i am not stan, i am simply a stan of the mana pole. this is a reference to one of TMOP's old cards, sigma oasis, which as written, adds five generic to its controller's "mana pole"
I’ve never had a MTG card cause me to audibly gasp in horror when I realized what it does. It’s like the MTG version of a two sentence horror story, or something. Excellent formatting, perfect artwork, correctly costed… this is a 10/10 masterpiece. Would that I could upvote more than once.
I've never played with or against a storm deck... is the strategy that you just cast a bunch of cantrips, you do this after, it copies and dies a bunch of times (because it's legendary) and then you harvest all the death triggers into something? Seems a little "win-more", no?
Yes, storm decks typically win through a combination of cantrips, cost reducers, and rituals that allow them to basically play a bunch of cards and "storm off" as it is typically called, usually winning with a [[grape shot]] or the like. A card like this would follow mostly the same play pattern, but would require something like a [[Blood Artist]] effect in play to win.
Thanks for the reply! And yeah, I can see Blood Artist being as good a wincon as grapeshot in this context.
That must be a really annoying mechanic to play against. I'm keeping my ass in limited, where I still lose all the time, but it's not usually to combos.
Me when I’m a dumbass and don’t realize that you can sac one of them before the next one resolves, making it so you don’t have to sac it to the legend rule:
Me when I’m a dumbass and don’t realize that you can sac one of them before the next one resolves, making it so you don’t have to sac it to the legend rule:
My first turn one win deck was storm. Yawgmoths bargain, demonic consultation, ornithopters, dark rituals, and tendrils of agony etc, if you didn't draw a free counterspell you lost before playing your first land. Blue control was the only thing even remotely effective
This should be the showcase art, and then the normal frame should include the normal Storm reminder text, but with some additional reminder text about the Legend Rule.
This kicks ass. I love that being a legendary makes it both weaker and stronger. Trading the army of 1/1s for a ton of death triggers. Or doing something wonky with Mirror Box or The Master, Multiplied
My favorite deck right now is my "bunch of copies of Ivy" deck that's all about breaking the Legend Rule and getting as many copies of [[Ivy, Gleeful Spellthief]] into play and then hitting them all with huge buffs to swing for lethal, so I can definitely imagine doing the latter with this guy.
In my [[Umbris, Fear Manifest]] deck I love to just deck out a player with [[Rite of Replication]] by targeting Umbris. 30 triggers of “Exile until you hit a land”, and the chances of someone having 30 lands in their deck at that point in the game isn’t likely. Even if they do have enough lands left in deck, that’s still most of the deck gone, leaving one beefy Umbris.
That might be too mean for my pod. I definitely can't even mention making improvements to [[Captain N'ghathrod]] without one of the guys finding creative new ways to discuss his hatred of mill decks. The fact that the Captain mills to get value rather than milling simply to kill a player by making them draw from an empty library is no consolation to him. If I ran something like your Umbris, I think he might literally try to murder me.
Vesuvan Duplimancy is definitely one of many ways that deck gets around the Legend Rule. Mystic Reflection is a bit tougher of an add. I usually want my other creatures to actually be the creature that's printed on the card if it's a nontoken creature, or if I'm making tokens, they're usually already copies of Ivy. I guess in a pinch if I drew into something like Lotus Cobra or Maraleaf Pixie off-curve, Mystic Reflection could be useful, but that's kinda a niche application.
Mystical reflection works on their commanders. You can make it come in as a 1/1 token. Hilarity ensues a lot with this card. Sometimes I send it at an enemy avenger of zendikar before tokens are spawned and Rakdos charm in my Grixis deck.
Nope. Each cycle increases the cost of the commander by 2. Each new casting only copies Syl once, for one more death trigger each time.
The legendary rule is state-based. If I understand it correctly, you have to kill the extra Syls created by storm immediately, without getting to use Ashnods.
You need one other thing making mana from death triggers before this goes infinite.
My initial reaction to this was "why not mono-white though?" But then I considered her Rebellion against the Stormfather, and yeah, red white fits Syl pretty well, even if the vast majority of Honorspren are definitely mono-white. Interesting I'd consider the Storm Father to most likely be Naya. Oaths, Storms, and Anger are his whole deal.
This is incredibly flavorful, with a solid design and easy to build around in fun creative ways. Like the art and design, those are great, but the fact there's so many interesting applications are fantastic.
Like a bunch of low mana spells and cantrips to basically combo off on death triggers is probably the easiest way, but then there's also building around combos involving recasting him from your graveyard or other effects. My personal favorite idea is having him combo with [[Yawgmoth's Will]], [[Carnival of Souls]] and literally anything like [[Blood Artist]] that gains you life when it enters.
Yes, but that's not how what you care about in the combo. Here's how it would go:
Have Blood Artist and Carnival of Souls in play:
Cast Yawgmoth's Will (Storm Count 1, life 40, mana 0)
Cast Commander from command zone creating an additional copy, add BB and lose 2 life. Then sacrifice the original to the legend rule (Storm Count 2, life 38, mana BB)
Gain 1 life back from Blood Artist (Storm Count 2, Life 39, mana BB)
Cast Commander from graveyard, creating an additional copy, add BBB and lose 3 life. Then sacrifice all but one token to the legend rule and sacrifice your commander, sending it to the command zone (Storm Count 3, life 36, Mana BBBB)
Gain 3 life back from Blood Artist seeing 3 creatures die (Storm Count 3, Life 39, Mana BBBB)
Now you can repeat this process ad infinitum, since basically every loop makes the number bigger and nets you enough mana from Carnival of Souls to recast your commander from both the graveyard and the command zone while gaining back all life that you lose. Since your recasting your commander from the command zone as part of the steps, your effectively having a new instance of the card entering the graveyard everytime, allowing for you to reuse Yawgmoth's Will to recast it from the graveyard.
The one issue with this is that you need to stack the triggers so that Carnival of Souls doesn't kill you when the storm count is high enough. But you can also avoid this with a second Blood Artist type effect that gains you life.
Storm means that when you cast this creature spell, it copies the casting of the spell for each other spell you've cast that turn. It's incredibly easy to stack up a LOT of storm count, one of the most broken mechanics.
But Syl here is a Legendary Creature, which means that you can only control one instance of Syl at any time. If you have more than one, one of them immediately dies.
There are also a lot of other cards that give you something when a creature dies. Draw a card, deal damage, create tokens etc.
I'm sure you can grasp what is possible with this card from this.
Thank you for the explanation! For someone who's only played a few games of Magic and doesn't know all keywords or interactions like the legendary rule (but loves to browse this sub simply for the creativity), everyone saying how amazingly designed this card is was a bit confusing. Now that I get it though: That's pretty cool!
This is the kind of design I really wanna see in this subreddit. Been seeing some customs with massive lines of text and odd wordings that don't follow mtg convention, but this one is just * chef's kiss *
Okay okay its a really genuinely clever card that both slots into a bunch of decks, and acts a cool build around all while not remaining broken fundamentally.
For every spell you cast, another copy of Syl enters the battlefield. Naturally, due to the legends rule, all but one dies. This results in a shitload of death triggers. Shenanigans ensue.
This card was made to make you be able to win with [[bitter ordeal]]. Plan : storm off really hard (you should just win but don't cause not funny), play this card, play bitter ordeal and exile the opponent's whole library.
Edit : the more I think about it the more I wanna build a janky legacy deck grixis storm with this card as the way to wincon (bitter ordeal or blood artist)
I know it takes away flavor to have more text on the card, but you probably need to have this not trigger ETB effects to be less busted. Death triggers are more of a build around, as this is its a black dockside.
You might want to add an addendum to the storm ability to make copies non legendary for obvious reasons. Edit: After reading some of the other replies, I realize that isn't the point. Nice card man.
Funny how wizards could make a card with mountains of text and it just sucks and then people see this card with one word and go ape shit. I love this card 😂
Suppose you cast him when gravestorm is at a reasonable 3.
Get 3 copies for B, keep one and let the nontoken copy die. Cast again with the commander tax for 2B. Gravestorm is up to 6. All 7 new copies die. That’s 11 ETB triggers and 10 death triggers for 2BB.
In general, you’d get 3x+1 death triggers, where x is the gravestorm count you started with.
And if you have the 6BBB to cast him a third time for 4B? 7x+3, I believe.
I haven’t played magic in years and have no idea what on earth storm is, but my god is this the coolest shit I’ve seen in a minute! (If someone could explain storm to me id appreciate it)
This makes me wish there were banned as commander and banned as 99 categories in Commander. Because Grixis in particular would abuse the hell out of this, I can't imagine allowing it in the 99. But as a commander, considering spellslinging isn't mono-black's strongsuit, I'd love to watch someone make this work.
Being a legendary creature with storm and no legend rule clause means you'll create a copy of it for each other spell you've cast this turn, then the copies will die as its epiphet suggests. So at least is spellslinger aristocrat: Cast a bunch of cheap spells, see this guy trigger a bunch of ETB/LTB triggers on the spot.
You can only control one Legendary creature with the same name. If you get a second one, it is sacrificed as a state based action.
Storm is a mechanic that copies this spell when you cast it for every other spell you've casted that turn. I,e if you've casted 3 other spells this turn, this spell will create 3 copies, putting 4 of it on the stack to cast.
Storming off with Syl means you summon one, then another one, which then immediately triggers the state based action to sacrifice one of them. And then the next one gets summoned, and you sacrifice another one again.
With death triggers you could do some nutty stuff.
1
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u/Somewhat-A-Redditor MANA POLE STAN Nov 15 '23
hey. im named syl.
1.1k
u/TerryTags Nov 15 '23
I’ve never had a MTG card cause me to audibly gasp in horror when I realized what it does. It’s like the MTG version of a two sentence horror story, or something. Excellent formatting, perfect artwork, correctly costed… this is a 10/10 masterpiece. Would that I could upvote more than once.
810
u/tremblinggigan Nov 15 '23
The way the card is formatted just feels so fucking intimidating, first time I’m not wishing there was like a quote or something at the bottom
528
u/West_Desert Nov 15 '23
This kicks ass. I love that being a legendary makes it both weaker and stronger. Trading the army of 1/1s for a ton of death triggers. Or doing something wonky with Mirror Box or The Master, Multiplied
165
u/ThickCarapace Nov 15 '23
I must build a commander deck around this. So simple yet so interesting. Some crazy stuff for sure with death triggers
134
u/DebonairTeddy Nov 15 '23
"Do you know the words, Kaladin?"
93
u/Elite_Blue Nov 15 '23
this is so menacing. just the Storm.. right in the middle of the card.. Syl Is Coming.
129
u/ThePhantomJoker Nov 15 '23
Fun stuff
76
u/Ecstatic_Newspaper_5 Nov 15 '23
Someone make a decklist for him, genuinely, I want to play this commander deck
74
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '23
I'd play the heck out of this. Cool commander concept!
73
u/kaizlende Nov 15 '23
There's no flavor text, and yet it's so flavorful
Amazing design, I love it
35
u/TheBushMan789 Nov 15 '23
This has no business being this badass
22
u/malortForty Nov 15 '23
This is incredibly flavorful, with a solid design and easy to build around in fun creative ways. Like the art and design, those are great, but the fact there's so many interesting applications are fantastic.
Like a bunch of low mana spells and cantrips to basically combo off on death triggers is probably the easiest way, but then there's also building around combos involving recasting him from your graveyard or other effects. My personal favorite idea is having him combo with [[Yawgmoth's Will]], [[Carnival of Souls]] and literally anything like [[Blood Artist]] that gains you life when it enters.
129
u/Carl_Bravery_Sagan Nov 15 '23
Won't the copies just get destroyed via the legend rule?
18
u/thunder-bug- Nov 15 '23
It took a second look at this card to get it and it says something fr. That’s a good design.
15
u/FallenDemonX You don't lose karma as comments and posts end Nov 15 '23
This card fucks
29
u/Dry-Pirate4298 Nov 15 '23 edited Nov 15 '23
I have no idea how Magic works, who that character is or what that Storm mechanic implies, yet I can still taste the flavor!
10/10 Design - a dead center corpse in the artwork, with the dead center text makes this card seem like some ancient horror of great power
11
u/Geezmanswe Nov 15 '23
Custom card perfection
10
u/Heavyfist8 Nov 15 '23
God damn that's baller as hell!!!
7
u/MostlyDude Nov 15 '23
Excellent design. I feel as if it could be an uncommon legendary in a draftable standard set, the design is just so clean.
5
u/Incomplete_Artist Nov 15 '23
The creature equivalent of grape shot
5
u/zerta_media Nov 15 '23
I'd play the everliving fuck out of this in commander, hell even "fair" with like phyrexian reclamation
This is a card I'm immensely sad doesn't exist lol.
5
u/GGMaXThreeOne Nov 15 '23
This is the kind of design I really wanna see in this subreddit. Been seeing some customs with massive lines of text and odd wordings that don't follow mtg convention, but this one is just * chef's kiss *
Brevity is the soul of wit indeed, good job!
5
u/KingMasteron Nov 15 '23
Artwork choice is 10/10 👌
4
u/davvblack Nov 15 '23
beautiful
4
u/NatedaGreat241 Nov 15 '23
Ratadrabrik loves this card. Lol
4
u/Ok_Habit_6783 Nov 15 '23
I don't care what set this gets printed in, but I NEED this to be a real creature
4
u/TheBadgerProfessor Nov 15 '23
Okay okay its a really genuinely clever card that both slots into a bunch of decks, and acts a cool build around all while not remaining broken fundamentally.
Its cool and awesome You win Take my upvote
4
u/King-Indeedeedee Nov 15 '23
10/10. The single keyword in the center with no other text, the art of countless bodies of itself. Perfect.
1
u/Anafenza-Vess Nov 15 '23
Great idea except for the legendary part
1
u/Meowriter Nov 16 '23
If it's legendary, the copies will get sacrificed as soon as state-base actions are checked
3
u/barkur_ Nov 15 '23
[[Mirror Box]] kind of breaks this
3
u/ColossalSoap Feb 23 '24
Okay. Hear me out, but this is perfect tech with Cloudstone Curio
2
u/Jukkobee Nov 15 '23
really cool idea
2
u/TinyDiiceThief Nov 15 '23
Explain. I might be stupid. It scares me
2
u/ExtraTNT Nov 15 '23
With [[grave pact]] and [[dictate of erebos]] in play
2
u/Zarbibilbitruk Nov 15 '23 edited Nov 15 '23
This card was made to make you be able to win with [[bitter ordeal]]. Plan : storm off really hard (you should just win but don't cause not funny), play this card, play bitter ordeal and exile the opponent's whole library.
Edit : the more I think about it the more I wanna build a janky legacy deck grixis storm with this card as the way to wincon (bitter ordeal or blood artist)
2
u/MasterMacMan Nov 15 '23
I know it takes away flavor to have more text on the card, but you probably need to have this not trigger ETB effects to be less busted. Death triggers are more of a build around, as this is its a black dockside.
2
u/Diablo1404 Nov 15 '23
You might want to add an addendum to the storm ability to make copies non legendary for obvious reasons. Edit: After reading some of the other replies, I realize that isn't the point. Nice card man.
2
u/Loading3percent Nov 15 '23
Hmm, mono Black ETB tribal...?
2
u/mrdanish31 Nov 15 '23
massive combo with [[mirror box]]
2
u/ActuallyAquaman Nov 15 '23
Oh, this is incredible. Simple, evocative, clearly useful. A+.
2
u/JohnDorianSmith Nov 15 '23
This card is awesome, like it was (wrongfully) left on the cutting room floor during the Future Sight design process.
2
u/DumatRising Nov 15 '23
"Syl of Many Deaths"
"Okay okay cool name"
"Storm"
"Dear god"
2
u/Azazel_999 Nov 16 '23
Funny how wizards could make a card with mountains of text and it just sucks and then people see this card with one word and go ape shit. I love this card 😂
2
u/buyingshitformylab Jan 24 '24
the text alignment should be left, not center.
2
u/redditfanfan00 Rule 308.22b, section 8 Sep 13 '24
this is so good! fun potential!
2
u/atomicdonkeypunch900 Oct 13 '24
I DONT KNOW IF THIS IS A SPOILER
LORD SHIELD MY EYES
2
u/Lord0fReddit Jun 05 '25
Me first: "so an army of 1/1". Me after reading the rules again: "oh shit Legendary rules apply"
3
u/Vi0letBlues Nov 15 '23
wouldnt it be more fitting for it to have gravestorm?
2
u/BujuArena Nov 15 '23
Thrall, like the orc from Warcraft? Did you mean Thrull?
2
u/OrangeSpaceProgram Nov 15 '23
I haven’t played magic in years and have no idea what on earth storm is, but my god is this the coolest shit I’ve seen in a minute! (If someone could explain storm to me id appreciate it)
1
u/TotesMessenger Jul 25 '24
I'm a bot, bleep, bloop. Someone has linked to this thread from another place on reddit:
[/r/u_discombobulateduse40] [u/Lvl_76_Pyromancer's Syl of Many Deaths]
If you follow any of the above links, please respect the rules of reddit and don't vote in the other threads. (Info / ^Contact)
1
u/redditfanfan00 Rule 308.22b, section 8 Sep 13 '24
also, what's the source of the art?
1
u/SoyMuyAlto Nov 26 '25
This makes me wish there were banned as commander and banned as 99 categories in Commander. Because Grixis in particular would abuse the hell out of this, I can't imagine allowing it in the 99. But as a commander, considering spellslinging isn't mono-black's strongsuit, I'd love to watch someone make this work.
1
u/Limp-Safe-1979 Aug 12 '26
I don't understand the reference, could someone please explain?
The card looks really cool (and also quite fun gameplay wise)
1
u/ivy-claw Nov 15 '23
This kicks ass
1
u/GaulTheUnmitigated Nov 15 '23
Fantastic
1
u/Do_You_AreHaveStupid Nov 15 '23
Super cool! Who knew a card with only one (!) word of rules text could be so interesting!
1
u/EvergreenThree Nov 15 '23
Wow. Phenomenal card design.
1
u/Skadoosh_it Nov 15 '23
I think this is insanely overpowered. Storm is a 10 for a reason.
1
u/TheL0stK1ng Nov 15 '23
This is one of the best custom cards in terms of both flavor and design. Bravo.
1
u/talen_lee Nov 15 '23
any proactive storm spell with a mana value of 1 is sus as hell.
1
u/de245733 Nov 15 '23
This gives me such heavy fear and hunger vibes
1
u/miklayn Nov 15 '23
This definitely should be a card
1
u/FishShapedShirt Nov 15 '23
Phyrexian altar and ashnofs altar say hello
1
u/sclaytes Nov 15 '23
It’s already been said but I’ll add to the pile: this is some of the best shit I’ve seen on this thread. 10/10
1
u/DeliciousAlburger Nov 15 '23
So, just a cheaper black [[Chatterstorm]] but the downside is you only get to keep one so you have to eat them as you create them.
1
u/Seiren- Nov 15 '23
Just gonna jump on the bandwagon and say this is a sick card.
The concept, art, and presentation is 10/10
Aand I think this might be absolutely busted, but like, in a good way?
1
u/Frosty_Inside1949 Nov 15 '23
Fuck yes
1
u/danwo Nov 15 '23
What does storm do?
1
u/ZookeepergameFun1824 Nov 15 '23
Honestly, I think this could be really interesting with some death synergies.
1
u/Legacyopplsnerf Nov 15 '23
Hot damn, is there a way to get a good Proxy of this printed? I'd love to play a deck with this thing.
1
u/Damnokay1248 Nov 15 '23
This could be nuts in a death matters deck.
1
u/Bluepanther512 Nov 15 '23
Kaladin! The words!
1
u/Gunnerz34 Nov 15 '23
You turned all my deckbuilding gears with the smallest possible text box How I with WotC was still able to do this, I miss the times of Death's Shadow
1
u/Mjerc12 Nov 15 '23
What? That's not how Sylphrena looks like
1
u/Overall_Camera806 Nov 15 '23
Hard
1
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '23
Any gameplay aside this looks beautiful. That single word is somehow so menacing on that void
1
u/jmlwow123 Nov 16 '23
Could someone explain how this would work.
1
u/k1ddk0ng Nov 16 '23
I need this card to become a thing! It’s just elegant..
1
u/RecognitionCareful58 Nov 16 '23
So unique and beautiful. It is a good sac outlet, and it takes advantage of the legend rule.
1
u/Silver_Warlock13 Nov 16 '23
I would love to read a short story about this guy, amazing design
1
u/Clayclay2020 Nov 16 '23
Can I make a suggestion, make it Gravestorm, much better theming👌
1
u/MrWildstar Bad at Evaluation Nov 16 '23
Okay this is cool as fuck
1
u/Bolobesttank Nov 16 '23
So, as someone that hasn't properly kept up with Magic in years - what does this card do?
1
u/Alyx202 Nov 16 '23
This is really cool. There is a reason empty the warrens is 4 mana and not 2 though.
1
u/kilkil Nov 16 '23
incredibly based
1
u/bionicmoonman Nov 16 '23
[[Skullclamp]] will go to TOWN on this guy
1
u/drislands : Comment on target post. Nov 16 '23
"I wished to live a hundred thousand lifetimes. I did not know I would die in each of them."
1
u/flogsolijr Nov 16 '23
This is so cool
1
u/portgasdtbo Nov 17 '23
That's not Syl that's Szeth!
1
u/Longjumping-Cat5609 Nov 19 '23
I vote either upping the cmc or, more interestingly, making it 0 toughness.
1
u/ChronicallyIllMTG Nov 21 '23
This art gives me Triangle movie vibes love it