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

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PrimevalCommander
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Post by PrimevalCommander » 2 years ago

I played this in the time of battlecruiser magic as well. Used it in Riku of Two Reflections back when the first pre-cons came out. Back when you could cast this on turn 10 and cast one of the smaller spells in your GY and expect to untap with tons of options. Became too slow and as discussed, the effect is likely worth the mana, but the mana is not worth the effect. I still hold on to one if I get to play more casual and have a need for a big splashy recursion spell. I like the effect, the art, looks great in foil, but that mana value harkens back to a slower more durdly time of commander. A time I miss and would like to go back to some day.

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Post by Sharpened » 2 years ago

Lifeless wrote:
2 years ago
There's a ramping Muldrotha, the Gravetide self-mill that uses this in our group and while it's pretty slick it's far from the most powerful thing the deck can do. One of those cards that was clearly designed for EDH and more or less hits the mark.
Not going to lie. Using a card that puts all the cards in your graveyard in your hand in a deck with a commander that lets you play the cards out of your graveyard is certainly a choice.

Card is clearly powerful. You can make it worth its cost. You can be more efficient, but so what.

Sometimes, you just want to be splashy and over the top.

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Post by Ulka » 2 years ago

I still use this card in a Riku of Two Reflections storm deck as it really can act like a Past in Flames some games and cause me to win on the spot, that said it is storm so the play style is frowned upon but it is an alright card if you have a specific niche for it or if you are playing closer to precon deck power levels.
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pokken
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

3drinks wrote:
2 years ago
This is some zoomer logic lmao. Games don't have to end every time by t5. Or, I'm just becoming increasingly more of a magic boomer and I can't cope with that.
I have some thoughts on this, surprise :)

In my favorite group over the history of magic, our critical turn was roughly 10. The game was usually decided around then even if it wasn't quite over. This meant a lot of time to explore stuff and figure things out. In our early days the critical turn was more like 15ish.

CEDH games have a critical turn of 3 or 4. I feel like the game is creeping on down toward 7-8 for most decks these days.

That means, mostly, you have maybe 1-2 turns after a Praetor's Counsel instead of 4-5 like in beforetimes.

I could be wrong and Ymmv etc etc.

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Myllior
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Post by Myllior » 2 years ago

I love this in my Grothama deck. Admittedly, the deck makes stupid amounts of mana and draws stupid amounts of cards, so there'll often be heaps to recur and the mana to recast all the relevant pieces. A favourite alongside Myojin of Life's Web for that sweet 17 mana, you-only Rise of the Dark Realms, plus whatever else you have. (Usually, a lot of the cards will be more ramp and draw, which you hardly need by the time you're casting Praetor's Counsel, but sometimes there's no such thing as too much).
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Lifeless
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Post by Lifeless » 2 years ago

Sharpened wrote:
2 years ago
Not going to lie. Using a card that puts all the cards in your graveyard in your hand in a deck with a commander that lets you play the cards out of your graveyard is certainly a choice.
What can I say I play with some goofballs. I does work though.

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hyalopterouslemur
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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 2 years ago

Mookie wrote:
2 years ago
Praetor's Counsel is the Enter the Infinite of recursion spells - it simply isn't possible to recur more cards than your entire graveyard. As a result, it will always have at least a niche place in the format for decks that have a bunch of mana and a massive graveyard. I've definitely played games where someone plays it in the lategame, recurs 20+ cards, and overwhelms the rest of the table in raw value. ....of course, eight mana is a lot, and it is vulnerable to grave hate. Interestingly, that makes it somewhat more interesting in decks that aren't very graveyard-focused, since they are less likely to be randomly targeted by Bojuka Bog effects.

These days, I would say that Seasons Past is probably the best recursion spell in the format - six mana to recur 6+ cards is a very strong rate, and it tends to function much better than Wildest Dreams. It's pretty unlikely for you to be able to play all of the cards recurred by Praetor's Counsel, so just getting the best six or so is more than enough. However, it does suffer a bit in a combo context, where you may be looking to recur specific combinations of cards (it couldn't grab Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker + Zealous Conscripts, for example). Praetor's Counsel is probably still overkill in that situation, but it is technically better.

....ultimately, I think Praetor's Counsel suffers a bit from the fact that green has better win conditions - at the point in the game where you can win off its raw card advantage, you could probably also win immediately off Craterhoof Behemoth, Genesis Wave, or Finale of Devastation.
Wait, what will searching for a six-drop get you in a posf-Primeval Titan world?

As for me, I see this as an option when your combo fails (like, seriously, combo players in multiplayer need a Plan B), and while the mana cost is a tad much, you're also in green.

7/10 Good, not great, and Seasons Past is usually better.
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pokken
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Post by pokken » 2 years ago

hyalopterouslemur wrote:
2 years ago
Wait, what will searching for a six-drop get you in a posf-Primeval Titan world?

It's niche but in Maelstrom Wanderer, Finale of Devastation for 6 is almost always board lethal :P Pathbreaker Ibex doin the lard's work

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
hyalopterouslemur wrote:
2 years ago
Wait, what will searching for a six-drop get you in a posf-Primeval Titan world?

It's niche but in Maelstrom Wanderer, Finale of Devastation for 6 is almost always board lethal :P Pathbreaker Ibex doin the lard's work
TBH, in the lategame where you're looking to cast Praetor's Counsel, I expect most green decks to have significantly more than eight mana available - it's not exactly a card you ramp into and cast ASAP, since the only cards you'll be getting back are, well, the ramp spells you used to get there.

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Post by Rumpy5897 » 2 years ago

Praetor's Counsel is a card tailor made for early EDH, the sort of stuff I only experienced by playing the original precons. It's a huge, splashy effect costed through the roof, and looks like a cool way to refuel in an extended battlecruiser grind. Time has not been kind to it, as already pointed out here. People started figuring out how to build more streamlined decks by the time I joined the fray in 2014, and this was already a bit dusty by then.

I actually hold the card in reasonable regard, and use it to dismiss Seasons Past. If I'm paying anything more than 3 for recursion, then there'd better be a hell of a reason, and Seasons Past sits in that uncomfortable spot where it costs a bunch, is potentially conditional, and gets lapped by Counsel for two mana more.

I found a home for Counsel in my kinda goofy Simic pile. That deck loves slinging spells and drawing cards, so having all that gas back to hand along with a no hand size clause is very cool. Plus sometimes an 8/8 sky shark falls out or something. It's also fun when combined with some instants, Swarm Intelligence and more mana than is rational to have. Just casually sneak in the instants between the second copy goes off. Glorious, over the top winmore.
 
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materpillar
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Post by materpillar » 2 years ago

pokken wrote:
2 years ago
3drinks wrote:
2 years ago
This is some zoomer logic lmao. Games don't have to end every time by t5. Or, I'm just becoming increasingly more of a magic boomer and I can't cope with that.
I have some thoughts on this, surprise :)

In my favorite group over the history of magic, our critical turn was roughly 10. The game was usually decided around then even if it wasn't quite over. This meant a lot of time to explore stuff and figure things out. In our early days the critical turn was more like 15ish.

CEDH games have a critical turn of 3 or 4. I feel like the game is creeping on down toward 7-8 for most decks these days.

That means, mostly, you have maybe 1-2 turns after a Praetor's Counsel instead of 4-5 like in beforetimes.

I could be wrong and Ymmv etc etc.
This is my experience as well. It's a shame because I enjoy the game much more when people are winning with chip damage and the critical turn is 10-15. Later than that and the game can slog. Faster and people don't get to do truly random stuff.

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Jemolk
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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

I still play the card, and in my decks, it's still been consistently good. It's something I'm pretty much always happy to draw, and which is often the final piece of me just overwhelming my opponents when I do. Now, part of that is that I deliberately try to push things toward battlecruiser Magic and a critical turn of 12-15 wherever possible. As several other people have said, that sort of longer game is a lot of fun, so I try to actively encourage it, and when someone starts getting to be too fast to allow that kind of thing normally, I pull out one of my more controlling decks and shut them down so the game can still go long and battlecruisery. Thus far, it's worked pretty well to keep things at a level where just jamming Praetor's Counsel into an arbitrary green deck is a good idea.
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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

Thursday, October 21st, 2021; Nymris, Oona's Trickster


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R{R/W} 87guide Burn
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RTorbran, Thane of Red Fell (Red Deck Wins)
WBRAlesha, Who Smiles at Death (Slivers)
WBRKaalia HQ

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Jemolk
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Post by Jemolk » 2 years ago

Cool potential commander for a Dimir Flash deck, especially with the support from Ikoria. Hell of an engine for anything like that. I'm more likely to run it in the 99 of a Chromium, the Mutable build, though, because there's at least a few white cards that I'd really want to play in that sort of deck, and a 7/7 flying commander is a hell of a wincon if you need it.
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PrimevalCommander
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Post by PrimevalCommander » 2 years ago

3drinks wrote:
2 years ago
Thursday, October 21st, 2021; Nymris, Oona's Trickster
Why could this not be in for a windmill slam into my Kalamax deck that wants this exact effect. :cry:
Interesting effect, potentially good as a commander, but the 1 power makes it anemic in the 99 unless you want it for blocking and churning card advantage in a draw-go build.

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Post by BeneTleilax » 2 years ago

I increasingly like the "once-each-turn" effects. They seriously lessen the "remove this or die" tendencies of synergistic value generals and the paralytic resource surges they produce, while rewarding synergy and genuine engine-building in play.

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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 2 years ago

I like her.. And I like the idea of replacing the card you used.

I also like how instead of lepidoptera (butterflies and moths) wings, Lorwyn faeries have hymenoptera (wasps) wings.
Thanks to Feyd_Ruin for the avatar!

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Post by Dunharrow » 2 years ago

The stats on this are so weird.
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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 2 years ago

Nymris, Oona's Trickster is a strong engine and build-around - five mana for a 1/6 is a bit expensive (and a very weird statline), but generating a pile of card advantage and selection is quite nice. Nymris strongly reminds me of Rashmi, Eternities Crafter, who functions similarly as a payoff for playing lots of stuff on your opponents' turns. Rashmi is probably a bit stronger overall due to the mana advantage she provides (free spells are strong), but I would also say that black generally has better instants than green does. Stapling a cantrip to all of your kill spells can be quite strong - my experience playing against Rashmi is that apart from countermagic, she is often dependent on flash enablers like Leyline of Anticipation, while Nymris isn't.

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Post by materpillar » 2 years ago

Seems fine. I don't really enjoy playing control goodstuff and I don't know what else you'd build around this.

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TheAmericanSpirit
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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 2 years ago

I love me some control goodstuff, and Nymris is it. Flash tribal in UB isn't sufficiently supported yet, but I figure Nymris is 5-8 sets away from being quite a terror. I kinda wish she was another color combination though, dimir is definitely not my forte (despite being competent at Azorius, Esper, Jeskai, bant, and monoblue).

Now that I think of it, black in general is probably my least played and least successful color, despite containing some of my favorite cards. Something about its idiosyncratic play patterns is just too foreign for my lizard brain to grok. Oh well, ink-treader 4 lyfe.
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Post by onering » 2 years ago

Jemolk wrote:
2 years ago
Cool potential commander for a Dimir Flash deck, especially with the support from Ikoria. Hell of an engine for anything like that. I'm more likely to run it in the 99 of a Chromium, the Mutable build, though, because there's at least a few white cards that I'd really want to play in that sort of deck, and a 7/7 flying commander is a hell of a wincon if you need it.

Chromium is exactly where I have mine.

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Post by 3drinks » 2 years ago

Friday, October 22nd, 2021; Grim Harvest


Modern
R{R/W} 87guide Burn
Commander
WRKellan, the Fae-Blooded // Birthright Boon (local secret santa gift)
RTorbran, Thane of Red Fell (Red Deck Wins)
WBRAlesha, Who Smiles at Death (Slivers)
WBRKaalia HQ

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PrimevalCommander
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Post by PrimevalCommander » 2 years ago

Tier 1 pauper EDH recursion piece. Self contained engines like this are few and far between, at any mana cost, so 5 for repeatably recurring your best creature can win games.
Otherwise, meh.

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Serenade
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Post by Serenade » 2 years ago

Nope, never liked or understood recover. I have to have mana RIGHT NOW after you kill my creature to get back an okay-at-best spell OR exile it? Not cast right now...just get it back into my hand. If only I could control when it happened, that might be nice, but we have too much instant-speed removal now. The recover costs are all over the board, too.

So I just stay away from these cards and hope we get a different form of it in the future. Maybe buyback again.
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