Today I cover the final three parts, Enchantments, Instant, and Sorcery, Lets get started!
~Enchantments~
Blind Obedience's cheap CMC and Extort trigger might edge Aether out if you have to cut cards, but if you're looking to slow the game down, this does great work.
Shutting down haste and tempo plays are pretty huge. Griefer decks with Hate-Bears like Hokori, Dust Drinker provide a nice redundant synergy that has good strategy.
- Vicious Shadows - Shards of Alara -
Warstorm Surge has nothing on this card.
Don't get me wrong, Surge is good but Vicious Shadows allows for more flexibility. When combined with global draw spells you can end the game even faster. Imagine playing with VS and Forced Fruition. VS counteracts the negative of opponents drawing more answers into limiting their kill spells.
On the other hand, just using VS as a deterrent for kill spells and board sweeps make players hold onto them until absolutely necessary.
Its downside? It's a 7 cost which makes it a heavy investment so building around the ability is kind of necessary. Give it a try, put in some sac outlets, kill spells and group hug draws and turn this enchantment into a game ender!
- Ceta Sanctuary - Apocalypse - Don't let the uncommon fool you- This card operates at a rare level. Everyone is excited for Sylvan Library, Sensei's Top, Phyrexian Arena and Scroll Rack for card draw, but I like my Ceta Sanctuary.
For its colors it's really not that big of a deal, It's a blue card but really it's Blue/Red/Green due to its effect so it's a real niche card. so why is it here? It's Sylvan Library with a discard but you still get your draw step. so you're still netting 2 cards a turn but seeing three and thinning out your deck of choices you don't need. Discard in these colors is not that bad. Eternal Witness likes this party, as does Archaeomancer, Mnemonic Wall, Anarchist, and Charmbreaker Devils. Second this card is dirt cheap, we're talking $0.25 max. Some copies of Sylvan Library can cost up to 100 times more than this card. So if you play Riku, Intet, Maelstrom Wanderer or Animar, try it out. It's a much cheaper option.
- Mind Slash - 8th ed. - Once again another Uncommon playing the rare game. Mind slash is similar to its stronger counterpart Attrition. However, the ability to force discard any card is much better off than a non-black creature killer.
Now how do we maximize the potential with this card? Reanimator generals! Karador and Chainer love to put creatures in the graveyard but adding more targets, especially tasty bombs that are just sitting in a players hand really add to the value of the effect the card brings. What happens if the player doesn't have anything worth reanimating? counters and answers are usually good targets for the effect. No matter what card you have them discard it's always a good thing. The less a player has in hand, the less you have to worry about.
Of course Mind Slash also needs synergy for it to be more than just an occasional discard. Mono Black can create plenty of sac bait, so pair this with Mimic Vat and an ETB/LTB creature for maximum potential.
~Instant~
How can this card be of use in EDH you ask? Normally what I choose is three creatures that change the board-state. For example, with my Animar deck I could search up Seedborn Muse, Deadeye Navigator, and Prime Speaker Zegana. No matter how you do it, there's plenty of ways to build around this card so that it always gives you what you need when you need it.
When it comes to destruction spells, green normally deals with artifact and enchantment removal. Flavor-wise, green wants to return to nature and grow. Cards like Acidic Slime, Terastodon, Sylvan Primordial, and Woodfall Primus can take care of many threats that your opponents have.
What's hard for Green is creature removal. I talked about the fight mechanic on part one with Ulvenwald Tracker, that's a recent addition to Green and it has worked really well in flavor with green. This card is in good flavor with Pherexia's influence on Green by creating new life or as they call it, "Perfecting life," and this card is perfect.
It is no surprise that I'd put this card on a list of strong cards for cheap. This is another powerful uncommon that can net you a nice pile of cards.
If you play politically, this card can give you an edge if you have an ally for the time being, they can give you a good set-up but have the knowledge of what's in store for the next few plays. Without an ally, this card forces your opponent to make a hard decision based on the top five of your deck of what they would rather you have versus what they think you would go for.
The main drawback to this spell is that no matter what pile you pick, your opponents know what's going into your hand. The key to this card can be unlocked by adding recursion and choosing wisely who makes your piles.
I've talked a little about Buyback spells in past articles and they are one of my favorite spell mechanics. This is simply described as a Reverberate that you can use as many times as you are able to.
While there are a small handful of other spells, enchantments, artifacts and creatures that allow for spell copying, why would I single out Reiterate? Let's break down the two groups.
Group A: "Copy target spell you control" - These are narrow and only allow you to double up on spells you cast, so adding a copy spell to it is a lot like the "Replicate" mechanic the Izzet guild had in Ravnica 1.0. "Replicate" allowed you to multiply one spell as many times as you could keep paying the cost for it for example Train of Thought is 1U to draw a card, pay it again and you draw 2 and so on. These were good for "Storm" decks due to you creating a longer chain of "Storm" effects to trigger.
Group B: "Copy Target Spell" - You now have the freedom to take advantage of opponent's spells along with your own. I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is better or necessary for EDH decks that don't have access to mana ramp spells, but it sure helps and the advantages don't end there. Copying big spells like an Entwined Tooth and Nail, Kicked Comet Storm, or a Fused Breaking // Entering spell not only allows you to use the spell first, but keeps the pressure on by disallowing a player to get ahead of the game.
~Sorcery~
Fact or Fiction allows for your to gain off the top five, but with Guided Passage you can hand your deck over to an opponent and ask them to tutor for three for you. Used in the right way this can net you some fairly nasty cards that you'd want to have.
I have gone wrong with this card and my friend handed me a fetch land, mana ramp spell, and a mana dork creature. This was in no way helpful and not good late game. I learned that to play with this spell, I needed to build around it so that it is effective no matter when you draw it.
I use this in my Animar deck fairly successfully. By narrowing the options for useless non-creature, non-targets, I was able to leverage better card advantage.
Here are 3 questions to ask yourself if you want to make this card useful.
1) If I play this will it net me an advantage?
2) Do I have subtle yet good targets for the spell that will force my opponent to accidentally select them?
3) Do I mind revealing my entire library?
Chances are if even two of three are a yes this card can be of use for you.
Green can find creatures, white can find equipment, artifacts, enchantments, and blue can find instant's, artifacts, and sorcery. When you combine the best of all three you're ready for the Wargate.
Simple and sweet, this card fits in Bant and five color decks. A word of advice about this, players love to drop a copy spell on Wargate, so try to play it with an answer so that only you profit!
What's interesting about Grasp is you exile the card but you still have to pay for the cost. Most of the time if your opponent knows his or her library by heart they can deduce what you took. This means that you should choose a card you can use, but not hold on too long to it. Another route to take with this card is to cut off a spell that you might lose too.
Personally I enjoy revealing my own library to my opponents as much as I like looking through them but I also understand that people value secrecy in competitive situations. Still, give this guy a try and see what you can pull off at your opponents expense.
- Molten Disaster - Future Sight -
X Spells can be dangerous, Especially if someone copies a high X burn spell like a previously mentioned Comet Storm. Molten Disaster was, and still is, in my opinion, the better version.
Split-second, for those who haven't come across this, is a mechanic that prevents further spells or abilities from adding to the spell stack essentially resolving the spell(s). The advantage to this is to avoid counter spells, spell triggers, and copy spells from raining on your parade. Now unlike Comet storm, Molten Disaster won't end the game as fast and it's not as discriminate as CS either so this card could come down to a Meta choice.
For those who use red but don't care about taking a few for the team for the safety of the split second, this card is your burn spell. Sprinkle some damage doubling or damage prevention for yourself and you're good as gold.
Well that's all for the three part Budget Utility series. I plan on having something similar again so stay tuned. Until next time Zoners, I wish you good luck on your Modern Master's Packs.
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