Mystic Sanctuary

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kamarupa on Balaam__'s Challenge: Get Twisted

1 week ago

Thanks for the advice, psionictemplar! I'm a bit hesitant to add too many non-basic lands because of Back to Basics, but i might switch Academy Ruins for Mystic Sanctuary.

I'm fairly married to keeping High Tide because it not only helps get Eon Hub out, it also combos with Rewind and helps Overload Cyclonic Rift. With Rift, we can eliminate opponent's creatures, which enables us to actually hit opponents with one or two Phyrexian Soulgorgers.

I did consider Snapcaster Mage - any thoughts on that?

multimedia on Brew my deck for me

2 months ago

Consider High Tide for ramp and/or with spells that can untap your Islands Turnabout, Frantic Search, Snap? Just Tide + Turnabout + you control 4 Islands could give you 10 mana turn 4. Mystic Sanctuary is a fantasic land that's an Island. Castle Vantress isn't an Island, but it's a good land for instant repeatable scry.

Consider Thought Vessel and/or Decanter of Endless Water? Mana rocks for ramp that can also potentially give you no max hand size before you control Nezahal. Reliquary Tower is a land for no max hand size.

Consider Forensic Researcher, Kelpie Guide, etc.? They can untap a land or a land that can make more than 1 mana Arid Archway, Guildless Commons even the same turn the land ETB. They can also untap a mana rock or even better a mana rock that can make more than 1 mana Sol Ring, Worn Powerstone, Palladium Myr, Thran Dynamo, Hedron Archive, Gilded Lotus, etc. They can also untap Nezahal to be a blocker.

A spell advantage blue has are instants that let you look at top X cards of your library and put one or more of any of them into our hand (any card(s) into hand is the advantage). Consider Impulse, Memory Deluge, Dig Through Time, Supreme Will, Thassa's Intervention, etc.? When you're casting instants on opponents' turns then Wavebreak Hippocamp is repeatable card draw. Being a 3 drop you can more safely play it and leave up mana for instant opponent interaction.

TheoryCrafter on Help me to build my …

2 months ago

Okay, I am back thank you for your patience. I don't know if you're just looking for advice or if you want a whole deck list, so I'll meet you somewhere in between.

So I use the manabox app for card listings. Turns out I miscounted and there are 35. If you put all but Twisted Riddlekeeper(potential color identity issues) in there you have a good start.

Perhaps the strongest cards in addition to Fear of Sleep Paralysis are Mjolnir, Storm Hammer, Monstrosity of the Lake and Scroll of Isildur; though even cards like Kitnap, Lost in the Maze and Sleep-Cursed Faerie can be a boon due to Tekuthal's activated ability and not be affected by Fear of Sleep Paralysis.

One card I recommend you add is Maskwood Nexus. Both Protocol Knight and The Watcher in the Water require creature types to be effective.

Speaking of Watcher in the Water, you'll need instant speed card draw. You're gonna need card draw regardless, but WitW will need feeding to be effective. This includes, but isn't limited to Archmage's Charm, Bane's Contingency, Jace's Archivist, Opt and Triskaidekaphile.

Triskaidekaphile is an Alternate Win Card as well, which you should have in your deck as a means of winning if you can't win by beating up your opponents. Other Alternate Win cards that would also fit the best in this deck are Central Elevator / Promising Stairs(To fully take advantage of the Eerie ability on Fear of Sleep Paralysis), Darksteel Reactor and Twenty-Toed Toad(which doesn't specify what counters apply to the win condition).

The latter two are fed well by your commander's static ability. Proliferate cards you can use include, but are not limited to, Contagion Engine, Contentious Plan and Inexorable Tide.

However, if you have a Commander like Tekuthal, it would not be wise to NOT take advantage of the proliferate ability. Crystalline Giant can give your creatures counters other than +1/+1, especially if you use Goldberry, River-Daughter to move hexproof counters onto your most important pieces. Power Conduit is another card that can strengthen your creatures. And you certainly can't go wrong with The Ozolith of you can afford it.

Ramp, like card draw, should be in every deck. Sol Ring is practically a necessity. Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice become mana fountains of their own once the charge counters are on and proliferating. Though cards like Arcane Melee, Defiler of Dreams and Urza's Incubator(which gets support from Maskwood Nexus) are just as useful.

And finally there's lands that can help with counters(like Nesting Grounds and Blast Zone), reusing spells(Like Mystic Sanctuary), redundancy(such as Reliquary Tower) and can offer elements of control not available to blue(such as Scavenger Grounds. Try this keep at least half lands as Basic Islands. That way, if you get hit with cards like Alpine Moon or Blood Moon it's not an immediate capitation.

Well, that it for my part. I hope this is a help, if nothing else than for inspiration. Thank you for reading me out. Happy Hunting!

seshiro_of_the_orochi on the flood

3 months ago

I see what you're doing here. Might I suggest some changes?

74 is a weird number of cards to be at. If you were to go to 80, you could include Yorion, Sky Nomad as a companion, which would even work somewhat as a threat in here. If you're not planning on doing that, better go down to 60 cards.

On what to maybe change, I'll go into detail a bit. A problem I see is that you are following some parallel strategies that don't intertwine that well:

I do see your madness synergy in Just the Wind and Broken Concentration. But you only have two card to trigger madness, and Aeromoeba isn't exactly the best card for that matter.

Next, there is a playset of a singular energy card in Aethersquall Ancient. It's a powerhouse finisher card in a deck where you can deploy it and then immediately fire off its wipe. As itself is your only way to gain energy, it will mostly be an overcosted flyer that won't even help you win.

Aerial Guide seems just off in here. Your only creature without flying is Baral, and he's not exactly a card you want to attack with.

Finally, 33 lands is just too many. Maybe go down to 26 including the playset Sanctuary.

Especially the madness plan and the synergy plan seem to compete for your mainfocus. To actually suggest further changes, I'd need your thoughts on if want to focus on either of these or if you want to go the route of a Mystic Sanctuary control deck. All three paths seem doable, but combining them seems hard.

What're your thoughts?

Necramus on Kynaios and Tiro's Enchanted Realm

7 months ago

Hey, friend!

I'm curious what your thoughts on Mana Breach are for this deck. Helps break the parity of benefit that your commander provides your opponents, while allowing you to bounce things like Mystic Sanctuary so you can recycle your board wipes or tutors.

Just a thought! Love the deck =]

fuster on Mana Flooding is a good thing?!?!?!

11 months ago

Profet93, Let's talk about these suggestions, because I have ran most of these cards in the past and just straight up cut them:

Yavimaya Hollow and Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth are definitely cards I've considered for a while, but I can't reasonably justify cutting any other lands for either of them. I don't feel like I really need the fixing that Cradle of Growth provides, and the only card I'd really want to protect with Hollow is my commander, and I already run plenty of counterspells to protect her anyway.

I don't run enough basic lands for the Eldraine castles to ETB untapped consistently, and I can't justify cutting any other utility land for either of them. Deserted Temple and Gaea's Cradle is such a good combo, but the temple doesn't help me much if I don't have Cradle out already, as there's nothing else in the deck it really synergizes with. Plus, that combo feels very win-more.

As far as your non-land suggestions, I have run Abundance, Snapcaster Mage, Splendid Reclaimation, Tireless Tracker, and Courser in this deck in the past and just ended up cutting them all. Abundance just proved to be too expensive at 4CMC, and I cut it for extra ramp because it would either be a dead card in my hand, or I'd cast it and constantly forget its trigger since I have a lot of other triggers going on too.

I cut Snapcaster Mage because I actually have an easier to tutor, more efficient (and repeatable!) way to recur my instants/sorceries in Mystic Sanctuary. In the context of this deck, Mystic Sanctuary is just straight up a better card for that purpose.

I cut Splendid Reclamation for Ancient Greenwarden because Reclaimation is a dead card if my graveyard is either empty or only has 1-2 lands, while Greenwarden adds consistency even if my graveyard is empty by giving me a blocker for fliers, as well as doubling my landfall triggers.

I cut Tireless Tracker pretty early in my deck's development because it was too slow, too easy to remove before I racked up clue tokens, and I almost never had the spare mana to crack clue tokens anyway.

I went with Dryad over Courser just because the extra land drop is just that valuable to me, and I prefer it over playing lands from the top and gaining life, both of which I can already do with other cards anyway. It being easier to cast and allowing my fetches and colorless utility lands to tap for any color I want is just icing on the cake.

I've never considered using Horn of Greed not just because it's symmetrical, but also because I have no other cards or synergies that can make Horn's effect one-sided aside from Narset.

Realistically the only card I actually do want to try out from your suggestions is Finale of Devastation, and even then, I'm not sure what to cut for it. Craterhoof would be the obvious choice, but it would cost an extra 4 mana if I want to close out a game Craterhoof style using this card.

Flavuss on Vendilion clique combo

1 year ago

SufferFromEDHD Thank you , to be fair I read a couple deckbuilding guides before building it .

I like that retraced image , It could also work as a second Mystic Sanctuary ? If so could be a solid ramp or recur spell. Would you play it instead of one island?

back to basics is very powerful but without ways to tutor it how can i consistently pull it off?

planar portal looks nice , 12 mana for a tutors isnt a bit too much though?

ASalesman on Unesh, Ultimate Guide (Tribal)

1 year ago

GHoag thank you for your most critical feedback. I agree with a lot you have to say on this. There are a few things I'd like to discuss further. I'll mirror your format so you know how I am responding to what. Thank you for the praise on the list so far, there is definitely some things to be worked out still. "The pinnacle is a concept only to the unambitious" -flavor text from a card I don't remember lol. (sorry for the novel below)

Regarding Fetchlands, I think the deck thinning is negligible or very hard to notice at most. This aspect of them definitely can't be a bad thing. But playtesting has shown that the negative effects of including them are negligible. I have never been upset about running all 4. Also, the synergy these lands has with Vantress Visions (Virtue of Knowledge) feels reeeally good.

Rite of Replication is expensive mana wise. The purpose of Rite is to get through your whole deck in one go assuming Unesh is on the field, which is not always the case. In my playtesting, it has been very hard to resolve due to mana cost, and when you do meet the mana requirement it is never safe from interaction. Given these flaws, this card might as well say "if you are targetting Unesh and this card resolves, you win the game." With the FOFs, you can pick up all counter magic and free mana rocks on the way down your deck to cast & protect Thassa's Oracle. A non-negligible side effect, this makes choosing piles easier to do because you no longer have to grab sphinxs or other wincons. This wincon is still relevant at this mana cost. I think the jury is still out if this is the best choice though. With inifinite mana you can do something similar, and I'll talk more about this below. Q: Why not add Personal Tutor? Simply because you don't need 3 copies of Rite. I already don't like Mystical Tutor, but the versatility to grab any instant makes it worth it. By the time you meet the mana requirement, you will have seen Rite or Mystical Tutor. Personal Tutor is too narrow to have in a slot, even on the 'Rite' plan.

cEDH meta talk, there is Turbo, midrange, and stax (early win, midgame win, lategame win respectively.) The average win without any interaction is turn 6-7 on this revision. This solidly puts Unesh into midrange. I think he can be sped up a bit with more revisions. Turn 4 is a late win for Turbo, but with enough interaction to stop the turbo player we can get to the midrange and win the game. Unesh suffers against a a few stax pieces. The main ones being Torpor Orb (which doesn't see a ton of play these days), and Null Rod and Collector Ouphe. Collectore Ouphe doesn't feel so bad with our interaction suite, and Null Rod is even more of a nuissance. If both are on the field, it is an absolute nightmare for Unesh.

Creatures: Yes a lot of fat was trimmed, and it took some time to really narrow down the best Sphinxs in these slots. There is still room for improvement here. For instance Vexing Sphinx feels awful. The reason I added it a while back was because he can be played early game for a bit of card draw. The card draw from this is not worth the mana spent, the fact that even with Unesh out he is 2 blue to cast also feels very bad. I will definitely replace him with another Sphinx, probably Argent Sphinx or Metallic Mimic. For 2 blue I am much happier to see the mana sink on Argent Sphinx. And for 2 colorless I am happy to see possibly the next cheapest sphinx not already in the deck. Enigma Thief though high CMC, I can reliably cast him for his prowl cost at 2 cmc, and his removal is top notch. Dream Eater though the removal is not the best, it is still good. The kicker here is honestly the surveil 4. You do Unesh FOF first, then surveil 4 and hopefully you can put all 4 in the graveyard. Still dream eater does feel a bit slower than everything else. Scholar of the Lost Trove, upfront I feel very strongly about this card. It's not because this is a pet card, it's because I think its very powerful in this deck. Even at 5cmc which is what I normally cast it for, it feels like insane value. You get the Unesh trigger, and a wincon from the graveyard that the opponents thought they didn't have to deal with anymore. After doing some math on this, the average cost of an Unesh trigger with Unesh on the field is ~2.25 cmc in the current revision (that is the cmc of a card generating the FOF divided by the total number of things generating FOFs excluding Rite). At 5 cmc, casting the Scholar gives you a 4 cmc game winning artifact and a ~2.25 cmc Unesh trigger. Not to mention, it gives you flexibility in choosing piles. For instance, If an opponent erroneously puts Panharmonicon in a pile by itself, you can shamelessly take the other 3 cards in that FOF. Palinchron is also rather expensive to set up, but not as expensive as Rite. I think it is a good back up win condition. If Rite doesn't resolve, or if Isochron w/ dramatic reversal doesn't resolve, we need at least one other way to combo off. With ways to tutor for High Tide this win condition has been online surprisingly often, and is definitely threatening. That said having this AND Rite feels too heavy mana wise. I think I am pretty much sold on Isoscepter because of how inexpensive it is. With recent mana rock additions as well as Mox Diamond and Grim Monolith (mentioned below) the wincon is online for far cheaper than Rite and effectively does the same job, also dramatic reversal can be used as a one time use now which makes it good on it's own.

Lands: After a day of listening to cEDH podcasts, this is what I came up with. Urza's Saga is nuts. After playtesting with these lands I felt a big power spike. Thank you for mentioning Mystic Sanctuary again. I didn't think about it being able to retrieve a wincon which is pretty relevant. I will consider slipping this one back in there. I also think that losing just one more Island wouldn't be very impactful. What do you think about Command Beacon? After playtesting, I think there is such a niche case when this card is good in cEDH. I think I prefer an Island here given the more recent revisions.

Enchantments: Agreed, all of these are great cards. Not much to change here.

Instants: I don't think there are any cuts to be made here. After playtesting I think I need to add more Instants to more reliably shut off early combo wins. Demonic Consultation and Ad Nauseum are rampant. Even fitting in a Dispel or Spell Pierce to the deck would go a long way.

Artifacts: Work needs to be done here. I agree with a lot of what you are saying. Lightning Greaves feels bad because board interaction is light and stack interaction is high in cEDH. Caged Sun is usually too expensive to play without cheating it in with Scholar. But scholar wants to hit other game winning cards anyway, so Caged sun needs to go. Grim Monolith and Mox Diamond need to go in. I have been reluctant to add them to the list because I don't have paper copies. You are spot on with these two though. I am not high on Moonsilver Key, but I do like Wayfarer's Bauble. The bauble putting a land into play is important to getting palinchron online, and this also sees great synergy with Vantress Visions similar to the fetch lands. Though bauable is definitely worse than mox diamond and grim monolith, it would be my last cut. Mox Amber indeed doesn't power Unesh out, but we don't need it to. I will say that my playtests have really favored this card. Being able to play more mana artifacts after a FOF for free will keep the FOFs rolling. Mox Amber feels very good. Mox diamond is superior, but I won't take out Mox Amber for it.

REVISION: After synthesizing both our viewpoints, here is a revision that I will go ahead and push. I think you will like this mostly, but let me know your doubts.

• Replace Vexing Sphinx with Spell Pierce.
• Replace Lightning Greaves with Dramatic Reversal.
• Replace Caged Sun with Isochron Scepter.
• Replace Lorien Revealed with Muddle the Mixture. I am okay with an effective land cut here after playtesting.
• Replace Moonsilver Key with Mox Diamond.
• Replace Wayfarer's Bauble with Grim Monolith.
• Replace an Island with Mystic Sanctuary.

EXPLANAITION: This rev cuts the Rite wincon and adds the less expensive Isoscepter wincon. There is still backup wincon in Aetherflux. Isoscepter is backed up by Palinchron, and Aetherflux is supported by Palinchron. Obviously, the goal with infinite mana is to play Thassa's eventually. Dramatic Reversal is good enough on its own now because of the artifacts added recently. I honestly think this is the cheapest that the wincon package can be while still being robust enough to not fizzle out. With these wincons, Unesh doesn't have to be on the field, which makes the deck less reliant on him, mitigating one of the deck's biggest flaws. Cutting Lightning Greaves will likely be inconsequential due to low board state interaction. Muddle and Spell pierce add some more stack interaction while Muddle can find combo pieces. I went with Spell pierce over Dispel because it can hit stax pieces as well as stopping an early combo win. Cutting a sphinx now relies on Ghostly Flicker to be part of the 20%. Mystic Sanctuary and Scholar of the Lost Trove are used to retrieve wincons from the grave if necessary.

I heavily considered subbing Dream Eater for Argent Sphinx. I will need to playtest that change before committing to it.