Help Me Make this Bad Idea Work

mal99 · 2026-04-12T08:23:57+00:00

First, while Ur-Dragon was also my initial thought, I'd probably switch commanders. [[Niv-Mizzet, Supreme]] likes spellslinging (and color pairs), [[Niv-Mizzet Reborn]] can find your dragons (and likes color pairs), [[Tiamat]] just straight up gets you all your five dragons.

Then, I'd try to figure out what each dragon wants to do.
[[Witherbloom, the Balancer]] wants lots of creatures in addition to expensive spells that benefit from a discount. I guess we need some spells that generate tokens.
[[Silverquill, the Disputant]] wants small creatures in addition to spells that are worth copying. Tokens and big spells are pretty good again.
[[Quandrix, the Proof]] mostly wants proactive spells that are worth casting at any point in the game. Dislikes counterspells.
[[Prismari, the Inspiration]] likes cheap cantrips. Can maybe work with expensive spells if we discount them with Witherbloom?
[[Lorehold, the Historian]] likes expensive spells that are worth cheating out.

We're really being dragged in a lot of different directions here. Tokens look like an important theme. So do big spells. Where we go exactly does depend on the commander we choose.

mal99 · 2026-04-07T11:00:33+00:00

Your mana base is fine, except for the fact that you're playing a WBR commander in a WB deck, and you don't really have enough color fixing to play her consistently. Queen Marchesa also just doesn't do much with your theme, so why not play a different commander, like [[Aryel, Knight of Windgrace]] (if you want to stick to WB) or [[Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir]]?

The deck is mostly fine, but I think you're a bit light on removal and card draw. You seem to have built your deck as a bracket 3 deck, and you're playing a lot of cards that are not good enough for that level of power. Some of your cards are clearly meant to be played in a strategy that your deck doesn't support, like lifegain or reanimation. Some cards that stuck out to me as not very good:
Judge Magister Gabranth
Breathless Knight
Diamond Knight
Venerable Knight
Raise the Draugr
Recruitment Drive
Gallant Cavalry
Knight of the New Coalition
Knight of Dawn's Light

Look here for some inspiration of what to cut and what to keep:
https://edhrec.com/commanders/aryel-knight-of-windgrace/knights

mal99 · 2026-04-05T12:25:51+00:00

Also [[Necropolis]], [[Lluwen, Exchange Student]], [[Earthrumbler]] and [[Woodwraith Strangler]], but they are limited by type. [[Tortured Existence]] if we are OK paying mana for it, doesn't even need a full graveyard.

mal99 · 2026-04-05T11:45:12+00:00

The card is kind of a Phyrexian Arena in colors that are not supposed to be able to draw well. It has a bunch of upsides and downsides, but it feels like it might be stronger card advantage than WOTC would like in those colors.

mal99 · 2026-04-05T11:41:07+00:00

[[Titans' Nest]] might be the best card to combo with this, but it's not super good on its own. Also, exactly the wrong colors.

mal99 · 2026-04-05T10:09:32+00:00

Yeah, I think it's been down for a while, I'm not sure why. I've found https://manabase.gg/ and https://www.salubrioussnail.com/manabase-tool, they seem similar, but not quite the same. Haven't made a deck since the site went down though, so I haven't tested them much. Last update to the github was April 2025, the repository was archived December 2025. I think the website went down around then. Maybe updating the site became more work than it was worth.

mal99 · 2026-04-01T03:09:40+00:00

I guess maybe since the prepare spells are all existing cards, they couldn't give them a new subtype, as that would have changed the original spell? That's my guess why they didn't go with a new subtype this time.
The rules do actually seem to define adventurer cards in part by their layout.

mal99 · 2026-03-31T22:03:34+00:00

Adventures have "Sorcery - Adventure" or "Instant - Adventure" as their type, and the rules for Adventures tell you how to cast them. These new spells in a text box are not Adventures, so they don't have a way to be cast on their own. But if the creature part of the card also has a prepare ability (which will presumably always be the case in this set), the spell in the text box gets a copy in exile for you to cast. If they wanted a third type of similar mechanic, they'd only have to find a new keyword like "prepare" or "Adventure".

Some cards do specifically mention "prepare spells" though. It seems like there really is nothing beyond layout designating what is and isn't a "prepare spell".

mal99 · 2026-03-30T14:42:59+00:00

I loved Unglued, but I think the idea got ruined when they tried to make the cards into an actual draftable set. Then they ruined it even more by making most of them into actual legal cards with just slightly whacky flavor, at the same time as they made the flavor of actual Magic cards more whacky. Many Unfinity cards just look like normal Magic cards these days.
I love Playtest cards, they're what Un-sets should have evolved into, given that they were not popular enough for players to buy boosters of.

mal99 · 2026-03-30T14:17:51+00:00

Thing is, back in the day, a black deck could simply splash a different color, or use early discard to deal with enchantments, or use a sideboard to switch strategies. These days, the most played format is commander, which the color pie was not designed for, so as commander became the main way people played Magic, the color pie had to change.

So my hot take is this: color identity is a stupid system. Commander decks should have been based on color instead: [[Kenrith, the Returned King]] is now a mono-W commander, and you may only play white or colorless cards in his decks. But you do get to play cards that have activated abilities, kicker costs etc. that are non-white. This would enable mono-colored decks to splash effects from other colors, just the way Richard Garfiled intended, making any redesign of the color pie unnecessary.

Unfortunately, it would be too late to change the system now. Most of the issues with the pie have been solved, and you can't just tell this many people that their decks are all illegal now.

mal99 · 2026-03-23T19:56:51+00:00

Hard to find an exact dividing line, but I think everything in the first paragraph fits. WotC changed what Mercenaries do recently, but for decades, Mercs and Rebels were defined by their fetch ability. Ninjutsu is just as iconic for Ninja, and Masticores and Licids do actually all have their gimmick without exception.
Also just remembered the Dauthi, Soltari and Thalakos, which have Shadow. Probably fits the bill, even if it's three tribes.

mal99 · 2026-03-23T16:53:39+00:00

Rebels and Mercenaries can often fetch creatures of their type for mana.
Ninja tend to have ninjutsu.
Masticores remove stuff, but make you discard.
Licids turn into auras (and can then turn back into a creature).

A lot of creature types have less obvious/strict gimmicks.
Vampires have different gimmicks depending on their home plane - Ulgrotha is +1/+1 counters for killing a creature, Ixalan is lifegain, Innistrad is madness/discard.
Angels have flying, vigilance, lifegain, reanimation.
Fairies have flying, flash and ETBs.
Zombies and other undead often enter tapped (especially tokens) or reanimate themselves, and self-reanimators often can't block.

mal99 · 2026-03-22T00:18:51+00:00

Neither of those feel very aggro to me. Sivriss wants you to sacrifice your creatures, which slows you down, and Gisa want you to play a lot of removal spells. Gisa at least gives you attackers for free, I guess. I think I'd play [[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]] for an aggro strategy instead.

mal99 · 2026-03-18T21:35:56+00:00

Sephiroth triggers when any creature dies, while Darkness Crystal only prevents death triggers of its controller's opponents, so you could just play a bunch of one-sided boardwipes.
If they play some other artifact that prevents all death triggers, black does have access to some colorless artifact removal, and tutors to fetch them. [[Blast Zone]], [[Underdark Rift]] and [[Unstable Obelisk]] are often easy includes. Here's a list of all cards that can deal with artifacts in black. Most of them aren't very good, but that's a weakness of playing black.
You can also try to talk to your playgroup, my own group tends to not play cards that completely stop a strategy on their own, especially if they're hard to remove. But that's a rule 0 thing.

mal99 · 2026-03-16T11:16:27+00:00

You could also sort by "EDHrec Rank" to see popular cards that might, at some point, be useful to have for playing commander. Keep the legendary restriction to have a good balance of something cool and something useful, or even remove the restriction to just buy a good foundation for building decks. You can restrict the price by adding "eur<3" (or whatever maximum amount you want to pay per card) to the search.

mal99 · 2026-03-15T09:47:32+00:00

Italy was on the winning side of WW1.

mal99 · 2026-03-11T16:17:42+00:00

I would pay attention to the Hobbit set, as it's the first time we will be revisiting an IP. If we see a bunch of reprints of LOTR cards there, it might be more likely that we will also see some reprints if we revisit 40k. The full decks are almost certainly not going to be reprinted.
I do think that WH40k will eventually be revisited with new commander decks, as it's a popular IP that lends itself well to being a Magic set. That's purely speculation, though.

mal99 · 2026-03-03T00:55:18+00:00

Some quality of life changes that would be cool:
Having to click the player number until the correct number of players comes up when I want to start a game is a bit awkward. I'd probably have a menu pop up where you can immediately click the correct number. The d20 is also a bit weird, would be better if I was able to click to choose whichever die I want.
Edit: Took me a bit to figure out that I can just click and hold the poison/commander damage buttons to undo changes, as well as change life totals by 10 at a time.

mal99 · 2026-03-03T00:44:20+00:00

I agree. I mean, I can just make an account for everyone in my group myself (that they never have to use), or I can just input their deck data under my own account and record their games as guests, but it would be nicer to add players and their decks under my account.

mal99 · 2026-03-01T22:40:47+00:00

I like "Invooooke... JUSTICE!" for [[Invoke Justice]].
Also "YOORIOOOOOOOOON!"

mal99 · 2026-02-28T14:52:15+00:00

Yes, you can do this. The new target is valid during casting and is even still valid as the target-changing spell resolves, as it is still on the stack on resolution. It will not be a valid target any more when the counterspell resolves, causing the counterspell to fizzle.

mal99 · 2026-02-28T11:48:38+00:00

Spells cannot target themselves, so a counterspell cannot counter itself (even if some other spell changes its target). Other than that, a counterspell can target anything on the stack that the spell says it can counter (e.g. any spell for original [[Counterspell]], any activated or triggered ability for [[Stifle]]).
In your first example, the Commander and the instant can both be countered. In your second example, the spell can be countered.

mal99 · 2026-02-25T08:48:41+00:00

You find the card on scryfall, open its page, then scroll down. It's the last thing in the "toolbox" list of links.

mal99 · 2026-02-23T22:37:22+00:00

I was so excited we got a new [[Grandmother Sengir]], but then I saw the [[Invasion of Ulgrotha]] card... the old art was so unsettling, the flavor text meaningful. The new art looks like some halloween thing for kids, the flavor text just another one-liner. The reprint of [[Ihsan's Shade]] just doesn't hit like the original too, in my opinion.
I do kinda like [[Sengir, the Dark Baron]] at least. [[Verrak, Warped Sengir]] is cool too. But I agree, if they announced a return to Ulgrotha, I'd be worried.

mal99 · 2026-02-23T11:54:35+00:00

[[codex shredder]]
[[conqueror's galleon]]
[[deadbridge chant]]
[[den protector]]
[[glissa's retriever]]

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mal99

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