[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Getaway Car

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Sinis
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Post by Sinis » 2 years ago

Friday, May 14th, 2021; Nemesis Trap
I was going to mention Broken Visage also. I don't think I've ever seen anyone play this in the last 10 years; it seems a poor strategic choice to prepare against the worst colour in Magic.

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FenrirRex
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Post by FenrirRex » 2 years ago

Entirely meta dependent, if you see a lot of valuable W/x bodies on the board this card does some work. Memorably I've gotten multiple Sun Titans with this and at least one Ashen Rider, and even at six mana there is a decent shot of getting a value etb on top of your exile removal (which is far from irrelevant).

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Post by onering » 2 years ago

Broken Visage was one of the few good cards from Homelands back in the day. Despite being 5 mana conditional removal, it could very easily set up a 2 for 1, killing the best attacker then using it to block and kill the second best attacker. Not amazing even back then, but still good. Obviously power creep alone has turned it into a bad card, and its basically worthless in EDH. Nemesis Trap is an almost strict upgrade. It costs an additional black mana, but its unconditional on type (still limited to attackers though), it exiles, and it creates a token copy instead of a shadow token, allowing you to reap the creature's etb effects, and then there's the potential discount if one of the attackers is white (doesn't even have to be the one you target!). The ability for this to be a ticket to value town can't be denied, exile something sweet like Sun Titan or Ashen Rider is Fenrer mentioned and you get to kill a good creature, use it to block and kill something else, and get etb value all for potentially BB!

Unfortunately, like its inspiration, this card has been power creeped out of viability in most instances. The 2 for 1 plus ETB value for BB play is still really good, but that also requires a few things to happen that you don't actually control and can't be relied on. Sometimes the creature you need to kill is controlled by someone who isn't attacking with any white creatures, so you need to pay 4BB, which is a lot more to hold up and basically requires the full package of 2for1 plus ETB value to make it just worthwhile, and not impressive. Getting only a single attacker with nothing to block and no etb value is, otoh, a terrible use of 6 mana. Its too often going to languish in your hand waiting for an attack, and too often going to either be fired off for far less than its maximal value or sit in your hand waiting for the maximal value play that never comes. You end up just being better off running Murder in most cases, and certainly better off running any cheaper spot removal spell or one of the 4 mana black spot removal spells with upside. While this was a solid choice when it was printed and for a few years afterwards, back when big fatties were swinging out and during the period when EDH was ETB: The Gathering, but its been at least 5 years since the meta has shifted enough for this to lose its role.

But if your meta looks like 2013, or has a lot of white decks that attack, this is a solid meta choice. If you are going to be able to easily cast it for BB most of the time, or reliably get the full 2for1 plus solid etb/ltb value whenever you cast it (even if for the full price), its a fun card to run.

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Dragoon
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Post by Dragoon » 2 years ago

Might be cute in a color control deck alongside Blind Seer or Scuttlemutt to guarantee the BB casting cost.

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Post by Hawk » 2 years ago

Tough to justify outside of something cutesy, like Toshiro Umezawa, and even then...

If you are paying the full six, this is awful. Black is the king of single-target creature kill and has gotten even more crazy-strong spells in the last year with Deadly Rollick, Heartless Act, Feed the Swarm, and Baleful Mastery joining staples like Go for the Throat. All of these are very castable for 2 mana (often 0 for Rollick) and can hit any creature (restrictions may apply), not just attackers. Swarm and Mastery even go above and beyond and target other permanent types if you need to.

Now, none of these are two-for-ones but if I'm looking for two-for-ones that aren't "virtual" in the form of a creature, Malicious Affliction feels a lot easier to enable and Annihilate feels a lot less finicky for a deck like Toshiro or Killian, Ink Duelist to set up. There's also Reckless Spite and Ashes to Ashes.

I suppose it'd be a cute-but-not-good card in a deck like Obeka, Brute Chronologist to keep the token? I suspect she's got better stuff to do but it is funny.

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Post by Wallycaine » 2 years ago

Hawk wrote:
2 years ago
Tough to justify outside of something cutesy, like Toshiro Umezawa, and even then...

If you are paying the full six, this is awful. Black is the king of single-target creature kill and has gotten even more crazy-strong spells in the last year with Deadly Rollick, Heartless Act, Feed the Swarm, and Baleful Mastery joining staples like Go for the Throat. All of these are very castable for 2 mana (often 0 for Rollick) and can hit any creature (restrictions may apply), not just attackers. Swarm and Mastery even go above and beyond and target other permanent types if you need to.

Now, none of these are two-for-ones but if I'm looking for two-for-ones that aren't "virtual" in the form of a creature, Malicious Affliction feels a lot easier to enable and Annihilate feels a lot less finicky for a deck like Toshiro or Killian, Ink Duelist to set up. There's also Reckless Spite and Ashes to Ashes.

I suppose it'd be a cute-but-not-good card in a deck like Obeka, Brute Chronologist to keep the token? I suspect she's got better stuff to do but it is funny.
Unfortunately, Obeka, Brute Chronologist probably doesn't work well with Nemesis Trap, unless you're using it on your own creature. It's the player whose turn it is that gets the call on if you keep it or not, and considering you just removed one of their creatures... Seems less than likely they'd be inclined to gift that to you.

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Post by Lifeless » 2 years ago

As a general rule I like traps but they're mostly very narrow thus making them hard inclusions in EDH decks. This card illustrates my point nicely.

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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 2 years ago

I consider combat the universal failure mode, so it has that going for it. The problem with this card is it tries to do too much So, it's removal but also card advantage, since the token can block another creature, entry triggers exist, and you might have your own entry triggers. This makes it bad against Voltron. Token decks and other aggro/aggro-control/midrange strategies don't care about one or two creatures, and if you're playing red or black or even green, you have other wincons besides combat. Aristocrats just sacrifices a creature as soon as you aim removal at it and this looks like Murder with extra steps mana . Lifegain decks do care, but only inasmuch as Felidar Sovereign and Divinity of Pride and I guess Sphinx of the Steel Wind are white creatures that love attacking. Oh, and Drogskol Reaver, which incidentally churns out card advantage much more reliably than this, starting with your sisters. I guess there's Esper or Abzan reanimator, and this does exile, always a plus.

This is not good against combo decks. At all.

tl;dr: If six mana for removal were viable, Sip of Hemlock would see play.
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Post by DirkGently » 2 years ago

I'd compare it (unfavorably) to Mirror Match, insofar as both give you whatever triggers their creature had, except mirror match will often wipe their board whereas this will kill at most 2 creatures, for the same mana cost. I guess it might be better if they have big-butt creatures, or if they have white creatures, but at least mirror match is almost always fog+.

I haven't run Condemn in a long time. and that's a lot better than this is. Attacking-only removal just isn't flexible enough for what I want removal to do. It needs to be able to interact with combos and be cheap to keep up, not cost a ton and only be good in very particular circumstances.
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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

Saturday, May 15th, 2021; Herald of the Pantheon


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Post by EonAon » 2 years ago

Its not bad at what it does but honestly even in casual the only reason you would play this is for the cost down and only if you cant get your costs right or are being experimental.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I really value cost reducers in themed decks. I think people consistently overvalue +1 ramp cards and undervalue cost reducers in a lot of situations, especially as curves lower toward more multi-spelling.

This and Starfield Mystic are staples of enchantment decks as ramp cards for me.

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Post by Serenade » 2 years ago

I echo pokken on using both reducers in enchantress. Landing a god, Eidolon, or two spells on T3 feels great.
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Post by onering » 2 years ago

Pretty much a G based enchantress auto include. Cost reduction is significant, and more so in decks like enchantress that want to cast multiple spells per turn to snowball via triggers, especially triggers that draw cards which make the cost reduction even more relevant. There are enough redundant effects here that you are both willing to rely on having one, and you can get multiple online at once and reap the benefits. I'll also say that the lifegain trigger is also not negligible, as most enchantress decks will cast enough that this will be an incidental 5-10 life easily, which can be a cushion against aggro or used as a resource for Sylvan library or Necro. The lifegain is basically free, 2 Mana gets you the cost reduction on a grizzly bear, so even though it's a small effect it's significant enough to be considered a steal for the Mana cost.

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Post by FenrirRex » 2 years ago

Yeah, as noted it's real good for generating a chain of card advantage when combined with enchantress effects. I run it in Eutropia the Twice-Favored, and there have been a not at at all negligible number of games where this cost reduction has let me chain together an impressive amount of card draw and +1/+1 counters.

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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 2 years ago

Cost reduction is awesome. Here, for Enchantress or less obviously Stax*, or aura-focused Voltron.

*Winter Orb loves all one-sided cost reduction. A lot of cards seen in Stax are enchantments.
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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

Sunday, May 16th, 2021; Feldon of the Third Path


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Post by Melua » 2 years ago

Feldon was one of the big pieces to make red better in commander, and he's still pretty good today. He still has design space most other red commanders don't touch, and the fact he doesn't exile is important. Rummaging effects are pretty good in his decks too, though he's also likely good in Ghired as well

If white got more commanders like feldon at his price it'd do a lot to bring white up to par with the other colors.

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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

I really like Feldon. I wish Red had a little more of this theme so I could do more with it, kinda 'sneak attack' from the bin. It's fun doing stuff that subverts expectations, like RW reanimatory decks. Kinda like how white could do with a bit more Karmic Guide I'd love to see this effect explored more.

I play him in my Birgi, God of Storytelling // Harnfel, Horn of Bounty deck where the horn can discard fatties to reanimate with Feldon, which is pretty fun.

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Post by EonAon » 2 years ago

I like when they create cards like Feldon. Red has a decent amount of design space that the devs just dont use much since their primary trait in burn can get oppressive...except in multiplayer where its meh.

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Post by Hermes_ » 2 years ago

His name implies the existence of Feldon of the first Path and Feldon of the Second Path
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pokken
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

Hermes_ wrote:
2 years ago
His name implies the existence of Feldon of the first Path and Feldon of the Second Path
Well at least that there are two other paths people follow. I'm guessing it's like a school of magic or a philosophy or something, and maybe he stuck with that one :)

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Post by Gamazson » 2 years ago

I like this card a flavour win. I don't know anything about the character, except what the cards says. Reading between the lines of rule and flavour text, it is clear what is going on. Feldon is a skilled artificer who lost someone very dear to him and has become emotionally obsessed with recreating her through artifice. Even if it wasn't highly playable, this card is a pure design win.

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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Feldon of the Third Path is sweet. A little reanimator, a little Sneak Attack, some token and artifact synergies, plus it generates expendable bodies. He ticks a ton of boxes. Fantastic in the command zone to power up cards like Solemn Simulacrum and Wurmcoil Engine, but also good in the 99. One of the most fun cards in my Samut, Voice of Dissent deck, since he can make tokens of stuff like Etali, Primal Storm and Living Inferno. Three mana is certainly a steep activation cost, but it generally feels worth it.

Also: Feldon's lore is well worth reading, and can be found here.

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Post by Guardman » 2 years ago

I love Feldon of the Third Path. He has a very unique ability since he not only turns the reanimated creature into an artifact, but the token is sacrificed, not exiled. Love him in the 99 of several decks.

I always wanted to build him as a commander, but that would probably require me to take a part my Etali deck for pieces, which I don't want to do.

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