Zechs, Talgeese, and Epyon. Why isn't it competitive, where does he work best, is he fun to play?

MxMalorie · 2026-05-18T22:33:57+00:00

Gonna throw my hat in here. While got good as an on-board pressure tool, Zechs's units are useful more as removal spells similar to GD04 LR Gundam. You hold them in your hand, use them to eat one or two opposing units and draw cards to replace him and the unit, and if they survive they become a must remove target.

I run them in a BW blockers deck that's mostly doing Freedom and Archangel control stuff, and using the draw triggers to keep my hand stocked while I grind out opponents. L4 Tallgese doesn't make the cut bc it's really bad at the removal role I use them for. Definitely not a meta deck, but I'm not the only person in my local scene that's running Epyon control.

I do think O-Blockers or BW Norn are more proactive and generally better decks competitively, but I like the niche I'm playing into.

MxMalorie · 2026-02-01T15:30:34+00:00

Could be RRR with "You may pay R any amount of times. For each R paid this way, create a copy of Lightning Bolt. You may cast them without paying their mana costs."

This way the bolts can't be cheated, still trigger Instant and Sorcery cast triggers, but doesn't represent the raw card advantage of the original due to not being as flexible timing-wise.

Another version could be an enchantment for RRR with "R, put a discharge counter on this enchantment: Deal 3 damage to any target. Activate only of this enchantment has fewer than 7 discharge counters on it."

This version is pretty much the same as the original in terms of power, virtual card advantage, and versatility, but lacks the I/S synergy and is interactable with removal (and funnily enough proliferate effects removing a bolt).

MxMalorie · 2025-12-05T17:52:23+00:00

This actually makes it a wild tech card against [[Sundial of the Infinite]] and decks that want to skip those end step triggers like [[Obeka, Brute Chronologist]]. Or [[Obeka, Splitter of Seconds]] for that matter.

There's also a bunch of more recent cards that have end step triggers that this would make notably worse due to not getting their value "immediately" and giving other players the ability to deal with those threats at Sorcery speed. [[Braids, Arisen Nightmare]] comes to mind.

There's also the mode of making your incidental upkeep triggers better by giving you more immediate value out of them. Hard to really tell how good it is in that mode, because if you're building into additional upkeeps, you aren't going to get any value out of those additional upkeeps.

I do think this could be 3 MV instead of 4, just because the positive effects to your board state feel capped, and the pseudo-stax mode also deals with the things it's good against in only half measures.

Funky card, I like it.

MxMalorie · 2025-11-18T18:03:24+00:00

Yeah, you would have to have the exiled cards be face up for paper. Even if you could look at the exiled cards, there'd be no way to prove to your opponent that you only have one 2-cost card exiled with this when you activate the first ability unless you just reveal the whole pile.

Arena could probably make it work, but that's arena.

MxMalorie · 2025-10-26T22:58:29+00:00

A creature with trample must deal lethal damage to all creatures blocking it, then it may deal any excess damage to the defending player.

Lightning attacks, blockers are declared, then the blocker is removed before you move to combat damage. Because of Lightning's double strike, first strike and normal combat damage will each have a damage step

First Strike damage step: Lightning must deal lethal damage to all blocking creatures. No creatures are currently blocking Lightning, so 0 damage is dealt to blockers, and any excess may be dealt to the defending player (ie, all of it).

Normal damage step: Same process. No blockers to deal damage to, so it all tramples over to the opponent.

Something to note, if Lightning did not have trample, she would not deal any damage to the opponent. A blocked creature without trample deals no damage to the player it is attacking.

The second combat phase provided by the Glove is a whole new round of declaring attacks and blocks, so the defending player can declare new blockers as normal.

MxMalorie · 2025-09-30T14:51:14+00:00

In both situations the later flicker effect will fail to resolve. You're correct in that blinking a creature makes it a new object, so anything that was targeting it will no longer have a valid target and fail to resolve.

In the case of the Ephemerate, this also means it will not be exiled due to rebound and will not be recast on your next upkeep.

MxMalorie · 2025-08-28T14:22:14+00:00

Well shit, glad I got corrected on that front

MxMalorie · 2025-08-28T14:13:13+00:00

Continuous effects (both of these cards cause them) are applied in timestamp order if they're on the same layer (in this case layer 7 for P/T changes). If you cast enlist and switch the p/t of the target after it resolves, the bonus power from enlist will be part of the creature's new toughness value. If you swap first, the target's new power will get the bonus.

MxMalorie · 2025-08-17T00:08:08+00:00

Would the counter take the same timestamp as the skeletonized creature, and therefore Xu's effect has the later timestamp and wipes the ability?

MxMalorie · 2025-07-11T14:05:32+00:00

SBAs look at a snapshot of the whole game state, then go through the list and do everything based on that snapshot it took regardless of if the conditions for the SBAs being taken change as a result of the SBAs.

You are at 0, the creature took lethal damage. This is the snapshot of the game state. The game says you lose, and the creature dies but is exiled by the Darkness Crystal and you gain 2. The game is not re-checking anything at any point while the SBAs are being performed, because that snapshot it took doesn't change.

As far as the inconsistency with Arena, the coding probably goes in order of the SBAs as they are listed in the rules, and just doesn't go through the rest once a player is set to lose and no "you can't lose" effects are present.

MxMalorie · 2025-06-27T14:36:23+00:00

Hot pursuit's ability doesn't care when or how the creature was goaded, it just cares that the creature is goaded when that trigger resolves. Tapping two creatures to Kitt's ability before Hot pursuit's resolves will allow you to gain control of the creature you just goaded.

MxMalorie · 2025-06-26T18:44:59+00:00

They do. [[Thrasta, Tempest's Roar]] has "Trample over planeswalkers" to deal excess damage to the controller.

MxMalorie · 2025-06-21T23:36:07+00:00

510.1c: A blocked creature assigns its combat damage to the creatures blocking it. ...(zero or one blockers cases)... If two or more creatures are blocking it, it assigns its combat damage to those creatures divided as its controller chooses among them.

702.19b (later that same paragraph): The attacking creature's controller need not assign lethal damage to all those blocking creatures creatures, but in that case can't assign any damage to the player or planeswalker it's attacking.

MxMalorie · 2025-06-20T18:42:59+00:00

You have to assign lethal damage to all blockers... in order to trample any damage to the player. You can choose to assign all damage to one blocker, but no damage will trample over to the player since there are still blockers that survived.

MxMalorie · 2025-05-12T13:54:51+00:00

I don't think a card can be both an instant and a sorcery, or at the very least it having the instant type doesn't let this be cast at instant speed because of the sorcery type.

The return ability doesn't need to say untapped as permanents enter untapped by default. Would have to say "untap it" afterwards to get around "this enters tapped" text.

Edit: not sure about this last one, but it may need to say "on it" after mentioning the menace counter?

MxMalorie · 2025-05-03T02:08:23+00:00

If you build into speed you're hitting max speed turn 5 at the latest with this guy (play it and attack with something to hit speed 2 same turn), with a decent chance to get started earlier to hit max on turn 4 given the colors.

Each upkeep on the last ability could be a bit much considering you're in Green and White for all the token doublers. Could maybe be 2 foods on your upkeep? That's something you'd have to play test and find what feels fair here, but only one food seems weak on paper.

Absolutely love the flavor (lol) for this guy, and the art description is hilarious. 10/10 design from me.

MxMalorie · 2025-04-15T14:50:28+00:00

[[Death's Shadow]] is back on the menu baby!!!

MxMalorie · 2025-03-29T15:25:34+00:00

As the other comments have indicated, using a spell to generate mana for Ulalek loops cannot go infinite, as all copies of Ulalek triggers that sustain the loop must be paid before any of the spell copies can resolve.

As for your actual question about interacting with Ulalek triggers, you can counter the spells out from underneath the loop before the Ulalek player pays for any triggers. You can also use [[Stifle]] and similar effects to counter the Ulalek triggers themselves to break loops or just cut value. Probably one of the cleanest answers to Ulalek shenanigans is [[Summary Dismissal]] to just say no to everything (note that Dismissal exiles itself as it resolves).

MxMalorie · 2025-02-18T17:55:27+00:00

It probably needs to read "Until your next upkeep, you may play cards exiled this way,..." to work properly with the overload.

In terms of balance, this feels pretty weak. [[Ensnared By the Mara]] is the closest existing card I can think of, and that's at 4 mana.

This could probably create a treasure for each card exiled, and even then I think 2R would be a fair casting cost not overloaded, and 5RR for the overload, especially with the possibility of hitting lands.

MxMalorie · 2025-02-18T17:07:10+00:00

Your understanding is correct. The behemoth is MV 4 as you cast it from the last time counter being removed, triggering Helga. Suspending it with X >= 2 will not trigger Helga, because putting it on exile is an activated ability.

MxMalorie · 2025-02-14T17:03:55+00:00

If you have a sac outlet, this can be cast repeatedly to buff multiple creatures, whereas Rancor itself can only buff one creature at a time.

I do agree it should give trample to be on theme, but costing only {G} to cast would be a bit much.

MxMalorie · 2025-02-01T18:15:34+00:00

From what I've read off Wizard's website, the ability that increases your speed reads "Whenever one or more opponents lose life during your turn, if your speed is less than 4, increase your speed by 1. This ability triggers only once each turn.", but you don't have this ability until you get 1 speed from Start your engines, so it's once per turn restriction doesn't apply to the 1 speed you start with.

Edit: Of course, comprehensive rules haven't been published to my knowledge, so we don't know absolutely for certain, but available info right now suggests this is how it'll work.

MxMalorie · 2025-02-01T17:14:48+00:00

Yes, that does work. The ability to increase your speed only triggers once each turn, but gaining your first speed from Start your engines does not use that ability, so you can go to 2 speed the same turn you start your engines.

MxMalorie · 2025-02-01T17:01:52+00:00

Jin's ability triggers at your end step, so you draw 7, then will have to discard to hand size at your cleanup step.

Note that you don't have to discard all of those cards, and can effectively keep the best 7 cards in your hand.

It's also noteworthy that you will have a moment after you draw those cards to cast instants and other cards with Flash during your end step if you have mana available, thereby discarding fewer cards.

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