[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Jetfire, Ingenious Scientist

[3drinks]

what i'm saying is that his ability is exactly what wolves want. etb time change. and how awful that is that the actual colours didn't get this mechanic where it should be, precisely because izzet doesn't care about wolves.

[Ink-Treader]

what i'm saying is that his ability is exactly what wolves want. etb time change. and how awful that is that the actual colours didn't get this mechanic where it should be, precisely because izzet doesn't care about wolves.

Tovolar, Dire Overlord // Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge also sets the time on EtB identically to how Vadrik does. Anything with daybound does. It just has to be written out on Vadrik because he's not transforming with day or night despite using the gimmick.

[3drinks]

...they really should put the reminder text on this complex crap so people know.

[yeti1069]

They should have errataed all the old werewolves to have Daybound instead of having 2 slightly different abilities that cover that same subset of cards across multiple sets.

Anyway, I don't like this guy very much. It's very same-y: cast some buff spell, then cast a bunch of Ancestral Recalls, then cast a huge Crackle With Power. It's a KOS commander, because it can win with basically 0 board state.

[RxPhantom]

Day/night is the most tedious mechanic they've ever made and I hate, Hate, HATE it. I think they should errata the new wolves to work like the old ones. At least with the old ones I could sometimes squeeze more value out of Cult of the Waxing Moon during my opponents' turns.

[yeti1069]

Day/night is the most tedious mechanic they've ever made and I hate, Hate, HATE it. I think they should errata the new wolves to work like the old ones. At least with the old ones I could sometimes squeeze more value out of Cult of the Waxing Moon during my opponents' turns.

How is the old mechanic better?

[Mookie]

Vadrik, Astral Archmage is alright. Day / night is an awkward mechanic in the 99, but I'm more forgiving of it in the command zone. Beyond that... I suspect a lot of my opinions of Vadrik are tainted by Mizzix - whenever I see a Vadrik deck, I assume it's going to be storm / spellslinger nonsense. Which it admittedly usually is, but most decks are... not quite as tuned as my own build. One part of that is Vadrik's bipolar nature - on one hand, you want expensive spells to discount... but you also want cheap pump effects or other ways to grow him. Storm decks tend to be explosive, but relying on day / night swaps can be slow. This means Vadrik needs more pieces to come together and can be a bit less consistent than Mizzix... although all you really need is a single Lunar Frenzy or other pump effect to go crazy.

I suppose Magnus the Red rounds out the Izzet trio of cost-reducing commanders. I haven't seen a Magnus deck in action yet, but he seems fun - lots of Young Pyromancer effects, I imagine.

...anyway, Vadrik is fine if you want a spellslinger deck that is a bit off the beaten path. The fact that he can double as a voltron commander is pretty interesting.

[Dragonlover]

Day/night is the most tedious mechanic they've ever made and I hate, Hate, HATE it. I think they should errata the new wolves to work like the old ones. At least with the old ones I could sometimes squeeze more value out of Cult of the Waxing Moon during my opponents' turns.

How is the old mechanic better?

You don't have to keep tracking day/night for the rest of the game just cause one got played and even though its dead might be reanimated. There should have been some kind of 'if nothing in play cares, its day until something changes that' clause.

I know a guy that has Vadrik in his Zaffai deck, and its always a pain in the tits when it drops.

Dragonlover

[3drinks]

Sunday, May 12th 2024; The SHM Lieges

[BeneTleilax]

Deathbringer is still real solid in Orzhov token decks as an anthem that doubles as repeatable removal. It eats removal pretty fast, but ime not before killing at least something and adding 5-10 damage on an attack.

[DirkGently]

WU: flash is a nice keyword for an anthem and the cost is low. Not sure how many UW decks actually want this but in a vacuum it's decent. C
UB: the flying body is basically useless, but the faerie typing saves it. I'm still giving it a bad grade though because I don't respect tribal decks. D
BR: pretty weak protection against removal, but it's not nothing. D+
RG: Not many goblin decks in green, let alone knight. D-
GW: narrow hate card but it's better than nothing. D+
WB: little pricey but very nasty triggers. B+
BG: making free tokens is pretty sweet. Too slow be actually good in 2024 but I appreciate the effort. B
GU: has some real applications as a crappy seedborn muse that's also an anthem. B
UR: cool but too expensive to be any good. D
RW: nice triggers, though worse than WB by a decent bit for the same cost. Still, it's a cool design. B

Main takeaway is that the friendly pairs are really boring and the enemy pairs are cool.

[folding_music]

i've played the RW one in Firesong and Sunspeaker where it was stupid, and have played the BG one in Colfenor, the Last Yew, where it was stupid \o/ i don't think they pull their weight unless they're harmonizing with the commander but whatever, that's the point

[3drinks]

Monday, May 13th 2024; Argothian Enchantress

[pokken]

The only enchantress I play much anymore; 3 mana is too much for the effect for me. I play this one and Sythis, Harvest's Hand and sometimes Eidolon of Blossoms (since it can be Open the Vaults'd)

[TheAmericanSpirit]

The card is super solid but the shroud can be annoying. When I was playing Sythis Aura Aggro, this was one of the worst creatures to get early because it can't suit up to punch face. In a more traditional enchantress deck this is best-in-class though.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, May 14th 2024; Journeyer's Kite|brr

I remember back in the day when this was like drawing an extra card each turn. Man time has not been kind to this card.

[pokken]

Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca makes it look pretty bad, and then like actual cards make Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca look pretty bad. :D

The game is so, so, so, so far past where you can spend 5 mana to draw a card.

[PrimevalCommander]

Unfortunately, or not, this is not good anymore. But I'm actually not sad to not have to play this because it never felt like a good card in the first place. Not like other staples of old that felt powerful, and now are outdated to power creep. This card always felt slow, but in some colors was a necessary evil to increasing consistency. So while I do shake my fist at power creep for making fun old cards obsolete, this is not one of those times. I have been really liking Sword of the Animist, which has somewhat similar costs, but puts the land into play while requiring a creature to equip. Different cards, but similar enough for it to pop into my mind when looking at this card. .

Armillary Sphere gets you 2 lands for literally 1/2 the mana as Kite, and how often did you find yourself activating Kite more than 2 times even 5 years ago?

[Mookie]

Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca makes it look pretty bad, and then like actual cards make Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca look pretty bad. :D

The game is so, so, so, so far past where you can spend 5 mana to draw a card.

I'm a fan of Thaumatic Compass - three mana for a card isn't something I would be excited about, but I'm usually willing to pay three mana for a land if I'm otherwise going to miss my land drop. In practice, it's like getting a Rampant Growth every turn, which feels pretty nice for my more mana-intensive nongreen decks. It does fall off sharply in the lategame when I care less about hitting land drops... but then it turns into a Maze of Ith (that can tap for mana). The fact that it's useful in both the early and lategame makes it a pretty good card.

I'll note Monument to Perfection also exists and is technically better than Journeyer's Kite. Sword of the Animist and Sword of Hearth and Home also fill a similar role.

[yeti1069]

I have never felt like spending 5 to get a land was worth putting Kite in a deck. I've been tempted by Thaumatic Compass a few times, but it has never made the cut. The only decks I'd ever want to be playing that are draw-go control decks that are hungry for land drops and even they typically have better stuff to do, both in the early turns when you'd be casting Compass, and later when you'd want to be activating it.

[Hawk]

This was a near-staple alongside Mind's Eye in the dawn of Commander (I delineate here Commander from "EDH"), where it was a key way for non-green decks to hit their land drops every turn. It's not quite "strictly worse" than Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca but close to it now - rare is the situation where you'd rather be able to keep paying 3 for a basic land every turn than ramping ahead and getting your Maze of Ith on.

The Armillary Sphere comparison is also apt but sort of blew my mind @PrimevalCommander . I consider that card wildly unplayable outside of budget lists but it is way more efficient of a "draw/fixing" spell than this in most cases, as it is really, really rare you're ever finding more than 2 lands in an average game (which is, again, why Thaumatic Compass is as close to strictly better as you can be).

Nowadays even white and red have more efficient ways to go up on cards than a slow durdle engine like this, leaving Compass with only a handful of homes and Kite to be virtually unplayable. I will say that I've liked Compass in both Phelddagrif (as a fairly innocuous value engine that helps win the "shoot-out") and in Daretti, Scrap Savant (who is very good at turbo-grinding through his deck but struggles to actually keep a full hand since its all rummaging), so I do think Compass or Monument to Perfection have homes in slower more controlling ddecks.

[yeti1069]

This was a near-staple alongside Mind's Eye in the dawn of Commander (I delineate here Commander from "EDH"), where it was a key way for non-green decks to hit their land drops every turn. It's not quite "strictly worse" than Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca but close to it now - rare is the situation where you'd rather be able to keep paying 3 for a basic land every turn than ramping ahead and getting your Maze of Ith on.

The Armillary Sphere comparison is also apt but sort of blew my mind @PrimevalCommander . I consider that card wildly unplayable outside of budget lists but it is way more efficient of a "draw/fixing" spell than this in most cases, as it is really, really rare you're ever finding more than 2 lands in an average game (which is, again, why Thaumatic Compass is as close to strictly better as you can be).

Nowadays even white and red have more efficient ways to go up on cards than a slow durdle engine like this, leaving Compass with only a handful of homes and Kite to be virtually unplayable. I will say that I've liked Compass in both Phelddagrif (as a fairly innocuous value engine that helps win the "shoot-out") and in Daretti, Scrap Savant (who is very good at turbo-grinding through his deck but struggles to actually keep a full hand since its all rummaging), so I do think Compass or Monument to Perfection have homes in slower more controlling ddecks.

I recently added Mind's Eye to my Osgir list as a way of trying to fill my hand. That upfront cost is rough, but the deck usually ramps well.

[Dunadain]

Was never good (or if it was, it was already obsolete when I started playing and people were just playing it out of habit)

👎

[Serenade]

I ran Kite and then Thaumatic Compass // Spires of Orazca in Geth and Thada. Both decks aimed for big mana (ideally increasing what your basic lands generate), so having more lands was nice. I would not run them these days.


Back on Argothian Enchantress: I still like her as the best enchantress (and she stands out even more in non-white decks). People noted Eidolon of Blossoms, and I also want to shout out Setessan Champion for having better stats than a regular enchantress and having constellation, which has some interesting interactions. For example, Asinine Antics and another recently-leaked blue card can make a bunch of auras and therefore a bunch of constellation triggers.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, May 15th 2024; Bloodthirster