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

[pokken]

I like glaciers a lot in slow decks that really care about hitting their land drops every turn. Mono black and mono white especially.

I used to play it in Derevi and that was fun as heck (build your own Karametra:P).

The only deck I have it in right now is mono white Golos enchantments, and it's been pretty good.

[Rumpy5897]

mono white Golos enchantments

Oh man, I didn't connect the dots that this sort of thing could happen. This makes Golos even more potentially ubiquitous than I already expected him to be. Which is very ubiquitous, mind you. Just jam Cascading Cataracts in case you decide you want the option to vomit mana into his ability when you get bored of playing, and he can helm literally any damned deck in the land.

Okay, enough derailing. Once upon a time 2014 noobcake me ran Thawing Glaciers in... Purphoros, of all places. Dammit noobcake me, this sort of slow value town land has no place in a gotta go fast red token barf thing.

[lyonhaert]

Okay, enough derailing. Once upon a time 2014 noobcake me ran Thawing Glaciers in... Purphoros, of all places. Dammit noobcake me, this sort of slow value town land has no place in a gotta go fast red token barf thing.

Would've been pretty good when I used to run Norin, though, because that had fetches and Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. Don't think I had any copies of Thawing Glaciers back then, though.

[The N82O Molecule]

thawing glaciers, those two in the art are front and center to global warming. . .

I wouldn't change a thing about this card. especially the purplish hue that it carries

[Mookie]

I'm a fan of Thawing Glaciers. It allows you to hit all your land drops at a pretty reasonable price (entering tapped + 1 mana activation cost). There aren't many lands capable of creating repeatable card advantage, and definitely none capable of doing so as efficiently as Glaciers. (well, other than Library of Alexandria, but that's banned, so....)

I'm currently running my only copy in Teysa as a way to enable Emeria, the Sky Ruin. If I had more copies, I'd be running it in some of my other slower decks too. And this is with zero support - if you have ways to untap it or otherwise double-dip on activations, it gets even better.

It is glacially slow, so I wouldn't play it in a competitive setting. Entering tapped and not tapping for mana itself means it can be awkward to play early - if you want to start activating it as soon as possible, you'll experience a pretty severe tempo loss.

Maze's End is a callback to it with a cleaner implementation, but at the cost of being significantly less efficient.

[Hermes_]

I run it in my Zedd deck, I picked one up after seeing another player (who is better and smarter at magic than me) use it. Same with yesterday's card, but I'm not sure which deck Sad robot is in lol.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, August 28th, 2019; Devour in Shadow

[DirkGently]

In theory it's a fine removal spell, but I don't know that I've ever actually run it (maybe once in toshiro umezawa?). Downside seems steep enough and black has enough other, better removals probably, but I still wouldn't fault anyone for running it.

[Rumpy5897]

It's pretty far down the pecking order, making you pay a steep overhead for its minimal mana savings compared to Murder et al., let alone if you're in multiple colours. However, it may find some play these days, what with black's recent focus on life as a resource. Apparently Greven, Predator Captain sports the highest include fraction of this card, with Vilis, Broker of Blood rounding off the podium.

[3drinks]

I played this card for a long time. I also played Vendetta, which is similar. I remember when this card was the premiere removal of the format, alongside then-staple Rend Flesh.

Time sure has changed. Removal has been power crept, and is much more universal in what it can target now. Still, two cmc for unconditional kill is a bit of a premium, but nowadays there's a few options that should make the cut ahead of this.

[The N82O Molecule]

I like this card.
im not sure about the costing and the word lose.

but can we talk about the elephant in the room
if I may
those are the brightest "shadows" ive ever seen
am I looking at this card art wrong haha

[hyalopterouslemur]

In theory it's a fine removal spell, but I don't know that I've ever actually run it (maybe once in toshiro umezawa?). Downside seems steep enough and black has enough other, better removals probably, but I still wouldn't fault anyone for running it.

In a lot of ways, it reminds me of Vendetta, with all the same issues as Vendetta, but at least you can hit black creatures now. Which, actually improves it a lot. The problem is what this is competing with.

I might play it in a lifegain deck.

[Mookie]

I don't think I've ever seen this card played. There aren't any cards that are strictly better than Devour in Shadow, but there is a lot of competition from things like Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, and Ultimate Price, which hit almost as many targets without the life loss downside. Given that large creatures are often high-priority removal targets, the life loss from Devour in Shadow can be painful - I don't think that the unconditional removal is worth taking 10 to remove an Eldrazi.

If we expand to multicolor cards, Final Payment, Orzhov Charm, and Terminate are all usually superior at the same mana cost. Alternatively, upgrade to Hero's Downfall or other 3 mana hard removal. Snuff Out is another option that I should really throw in my decks more often.

There are some decks that may actually want the life loss - if you have a ton of lifegain, for example. Alternatively, if you want to get to a low life total for Repay in Kind or Vilis, Broker of Blood. I think I would still prefer repeatable / controllable ways to lose life over the one-shot effect though.

[3drinks]

Thursday, August 29th, 2019; Runic Armasaur

[Toshi]

I really liked it, when i saw the spoiler. But it was when i put it into my Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist that i realized it is actually pretty strong.
At times it is only sitting there with its fat ass, but when it's not it gets out of hand fast.

[Sinis]

Thursday, August 29th, 2019; Runic Armasaur

It's the may that slays it. Wouldn't want someone to deck you with Basalt Monolith.

I kid. I like this card, and opened one in some sealed product, but I have yet to play it. I'm kinda just not sure where it fits...

[The N82O Molecule]

does this text box flavorfully fulfill the dino tribe idk

that being said when I found out dinosaur was a thing, a tribal edh deck revolving around such a tribe became emanate. atla palani, nest tender here it comes.

If I could change one thing about it? I would change it to a treefolk

[Henlock]

I'm running it in Doran. It has a great body for him and a nice ability. I will add it to Gishnath as well once I build it after rotation.

The ability is nice. The dino won't eat removal and opponents won't stop activating relevant abilities and it will end up netting you a couple of cards. Really fair.

[Mookie]

I added Runic Armasaur to Animar a while ago, but haven't actually had it in play more than a couple of times - of all the cards in that deck, it's probably the one I want more data for the most. It usually draws a couple of cards, and that deck will play pretty much every Mulldrifter it can get its hand on, so I haven't had any complaints. It is a bit inconsistent though - some opponents will have a bunch of activated abilities, while others may not have any. Drawing cards off fetchlands or Maze of Ith is nice, but not every deck plays those.

The 2/5 body is also quite relevant - it's really beefy for a 3-drop. On the other hand, the double colored mana cost is sort of a bummer (for Animar, at least).

[SocorroTortoise]

I haven't run Runic Armasaur in any decks of my own yet. I've seen it do some work across the table a few times. It's usually drawn a couple cards and dissuaded a couple attacks. It's also one of those cards that's a little difficult to evaluate the full impact of without some way of knowing whether people are holding back activations they would have made without it on the table.

[lyonhaert]

I haven't run Runic Armasaur in any decks of my own yet. I've seen it do some work across the table a few times. It's usually drawn a couple cards and dissuaded a couple attacks. It's also one of those cards that's a little difficult to evaluate the full impact of without some way of knowing whether people are holding back activations they would have made without it on the table.

Aye, it's possible but hard to measure. While this one is more subtle than Oppression, I play with a consistent group of people I've known a long time and have noticed the latter slow people down on casting because they didn't want to lose cards. The Armasaur is probably a lesser impact psychologically than that.

[hyalopterouslemur]

This is one of those I run in "Stax lite" decks. It's only 3 mana and while it doesn't stop activated abilities, it does make it hard to gain card advantage off of them.

[SocorroTortoise]

Aye, it's possible but hard to measure. While this one is more subtle than Oppression, I play with a consistent group of people I've known a long time and have noticed the latter slow people down on casting because they didn't want to lose cards. The Armasaur is probably a lesser impact psychologically than that.

This one at least affects permanents, which makes it a little more quantifiable. Someone not cracking a fetch or activating whatever creature ability is more noticeable than someone sandbagging playable cards in hand, which can still happen to some degree with Armasaur. It's the eternal problem with evaluating hatebears - they can be the highest impact cards in a game while appearing to do nothing at times.

[3drinks]

Friday, August 30th, 2019; Necromancer's Stockpile

I seem to have no memory whatsoever of this card even existing....

[PrimevalCommander]

Aye, it's possible but hard to measure. While this one is more subtle than Oppression, I play with a consistent group of people I've known a long time and have noticed the latter slow people down on casting because they didn't want to lose cards. The Armasaur is probably a lesser impact psychologically than that.

This one at least affects permanents, which makes it a little more quantifiable. Someone not cracking a fetch or activating whatever creature ability is more noticeable than someone sandbagging playable cards in hand, which can still happen to some degree with Armasaur. It's the eternal problem with evaluating hatebears - they can be the highest impact cards in a game while appearing to do nothing at times.

Many defensive cards like Maze of Ith and Forcefield can feel underwhelming just by their nature. Each of those cards hardly ever get activated when I play them. But if your not activating your defensive cards, then your not getting attacked, which means they are doing their job.