[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Samwise the Stouthearted

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PrimevalCommander
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Post by PrimevalCommander » 2 years ago

As menioned. One of the best "fair" tutors. Unfortunately I have reduced my usage of tutors overall enough to be satisfied by my selection of unfair tutors. I wanted one of these for a while when I saw they were being reprinted, but I really don't have enough of a reason to shell out the cash for one compared to the list of 20 other cards I want for the same $$. It is a very solid replacement to Demonic Tutor for half the price though. So there is a definite use for it. I picked up a few Demonics for much cheaper during the before times when revised and 4th edition staples were not stupid expensive. Hence the reluctance to pick up a Grim.

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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

Thursday, May 13th, 2021; Path of Ancestry|cmr


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TheAmericanSpirit
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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 2 years ago

It's a 5 color tapland with minor upside. Not great, not terrible.
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Post by brainface » 2 years ago

I really like it with the old partners, because you're definitely getting at least 2 scries off of a land drop. I'd honestly play it in any 4 or 5 color deck regardless. I mean, if I could play 4 copies of city of brass instead, I probably would. It's also significantly cheaper! I've somehow never managed to have one in play in a heavy tribal deck, but it seems like a pretty good value there.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Can't ever make myself play this crap but I might try it out in a budget/low power 5c brew.

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Post by Outcryqq » 2 years ago

I have a 5 color tribal module deck where I can build Slivers, Atogs, Spirits, or Allies, and it's pretty good there. Multiple scry triggers in a game add up to some decent value on a land.

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Post by materpillar » 2 years ago

Card is pretty solid in tribal brews. In terms of raw power it's less strong than fetch + shocks. It also costs maybe a $1, so would highly recommend to any non-deeply enfranchised player.

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Post by Sharpened » 2 years ago

In most non-cEDH decks, you can afford to play a small number of ETB-tapped lands. Even with a tight curve, you almost certainly will find times where you are not stunting your development because the curve of the cards you draw doesn't line up.

For many decks, this is one of the best ETB-tapped lands you can play. Keep the number low, but you only need a few creatures that share a type with your commander for this to be an excellent card. In tribal decks, its a no-brainer. In many others, its surprisingly good. Highly recommend.

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Post by Hawk » 2 years ago

In theory, this should be "better than a guildgate" in any deck that has a creature as their Commander because at least it's a multi-color land that scries if used to cast your Commander. For 3+ Color decks, that should also make this better than the trilands (Jungle Shrine et al) and comparable to the triomes where available (Triomes are fetchable, but this has an otherwise more relevant benefit). Heck, in two color decks this seems better than The Temples or The Campuses, again even if your commander shares no creature types with anything in your 99.

This is a great example of how text plays tricks on the brain. This is just better than the trilands, and yet I don't run this in, say, Sevinne where I totally do run Mystic Monastery. Why? Well, before Commander Legends it was price (this thing was like $5-$6). But it's also because if the deck doesn't have a significant tribal component, I feel like I'm "losing value". It's like MaRo says - if you printed a 3/3 for W with "whenever an opponent casts a Cyclops, you lose 2 life", there'd be a huge swath of players who would ignore it because "what if I slam into Cyclops tribal man".

Now that it's only a buck and I even have a few spares, I suspect there's plenty of spots I should be running it where I am not. It's obviously great in two-color Tribal decks or Partner decks, but I think it should see a lot more play in 3, 4, or 5 color decks too.

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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Path of Ancestry is an excellent budget fixing land. It taps for every color and scrys when you cast your general, with additional upside for any tribal decks. I'd consider it for pretty much any 3+ color deck. For 2-color decks, it's a bit harder to evaluate - I'm not a big fan of temples in those decks, although I do run a few when my color requirements are strict. I've also been working to cut taplands from my 2-color decks entirely, since they generally don't need fixing that badly. Still may make sense to run Path of Ancestry if you're a tribal deck though.

....I should pick up a few more copies. Held off when it was more expensive, but I'm still running trilands in a few of my decks, which I ought to upgrade. I do like the triland aesthetic though. Hmmm....

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Post by Lifeless » 2 years ago

I've never seriously considered this card until now but it's actually pretty solid in 3+ color decks with any semblance of a budget. Certainly in 5 color if you're not fully stocked on fetches and duals this is a nice little bonus on top of the fixing.

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Post by duducrash » 2 years ago

In the decks this should be played its an upgrade over the scrylands, I play it and dont feel bad about it

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Post by JWK » 2 years ago

There are absolutely decks in which I should be running Path of Ancestry instead of a triland. My Queen Marchesa deck, which I very recently updated, is one; Path is strictly better than the Nomad Outpost I am currently running there, as it provides the same mana options plus the option of a couple of free scry 1 triggers.

Thanks for the reminder!
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Post by SocorroTortoise » 2 years ago

I stick Path of Ancestry into heavy tribal lists from time to time, but otherwise stick to lands that come in untapped. Solid budget fixing with a high chance of one or more scry 1 triggers makes a decent card. It's also a passable tribal payoff, if only because the opportunity cost is low enough that the low benefit doesn't really matter.

It's about the level of interaction with the command zone I like to see. There's a definite benefit, but it doesn't completely outclass other options.
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Post by toctheyounger » 2 years ago

It's a lot better than it looks, honestly. It fits nicely into tribal builds obviously, but how many wizards are staples in blue, humans in white, goblins in red, elves in green, horrors/vampires/zombies in black? It could be used more than it probably is, and it's pretty decent. Sure entering tapped hurts a little, but repeatable scry and tapping for every colour is quite good.

Plus, there's a lot of commanders out there that have multiple subtypes. I run 2 zombie wizards, an angel horror, an elf scout, a merfolk wizard, and an ogre wizard, for example.
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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

Would you play an effect that read T: add one mana of any color. If you spent this mana to cast a commander, scry one. That's a pretty low bar to clear, and it gets even better when you have other creatures in the deck with the same typeline. Definitely don't buy into it when it was still the $6 price though, but thanks to the reprint you can get it for bulk. I even picked up the showcase non-foil one for a buck twenty five USD.

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Post by Dragoon » 2 years ago

I love the card, I currently play it in my Golos, Tireless Pilgrim deck and my The Ur-Dragon deck.

Golos only has Selvala, Explorer Returned that can trigger the scry (which is good since I don't want to scry often in this deck for thematic reasons) and the deck isn't really fast so the ETB tapped doesn't hurt too much.

In Ur-Dragon, I feel like it is well worth it, even if I run duals/shocks + fetches, that deck can have insane mana requirements and I'll take all the fixing I can get. The frequent scrying is just icing on the cake.

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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 2 years ago

In general, three or more colors on a tapland is acceptable. Other downsides can change that. (I play vivids in Atraxa and only in Atraxa.) Repeatable scry is good for tribal decks, or if your commander is an elf and you run heavy on mana dorks, but mostly it's gravy.

Less playable in spellslinger decks or Voltron decks, unless your commander is KOS.
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Post by Sinis » 2 years ago

Thursday, May 13th, 2021; Path of Ancestry
Totally playable card. Probably better than Temples if you ever cast your general, fixes mana entirely.

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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

I don't really think of this as a tribal land (probably because I basically never play tribal and think it's terribly dull). ETBT 5c is still "too good" as a land - see Grand Coliseum - so getting it plus the upside of a scry every time you cast your commander is a good deal already. If you have other creatures of a shared type, neat, but I don't think you need them to make this good.

I agree with sharpened that running a certain number of tapped lands is unlikely to badly effect your curve. If you're always using all your mana every turn, that's pretty impressible, but most of the time you'll have a gap - often t1, which is a highly convenient time to play this. I don't love running very many tapped lands, but this one generally merits a slot. Extra good in Phelddagrif since you can recast it many times without it actually dying.

That said, this does drop off a lot for 2c and less decks unless they happen to be tribal and the scry value replaces the fixing value.
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Yatsufusa
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Post by Yatsufusa » 2 years ago

Mookie wrote:
2 years ago
Path of Ancestry is an excellent budget fixing land. It taps for every color and scrys when you cast your general, with additional upside for any tribal decks. I'd consider it for pretty much any 3+ color deck. For 2-color decks, it's a bit harder to evaluate - I'm not a big fan of temples in those decks, although I do run a few when my color requirements are strict. I've also been working to cut taplands from my 2-color decks entirely, since they generally don't need fixing that badly. Still may make sense to run Path of Ancestry if you're a tribal deck though.

....I should pick up a few more copies. Held off when it was more expensive, but I'm still running trilands in a few of my decks, which I ought to upgrade. I do like the triland aesthetic though. Hmmm....
This. I'm enjoying the vibrant diversity of Sandsteppe Citadel, Nomad Outpost and Frontier Bivouac in Karador/Extus/Animar respectively and while logically replacing all of them with Path of Ancestry is definitely an improvement, it makes me feel that my decks just got even more homogenous, I mean I already made the exception for the likes of Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and Command Tower and even made exceptions for a few good colored cards if they have different art, but somehow replacing Tarkir trilands with the better homogenous option stalls me.

At this point I think I just straight-up forfeited the benefit of scry a few times (my tri-decks aren't tribal, but I suppose overlapping creature types might net me a couple more scries beyond the Commander) for aesthetics, the same way I forfeited maximum land-fixing by running 3 fetches instead of 9 fetches per deck for aesthetics as well. That being said even the foils are cheap now I should really get them in case I do change my mind down the road.
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Post by materpillar » 2 years ago

Yatsufusa wrote:
2 years ago
This. I'm enjoying the vibrant diversity of Sandsteppe Citadel, Nomad Outpost and Frontier Bivouac in Karador/Extus/Animar respectively and while logically replacing all of them with Path of Ancestry is definitely an improvement, it makes me feel that my decks just got even more homogenous, I mean I already made the exception for the likes of Mana Crypt, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and Command Tower and even made exceptions for a few good colored cards if they have different art, but somehow replacing Tarkir trilands with the better homogenous option stalls me.

At this point I think I just straight-up forfeited the benefit of scry a few times (my tri-decks aren't tribal, but I suppose overlapping creature types might net me a couple more scries beyond the Commander) for aesthetics, the same way I forfeited maximum land-fixing by running 3 fetches instead of 9 fetches per deck for aesthetics as well. That being said even the foils are cheap now I should really get them in case I do change my mind down the road.
I definitely agree with this. I never really considered replacing Tri-lands with this because the tri-land art is just so much nicer.

I should probably pick one of these up for my Lazav deck though.

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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

Friday, May 14th, 2021; Nemesis Trap



What a sweet gotcha card. Certainly beats the hell outta running Broken Visage.

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Post by Dunadain » 2 years ago

Usable of you see a lot of white I guess, but otherwise it's ridiculously expensive.

Maybe it's not fair to compare it to Comeuppance but if you do, it's pretty obvious that Nemesis Trap is a lackluster imitation.

The fact that it's black means you can run it in colors that normally don't have combat tricks so that's cool.

I find in edh, however, combat tricks are best when your opponents assume you have some but they don't know what it is so they don't attack you so you never have to use the combat tricks in the first place. Unfortunately, Nemesis Trap on it's own isn't enough so if you want to play mind games with your opponents you kind of have to be running green or white anyways.

It's obviously best if you can copy a creature with a good etb/or some ability that you can use immediately. But oftentimes, the creatures with good abilities are the ones that don't attack.

Having said all that, I kind of love trap cards so I'd be more willing to run it than it's power level might dictate.
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Post by Serenade » 2 years ago

Kinda reminds me of the recently-random Spinal Embrace: Feels too specific and/or costly for the effect.

I'm probably running Baleful Mastery in the average deck instead of this and Reckless Spite in something like Toshiro Umezawa.
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