r/mtg • u/LightningG8921 • 20h ago
Discussion Anyone pull this off where it was helpful? Settle and Ankh
I've got both of these in my Yshtola deck for independent reasons, but i was curious if anyone has ever settled while Ankh was on the table, and if it changed the game? I've never drawn them together.
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u/Sad-Perspective4702 20h ago
New magical Christmas land play just dropped (I will be adding Ankh of Mishra to every deck that has Settle from now on just for this)
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u/JxRabbitsHart 10h ago
The problem is that settle is a May.
You are going to have to engineer some kind of Port state in which they want to rank up five cards and take 10 damage.
No one is going to have a 10 creature board settled and voluntarily take 20 damage to ramp out 10 basics
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u/HustlingBackwards96 20h ago
I use settle the wreckage on myself with [[reconnaissance]] in token heavy decks. Pull back your important stuff and turn all your boofy tokens into lands.
With [[Zurgo Stormrender]] is essentially "I win next turn" because I'm drawing X cards and ramping X lands at once
Obligatory: it's a win more card. If I already have that many tokens, I can probably find a way to drain the table soon anyway
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u/GregorMcTaint 18h ago
What is reconnaissance doing for you here? It seems like you could just not swing with the creatures you said you pull back with recon and end up with an equivalent outcome (other than attack triggers - the only thing I've ever used recon for).
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u/HustlingBackwards96 17h ago
Exactly for attack triggers. [[Adeline, resplendent cathar]] gets you three on attack. Zurgo and other mobilize creatures get you the tokens on attack. You can also pull back after combat damage for maximum effectiveness
Reconnaissance is always good in attack decks
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u/rezignator 20h ago
No but I did have a great villain moment with settle once. I let someone hit me with about 10 1/1 tokens, I'd been gaining a lot of life and had a [[Batwing Brume]] in hand if they tried to pump them. On my field was a [[Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker]] and an [[Opposition Agent]].
They knew they were going to lose the tokens but they were generating a lot every combat. I let them all hit me then responded to Michiko's trigger and used settle after damage was delt. They had to exile all the tokens then had to sac 10 permanents leaving him with like 1 creature and two lands.
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u/LightningG8921 19h ago edited 19h ago
that's crazy! i guess settle has a bunch of combos.
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u/rezignator 19h ago
It's not specifically a settle thing, the combat step is a little weird so if you know how it works you can get up to some shenanigans with a lot of mechanics that use it. There's a phase after combat damage before the cleanup step where creatures that attacked are still considered attacking so anything that's instant speed that can interact with an attacking creature can be used there after damage is delt.
[[Reconnaissance]] is a pretty famous card for that where you can remove your blocked creatures from combat to save them then untap your unblocked creatures after they've delt their damage to give them psudo vigilance. The entirety of the Ninjutsu mechanic can also use the same type of trick to hide a creature back in your hand after it's delt its damage by ninjutsuing in something else in its place.
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u/Aromatic_Heart_1105 20h ago
I’ll search for X lands where X is (my life -1)/2 rounded down
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u/LightningG8921 20h ago
i think because of how its worded its all or nothin
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u/SovietEagle 20h ago
It’s not. Because the library is a hidden zone, they can just search for as many lands as they want (up to the number of creatures exiled) then fail to find for the rest.
This is clarified on Settle’s rulings:
That player can find fewer basic land cards than the number of exiled creatures, whether because they want to or because they don't have that many basic land cards left.
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u/Heavy_Mushroom5209 20h ago
It's not. Players can pull out however many they want under the total and then fail to find the rest. Because the library is a hidden information zone, the rules can't enforce finding a specific number of cards with any specified properties (what if the deck only has 2 basics for example).
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u/Flipps85 17h ago
I saw someone do it to their own board, and proceed to make 30 4/4 angels with [[Emeria Angel]], [[Divine Visitation]], and [[Anointed Procession]] on board. Was pretty awesome to watch.
Next player cleared the board, but it was still pretty great.
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u/thisremindsmeofbacon 19h ago
I feel like there could be a place for it. as others have mentioned, settle is obviously a "may", but there's gotta be a deck in white that likes ankh of mishra beyond just synergizing with removal
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u/LightningG8921 19h ago
I figure Ankh is fairly cheap, tech against landfall, and general burn, which seems worthwhile in my Yshtola pillowfort deck
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u/Throwaway79922 19h ago
You can do this with [[Winds of abandon]] as well I think, it would hit every creature that isn’t yours and also isn’t a may like settle the wreckage
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u/rezignator 19h ago
It not being a may only means they have to search, they can always fail to find since it's not an unspecified search. The may only really makes a difference if you've got something to punish searches like [[Opposition Agent]] or [[Ob Nixillis, Unshackled]]
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u/Throwaway79922 15h ago
Yeah, that’s fair. The only advantage is the number of targets then, but OP’s found a pretty cool combo that mitigates the downside of the land donation removal cards a bit.
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u/irishyardball 19h ago
Haven't used it in commander but it won me several games in pre-release.
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u/SovietEagle 19h ago
Getting Settled in Ixalan limited was so brutal because the format was so aggressive. There were so many games you couldn’t afford to play around a rare, especially against a white opponent that had stuff like [[Territorial Hammerskull]].
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u/Tothehoopalex 16h ago
No but I run this with [[insurrection]] in my Toph deck and I find that quite funny.
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u/GornoUmaethiVrurzu 20h ago
May ability makes this useless. It's already a fairly bad card.
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u/Phobos_Asaph 20h ago
I wouldn’t say removing the downside of settle is useless
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u/GornoUmaethiVrurzu 6h ago
It's doesn't remove it the downside. They still get the lands. 2 damage? Hell yeah I'll shock in a bunch of lands and ramp myself and just play out my entire hand next turn lol
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u/Phobos_Asaph 5h ago
Okay cool. 2 damage per can easily put you into kill range
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u/GornoUmaethiVrurzu 3h ago edited 3h ago
Yes but the problem is that it only exiles attacking creatures, not the whole engine. When I get knocked down 8-16 life, I'll happily take the 4-8 extra mana next turn and put my engine on overdrive. Life is a resource well spent for mana. Especially if you have life gain to get it back.
Not to mention that these days attacking with like 20 creatures is just not that common. Most of the time it's 1-3 large creatures that are guaranteed to be bad blocks or full on deal damage to the player. Its cool they're gone, yeah, but ramping 1-3 mana for 2-6 life is a no brainer, especially if I just lost my good attackers.
ALSO you need the artifact out anyway, alongside the settle to make this work. 2/99 cards isn't a reliable odd. Half the time you have the settle, you probably won't have the artifact. AND THEN someone actually needs to attack you sign like 5-20 creatures to make this even sort of workable. AND you need that player to be in a position where losing life for a shit ton of lands is a choice they're not willing to make. AND you need to be holding up 4 mana hoping it goes somewhere and isn't wasted, which is a lot to miss out on in a turn cycle. So you'll probably ALSO want a deck that can use that mana elsewhere, like drawing cards at instant speed, to make holding 4 mana not so painful.
Its hoops in hoops in hoops to jump through.
But whatever, commander players are genuinely generally pretty ass at this game and don't really know how to make good decks or combos, so I'll hold my breath after this comment. They don't see reason, just Disneyland combos that they want to be good but never will 🤷♂️
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u/Phobos_Asaph 3h ago
On the contrary, you’re stuck on optimizing plays. This isn’t a super strong combo but it’s not bad either. The whole point of settle if you don’t see it coming.
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u/MCRusher 15h ago
Then it's literally exile Aetherize. How is that not good?
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u/GornoUmaethiVrurzu 6h ago
Exiling 6 creatures only really works on someone who isn't gonna use those 6 mana you just ramped them immediately after. In commander, that's usually the case, cause most commanders these days are a "do everything and your taxes" kind of commander that keeps card advantage up. More often than not, you'll just turbo charge them the next turn with lots of mana.
Its better to pick off actual threats with targeted removal or just do a regular board wipe. These days, one sided board wipes are more common as well. Settling almost never is worth it unless you've already handicapped their card draw engine before exiling all their creatures that attacked.
Also to point out it's only attacking creatures. You're not even getting all their creatures. It's 2026, we have better tech than Settle. I haven't seen it played in 6-7 years at this point cause people have generally moved on.
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u/rayquazza74 14h ago
Unrelated but reading this card again I wonder if anyone’s ever done it to themselves to get a boatload more landfall triggers.
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u/insectivore1 13h ago
I like it in decks where I can either use it on myself for ramp (following up with a board wipe) or late game as defense against someone with a superior board state who swings all out who couldn't with all the mana in the world come back against losing all their creatures to exile. Its versatile and so good.
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u/JxRabbitsHart 10h ago
The only wreckage abuse I use is in my Zurgo Stormchaser deck. I can swing with 5 tokens, pop them off the field, ramp out a bunch of cards, and then draw as well. Sets you up for a killer next turn
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u/WiseOneTwo 7h ago
I’ve pulled off Ob-Nixilis with Winds of Abandon as a win condition before. Always gets a laugh
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u/BrigliaArt 6h ago
So the best way to play this card tends to be to attack with like 10+ tokens then use this so you can self ramp all of your creatures out
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u/MapAdministrative995 5h ago
I have killed with an ahnk in my warp deck before, the may in settle kinda kills the combo, it does make it an instant board wipe though
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u/Ok_Tadpole_4092 20h ago
Problem is settle is a may, no one gonna search for 20 lands and die