White Enchantments That Are Crazy In The Commander Format
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- čas přidán 7. 08. 2024
- Finishing it off with the white enchantments that might make interesting includes in commander games.
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so i've seen a few platinum angel comments with transcendence. this is how it works: "If your life total is 20 or more and you control an effect that states “you can't lose the game”, then an infinite loop is formed. If neither player wants to end the loop by removing one of these two cards from the battlefield, the game ends in a draw."
Here's a better idea: play it with effects that stop players from gaining life (Havoc Festival, Sulfuric Vortex, etc). I might brew that deck up right now actually, can combine it with cards like Ad Nauseaum to just win as well
I lost a commander game recently to a Transcendence being gifted to me by Zedruu the Greathearted.
I would also fracture identity this.
Some others I love:
Reconnaissance is the all star staple. It lets you attacks with your whole board and save anything that gets blocked, as well as giving everything vigilance since you can still use it in the end of combat step after combat damage is dealt to untap your attackers, even though they've already dealt their damage.
Enduring Renewal is great for repeatedly using creatures, especially since even though it mills new creatures you would draw, White has reanimation to get those back into rotation.
Righteous Aura lets you pay W and 2 life to prevent all damage from one source, especially good for negating Voltron opponents since they won't even deal commander damage to you. Especially useful because white has a lot of incidental life gain, so you can pretty easily power it.
Martyr's Cause is another in the same vein, but instead of W and 2 life you just have to sac a creature. White also has tons of token making, so yea.
Fanatical Devotion lets you sac a creature to regenerate another creature, and again White has plenty of tokens to do that and save your important creatures like your commander.
Noble Purpose actually stacks with lifelink, since it doesn't actually give the keyword.
Righteous Cause (and Patron of the Kitsune) are pet favorites, since they gain you life no matter whose creatures are attacking and no matter what player they're attacking. If one opponent attacks another opponent, you still gain the life.
Defensive Formation is one of my absolute favorite enchantments. It completely shuts off trample (you can choose to assign trample damage to a creature that has already been assigned lethal), it also allows small tokens to block and kill much larger creatures without getting wiped out themselves. Got a 7/7 and a 1/1? You can block an 8/8 with both, deal the 8 damage to the 1/1, kill the 8/8, and keep your 7/7. I absolutely love it in my Sythis tokens deck
It also let's you prevent things like Thorn Elemental from hitting you, since you can choose to not assign it that way.
Glad someone else brough tit up. It's basically banding the enchantment. Being able to turn off Trample is why I include banding where I can.
Didn't know it could force the enemy to spend all of its damage on one single creature!
Would that also work with trample+deathtouch?
@@vectorstrike Yes. Because Trample is a MAY ability, you can choose to ignore the lethal of deathtouch, and continue to target the 'dead' creature.
While he is correct, its not necessarily a may ability in the common mtg sense. Trample means; after you assign Lethal damage to each blocking creature you can then assign damage to the defending player. Deathtouch just means 1 damage is Lethal damage so the rest can be assigned. This is the assumed "default" action everyone is expecting when you attack with a trampler, but even without any defensive formation/ banding shenanigans you can still assign more than Lethal damage to a creature if you wanted to (though there a very few fringe cases in why you would.)
For Defensive Formation, direct damage to Stuffy Doll.
Correction about transcendence: The life loss/gain is not a replacement effect but a trigger, meaning you do not Gain 2 life instead of losing 1 life. You lose 1 life, then get a trigger to gain 2 life, meaning you essentially gained 1 net life. In other words, instead of losing 1 life, you gain 1 life, not 2. Also, as others mentionned, paying life counts as loss, so the best way to abuse this card is to lose/pay all of your life or more, then prevent yourself from gaining life or countering all the transcendence life gain triggers (eg. by ending your turn with sundial of the infinite). I play transcendence so i know the card alot :)!
you are actually gaining 2 life though so an effect like well of lost dreams would get you 2 draws.
I use to run a casual deck that ran Transcendence, sulfuric vortex, and form of the dragon as a combined combo to win.
Paying life counts as loosing life(rule 119.4) - so you'd kill yourself... every 2 life you pay you gain 4. You would want to pair this with Everlasting torment, havoc festival, leyline of punishment or maybe forsaken wastes (this would put you on a clock) or something.
There might also be some super crazy way to do this paired with Lich, where you draw cards instead of gain life. Add in Delaying shield and that is one crazy combo where you will draw your deck fast. Mana intensive, but interesting.
add in Illusions of grandeur to draw 20 cards off lich-effects then play donate spells to kill others. The most janky and fun rube goldberg machines. My main go-to deck does exactly this lol.
Cold snap is going in my darien deck. It's so hard to find ways to deal damage to yourself in white. This card can be tutored, and for 2 mana a turn I can deal more damage than most or all of the artifacts that are currently in it. Super niche card. Thanks for sharing!!!
Celestial Dawn is great for Sen Triplets in helping you colour-fix outside of your own colour identity - you've got an Esper commander, but it casts cards from opponents' hands without any innate colour-fixing, so you need ways to cast green/red spells somehow, and this does that!
I also just love it for how transformative it feels, it tickles me.
Transcendence used to be all over the format in the Zedruu, the Goatherd days.
still a favorite in my Zedruu deck
i guess with cards like this the donate strategy always works.
Yep, this is definitely in my Zedruu "BAD SANTA" donate-themed deck!
A few great and fun way to use Transcendence is to do one of the following:
1)Prevent loss of life for all players, gain immortality
2)Use donate-effects to give it to your opponents to kill them as soon as they receive it. Remember rule 800.4a will return it back to you as soon as they die unless it is gifted through sudden substitution, fractured identity or some other method that avoids this ruling.
3)Play with Lich's Mastery to prevent the lose the game trigger and then every point of life loss turns into sac/discard/exile from grave 1 card, then draw 2.
4)Utilize some sacrifice outlet to respond to the triggered ability of "whenever u lose life, gain 2 life for each 1 life lost" when you activate something like Aetherflux Reservoir to gain 50 life AFTER the transcendence has been sacrificed, leaving you with enough life to activate the Aetherflux Reservoir 2 more times to kill all 3 opponents.
Celestial Dawn used to be a player lock out in Zedruu decks before they changed the rules saying players couldn't use colored mana that wasn't of their commander's colors. I used it in my Zedruu deck until they made that change.
Not sure I understand your comment. ‘Couldn’t use colored mana of their commanders colors’?
@@jeffreylong1478 long ago if you gained mana that wasnt in your color identity it would instantly convert to colorless. thankfully they removed this silly restriction, as it made certain commanders unusable (sen triplets for example)
Transcendence goes well with Platinum Angel, lol
One enchantment you missed is Brave the Sands. It gives vigilance to your creatures and each one can block one extra creature. It's great for tribal/token decks and it's pretty cheap in both mana and $!
this actually creates an infinite loop that draws the game.
I have really enjoyed this series. Enchantments are maybe my favorite card type because they can be so diverse, and are generally harder to deal with. Playing enchantress can really open your eyes to this... And prepare you for Farewell.
The best part of Caribou Range is every time I see it The Pixies "Caribou" plays in my head.
Defensive Formation could be good in the new Elish Norn. Since your opponents lose 2 life or pay 1 mana when they do damage to you or your permanents, if you go wide you could really punish them for attacking you by spreading out the damage as much as possible.
Equipoise works very well in a Boros Sneak attack deck with brion as a commander. You'll always get more creatures than your adversaries because you'll hast them after the upkeep and then can fling them with brion after.
For transcendence, any enchantment that says players can't gain life would be a great combo. Something like Sulfuric vortex
I've been waiting for the last installment!
Enchantment decks are my jam in commander, love this!
Clone effects and Eye of singularity might be nice + some flicker effects.
I was thinking of it in terms of clone hate by your opponent with a clone deck being forced to kill their stuff so long as it was a copy effect that didn't see the copier keep their name.
But actually working it into your clone deck to just kill their stuff is even better!
Celestian dawn has the double wammy effect that all white mana fetchs are for plains. So if you run any combination that don't have green, with celestial dawn, you can go get any lands in your deck.
Eye of Singularity has a really interesting interaction with phasing, as it's 2nd ability only triggers on ETB, which phasing in does not do. Exploit this how you see fit 🍻
Transcendence is an interesting card. It would work quite well in the "exchange" deck you built for me as a Patreon deck tech. Also love Rebecca Guay art.
Hidden Retreat is a HOUSE in my Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign deck. If you end up drawing one of your 7 or 9 drop cards, put it on top of our library just before you attack, and play it for free!
Defensive Formation is amazing in a deck with a bunch of deathtouch creatures. That way you can basically clear an opponent's board with a few deathtouch creatures.
Hidden retreat might actually make it into my Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign deck, excellent addition there
Especially since it is odd MV itself ;)
Hidden Retreat requires a target instant or sorcery, so I prefer Penance if you aren't already running it. The choice is made on resolution, doesn't target, and doesn't actually require anything red or black on the stack or battlefield to activate. Works great in my Aminatou Miracles deck.
I have been trying to find a home for celestial dawn because I traded it off someone for my rith the awakener deck, if you have a permanent that stops you gaining life that means you can't die from damage with Transcendence
Build a sen triplets deck
Celestial Dawn is one of my fav cards, and is so underrated. Love the art 🙂 , but when it comes to its ability to affect the field, its alot more powerful than its given credit for. Belive it was the first card that changed mana symbols - and on literally EVERYTHING u have.
I use it in my Karona, False God (5 color edh deck). And in my white/blue opal enchantments.
Playing celestial dawn, and invoke prejudice, is pretty effective 😎
For a brief stint, i was using celestial dawn as a second chromatic lantern in my edgar markov deck. I ended up cutting it because it turns off utility lands and i kept running into an animar player at the lgs.
The last enchantment could be used in an exchange control deck.
Some of these are going in my Esper decks....I love wacky underused enchantments like Standstill so these are great!
defensive formation essentially gives all your creatures banding which is awesome 8:13
Hidden Retreat is absolutely going in my Falco Spara deck, since he loves playing stuff back off of that.
Slight correction with Transendance, you said you gain 2 life _instead_ of losing 1 life. You actually lose 1 life, then there's a trigger for you to gain 2 life. That trigger could be interacted with if wanted.
A use for this could using it with something that let's you pay life to draw cards at instant speed, then respond to the triggers in a way to keep from hitting 20, drawing to an instant speed wincon to win before the lose trigger resolves.
Edit: Paying life is losing life, so you still have to maintain your life.
I had Celestial Dawn in my Sen Triplets deck😂 allowed me to tap for off color mana when casting spells out of my opponents hands !
Correct me if I’m wrong with the math here, but the only thing is that paying life is also “lose of life,” so I think that you’re still in a bind if you’re paying life to try to not trigger Transcendence
I feel like you’d need to pair with with a “players can’t gain life” type of effect.
Penance is a good option similar to hidden retreat but it doesn’t require there to be an instant or sorcery on the stack. I have it in my Atla deck.
If you could find a way to cast donate or something like that at instant speed you could swap the transcendence to another player with the lifegain triggers on the stack.
I like equipoise in like a voltron deck where you only have one creature and you phase out all the blockers of enemies
I use Transcendence in my Zedruu deck to give it to my opponent.
I’ve also considered it in an Aristocrats-style deck.
I play transcendence with the original lich. Lich turns life gain into card draw since it doesn't let you gain life. You still have to sacrifice permanents but there are other ways around that too
Energy storm could be good if you’re playing a lot of planes walkers. It keeps them safe from direct damage spells and helps against flyers which are the other big threat to planeswalkers.
back in the day i had a very fun jank deck using transcendence, Sulphuric Vortex, and Form of the Dragon to be impossible to kill without enchantment removal.
Defensive Formation also has upside against attacking Deathtouch creatures that are blocked with more than one creature.
Defensive Formation could also be used in a General Jarkeld deck as a card that synergizes with the commander's weird ability. I have actually considered throwing it in mine, but I am trying to find a good card to replace with it first.
Transcendence feels really fun with cards that say you can't lose the game. I agree with the Selenia idea, but paying life counts as loss of life, so the plan would be to combo with Gideon of the Trials and Felidar Guardian in order to win the game on your upkeep. Or else go the other direction and prevent the life gain in order to use Ad Nauseum as a win con.
Is Grindstone legal in Commander? Cuz I would use that in combination with Celestial Dawn in a Zedru deck to donate the Dawn to them n make all their cards white n grind them out of the game but in a more fair way than using Painter's Servant so ur friends won't hate u for it
What are the odds that your opponent is playing a snow covered land deck for cold snap to be relevant ?
In the rare circumstance they are, you have basically put a clock on them, requiring that they go all out for several turns to specifically target you .
It was playable when Kaldheim was just released but it goes back into storage until another snow covered land set is released.
Defensive Formation prevents trample damage from being assigned to you and that's probably the best utility it provides
Defensive formation could go in a token or small creature matters deck, block with 20 speard it out so nothing dies. Im considering putting it in my arcades the strategist deck so my 0/3 walls dont die...and for transcendence Selena was my first thought but what about a boros players cant gain life combo u can't lose but your opponents can please respond with ur thoughts on this
Fanatic Devotion is an underrated staple in white
Transcendence might be able to be used with glacial chasm.. maybe trying multiple teferis protection effects. And that all sounds pretty good in Narset lol
Looking for a rule clarification on hidden retreat. Can you activate without an instant or sorcery on the stack that deals damage ?
It would be very important for whether you can use it in a Yennett deck.
the oracle text for the card is:
Put a card from your hand on top of your library: Prevent all damage that would be dealt by target instant or sorcery spell this turn.
so it does need an instant or sorcery on the stack to target. It does not need to be one that does damage. That isn't part of the targeting criteria.
Umm, paying life is also losing life, so I don't think that works the way you described with Transcendence.
great video
I like Hanna’s Custody. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else ever play it.
Would Defensive formation be good in my Baeloth Barrityl Noble Heritage deck?
I'm using celestial dawn in my Oros the Avenger deck, since having my guys be white means they dont get hit by his burn effect. (edit: I also remember I have effects like crusade and crovax ascendant hero too to give all white creatures +1/+1.)
My brother runs transcendence in his zedru the greathearted deck. It's super flexible as he can use it to protect himself or instakill an opponent
I love enchantments. Could this be because I started playing during the original Theros block?
One I love is Entangler. For a combat meta, if you can make a powerful creature (e.g. a Voltron strategy), slapping this on it feels great!
Transcendence and aetherflux reservoir seems to me like an instant win as long as you have less than 20 life when transcendence enters. You pay 50 life and go negative --> kill an opponent. Wash, rinse, repeat until all opponents are dead. This is assuming that paying life and losing life aren't the same thing when interacting with the card (I don't know the rulings about loss of life). Otherwise you are just eliminating yourself and up to one other player.
Isn't paying life for Selenia causing you to lose life? Isn't "lose life" a catch-all for all sources of life loss including drain effects and damage? I don't think there's any way to actually lose life while Transcendence is on the field.
The same thing applies to gaining life. There are a few cards that "set your life total" to something, but the game rules consider that gaining life, so any "when you gain life" effects will trigger with those "set your life total to x" abilities.
I use celestial dawn as an alternative to chromatic lantern
I use celestial dawn in my sen triplets deck. Casting spell from my opponents hand need that fixing.
I wish that black had more enchantments. Both of these colors typically have some real heavy hitters.
Transcendence doesn't gain you 2 life instead, but after losing life first. It would work in a deck were you're playing a lot of "players can't gain life" effects
Question: How would Transcendence work with Rain of Gore? Would/could it go on into negative infinity life?
It will keep looping infinitely. You will lose life, transcendence will trigger, when the trigger resolves, you will lose life instead of gaining it. This repeats to infinity, if no one removes or counters one of these cards, the game will lock up / end in a draw :)
Hidden Retreat is interesting tech for a top-deck-matters deck, but I prefer Penance. While Hidden Retreat requires a target instant or sorcery on the stack, the choice for Penance is made on resolution, doesn't target, and doesn't actually require anything red or black on the stack or battlefield to activate. Works great in my Aminatou Miracles deck.
Defensive Formation can be a good way of negating trampling attackers in a white weenies deck. Trampling is a choice of damage, you can choose not to trample
Transcendence: There are various effects (often in red) that prevent you from gaining life. I think instant-speed sac-your-own-permanent/enchantment effects can keep you from losing to the second trigger after you've gone from 1 back up to 19, which is a pretty sizeable increase.
Transcendence + Sulfuric Vortex (or similar effects) = You can take any amount of damage, but you can't gain any life.
Eye of Singularity + Clone (or similar cards) = Copy & destroy your opponent's creatures.
Defensive Formation may as well read, your creatures gain Banding while blocking. I've covered the basics and edge-cases for Banding here: czcams.com/video/mqJ0-ps1Mgs/video.html
Does paying life work with transcendence? Wouldn’t paying life count as losing life and then cause you to gain back 2 life for each you paid?
Yep, doesn't work without some extra support.
@@danielfrazier5586 exactly, see my answer to the original post
Correct. If you have a necropotence and transcendence out, you can rip through your entire library by paying 1 life with necropotence and get transcendence triggers on the stack. Once you cannot pay anymore life to necro (you have 0 life left), you let a few transcendence triggers resolve, giving you 2 life back for each. Necro more. Let more triggers resolve. You have now necroed your entire library. Now you need a way to prevent all the rest of the transcendence triggers that will make you gain over 20 life from resolving and voila!
Defensive formation is an MVP in a rune tail deck because it gets around trample creatures.
Thoughts for Defensive Formation: Enrage decks, Body of Knowledge, Swans of Brynn Argoll, Stuffy Doll, Conspicuous Snoop.
Celestial dawn would go great in a sisay, weatherlight captain deck
I wouldn't be interested in Transcendance in my Selenia deck, but I do play an even whackier white enchantment that you somehow missed: Soul Echo. If you pay it for even only X=1, you basically cannot lose the game for at least two full turn cycles unless someone removes it. If it wasn't for how difficult the card is to explain, it would see a huge amount of play.
Ooo transcends looks fun in a corrupted bishop deck…or def trade it off.
I've been brainstorming about Hidden Retreat for a little while, looking for instants and sorceries that do damage as a downside, but have an upside. The only card I've ever found that fits the description is Dark Bargain.
I used Celestial Dawn in a Sin Triplets Deck for Colorfixing. As I maybe want to play red and green spells from my opponents hand.
But then I disassambled the deck, as it was very oppressive.
Do you stream your edh game play?
Defensive formation could go into a dinosaur deck considering several dinos( and a few other creatures) have a trigger when they take damage. You could use this to keep them alive while triggering enrage, otherwise phyrexian vindicator and obliterator maybe in some combination alongside goad effects.
Will you continue this series for the multi colored groupings?
isn't transcendence just something you smack together with Sulfuric Vortex or something similar?
Defensive formation is good with creatures that have damage dealing effects but weak toughness. You can block with the creature and a token, rhe token takes the damage, your utility creature is still alive
Transcendance is good in Ghen, arcanum weaver deck. You lose life to almost 0, play transcendance, come back to twenty, sac transcendance before you die, going back to O, "rince and repeat".
My favorite white enchantment is Rewards of Diversity :)
Hidden Retreat is a solid Miracle enabler...
Would Transcendence 15:15 work well with Platinum Angel?
it actually creates an infinite loop that draws the game.
I actually play Celestial Dawn in my 5-color sagas deck. It is a janky way to fix mana in enchantment form, even though my Ghost Quarter and similar suffer with it :p
Defensive formation is great! What a crazy effect. Imagine if you have an army of dudes, you can block with a bunch of creatures and keep them all alive.
I used to run celestial dawn in Zedruu
Defensive Formation allows you to chump block Trample damage!
You make all choices on how to assign damage. You can just keep applying it to creatures who already have lethal. (see scryfall)
What if you focused on copying your opponents stuff and had eye of singularity in play? Kinda a board wipe/stealing
I run celestial dawn in my Sen Triplets deck. Easy mana fixing to play other people’s stuff (especially red and green cards)
Old magic was wacky. cards that do very specific situations that aren't really on color or make sense in general why it was made or what effect it would have had on the standard format at the time. Eye of singularity is one of my faves though. Really does a number on go wide strategies and the rats and shadowborn apostle decks. And the artifact tokens is interesting since clue tokens and food tokens are shut down. The treasures though depends on if the deck can use the mana at instant speed makes it difficult to gauge if it will have a meaningful effect.
I used transcendence in zedruu. I wait to get beat down enough, gift it, they die, it comes back, and then re gift. 😊
Transcendence with any card that says players cannot gain life