Polymorphist's Jest

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SufferFromEDHD on Oloro White Blue Black Creatureless Control

2 weeks ago

My bad on Necrodominance. Anti-Null Brooch!

May I ask why such a hard no on Amphibian Downpour? This is cool design space. Humility is the global effect. Polymorphist's Jest is the silver bullet global effect. Amphibian Downpour is somewhere in between. You will always be playing it in response to a threat which gets neutered along with one other creature. That's the basic application. You run a bunch of 0, 1 and 2 mana spells a.k.a. perfect fodder for Storm debauchery. Or because of Flash in response to an opponents chain of spells.

Belfore on Frog

2 weeks ago

Sorta liking the idea of Polymorphist's Jest in combo with Peer Pressure.

YesterdaysGhost on I'm Playing Blue So...

1 month ago

Thanks for stopping by, DreadKhan! You certainly get the spirit of this deck with your very tasty suggestions! I love that Mass Diminish is just a far more painful Polymorphist's Jest that you can enjoy twice in a game! In fact every card you've suggested sounds like the sort of fun I want to have with this deck! I'll keep my eyes out for some of these, in particular Mass Diminish, War Tax and Empress Galina.

I'm a huge fan of the art for Cultural Exchange as well, certainly love the far older art style of the early hears of MtG!

Icaruskid on The Friendmaker | Talrand, Sky Summoner [PRIMER]

1 month ago

DreadKhan here are the results:

1. I enjoyed Proteus Staff and Sphinx of the Second Sun in my testing. But I do have a mono blue extreme artifact matters deck already so strictly for the variety I'm staying on the Polymorph plan.
2. I really _really _like Shark Typhoon as an alternative to Talrand and also because it is hilariously on theme.
3. I tried the Cipher spells and I'm still undecided about them. Sometimes I want repeatable spells and sometimes they have no creature to encode and I just want card selection or card advantage.
4. You were right about Mass Diminish and Polymorphist's Jest. They are in!
5. Cultural Exchange helps round out the threat level in the deck nicely. Added!

Thank you so much for your insightful ideas!

DreadKhan on The Friendmaker | Talrand, Sky Summoner [PRIMER]

1 month ago

I did some fiddling around with my Talrand and Proteus Staff, I found that I preferred it to Polymorph because I could throw a Sphinx of the Second Sun in, and if Proteus Staff hits Sphinx first it's amazing because I get to untap and draw an extra card before I hit my end step, meaning I can likely Staff again to get Jin just in time (and still have mana up for interaction). I guess it boiled down to me trying to raise the ceiling on Jin, and that was the best I could come up with! The other nice thing about an artifact plan is Blue has tons of relevant tutors, and if you clear all of the creatures out of your deck and Proteus Staff away another Drake you get to put your library in whatever order you want... meaning Jin can then draw you the actual 7 cards you want most. It's very, very degenerate when it works, but I was aiming for a budget cEDH list rather than something suitable for casual play.

I'm not sure if you need blockers, but Metallurgic Summonings can generate a bunch of them for you, and Shark Typhoon can generate attackers (or flying blockers if you're desperate), they're handy if your playgroup likes to 'deal with' Talrand, these Enchantments tend to be very sticky, people neglect Enchantment removal in my experience.

If you're aiming for a more casual Talrand, I might have a few ideas for you that are budget to boot! Hands of Binding and Hidden Strings offer two very low to the ground repeatable spells that can generate Drakes if you can Cipher them onto something evasive and get in, Hidden Strings can untap your stuff fwiw, and Hands of Binding can lock down the most problematic thing if you want. Last Thoughts isn't as good IMHO, but repeated card draw tends to be very good if you don't need to input more resources. Stolen Identity can be a solid win con, if what you take has evasion you can keep getting in and getting copies, it can get pretty out of hand, even as a 6 MV spell.

If you like politics and/or combat tricks I might have a few that are worth looking into, Mass Diminish is a true budget gem, the effect lasts long enough to be truly crippling late game, and it has Flashback for no discernable reason, very good at making one opponent dead, and then another opponent dead because their board is tiny. Polymorphist's Jest is much more of a surprise since it's an instant, but the effect can turn an opportunistic attack into a bloodbath (in either direction).

In any deck that's not in the ideal colours for removal I often end up looking hard at Transmogrifying Wand, this can deal with 3 creatures if it sticks around, 2/4s are basically trash vs your 2/2s in the air. Even if all you do is force someone with a low MV Commander to keep recasting to raise the tax it's very little resources to do it.

It's not a nice thing to do to someone, but I've always thought of Talrand as a real man of culture, perhaps you'd want to send some Drakes on a Cultural Exchange?

Best of luck, hope some of these ideas are relevant

DreadKhan on

1 year ago

I have a Chaos deck, maybe a few of the cards would work here too? I'm a huge fan of Exquisite Blood, even if you play it without the combo, the effect has big synergy with your Commander's ability, and it helps keep you alive when you're ahead. Another enchantment that works with Esquisite Blood (and your Commander) is Rite of the Raging Storm, this is often good for damage and it makes everyone else play way more cautiously (because anyone but you can be stuck taking 15 damage in a cycle if they can't handle the tokens). Rite itself likes a number of other cards that might work here too, one really sneaky one is Mask of Griselbrand, Lifelink is useful (and stacks with Blood), Flying is useful, and the card draw can be very powerful, obviously this is hilarious with Rite since you can equip the token with the Mask, at which point it's probably getting in for damage and when it dies inevitably you can draw 5 cards. It seems like a good piece of gear for your Commander especially. Berserkers' Onslaught is a funny card sometimes, you do need some kind of board, but even your Commander is openly terrifying with Double Strike. Another card that Rite and your Commander both would love is Dauthi Embrace, Shadow is really good evasion (you might look into Dauthi Voidwalker as well, very useful dual purpose card). Scavenged Brawler is a creature I'm testing in that deck atm, it seems good, offering a useful body that can be 'scavenged' when a wipe happens. If your deck doesn't run combos and is in Black Protection Racket can be a source of life loss for your Commander, your average MV is probably high enough to matter, it can also give cards. It will never give you any lands or 0 MV cards, so it's not a perfect card. Make an Example is a generically good card in my experience, you always get (at minimum) each opponent's most problematic creature. Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep and Shizo, Death's Storehouse are two cards that might help your Commander out, and they're untapped lands, very few drawbacks to those!

Cultural Exchange is a Blue Chaos feeling card I love, I can't decide if you've got enough tokens/creatures you don't care about to make it work, but if you can trade off some small stuff for the best stuff on board then you're doing good I think. I guess it doesn't say anything about untapping, so you can use it to open someone up to attack by trading away all their blockers for already tapped creatures in a pinch. Mass Diminish seems worse than stuff like Sudden Spoiling and Polymorphist's Jest (both great cards though!), but the ability to cast it twice is big, and the effect weirdly lasts a turn cycle, this can help eliminate 2 players sometimes.

Since you probably want your Commander out most of the time, have you considered Stubborn Denial? It's not Fierce Guardianship, but I find Guardianship to be obnoxious.

My final ideas are War Tax and War Cadence, Cadence can easily make your stuff unblockable if people are tapped out, Tax can make it very hard for people to attack in draw out games, but Cadence is probably the better fit.

DreadKhan on The Quackening

1 year ago

I have a Quest for Ula's Temple deck which does some similar things, I liked Dreamscape Artist because it can reshuffle your library as needed, incase you don't have a relevant creature to work with on top. It's technically only 1 mana and a card to Harrow (you get back 2 untapped lands, so it can also helping mana fixing) Blue, and I could be wrong but I think your Commander wants the odd Discard outlet too. A worse (but still potentially useful) piece of Blue ramp is Apprentice Wizard, it's not as good as Dreamscape, it's like Worn Powerstone, which is a good rock if you want bigger ramp to potentially cast a big creature a bit sooner. Thran Dynamo and Gilded Lotus are big ramp rocks with decent ratios. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Cabal Coffers are pretty good together, if you have a lot of devotion to a colour Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can help, Deserted Temple can untap any land that makes extra mana. Less rampy and more of a big Scry effect, Soothsaying is a neat card if you care about your deck order. Scroll Rack is better but costs more.

Just a general idea, you might throw in things like Reconnaissance Mission, Bident of Thassa, and Coastal Piracy along with some Unblockable or Shadow creatures (Thalakos and Dauthi are the Blue and Black tribes). You can also throw in stuff like Sword of the Animist, Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip, Prying Blade, Goldvein Pick, Grim Hireling, and any other attack payoffs you can find to generate more value over time. I understand you want a sea-monster theme, but you might want a way to draw some cards/get in some chip damage to soften people up. The only drawback to Shadows is that they can't chump block. If you really want your evasive creatures to be able to chump, there are some small flyers like Spectral Sailor and Thousand-Faced Shadow that have other upsides, these are risk free but are way less evasive than Shadows.

On that note, if you're worried about getting attacked you might look at Propaganda, War Tax, Flood, and Fatespinner are all great ways to make you hard to attack. Mass Diminish, Polymorphist's Jest, Sudden Spoiling, AEtherize, Aetherspouts are all great cards for people to fear.

Callous Oppressor is a funny repeatable theft effect, Ritual of the Machine and Helm of Possession can both steal stuff and are great with tokens, Thieving Skydiver can steal an artifact creature fwiw, Sower of Temptation is a so-so theft effect that shines bright if you can flicker or bounce it, Thalakos Deceiver is probably way better since he permanently steals whatever and can be reanimated, Inevitable Betrayal and Bribery are both pretty sweet.

The biggest (and perhaps best) theft effects are Mass Manipulation and Cultural Exchange, exchange requires bodies but can also be used aggressively to just ruin two players' boards.

Inkwell Leviathan, Lochmere Serpent, Spawning Kraken, Stormtide Leviathan, and Wrexial, the Risen Deep are some relevant creatures I use, some are better than others but there is nothing as bad as Sea Serpent or Bog Serpent, both cards I love but don't use.

If you like Whelming Wave, you might like Spectral Deluge as well.

Hope some of this helps, Big Dimir is a fun deck!

Shnuff on Simic Frogs

1 year ago

So many frog buddies the word frog lost all meaning and I read Forgotten Ancient as 'Frogotten Ancient'.

I recommend Polymorphist's Jest and Turn to Frog if only to enforce your froggy-will upon the other players (though I'm sure it could turn the tides in a combat swing too). Grolnok would approve of casting them with Croak counters at instant speed.