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

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materpillar
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Post by materpillar » 3 years ago

I played against a Mogis, God of Slaughter deck recently. Amusingly, he pinged everyone else to death on his own upkeep with his own lethal Sulfuric Vortex trigger on the stack. Crazy things happen when Dire Fleet Ravager gets reanimated 3 times.

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Post by illakunsaa » 3 years ago

I think theater is pretty good but lacks a good home.

There are several upsides over arena. If you play self discard cards like delirium skeins or mindslicer you can break parity with theater. Even with wheels you can essentially keep extra cards "hidden" in exile. Theater is also doesn't get hosed by anti card draw effects like Notion Thief, narset or Spirit of the Labyrinth. Lastly it can be easier to cast than .

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Post by onering » 3 years ago

It's kind of neat that it's an infinite Mana outlet that helps you find your infinite Mana combo

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Post by Yatsufusa » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
If this was mono-red it'd be amazing, but as a multicolor card (especially with black) it's got some pretty steep competition. Compare to perennial favourite Phyrexian Arena, which costs basically the same but doesn't require damage, doesn't reveal the card, doesn't have any timing restrictions, and doesn't lose the cards if it's removed before you cast them, for the cost of just 1 life a turn.
This very much, I remembered reading through the card, somehow convinced myself it was a mono-red card (the activated ability didn't help), got excited for a bit then promptly remembered it was Rakdos and the excitement plummeted, If it was Mono-Red as it currently is, it would be a great card for the color. If it was a Mono-Black Card, it would actually be tweaked to be better than what it is now (might have been straight-up direct draw on life loss actually).

The whole card feels like it was a Phyrexian Arena that got Red added to it, causing it to be nerfed. Really reflects how bad Red has it in the card draw department (especially compared to Black for this card in particular), doesn't it? Either that, or it felt like a fantastic Mono-Red card that got ruined for the format because they wanted to trigger off life loss instead of damage and used that to justify adding Black to the card (because honestly that's the only thing Black about the card - the life-loss check, Black doesn't do library-exile-into-conditional-can-plays by itself and the ping is clearly Red from the cost). Actually, screw that, it's just the Rakdos flavor requirement that ruined it, Red can't cause direct life loss, but I'm pretty sure it can still check for life loss triggers by itself mechanically since damage causes that.
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Post by 3drinks » 3 years ago

Friday, October 9th, 2020; Merseine





Enchant creature

Merseine enters the battlefield with three net counters on it.

Enchanted creature doesn't untap during its controller's untap step if Merseine has a net counter on it.

Pay enchanted creature's mana cost: Remove a net counter from Merseine. Only the controller of the enchanted creature may activate this ability.


A bit on the pricey side, but it does buy you a lot of time to to work around a threat that you can't kill or otherwise don't want to kill (say, a commander or something you don't want to see untap). I'd use this in the right deck - Hanna, Ship's Navigator comes to mind, but also Nin, the Pain Artist since I'm playing to the late game.

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Post by Dragoon » 3 years ago

3drinks wrote:
3 years ago
Friday, October 9th, 2020; Merseine





Enchant creature

Merseine enters the battlefield with three net counters on it.

Enchanted creature doesn't untap during its controller's untap step if Merseine has a net counter on it.

Pay enchanted creature's mana cost: Remove a net counter from Merseine. Only the controller of the enchanted creature may activate this ability.


A bit on the pricey side, but it does buy you a lot of time to to work around a threat that you can't kill or otherwise don't want to kill (say, a commander or something you don't want to see untap). I'd use this in the right deck - Hanna, Ship's Navigator comes to mind, but also Nin, the Pain Artist since I'm playing to the late game.
I don't think this is really playable outside of specific themes. It doesn't even tap the creature like Claustrophobia does.

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Post by Serenade » 3 years ago

Maybe in a deck that loves to clone Mesmeric Orb. Otherwise I'm running Winter's Rest.......or much more likely a transformation aura. Too many triggered/activated abilities these days for me to run this over Frogify.

Edit: Reminder to run High Market and other sac outlets if your meta is finally realizing the power of transformation auras!
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Post by Ginuqu » 3 years ago

I have some Merseinnes from Fallen Empires boosters we drafted as a joke a long time ago. it was impossible to attack other players unless you were base black, and Breeding Pit countered the hell out of Dwarven Catapult. Merseinne was good? because you could cast it on Derelor and they'd suffer the mana penalty for a long time.

Coral Net and Bubble Snare are other pinning auras with about the same flavour!
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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

C'mon 3drinks, this isn't even close to playable. There's gotta be a dozen strictly better versions of this effect. Are we that hard-up for cards to talk about?
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Post by tstorm823 » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
C'mon 3drinks, this isn't even close to playable. There's gotta be a dozen strictly better versions of this effect. Are we that hard-up for cards to talk about?
It's not "Random Staple of the Day", nor should it be. You never know what's going to catch people's eye.
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Post by DirkGently » 3 years ago

tstorm823 wrote:
3 years ago
It's not "Random Staple of the Day", nor should it be. You never know what's going to catch people's eye.
There's a pretty wide gulf between staple and utterly unplayable. This card is being played in thirteen decks on EDHrec. THIRTEEN! For comparison, Sorrow's Path (arguably the worst card ever printed) dominates it in uses by more than 3 to 1.

I'm just not sure what there is to say about a card like this in the context of commander. There are other similar cards (that cost less, tap the creature, and don't have a built-in mechanic to remove them) that are rarely played, but still have some fringe application and might have actually been played by someone, or at least could be justified in being played.

There are plenty of bad cards that are at least interesting to talk about why they don't generally make the cut, but in this case it's obvious: even if you want this sort of effect, there are tons of obviously superior options. Sorrow's Path, bad as it is, is at least interestingly bad, and a very unique effect, which might bend one's mind to find a use for. For merseine, even in the insane edge case of playing Chisei, Heart of Oceans (which I've done) this is still wildly unplayable.
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Post by tstorm823 » 3 years ago

DirkGently wrote:
3 years ago
this is still wildly unplayable.
But it's wildly unplayable with an interesting name, so that's something.
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Post by 3drinks » 3 years ago

I blame waking up at 1am and reading far more into it. Gosh these mornings atr really screwing me up.

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Post by Serenade » 3 years ago

Seeing the extent of power creep (and how playable the effect is in modern days) and rehashing memories always seem worthwhile to me.
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Post by Outcryqq » 3 years ago

Serenade wrote:
3 years ago
Seeing the extent of power creep (and how playable the effect is in modern days) and rehashing memories always seem worthwhile to me.
To be fair, Merseine was bad even when it was printed. This one wasn't affected as much by power creep as by being bad to begin with. But still, I think we used them as coasters for soft drinks while playing with the "better" Fallen Empires Cards (lol!). I thought my Icatian Town/Hand of Justice deck was pretty rad at the time.

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Post by JWK » 3 years ago

Outcryqq wrote:
3 years ago
Serenade wrote:
3 years ago
Seeing the extent of power creep (and how playable the effect is in modern days) and rehashing memories always seem worthwhile to me.
To be fair, Merseine was bad even when it was printed. This one wasn't affected as much by power creep as by being bad to begin with. But still, I think we used them as coasters for soft drinks while playing with the "better" Fallen Empires Cards (lol!). I thought my Icatian Town/Hand of Justice deck was pretty rad at the time.
Yeah, Outcryqq is 100% spot on here. Even when it came out, Merseine was seen as a bad card, even among a whole set of mostly crappy cards. By the time Fallen Empires was released, the designers recognized a need to dial back the power level of new cards compared to some of the power that was released in the early sets. Unfortuntely, they way they did that was to set the power level of most of the cards in the set at or below that of the least playable jank from early sets, resulting in sets so bad that even at the time, players wondered what the heck they were supposed to do with those crappy cards. In short order players figured out that most of the set was best used as coasters or bookmarks, while the few standouts like Hymn to Tourach and High Tide were really powerful in conjunction with some of the more powerful cards the makers of the game were trying to move away from.
Last edited by JWK 3 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Serenade » 3 years ago

FE is the worst set for EDH, right?
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Post by JWK » 3 years ago

Serenade wrote:
3 years ago
FE is the worst set for EDH, right?
Pretty high on the list. Homelands might be even worse, though.

Among my 66 current decks, I currently run four cards originally printed in Fallen Empires: Goblin Chirurgeon, Goblin War Drums, High Tide and Night Soil. I have in the past run a couple of other ones.

In contrast, I currently run exactly one Homelands card in any deck. That card is Primal Order. I used to have an Eron the Relentless deck, but Eron was eventually replaced by Etali, Primal Storm and hasn't really been missed at all.
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Post by 3drinks » 3 years ago

Fallen Empires - the only set where the total value is under $50. That said, I'd crap rare draft this mess for $1/pk. We could add Homelands and Dragon's Maze for a real hoot of a time 😂

@JWK homelands at least had Serrated Arrows and Autumn Willow though. While, yes, playing pure homelands draft is the equivalent of sticking your junk in a pencil sharpener, I'd say it's still better than a set featuring brassclaw orcs and goblin flotilla.

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Post by toctheyounger » 3 years ago

Read the name on the thread title.
'Hey, a card I dont know! Oh. Its from Fallen Empires.'

Womp womp.
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Post by Mookie » 3 years ago

I drafted a box of Dragon's Maze with friends. Would not recommend. We got a lot of Emmara Tandris and zero shocklands.

That said, I'd still take it over Fallen Empires. Merseine looks.... bad. Blue removal has gotten a lot better over time, but sounds like it was already bad even when it was originally printed.

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Post by JWK » 3 years ago

Dragon's Maze might be the worst set in modern times. It does include a few outstanding cards, including one of my favorite generals, Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, and one of my top-five favorite cards ever, Possibility Storm, but it's pretty weak overall. The mono-colored cards are particularly bad. PStorm and Pontiff of Blight and... a whole bunch of complete crap. Green is particularly dire.

That said, I run many more Dragon's Maze cards in decks than I do Homelands + Fallen Empires combined.

And yes, even when it was printed, Merseine was universally recognized as a terrible card.
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Post by The_Hittite » 3 years ago

Oh hey, I remember drafting Dragon's Maze. So many clusestones...

Anyway, Singing Bell Strike does pretty much everything Merseine can do and has the fringe utility of some janky infinite mana combos.

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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 3 years ago

@3drinks

Don't listen to Dirk, I like these little strolls we occasionally take down memory lane. Besides, if our general decorum degrades over crap like Chromatic Lantern, at least the baddies and the oldies keep us civil.

On topic:

Flavor is on point, I must say. Incidentally I got tangled in a bunch of plastic netting a few days ago while harvesting crop, and let me tell you, that level of frustration feels like paying one's casting cost 3 times if any IRL comparison exists. Never go to work without your jackknife, friends.
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