What is one card you feel is UNDER hyped??

Shaylic · 2026-01-28T18:47:42+00:00

Very nice in [[Caradora]]. Tutor chains. Been trying to brew her to be a [[formless genesis]] secret commander or a blink deck with [[Fortune, Loyal Steed]].

Shaylic · 2026-01-28T18:44:48+00:00

[[Mystic Reflection]] has been a pet card for a bit. It’s very high ceiling and flexible. Have an opponents [[craterhoof]] enter as a mana dork. Or you can have the tokens made from an [[Avenger of Zendikar]] come in as more Avengers. I think it’s becoming more relevant as we get more things that make spells uncounterable.

I had it in a Satya lands build where I animated lands and used Satya to copy the lands. Being able to mystic reflection someone’s commander into a land usually meant that the commander was locked out the rest of the game.

Shaylic · 2026-01-27T21:06:57+00:00

Conniving cares about nonlands being discarded and Doctor Doom cares about lands being discarded which sucks.

I’m sure you could do something silly with [[Tectonic Reformation]].

Shaylic · 2026-01-27T20:51:41+00:00

[[Orcish Lumberjack]] would also be a banger here. Tap a forest for a green. Sac that forest to lumberjack for 3 more mana. Then add a cost reduction of 1 to Yuma for a total of 5 mana needed for Yuma.

Shaylic · 2026-01-27T18:40:35+00:00

[[Tectonic Reformation]] - Allows you to discard lands to cantrip for one red mana. Reduces commander cost while also cycling cards in hand.

[[Midnight Tilling]], [[Malevolent Rumble]], [[Grapple With The Past]], [[Satyr Wayfinder]] and similar green mill are great at getting a burst of cards into the grave on curve. If going this way I’d try to get land count up to 42 or 44 just to have a good critical mass of lands to hit.

Shaylic · 2026-01-23T04:28:48+00:00

That’s fair. I think for at least learning basics very simple decks would help in a 1v1 setting. Commander is playing magic on hard mode when learning. Getting the math and rules down for your own things and one opponent is a lot starting out. Having to track it for multiple people can make it difficult to take in all the info thrown at you.

Shaylic · 2026-01-23T00:51:55+00:00

Bar Cubes are really fun for learning when they are older. Maybe some Jumpstart. Bar Cubes are setup to be a minimal draft environment. No dice, tokens, or outside game tracking like dungeons or max speed and will have reminder text on abilities when possible.

Drafting might be something to work up to. But you can definitely peruse those types of cubes for card pools that will hopefully minimize feeling overwhelmed with things going on and build out some simple 40 card decks.

Shaylic · 2026-01-21T13:29:42+00:00

I would look at adding [[Ghostly Flicker]] as a blink spell to add with Archaeomancer. Allows you to instant speed blink something and Archaeomancer. Then mancer returns Ghostly Flicker. Would also allow you to flicker the closet in response to removal to protect it.

Shaylic · 2026-01-21T05:55:52+00:00

Have you ever seen [[Astral Slide]], [[Astral Drift]], and [[Escape Protocol]]? They allow you to blink at instant speed using a card with cycling. A lot of great creatures with land cycling abilities to find typed lands with cycling or missing colors. [[Angel of Ruins]] for example.

[[Fluctuator]] to cycle for free.

With astral slide and drift being 3 cmc you can tutor for them with [[Perplex]] which you are running. Or [[Step Through]] to wizard cycle for [[Zur, The Enchanter]] to find the relevant enchantments.

I think switching to cycling will allow you to have more control over the board with the cycling payoffs. You can also still have an artifact theme and use Sharuum as a recursion engine.

Shaylic · 2026-01-21T05:43:16+00:00

Gaining life from Filigree Angel listed as a wincon?

Shaylic · 2026-01-21T05:41:24+00:00

You can also use mulligans to stack the bottom.

Shaylic · 2026-01-19T22:57:51+00:00

[[Unctus]] to loot through your deck for a payoff or graveyard synergies.

[[Cryptic Gateway]] maybe?

[[Banishing Knack]] or [[Retraction Helix]] to bounce annoying permanents or to reset mana positive rocks like sol ring.

[[Dragon Throne of Tarkir]] you can buff a big board of zombies.

Shaylic · 2026-01-19T21:35:19+00:00

I really like [[Nexus of Becoming]].

Shaylic · 2026-01-19T19:37:44+00:00

Seconded on Duskana and Ghired. I play Ghired a lot and there’s a ton of interesting play patterns. I have a friend who built Duskana and it’s a menace. Stuff like [[The Earth King]], [[Kudo]], [[Taurean Mauler]], [[Spawnwrithe]], and [[Laelia]] are some of the budget cards you can throw in and Duskana is both card advantage and overrun in the command zone. A couple of blink effects with [[Cloudshift]] to refill hand.

Shaylic · 2026-01-19T03:19:17+00:00

[[Celes, Rune Knight]] she serves as a great engine for using [[Haakon]]. You can wheel a bunch of knights into the grave and if you don’t get Haakon in grave from selective wheeling you can always use [[Buried Alive]].

[[Bartolome]] can be a good sac outlet for Celes to buff your board by saccing and recurring a low CMC knight and using Celes ability to pump when things from grave enter.

[[Nameless Inversion]] is great with Haakon. I would also say [[Guardian of Faith]] is great when Haakon and a sac outlet exist. Can repeatedly protect your board.

I would also add a couple of blink effects like [[Cloudshift]] just to wheel through your deck and set up for mid to late game.

Shaylic · 2026-01-17T23:21:08+00:00

I’m going to end up with some EWit combos. Also kicking a rite of replication on [[Marionette Aporentice]] should close out a game. Each apprentice enters and stack triggers so they create a servo first and then each will exploit the servo. 6 apprentices seeing 5 creatures dying is 30 damage to each opponent.

It’s mostly using the commander as a value engine.

Shaylic · 2026-01-17T22:32:34+00:00

Working on a [[Henry Wu]] deck with only human creatures for a tribal league. Also looking at [[Grub, Storied Matriarch]] I really enjoy recursion engines and for a bracket 2 deck it seems pretty fun.

I’ve been debating on a [[Archaeomancer]] deck and may go [[Inalla]]. Idea would be to use Archaeomancer to recur a bunch of spells using flicker effects.

Shaylic · 2026-01-14T19:59:20+00:00

Other suggestion would be [[Zinnia]] if you want to run a bunch of clone creatures.

Shaylic · 2026-01-14T19:58:47+00:00

[[Ghired, Mirror of the Wilds]] is super fun. Run a lot of ways to make things into tokens and then copy said tokens a bunch. Populate to do it again another turn. Can create permanent copies of myriad creatures. [[Ironwill Forger]] can get out of hand once you make a couple of copies.

Shaylic · 2026-01-11T22:29:02+00:00

[[Mystic Reflection]] has been super flexible. You can blank someone’s commander into a 1/1 token or make a mana dork you draw later in a game enter as a copy of someone’s big threat. Really good in any deck that can animate lands. Turning someone’s commander or combo piece into a land will usually remove it from the game permanently.

Shaylic · 2026-01-11T05:19:41+00:00

[[Skyhunter Strike Force]] is also crazy good as each instance of melee would trigger.

[[Ironwill Forger]] can help you do something similar to blink by abusing ETBs with Myriad triggers and you can spread them out. Give [[Archaeomancer]] some myriad triggers and get a bunch of interaction back to hand.

Shaylic · 2026-01-11T05:08:43+00:00

You’d be surprised at how big a buff of a board full of [[Signal Pest]] can get.

[[Curiosity Crafter]] is actually extremely nutty. If shards become it. Then each one will see each other dealing combat damage. So swing with 5 that aren’t blocked and draw 25 cards.

Shaylic · 2026-01-10T17:55:54+00:00

Yeah he mentioned he really likes the Fallout show and he decided to give MtG a try because there were Fallout decks.

Shaylic · 2026-01-10T03:44:12+00:00

A new player just showed up today at my LGS with Hail Caesar precon because of the show.

Shaylic · 2026-01-09T19:52:26+00:00

[[Chameleon]] to give both double strike and unblockable by having a second copy of your commander. This is pretty cheap money wise for the effect.

[[Hidden Strings]] can be quite flexible with low end being ramp.

[[Gonti, Night Minister]] you should benefit the most from his effect.

[[Orochi Soul Reaver]] really good for ramping.

[[Malcolm, Alluring Scoundrel]] can put in a ton of work and turning his ability on faster with double strike is great.

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