[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Rishkar, Peema Renegade

[toctheyounger]

I've been on the brink of adding it a couple of times to Varina, Lich Queen, but it never makes the cut. The second ability is great when you're doing well, but when the chips are down the card as a whole doesn't seem all that amazing. Aside from that, the colour demands are a bit tough and squeezing extra mana from an Esper deck isn't the easiest.

It's fine if maybe a little misleading in how good it is, I just think it belongs/thrives in a deck that has a lot of resource to throw at it, and putting it elsewhere can make it less useful.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2020; The Trilands!

This should be a lively discussion, as manabase chats typically do. How do trilands hold up today, with the litany of mana options we have now? I know I for one have sleeved up many Nomad Outposts over the years and never felt bad about it, at least until I became the eleven fetch guy. Without those t hough I 'd feel comfortable playing these to this day, even ahead of City of Brass especially in a slower, more casual environment where the time matters more than self-inflicted damage. Or even in higher competitive environments, the damage from painlands is massive and if I can shift some of that weight over to a safe triland and have more life to spend on tutours, draw, and removal, then that's fantastic.

[Mookie]

I run the trilands in pretty much all of my tricolor decks. Perfect fixing at a reasonable cost. That said, I am a budget player, so my land choices are somewhat limited. Still, as far as tapped duals with upside go, getting a third color is a pretty significant upside - I'd run them over pretty much any other tapped dual, and even over some conditionally tapped duals. I've been gradually taking taplands out of my decks and replacing them with untapped fixing lands as my collection has grown (and new budget options have been printed), but the trilands still aren't even close to being on the chopping block.

If you have the ability to run an entirely untapped shock/fetch/dual manabase, that's great, but that's not really feasible for everyone. These also help out a ton if you happen to want to do a four or five color manabase, especially on a budget.

[DirkGently]

Personally I think they're in an awkward spot. For 5c you'd much rather have many other lands which can hit any color. For 3c you just don't need fixing that badly to play an etbt land because there's so many good duals around. I don't think I've ever actually played them in one of my own decks (although they are part of my collection).

That said, as a budget option they're a great deal. For any 3c deck that's looking to be <$200 or so, they're probably an auto-include, and not a terrible choice for 5c budget decks as well.

[BounceBurnBuff]

Slotting 1 into their respective 3 colour decks where a Triome is not available is fine tbh. Building your 4-5c manabase on their foundation? Not so much.

[ilovesaprolings]

Can't wait for return to Alara to have shard triomes instead of this crap

[not-a-cube]

I only play Queen Marchesa as three colored commander, and I opened the mardu triome, so if Nomad's outpost is in my deck (which I highly doubt), it goes out now. Mostly because I also run the fetch and shockland of the color.

Either way, kinda depends on the colors you play, I'll probably never play the corresponding triland if I one of the colors in the deck is green, I'll get my colors fixed anyway. The rest depends on the speed of the deck, If I don't care to much about lands entering tapped, sure I'll put it in Jeskai, grixis, mardu or esper deck, but if speed is important, I'd stick to untapped lands and then I'll pick basics over this.

[Dunharrow]

I have played them. Triomes and Murmuring Bosk definitely are much better. Especially if you have things like Wood Elves.
I feel like I am low on the number of decks that play these. Like my jank Karador spirit tribal deck probably.
Can easily be replaced by fetches and shocks in any deck... but when you have 20 decks you start running short on fetches.

[Ginuqu]

I really like the way these cards exist. Of course, the Triomes outrank them but that was a conscious decision by whoever designed them to make cards which were a bit too good. Remember when these things rescued casual players from stuff like Lairs? It felt really good at the time!

The only commander deck I even have close to assembled is only two color though

[PrimevalCommander]

I played the alara tri-lands in budget 5 color years ago. even got the original 5 foil for that deck. Have not played them in a very long time as my collection of lands grew with printing of better duals. My mana bases are pretty tight, so although I favor 3 color decks, I don't run any on-color tri-lands. The Triomes will be making an appearance in their respective decks because I have fetches and really like Farseek and Wood Elves. In white there are quite a few plains-matters cards being printed that makes the cheap Tangos, Bi-cycles, and Triomes a big boost in efficiency even in non-green decks.

Budget friendly land for 3 color decks. I agree that 5 color budget decks are better off with some of the better dual lands and heavy on basic land searching.

[Hawk]

I think I play these in every 3-color deck I own, and play a few (the ones that can tap for G) in our lone 4-C deck (Saskia). On a budget, these are hard to beat. Obviously priority one is to play Command Tower and I also adore Exotic Orchard and am glad they've printed it into oblivion. From there, if the deck is focused on winning with Commander damage and has a Commander 3-cost or less, I don't hate Opal Palace and if the deck is tribal of course there's Unclaimed Territory.

After that though, your next best options get expensive. Path of Ancestry is amazing in even marginally tribal builds but its price is a bit high. City of Brass and Mana Confluence are very expensive. The "best" manabase would be running 3+ fetchlands alongside shocklands and triomes (and OG Duals if possible). Problem is, I have 18 Commander decks, own 2 OG duals, only have ~3 of each Shockland on average, and don't even have 1 copy of each fetchland. And I'd honestly consider that a pretty privileged collection compared to many of the folks I play with who own 0-2 Shocks, 0 fetches, 0 triomes, and 0 OG Duals. I am really glad these exist, and find them infinitely superior to a Thriving Land or Vivid Land even in a 5C deck.

[Sinis]

Wednesday, September 2nd, 2020; The Trilands!

They're not better than Command Tower, Triomes or Path of Ancestry, but, they aren't awful. I play them pretty frequently without shame.

It's also worth noting that 5-colour untapped lands are far from budget. City of Brass is like, $15 more than these alternatives.

[onering]

I only like these in 3 color decks that play slower. They are good fixing and the room is there for them even with the fetches, shocks, and duals, and 5c lands. More colors you run out of room. When it comes to budget decks, these are much more viable because without fetch/dual privilege Mana consistency is harder to come by. As such, I'm much more likely to run these in paper than online.

[Hermes_]

I left them in the DRACONIC DOMINATION precon but i did add Amulet of Vigor

[FenrirRex]

I run these in each of their respective three color decks, all my four color decks, and my singular 5C deck. As far as budget options go (which my 4c+ decks trend towards) there isn't much better if you're worried about hitting all your colors, with the tap downside only hurting so much.

Now, mind you, the real reason I run these lands en masses is entirely for flavor. I love lands that look like the places where the creatures in my deck can live, and these are hard to beat for that.

[ilovesaprolings]

Now, mind you, the real reason I run these lands en masses is entirely for flavor. I love lands that look like the places where the creatures in my deck can live, and these are hard to beat for that.

I know that feel. Sometimes i'm tempted to put an Explorers of Ixalana jungle shrine in my Gishath deck just because of the art.

[Hawk]

I run these in each of their respective three color decks, all my four color decks, and my singular 5C deck. As far as budget options go (which my 4c+ decks trend towards) there isn't much better if you're worried about hitting all your colors, with the tap downside only hurting so much.

Now, mind you, the real reason I run these lands en masses is entirely for flavor. I love lands that look like the places where the creatures in my deck can live, and these are hard to beat for that.

Underated comment here; it's why Inventors' Fair is in Daretti despite the fact that I don't think it's actually all that good and have never activated it. Feels wrong for Daretti to not be able to pull mana from an inventor's fair.

[toctheyounger]

My preference is to not play these, but I'm also under no illusions that despite some spikes in my collection it is ultimately on a budget. These are fine if unspectacular in terms of efficiency, but that's ok because in a pinch they're better than being stuck with the wrong basics.

I'll also jump in with @FenrirRex and @Hawk - the only 4c and 5c decks I run have selections of these that fit for flavour. Which is fine because both of the decks are themed, and if I can achieve that theme for zero cents I'm perfectly ok with that

[3drinks]

Thursday, September 3rd, 2020; Krond the Dawn-Clad

How often is this super restrictive mana cost worth it? I mean obviously it is very powerful once you manage to stick it, but whew, for double the difficulty of Necropotence in terms of castability, and then needing aura support on a non-hexproof body. Idk, have you ever felt the urge to make it work? Have you seen it be worthwhile with regularity?

[Dunharrow]

When I started playing magic I loved GW auras, and then this planechase deck came out and I really liked it.
Turns out Krond is hard to cast! Also turns out it is more effective enchanting a low cmc creature. I think Krond is cool design but an aura deck wants resilience and speed, not telegraphed haymakers.

[Mookie]

Sadly, I don't think I've ever seen Krond the Dawn-Clad in action. The base body - a 6/6 body with evasion for six mana - is perfectly reasonable. However, the ability is extremely narrow. You essentially have to run Krond in an aura-based deck, and your payoff for it is some premium removal if it ever gets to attack. But contrast that with the alternative - instead of running Krond and a bunch of auras, you could just cut out the middlearchon and run removal directly.

....and of course, that's ignoring the extremely restrictive mana cost. I have no idea why Krond has such a specific cost when its compatriot Vela the Night-Clad doesn't.

I suppose part of the issue is that Krond doesn't really mesh with what aura-based decks want in the command zone. Exiling stuff is great, but it doesn't have any inherent synergy with the auras themselves. Contrast with commanders like Sram, Senior Edificer, Bruna, Light of Alabaster, and Uril, the Miststalker, who make your auras better by making them cantrip, free, and bigger, respectively.

There's also a fair amount of competition - why run Krond as your GWx aura voltron commander when you could run Tuvasa the Sunlit, Sigarda, Host of Herons, or Rafiq of the Many instead?

[Serenade]

I'll also note Kestia, the Cultivator as another card-advantage-generating, aura-positive, cheaper general.

[Sinis]

Thursday, September 3rd, 2020; Krond the Dawn-Clad

How often is this super restrictive mana cost worth it? I mean obviously it is very powerful once you manage to stick it, but whew, for double the difficulty of Necropotence in terms of castability, and then needing aura support on a non-hexproof body. Idk, have you ever felt the urge to make it work? Have you seen it be worthwhile with regularity?

I hate this card because it's gatekept by dollar-value on the manabase. You can build a manabase in w/g that totally allows for Krond to be played consistently, but it will probably cost you more than a 2-colour manabase should.

That said, people do play Eerie Ultimatum and similar, so I can't say I'm too put out. Maybe this is the time for that Chromatic Lantern that so many people didn't like?

[BeneTleilax]

He's a good dumb haymaker. He was one of my first commanders, and I could cast him pretty reliably turn five, on a *garbage* manabase. Green just has really solid fixing, much of which doubles as decent ramp. I feel like when the precons were made, they were generally designed to be right along the middle of the format's power-scale. Unaltered precons instead quickly became the baseline for power, and guys like this fell out of the format. Much of that shift is also people learning that yes, they need to run versatile removal packages, which I think has made the format healthier and certainly more diverse, but I do somewhat miss the age of stupid voltron slugfests of which this guy, to me, is emblematic.

[3drinks]

He's a good dumb haymaker. He was one of my first commanders, and I could cast him pretty reliably turn five, on a *garbage* manabase. Green just has really solid fixing, much of which doubles as decent ramp. I feel like when the precons were made, they were generally designed to be right along the middle of the format's power-scale. Unaltered precons instead quickly became the baseline for power, and guys like this fell out of the format. Much of that shift is also people learning that yes, they need to run versatile removal packages, which I think has made the format healthier and certainly more diverse, but I do somewhat miss the age of stupid voltron slugfests of which this guy, to me, is emblematic.

Gone are the days of weaponized puppy for sure, haha!