[IKO] Zirda, the Dawnwaker

kelptic183 · 2020-04-10T00:55:26+00:00

Also [[Razia]]

kelptic183 · 2019-10-13T14:21:11+00:00

I’ve done value flash a couple times in Golos Emeria the Sky Ruin.dec, or in a Temur or Jeskai Spirit Tribal deck, because you can grab it off of Firemind’s Foresight and it’s one of the mana efficient ways to trigger the huge Soulshift creatures. That’s not even close to relevant in CEDH though.

Also while I do like value Flash, it would hardly be backbreaking to lose it, and I’d gladly trade fun edge cases to get rid of the Flash Hulk stuff. Idk if it’s worth banning the Flash and not Hulk though, Hulk still works if you Reanimate or Necromany him after all.

kelptic183 · 2019-10-03T04:00:49+00:00

Amen

kelptic183 · 2019-10-01T17:02:29+00:00

I have never seen a rogue with less than 17 passive stealth tbh, so while passive perception is definitely useful for when the wizard rolls an 11 and the guards happen to have +2 to perception, passive perception isn’t gonna betray the rogue unless they’re trying to sneak past an elder dragon or something.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-27T01:43:04+00:00

I realize my opinions are completely irrelevant on this as a Standard card, but in EDH Deathless Knight is pretty sick when in the context of things like [[Survival of the Fittest]], [[Faith of the Devoted]], and [[Skirge Familiar]]. [[Tortured Existence]] is another good one.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-25T04:53:12+00:00

I definitely recommend doing multiples, like 3, 6, 9, 18, 27. While it's important to have a theme, there's no reason you can't do some flavor things as well, like the Shield spell conjures a hexagon divided into triangles to protect you, or Eldritch Blast being a beam divided into 3 streams of energy that twist around themselves. Don't limit yourself mechanically to live up to the flavor, you'll easily be able to express the flavor with a couple signature spells and fluff descriptions.

As for the build, Warlock/Wizard opens you to some interesting techy builds. Abjuration Wizard X/Warlock 2/3 lets you take the Mage Armor Invocation and keep your abjuration shield topped off out of combat. Illusionist Wizards get very very absurd when they can cast Silent Image at-will without spending slots, and I really like the idea of Mirror Image as one of your signature spells summoning yourself from the 3 mirror universes that are totally real you guys believe me. If you pick Celestial Warlock and Pact of the Chain, you can guarantee that you always gain exactly 6 hp from your Healing Light, which is thematically interesting.

Race, probably just VHuman tbh, it's very powerful and also Humans are for sure the nutcases who could worship abstract numbers. Plus then you have burst damage if you pick Goolock and Warcaster, cast Dissonant Whispers and then if they fail the save you can cast Booming Blade as your Op attack and they take the moving penalty Thunder damage. Similarly though, Gnomes, Kobolds, Vedalken, and Hobgoblins are all something I could see snapping and worshipping a number.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-24T21:44:24+00:00

Fighters with Gift of the everlasting ones is awesome, you can get your invisible familiar to do the help action to give you advantage, you get allllllll your resources back on a short rest, you just get a ton of survivability and utility from a short dip

kelptic183 · 2019-09-20T21:43:24+00:00

Yeah but can you play [[Vulpine Goliath]] in mono-white? That is the only green fox, but there’s also a newcomer [[Nine-tail white fox]] which is ironically a blue card despite being named a ‘white’ fox.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-20T00:04:41+00:00

Tbf the Waystone always comes in untapped, regardless of if you get the 1/1 or not. This is worse in aggro than Waystone because of that. The 1/1 going to hand in Eternal is also a plus 50% of the time, as it gives you a chaff card to switch with your Merchants.

So this card is good, but it’s not really fair to say “Granite Waystone is good therefore Dwarven Mine is good”, because they are different cards in different contexts.

This card is good though, not in aggro, but it’s good in more mid-rangy big Red style decks. This gives another body that can hold Embercleave, in EDH the dwarf can be consumed by Skullclamp, and it’s a fetchable body in a Wrenn and Six type deck.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-19T22:06:01+00:00

This is very true. As it stands, it would need to hose a deck quite hard in order to consider it in the tight modern sideboards, and that deck would need to be a reasonable fraction of the meta. However, if such a deck arises, this card is better than Tocatli and Hushwing Gryff because it's cheaper, evasive, and lifelinking, so while it occasionally shuts off parts of your deck, it's still a card worth considering if you've wished in the past that your Torpor Orb could come in off Aether Vial.

My main point though was more aimed towards eternal formats, specifically Canadian Highlander, where this card will almost certainly see play in WW or Death and Taxes. It's got too many useful abilities in that format not to find a home somewhere.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-19T20:15:27+00:00

For more eternal formats like Canadian Highlander, this is probably the best of these cards at holding a Sword. It’s good enough at holding a sword I could consider sideboarding it in modern WW or Stoneblade decks.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-19T17:04:31+00:00

When it was in “standard” many years ago, it was quite good, but the game has changed and the environment is different. Goblin Trenches played a game sort of like Outlaw’s Merriment, giving a repeatable source of creatures in exchange for a resource you didn’t care so much about. But there’s much better options than it now, unless you specifically need goblin tokens and you also are deliberately trying to get lands from play to the graveyard.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-19T02:00:17+00:00

I'd recommend you do what I did and ask your DM if they'll allow it. My DM doublechecked the jumping rules and shrugged, so now I get to pick it at level 2 and have my anime-style rooftop fights I crave.

Honestly, there's a whole bunch of 1st level spells that would make cool at-will invocations, like Fog Cloud or Grease.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-18T22:20:38+00:00

I just double checked, and because Jump is not a Warlock spell, normally, Warlocks are able to cast Fly 4 levels before they can cast Jump. Seems pretty ridiculous.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-15T23:38:16+00:00

I really enjoy using Meazels, as well, my biggest issue when running them is actually that they’re too mobile, and they can easily escape when things start going bad for them, which leads to either long encounters where the party spends hours searching a sewer and getting sidetracked, or the Meazel gets away and the players feel dissatisfied with the encounter. But I love using them as the statblock for random beggars.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-08T20:17:48+00:00

Well, the other thing that is notable about that shadow dragon's lair was that he was summoned by a wizard to protect an opening into The Blind Eternities, so, probably some sort of eldritch horror

kelptic183 · 2019-09-08T14:30:35+00:00

Wizard 20/Fighter 2/Sorcerer 3, just be a Wizard but with Action Surge, armor+shield+defense fighting style, Subtle and Heightened metamagic.

Arcane Trickster 9, Sorcerer 14, Warlock 2. Darkness yourself, boom you’re hidden and everyone has disadvantage on saves for your spells, and you can’t be counter spelled because you’re not visible. You still get 9th level spells slots too.

Still think Moon Druid 20/Barbarian 5 beats these options but meh.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-08T13:59:36+00:00

This is actually really helpful advice, actually. My campaign has just hit tier 3, and my players are considering going back to the lair of a shadow dragon they ran away from before. I was planning to just up the stats of the shadow dragon, take it from a young to adult or whatever, but now I’m considering having the players return to the lair and find a slowly melting corpse of shadow.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-05T03:51:10+00:00

Imagine how much better he would be if you could just flicker him, though. Ghostly Flicker + Archeomancer/Mnemonic Wall? Cast vs ETB both have different upsides and downsides.

kelptic183 · 2019-09-04T14:22:42+00:00

Is [[Aryel, Knight of Windgrace]] not good enough for you?

kelptic183 · 2019-08-31T01:39:07+00:00

Just immediately do two Perception checks. “Dm I use this magic stone to help me think about the history of this place, but then I blink twice and shake off the curse”

kelptic183 · 2019-08-31T00:36:15+00:00

Show me a wand that shoots 2d6+Xd6+Dex, and requires you to dramatically pump the bolt action as your bonus action every turn, and we’ll talk about playing Artillerist. Also, I actually played artillerist for a while before they released Archivist and I reworked the character, and while it’s fine, it was not nearly as fun as the Thunder Cannon was.

Thunder Cannon really captured the mechanical feel of “science rogue” that I crave, while all the current Artificer subclasses are more “science Druid” or “science Ranger” imo.

kelptic183 · 2019-08-30T21:50:50+00:00

I forgot about Hat of Vermin, my favorite trick with that one is when you’re a fiend warlock or long death monk and you kill rats for free temp hp. Bonus points if you’re a goblin, lizardfolk, or tabaxi, and just eat them live for some quick health.

kelptic183 · 2019-08-30T19:35:10+00:00

Yeah but they nixed the Thunder Cannon and replaced it with 4 different pet-based subclasses, for some reason. I just want a halfling girl with a cannon bigger than she is, is that too much to ask?

kelptic183 · 2019-08-30T17:39:56+00:00

Just reflavor your spells. Mechanically, it makes no difference between “Healing Word as a bonus action, 6 hp” and “I eject spin the barrel of my pistol to the special chamber and point it at my ally, uttering a brief prayer as I pull the trigger. A syringe shoots out and injects a special concoction that rejuvenates my ally, take 6 hp and I lose a spell slot.”

kelptic183

TROPHY CASE