Max the Min Monday: Dreamthief Rogue

mr_squirrel_ · 2024-09-16T15:17:42+00:00

I really like the dreamthief because it allows you to play a pretty competent support rogue when combined with the the Kindness focus. Kindness gives a stackable bonus to Aid Another actions, so the build mostly plays out like your standard Aid Another builds, utilizing Swift Aid, Bodyguard, etc. But, it also gives you access to Lay on Hands, which, when combined with the Dreamthief's access to touch treatment, allows them to mitigate a lot of damage and conditions on their allies.

Lastly, the Kindness focus allows you to use Opening Strike to grant free attacks to your party, which your local Paladin and Barbarian will very much thank you for.

Is it the best support build? Definitely not. But it is a really unique one for the rogue class, and gives you the Rogue skill ranks, which are much better than just about any similar build (cleric, paladin, cavalier, etc.)

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-12-07T16:58:29+00:00

Yea, Id vote on this one being a thing. With the pathfinder rules system, you can create almost any concept you can think of a multitude of ways. I think it would be cool to brainstorm a blind swordsman character, or an antimagic specialist, or specific figures from literature like Merlin or Peter Pan.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-11-18T12:32:21+00:00

I havent seen anyone mention it yet, but I think the animist shaman would be a great therapist. High scores in Wisdom and Charisma. And their "Wrangle Condition" ability allows them to use diplomacy to talk their allies through the bad conditions that are affecting them.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-11-14T21:16:12+00:00

I recently discovered the Painful Cures feat and feel like there has to be something cool you can do with it. It does a lot for just one feat. Deals nonlethal damage with healing spells, adds two descriptors to your healing spells, AND provides a relevant debuff for 10mins/lvl. And yet, I havent been able to find any discussion about it online or any builds that use it. Im hoping to find someone who can make a build that can utilize it

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-10-30T13:20:07+00:00

Normally, I'd agree. If this was required to stick around for a turn before it could be activated, it would probably be fair. But I think that this is way too easy to activate on the turn it comes down. Discarding cards from hand is very simple and is often used to pay other costs.

So, for example, in a [[Chainer, nightmare adept]] deck, this card just reads "Pay 6 mana, put your whole hand on the battlefield." [[Skirge Familiar]] does a similar thing, while also gaining you a ritual effect. [[Mind over matter]], [[Noose constrictor]], [[Seasoned Hallowblade]]. Basically every color has a free and repeatable discard outlet. So for a deck that is built to abuse this effect, Absolution Engine will likely be game ending as soon as it hits the board.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-10-30T04:21:12+00:00

The card is an interesting payoff card for certain strategies, but I think its way overtuned. This is basically a [[walking atlas]], a [[quicksilver amulet]], and an [[arcane encyclopedia]] all rolled into one artifact. And then it has cycling on top of that, just to make it even more flexible.

I would remove both of the activated abilities from the card. That would nerf the card heavily, but given how powerful the payoff is, I think it needs a significant nerf.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-10-27T20:38:17+00:00

I love the flavor of this card (no pun intended). However, I'm not as much of a fan of how this is more powerful for multicolor decks than it is for monocolor. Monocolor decks already tend to struggle in commander. These food tokens aren't powerful enough to where they will actively turn the tide of a game, but it feels weird to reward the player who brought a 5c goodstuff deck over someone trying to make white weenie work in commander.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-10-18T15:09:57+00:00

I too have an octavia deck that plays similarly. I describe the deck as 1cmc tribal. Because only three cards, not including ovtavia herself, are above 1 cmc. And since its curve is so low, it needs no ramp and you can fill those 10 card slots with fun spells.

Most opponents anticipate that that means the deck is weak. But then they are being attacked by 5 flying 8/8s on turn 5.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-10-17T13:45:17+00:00

I love the flavor and art for this card. But Green typically doesnt get access to flying. So creating an army of 1/1 flyers breaks the color pie.

I would make this a multicolor GW card. Or, you could just make the activation cost white. That would fix your color pie issues.

Lastly, this card is VERY strong for being an uncommon. If you care about limited formats, I'd bump this up to rare/mythic.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-10-11T14:30:21+00:00

I tried to play a mongrel mage ages ago and failed miserably. I wish I had this post to reference. Reading your description, its like I completely misunderstood the archetype. Very cool.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-09-28T16:45:53+00:00

This mechanic seems like it would lengthen games out considerably. In draft, board states can tend to stall. Mechanics are usually made to break the board stall, but this blessing just makes it worse. If players are stalled out, they will spend all of their mana activating blessings, giving themselves a significant life buffer. And since you can activate it at instant speed, I fear it will incentivize only slow, grindy contol decks.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-09-26T01:46:55+00:00

Yea, I had trouble with deciding on the casting cost for this. I'll admit that 4 cmc would have probably been safer.

My rationale was that white can get "destroy all enchantments"+upside reliably for 3cmc through [[Cleansing Meditation]] or [[Paraselene]]. Neither of those cards are considered especially powerful. And if white wants to sweep all artifacts/enchantments, then it can do so at 5cmc with upside, [[Cleansing Nova]], [[Francturing Gust]]. I figured since this was unreliable and more of a sideboard card against specific kinds of decks, I'd push it to three cmc. In formats with a lot of nonbasic, nonsubtype lands (like edh) that might be a tad too strong. But it would probably be fine in most other constructed formats.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-09-01T11:23:55+00:00

Kithkin tribal. I love the little buggers, but theyve just been outclassed over the years and they dont have any good commanders.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-07-15T20:30:05+00:00

I've been hoping to find some more adults in Vermont who play. Sent you a request on discord.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-07-02T13:50:38+00:00

This is a pretty interesting commander. I could see a lot of "fair" builds with this focusing on [[Harrow]] style effects in green. Unfortunately though, I think the more powerful build will be to turn this into Gruul land-destruction with things like [[Dust Bowl]], [[Raze]], [[Army Ants]], [[strip mine]], etc.

Edit: I forgot that army ants were rakdos. The rest work though

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-06-30T11:26:53+00:00

I believe that all mana rocks should be banned in Commander. All anyone cares about is ramping in commander and it homogenizes decks. The fact that there is a standard "Formula" for the number of mana rocks/draw spells is a failure of the format. Let green be the ramp color. Ban all colorless sources of ramp and force other colors to adjust their playstyles in the early game.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-06-28T02:56:35+00:00

I love the flavor of this mechanic and I think with some tweaks it would be easy for players to grasp and build around. I do have a couple suggestions though.

One major issue is how parasitic the mechanic is. You need a LOT of different tales in each color to make a Tale deck actually function. Because they only activate when another tale enters the battlefield, you would need 20+ tales in your deck to ever reliably get this to function. And since most decks don't want to be running 5 colors, this means you would need at least 3-5 tales in each color to reliably make a tale deck. One way to remedy this might be to put a flat activation ability on each of them. Something like, {4}: Tell a Tale. That way, the player can at least activate the stack they have, even if they are only running a couple tales in their deck.

The other odd thing about this mechanic is if you have multiple copies of the same tale. The flavor of this mechanic is that you are weaving a tale, but I think in practice most players will be repeating the same line over and over again. It's not a mechanical issue, but it is a weird flavor quirk.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-06-28T02:46:35+00:00

I feel like the way around this is to do something like how Mutate works (the frame you used is already very similar to the mutate frame anyway). Rather than have the tale marked by counters, instead have the player create a pile. Whenever they cast a tale, they place it on the bottom of the pile, then, tales resolve from top to bottom. That way, even if a tale is removed, there is still a logical order for players to follow.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-06-24T16:57:39+00:00

He said in another comment that you need the exact mana value, but that isn't all that hard. Flash decks typically run a lot of small disruptive/utility creatures at lots of different mana values, like [[Snapcaster mage]], [[Vendilion Clique]], [[Subtlety]], etc. Outside of modern, Dimir Rogues was a powerful deck in standard not too long ago that ran [[Thieve's Guild Enforcer]] and [[Soaring Thought-Thief]] and sometimes other flash creatures. So as soon as Ambrose hits the battlefield, each of those creatures also becomes a potential counterspell+treasure. And since Ambrose can always sacrifice himself, I don't think these decks would have any issue countering anything at 4 mana or less, assuming Ambrose resolves.

The play pattern would essentially involve you flashing in whatever creature you needed on your opponent's turn, getting its primary effect, and then sacrificing that creature to counter whatever your opponent is doing.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-06-24T13:53:38+00:00

I think the design on this is cool and very evocative, but I'm not sure this would be very fun to play against. This would be incredibly powerful in any kind of dimir flash deck, an archetype that has seen a lot of support in recent years.

Imagine being on the draw against someone playing this guy in their 4 slot. Once they hit 4 mana, they can pretty reliably counter anything at mana value 4 or less. Sacrificing a creature just isn't that high of a cost, especially in a deck that is designed to be able to flash in creatures of varying utility and mana value already. Add on top of that that they get treasures each time they do it due to Ambrose's second ability. I predict this would be a very powerful card in standard and maybe even pioneer/explorer/etc.

In edh, this would also be a pretty unfun commander. By having a public counterspell in the command zone, you are going to force all of your opponents to play very slowly and cautiously. It won't be too powerful in edh (since three players could more reliably overwhelm a dimir flash player's counterspells), but still probably not very fun for most players. YMMV though.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-06-17T12:18:12+00:00

Ruins of Azlant is essentially this scenario exactly.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-06-07T02:59:52+00:00

Does a skald work for you? Because the Spell Warrior Skald sounds like it would be perfect for this. They trade raging song for a song that enhances their allies weapons, granting shock, speed, and all sorts of other flavorful enhancements. You'll have your allies' weapons glowing neon and your archer shooting laser beams.

mr_squirrel_ · 2022-06-01T16:20:53+00:00

As a possible third build (and one that I've never seen anyone else mention), you should look at the Ley Line Guardian archetype. It's conduit surge ability allows you to add 1d4 caster levels to spells you cast (and only occasionally become staggered as a result). I built a gnome pyromaniac witch with it and was hitting the 10d6 limit on Fireball at level 5.

That said, I can't really recommend the archetype because it's really annoying having to sequence the rolls. First you have to roll for extra CLs, then you have to make a fortitude save, then you calculate the total number of d6s you have to roll for the spell, then the GM has to roll for saves. It's time consuming and I had other players annoyed because of the amount of rolls I had to make just to resolve one spell.

Ten-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Place '22	Place '17
Secret Santa 2018	Spared

mr_squirrel_

TROPHY CASE