Pointed Discussion

For all you Timmies out there:
Cast Pongify on it = MMMoooooonnnkkkiiiiiieeeeeessssss!!!!!!

Or Spitting image for extreme board advantage

Awesome way of doing ridiculous things to every creature on the board.

- Path to Exile = Lotsa lands.
- @Iondragonx: Pongify = Turns a game of magic into something really hilarious xD.
^ Ovinize also makes for great fun.
- Echoing Courage = Crazy pumping - especially if you're playing tokens.
- Threaten/Act of Treason = Gain control of all creatures until end of turn (!!).
^ Slave of Bolas is awesome for this job if you're playing 5 color.
- Weight of Spires = awesome if you're not playing too many nonbasics yourself.
- Cytoshape = Makes all creatures a copy of something until end of turn. Groundbreaker anyone?
- Lightning Helix = 3 damage to all creatures, and you gain a ton of life .. Good for control i guess?
- Magma Jet = 2 damage to all creatures + scry 2 for each creature in play seems decent (+Nephilim survives!).
- Twiddle = tapping your opponent's creatures while untapping your own, all for one mana. (if possible?)
- @karoro: Spitting Image = extreme board advantage. (goodness this is crazy! and the split manacost makes it easier to cast)

umm.. you all realize it says every creature right.. not just your creatures or opponents creatures. You would be doubling all their creatures as well if you used spitting image, if you used slave of bolas you would gain all the creatures but they would also all be sacrificed at the end of turn. Act of treason may be the best choice, then you get to take the creatures and you don't have to get rid of your own. Otherwise find spells that specifically say opponents creature, or your creatures gain x, or etc.

Donovan, Spitting Image would create a copy of every creature on the field and you would control all of them, including the copies of your opponents creatures.

Can do better than electrolyze:
Cards with cantrip effects like Cerulean Wisps are very useful for getting to that Aether Mutation or Act of Treason for the win. And to fix mana, how about a signet of each color combination without black? Fun stuff, ive got the makings for a deck around this guy in the mail, im stoked.

omg and zendikar gave us Rite of Replication, just make sure ur opponent doesn't have a damnation, or I guess u could just use terminate, damn

also, if you have two out will the copied spell copy off the the second and bounce between the two indefinitely?

another set of cards to combo with him are the soul's cycle, except for maybe might,
and with soul's majesty you need to be careful not to deck yourself, it also might help to have a spellbook or something

@Gezu: Ink-Treader only triggers when you PLAY (now CAST) a spell. The copies that it creates are not Played/Cast, and are thus not copied again. Therefore two ITN in play won't create an infinite loop.

Ink-Treader Nephilim + Grip of Chaos + Gigadrowse or Pyromatics.

And then you use Grapeshot. Or better yet Brain Freeze.

Oh gorramit it doesn't work. Why are copies never actually cast?

@ Donovan_Fabian in terms of spitting image, its you doing the placing though. So basically you get a token of each creature on the field.
I made a 4 color deck that just so happens to be R-G-W-U and i just found this... i plan on getting one :D

Fun times? Rite of replication. When a spell is copied, the copy remembers if the original was kicked ;)

so let's just make this stupid.

You have an ink treader, and the opponent has two grizzly bears and a baneslayer. rite of replication kicked, and now you have six ink treaders, 10 bears, and five baneslayers. then you cast unsummon because you're a hard mother-fucker and don't need board advantage to win =D

Very unique ability! Good suggestions for combos here, but nobody mentioned my favourite ones yet: Electrolyze doesn't completely destroy it, but destroys each creature with toughness two or less and lets you draw loads of cards! Aether Mutation has each creature leave play and replaces them with loads of sapro tokens!

i saw this card and didn't really relise why it was worth having 4 colours , then i saw someone say rite of replication. if its kicked its pure win . Thinking about it there are way better combos but that one cracks me up........ multi-player casaul. its worth making that deck even if you only ever pull of once.

This + Illicit Auction = Everyone folds.

I've always been fond of things like flash con***ion and/or panic with this card. Wildsize is also pretty fun even if you just use it to draw cards.

Natural Affinity followed by Dominate, you permanently gain control of all lands and all creatures with power X or less, at instant speed.

Polymorph.

Let the madness begin!!! >:D

Volition Reins. You're welcome.
EDIT: Darn it says creature. Ok then mind control.

@ Shadoflaam:
Instant or Sorcery.
But you could always dominate them. Well if you aren't going to win in 1 turn it's better than Act of Treason.
Also, because you're probably swing for the win anyway, why not Mark of Mutiny?

probably not black so it can be terrored (/doom bladed). ouch.

this and doom blade seems fun

so, since it doesn't specify what zone you can cast spell on this in, could you cast a tutor and pull every creature from your deck with this?

this card is frickin weird

kicked right or replication then next turn sure play another one so thats 216 creatures on the field well
i don even want to say it
BRIGHT FLAME
for like 12
okay i have about 12314214214123212135445799288123 life, good game?

edit: treachory lets you untap tons of lands with inktreader it baiscly reads, 5mana untap any number of lands you want, gain control of all targatble creatures

Hideous End

Thos card holds a special place in my heart as my first rare. I'm never trading it.

SEIZE THE DAY!!!!

great design for a four color card.
R/U = great in creating copies of spells
G/W = benefit in having multiple creatures

Another very cool thing about this card that I realized is that it synergizes very well with Splice onto Arcane. Toss out a Psychic Puppetry onto Ink-Treader. Then, you can splice on a cantrip effect with Evermind, Get a million little tokens with Spiritual Visit (and targets for your next spells), a bunch of creatures (if you had any) withThrough the Breach, mill the opponent for a billion with Dampen Thought, or have a bunch of red mana with Desperate Ritual.

Like, I don't see why people haven't thought of this before!

pongify

What's so not black? Turning every single spell, yours or theirs, into something crazy is so not black.

Fun stuff!

1.Regenerate
2.Pongify
3.Polymorph

Let's play the lottery!

4.5 for humor value alone. I wouldn't even mind getting beat up on by this card if it was sufficiently funny. Especially if the person using it had something get out of control on them. chiggity check yo self befo you deck yo self zomg

Causes everyone to die to Doom Blade.

This guy plus Spellskite plus anything is guaranteed to be hilarious.

Really glad this guy isn't black; turns Doom Blade into Damnation! :)

Oh yeah... Snap into Empty the Warrens or Brain Freeze.

Instant kill: Accelerated Mutation then Twiddle to tap out your opponents creatures.

The most spectacular Nephilim! And very , less so the other colors. Again, why wasn't this legendary?

they should ereta this and the other nephilims to be ledgendary, edh wants them badly

Act of Treason and swing with everything. If that doesn't end the game, Cloudshift.

Might of the Masses?

Love this card.

I think I love it for the mental exercise of finding cards that make it bonkers.

Momentous Fall would this work on opponents creatures?

Also, wouldn't Cackling Counterpart get out of control?

They're never going to errata these guys to be legendary. But if that's stopping you making a Commander deck with one at the helm, you don't know Commander/EDH very well. It's about having fun, both making decks and in playing, and the rules given by the Rules Committee are a guideline to be followed by each group to their own discretion; ask the people you play with if they wouldn't mind you running a deck with this as its Commander/General. If they say it's okay, go build it. If they don't, well, shucks. Just remember if they do say yes and you build it to treat it as if it's legendary then, because that's what you wanted. As in, Spitting Image will make you sacrifice him and the copy you get of him. That'll still give you copies of everything else, though, so it might be worth it!

This one is my favorite. The others seem to similar to cards already out there; while this guy is similar to Radiate or Hive Mind (cards I love as well), those aren't creatures, so he still is doing a unique effect.

Rite of Replication and kick it believe me, the 9 mana is worth it to copy the world!

RTR's Nivmagus Elemental gives you a sink to get rid of all your unwanted copies. Why use it as a sweeper when you can use it as a one-sided sweeper that's also a massive buff spell?

Almost already, it wouldn't be hard to imagine some of these ideas happening in multiplayer.

Block with all your guys, then cast Righteousness or Undying Evil on ol' Ink-Treader.

Proteus Staff would be RIDICULOUS - put ALL creatures on the bottom of their owner's library, and replace each with whatever comes up first.

Graceful Reprieve would be Living End-ish.

You could also play him with tribal: Victim of Night for "monsters" or Eyeblight's Ending in an elf deck.

Don't Chastise him, or I'll have to Intervene. I know, bad joke.

Spawning Breath is more than a little hilarious with this card, and sets up nicely for a Rite of Replication

Vindicate + Nivmagus Elemental + this = you win?

I built a casual deck where the win condition is splicing something that can target, usually {c}kodama's might onto Path of Anger's Flame{/c If there aren't enough creatures, I can splice psychic puppetry onto spiritual visit the turn before, which prevents blockers also. Needless to say, the mana base is the largest problem...

Amusingly, isn't black. One-sided boardwipe in reanimator? Why, I do believe I shall.

Cast mirrorweave on this guy (all the other copies should resolve first, and the one targetting him will resolve last, making every other creature a copy of ink-treader)

Cast echoing courage.

Do lots of math.

Rite of Replication, kicked. Can anyone say WINMOAR?!

1. Ready?
2. Vindicate!

Cast Electrolyze choosing Ink-Treader as its only target. Then sit back and watch the cards flood into your hand. B-)

1. Regenerate doesn't stop Pongify from killing everything, ditto for Polymorph.
2. Proteus Staff is not an instant or sorcery.
3. This card is awesome.
4. This card should've been a legend.

Really don't get why people are saying "I'm glad he's not black so I can doom blade it". If it was black you could doom blade on it and it would live, but instead you want it to die?

His colors and abilities work perfectly with the heroic mechanic from Theros. Play him, a bunch of heroes, then some combat trick like Colossal Might. Don't forget hexproof in case your opponent tries to remove him.

Had one heck of a casual multiplayer sleeper deck. I ran this, Last Stand, Terraformer, Into the Maw of Hell, Realmwright, Prismatic Omen and a ton of your average green ramp. As soon as one opponent had a large army and I had like 7 or 8 lands and an Ink-treader on the field, I'd put WUBRG into my mana pool, pay 1 for terraformer to make my lands swamps, then cast Last Stand on the treader. Insta-death as each creature makes opponents lose about 14 life. They never knew it was coming

Whispering Madness or Hidden Strings

Part 2/5

I don't know whether all 5 Nephilim should get the same subtype, or all 5 get different subtypes. That would be an interesting debate. Probably, if you left it to a room for a vote, they'd be stuck at being just Nephilim, but the pros outweigh the cons when you consider that every single little card that supports Obscure and Crazy types (like Horror and Nightmare in particular) would be a MASSIVE boon to Nephilim EDH decks, even just to give them Flavorful companions with little mechanical significance, and Designing basically any set or even almost any product with Nephilim EDH in mind is nearly impossible beyond just making 4-colored Lands.

Another thing to Consider- 4-color Identities are just Weird. They're very hard to parse, and you can't expect a 4-color card's mechanical connection to it's identity look the same as a 5-Colored one, a 3-colored one, or a 2-colored one.

2-colored cards Very Obviously have extremely blatant mechanical references to their Colors. The flavor comes almost purely from the Melvin-ness of seeing "Yeah. That Color Pie space definitely gets those mechanics", and then just imagining the personality of someone that would use those tools.

3-colored cards get more abstract than 2-colored ones, but are still concrete. They aren't limited to Guilds, or Wedges, or Shards, or Coalition factions. They build on the identities of the Color Combinations, and very often invent new mechanical space or else draw on less-often used mantle and crust space as they need it. 3-colored cards generally feel very fleshed out, like a Wizard or Dragon with some obvious intentions for The World or for Their Life and a Modus Operandi they follow to get their way. They're definitely Big Thinkers, but everything they do makes sense. (See Nekusar: "Wheel" Tribal", and Kaalia: Big Flying Destruction Tribal for places where the Flavor gets more Ideological than Tactical because having access to an additional number of colors gives them a broader view)

5-colored is both As Concrete AND as Abstract as you can get. It's Omnipotence, Omniscience, God-Complex, Reality-affecting or just Battlefield-dominating. It usually hacks your deck (Cascade) but not always, sometimes it hacks the battlefield (Slivers), and when it hacks both at once is when it feels most 5-colored (Maelstrom Archangel, 1996 World Champion, and Scion of the Ur-Dragon).
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The number of different ways you can cut up and reorganize a 4-color Identity is nuts.

It's SIX dual-colors.
It's 4 single-colors.
It's 2 Shard Triplets.
It's 2 Wedge Triplets.

It's not QUITE "5-colored minus one color", because there are enough missing Guilds, Shards, and Wedges in each of their identities to make the Nephilim actually very different from each other.

But they get VERY abstract-- abstract enough to compare them to the Psychographics (Melvin, Timmy, Vorthos, Johnny, Spike), or to Schools of Archetypes, (like Aggro, Midrange, Tempo, Control, Combo, Disruption)-- at least in terms of how impossible it is to capture the mechanics that such creatures would appropriately want and need with the kind of directness and simple Common Color Mechanics that dual-colored cards have the luxury of. You just WON'T see a Top-Down 4-colored card.

They're about a Vague Attitude or Sensibility.

Dune-Brood is the Blue-less one, so it's strengths are going to probably remind you of Blue's Weaknesses, but all kinds of things could be added to or changed about the card while remaining true to that. I think the most important thing about 4-colored Creatures is that, to help them feel Weird and Really Distinct from other color sets, you have to actively AVOID using 'classic' Color-Related mechanics, like

Countering spells
Random Discard
Direct Damage

and opt instead for the mechanics that are bled THE most throughout the Colors-- like casting spells, gaining life, making tokens, and drawing cards. Having Power and Toughness. Finding ways to use those tools mechanically, and STILL give them identities (Fast? Slow? Big? Tough? Aggressive? Peaceful?) is the kind of challenge that taxes pretty much every possible corner of your mind that can be used to make cards o_O

The only keywords I'd risk on them are keywords that you would feel comfortable putting on a common card without reminder text in a Core Set.
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But all in all, the VERY strange demands that Designing and Developing them ask of your analytical and imaginative sides make them EVEN MOAR AWESOME!!!!!! :D


Continued Commentary on Glint-Eye Nephilim

This weird thing is going straightinto the maw of hell.

I accidentally all the land destruction...

@3cheesed: You can't splice onto the spell copies that Ink-Treader Nephilim produces: you can only splice onto a spell when you cast it, and those copies are never actually cast.

Just looked it up for all those posting storm cards.

-Storm (When you cast this spell, copy it for each spell cast before it this turn.


Da rules

-706.10. To copy a spell or activated ability means to put a copy of it onto the stack; a copy of a spell isn't cast and a copy of an activated ability isn't activated.

Storm does not work with this guy.

@Mr.Freshness-Timmy, jerkoid, Anaxie1: None of those spells have any interaction with this guy. Into the Maw of Hell and Last Stand target a land or player (respectively) in addition to the creature, so they don't trigger him. Hidden Strings targets two permanents, so it doesn't, either. I'm not sure what Whispering Madness is supposed to do because it doesn't target at all.

@iFailed: If it was black you couldn't Doom Blade it at all. It targets a "nonblack creature", so you can't target a black creature, any more than you could target an Island with a Naturalize.

Let's break this down a little bit to see exactly how it works, and how we can take advantage of that.

First off, the ability only triggers "if that spell targets only Ink-Treader Nephilim". If the spell targets anything else, even if it's not a creature, we get no bonus. Into the Maw of Hell, for example, targets a creature and a land, so it would not copy.

A spell, can, however, refer to multiple objects as long as it targets only one of them. Searing Blood, for example, targets only one creature, but will deal damage to a player later in the turn, without targeting them.

You can copy a spell that allows you to select multiple targets, as long as the original copy targets only the Nephilim. You could copy an entwined Dream's Grip, for example, as long as you selected the Nephilim as both of the targets for the initial spell. (Note that this does not work with cards that require you to select different targets, such as Arc Trail, it only works with cards that allow you to select multiple targets, or the same target multiple times)

The second clause is that when a spell is copied for each creature, "Each copy targets a different one of those creatures." You could not, for example, cast Giant Growth, get 10 copies, then give a single creature +30/+30.

Following the example above, however, you could cast an entwined Dream's Grip (choosing the Nephilim as both the targets off the bat), get extra copies (the copies are also entwined), which each allow you to select multiple targets, only one of which has to be another creature (specifically, the creature the copy was assigned to).

If, say, there were 10 creatures on the board in addition to the Nephilim, you would get 10 taps and 10 untaps, only half of which must be assigned to specific creatures. You could tap all their creatures, untap all yours, then tap some lands, untap others, maybe tap your Howling Mine before your turn ends...

This works very well with divisible burn spells like Rolling Thunder or Pyrotechnics, getting you tons of copies that can be almost entirely redirected at your opponent's face.

Other exploitable options are spells that do a lot of different things, but only target a single creature. Fiery Gambit is an excellent example of this.

What's really fun is when you cast Murder or Dreadbore on it in EDH and you have Blightsteel Colossus on the field.

Lol, use with Wojek Siren.

@bradhd He's not implying that you splice onto the copies (that would take a ridiculous amount of mana anyway). You cast the spell, and as you cast the spell, splice a whole bunch of effects on it. The splices happen before the copies are made, and since Splice adds the effect to the spell, all of the copies have the extra effects too.

That this doesn't give you heroic buffs makes me really mad. Only a few words' difference and this card would have been a heck of a lot closer to playable.

Needless to say, my inner Johnny is aching.