[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[pokken]

I enjoy Cosima, God of the Voyage // The Omenkeel a lot. It's hard to build around because the color doesn't really support it, but it's a card that can do a metric ton of work in a UGx landsy deck (which is kinda one of my spirit animals). So it provides a couple fairly fun interesting ways to build as a general and then is a decent card in its own right. I would likely have enjoyed it more if the first land sent her on a voyage vs. waiting til upkeep. But whatever. Fun design anyway.

[Toshi]

What I find funny about Cosima is how it seems like the majority of people build around the absolutely god-awful back half of the card, instead of the pretty-dang-strong front half.

[Lifeless]

Bonus points for how hard she goes "check out this %$#% dophin!" in the showcase art.

[materpillar]

With a few exceptions, I think you could treat them as two separate cards and just pick the one you want to play as your commander and ignore the other.

Definitely true of Cosima. You could build around the front side and then you'd simply ignore the back side during play. Or you could build around the back side...and then still ignore the back side because even if you build your whole deck around it, it's still worse than the front side.

That's kinda my issue. They're two separate cards in one card and usually both of those cards have an absolute pile of text. I just don't really want to deal with them.

[3drinks]

Kotori, Pilot Prodigy deck for a few games

Huh. I missed this card. It speaks to me in a way Shorikai doesn't. Kinda wanna brew this - or at least theorycraft it as an exercise.

[Ruiner]

Kotori, Pilot Prodigy deck for a few games

Huh. I missed this card. It speaks to me in a way Shorikai doesn't. Kinda wanna brew this - or at least theorycraft it as an exercise.

My decklist is in my signature if you would like a starting point/inspiration.

Shorikai is probably "better" in general overall, but as the leader of a Vehicles deck Kotori is as good as it gets (in my opinion) . Getting to be aggressive in a UW color combo with solid control elements has been really enjoyable overall for me.

[Mookie]

In general, I would say that the Kaldheim MDFC gods are designed as an answer to the legend rule. Most legends are poor to draw in multiples - if you play a second one, it will just die. But these cards have a second side, which usually works well with the front side. Halvar, God of Battle // Sword of the Realms cares about equipment on one side, and provides a piece of equipment on the flip side. Esika, God of the Tree // The Prismatic Bridge produces five colors of mana on the front side, and provides a payoff for having all five colors on the back.

Cosima, God of the Voyage // The Omenkeel also follows this pattern - Cosima wants you to play lands, and The Omenkeel finds lands to play. Unfortunately, this synergy between front and back is less relevant in EDH because you will only ever have one copy of the card. Decks built around Cosima will never have an Omenkeel, and vice-versa (barring clone / copy shenanigans). This means you're more likely to only support one side or the other... which, in turn, means you probably won't be able to take advantage of the versatility that MDFCs provide. It's a bit of a miss from a design perspective, IMO.

....anyway, Cosima and Omenkeel both look fine but underwhelming. I've had Cosima pop up in my card searches a few time as a blue landfall payoff, but they seem sort of slow. 'Landfall: draw a card' is pretty good though, if you're willing to wait. Omenkeel is amusing as a mono-blue vehicle payoff, but seems like more of a meme than a real thing.

[DirkGently]

In general, I would say that the Kaldheim MDFC gods are designed as an answer to the legend rule. Most legends are poor to draw in multiples - if you play a second one, it will just die.

Wotc in 1993: I have a cool idea for a downside mechanic - unique creatures, whose downside is that there can only be one in play at a time.
Wotc in 2024: Players hate downside mechanics but we need legends to retain commander players - keep sanding the edges off the legend rule until it's completely meaningless!

Personally I think they should have just done what the star wars CCG did - legendary means 1 copy in the deck rather than a play restriction. Makes way more sense flavor-wise and is a more relevant restriction for other formats without feel-bads of dead cards. But too late to change it now since a lot of stuff is balanced around it. Clones would get waaaay more popular, I'll tell you that.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, May 21st 2024; Mycosynth Golem

[Mookie]

Mycosynth Golem is cool. It needs a very specific deck though - 11 mana is a lot, even with affinity. Granting your other artifact creatures affinity is powerful, but you're likely to already have enough mana to cast them normally by the time you can play it. It also only applies to artifact creatures, which means you'll need a ton of those in your list to justify its inclusion. I could see it in some artifact-heavy colorless decks or maybe something like Alibou, Ancient Witness, but I think it's generally underwhelming.

I'll note Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge as a card that grants a similar effect while also doing other stuff. I think Tezzeret is significantly better for the decks that can run him, although his colors do limit things somewhat.

[5colorsrainbow]

I think the main goal of the design was to enable non-creature commanders.

It was mostly to make the Gods of Kaldheim feel special. The default design for gods in magic is often a hard to kill creatures that get more powerful when given proper "worship". The hard to kill part can be trick for balancing and while looking at Norse mythology they saw that there are stories of the gods dying and in general being less immortal feeling. (This also why they decided to 12 gods vs ~5 like they done since post-Theros 1).

In the mean time design had come up with MDFC and decided to try putting them in Zendikar 3-Strixhaven as mechanical connective tissue between sets and thought it would be a fun to use them in Kaldheim for the gods since they thinking of trying something different for the gods. What sold it having the idea of the Thor card on one side and hammer on the other and seeing how that could work as a number of Norse gods had signature weapons or animal familiars and how this could also show the story point of Tibalt pretending to be one of the gods.

Overall I think the design in general is cool and has a lot of fun space but def more so for non singleton decks where you run multiples and the front and back can combo together.

[yeti1069]

Tuesday, May 21st 2024; Mycosynth Golem

I keep wanting to play this somewhere, but it's just asking too much.

Osgir would be the most likely deck for me at the moment, which currently runs 13 artifact creatures, and 36 other artifacts. There's a good chance this thing is cheap or free by turn 5 or 6, but...it doesn't really do anything on its own. It's a vanilla 4/5 until you start plunking down other creatures, and at 11 mana, it's already at the top of the curve, so it's only really beneficial if it allows you to drop 2+ artifact creatures in a turn, but then you need a fair amount of draw/tutoring to keep your hand full of 'targets'.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, May 22nd 2024; Golgari Thug|rvr

[materpillar]

This card has the word "dredge" on it. Pretty sure it's played.

[pokken]

This card is probably the best of the dredge cards, you can do a lot of filthy stuff with it. GGT and Stinky have their space.

There were quite a few games where I looped this with Solemn Simulacrum and a sac outlet :D Can do similar with Skullclamp. Clamping thug to dredge thug is so stupid.

[PrimevalCommander]

This doesn't have that pesky word "another" so can it target itself with the death trigger to send it to the top of library?

[pokken]

This doesn't have that pesky word "another" so can it target itself with the death trigger to send it to the top of library?

yar, has to even if no other targets (which can be awkward if you'd rather dredge him).

[yeti1069]

This doesn't have that pesky word "another" so can it target itself with the death trigger to send it to the top of library?

Sometimes that's a downside. I've had games where I had nothing in my yard that I wanted to draw, but was force to put one on top instead of drawing into something more relevant.

[3drinks]

Thursday, May 23rd 2024; Jetfire, Ingenious Scientist // Jetfire, Air Guardian

[Toshi]

My god, the Transformer cards are so tedious. Hate them.

[pokken]

I love all the transformers for how just wonky and fidgety they are. Most of them are just bad in really weird ways. Except slicer.

[yeti1069]

I used to LOVE Transformers. I can still recall the joy I felt when I got Optimus Prime for Chanukah. I also really like the minutia of triggers and interactions in Magic as a general rule.

So when I say that I have had zero interest in the Transformers cards... They're all a pile of overwrought interactions for little payoff. I recall looking through all of them when they came out, and feeling like some looked kind of interesting, but the hoops just didn't justify the complexity nor the results.

[Dunadain]

The absolute lowest UB product.

👎👎

[Lifeless]

I really wanted to set aside my cynicism and like this UB for old time's sake, but they all seem like they're some combination of terrible and obnoxious. Just a big L all around. Minor points for being fiddly that's kind of funny considering they're fiddly toys.

[DirkGently]

I don't hate transformers QUITE as much as some of the completely-outside-hasbro stuff, but yeah it's pretty heinous. In theory I don't hate the complexity of the transforming, but most of them don't really have a compelling build-around. Jetfire is particularly meh I think. Artifact creature +1/+1 counters? Really niche and then the payoff is also kinda niche. I think it's just too hard to build-around.