MTGNexus

Revel in Riches for me. Yes, it's an alt win con, and you either dig those or not. But Revel is also a pretty considerable mana production engine. Production CAN be, but it's also very slow in a vacuum. Revel rewards you for doing what you're already doing, so it's easily better.

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Impersonator. I get that flash and a single blue pip are great upsides to stunt double, but "any nonland permanent" is a big deal. You can ramp by hitting a Gilded Lotus or go crazy by copying something like Caged Sun or Panharmonicon, and you always have the fallback of copying a creature.

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I think Ancestral Vision is more widely applicable. Also, it combos with As Foretold in a fairly awesome way.

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I played a game recently in which one player played Vraska the Unseen, +1'd it twice, had it stolen by a Zealous Conscripts, ultimate'd, and then the next player wiped the board and got rid of the tokens. Not particularly impactful overall, which makes me lean towards Vraska, Relic Seeker for having a +2 and ultimate that actually do things.

Because it came up in random card of the day and I'm contemplating the swap for my Tasigur deck:

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Urban Evolution for sure. I'll be honest, Bounty of the Luxa is profoundly disappointing to me. Mathematically, it works out to have roughly half a Thran Dynamo, and roughly half an Archivist, but, it just feels disappointing whenever I've played it. I thought it would be generically good, but, it is kind of generically bad. Urban Evolution will probably net you more mana and cards than Bounty of the Luxa ever will.

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Djinn because you can get rewarded right away. In a deck with enough topdeck manipulation like God Eternal Kefnet or Aminatou, the Fateshifter, especially one that's abusing something like High Tide, you could get up to some shenanigans. That said, both are costly, but you need haste and tap/untap enablers to go off with arbiter right away. I always wanted Inspired to work, but it's one mechanic that never quite got there for me. Unless the flying bodies or creature types are relevant, I'm probably looking toward Omniscience or Future Sight for this type of effect.

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Gratuitous Violence because I'd happily pay 1 extra to remove the drawback of the Furnace and generally the fact that Violence doesn't affect non-creature damage won't have much of an impact. The only case where I think it would make a significant difference is in Earthquake tribal decks like Firesong and Sunspeaker.

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Definitely Spirit of the Labyrinth, just because of the lock she makes with Anvil of Bogardan. It's the cheap replacement for Chains of Mephistopheles, which was one of my most beloved decks of all time.


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Skirge Familiar fits into more decks and the cards go to your graveyard for either shenanigans or for easy retrieval.

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Fetid Pools. Basic land types provide synergies with stuff like High Tide, and cycling provides recursion synergies. Temple of Deceit only provides synergy for Miracles.

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Xenagos has a much more impactful effect, and can get crazy quickly. Klothys doesn't seem all that impressive, honestly.

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Phenax. Most EDH decks are 35%+ lands, and Mirko bricks way too easily as a result, which is something mill decks just can't afford. Add on top of this that you have to connect before you even get the chance to mill with him. With Phenax you just need to put some butts on the battlefield and you can mill whoever you want pretty much at will. I've seen Phenax do disgusting things with Consuming Aberration and untap effects like Aphetto Alchemist. Mirko definitely deserves a place in the 99 imo.

Let's stick with mill:

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Psychic Corrosion. It is much easier to draw a card than cast a spell, because X draw spells exist, and there are triggers that might let you draw a card. Also, Drowned Secrets mills but one player, while Psychic Corrosion gets everyone.

It is interesting to note, contrary to my initial intuition, that Psychic Corrosion does not have many more analogues than Drowned Secrets; mill-when-draw comes only in two other flavours: Jace's Erasure and Sphinx's Tutelage. Mill-when-cast however, has just as many (though many are very conditional): the ult off Jace, Telepath Unbound, Drowner Initiate, Diligent Excavator, and Cloudhoof Kirin (also, Brain Freeze, but one time only).

Anyway, I believe it would be easier to build around draw and try and leverage cards like Jushi Apprentice and Folio of Fancies (or even Neverending Torment) to mill people out.

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Pull from Tomorrow, largely due to instant speed being so good on large X spells. I have been meaning to test Finale in Mizzix for a while though - cast it for 11 in the prerelease, and it felt amazing. But it is outclassed if you don't expect to be hitting the alt-mode consistently.

Continuing with spoilers...

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Got to go with the OG on this one. Far less conditional card draw. The new Erebos's -2/-1 ability is relevant, but it's a very expensive way to kill something with 2 or more toughness. He will be great for aristocrat builds but god of the dead outshines him everywhere else.

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I do like OG Thassa, but between these two I think I'd rather have Thassa 2.0, aka indestructible Conjurer's Closet in the command zone. Lots of possibilities with blue theft and ETB control there.

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This pick is three but of some die-hard, free, instant-speed sac outlets.

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That's an easy pick: Yahenni, Undying Partisan! Protects itself, acts as a beatstick and is a personal favourite.
Fallen Ideal seems like the worst pick. Dimir House Guard could be the door to a tool box, but is mostly outclassed by todays options.

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In the last years we got many "Whenever you draw a card, put a counter on this creature"-cards. Which one do you like best?

Toothy! Because the best reward for drawing cards is to draw more cards! Speaking of drawing cards...

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Azami. The synergy is super deep with her and unconditional draw just happens to be extremely powerful in her native colour. Frostfang requires your attacks to land and there's times that just isn't reliable.

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I haven't played with this new Elemental Giant, but I'm going to go with Teferi. Teferi is bonkers. He dumps on everything, even if you use him 'honestly' (i.e. you're not going to lock out the table with Knowledge Pool or Possibility Storm). Having Flash helps, also. Just nuts.

Thryx bothers me for some reason. He has this big-spell jam going on, but, he is rather costly himself. The cost reduction is significant, though; it's all spells rather than just instants or sorceries, so, there is some view of him as a kind of mana dork (but only for expensive spells). Realistically, though, reducing spell costs is a pretty inexpensive thing to do, so I feel like Thyrx is overcosted (once you consider Sapphire Medallion, Cloud Key, or Baral, Chief of Compliance).

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Sinis wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Thryx bothers me for some reason. He has this big-spell jam going on, but, he is rather costly himself. The cost reduction is significant, though; it's all spells rather than just instants or sorceries, so, there is some view of him as a kind of mana dork (but only for expensive spells). Realistically, though, reducing spell costs is a pretty inexpensive thing to do, so I feel like Thyrx is overcosted (once you consider Sapphire Medallion, Cloud Key, or Baral, Chief of Compliance).

I'm going to be trying it in my Vial Smasher grixis superfriends jank build. It does lots of what I want; can be played on opponents' turns, reduces big spells for better pings from Vial, and protects my spells. It's also less than Teferi. Mine is a bit of a narrow build though, it's relatively weird.

Luminate Primordial is my pick. I'd prefer to choose what gets exiled, purely because not all beaters are the biggest threats on the battlefield.

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Lamia for sure. Lifelink, more P/T, enchantment and discount effects. It has a lot more going for it imo.



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I'm going to lean towards the Lamia - there are other ways to get creatures into the graveyard, but significantly fewer ways to get arbitrary cards in there. Lifelink and being a bit bigger also makes the body a lot more relevant. Connoisseur can be better if you expect to mill it over consistently for the Unearth though.

edit b/c ninjutsu'd: Heliod, Sun-Crowned - combo potential, cheaper, more efficient activated ability. Also more interesting payoff - vigilance isn't that exciting.


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My pick is Exploration, for the simple fact that it's Turn 1 ramp. I can definitely see uses for the Dryad that Exploration can't achieve, such as with Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle or mana doublers that specify particular lands (e.g. Keeper of Progenitus, Vernal Bloom), but you need to build around this to make it work.

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Kroxa. Theros card, but also very unique. I didn't like that Bolas's flip condition just involved mana, instead of a condition. I like the card, but it's more fun to reanimate Kroxa through spells or Escape and I love the Theros theme of getting giant creatures for low CMC with a condition (the gods and devotion, Arixmethes and slumber counters, Titans and Escape, etc.)
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