It doesn't.

Trostani, Selesnya's Voice has a triggered ability.

Serra Avatar:

40 starting, Trostani in play. Play Avatar, go to 80. Swing with Avatar+Blade, make two copies (4 player game), get two Trostani triggers. First trigger resolves, go to 160. Second tigger resolves, Avatar's P/T is now 160, go to 320. Populate, go to 640.

Rhox Faithmender:

40 starting, Trostani in play. Play Mender, get Trostani trigger. You have a x2 multiplier, so you go to 50. Swing with Mender+Blade, make two token Menders, get two Trostani triggers. Populate one Mender while the triggers are on the stack, get a third trigger. You now have 3 triggers attempting to gain you 5 life and a x16 multiplier. You gain 80 three times and go to 290.

And the legend rule is irrelevant when you put blades on trostani, since all the copies see and trigger off of each other before they die as a SBA.

Rule interactions are fun.

I also think the reservoir could be of any use in a storm deck such as ANT Sidisi? Maybe not groxis, because we have more colors to toy around, but in mono-black it could be a 3rd win con, and it could let us get back the life we need to cast AN again the same turn simpply out of storm, no needto cast Tendrils or Exsanguinate first. At 4 mana may be a little high for this, but I will still test.

Ohthenoises: I have played with Shaper's list. While the stax pieces are nice, the fact that Yisan can't tutor for them, coupled with Storm's removal (usually stuff like Chain or counters like Spell Pierce) makes it hard to keep them down. Zur has counters of his own, so he doesn't have to worry.

Zur doesn't really rely on the general at all. The deck is Doomsday primarily, with ANT as a backup plan. Zur helps the backup plan. Yisan, on the other hand, relies on the general heavily. The entire deck is basically built around Yisan. You only need 1 piece of removal to kill Yisan (I typically don't go for Safekeeper first verse unless I have a combo piece in hand, so you'll only get protection on your next casting), while it takes several pieces of removal to get rid of Zur.

Zur is just broken. Maybe Leo will be a new contender, but really, you can't say that Yisan is better than Zur. (I mean, if I thought he was better, then I'd love for my commander to be considered "the best." However, he just isn't.)

sonnet666 Doesn't this mean that she will only gain you what she sees enter? (i.e. 80): 10/1/2012 Trostanis first ability checks the creatures toughness as it resolves. If that creature has left the battlefield, use its toughness from when it was last on the battlefield. You cant lose life this way if that creatures toughness was less than 0.

How I read that is she checks when they ETB not when her ability resolves.

How did you read, "Trostani's first ability checks the creatures toughness as it resolves," and get, "she checks when they ETB not when her ability resolves," ...?

Those statements are actually the opposite of each other.

The " If that creature has left the battlefield," part isn't even relevant here so long as someone doesn't instant speed remove the Serra Avatars. (and why would anyone do that?)

Oh, wait. I get it.

You thought that the "it" in the first sentence of the ruling was referring to the entering creature, right?

Not the case, "it" refers to Trostani's own ETB ability.

@Ohthenoises I'm fairly sure that it doesn't stack?

okay, so, serra ETBx2, both go on the stack, trostani sees both enter as 80/80s so you'd gain 160 life total from both.

this is the same problem with Warstorm Surge. it only looks at the power of when it first entered, not its power when the ability resolves.

@sonnet666 I'm afraid OTN is correct in this case.

DERPLINGSUPREME, No, he's not.

Warstorm Surge also checks the power of the creature when it's ETB resolves.

If you had Warstorm Surge and Trostani out, and you played Serra Avatar, and if you had 40 life and chose to have Warstorm Surge's trigger resolve second, then you would deal 80 damage to target creature or player.

You guys want me to ask the tumblr magic judge or something? I know what she's going to say...

Wow, any reason you're being a jerk about it? My lord

Yes, I misunderstood the "it" as being the creature resolving not her actual ability. There's no need to get THAT worked up about it.

Here are the relevant rules from section 608. Resolving Spells and Abilities:

608.2. If the object thats resolving is an instant spell, a sorcery spell, or an ability, its resolution may involve several steps. The steps described in rules 608.2a and 608.2b are followed first. The steps described in rules 608.2c-j are then followed as appropriate, in no specific order. The step described in rule 608.2k is followed last.

...

608.2g If an effect requires information from the game (such as the number of creatures on the battlefield), the answer is determined only once, when the effect is applied. If the effect requires information from a specific object, including the source of the ability itself, the effect uses the current information of that object if its in the public zone it was expected to be in; if its no longer in that zone, or if the effect has moved it from a public zone to a hidden zone, the effect uses the objects last known information. See rule 112.7a. If an ability states that an object does something, its the object as it existsor as it most recently existedthat does it, not the ability.

@sonnet666 okay, that was my bad. I was thinking of Where Ancients Tread in relation to buffs.

I thought it might work like that for trostani but like I had said I was thinking of a different situation.

Ohthenoises, I just don't like rules inaccuracies. Especially when multiple people start saying something incorrect because that's the fastest way to disseminate false information.

I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a jerk about it. I've been told I have a very direct way of typing, and that can sometimes come off as angry.

The truth is I answer these type of questions all the time over on the Rules Q&A, and I don't think less of people just because they didn't know something. I just like to correct people because it helps them know the game better, and I tend to enjoy doing it succinctly.

Again, sorry.

(Also, if it makes you feel any better, a scant 2 years ago I used to think that once items on the stack started resolving players wouldn't get priority any more, and that everything on the stack would just happen in one fell swoop. And this was after I started reading the comp. rules. How's that for understanding fuck up?)

How come there is no Maelstrom Wanderer list?

How often is Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge being cast in the Grixis Storm? She is really just a placeholder isn't she?

What is it that she offers the deck itself? Over any other Grixis Commander that is.

Jeleva can get something going if you're sputtering. She's mostly a placeholder but she does have utility for the deck.

sorry if I'm bringing up the past but do we have the optimized Leo list? im seeing sonnet666's list and lilbrudder's list. Which one is the more optimized?

Can we stop talking about jeleva. It happens so often it hurts. Grixis storm isn't a card, so yes, she is a place holder. Any BUR general can head it, but jeleva has the most relevant ability. Of my 10 or so grixis storm games I've only cast her once just to get another storm count. Despite this i thonk she does more for the deck than sedris or nekusar.

You could really throw them off with Marchessa lol.

chaosumbreon87, There's not really a good answer to that.

Lilbrudder and I both like each other's lists, and they both perform with about the same consistency that it's hard to say which is definitively "better."

Plus there's the cEDH list, which I don't really like, but is supposed to be agreed upon by the all the best and brightest of competitive commander.

The thing is that Leo is so oppressive to 99% of the other decks in this format, that it makes it difficult to discern the difference between which slightly different strategy is the most broken.

(I still he needs to be banned btw.)

Honestly I think we should put all three decklists up. The cEDH list is the one focused on the Hermit Druid strategy; Lilbrudder's list is focused on winning with Doomsday; and mine focuses on the Teferi's Puzzle Box lockout plan with both of those mixed in to end the game faster. Three slightly different strategies that are all about the same level of effective.

There's no reason we can have multiple examples of an "optimized decklist" up in the description for certain commanders, especially when there's no definite criteria for what makes a deck optimized other than our opinions.

Ohthenoises nah you throw them off with Gwendlyn Di Corci

if you really wanted to throw off people with grixis:

Thraximundar, Nicol Bolas, Mishra, Lord of Tresserhorn, Crosis, Garza Zol, Sol'kanar the Swamp King,and Tetsuo Umezawa

I agree with pretty much everything sonnet666 just wrote. Leo is far from solved. I remember reading from multiple sources a couple years ago that Zur was "solved" as a prison/lockdown commander. Today it seems almost noone uses him in that way. I personally think it would be quite useful to have multiple deck lists for versatile commanders (assuming we have several good examples to choose from). It would demonstrate to people learning about a particular commander that there are certain core cards that all good decks include. It would also show what cards are personal preference or meta calls. While I wont go so far as to say he should be banned, Leo has made every deck I have tinkered with lately feel so slow and clunky that I almost don't want to bother with improving them :-/

well Lilbrudder don't forget that at the time Zur was released, that might have been the most viable way to use him. But as time goes by and more cards are created, other builds become viable. He could very have been "solved" back then and then "discovered" again once new stuff was released :)

Kind of like the new lifegain decks that could very well become viable via the new artifact being released in Kaladesh actually.

Noctem: Your certainly right, but that is kind of my point. Decks become obsolete fast in cEDH. Half the commanders in the top two tiers need to be updated based off cards released or spoiled in the last 2 months. More lists, means a higher probability that someone is keeping there deck up to date.

In other news, we may be getting some enemy fast lands soon? If so I just wet myself.

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