MTGNexus

HBD 3drinks!

Polly is pretty great if you have the resources to pour obscene levels of mana into it. It is otherwise a bit niche for an auto include, but it can be a nice mana sink.

All I can think of when I see this guy is that adam sandler song steve polychronopolis

TheAmericanSpirit wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Dude, throw up your list sometime. I'd love to compare notes on the One True Bear! She's probably one of the most viable aggro decks in the format tbh.

It's pretty dated by now, but I made it a million sight commander. Imagine, a big dumb stompy deck is public enemy.

https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/dumb-green-things-1v1/

.....I see we now have an auto link viewer from tapped out. That was unexpected.

Thursday, May 6th, 2021; Bribery|8ed



How does ol faithful hold up in these days? Still worth that price tag?

I still like Bribery, though I think it gets much worse as the competitive level of your opponents' deck increases. Any more, I'm finding a lot of finishers that I'd love to pluck out of my opponents' decks are noncreatures, so this card isn't being played by me any more. However, in more moderate power level groups, this is still amazing, and I respect that it scales with your opponent - if they're trying to cheese a win with Blightsteel Colossus, then they can't complain when you steal it.

Ehhh... this is 5 mana for an indeterminate threat. I think it's still in the upper echelon of lower-power bombs, but it isn't the auto-include value play it used to be.

I try to avoid playing cards that are dead based on my opponents' choices these days. The percentage of the time Bribery is a total dud for me has been really high because of the increase in synergy and the decrease in curves over time.

Qasali Slingers, not a great bribery target if you're not cat tribal. And fewer people playing random Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre in their deck.

I haven't actually seen this card cast in years. I'd imagine that's some combination of it being worse due to lower curves, but also because it's a fair pain to resolve and people really don't like their cards being taken.

If you know your opponents' deck pretty well, it might be worth it still. Getting a Grave Titan, Ghalta, maybe even something like Reidane or Linvala, might be worth it. But certainly there are fewer battlecruiser, easy target critters to Bribery these days.

I'd say that Bribery is still fine, but as the format has become less battlecruiser-y, it has gone down in value. As has come up in other discussions of theft effects, synergy is a thing - many cards people run are included because they work well in a specific deck, and not because they're strong in a vacuum. As a result, if you steal a card that doesn't synergize with your own deck, it won't function nearly as well as it would for its owner.

Still, I don't think Bribery is bad - it's still a tutor-into-play. I think the main thing is to temper your expectations - if you include it to fetch up Eldrazi, you'll probably be disappointed. If you include it to fetch value creatures like Eternal Witness or Sun Titan, it's going to be somewhat consistent. Crucially, I think it's better in decks with more limited colors, as a way to fetch up effects they may lack access to. If you have the ability to run Worldly Tutor or another card that can tutor a creature from your own deck, that will usually be significantly more consistent.

....that said, definitely not worth the price tag these days.

I still get a chuckle out of the time I had this cast vs Alesha.

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Yes."

sees a bunch of slivers in my deck.

"What the hell is this?"

"You didn't see me swarming with slivers early game...?"

bribery user settles on my necrotic sliver, which I sac my plated sliver to remove.

"I really, really strongly suggested you did not want to aim that at me. You probably should have considered against grabbing something that's gonna give me a sac outlet...."

They were salty ALL GAME. "Wtf who plays three colour slivers, what a scrub deck."

It's okay, but as the format becomes more streamlined, it becomes merely okay, not the bomb it used to be. I'm still not sad to see it.

Worse comes to wprst, it provides fuel for Food Chain

Still usually a solid card, but one I have avoided playing lately as most of my games have been online. As with all cards dependent on what you can get from an opponents' deck, whether to run this one is something of a meta call, and sometimes even picking the "right" opponent won't get you any huge game-winning bombs, but I have found over the years that even grabbing utility creatures can sometimes provide a lot of value. Grabbing Seedborn Muse is rarely a bad call. Worst case, you are playing against a bunch of random tribal decks and it's more or less a dead draw. That should happen rarely enough in most metas that it can still be worth running, but that's your meta, then this is probably not the card you want to pack.

One of my favorite cards of all time; I have a playset of Mercadian Masques version from the dawn of my play. When everyone is slamming Craw Wurm, stealing it for 3UU is king . This was also a staple circa 2011 when I started playing EDH - 5 mana steal your eldrazi or 'hoof or Avacyn or even Stalking Vengeance was sick.

But I don't play any copies today sadly. Turns out that the focus on low-curve, steamlined, high-synergy decks means:

A) Many opponents have no good targets, making this five mana to steal something blah like a Solemn Simulacrum or something.

B) My deck has a specific gameplan to execute- Sai, for example, is all about being a low-to-the-ground affinity aggro type deck. I don't run a ton of 5+ drops, and certainly don't want to spend 5 mana to get something that isn't a powerful artifact creature. Arcades is the same with his lower curve and desire to nab defenders and not random beaters. These decks don't want a generic "goodstuff" card like Bribery, especially when point A means it's a lot less likely to get good stuff today than it was 10 years ago.

Agreed with the above. I do still play a foil 8th edition copy because it cost me money . But it will be coming out soon for a more synergistic card. It will continue to be high on my list for blue cards because rarely has it ever been as bad as Solemn Simulacrum. Though I did hit an elf tribal player running Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy. I thought they would have some decent fatties with Kinnan, but I ended up with a Rashmi, Eternities Crafter. I should have targeted the Atarka, World Render Dragon deck to my left. Oh well, I still like resolving this card and will look for ways to play it.

Not the staple of the format it once was though, and I'm just a little bit sad for it. What it really does is put hyper focus on any problem creatures in the format. Namely Primeval Titan and Sylvan Primordial where powering out a Bribery early game and targeting a green player was always a safe bet.

T1: Land
T2: Land, Sol Ring, Mystical Tutor, Bribery on top
T3: Land, Bribery into PRIMEVAL TITAN
T4: Land, Swing with Primeval Titan cast Clone for Pimeval #2.
good times

Friday, May 7th, 2021; Phage the Untouchable|CNS



We knew it was coming sooner or latre. We all know what the card does. The tricks, the traps, the rewards, and the Lazavifications of it. But how good is it, really though? How often can this "just" be the card you fit in a deck and play honestly?

I still want to troll people by Entombing it when they cast Rise of the Dark Realms.

Outside of that, it might be a legit inclusion in a black-heavy saboteur deck that plans to hardcast her? Maybe Vela the Night-Clad?

You didn't cast that from your hand. I think the thread just died.

This is one of those gimmicks that gets other players going but not me. If I wanna one-shot people with potentially pyrrhic consequences, Tears of Rage is my preferred methodology. Can't wait until 3drinks rolls that one.

I have fond memories of playing RW Astral Slide decks when this came out and just laughing when people didn't realize what would happen after they played Phage.

Phage is a long time favorite for me that I don't actually manage to play much. Definitely has some fun style to it. I've seen a few decks with Phage as the commander and always like seeing them try to jump through the hoops and actually pull it off.

Also combos well with Fractured Identity.

Lol, like I just mentioned this card is a house in Lazav, the Multifarious. I murder people with her all the time. At first I put her in for the memes, she stayed because she just gets folks dead. I believe @Toshi cut her because she was too strong for his playgroup.

Turns out having Lazav, the Multifarious be a Cephalid Inkshrouder, attack discard Phage the Untouchable to make him unblockable/shroud and then turn Lazav into phage gets people real dead and is borderline impossible to play around. That's by far the most efficient way for my build of the deck to win a 1v1.

Outside of turning Lazav into her, I believe I've cast her once in the deck and I've died to her once because of a Living End.

TheAmericanSpirit wrote: ↑

3 years ago

This is one of those gimmicks that gets other players going but not me. If I wanna one-shot people with potentially pyrrhic consequences, Tears of Rage is my preferred methodology. Can't wait until 3drinks rolls that one.

I play that! In WB Korvold, and it is delicious.

Ruiner wrote: ↑

3 years ago

I have fond memories of playing RW Astral Slide decks when this came out and just laughing when people didn't realize what would happen after they played Phage.

Phage is a long time favorite for me that I don't actually manage to play much. Definitely has some fun style to it. I've seen a few decks with Phage as the commander and always like seeing them try to jump through the hoops and actually pull it off.

Also combos well with Fractured Identity.

It's almost like the etb is more of a fun challenge to build to than setting up the final death stroke.

3drinks wrote: ↑

3 years ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote: ↑

3 years ago

This is one of those gimmicks that gets other players going but not me. If I wanna one-shot people with potentially pyrrhic consequences, Tears of Rage is my preferred methodology. Can't wait until 3drinks rolls that one.

I play that! In WB Korvold, and it is delicious.

Oh man, isn't it? Peons shell out for craterhoof, badasses buy this for a quarter and risk it all for glory.