more mana to make it work, but it's something to think about.

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Post by Sanity_Eclipse » 4 years ago

Excellent deep dive on a new powerful card, darren and co. :thumbsup:

Just to throw it out there, the two main thoughts I've had are some weird Narset build and maybe Kaalia, Zenith Seeker.

Just haven't had a chance to really deep dive into the card selection and such that I would want /shrug. Don't feel obligated to theorize up stuff.
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Post by darrenhabib » 4 years ago

Sanity_Eclipse wrote:
4 years ago
Excellent deep dive on a new powerful card, darren and co. :thumbsup:

Just to throw it out there, the two main thoughts I've had are some weird Narset build and maybe Kaalia, Zenith Seeker.

Just haven't had a chance to really deep dive into the card selection and such that I would want /shrug. Don't feel obligated to theorize up stuff.
Turns out theorizing is one of my favorite things to do :P

Well I have two Jeskai decks with Elsha of the Infinite and Kykar, Wind's Fury that make supreme use out of it, so depending on the rest of the content of the Narset, but the color combination is pretty great.
I mean at the end of the day if all you are doing is hard-casting another extra turn card from your graveyard via the Underworld Breach, then exiling to Narset is already doing work.

With Kaalia, Zenith Seeker I went through the Demons, Angels and Dragons and these are cards that might have some elements around Underworld Breach, in that they might give you draw, discard, mana or whatever.
The standouts are Doom Whisperer and Hoarding Dragon.
Hoarding Dragon can get Grinding Station or Lion's Eye Diamond or even Painter's Servant or Grindstone if running that combo.

If you go super into the discard portion and feel you can lean on Underworld Breach to eventually make your graveyard a resource, then that's when you use Hall of Heliod's Generosity and Sevinne's Reclamation as ways to keep milling or draw and discard, and eventually gaining access to Underworld Breach.
This leads into making graveyard matters better as well Worldgorger Dragon, Runehorn Hellkite, Emeria Shepherd, Bladewing the Risen.

If you had Sundial of the Infinite then an extra turn card like Chance for Glory could be recast every turn, because Underworld Breach gets removed at "end of turn". So you'd be able to keep the Breach in play forever.
You want some way of fueling your graveyard as well, so something like Knollspine Dragon or Dragon Mage would be perfect.

With Razaketh, the Foulblooded and Rune-Scarred Demon you are perhaps looking for combo wins.
I can't help but think that gaining access to Grinding Station and Underworld Breach will just allow you to keep filtering until you also mill Worldgorger Dragon and a reanimate enchantment like Animate Dead.

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Post by RowanKeltizar » 3 years ago

I haven't read through the thread, but I wanted to point out a neat combo I stumbled across. Underworld Breach + Crop Rotation. This is great because Crop Rotation puts the new land into play untapped thus paying for itself as long as the new land can tap for green mana. It also adds one card to your graveyard each time it is cast, fueling subsequent casts.

This can translate to a large number of landfall triggers but my favorite interaction has to be with Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Crop Rotation can of course tutor up Valakut which is neat. This can close out a game or wipe the field if needed depending on how many cards are in your graveyard.
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