[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Oloro, Ageless Ascetic

[Mookie]

Crucible of Worlds is a card I really wish were reprinted more often. I have a bunch of decks I'd like to run it in, but it's a bit out of budget. On the other hand, the fetchlands that turbo-charge it are also all out of budget, so...

Anyway, as for the card itself... at its base level, it's essentially a colorless Phyrexian Arena that only draws lands, assuming you have some way to get lands into your graveyard. The obvious way is with fetchlands - anything from Evolving Wilds to Scalding Tarn works. But you can also fuel it with mill or looting effects. It doesn't make a big impact by itself, but just hitting your land drop every turn is pretty solid.

The other way to use Crucible is as a recursion piece. It's particularly potent once you throw in utility lands like Strip Mine or Horizon Canopy, or Exploration effects to play more lands. However, even if you don't have lands that sacrifice themselves, there are still ways to fuel it, whether it be sacrificing them to The Gitrog Monster or Glacial Chasm, or just having your opponents blow up your Gaea's Cradle. Alternatively, run Armageddon.

There are a few other options if you're looking for redundancy - Life from the Loam does a similar job, and Ramunap Excavator is actually just the same effect.

As for downsides... as I mentioned, Crucible isn't a particularly impactful card by itself. And while hitting all your land drops is certainly a nice quality-of-life thing, but it's also possible to do by just running enough card draw. I don't know if I'd run it without a certain threshold of utility lands to fuel it. Another downside is, unfortunately, the cost of fetchlands - Crucible doesn't do anything by itself, so you really want to be running as many fetchlands as possible for it, which not every player (or deck) can pull off. If you're only running Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse as enablers, it's probably not worth including.

[Outcryqq]

I like Crucible of Worlds a lot. Greases a lot of my decks. But definitely something I cut frequently, because while it's helpful for a lot of decks, it's not usually required nor on theme.

[pokken]

Crucible is one of the few magic cards I actively have to restrain myself from playing. I'll jam it in anything with fetches at the slightest provocation. Hitting your land drops is real good.

[FoxOfWar]

I think I play Crucible in three decks, and all three have significant self-mill and/or lands-matter capabilities. Could play more, certainly, but that price is a touch too salty for that.

[Sinis]

Sunday, June 14th, 2020; Crucible of Worlds

So, today is just like a crucible appreciation day, right?

No. This card doesn't do much for me; yes, I know, it's good with fetches (and I have quite a few of those), and Strip Mine (but I don't want to do that), and... well, that's it.

Yeah, it's good, but, it's not what I would call amazing or earthshattering. Hitting land drops is great and everything but, I can't ever seem to find myself wanting to run it, even though I already have one.

[folding_music]

it's lovely for having yr Lonely Sandbar and eating it too :3 I've never actually had this card but I've opened three Ramunap Excavators and I kinda think they're a bit unfair - it just shouldn't be this simple to play cards from the grave.

[pokken]

No. This card doesn't do much for me; yes, I know, it's good with fetches (and I have quite a few of those), and Strip Mine (but I don't want to do that), and... well, that's it.

Yeah, it's good, but, it's not what I would call amazing or earthshattering. Hitting land drops is great and everything but, I can't ever seem to find myself wanting to run it, even though I already have one.

I like milling and discarding lands to hand size a lot too.

My favorite play with it is of course extra land drops. Nothing finer than playing the same fetchland 3x with Azusa, Lost but Seeking and a crucible effect.

[bobthefunny]

RE: Sprout Swarm

I think this is a great cards - 5 mana for token production may seem like a lot, until you consider that it's actually 4 mana on subsequent casts (at most), thanks to convoking the token you just made. Most token producers tend to be in the 3-4 mana per token range. Sprout Swarm is also nice in that it's a token producer that your opponent cannot bolt, or disenchant, and doesn't take upfront mana to develop onto the board.

It also pairs well with other token producers, to amplify how good they are, by just eking out a bit more advantage off of each of them.

So, today is just like a crucible appreciation day, right?

I really like crucible. Helps protect your key lands, ensures land drops with fetch lands, pairs well with extra land drops, pairs well with cycling lands, or cycling abilities/other discard effects.

It's not something to just jam into every deck - if you're just using it to make land drops with fetchlands, you might be better off just running more draw to make those same land drops - but it's definitely a powerful card that is easy to synergize with.

[Hawk]

Since everyone knows this card is basically amazing, instead allow me to share a terrible trade I made (although, in truth, not the WORST trade I've ever made).

The year is 2004, and High School Hawk is at the 5th Dawn Prerelease. This was my 6th-ever Prerelease (having played in the Prophecy, Planeshift, Apocalypse, Torment, and Mirrodin prereleases previously). This was the era where prereleases were huge, "rent out a whole convention center in SLC, Utah" affairs, before any store could run them, so it meant schlepping a few hours down the canyon from my podunk Wyoming town to play. I had been awful in all previous prereleases, winning the occasional game but generally 0-4 or 05ing down the way, but in 2004 I was smarter and wiser and a better player. I also pulled Razormane Masticore which was a fearsome beast in limited, and rode it to a 3-1 record and prizes; my best win ever!

Among my prize packs was a card that seemed sorta meh to me - Crucible of Worlds. I had been active enough online to know it was the 2nd-ever "You Make The Card", which was fun, and I though the art was neat, but couldn't fathom playing it regularly even with the fetchlands I owned. I mean, I only played Standard and Limited and kitchen table casual, so I was never going to own original duals and they were never going to print other strong lands that played well with those fetches, right? Meanwhile, that Razormane was a total monster. It had handily eviscerated all comers every time I drew it. It was going to be awesome in Standard right? Second coming of the OG Masticore for sure. A player offered to trade me a second Razormane Masticore and sweeten the deal with Bringer of the Blue Dawn and a few solid uncommons like Trinket Mage for my Crucible, a trade that I thought was an absolute steal and gladly windmill slammed.

You can scope the prices to see how horrific that was in hindsight. And that, kids, is why one never, ever trades on Prerelease Weekend unless they are sure they are a truly great card evaluator (or are scamming newbs by trading shiny new toys for proven eternal staples). To this day, I've never managed to get my hands back on a Crucible, forced to settle for Ramunap Excavator in my Gitrog deck and just live without in Daretti.

Technically, the time I traded in Gaea's Cradle for a bunch of LotR boosters worth of store credit was a worse trade but at least that had some noble intent behind it (boosters were for a birthday present). And the time I traded a foil Lorwyn Thoughtseize for a playset of Wrath of God, a few painlands, and a Garruk Wildspeaker was similarly disastrous...but at least nowadays I still use those Adarkar Wastes and WoGs and Garruks; from a "I only really play Commander and draft" perspective it's arguably not even a horrendous trade. This trade, trading away both a piece of MtG history and a truly outstanding Commander card, is my greatest MtG regret. But eh, you win some, you lose some.

[Hermes_]

I wish i had gotten one before it spiked in price

[toctheyounger]

Actually just got one for my bday a couple of days ago, along with a Field of the Dead. Dream team in the right place, I guess. I don't really know where to put them right now, but there's a couple of good options in Tayam, Luminous Enigma or Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. Neither land base is optimised, but both sacrifice lands.

Clearly this is going to be best with fetches, but I feel like if you trade in lands from the 'yard it's never really a dead card entirely.

[onering]

So much more to this than fetches and wastelands. I've heard a lot that if you're using it as a phyrexian arena that only gets lands, it's not good, and for that I agree. Crucible plus a fetch is a nice fallback plan for when you don't have any better lands to play in yard or hand, but if thats what you stuck crucible in there for, take it out. You need both crucible and the fetch to get it online, and then every time you draw a land it's just not going to do anything that turn (unless you have top or Sylvan library to make the shuffle relevant, or multiple land drops, but that's introducing more cards to the equation).

No, you should really have synergy beyond fetches and strip mines to justify running it. Ideally you should have synergy beyond just having lots of lands that can naturally hit the yard. Multiple land drops is the best bet, it turns your single fetch in the yard into ramp every turn, and let's you start shutting people out of Mana with strip mine. Discard is another nice synergy, letting you discard lands as a cost or to necrogen mists effects and then play them. Unsurprisingly, Crucible rocks in stax by helping break symmetry on a lot of cards.

My favorite synergy though is crucible plus glacial chasm. On its own, you just pay the upkeep for one turn and replay the land you sacrificed, then don't pay it the next turn and replay the chasm. Thus, for 1 life a turn you prevent all damage to you. With extra land drops you just never pay life. If your lucky enough to have a field of the dead out, you just happily build a zombie army until you're ready to attack, then let the chasm die.

[Yatsufusa]

As long as you play the baseline of fetches, Crucible is a card that won't be bad. It might feel/be underwhelming at times, feeling it's only functioning like bland ramp. At the same time, if the baseline of fetches is all you're running, this also means Crucible isn't as good either, easily replaceable by all the classic ramp cards. In fact, ramp (and draw) would be better, because Crucible by itself does nothing to alleviate the one-land-per-turn restriction, if you crack a fetch from the graveyard with a land still in your hand, that land gets stuck.

Crucible gets exponentially way better once Exploration effects kick in, you can now reduce your hand of lands while still using your graveyard, and you can use the same fetch more than once from the graveyard. In fact, for a card at it's current pricing, I'd say this should be the bare minimum requirement if you want to purchase the card for use. If you already happen to own one and don't intend to get rid of it, the bland-ramp baseline is still acceptable (and easily fulfilled by many decks) but even then I'd recommend quickly looking for more synergies or even replacements.

[Crazy Monkey]

I'm a big fan of running crucible and fetches in a deck that also wants Rings of Brighthearth, for the double land drop/turn. Especially in mono-color decks that aren't green that are mana hungry.
It is a lot of durdling, but a decent manasink if you're holding up responses.

[gilrad]

I kind of don't like this card simply because it's another payoff-card that heavily incentivizes running as many fetch lands as possible. If fetch-and-shock mana bases were simply about consistently hitting your color requirements one could argue they're a luxury and can be ignored for a "good enough" mana base. The presence of this, rings of brighthearth, and a critical mass of other synergies however means there is a significant benefit to adding among the most expensive cards one can add to any deck. Any kind of synergy so heavily gated behind cost as this is a bad thing in my eyes.

[Peterhausenn]

crucible of worlds is a card i always wanted but didnt pick one up when i first started playing due to the price and i kinda regretted that as i watched it become more expensive over the years. even when it dropped in price due to reprints it was still out of the range of what i was willing to pay. looking back i feel like it was a great decision for me as i just dont find the card as useful now as i thought it would be then. my main desire was to get back lands that had been destroyed (in my early days of edh land destruction was far more common and less frowned upon), but that need pretty much doesnt exist anymore. i know there are plenty of loops with fetchlands and other value plays but im not impressed. i just dont think it does enough in the decks i play to warrant the price or the spot in the deck.

[3drinks]

Monday, June 15th, 2020; Setessan Tactics

Love some G board wipes. Ever the powerhouse in Goreclaw, and I presume much the same in similar decks a la Grothama, All-Devouring or Surrak, the Hunt Caller but is it really?

I've never been let down by it, at least.

[Mookie]

Hmmm... I actually have no idea how good Setessan Tactics is. I don't think I'd run this in any of my own green decks, but that's more because they don't fit the traditional mold of 'big stompy creatures' than anything else. Animar can't run it because of Primal Surge, Tasigur is creature-light (and has access to actual removal spells anyway), and most of Samut's creatures are tiny. I could potentially get some value from untapping the buffed creatures and fighting repeatedly, but given that none of my creatures would survive, that isn't that useful.

Still, I could see this being good for a more traditional green deck that actually ran a bunch of big creatures. It's a very powerful instant-speed trick - best-case scenario, cast it before your turn to Plague Wind your opponents and clear out blockers, then swing for lethal. I'd say the main downside of Setessan Tactics, like that of many fight spells, is that you need to already have a large creature before it can function as good removal. And in this case, assuming you want to target multiple creatures, you'll need to have an even stronger board state. Which, unfortunately, means it isn't very good when behind. Hmmm.... I think I'd lean towards Ezuri's Predation if I needed a board wipe in green.

Still, if you expect to have a decent board state, this looks great. Looks especially potent if you have a 'fight club' deck with a commander like Gargos, Vicious Watcher or Rhonas the Indomitable. Rhonas + Setessan Tactics + Thornbite Staff actually just sounds hilarious.

[Sinis]

Monday, June 15th, 2020; Setessan Tactics

I've never been let down by it, at least.

I'll be honest, I bought a copy and have never played it.

Is it really that good? For it to be effective, don't you have to be really far ahead and would rather just attack? Unless you're in Heliod/Vigilance land, this doesn't strike me as all that exciting...

These are genuine questions; I like the words on the card, but every time I try and imagine a scenario in which I play it for Strive > 0, I think that I want to have just attacked, and for Strive = 0, it's just a lousy Titanic Brawl...

[Hawk]

I have had a hard time getting comfortable running fight cards as my removal, even in mono-green. Don't get me wrong - I think that Ezuri's Predation, Apex Altisaur, Thorn Mammoth, and Kogla, the Titan Ape are good-to-great cards that fill an important niche in green. But for the instants and sorceries that start somethin', I guess I'm anchored by the fail-state, which is that they are utterly dead cards (which in my head happens often, because I'm being oppressed by removal or a boardwipe just happened or my opponents just have a bigger knife). Or the second-worst-case-scenario, which is that they are 1-for-2s as I'm forced to trade my 6/6 and a spell for their Sun Titan or whatever. When I do run Fight, I tend to prefer repeatable fight (say from Ulvenwald Tracker or Arena) or I prefer "Bites" which are at least never 1-for-2s (unless it eats a removal spell in response), like Soul's Fire, Nature's Way,Fall of the Hammer, Domri's Ambush, or Ram Through. I will shout-out that Arena has been a total workhorse in Gitrog Monster, and Tracker overperformed in Kresh, Xenagos, and Multani over the years. It saddens me only 560ish decks run Arena - card has felt great.

If one does run Fight cards, take-back-their-life cards, I think this is one of the better ones. I would tend to take Ancient Animus as my first and best choice (since most often I have a Commander I want to pick fights with). After that, I think Setessan Tactics is roughly equal to Titanic Brawl, Savage Swipe, Prey Upon, and newcomer Primal Might as a 2 CMC instant-speed fight with small upside (same as Brawl) versus the one-CMC Sorcery of Prey, Might, and Swipe. In practice I feel like the Strive effect will rarely come up - but +1/+1 and then fight at instant speed is a fine effect. That's also all equal to Savage Stomp in dino tribal (although practically speaking, almost all dino tribal includes W and thus has access to real removal) or Dromoka's Command (same deal in Selesnya) and all slightly ahead of Pounce or Pit Fight as a baseline instant effect, I guess Warbriar Blessing also gets the slightest of whispers of nods for its interplay in decks like Siona, Captain of the Pyleas although there again - you can run any number of Pacifism and Arrest variants.

This has turned into a comprehensive review of Fight cards, so I'll conclude by saying that given how niche and narrow these effects can be I'd have a hard time running the next best versions of this effect (Epic Confrontation and Savage Punch) anywhere except Surrak Bearpuncher for the memes. I'd never run the more expensive versions of the effect.

[Outcryqq]

I ran Setessan Tactics in my Atraxa, Praetors' Voice counters matter deck as a boardwipe, and it was decent. But in those colors I have betters options and I took it out. I still have it in my Ayula, Queen Among Bears bear tribal deck, haven't cast it though!

[3drinks]

Tuesday, June 16th, 2020; Illusionist's Gambit

I can't say I've played with this card. But that looks like an awful lot of words to say Fog though. How much more than that is it? If it even is more than that.

[illakunsaa]

Well I think the effect is much more powerful than fog. If you are able to play a 4 mana fog I would play this 100%

[Mookie]

Illusionist's Gambit isn't Fog as much as it is a mass Portal Mage. Still, like most Fog effects, it's pretty situational. You save yourself for a turn, with the upside in this case of making another opponent have a very bad time. The issue is, of course, that four mana is a lot to hold up, combined with the fact that getting attacked by a bunch of creatures isn't that common in every meta. I'd almost prefer Aetherize (or Aetherspouts), which adds in a bit of tempo gain as an additional perk. But in general, I'm not really a big fan of these effects. Amazing if an opponent is alpha striking you with a team pumped by Craterhoof Behemoth, but useless if your opponent is winning through some other method.

I suppose it could be interesting if recurred repeatedly with an Archaeomancer effect. Aetherize has a significant downside of letting your opponents re-trigger ETB effects, which this doesn't. Blue doesn't have a lot of ways to Fog a combat step without mass bounce in general, I suppose.

...this reminds me - I need more Archaeomancer + Evacuation loops in my life.

[3drinks]

...this reminds me - I need more Archaeomancer + Evacuation loops in my life.

Real players use Necromancy + Kederekt Leviathan.