Smiting Helix
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Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Arena Legal
Block Constructed Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Gladiator Legal
Highlander Legal
Historic Legal
Historic Brawl Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Modern Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Planechase Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Smiting Helix

Sorcery

Smiting Helix deals 3 damage to target creature, player or planeswalker and you gain 3 life.

Flashback (May cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)

hungry000 on $15 Dredge

2 years ago

TheBubbaEA Thanks!

In general, I would reference a non-budget Dredge list (from MTGgoldfish or another website like it) when you make upgrades, since those lists contain all the cards you'll want to get in the exact configurations you'll need. However, the Dredge deck in particular requires large investments alongside certain cards (like sets of fetchlands with Life from the Loam) in order to make them work, which can be difficult to figure out on your own.

I'd recommend making smaller upgrades first; the $25 Mardu version I listed above (Dredge ($25)) adds some white tri-lands to the mana base for Thrilling Discovery, Smiting Helix, and sideboard cards. Any other upgrades you'll want to make are going to be really big investments, so it'll be good to have a solid but fairly inexpensive base to play with while you work towards the more expensive stuff.

Now, it's important to consider which particular variant of Dredge you want to build before you start investing: some decks splash white for Thrilling Discovery and Prismatic Ending, some go for the traditional Jund list, others are straight Mardu. As of right now the most successful Dredge decks are cutting white for 1 mana enablers like Merchant of the Vale and Burning Inquiry for more speed (since graveyard hate is very popular atm). I personally like the white splash, but you do you.

Once you've figured that out, the most important upgrades you'll need to make are to the mana base. Competitive Dredge is heavily reliant on land synergies with Bloodghast, Life from the Loam, and by association Conflagrate (which is usually casted from the graveyard for big X values after filling your hand with lands via Loam). Fetchlands are by far the most important cards to have if you want to go this route. Having a nice suite of lands will also help with casting costs, which is always an issue with budget mana bases.

Other than that, the only upgrade you can really make until you have the lands is adding 3 Ox of Agonas for 1 Haunted Dead and 2 Smiting Helix; it's not too expensive to do this, but it also happens to be better with fetchlands, as they help pay for Ox's escape cost.

For lands, you'll want 8 R/X fetches, 4-5 R/X Dual lands, a couple fastlands, 3ish five-color lands, and one or two basics (~19 lands total). My recommendation for a 4c (RBgw) list:

Other Upgrades:

Hope this helps!

Balaam__ on Budget Dredge

2 years ago

I’d run Sovereign's Bite over Smiting Helix, if you’re desiring a spell of that sort. It lacks the Flashback and hits the player directly (as opposed to a creature), but is less mana intensive for similar results.

amicdeep on Mardu Pox

2 years ago

Personally for a pox list. I'd go 4 Vindicate (pox into vindicate is one of your stronger plays)

Mentor for the decks is an solid creature. So are Young Pyromancer and Sedgemoor Witch which both Dodge the pox sac while helping build a board.

Chandra, Acolyte of Flame dose what you want dark dwellers to do but cheaper and more times.

Smiting Helix also seems like a obvious include. Mid game removal or discard and lighting helix for extra value

I'd also consider Kaya's Guile and Kolaghan's Command provide some solid instant speed interaction and 2-1.

The other option is Nahiri, the Harbinger + emrakul package. As nahiri works as a solid wincon and interaction card.

Boom//bust is another option.

zapyourtumor on

2 years ago

I feel like having 10 young pyromancer effects is too many because it forces you to cut down on the number of instants and sorceries. How has this been working for you in playtesting?

Why do you run Bone Shards ? Yes, you can sacrifice creatures to it but you don't really have any creatures you want to sacrifice, or any cards you really want to discard. With only four Unearth and 2 Smiting Helix , I feel like leaning this far into self discard with Lightning Axe , Bone Shards , and Thrilling Discovery is a little overboard.

Also, I think you could try adding 4x Smallpox and 4x Flagstones of Trokair and see what happens.

amicdeep on The Necronomicon: Budget Mardu Reanimator

2 years ago

I would consider a couple of other creatures as one offs as alternatives for when you need an answer and not a threat. Ashen Rider springs to mind. As a good catch all. Another thing that may be worth adding is a few more shambling vents as needle spire is not great.

Lastly I would add at least 1 Unburial Rites. As I can be tutored with unmarked grave and used from the gy.

I would also look for a couple of winds of abandoned as solid mb removal spells that also can act as boardwipes against midrange. (As currently I feel like you may struggle against a more aggressive oponent, especially with only 1 reanimation target)

Lastly having something like Lingering Souls or Smiting Helix as alt wincons that also function well in a discard heavy deck. (At the moment you pretty much fold to surgical extraction, and/ and we'll times gy hate.) They would also allow you to stall games against aggro and still provide pressure when your combo gets countered/removed/discarded.

nUKe13 on nUKe13 Mardu Pyromancer - PRIMER

3 years ago

JacenSolo29 as far as the next update goes, I’m waiting to see if there is anything else that drops from MH2, but I think we have the complete list now.

My first impressions are:

1) Faithless Salvaging - this works better than Thrill of Possibility since it can be cast on an empty hand and the rebound can’t be caught by hand disruption. Instant is nice if we really do want to cast on opponent’s end step. Then, if we draw an instant, we can cast with rebound on the stack to get full value.

2) Prismatic Ending - I personally really REALLY like this. Great against aggro, Humans, Jund, Ponza, Death's Shadow (minus Gurmag Angler ). See (https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/home/is-prismatic-ending-the-new-swords-to-plowshares/)

3) Damn - again, LOVE IT! Definitely love the versatility, but I don’t know if it would replace Dreadbore (hits PWs), Fatal Push (instant and cheaper), or Engineered Explosives (can be triggered at instant speed and can be cheaper). Definitely a consideration for spots that previously included Damnation or Wrath of God .

4) General Ferrous Rokiric - I personally really like this. Immune to most removal (specifically EFFICIENT removal) such as Lightning Bolt , Path to Exile , Fatal Push , and Cryptic Command bouncing it. If you play a lot of multicolor spells, like Kolaghan's Command , Kaya's Guile , Kaya, Orzhov Usurper , Nahiri, the Harbinger , Dreadbore / Terminate , and Lightning Helix , then you definitely benefit from having this.

5) Dragon's Rage Channeler - this has a Magmatic Channeler feel to it and couples well with the graveyard-centric focus. If you opt for utility ARTIFACTS, like Mishra's Bauble , Damping Sphere , or Engineered Explosives , ENCHANTMENTS, like Blood Moon , or PLANESWALKERS, like Liliana of the Veil or any of the previously mentioned PWs, then you have an even easier time to activate Delirium. You do have to attack every turn, but having flying as evasion is really nice. Surveil is good if we start running more Flashback spells, like more Lingering Souls or Smiting Helix .

6) Void Mirror - TRON HATE FTW! This would compete with Damping Sphere as far as utility goes, but still really REALLY nice.

7) Obsidian Charmaw - OMG there are SO many Tron hate cards in this set, and I LOVE it. If Tron or Eldrazi Tron get more popular through all the hate from this set, then this would be great to add create a clock.

8) Vindicate - old EDH tech being added to Modern. I like the idea of destroying anything, but sorcery speed and 3 cmc, with everything else that has come into the game (and power creep), makes me unsure of its power. Could be what we need, but 3cmc is already crowded in the list.

9) Flame Blitz - UW/x, Jund, and maybe Tron typically run more PWs, so if we forgo running PWs, ourselves, then this serves as an extremely cheap PW hate card. Cycling is nice if we draw it and the opponent has side boarded out a majority of their PWs.

10) Harmonic Prodigy - if we bring back Young Pyromancer , add in Dark Confidant , and focus on Prowess, then I think this would rather have a home in a Feather, the Redeemed /spell-slinger deck. Still, it would be ok here, with the high spell count we run.

11) Sanctifier en-Vec - I don’t think we want to use this... definitely expect it in Burn or D&T lists against us.

12) Dauthi Voidwalker - now THIS we can use. Basically Sanctifier en-Vec , but unilateral hate and can help against Dredge or other recursion based decks. I like that we can sac on targeted removal and cast one of their spell(s). can conflict with our spells, but we are usually ok. If we get Blood Moon ed, we can usually laugh it off and power through it.

13) Bone Shards - in the primer, I’ve indicated that Mardu Pyro has different variants (spells/grave, PW, and Aristocrat/tokens). I feel this would slot nicely into an token deck, along with Village Rites , Kroxa, Titan of Death's Hunger , and Afterlife creatures.

14) Fury - at first glance, I’ve been conflicted. Seems ok as protection from aggro strategies, but I wish it had either 1 more toughness, did more damage, hit players, or cost less. It just seems... meh... I’m skeptical, but I’ve definitely been proven wrong before, so I’ll keep my mind open.

15) Mine Collapse - great if we run a bit more heavy on lands and run late. Too bad it doesn’t hit players though... a common theme from cards this set.

16) Arcbound Whelp / Esper Sentinel /Knighted Myr - another idea that has come to fruition from this set is Mardu Affinity. No, we won’t tech for Hardened Scales , but the removal suite that we run, in addition to these new artifact creatures (and lands!) is tempting enough to test some brews.

I hope this gives an idea of what we could change for the deck. The list was roughly done in the order of what we would tech in to the current build, but anything is possible! Let me know what you all think.

Edit: some of the cards (Knighted Myr, Mine Collapse, and Bone Shards) did not have the links set up in TappedOut as of the time of this post, so I do apologize for that.

legendofa on Using Faction Names for Color …

3 years ago

For , is there any way to tie stone/rock into a unique focus? There are a lot of cards in that theme and color combination - Chained to the Rocks , Earth Servant , Nahiri, the Lithomancer , Calciderm , etc. It seems like a good place to develop, but I have to admit, I can't think of anything for this theme that isn't combat oriented.

In a game about combat, the two colors with a biggest focus on direct confrontation combine to make a set dedicated to direct confrontation in combat. They've gotten some other tricks with Outlaws' Merriment and Zenith Flare , but not much.

Here's a thought: self-sacrifice tricks. is willing to sacrifice itself for its community. is willing to sacrifice itself if it's exciting enough. I can envision a red-white card that says something like "Creatures you control have 'Sacrifice this creature: something something damage something protection from whatever.'" They have the small creatures to make it pay off. It might be moving into a little bit, but that's happened before, most obviously with Smiting Helix . To quote DemonDragonJ, what does everyone else say about this? How do you feel about getting self-sacrifice tricks as a unique non-combat ability?

TriusMalarky on I tried building a lockdown …

3 years ago

  • You have 6 tunr-1-castable spells. I recommend at least 8 in slower formats. In Modern, you can easily be running 16 in a higher-cmc list.

  • IoK and TS are by far the best reason to be in black, in the top 10 1-mana spells in Modern, and the core of black control.

  • You're in Mardu, and you're in control. If you're not running 4x Path 4x Push 4x Bolt you're insane.

  • Tibalt's Trickery in Modern is for t1 Emrakul, not a Mana Leak replacement. (see MagicAID's recent vid).

  • Declaration in Stone is 100% better than Divine Gambit, and it's still not worth it when Path is $3

  • Pyroclasm is a sideboard card. It does almost nothing maindeck. Anger is okay, but if you're running control(in Mardu) Day of Judgment or Wrath of God or Kaya's Wrath is optimal. Run a playset of your preferred 4-mana wrath.

  • You don't have a win condition. At all. Mogis, even if you turn him into a creature, wins on t7. That's a couple turns too slow. Seriously, Approach of the Second Sun is better at winning.

  • Here's some wincon ideas: Secure the Wastes, Inferno Titan, Grave Titan. Although you're not ramping, they just outvalue everything except Prime Time and, in the case of Inferno, Uro. They win incredibly quickly and can singlehandedly take you from a bad position to a win. Glorybringer is also reasonable. Chandra, ToD is not horrible either.

  • Smiting Helix is great spell as well.

  • Also, you're in control and don't have much grin capacity. Night's Whisper is sorta necessary.

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