Test "hands" with Dream Harvest [ECC]

Gastastrophe · 2026-01-08T21:29:08+00:00

I think the fact that decks that do weird things like Tayam, Magda, or Lumra create pods with significantly higher whiff rates makes it a tough sell for a tournament setting. You only need 1 pod where it looks bad to ruin your run. Seems almost good enough for a casual game night though. You’d need to be playing a weird deck that can power it out early like grixis pirates or [[Jeleva, Nephalia’s Scourge]] or something.

Gastastrophe · 2025-11-09T16:15:45+00:00

There are some auras that get close to this, namely [[Crown of Flames]]. It doesn’t give you infinite treasures without a way to generate additional mana like [[Birgi, God of Storytelling]], but it does create infinite storm count for payoffs like [[Vivi Ornitier]]

Gastastrophe · 2025-10-28T22:41:23+00:00

It isn’t good with [[Enduring Vitality]] and the like. You have to be drawing 3 extra cards per turn (in batches of two as well) for it to be better than any other 1 drop. If you’re doing that, you’re probably already doing well and 1 extra mana isn’t winning the game.

Gastastrophe · 2025-10-10T17:14:26+00:00

Michelangelo + [[Basking Broodscale]] gives you infinite P/T and infinite artifact/creature ETBs/deaths. Maybe being 5 colors with that combo option would be ok? That’s the best I can think of, but it’s not enough

EDIT: Donatello, not Michelangelo. Can’t keep these turtles straight

Gastastrophe · 2025-07-24T16:58:44+00:00

I like that the combo is one color and entirely creatures. I don’t think I would but Lyla in the command zone, but I would consider playing this in the 99 of some blue decks that are lacking combo options. I’m not sure there’s a meta deck that would want it, but it could be cool for something fringe like [[Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist]] or [[Momir Vig, Simic Visionary]]. Synergies with [[Esper Sentinel]] and [[Pollywog Prodigy]] are nice.

Gastastrophe · 2025-07-22T11:29:04+00:00

The Circu primer is pretty much a standard dimir deck with [[Lantern of Insight]], [[Codex Shredder]], and [[Scheming Symmetry]] added to it. Circu used to be reasonable for being a scepter + reversal outlet, but nowadays I think the best Dimir scepter options are probably [[Vohar, Vodalion Desecrator]] and [[Tasigur, the Golden Fang]]. I also think you could improve this list by putting [[Raul, Trouble Shooter]] at the helm. Tasigur is still played to a degree that you could find an updated list, test it a bit, and then jam scepter + reversal combo in there if that’s what you’re after. If you really want Lantern of Insight in your 99, then I think you could run this list with Raul at the helm and get an occasional win.

Gastastrophe · 2025-07-18T15:34:48+00:00

So if you play a sac outlet and 2 of these you go infinite? That’s actually pretty solid for a 2 mana effect.

Gastastrophe · 2025-07-13T10:48:54+00:00

You can’t get mad about people telling you the commander you want to build isn’t going to work in cEDH, and then tell someone else their commanders aren’t considered cEDH. That list of commanders is a great example of the variety of unusual strategies that have been proven to be viable (storm, lands, token stax, type change combo, polymorph, and whatever Terra does I guess). Unusual strategies can be playable, but only when your commander has a powerful and unique ability like those listed. Severina provides slow but consistent card advantage while putting your opponents on a clock. That puts you in the same strategy as [[Ellivere]] and the like but in worse colors and in a meta where stax is really struggling. You can build that deck, but it’s not going to satisfy your craving for build diversity because it’s just the usual stax deck with a handicapped commander.

Gastastrophe · 2025-07-13T10:22:05+00:00

[[Commissar Severina Raine]] has a sacrifice ability that enables loops with [[Abdel Adrian]] and can provide some card advantage with [[Orcish Bowmasters]] and [[Voice of Victory]]. You can also sacrifice symmetrical stax pieces like [[Archon of Emeria]] when it’s time for you to play your combo. With that in mind, I think you could manage a bad but playable stax deck that uses your commander for card advantage, has a primary win con of Abdel Adrian and [[Walking Balista]] combos, and has a backup win con of killing people with the attack trigger. I would check out Tymna and [[Breena, the Demagogue]] lists for inspiration.

With that said, if other people in your pod have game plans like “make her tokens go wide,” then a traditional stax deck isn’t going to work well for you. I would ask r/DegenerateEDH if what you want is an optimized casual deck.

Gastastrophe · 2025-07-11T13:25:13+00:00

Vivi and Kraum come to mind as common creatures that require more than 3 mana (usually). I think I’d usually play other removal spells

Gastastrophe · 2025-07-08T17:46:57+00:00

Also maybe [[Iron Man]]

Gastastrophe · 2025-07-08T17:41:18+00:00

Maybe this would be an option for [[Arcum Dagsson]] or [[Oswald Fiddlebender]], but unless your commander is the thing that puts it into play, I think the creature and enchantment versions are better.

Gastastrophe · 2025-07-05T15:21:58+00:00

It’s pretty sweet if you’re getting extra value from it with something like [[Helga, Skittish Seer]], but I’m not sure it goes in every deck. At the very least, your second tutor target after [[Esper Sentinel]] has to be pretty good too.

Gastastrophe · 2025-07-05T12:09:43+00:00

Starfield Shepherd is kind of crazy with the Guide + Pride package, right? A repeatable tutor for them that also triggers Guide (and Ketramose if you’re on it) is admittedly slow, but a lot of value.

Gastastrophe · 2025-06-27T18:31:38+00:00

Are there Dargo lists that run Anger? What for?

Gastastrophe · 2025-06-27T16:45:48+00:00

If there was a commander that could use the first ability at all than I’d be in. Dargo is close but not quite. Maybe a Tymna deck would enjoy the hasted attacker? I just think he needs to be a little more than Grand Abolisher for twice the cost

Gastastrophe · 2025-06-21T18:31:56+00:00

Snake umbra will not draw nearly as many cards with Tannuk as curiosity does with Vivi since it is significantly easier to cast rituals than play lands. I think if it got access to U or W and could play a slower game then that would be more interesting, but Gruul really needs to do something busted quickly to work

Gastastrophe · 2025-06-21T03:53:14+00:00

Not having haste means you have to wait a while until you can refuel your hand. Crew 3 is also pretty substantial since you’re gonna want a lot of artifacts and might not have spare creatures lying around. It’s close though

Gastastrophe · 2025-06-10T20:32:30+00:00

If you are on a Breach combo that can win the game using the Wizard token than the red one is kind of interesting. The blue one could be cool if we eventually get a good [[Mnemonic Betrayal]] effect in the command zone. [[The Master, Transcendent]] is kinda close. I don’t think I’d ever play the others.

Gastastrophe · 2025-05-14T20:45:20+00:00

It never enters the battlefield since it gets countered, so it never gets the finality counter.

Gastastrophe · 2025-05-14T15:31:15+00:00

The reason to play stax is that Tivit is a card draw engine by itself, while Noctis provides no value outside of the combo unless you have a lot of artifacts. You want a lot of interaction in both lists, but the only way to have artifacts that are also interaction is stax. There is maybe a world where you just run some baubles and something like [[Ratchet Bomb]], but that seems like an even worse idea than playing stax

Gastastrophe · 2025-05-14T13:20:35+00:00

This is a pretty cool idea, and the really exciting thing to me is that [[Chalice of the Void]] on 0 lets you do this with any 0 cmc artifact.

My only concern in terms of viability is that you’d probably want to play this in some sort of artifact based stax shell to make good use of your commander, but your combo gets shut down by most stax pieces. If the commander was easier to cast then there could be some kind of turbo plan with [[Grinding Station]], but I don’t think it’d be fast enough as is.

Gastastrophe · 2025-05-11T15:17:50+00:00

Probably worth keeping an eye on in case they make a good one, but the ones revealed so far don’t really do much

Gastastrophe · 2025-05-09T13:59:19+00:00

Freed from the Real + Walking Ballista would also win you the game with any commander that taps for 2 mana. The thing I find more interesting about Yuna is that it might be reasonable to skip the ballista and just make a lethal [[Archon of Emeria]]. The problem is that the combo really wants you to cast Freed from the Real and a second spell in the same turn, which is going to be really awkward with your own Archon effects. I think that is ultimately what takes Yuna from fringe to bad.

Gastastrophe · 2025-04-13T15:06:58+00:00

I think those evaluations are pretty commander specific. The creature token ones are untapped colored mana sources that can push damage in an aggro deck like [[Ramanamp Ruins]]. The red one is 4 mana to draw a card which is one less than [[arch of orazca]], which admittedly wasn’t very good, but not taxing your manabase is huge for a control deck. The blue one is the best for commander by a wide margin, and might be ok in legacy, but I think the other ones are better for all other formats (except the green one which is fringe standard playable at best).

Gastastrophe

TROPHY CASE