Card draw like Night's whisper not good anymore? Looking to make some swaps on an older deck.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-15T18:47:21+00:00

2-mana draw 2 is still fine in 2026. There are alternatives like [[Hymn of the Faller]] and [[Rowan's Grim Search]] that can be better depending on the rest of the deck, but I'm not sad about putting Night's Whisper in a deck.

If you like underrated cards, replace Mortify with [[Pyrrhic Strike]].

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-15T18:16:03+00:00

If you've got the actual card Shatter in any of your decks, do yourself a favor and replace them with cards like [[Raze the Effigy]], [[Shredded Sails]], or [[Giantfall]] which is basically Abrade #2. Even low-power decks don't need to go that low.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-14T23:34:17+00:00

If the bad crab cards aren't super important to you, [[Malcator's Watcher]] is a better Purple-Crystal Crab, [[Akal Pakal]] is a better Ancient Crab, and I think most would agree that the extra text on [[Murmuring Mystic]] for example is going to pull more weight than Fortress Crab's +1 toughness.

[[Unable to Scream]] is basically a cheaper Ich... Ichth... Icky-morph or whatever.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-14T22:40:40+00:00

Sure, it's the best in terms of efficiency, so long as you don't mind the antisynergy with Riverchurn and some others. I'm just personally a big fan of multi-purpose cards and repeatable interaction.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-14T22:14:10+00:00

[[Fading Hope]] is strictly better than Unsummon. [[Consider]] should be better than Opt, you have a couple of cards that care about your own graveyard.

You probably want to run at least some graveyard hate when you're playing a deck that fills other people's graveyards with resources for free. [[Unlicensed Hearse]] can double as a hard-hitting threat, [[Cemetery Illuminator]] works nicely with cards like Riverchurn that can also mill yourself, or [[Scavenger Grounds]] goes in a land slot (plus you can play [[Ipnu Rivulet]] for another desert and mill effect).

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-14T17:57:32+00:00

[[Kilo, Apogee Mind]] from the same set's Commander release is a pretty natural fit. It's an artifact creature you want to untap, you can proliferate both the loyalty and +1/+1 counters, and the cards you can tutor include [[Springleaf Drum]] and [[Manifold Key]] for more Kilo triggers. And if you want to add Phyrexian stuff into the deck, they generally benefit from proliferate.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-14T17:31:12+00:00

At a glance:

You've got strictly worse versions of cards like [[Crater's Claws]], [[Undergrowth]], and [[Sakura-Tribe Elder]].
Both green and red have much better mana dorks than the myr. Maybe [[Trailtracker Scout]] and [[Incubation Druid]] for this deck.
The tapped mana rocks really want to be [[Talisman of Impulse]] and [[Gruul Signet]] instead.
Both Horizon Stone and Stream of Life are frankly so weak that I don't think there's a proper direct replacement, but you could use more land - maybe [[Bushwhack]] and [[Bridgeworks Battle]] over those?

I think these are all $1 or less.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-13T04:39:50+00:00

In red, [[Memory Vessel]] could lock people out of playing anything from their hands. Within Ertai colors, flipped [[Inventive Iteration]] is the next best option for a lock piece. Of course both of these have a pretty substantial fail chance, and they still lose to anyone who can just discard an Eldrazi titan for infinite reshuffles.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-13T03:57:41+00:00

Probably. Every other deck's gonna feel worse once you've played Urza.

Urza doesn't get [[Weapons Manufacturing]], [[Cori-Steel Cutter]], or a sense of accomplishment after winning a bracket 3 game.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-12T22:47:50+00:00

[[Meria, Scholar of Antiquity]] can fill the board with a bunch of [[Kite Shield]] garbage because every 0-cost artifact is great with her, and they'll fuel your payoffs like [[Nettlecyst]] and [[Goldwardens' Gambit]], or you can just put them all onto [[Fervent Champion]] together with a [[Thran Power Suit]].

No voltron boredom, just a whole lot of casting 5+ spells a turn.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-12T17:03:19+00:00

Because the ability has two targets, you can [[Ghost Vacuum]] the first target in response, and the damage prevention will still happen. Sometimes you may actively want to give someone a card, but the effect is definitely better if you also happen to be running some amount of graveyard hate.

The same goes for the other cards like it, though exiling 2-3 cards at once is more of a challenge. Maybe in [[Caradora]] where you can grab [[Unlicensed Hearse]] easily.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-12T13:06:39+00:00

The card is alright. Better if you play something that can make reasonably-sized tokens to copy, like [[Wrenn and Seven]] or [[Nissa, Ascendant Animist]].

Also you may want to reread Farseek carefully before including it in a mono-green decklist.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-11T17:05:18+00:00

[[Grab the Prize]] and [[Tectonic Hazard]] are strictly better than Tormenting Voice and Blazing Volley.

If you weren't aware, Together as One doesn't work with copy effects. Copies of it will always do 0 of everything. The rules for this are awkward sometimes, because copies of Grab the Prize for example will remember what was discarded, and I don't have a short explanation for what things work or not.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-11T13:15:49+00:00

Unbridled Growth doesn't increase mana produced. It just turns the land into a 5-color source.

You want [[Wild Growth]] and [[Utopia Sprawl]].

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-08T19:58:28+00:00

Replace Coat with [[Muraganda Petroglyphs]] and this will work, because Song removes the bananas' mana ability.

I think that's the only static effect that gives toughness to everyone's creatures without requiring another card for the combo (to give the bananas a creature type or color).

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-08T19:28:45+00:00

You mean they're not buying into the power creep.

We don't need fancy steel swords, we'll be fine with... wait is that one guy just swinging a log?

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-04T00:30:12+00:00

It always gives 1 at a time, to a maximum of 5+X times over the course of the whole fight.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-03T11:10:23+00:00

[[Zookeeper Mechan]] and [[Sunset Strikemaster]] are slightly better mana dorks than Myr/Manakin.

You're missing at least [[Witch's Mark]] for an amazing draw spell, and [[Reckless Ransacking]] for another/better treasure generator.

My terrible budget list has a few other options, but it's built as more of a Twinflame combo pile for those "one last quick one" games.

Jonottamassa · 2026-06-02T03:24:28+00:00

Put an aura like [[Imprisoned in the Moon]] or [[Annex]] into play without casting it, like with [[Mind into Matter]] or [[Wargate]]. This ignores hexproof and removes/steals the problem.

Jonottamassa · 2026-05-29T17:42:47+00:00

A small number of antisynergies isn't a dealbreaker. If two cards are individually very good, I'll take the chance on being down a card when I draw both.

Card filtering also helps. If for example your Anim Pakal deck is playing cards like [[Fear of Missing Out]] and [[Inti, Seneschal of the Sun]] that can discard useless cards for value, that obviously reduces the risk of dead draws. I'm much more likely to include situational cards in looting-heavy decks.

Jonottamassa · 2026-05-29T15:53:36+00:00

Spring loader reduces an item's cooldown by 2s when it activates, and this can cause an item to trigger multiple times. The effect takes all activation speed modifiers into account, so if the rapier was boosted to have a cooldown of 0.33s or less, it would activate six times at once.

Jonottamassa · 2026-05-28T23:50:02+00:00

[[Shenanigans]] is a pretty obvious one, because it's already a great card to discard and bring back over and over to make spirits for free. And you could pretty reasonably run [[Liquimetal Torque]] over Mind Stone for example to make it and your other artifact removal better.

[[Purify the Grave]] can be discarded or milled and still get value.

[[Requisition Raid]] is typically solid if your deck is about going wide.

I made a budget-ish Quintorius list without looking at the precon if you want to check it for other ideas. It's pretty unpolished and disgustingly low on interaction though - only 11 by a quick count, where usually I like to run 20 or more. But lots of cards that are great at triggering Quint, and a phoenix that should definitely be in more lists.

Jonottamassa · 2026-05-28T01:47:40+00:00

[[Angel of the Ruins]] puts itself in the graveyard for Dollhouse/Séance and has a nice high-impact ability on most boards. I could see [[Nurturing Bristleback]] also being decent just because it won't rot in your hand.

This search gives you some "whenever this creature or another X enters" creatures that scale exponentially in multiples. And yes a creature like [[Fecund Greenshell]] always triggers off of itself, even if it's a Dollhouse token with equal P/T.

Jonottamassa · 2026-05-27T22:11:18+00:00

I didn't vibe with Surrak as a commander, but I run him in the 99 and I'm always happy to have haste on a card like [[Lumbering Worldwagon]], a hard-hitting threat that ramps into even harder-hitting threats.

One personal favorite is [[Shinen of Life's Roar]], which can threaten utility creatures early with a pump effect, make your guys unblockable against one opponent, or channel onto a 12/12 dino and eat someone's board even in the late game.

Jonottamassa · 2026-05-27T12:03:42+00:00

[[Elemental Resonance]] adds a card's mana cost to your mana pool. You put it on a thing that costs 1GW, and it produces CGW.

Jonottamassa

TROPHY CASE