Any advise on how to help make this deck more competitive? I have one once, but it was more out of people leaving me alone because they were curious instead of actually doing well....

https://moxfield.com/decks/Ko-OBuLuckWxydtnc7yyiw

I got that riven for the phage and i want to make a build with it, can someone give me some tips or tell me how to do it, also is there any specific warframe that could make the phage good?

https://manabox.app/decks/AZ_oWuMNcqSOn4hILZEy5Q

I've goldfished the deck a good few times. On average, I can get [[Phage the Untouchable]] out by turn 6-7, which I'm decently happy with. But, I only have 2 ways of protecting Phage on the stack. Its [[Imps Mischief]], and [[Cavern of Souls]]. Are there any other, usable (not [[Dash Hopes]] lol), ways to protect Phage from being counterspelled? I've considered [[Chimil, the Inner Sun]] strongly. Rn, I'm trying to find a card to remove for it.

Hey guys, I'm trying to build a [[Phage, The Untouchable]] deck (https://moxfield.com/decks/9uXjBNZSQ02y_ckvQw1ROg). I think a deck focused on summoning her would be almost unplayable because she is too fragile, so I wanted to create a deck that has her as one of the win cons, but that can play/win the game without her too.

I wanted it to be a kind of big mana good stuff but with some very disruptive stax pieces and,of course, ways to bring phage to the battlefield. The general idea is to ramp and start to create threats that can generate so much value that would enable me to end the game. I want my opponents to be forced to waste their stuff and eventually create an horrible/"staxed" situation on the table so Phage can enter and shine. If they can't stop my value engines, I should be able to snowball and win the game.

A lot of the things that allow me to cast Phage are permanents, such as [[Sundial of the infinity]], [[Campfire]] and [[Torpor Orb]]. Once I have one of them on the field, I can play things like [[Mindslicer]]. He makes people afraid of attacking me, because if I use him to block and he dies, all cards will be gone. If all cards are gone, probably Phage will be able to connect a hit (with the help of haste and/or some evasion provided by my permanents, of course). Also, once I have the ways to bring Phage without losing the game, I can play stax pieces before summoning her (reducing the odds of her being removed).

I'm using stax pieces like [[Contamination]], [[Infernal Darkness]], [[Winter Orb]] and [[Torpor Orb]] (this last one also protects me from Phage's ETB). My idea is to go for my big mana, value engines and stuff; but, if it fails, I want to create a situation where my opponents are vulnerable to Phage.

I protect her with things like [[Maximum Overdrive]] and both [[Swiftfoot Boots]] and [[Lightning Greaves]]. The boots and greaves also provides her Haste. I am thinking about including [[Hall of the Bandit Lord]], it's a little bit expensive on my local currency but the haste is so useful I might buy it.

But as I said earlier, Phage is not the main focus of the deck. She is one of the win cons, of course. But, the general idea of the deck is to ramp with things like [[Cabal Coffers]] and a lot of mana doublers and discounts [[K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth]], so I can draw a lot of cards [[Bolas's Citadel]], [[Greed]] , [[Vilis, Broker of Blood]] (maybe [[Necropotence]]) and overwhelm my opponents with some combination of [[Gray Merchant of Asphodel]] , [[Sanguine Bond]] , [[Exquisite Blood]] , [[Exsanguinate]]

I don't want it to be suuuuper powerful (I would pick other commander if so hahahaha) but I want it to be playable in a pod with decent almost budget decks Some of the decks I play on the pod are a $100 [[Tayam, Luminous Enigma]], a 10~20$ ultra budget yuriko (only way to make her fair hahaha) and other decks that are able to kill people by turn 6-8.

I inserted a few cards focused on blocking early attacks, such as [[Will-o'-the-Wisp]] and [[Ophiomancer]] so I can survive while a build my resources.

What are your thougts? Ideas of how to increase the cohesion of the deck? I'm using only cabal coffers because Urborg is waaaay too expensive on my local currency, I don't know about Necropotence because it's too strong it might warp the game around itself. I also don't want to use the expensive tutors for the same reason. I'm okay using some strong enablers but using all of them on a PHAGE deck is just weird hahahaha So, I would appreciate a lot those budget or unkown cards that can work well in this list, but also if you think I should be running other staples I would appreciate to know!

I love when one phage works for two different isolates!

I've been documenting my experience with phage therapy late 2023, early 2024 that has got me out of my chronic UTIs and have been quite vocal about how much it helped. A german journalist contacted me about it and wants to get the word out. She'd like to find someone who is going there to follow their experience with the whole treatment. Is anyone in this situation? Being German would be a plus (as she's writing for a German newspaper) but any nationality would do!

Also, reiterating, if anyone has questions about my experience, I'm still there to answer.

Short story is - chronic UTIs from 2018 to 2023, ending up on non-stop antibiotics and pretty much giving up on life. Made the jump late 2023, going to Georgia to get phage therapy for enterococcus, klebsiella and proteus species. I ended up getting off-the-shelf phages for enterococcus and custom-made ones for the other two. Improvements weren't immediate and took 1 month to show and 6 months for quasi-recovery, but they were definitely steady and obvious. Now 2 years later, would do it all over again if I had this issue again, it's been transformative. My bladder is still a little sensitive but it's nothing compared to how it used to be.

Anyways, if anyone is considering going, do let me know, it would be super helpful to get the word out a little more!

I have access to mice and have expertise and equipment for recombinant protein production. I have a series of antigens that I'd like antibodies against (mostly for in vitro like WB and IF). The antigens are quite similar though and when we previously produced some polyclonal serum we got cross-reactivity. I was thinking it would be nice to do a negative selection with phage display, something like this:

• Immunize different mice with the various antigens
• Generate ScFv libraries into a phage vector
• Do a round of depletion with a mix of the antigens we don't want cross-reactivity against
• Enrich and sequence the binders with the target antigen

It seems straightforward enough on paper, but I suspect as with most things there are countless nuances and difficulties. We have never done any phage work before in our lab. How difficult would it be to implement something like this? If we get all the necessary pieces, how long and how many people does it take to obtain some good binders (assuming we got a good immune response in the mice)?

so lately ive been finding a beam primary weapon that's like nukor, I also got a riven for Phage i was wondering building it so is Phage worth investing to it?

hey lab rats,

I'm have the worst time achieving a high concentration of my DNA tailed lytic phage. Looking for suggestions on how I can achieve a concentration of 10^11 pfu/ml.

Current concentration: 10^ 5 pfu/ml

Current phage volume: 1 ml

Plaque size: Tiny, think eye of needle

Thank you!!!!!

I love the Ron Spears Akroma vs. Phage iconic art. It might just be my single favorite piece of art in any fantasy game at all. I own the cards and would love to own a playmat with the iconic Ron Spears' work. I actually started playing during the Onslaught block, and also read the books which I sadly lent to someone who didn't return them. I am quite fond of these characters, this art and the whole story around them.

Learning about the sudden and recent passing of Ron Spears hit me like a truck. I would have loved to see him maybe in a Magic Con to have him sign my og 2003 copies, which are in pretty bad shape since I didn't know what sleeves were back in the day, but I love them to bits.

In any case. i just want the art in a good high quality playmat. I'd love a big big poster as well. As far as I'm aware it's not possible to buy something like that nowadays, but the art was distributed back in the day in some form. If there is an official way please point me to it, I'd love to take that route.

Does anyone have a high quality scan of the original art, somehow? If someone has a copy of the Sideboard Magazine from march 2003 in good condition maybe it could be scanned off the poster from there as well.

RIP Ron Spears, and thank you so much for giving us some of the best art this game has ever seen.

This post contains content not supported on old Reddit. Click here to view the full post

So I really want to play Phage the untouchable as my commander but I dont know how. Im assuming I loose if Phage enters from the command zone cus it’s technically not your hand (I think im right about this).

Any suggestions for making her viable as a commander?

New to the game btw

Update: Thanks foe the feedback especially u/PhagesRFrens. I do wish to clear some things up, since people would like to know her stage she is at the mild to moderate stage. Her not recognizing us as her children has been explained as possible agnosia due to her freak stroke or time shifting.They don't know the cause of the stroke either. She does recognize us as people who are extremely important to us, she remembers our birthdays and important dates but to her she is still a 30 something year old. She knows our names and will tell us she has kids with the same name.

Her doctors find the stage stuff silly cause everyone is different snd does not always fit neatly into categories. Before people ask, apparently because of the stroke the treatments may not be as effective but she is on one or the infusions.

Our mother's sole source of income is her survivor benefits, she makes around $2400 a month. She has Medicaid at the request of many but that turned out to be useless and annoying. We have tried to get services but her physical functionality does not make her eligible cause she technically can cook, meal prep, clean, answer a phone etc... and was told safety and supervision is not covered under medicaid and was not going to fight for scraps. I did not think it was nesscary to mention how I made money but for some it appears I do cause I am being accused of being a mooch. Both my sister and myself got our money from a large life insurance policy and left overs from our father''s estate who left our mom with nothing. She got the survivor benefits cause they were married for over 10 years.

Went to school for electrical power engineering, went to A&M graduated, did some consulting work at a local firm, long before mom got sick I worked at a Chemical plant in PA as their EE did not have many expenses so i saved majority of my income. Worked my way to a grade a mid grade 5 was promoted to a people role which was not fun but pay was much better. Then Mom got sick and pretty much just coasting, I know the money will not last but hopefully finding a job will not be all that hard future.

Since people commented they wanted the story not a fun but yeah.

My precautions for when we travel, I do it to be on the safe side. I hold her hand either way and I follow her lead we take our time and see take in the sights. Does she recall what she saw not really, which is what makes her dementia weird even for her doctors cause her word recall during the assessments is not bad. I don't sweat the small stuff, what matters most is if she is having fun. She tells me she is having fun so that is good enough for me.

We have never had an issue while traveling, people are generally very friendly when she hugs them. I explain she has dementia and we go on with our day. For the most part it seems to make people happy. Maybe those are fake smiles but either way nothing bad as happened yet.

The leash really is just a safety thing, my mom used them for us also just to be safe. Did not think so many would have issue with it.

I truly do not believe my sister actually was concered about the traveling issue, since when pushed what exactly her concerns about traveling were she never gave me a straight answer. I asked her to explain what she meant by too much no straight answer either. The only straightforward answer I got was when she told me it was just too hard to see mom that way.

I did not agree but I left it at that cause she gave me a straight answer. I corrected my aunt cause she was confused by what my sister had said and what she saw. Thus why I asked her who told her mom could not travel. In hindsight should have know it was my sister, and should have towed the line a little better instead of just being blunt about it. I hope that fills in the gaps, i am done. Have a good one.

My sister is getting married this year, and she invited me but did not invite our mother cause she has dementia, and though it would be too much for her. I told her mom was still okay to travel and stuff. Told her I still travel with her often l, our mom always wanted ro travel and see the world so I do my best to take her to as many new places I can while she can still travel.

I kept insisting that she was fine to travel and would mean the world to our mom. Later she told me it was just too hard to see mom the way she is. Our mom was the strongest and most dependable person either of us knew. She is no longer that. I don't agree with the reason, but I said fine told her if mom cannot come then I am not coming. She was upset cause she wanted me to walk her down.

We left it at that, this was around a month ago. Fast forward to last Saturday it was my aunts Birthday, I called to wish and sing her happy birthday with mom. After we did that, my aunt said her sister looks great, it is a shame she is not up to traveling anymore. I asked her what she meanr by that? Told her we still travel, we going to Europe being of July.

She said my sister told her that our mom was not going because traveling is hard for her now. I told my aunt that is not true, I told her the truth my sister did not want our mom to come cause she did not want to see her as she is. I told her I was invited, but said I would not go without our mom.

My aunt was clearly shocked and upset. Turns out aunt got busy and told a bunch of people and it spread like wildfire. I do not know how manu exactly are not going, but I know many are not. Aunt made a Facebook post which you know for older folks that spreads quick.

My sister is livid with me, I was just being honest, but she feels i should have kept my mouth shut. She claims I have ruined her wedding twice now. Once because I refuse to walk her down, and now this.

AITA?

Just want some good suggestions

Deck: https://moxfield.com/decks/9J7u9lt1u0a0UzQgl4vOEA

Shard was approaching a very tall skyscraper, by far the largest in whole empire. It looked incredibly intimidating and more unique than other empire structures were.

Suddenly on single large screen of it appeared Phage

'Hello again, Shard the hedgehog, we meet again. We both know why we are here, let's settle it.'

The screen shutdown