Which do you like more?

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Myllior
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Post by Myllior » 4 years ago

Definitely the Blackblade. It's a mana cheaper and it's uncommon for there to be more total lands of a given basic land type (because you're not exiling a non-basic land to the Scythe) than the total number of lands you have. The 'normal' equip option for the Blackblade may appear prohibitive, but if you're making the decision between these two cards chances are you're running a deck where your Commander is an ideal target for the equip anyway.

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Kefnet Voltron | Ayli Reanistocrats | Derevi Pod | Kodama//Ishai Blink | Jetmir Hatebears | Kess Storm | Smasher//Sakashima Control

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Gashnaw
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Post by Gashnaw » 4 years ago

Tooth and nail. DotH may be good but it has to go around a full turn and has a requirement of them having 3 creatures. Meanwhile I managed to get a T&N off turn 3 (yeah I had Mana rocks to help)

or

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Depends on the aim. The Ur-Dragon for true tribal, Scion for competitive decks. I prefer the former than the latter, it suits the big, timmy splashiness of dragons.

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Malazan Decks of the Fallen
| Shadowthrone/Lazav | Raest/Yidris | T'iam / The Ur-Dragon |

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materpillar
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Post by materpillar » 4 years ago

toctheyounger wrote:
4 years ago
Depends on the aim. The Ur-Dragon for true tribal, Scion for competitive decks. I prefer the former than the latter, it suits the big, timmy splashiness of dragons.

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Easy, Lazav, the Multifarious makes hilariously terrible cards feel busted. Declare attacks. Before blocks Lazav, the Multifarious is now Fog Bank. No blocks? Before damage Lasav is Vector Asp and now has poison until end of turn. Lasav is now Nighthowler, enjoy your 15 poison counters.

I just did Cephalid Inkshrouder + Phage the Untouchable this past weekend.


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MeowZeDung
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Panharmonicon by a mile. It's fun both to build around and play with. Stax effects aren't fun, but they are powerful if cedh is your thing. It's not mine :P

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Sinis
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

Wayfarer's Bauble by a country mile. Burnished Hart sucks. 6 mana for Explosive Vegetation (even if it's colourless!) is such a raw deal at this point in the game's development. Even in decks that want to recur Hart over and over aren't really going to get the value they want. It's just a little too costly.

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(Sidenote: It tickles my fancy that both these have alliteration in their titles.)

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hyalopterouslemur
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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 4 years ago

Metallic Mimic, just because if I make it some types, I can get even more use out of it. Did I mention it lets me abuse persist?

Battle of the Landcestral Recalls:

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Nimbaway
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Post by Nimbaway » 4 years ago

Going to give that one to Land Tax, Yavimaya Elder has always been a tad bit underwhelming to me due to the existence of Sakura-Tribe Elder.

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Easily Harrow. If you're sacrificing a land, you want mana parity at minimum, so Edge giving you tapped land is disappointing. Comparatively Harrow gives you two untapped, so ideally if you play it right you can find yourself playing Harrow for free by sacrificing an already tapped land. Add to this that Harrow is instant, for me it's no contest. I guess there's a place for Autumn in Astral Slide/Astral Drift decks, but it still seems pretty narrow.

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Malazan Decks of the Fallen
| Shadowthrone/Lazav | Raest/Yidris | T'iam / The Ur-Dragon |

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

Skyshroud Claim based on pure efficiency, although Hour of Promise goes up if you have some spicy tutor targets.

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MeowZeDung
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

In a vacuum, Spitting Image probably gets the nod because you can target any creature, not just those you control, and that's probably worth the added mana cost and less flexible of the two "cast this card from your graveyard" mechanics.

That said, we don't play magic in a vacuum, and if you're just looking to copy any creature on the battlefield there are far better options than either of these. What makes these two cards stand out are those wonderful words "Create a token", which can really be abused by a commander like Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer, who can't run Spitting Image but can run Quasiduplicate. (Speaking of Brudiclad and Quasiduplicate, I've run Zada, Hedron Grinder in Brudiclad lists and there's probably no better target for Quasiduplicate in the context of a token deck :cool:)

Furthermore, the only green decks that are as interested in making token copies as much as Brudiclad would be the Selesnya populate generals, and they can't run Spitting Image either. So my vote is for Quasiduplicate unless there's some green commander or shenanigans I'm not aware of that could leverage this effect.

I'm looking to include one of the following in my Kykar, Wind's Fury deck and keep going back and forth on which to roll with. Hit me with some hidden insight y'all!

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Sinis
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

Quasi-duplicate. I find Spitting Image's cost fairly onerous (we're blue! We're supposed to have lands untapped!), and I usually end up copying my own creatures anyway. It was another story when you could legend-rule other people's commanders out repeatedly with Spitting Image.

Increasing Vengeance. I find myself pretty rarely copying my opponents spells; a RR Explosive Vegetation or whatever is all well and good, but I find it just doesn't happen very often. My favourite Increasing Vengeance combo when it was first printed was Seething Song + copy it with IV, then, flash back IV with the fresh RRRRR from the Song copy. Get 15 red total, time to cook. Even more silly with Mana Geyser.

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Bonus Round. It's just excellent value for a miniscule cost. Sure, it can backfire, but hey, those sort of games are usually memorable anyway, which is cool.

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Malazan Decks of the Fallen
| Shadowthrone/Lazav | Raest/Yidris | T'iam / The Ur-Dragon |

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Sinis
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

Prototype Portal. The dream, of course, is to imprint either Sculpting Steel or Phyrexian Metamorph onto Prototype Portal, activate it, and make a copy Prototype Portal. This new Prototype Portal could imprint anything, but the important part of this exercise is that on your next turn, you could make yet another new Prototype Portal for yet another artifact. Soon, you could have a vast array of Prototype Portals, churning out everything from Seats of the Synod to Steel Hellkites. You could even create an ever increasing number of dining sets with Bargaining Table, Chalice of Life, Sharpened Pitchfork, and Throwing Knife. Maybe get some waitstaff by imprinting a Voltaic Servant, who as befits their station, will assist in the production yield of a Prototype Portal.

Really, the possibilities are endless once you have that first Sculpting Steel imprinted.

- OR -

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Myllior
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Post by Myllior » 4 years ago

Godsend is the more powerful card - in a straight-up contest the exile-on-block ability beats the Kaldra avatar every time - but Sword of Kaldra is the funner of the two due to it being part of the Kaldra trinity, whose assembly is one of the things near the top of my EDH bucket list.

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Kefnet Voltron | Ayli Reanistocrats | Derevi Pod | Kodama//Ishai Blink | Jetmir Hatebears | Kess Storm | Smasher//Sakashima Control

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

Magus of the Candelabra. Arbor Elf is more consistent, but I like to go big, and multiplying my mana doublers is pure nonsense.

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Sinis
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

Path to Exile. Winds of Abandon basically does something different: it enables you to swing for lethal if you have the damage. For casual usage where you expect your opponent to have another untap step, Path to Exile is better for a single target on account of being 1/2 price and Instant, and if your opponent gets to untap with a boat of lands from an Overloaded Winds of Abandon, you're basically going to have a rough time, not only because they've ramped a lot, but also because they have better draw parity. Worst of all, Winds doesn't even have the option of Settle the Wreckage, where you could do it to yourself for more lands with some expendables.

- OR -

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MeowZeDung
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Master Biomancer. Both are good, but Biomancer doesn't require you to sac creatures to get the initial +1/+1 counter value, and it doesn't take a whole lot to get his power higher. That said, both can and should be abused with counters being moved around a la Forgotten Ancient or Bioshift type nonsense. In a deck like Ghave, Guru of Spores I'm already going nuts with Juniper Order Ranger, Corpsejack Menace, and Sigil Captain, so I'm happy to include Bloodspore Thrinax and not even particularly sad to be without Master Biomancer because I have incidental saprolings just lying around to Devour.


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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

Haunt. Sweet build-around in the command zone, lifelink, generates card advantage, and gets big without needing to deal combat damage.

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Tasigur. Dragonlord is great in the 99 as a control tool but Tasigur is just so much wider in build options and that's something I love.

I guess you could interpret this as 'which is less of a threat across the table from you' or 'which has more applications outside of combo':
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Malazan Decks of the Fallen
| Shadowthrone/Lazav | Raest/Yidris | T'iam / The Ur-Dragon |

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Myllior
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Post by Myllior » 4 years ago

Tooth and Nail. That it's not CMC restricted means you can grab two big fatties to have a bunch of fun with, which will more often lead to the exciting board states I love in Commander. Hulk is much more ordinary outside a combo application.

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Kefnet Voltron | Ayli Reanistocrats | Derevi Pod | Kodama//Ishai Blink | Jetmir Hatebears | Kess Storm | Smasher//Sakashima Control

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Sinis
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

Selvala 2.0. I really like green effects that are parasitic on creature size, and Selvala, Heart of the Wilds does that, and does it well. Once, I tapped Selvala for 50! (Mossbridge Troll, played Grothama, All-Devouring, tapped Grothama to give Mossbridge Troll +20/+20, attacked with troll, drawing 25 off Grothama, Berserked the Troll to kill a dude. Post-combat, tapped for 50 and spent 5 to play Traverse the Outlands. It was glorious.)

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

Vorel, for ease of use. Sure it doesn't hit walkers, but there's enough superfriends decks around anyway. Besides, the untap mechanic is just harder to make use of.

All this being said, the Bairn gets serious points for being one of the most adorable pieces of artwork in the history of MtG, so it's closer than it ought to have been.

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Malazan Decks of the Fallen
| Shadowthrone/Lazav | Raest/Yidris | T'iam / The Ur-Dragon |

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MeowZeDung
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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

Demon. The reanimation seals the deal for me, even with the enters tapped clause. There's enough ETB critters to abuse. Either of these is at it's best in a mono black deck, and you'll probably running coffers/urborg and some of the other black mana doublers and big mana spells a la Black Market, so having a mana sink on board is great. Stuff dies all the time, and you're in the premium sac color, so this is one of the few self contained energy cards, especially for EDH. I ran it in a Gonti, Lord of Luxury list a while back and loved it! It gets gross with Panharmonicon.

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RxPhantom
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Post by RxPhantom » 4 years ago

Mana Burn. Fireheart can probably cause some real impactful damage, but only after investing a massive amount of mana.

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