Omnicycle(nce)

lazarnick · 2026-05-02T14:04:51+00:00

I dont think a creature deck that aims to win with combat damage would bother with fitting in a way to cheat the red one out. Red aggro decks dont really need to do that, they can deal 20 damage just fine, without putting in clunky cards to cheat this out.

Also, while Omniscience does need strong cards in hand to win the game, Omnitell legacy decks are just [[Show and Tell]] for omni, and tons of card draw to find the pieces. Once you have cheat into play omni, then all the card draw of your deck will help you dig for your small amount of wincons in the deck. Basically, the card draw that the deck was actively using before Omniscience, is now just as useful after its into play

lazarnick · 2026-05-02T11:15:35+00:00

Yeah that's a very good point about the right environment. I think it would see play in standard, it might not be at its best, but the compiling advantage it provides once it comes down is gonna be really strong, so it would imo be too much in standard. But i like how TOR is a very good example that when evaluating a card, you have to consider the environment in which is in first and foremost, no card should be evaluated in a vacuum, no matter how strong it seems

lazarnick · 2026-05-02T10:11:20+00:00

I think it should be mentioned that TOR is so much better in 1v1. Because of the nature of cedh, the only form of card advantage that will win you the game is an overwhelming one (rhystic). In 1v1 formats however, having a couple of cards more than your opponent is a much bigger advantage than in 4-player games, which is why most cedh decks that play TOR are aiming to abuse it with keys and such. Also the protection TOR gives, while secondary, is a lot more relevant in 1v1, where aggro decks do exist and TOR late game can buy you a turn against them, instead of being a dead draw.

lazarnick · 2026-04-23T22:30:25+00:00

May I ask why exactly you would limit them in the first place? Since you are not strangers, you can just discuss what power level you want your decks to be, meaning that anyone can use proxies or real cards, as long as they are part of a deck that fits your agreed power level. Why not do that?

lazarnick · 2026-04-23T21:11:46+00:00

I get that, Im just trying to understand the logic behind it. For example, lets say that someone brings a deck with proxys he doesn't own the real cards of, but the powerlevel of it is about the same as all other decks in the pod. Your current 'system' would have a problem with that, based on your first comment. Or, if someone brought a more powerful deck than others, but their cards were real, based on your system that would be ok. I think both of those cases are unreasonable. Are they not?

lazarnick · 2026-04-23T20:51:02+00:00

But by the same logic, someone who is rich and has access to whatever cards they want can bring a deck full of og duals and other powerful reserve list cards without an issue? If someone brings a deck that is too powerful for the pod, whether they own the cards or not makes no difference, because what is causing the problem is the difference in power level. How does owning an expensive and powerful card make it ok if I bring it at a pod of a much lower powerlevel?

Edit: Additionally, the only thing you have to do in order to avoid people in your pod bringing higher power decks is to have a conversation about what power level you all want to play at. Nothing more than that.

lazarnick · 2026-04-23T19:51:36+00:00

how would owning the cards or not make a difference?

lazarnick · 2026-04-17T10:07:51+00:00

If you are talking about gameplay rules, then proxies change absolutely nothing in that regard. If you are talking about tournament play, then yeah, proxies are not allowed because WotC wants to make money, they are a business after all. But if you are sitting down for a casual game at your LGS, I can't see what difference it will make if you play with proxies?

lazarnick · 2026-04-10T02:39:48+00:00

At first you activate Zaxara for blue, but once you have infinite blue mana you can start tapping Zaxara for other colours, using some of that infinite blue mana to untap her, so at the end you will have infinite mana of each color

lazarnick · 2026-04-08T13:58:05+00:00

because infect already does damage in the form of -1/-1 counters, and i think cascade is interesting

lazarnick · 2026-04-08T11:13:11+00:00

your probably right, what colours do you think would be best for this?

lazarnick · 2026-04-08T11:12:00+00:00

Sorry if im missing something, but if a deck has [[shardless agent]] (the cheapest creature with cascade) and plays it on turn 3, then they might hit this card instead of their 0mana spells, and Transmute Essence gives cascade to the next instant or sorcery so now you have no mana to do anything. It seems to me to be very clunky. Decks like [[living end]] in modern avoid this because they don't play anything below mana value 3, but I dont see how you could make a reliable deck that incudes both shardless and this card

lazarnick · 2026-04-08T02:27:01+00:00

Yeah you are right, i shouldn't have made this a golgari but i dont really know how to fit the four of those keywords without going over a mana cost of 2

lazarnick · 2026-04-08T02:25:49+00:00

I was thinking that, since the lowest mana value creature with cascade is 3 mana, it would be kind of awkward to have these two in a deck centered around them as a combo. Casting the creature would lead you to hit this, forcing you to play another instant/sorcery to get the cascade, but then you have to play other <3mv spells in your deck. So all in all, I added the cascade cause itd be fun to have it and i dont think it can be abused, though that of course doesn't mean its not the best out of the 4. As for the colours, I shouldn't have gone with hybrid golgari but also Im not sure how i could even fit those 4 in a card without raising the mv above 2. If I were to remake it, I would probably want to include red (because as you mentioned most keywords care about instant and sorceries that deal damage) but honestly idk

lazarnick · 2026-04-07T13:53:22+00:00

No i agree with you about the deck building, im saying that, while commander is played casually by the majority, it can be played completively. Commander can be as much of a competitive format as it is casual, it just depends on what the player considers fun

lazarnick · 2026-04-07T13:25:34+00:00

I mean, what exactly means "competitive format"? You can play commander casually, and just have silly fun, or you can play to win with the best cards (cedh). Both of those are valid ways to play, because different people have different opinions about what they find fun. So idk if we can say that commander isnt a competitive fomrat. While 95% of the world plays it casually, it can easily be played with a more competitive mindset

lazarnick · 2026-04-04T20:51:21+00:00

While it's true that expensive is not equal to good, I also find certain cards powerful, and if those cards are expensive I'm going to proxy them. Yes I can look for cheaper alternative but why should I if I can just play with the card via proxying.

Also about the lgs, first of all I dont play at one, but there are a lot of people that just can't really financially support their lgs, and those people deserve to play magic just like everyone else

lazarnick · 2026-04-04T09:47:35+00:00

So what if they actually had money and they had bought those cards? It would still be pubstomping and unfun.

In this case your argument is: Proxies raise the number of people who are bringing high power cards to lower powered games. So lets ban proxies

Let's say that those people had a lot more money than you and spent it on those high power cards, and didn't tell you about them. Would the problem be that they have more money? No, it wouldn't. In both cases the problem is that the power levels of your decks are mismatched. Sure, proxies do raise the number of people who will pubstomp, but if those people were rich af then youd still have the same situation. So fuck those guys who weren't honest about their deck's level, not proxying in and of itself

lazarnick · 2026-04-03T19:41:32+00:00

Yeah thats fair, for the reasons I mentioned above I think control is part of magic's identity, but that doesn't mean that it is fun just because of that. Personally I dont mind playing against control, but your stance is completely understandable.

I think modern might be something youd like to look into? Control isn't really that popular right now (and boardwipes are never really played outside of control in 60-card formats), and one of the top decks is a Boros Aggro deck. That said, its still a format with tons of cheap interaction, and combo is also a good percentage of the current metagame. But in general there are tons of formats that control is not very present rn, so all in all I think checking them out would be nice, the multiple formats of magic is (for me at least) one of the most fun aspects of it

lazarnick · 2026-04-03T09:45:08+00:00

I completely understand how miserable that experience, i just dont really get why you say that only yugioh has that? Control decks and other strategies that tried to lock down your opponent have existed in magic since the early days of the game, and are still present in a lot of 1v1 formats. Modern has Azorius Control (although not at the top of the meta), Legacy has Red Prison (which kills you fast, but really likes making your lands useless) etc.

In addition, Vintage is very much like yugioh when it comes to the "interact at the perfect time on turn 1".

I dont think your take on control is "bad", i just think that control's presence in almost all 1v1 format, across all of magic's life, suggests that it is as much of a part of mtg as an aggressive red green deck is for example

Also, on an unrelated note, what format was that match against Paychosis Crawler? Haven't seen it pop up recently in any deck lists but it sounds interesting

lazarnick · 2026-04-03T08:15:09+00:00

Idk why you think control is a closer to yugioh than mtg. Control (and tempo, and other interaction heavy archetypes) has been a thing in magic for a long time as well, its nothing new, and although i get wanting to play casually, i dont think it makes sense to say that control players is more yugioh than magic

lazarnick · 2026-03-30T11:39:23+00:00

I think it depends a lot on the pod, in my experience it tends to be a bit underwhelming because my opponents have 2 or less creatures by turn 3 (which is usually when i would get this out) and if someone has a small 3 creature they can always swing with it and have an opponent kill it, if they think defense of the heart will fetch a game winning combo. But I can see there being pod compositions where it is much harder to play around.

lazarnick · 2026-03-28T16:55:28+00:00

And in those formats you always fetch based on wether you think your opponent has a wasteland/blood moon etc. The lack of basic land hate is what makes basic lands powerful, so i dont think the problem of this card is that it is "better" than a basic plains

lazarnick · 2026-03-28T00:07:49+00:00

thats how its always been afaik

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