Demonic Tutor
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Oldschool 93/94 Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Demonic Tutor

Sorcery

Search your library for a card and put that card into your hand, then shuffle your library.

rckclimber777 on Build a Deck with Me …

1 week ago

Sometimes when I'm deckbuilding, I focus less on the commander and more on an interesting concept/combo that I want to use or exploit. This is the case with one of my favorite decks in my profile and actually one of the first commander decks I ever built. This deck began years ago when Magic finally started caring about the EDH format. It was a more simple time then, Rhystic study was $1.27 (exactly the price I paid for mine over 10 years ago), Cyclonic Rift was a bulk rare, and demonic tutor could be found for $10.

The combo that I was interested in was Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator. The latter was my favorite card at the time and is still one of my favorites. It was a great tool and with all the ETB effects that were out around then it was an underrated and uber powerful card. In fact, the entire blink mechanic was and is a very powerful strategy.

When I built this deck, I played a few times in shops and was quickly told that edh is a casual format and interaction of any kind is not fair (was told this by a land destruction deck...) So this deck is definitely more on the competitive side, but it would be the distant fringe of cedh. Alright with that let's get into it.

Initial thoughts

So we have a combo that we like Palinchron and Deadeye Navigator, but we don't even have a commander yet and going mono-blue seems not great, so we want to figure out what color(s) to add and what commander to choose. In a combo deck, there are generally three things that I like to make sure I include beyond the normal ramp, and card draw. That is redundancy, the ability to tutor up my combo pieces, and ways to protect my combo. So when thinking about tutoring up my combo pieces, I generally like to have the best tutors. Those are in black. So things like Wishclaw Talisman, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal (if you have money to burn or your playgroup is fine with you proxying the best cards so you can obliterate their precons j/k I proxy all my expensive cards and put them in a binder in case someone has an issue).

So we have Blue and Black and we can certainly add another color if we wanted to, but at the time I liked Dralnu, Lich Lord because Snapcaster Mage was in standard and flashback was cool. So I stuck with it when I revamped it, but decided that I wanted something that could ensure I can protect my combo from any threat and then also use it to win if I wanted to. The answer came in the form of Ertai Resurrected. He can counter basically anything from spells to activated abilities (which will come in handy) or he can take a threat on the field at the cost of letting your opponent draw a card.

So now that we have our commander, how to build the deck?

Redundancy

Combo decks need redundancy. If you don't get your two cards or one of them gets exiled, you need a backup plan, or scooping is your only option. Fortunately, there are some great redundancies here. We have Ghostly Flicker and Displace. Both of these will blink your creatures (ghostly flicker will also blink artifacts). Displacer Kitten can be helpful too, but I don't own it and it is a little more chaotic than I need it to be. Palinchron is great because you can return it to your hand and potentially play it again and create infinite mana through the use of High Tide, but a similar combo that has added benefits is Peregrine Drake, Archaeomancer, and Ghostly Flicker. This bounces both the drake and the archaeomancer untapping 5 lands, and returning ghostly flicker to your hand. Rinse and repeat for infinite mana. Archaeomancer also will help in returning key counterspells and tutors to your hand. Nothing like doing double duty. Mnemonic Wall and Great Whale also fit here. The great thing about this combo is that each component is useful in and of itself. Bring out your Great Whale early untap some lands and do some other stuff or play out the rest of your combo with the untapped lands. Cast Archaeomancer to grab a used tutor for another combo piece.

One note here, if you get Peregrine Drake (or one of the other two) paired with Deadeye Navigator and you generate infinite mana you can now draw your deck with Ertai as commander: Step 1: Bounce Deadeye, when he enters don't soulbond with anyone.
Step 2: Cast Ertai, don't choose anything or if you want kill one of your opponent's creatures. It doesn't matter.
Step 3: Soulbond ertai and deadeye. Step 4: Bounce Deadeye and while that is on the stack bounce Ertai. Step 5: Ertai enters the battlefield counter the Deadeye bounce on the stack Draw a card Step 6: Soulbond ertai and deadeye again rinse and repeat. Draw as many cards as you need. Which means draw until you find your wincon.

Wincon

Since this is an infinite mana combo we need something to use all that mana. Obviously the activated ability on deadeye is great, but we need something to actually win with. I went with Commander's Insight and Blue Sun's Zenith. Both of these cards are useful even when they aren't being used to force your opponents to draw their cards. Blue Sun's Zenith works nicely because once you cast it goes back into your deck, which I showed above you can draw as many cards as you need so you cast it once, put it in your library draw again until you find it, cast it again on the next opponent, then again. You can also tutor them up or bring them back from the graveyard with the tutors or the archaeomancer/mnemonic wall from earlier. I like this more than straight damage, because if you don't have infinite mana these cards will still draw you cards.

Tutors

This is a fairly simple step, we need some good tutors. There are a number of good choices in black so I won't belabor that too much. I don't have some of the standard ones and feel like the deck performs fine with the ones it currently has. I do have a Tribute Mage in the deck because nearly all my mana rocks are 2 mana and so is Wishclaw Talisman. I found that the consistency with the deck is vastly improved by being able to tutor up my ramp. Also with deadeye I can bounce it multiple times and get more rocks or the talisman.

Protecting the combo

So I needed to figure out how to protect my combo and do so in a way that is flexible or can be used as needed. So Counterspell. Honestly, this part was fairly simple, most blue counter magic is here. Only reason Fierce Guardianship isn't here is because I don't have it. Other than that we have the typical cards here Force of Will, Mana Drain, Cyclonic Rift, Force of Negation, Pact of Negation, etc.

I also have a couple other standouts. Venser, Shaper Savant is great here as it can be bounced with Deadeye Navigator to essentially boomerang my opponent's board and all their spells. Ertai Resurrected also protects the combo and with deadeye becomes a nice repeatable counter/removal spell.

glen_elandra_archmage can be bounced when she has her -1/-1 counter allowing her to be used again and again to counter noncreature spells.

Typical stuff

There is a lot of ramp in the deck, so Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, and other mana rocks including some larger ones like Gilded Lotus and Basalt Monolith to really get the ramp going, the sooner you can get to 7-8 mana the sooner you can combo out.

For card draw some key performers here are Rhystic Study, Black Market Connections, Phyrexian Arena, The One Ring. Mystic Remora. In my initial hand I want to have 3 lands, and one of these/tutor to find one or I typically mulligan.

Special notes

A couple other cards deserve mention here. Time Stretch and Time Warp. These are both repeatable with Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall and I can honestly say that if I'm able to resolve either of these, it is unlikely that I'm going to lose, especially Time Stretch. With the ramp in the deck or a well timed Dark Ritual/High Tide I can play this fairly early and get a huge advantage.

Lands

Since this deck tends to be fast, you don't want lands that come into play tapped, so this deck uses fetch lands, shock lands, and duals that have the ability to come in untapped. (there are a couple that come into play tapped, but they are fetchable so I fetch them only when I know that I'm not going to be able to use the mana and only on an opponent's turn.)

I've had this deck for a while and it performs far better than any of my other decks. It always presents interesting lines that if followed will lead to surprising victories. As always let me know what you think in the comments and if you have a commander in mind that you want to see me build put it in the chat.

Here is the final decklist: Unlimited Power!

Profet93 on Petrified by the Gorgussy [Primer]

3 weeks ago

Crow_Umbra, I apologize in advance for the wall of text below. Your deck is very interesting and got me thinking. If you don't want to respond to each point below, I can't blame you. In the end, I hope these suggestions help or at least get the gears turning. Looking forward to your response.

Skullclamp - Draw

Sakura-Tribe Elder/Rampant Growth > Farseek - Rampant growth gives you the option to get either a basic forest or basic swamp tapped. Farseek is only a swamp tapped. Rampant growth is a strict upgrade given you have no swamps aside from a basic swamp would benefit from the distinction.

Viridian Longbow - Idk if this is too cheeky but given all your deathtouch, this might be worth considering.

Academy Manufactor - This card seems perfect for the deck. You make a lot of treasures, you get more artifacts. You also occasionally make food tokens. If you added tireless tracker (not saying you should per say) then it triggers on clues. All around seems solid. Is this a reason I'm missing for why this isn't included?

Mastermind Plum > Preacher of the Schism - Seems kind of cool, got some synergy. Your description mentioned this is potentially on the cutting block. Given you already have enough deathtouch, would draw not outweigh the redundancy?

Infectious Bite > Bite Down - Given that this is removal 95% of the time according to your description, would the potential for a poison counter to fuel fin outweigh the possibility of killing a PW that isn't there 19/20 times?

Bootleggers' Stash - At the risk of being too on the nose/winmore, could this help? Same question with Parallel Lives.

I read your description regarding the token meta. Below are some anti token suggestions. Some of them are straight up hate, other of them are flexible, depends on what you're going for (in order of most token hate to flexibility)....

Virulent Plague - Straight up hate

Bile Blight - Removal with token emphasis

Maelstrom Pulse - Flexible removal spell (works well against clones too!)

Pernicious Deed - X = 0, bye bye tokens. Or use it normally to wipe when things get out of hand. I see its in your maybeboard, I believe this card warrants a spot the most out of any suggestion above or below.

Liquimetal Torque - What do you primarily use its second ability for? I get that you can make something an artifact to trigger some life loss. Given this deck is low to the ground, would you not be potentially better served with a Jet Medallion or Emerald Medallion? I suppose it depends on how much you value the lifeloss from artifacts + politic to make something artifact for other removal over the additional ramp the medallions can provide.

Kura, the Boundless Sky - What does this provide? I see no anti token, treasure or land token aspect. Perhaps I'm missing somehting?

Saryth, the Viper's Fang - I understand the deathctouch and hexproof anthem. Given your meta is mostly aggro, how many wipes do people typically use? Given your deck already goes wide, wouldn't most people just wipe the board anyways? I definitely see the benefit for sure, just wondering how this card performs and if it could be swapped for something either more impactful such as a Demonic Tutor or something more on theme in your maybeboard?

Questing Beast - I get that it likely wouldn't be blocked by tokens, is that it's primary purpose? Given that you also mentioned there are not a lot of PW's in the meta, would you not be better served with a general removal spell such as Hero's Downfall?

Guardian Project - How often do people kill your creature in response to the trigger to deny you card draw? Not saying to remove it, just curious is all.

I noticed you run torment, exsanguinate and damnable pact. While the latter can be used for an alt wincon, is it not draw most of the time? Assuming this, you run 2 X finishers and if not 3. Do you really need the redundancy? I believe another spell like Rise of the Dark Realms (also in maybeboard) could warrant an inclusion, especially given your aggro meta. I can understand the reluctance given that you are already taking their creatures anyways. If that's an issue, then maybe a Finale of Devastation? Recur/Tutor for a creature and go for the win through smashing face.

CickNason on Prosshy Prossh

1 month ago

I would add more mana dorks: Ignoble Hierarch adds Jund colors and gives exalted as a bonus Deathrite Shaman acts as graveyard hate and can drain/gain at instant speed on on top of exiling any lands from anyone's graveyard for mana of any color also at instant speed. Delighted Halfling adds colorless or any color for legendary creatures and makes them uncounterable.

I would also add more aristocrat/sacrifice effects: Korvold, Fae-Cursed King crazy draw engine with sac synergy and a potential one-shot kill if he gets big enough Mahadi, Emporium Master generates treasures EOT based on how many creatures died, setting you up for big plays in the coming turns Pitiless Plunderer generates treasures whenever another creature you control dies immediately Chatterfang, Squirrel General basically a 3 mana Parallel Lives. Goes infinite with Pitiless Plunderer 1.Activate Chatterfang by paying b and sacrificing two other Squirrels. 2.The Squirrels die, triggering Pitiless Plunderer twice, creating two Treasure tokens and two 1/1 Squirrel tokens. 3.Activate a Treasure token by tapping and sacrificing it, adding b. 4.Repeat. 5.Resolve all Chatterfang abilities, causing any number of target creatures to get +2/-2 until end of turn any number of times. This gives you: Infinite colored mana. Infinite death triggers. Infinite ETB. Infinite LTB. Infinite sacrifice triggers. Infinite Treasure tokens. Reduce all opponents' creatures to 0 toughness.

Some pay off for sacrificing Mirkwood Bats, Blood Artist, Garna, Bloodfist of Keld & Poison-Tip Archer are good win condition for infinite sac outlet effects

Some better tutor effects: You can replace Diabolic Tutor for some other options below Diabolic Intent Tutor for 2 mana for any card with an additional sac requirement for sac effect synergies Demonic Tutor The OG best tutor Diabolic Revelation You wanna be cheeky? If you have big mana you can dump it all to grab multiple pieces to win the game

Some ramp effects: Cultivate & Kodama's Reach puts one to hand one to battlefield Nature's Lore & Three Visits puts any forest card onto the battlefield Entish Restoration is a new card that is better than harrow because you sacrifice a land on the resolution of the spell rather than paying the additional cost upfront, which makes it more safe from a feels-bad counterspells which puts you down a land. If you have a big enough creature you get 3 basics to the field all at instant speed as well. Nissa, Vastwood Seer  Flip is a pet card of mine which allows you to search for a basic and when you have 7 lands she flips and generate lands and card draw for pretty much free. Oracle of Mul Daya Allows you to play an additonal land every turn and allows to play them off the top of your library. If you dont see a card you like you can shuffle it away with a fetch land to try to get another off the top.

Better Lands: Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth & Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth are must includes allowing all your lands tap for B/G respectively in addition to your other colors. The pain lands Llanowar Wastes, Karplusan Forest & Sulfurous Springs are cheap dual lands that give you all your colors The reveal lands Game Trail, Foreboding Ruins & Necroblossom Snarl are also good cheaper options which give you dual colors The shocklands Blood Crypt, Overgrown Tomb & Stomping Ground are fetchable and come into play untapped for a measley 2 life are some of the best lands in the game Verdant Catacombs is the last fetch of your color not included. I would include it if you could because it allows all three of your fetches to fetch any of your shocks or battlelands. You can also include other Fetchlands as well such as Arid Mesa, Misty Rainforest etc to fetch because they can fetch for one of the jund colors of lands at least, however, they aren't as efficient Ziatora's Proving Ground is a must include because you can fetch it out and it taps for jund as well as cycle if it comes too late. If you don't have a turn one play you can fetch it out as your best land with no plays.

Hopefully this helps

Coward_Token on Fuck it, late Outlaw of …

1 month ago

Spoiler Schedule

Insatiable Avarice: In mono-B, this is draw three for three, which is a pretty good rate. K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth gets Demonic Tutor + draw two for

Fortune, Loyal Steed: From reading the story, I thought he looked like the "horse" from Elden Ring so this art was pretty startling

The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride: I kinda wish he got some serious flavor again. The original premise of "edgy hypno toad" was what made him funny, but now it just feels like WotC is milking that fan reaction for all it's worth.

Great Train Heist: solid Relentless Assault variant, but I kinda wish the last one said "each" for EDH purposes, even if I know it targets for the sake of crime:ing

Gisa, the Hellraiser: WotC throwing legendofa a bone, I guess.

Olivia, Opulent Outlaw: Why would becoming a criminal make Oliva gain white of all colors? I assume this is in preparation for Assassin's Creed, but it's still pretty weird. (For reference: White outlaws within Mardu's color identity)

Final Showdown: The best spree card? In voltron decks this is basically an instant-speed Plague Wind for seven mana that doubles as a situational savingspell. I think the first mode has a lot of situational uses, but it's something you have to keep your eyes out for.

High Noon: Rule of Law upgrade for Boros+, although Deafening Silence is still a thing

Arid Archway: idk if colorless decks needed a second Guildless Commons, but sure. Would rather have a mono-colored cycle tbh.

Tomb Trawler: I'm surprised how slowly Grenzo, Dungeon Warden is accumulating these kind of cards; Cogwork Archivist missed the mark in more ways than one

Roxanne, Starfall Savant: was kinda confused about the second ability until I realized she triggers on both ETB and attack. Powerstones obviously work too, plus e.g. Svella, Ice Shaper. Edit: Oh and Treasures too, obviously

Stubborn Burrowfiend: Ahhh! What the hell is the flavor supposed to be with that art?!

Kambal, Profiteering Mayor: Pretty cool with e.g. Saw in Half, Wedding Ring, and Tombstone Stairwell

Geralf, the Fleshwright: still not a good mono-U zombie commander but seems real good in the 99

Lilah, Undefeated Slickshot: so basically a multicolor Taigam, Ojutai Master/Ojer Pakpatiq, Deepest Epoch  Flip? Not bad.

Caustic Bronco: Could have been Dark Confidant on steroids, but mediocre thoughness and no evasion keeps its attack trigger from being reliable

Calamity, Galloping Inferno: somehow just a normal horse, not Elemental or anything.

Eriette, the Beguiler: gogo Enchant permanent! Also, every Licid is now a Dominating Licid

Obeka, Splitter of Seconds: suck it, The Ninth Doctor!

Balaam__ on Dark Depths combo

1 month ago

I’m curious about something here. The cards that give poison counters—namely Infectious Inquiry, Phyresis Outbreak and Prologue to Phyresis—is that an intended strategy, or are the poison counters just incidental?

I ask because I don’t think incorporating poison counters is a useful road to go down for this particular build. It doesn’t contribute much at all, and ideally you want to be locating/playing Dark Depths as fast as possible (which I think you’ve done a good job at), and likewise with Vampire Hexmage.

I’d consider replacing those combination draw/poison counter spells with straight up Tutors, of which Vintage has access to the very best. Vampiric Tutor and Demonic Tutor and so forth.

Also, and this isn’t relevant to deck building, but if you want to link a card in the description for easy viewing you can just enclose the card name with double square brackets.

Balaam__ on Zombie

2 months ago

This reminds me quite a bit of one of my old builds. If I were to make any recommendations, it would be to pick one thing you want your deck to do and then double down on it while ignoring anything else.

For instance, there are some Mill effects here that don’t contribute to any sort of strategy. Something like Glimpse the Unthinkable has no place here. Additionally, your mana base is a bit on the light side, even with rituals (especially if you want to stand any chance at all of casting Army of the Darned). Shoot for 22-24 lands minimum.

Also, Demonic Tutor is restricted. There’s currently no format where 4x copies are legal.

The good thing is that Zombies offer a wide range of different deckbuilding directions to try; Aggro, combo, etc. Maybe look into a recursive loop featuring a sac engine, Gravecrawler and Diregraf Captain.

Profet93 on Tri-bal

2 months ago

Oops, not sure how I missed that. Couple of questions...

  1. How often do you get a chance to meld them together?
  2. How often does your creature get removed in response to equipping gift of immortality?
  3. Budget? I ask because Demonic Tutor/Grim Tutor > Diabolic, mostly due to your curve.

Master of Cruelties > Ironas - Given all your creatures have flying, how often do you run into fliers stopping them? Master is deadly.

Sneak Attack > Quick amulet - maybe

legendofa on The Baron's Coterie

2 months ago

Buried Alive is 3 mana, Demonic Tutor is 2 mana, and Bloodghast is 2 mana. If you cast Buried to dump a Bloodghast, it's still going to take another land play to get the same value as playing Bloodghast directly. I would cut Buried and just add another Bloodghast.

There aren't many repeatable sac outlets that draw cards, but Village Rites and Corrupted Conviction are solid, along with Deadly Dispute. I think these will help you more than long-term draw, but for the sake of completion Phyrexian Arena and Black Market Connections are the standard and top end, respectively.

Next thought is, you have a lot of potential finishers. The Exquisite Bond combo is the most generally useful, in my opinion, and you can get some redundancy with Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose. I would cut Mind Twist and two Exsanguinates for a couple Vitos and a couple more Thoughtseizes for more early advantage. Discard that you choose > random discard > discard that they choose.

Falkenrath Forebear can also work as Vampire-centric sacrifice fodder, especially alongside Voldaren Bloodcaster  Flip if you go hard in this direction, but it's a little less reliable. Maybe just break away from vampires and use another recursive creature.

How much does Surgical Extraction help you? If you're against graveyard decks or combo decks regularly, keep it in main deck. Otherwise, it's sideboard material. As I write that, I realize there's no sideboard listed--do you use sideboards?

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth is very good with Cabal Coffers, so keep those together. But how do you use the fetchlands? If it's only to find another basic Swamp, there's no reason not to just use more basic Swamps.

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