[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Sliver Queen

[Mookie]

I ran Shadowmage Infiltrator in an early build of my Kess deck. It was... fine, but not exciting - fear meant it was usually able to get in, and the card advantage was nice, but it was ultimately pretty low-impact. It didn't help that there wasn't any synergy with the rest of the deck - I didn't need the extra draw that badly, and I also didn't have much creature synergy.

Dimir Cutpurse looks fine also, but I think I would usually go with Infiltrator over it - losing evasion makes it significantly harder to deal damage consistently, even if the trigger is better. I could see it showing up in a deck that could consistently grant it evasion - I saw Vela the Night-Clad mentioned, but there are plenty of other ways to grant evasion.

....if I wanted this effect, I think I'd usually go for Thief of Sanity. I'm usually in favor of drawing cards from my own deck due to synergy, but the extra choice from Thief goes a long way.

[onering]

Mediocre card with valid niche uses. As Wizard said, Sygg aggro loves it. Anything with ways to consistently give it evasion, especially mass evasion, like it. Creature sparse metas like it. Shadowmage is better because of fear, but if I'm looking for this effect, incremental attack based advantage, I'd often be fine running both.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I'd play it in 4 color alongside Sidar Kondo, but I can't think of anything else.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, March 24th, 2020; Beacon of Tomorrows

So, this is just strictly outclassed by Nexus of Fate. right? I guess it's still a shuffling time walk effect which is fine in any style of enter the infinite esque deck, but generally...what's the skinny?

[illakunsaa]

You can cast bacon from gy unlike nexus.

[Serenade]

Is NoF only available as a crappy foil?

[schweinefett]

the 1 more cmc works with yuriko, for extra damage?

casting from the yard is pretty useful though. can snapcaster the beacon (and as part of the resolution it shuffles back in, i think).

Though nexus of fate can be used as an 'out' against painter/grindstone (if your playgroup has those kinda players).

[illakunsaa]

You can't flashback bacon and not have it get exiled but something like mission briefing or kess allow you to do the same thing.

I think most of the time nexus is just the better card.

[DirkGently]

Nexus's ability to be shuffled back in when milled makes it a huge game-changer. As much as people (myself included) complain about lab man wins, nexus wins the same way except you don't even need to draw it. Honestly it's a pretty stupid card. It looks simple on paper but in practice it does a ton.

Being an instant is also a huge advantage. I'll just fire nexus off eot in a control deck, and then you've got 2 full turns to build up a winning board state, instead of needing squeak in value around the edges of an 8 mana spell on the first turn. Which also means, if it's countered, you're not leaving yourself defensively compromised. And it still shuffles in, barring an exiling counterspell.

Yeah, pretty hard to imagine playing beacon anymore. Although I do wish nexus came in non-foil.

Interesting anecdote: played a game a month back with Uro as my commander. Playing against mill while also loaming, and I was fully decked by the time I hit 14 mana. Ok, so now I have infinite turns, but my only wincon is Uro, and his draw is NOT optional. So every turn I draw nexus, cast nexus, attack, draw nexus, cast nexus. So far so good. I take out one player easy peasy.

Except two players had blockers that could kill Uro. I've got plenty of grave fodder, but I'm casting nexus twice a turn, how can I squeeze in casting Uro with just exactly 14 mana? For a minute I thought maybe I'd lost, but then I figured it out: draw nexus, cast nexus, attack, draw nexus, cast nexus, uro trades. Next turn draw nexus, cast nexus, cast uro, draw nexus. Next turn, cast nexus before draw, draw nexus, cast nexus, no attacks. Then next turn, I can go back to my regularly scheduled programming. Kind of a funny little puzzle.

[Toshi]

As an opponent i would've made it easier for you and just scooped.
Would be too dull to keep my interest sitting through that.

[DirkGently]

As an opponent i would've made it easier for you and just scooped.
Would be too dull to keep my interest sitting through that.

Well, once we figured out that there was a way for me to keep attacking forever (no one had a creature with more than 6 toughness, nor enough lethal blocks to run me out of grave fodder) obviously everyone scooped. But if it had been impossible for me to win and I could only have kept taking infinite turns without doing anything, of course I would have conceded.

It's still not my favorite way to win, but every game I played it kept going into really late turns and nexus became the inevitable conclusion. I've been enjoying some more aggressive decks since I disassembled that one.

[Mookie]

Yeah, Beacon of Tomorrows is generally outclassed by Nexus of Fate. Ignoring that, I'm not entirely convinced that it's worth playing - three extra mana over Temporal Manipulation is a pretty significant cost for a fairly marginal upside (shuffling back in on resolution). I suppose there is some appeal if you expect to be able to tutor it up repeatedly (ex: Planar Portal or Ring of Three Wishes), but that's still a very substantial mana investment.

....extra turns aren't really my thing anyway though, so meh.

[Serenade]

Anyone play Ugin's Nexus? I'm guessing it sees most play in heavy artifact red decks.

Also, anyone run Stranglehold? Big price tag for a big meta call on that one, I think.

[Dunharrow]

Well, You can use Beacon to give other people extra turns. Combo with Smokestack. GG.

[3drinks]

Well, You can use Beacon to give other people extra turns. Combo with Smokestack. GG.

You can do that with Sundial of the Infinite too, and for less mana and no colour requirement. Even in mono-brown.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, March 25th, 2020; Pulsemage Advocate

I see Game Knights talk this card up all the time. I really don't agree with that. So, this sounds like a great discussion point!

[DirkGently]

I really like this card conceptually. In practice I've only run it in a few decks. Partly that's because reanimation, big fat fatties...not really my wheelhouses, generally. I think I ran it in my hatebears Tymna+Sidar deck, where it annoyed the hell out of everyone else because it kept making all my stuff indestructible with the guys that sac to make your team indestrucible.

I will say, one thing that I've come to understand about politics, is that the politics on this guy is not as incredible as it looks at first blush. I used to think "holy cow, you get a reanimate AND you get to make a political move at the same time. Bonus on bonus!"

In reality, I think stapling political elements onto non-political elements often ends up working differently. You'll often want to reanimate a creature, but that might not be the time you want some political currency to barter with. And, while it's less common, you might want some political currency but not have anything great to reanimate. So it's often more of an "OR" and less of an "AND". Probably the best example of this would be forbidden orchard, a card I loooved in the past, and now just like.

Also, a powerful effect like this can often make you a target, and thus diminish your ability to make political dealings. So when I've played this, I've often found myself returning discarded lands, to mitigate the returning effect rather than use it politically. Part of this also might be that my hatebear deck was usually in the lead when I played it, though. On the flip side, cards that work best when behind I like, and when you're behind this card could be pretty insane for teamwork, even though the power level I usually build and play at means I'm rarely in a great position to use it.

Finally, another issue I've had with the card is that most people I play are running a depressingly small amount of answers. The dream scenario for this card is to recur an enemy counterspell for something huge and threatening, while also getting a good critter out of the grave. In practice this rarely happens because often my only options are threats, or at least proactive plays, rather than reactive plays/answers. Or their answers are things that aren't particularly good for you, like board wipes or stax enchantments. Giving back an opponent a ramp spell or draw spell or whatever might be a way to make a deal, but you don't get that instant "here's the tool you need to solve this problem" that you'd really want from this effect. And even when you do, sometimes they have other plans and don't want to be your puppet. So the setup is more than you might think, especially among the majority of deckbuilders who are thinking almost entirely about their own plans, and not stopping their opponents.

All in all, it's a neat design that I do like conceptually. In practice, it's a little niche and it often underperforms from what I'd like to hope for. Still, a nice card.

[pokken]

The green one that kills artifacts and enchantments is real good. This one a bit more narrow. I never found a spot for it but I do like its design like Dirk said.

[Sinis]

Wednesday, March 25th, 2020; Pulsemage Advocate

I'll be honest, I like this card in theory, but in practice it's atrociously bad. Even returning 1 or 2 cards is awful, unless you're milling them and flipping them lands.

[Mookie]

I ran Nullmage Advocate for a bit in Samut, where it was fine, but not amazing - giving your opponents back cards is a very real cost. And while I've considered Pulsemage Advocate for that deck, I haven't actually ever run it - three cards just feels like way too much. Of course, that's also partially because my deck doesn't really have many fatties to reanimate - if you can recur Ashen Rider or some other nonsense repeatedly, it's a much better deal.

Anyway, there are some nice synergies for the Advocates - the simplest one is running grave hate to mitigate their downside. The card you target to reanimate is a separate target from the cards you target to return to your opponent, so you can exile your opponent's cards and still get the reanimation. Alternatively, if you have untap effects, you can target the same cards repeatedly, and get multiple activations for the price of one.

Political implications are also work mentioning - give back an opponent a removal spell to deal with a problem, or a counterspell in response to something scary. It doesn't come up as often as you may like, but it does come up. Also feasible to use more proactively in group hug decks, if that's your thing. They also can function as grave hate in a pinch - shrinking an opponent's graveyard in response to a Living Death or Rise of the Dark Realms can be relevant.

[onering]

It seems like it would fit a political deck that tries to play good cop. Something that focuses on straightforward threats that aren't overly threatening, and uses this ability to both get back whatever is in their yard and give opponents back their answer cards so they can police each other. Seems like a hard tightrope to walk.

[3drinks]

Thursday, March 26th, 2020; Soldevi Adnate

"Just bolt the damn bird" is a term that means dont let players untap with early/fast mana dorks. This isn't Metalworker or Orcish Lumberjack...but surely this is not immune to the rule?

[DirkGently]

"Just bolt the damn bird" is a term that means dont let players untap with early/fast mana dorks. This isn't Metalworker or Orcish Lumberjack...but surely this is not immune to the rule?

I probably don't want to start a protracted argument, but I wouldn't agree with that advice when it comes to (multiplayer) commander. Trading a bolt for a bird is a reasonable trade in 1v1, but in multiplayer, you really can't expect to police the table trading 1:1 with mana dorks, even pretty good mana dorks. Metalworker maybe, but orcish lumberjack or this guy are almost certainly not worth trading removal for unless you think something pretty specific is going to happen that can't be answered more effectively later. Almost always better to see what it's going to power out, and then save your answer for that - if it ends up meriting an answer, and someone else doesn't do it first.

Although I confess I don't think I've actually seen anyone run soldevi adnate. Decent card, could definitely do something powerful in the right deck, though I think it's one of those cards that requires a little too much build around and doesn't really fit into any particular commander's synergy pool. I guess you'd want synergy for stuff with a high cmc but easy to cheat into play, but idk that there's enough good creatures like that, or a commander that would want to run them. Usually it'd be easier to just run regular mana rocks and keep it simple. Though I'm sure there's some slots for this guy.

[lyonhaert]

I guess you'd want synergy for stuff with a high cmc but easy to cheat into play, but idk that there's enough good creatures like that, or a commander that would want to run them.

Uh... Chainer? Not that anybody but me plays him.

But the tap cost is of concern. Tests with Adnate were okay in goldfishing, but haste always made it better. I may have to try it again since I'm having to tweak for this new playgroup toward a pace that's more "incremental value" -- so non-broken per-turn bursts like this could be useful.

[Mookie]

I've heard some good things about Soldevi Adnate, but haven't actually seen it in action. As a general rule, I want my sacrifice effects to be cheap and repeatable - needing to tap to activate is a pretty big cost. On the other hand, if we treat it as a mana dork, it looks pretty powerful. Black doesn't really get mana dorks, and this can potentially tap for a lot. I could see it doing work in Chainer, Dementia Master or Chainer, Nightmare Adept. Sacrifice Kokusho, the Evening Star or Gray Merchant of Asphodel and immediately recur/recast it? Seems good. Alternatively, turn recurrable creatures like Bloodghast or Reassembling Skeleton into mana. (although those creatures tend to be cheap, so you're not getting much mileage out of them in comparison to Phyrexian Altar)

....I suspect the most interesting thing to do is to sacrifice cheap robots to it - specifically Metalwork Colossus, but any of the affinity creatures work too. Not sure what deck would be running them together, but worth consideration. Maybe Marchesa, the Black Rose? That tends to focus more on modular creatures though. Hmmm...