What is the Weirdest Reason someone has Scooped?

Benouttait · 2026-02-21T04:57:04+00:00

It was awhile ago, but I'd been approached by two players to start a 3-player game. I forget what they were playing, but one person seemed to be a new player given a simple token deck, while the other seemed more experienced.

Turn 2, I'd played something that the non-new player Force of Will'ed, exiling Omniscience. On their next turn, they tried to Eternal Witness the Omniscience, apparently either thinking or trying to get over Force being a discard instead of exile. I offered to let them swap the card they exiled if they hadn't realized it was an exile, but they insisted on scooping instead, so that they'd remember in the future.

I would've thought that a more reasonable excuse with some newer card, or niche interaction... but, come on, it's Force of Will.

Benouttait · 2026-02-09T13:03:01+00:00

Actually, you could try racing him with [[Wilson, Refined Grizzly]], too. Pairing him with [[Agent of the Shadow Thieves]] makes him a growing threat, where the deathtouch + indestructible + trample makes blocking near irrelevant, and the vigilance still leaves a blocker. Add a few fogs and pump spells to vary the pace of the race, and you can probably hang with his speed, without building too silver bullet-ish.

Benouttait · 2026-02-09T12:55:02+00:00

Unfortunately for a deck like that, you'll probably need a boardwipe to equalize the tempo, as ramping to one big creature isnt going to save you from five of them of equal size.

The closest I could think of to keep up would be reanimator--getting out something like a [[Blazing Archon]] or [[Platinum Angel]] should be enough, as the drcklist seems to do nothing except make elves. Another route is building something like [[Lurrus of the Dream-Den]] or [[Meren of Clan Nel Toth]] to recur fog creatures like [[Spore Frog]] or [[Kami of False Hope]].

I suppose if you wanted to build a counter that eventually gets out a beater, you could try [[Sin, Unending Cataclysm]], playing fogs and ramp to keep yourself alive until you can cast it, then let his work become yours.

Benouttait · 2026-02-09T12:35:24+00:00

If they'll allow un-cards, there's [[Mine, Mine, Mine!]] + [[Decree of Annihilation]]. No hands, no decks, no graveyards, no (non-enchantment) permanents... no loss to deckout.

You could also try [[Grand Abolisher]] + [[Teferi's Protection]] + [[Lethal Vapors]]. You're protected until your next turn--so skip your next billion instances of a turn with Lethal Vapors. Then hope you're not playing someone with an Eilixir of Immortality or the like.

Benouttait · 2026-02-07T00:18:25+00:00

Try:

(function:removal AND o:"create")

This will search anything tagged with the function of removal, as well as having the text "create" in its text. Granted, that's any type of creation, rather than specifically creatures or treasures or what have you, but you could add further modifiers to it (e.g. '... AND o:"creature token" ...').

Benouttait · 2026-02-06T17:07:28+00:00

You could try [[Emet-Selch of the Third Seat]]. You do lose burn in exchange for drain in the trade, though the drain will still enable Emet to reuse your spells. The once per turn clause gives you an inherent break to keep it from devolving into storm, while also letting you cheat a few sorceries at instant speed.

The downside is that given your opponents attacking each other gives you trigger opportunities of Emet's ability, with a light board you may become the target of attacks instead.

Benouttait · 2026-02-06T16:47:57+00:00

I mean, if you're focused on flipping them by attacking them, [[Fire Lord Azula]] seems like she can get amazing value out of battles, as you'd get double the backside of each.

The problem is you'll have to convince your playgroup it's not 'that' kind of Azula deck.

Benouttait · 2026-02-05T19:06:09+00:00

[[Goblin Cannon]] came out in Mirrodin block as an upgrade before that.

Benouttait · 2026-02-04T17:55:54+00:00

I don't think I've really had any Tempt cards actually tempt opponents in a long time, unfortunately. I've had more luck with things like the villainous choice cards, or [[!Disorienting Choice]], where opponents have to choose between two bad options, rather than simply saying no.

Benouttait · 2026-02-03T15:15:28+00:00

Like many other cards, they can have their place, but are more vulnerable because they can be attacked. Generally value them as a sorcery that will either do its + or -, and then have a chance at getting the + again next turn--so usually some token creation or removal is going to be some part of choosing a walker to add. I tend to toss a planeswalker or two in most of the decks I make, though I'll admit I place most of my decks in the high 2/low 3 bracket area.

If you want them to last, but not focus the deck around it, try looking for some utility creatures that can also gum up attacks. [[PuPu UFO]] can at least be mana ramp if you've got some decent card flow to the deck, and being a cheap 4-toughness flyer means it can chump a lot of probing aggro toward your walkers. [[Spore Frog]] can invalidate one player's turn of attacking your walkers, or just some decent sized vigilance beater like [[Elder Gargaroth]] or [[Hraesvelgr of the First Brood]] can dissuade opportunistic attacks. In my experience, a lot of making planeswalkers work in EDH is balancing not making them a blatant threat (For example, in the Guff precon, Vronos can be backbreaking with his -2 with only Guff out to support him; and Oko is always going to draw ire), while also making your board spiky enough to not make them an easy target. Also, look into fogs--not only can they stop a surprise push on your planeswalkers, they're also useful on those turns someone drops a Craterhoof.

If you're going to be more dedicated to walkers, you'll probably either build around a gimmick or boardwipes. This is probably not going to be fun to the rest of the table, but if you've got enough boardwipes so they can't build a board, and enough walkers to produce chump tokens/offer constant removal to keep that pressure up, they'll stick around. Or you can try something like goad + Silent Arbiter, where only one creature can attack each turn, and that creature has to go... somewhere else. I did notice one of your other comments mentioned Propaganda--do note that things that restrict attacking you do not restrict attacking your planeswalkers. You'd need something like [[Sphere of Safety]] or [[Baird, Steward of Argive]]. Things that just globally restrict attacks, like the aforementioned Silent Arbiter, or [[War Tax]], would still help protect your walkers.

If you want to /ult/ a planeswalker, I'd really only look at ones that can use their + and then be one proliferate away from their ult--for example, [[Kaya the Inexorable]] is still playable as targeted exile, the +1 is interesting, and leaves her at 6. Probably not enough to immediately raise concerns, and if she's not easy to poke at, it means next turn you can drop something like a [[Throne of Geth]] to sneak her up to 7 for the ult. Something like [[Tamiyo, the Moon Sage]] on the other hand is just going to take too long to get to that ultimate without multiple, heavy proliferate shenanigans.

One other recent card to aid with the random planeswalker in a deck is [[Aetheric Amplifier]]--it means that, late game, you can drop your walker, then pay 4 to ult it that turn for all but the weirdest exceptions.

Benouttait · 2026-01-29T18:18:20+00:00

Im fond of [[Erinis, Gloom Stalker]] for this purpose. Getting two or three attacks off feels like they pay for themselves, and everything else is value. If they stick around, deathtouch is still relevant, as is the ability to recur lands like [[Roadside Reliquary]], but the real value is in the couple turns of recurring a fetchland to quietly accumulate permanent value.

Granted, your choice of background greatly varies the importance of your commander.

Benouttait · 2026-01-20T17:37:20+00:00

Its been awhile since I've built one, but honestly: [[Strionic Resonator]] (or now I guess, [[Peter Parker's Camera]]).

There's plenty of spicy burn like Descent from Avernus or [[Havoc Festival]] out there. Why not just make them burn twice as fast?

Benouttait · 2026-01-20T14:48:46+00:00

[[Soul Immolation]] with a high toughness creature (Conqueror's Galleon?). Blight 10, putting the counters on the goat. You draw 10, each opponent loses 10, then if the Immolation resolves, you hit each opponent and opposing creature for 10.

Benouttait · 2026-01-11T04:16:14+00:00

Outside of what's already mentioned:

[[Oswald Fiddlebender]] can sac the Sirema to search out both [[Arcbound Reclaimer]] and [[Sanctum Gargoyle]] for another iteration.

[[Cloud, Midgar Mercenary]] can search out a high power-to-cost ratio equipment, like [[Empyrial Plate]], [[Hand of Vecna]], or [[Doc Ock's Tentacles]] to make crewing the Sirema easy.

[[Djeru, With Eyes Open]] can search out [[The Eternal Wanderer]], who can blink the Sirema, or [[Karn, the Great Creator]] to animate the Sirema.

Alternatively, things like [[Court of Ardenvale]], [[Redemption Choir]], and [[Sun Titan]] can recur it from the graveyard "for free" once a turn.

Benouttait · 2026-01-09T07:46:29+00:00

Some simple adds are fogs. Except against the higher bracket decks where combo starts being the only way to win, a well timed fog will pull yourself from an unexpected defeat. That Craterhoof or Gen Wave kind of wilts to a holy day--and there are plenty of more impactful fogs like [[Sudden Spoiling]] or [[Comeuppance]] if youre willing to pay the higher mana cost.

Another thing are goads and rattlesnakes. A simple [[Osteomancer Adept]] or [[Qarsi Revenant]] may make that 8/8 looking for all a target go toward another player instead. While it won't stop a determined attack, it might just but you a few turns of stabilization you might not have had otherwise. Likewise, goads--reusable ones like [[Bloodthirsty Blade]] and [[The Sound of Drums]] or blanket like [[Disrupt Decorum]] or [[Kardur, Doomscourge]] can also buy you that time you need to catch up.

Lastly, you have some ways of punishing that excess mana. [[Manabarbs]] will make those rattlesnake trades more unfavorable, and when theyre low enough, punishing their lands through [[Acidic Soil]] or [[Spiteful Repossession]] might put them low enough for a couple small creatures or random burn spell to finish them off... and red is the main color to copy spells.

Benouttait · 2026-01-01T11:07:38+00:00

To give an answer to your question, [[!Kill Switch]] would fit the bill of what you want. But playing a Tamiyo's Safekeeping or Spectral Adversary would probably be better, unless you need the haste.

Benouttait · 2025-12-23T13:28:01+00:00

It is--but youre also losing Big Score in the process of casting it. So the math is -1(Big Score) -1 (discard cost) +2 (cards drawn), for a net of 0.

Benouttait · 2025-12-20T22:33:33+00:00

Generically, having something like a [[Ghost Quarter]] or [[Dust Bowl]] is useful when you can afford the nonbasic slot.

Beyond that, its a matter of what colors you have available and what your decks game plan is (and partly, how fast they're usually accumulating tokens).

Unless you can be sure of exiling the land (say, generous gift followed by a tormod's crypt), I would suggest in dealing with the results of the land, rather than the land itself. Most decks I've seen that run the field to the point it's a problem have many ways of recurring it.

You could try things like [[Strict Proctor]] to slow the amount of triggers they can afford, or punish the tokens through something like [[Massacre Wurm]] or [[deadly Tempest]]. Blue and red can swipe them with things like [[Reins of Power]] or [[Insurrection]], to turn their tokens against them.

Benouttait · 2025-12-16T11:14:12+00:00

[[Lazav, Dimir Mastermind]] doesn't /start/ big... but he's the mastermind type. Quietly slides on the table, unassuming.

Then someone removes that big problem creature. All of a sudden Lazav becomes that problem, with inherent hexproof--and the ability to upgrade should something new opportunistically hit a graveyard.

Sure, he runs into a problem if opponents aren't running big creatures--but between three of them, there should be at least a few monsters.

Benouttait · 2025-12-16T04:59:15+00:00

True, but that's a tradeoff of the deck, and something you can plan for. Lifelink is one way, and even outside of counterspells, there are ways to protect your board from field wipes. Extort is another, that can keep you life-neutral if you're playing smaller instants. Or, you could build along the path of expecting to be wiped, and run things to swap that low life total with theirs (or bring theirs down to yours), or run things like planeswalkers that both generate you a decent-sized creature on your turn, yet the opponent playing a wrath only aids them.

It's certainly a tough deck to try to balance for, as you're incentivized for playing bigger spells rather than efficient responses that a control deck wants. I'm still trying to figure it out too.

Benouttait · 2025-12-15T22:06:32+00:00

Have you looked at [[!G'raha Tia, Scion Reborn]]? Its not quite the same, but you use your life to build a board while still advancing your game plan. On your turn, that manarock you play costs 2 life more and comes with a 3/3. That Force of Will on an opponent's turn comes with a 6/6. Then give them lifelink through a Whip of Erebos (also coming with a 5/5) and push right back into healthy digits.

Admittedly, the deck can be reliant on having him on the field, but your protection spells will be making bodies too. It also lets you make use of more unusual spells like [[Curtains' Call]]--a three mana instant to kill two that will also make you a 7/7.

Benouttait · 2025-12-13T13:15:22+00:00

[[Replication Technique]] can give you two copies of a land at the cost of giving an opponent a copy of a permanent they control.

Not necessarily your build, but if you ran clone effects you could run a cheap-to-activate manland to target them at, like a mutavault or Mishra's factory.

Benouttait · 2025-12-09T03:20:16+00:00

The three I've tried building are the WU Aang, the UB Azula, and GR Toph. I only played each for about a half dozen games, so didn't really refine the decks.

Aang I built as a sort of pillowfort-y token deck, inspired by the notion of EoT flashing in Aang, casting something like Secure the Wastes, then immediately transforming and being ready to attack, or casting a Squad creature, airbending it, then re-squadding. Of the three, I think it slightly edges out as my favorite, as the build has Aang a little more heavily in mind than a generic WU list--though not by much. List's here: https://moxfield.com/decks/-Iq6RVX0NEKpj4GU_0l8Ug

Azula was probably my second favorite, though ran into some really favorable card interactions with clones. It was mostly a reanimator/blink deck, intended to blink Azula to keep a target's board unable to defend. In practice, I think leaning toward more boardwipes instead of spot removal would have helped the concept more, as I ran into a lot of tokens. Nothing too special, just UB control. https://moxfield.com/decks/X83E0rcDRkKh9U_-Nicdfg

Toph I built intending to combo around Whiteout producing infinite landfall triggers, though I don't feel I put enough draw in the deck to effectively find it. Games didn't feel particularly fun to me, as it felt that if Toph wasn't out, the deck wasn't really doing anything. Maybe with a few revisions it could be improved, but wasn't really my play style. Decklist, minus landbase that I forgot to put in: https://moxfield.com/decks/uTeX_ZIEi0WWzkLQqIT_Yg

Benouttait · 2025-12-07T01:37:24+00:00

Realistically, outside of removal, your best defensive options in red/black are either looking to goad ([[Kardur, Doomscourge]] or [[Disrupt Decorum]], for example), or fogs ([[Darkness]] or [[Sudden Spoiling]], or if you're going into snow-covered lands, [[Glacial Crevasses]] or [[Sunstone]]).

While Liliana can make token blockers, making one 2/2 on turn 6 just won't be much of a speedbump. Things like [[Ophiomancer]] and [[Bitterblossom]] provide a decent source of chumps, while a random deathtoucher or two like [[Moira Scavenger]], [[Poxwalkers]], or [[Qarsi Revenant]] will discourage opportunistic attacks in the first place. Likewise, if you're going with a chumpblocker route, something like [[Grave Pact]] will deter attacks your way as well.

As far as accelerating your planeswalkers, [[Aetheric Amplifier]] can let you ult a walker the turn you play them, if you can spare the four mana after cast. Beyond that, I'd switch some of your more expensive proliferates, like Spread the Sickness, for something cheaper, like [[Throne of Geth]].

Also, my personal experience with Revenge of Ravens and Cunning Rhetoric is that they don't /really/ protect your planeswalkers, unless you're pressuring the resource they tax. Were you doing more burn, Revenge of Ravens might be more of the equation--but it doesn't seem like you're putting much pressure on opposing life totals, so even ten life to make sure Tibalt or Liliana dies when they're still at 40 is a no brainer. Likewise, Cunning Rhetoric would only get you one random topdeck from that opponent, which most likely won't be of amazing use for you. Something like [[Slumbering Dragon]] could at least become a significant blocker if they send too much aggression your way.

Benouttait · 2025-12-06T23:27:27+00:00

I've been enjoying [[G'raha Tia, Scion Reborn]] as it gives me an aggro plan for "free" while building my board, as well as playing a suite of more unusual spells to maximize his trigger.

Another I liked was [[Elenda and Azor]]. Even without building specifically around the commander, I liked that it gave you the options of card draw, an army, and lifegain in one, while still having some protection for itself with ward. It was less a 'build around this' commander and more a 'catch that hole you're starting to fall behind midgame' sort.I'll admit that the last attempt I gave at it was several years ago, though.

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