[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Urza's Ruinous Blast

[BeneTleilax]

He's real good if you can keep hate off him. I think he's a solid goodstuff card; looting on everyone's end step is nice on its own, and his ult gives him some decent inevitability. If you have superfriends or discard synergies, he's a solid consideration, elsewhere he's fine but tends to spook the table, in my experience. His middle ability is kinda useless from what I've seen, but I haven't run him.

[Ruiner]

I regularly end up playing 5-6 player games, sometimes more, and Teferi is a bit scarier in those cases since each player has less chances to deal with him before the ultimate goes off potentially. It isn't quite so bad in 4 player games.

(At 7+ players my playgroup switches to playing Kingdom, which makes games not drag out like a free-for-all typically. We often play 6 player Kingdom as well, although 6 player free-for-all is common too).

[Zerro]

As it was already stated, He tends to draw alot of hate but i think the amount of hate that he gets is worth the ability. Looting just so happens to be on of my favorite effects in the game and this Planeswalker does it well. The way i look at him is a loot effect that has the ability to provide some pseudo-removal. I havent even given the ultimate a thought.

[folding_music]

I just can't rate chase cards fairly lol. I look at this Teferi and wonder why cards have to be pushed so inequally. He's good, yeah =P

[3drinks]

Thursday, February 11th, 2021; Varchild, Betrayer of Kjeldor

[pokken]

Honestly this guy is pretty powerful, but depends pretty heavily on being in those games where people just get to put stuff on the board and it sticks

Pretty bad if a sweeper kills all the dudes you're supposed to be getting, and the game is still pretty sweeper heavy.

[lyonhaert]

this guy

* gal

[Ruiner]

This card is pretty cool.. I've never run it but some friends have. It is neat for Thantis, the Warweaver.

I wonder if there might be some kind of RUx deck that could take advantage of blinking to get the tokens on demand. Or Sakashima the Impostor to double up on token generation.

[tstorm823]

I wonder if there might be some kind of RUx deck that could take advantage of blinking to get the tokens on demand. Or Sakashima the Impostor to double up on token generation.

Sakashima doubles up production and also can grab the tokens repeatedly, though not quite on demand as far as timing.

[Ruiner]

I wonder if there might be some kind of RUx deck that could take advantage of blinking to get the tokens on demand. Or Sakashima the Impostor to double up on token generation.

Sakashima doubles up production and also can grab the tokens repeatedly, though not quite on demand as far as timing.

That's a good point too.

Not sure what URx deck wants this little combo, with the pieces being independently useful but maybe one exists.

[The_Hittite]

I wonder if there might be some kind of RUx deck that could take advantage of blinking to get the tokens on demand. Or Sakashima the Impostor to double up on token generation.

Conjurer's Closet?

[materpillar]

Seeing this card makes me want to build anti-tribal tribal using Zedruu the Greathearted with Maskwood Nexus/Shields of Velis Vel and stuff like Mercenary Informer.

Hrmph... changing Tivadar of Thorn is somewhat tempting but Tivadar of Thorn is such a bad commander to build around.

I don't know how Blades of Velis Vel has such a low play percentage on EDHrec with her.

[hyalopterouslemur]

The real Johnny moment is donating any Conspiracy variant set to Survivor.

I like her name. "Where shield" (referencing her treasonous ways) but you might think of "war child". Cute pun.

[onering]

I run her in my grixis group hug deck. She gets in damage while giving opponents dudes to hit each other with. Because you control who, if anyone, gets the tokens (since you need to connect with her and can just choose not to attack certain people) you don't have to worry about supercharging a sac outlet, and can even focus on giving them to people with anthems (who will gladly trade 3 life for 3 tokens most of the time). The deck's hug elements are in the form of symmetrical draw and token production that is either symmetrical or given directly to opponents (from things like Varchild and Hunted Horror), so it doesn't suffer from the normal group hug problem of just accelerating a random player to a win (usually caused by ramping everyone). I run conjurers closet because of a decent number of etb creatures, and have gotten this "combo" out in a game before. It's fairly mediocre. It's cool to be able to grab the survivors while keeping Varchild around and fits the general theme (eventually I either break symmetry or I find a way to use the gifts against you), but it's slow. It's harder to connect when it's online because people aren't going to let her through to get tokens, and if you can reliably get her through it's 3 1/1s that can't block a turn, which is decent but marginal, and it's not hard to find something else, like a primordial, you'd rather blink.

[SocorroTortoise]

Combos with eternal format all-star Varchild's War-Riders.

[3drinks]

Friday, February 12th, 2021; Avenging Huntbonder

Well that's one way to spread double strike...

[TheAmericanSpirit]

True conviction is only one more mana... unless you really need ability counters, because this suffers from wasitora syndrome something awful.

If it were one mana less and triggered on etb instead of attack, well, that would be one hell of a card.

[pokken]

True conviction is only one more mana... unless you really need ability counters, because this suffers from wasitora syndrome something awful.

If it were one mana less and triggered on etb instead of attack, well, that would be one hell of a card.

It's worth noting that people can't blow this out by killing it before damage like they can with true conviction.

Static buff enchantments are so risky.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

True conviction is only one more mana... unless you really need ability counters, because this suffers from wasitora syndrome something awful.

If it were one mana less and triggered on etb instead of attack, well, that would be one hell of a card.

It's worth noting that people can't blow this out by killing it before damage like they can with true conviction.

Static buff enchantments are so risky.

True and fair enough, but enchantment removal is typically sparse in the average decklist, so that resilience is a mitigating factor imo. I think the reward justifies conviction's risk, and I maintain this has a much lower ceiling and floor in general for a comparable casting cost.

[Dunharrow]

If I want to give double strike to a specific creature (commander probably) I am more likely to use equipment.
If I want to go wide, then this is not where I want to be either.

IMO this should have been 3 mana. Look at Silverblade Paladin. Good card, but not exactly wrecking the commander table.

[pokken]

and I maintain this has a much lower ceiling and floor in general for a comparable casting cost.

Well the floor is definitely higher than True Conviction - it forces someone to remove it before attacks, so you can know 100% whether you will have a double strike attacker. So if someone has removal, the floor of True Conviction is both your attackers get killed by blockers so you get 3-for-1'd.

The alternate floor for True Conviction is that you don't have any creatures to use with it and it's dead. Also worse than a 3/3 with doublestrike that gives double strike to other dudes when they show up for 1 less mana.

I'll agree to ceiling higher on True Conviction although it's close in decks where you have a small number of attackers and would rather have the virtual 6 power to put equipment on.

You can't put pants on True Conviction.

Truth be told I would likely not play this card outside of human or warrior tribal, but I wouldn't play True Conviction basically at all I don't think.

IMO this should have been 3 mana. Look at Silverblade Paladin. Good card, but not exactly wrecking the commander table.

TO be fair I've been annihilated by Silverblade Paladin and dealt some serious beatings with Silverblade Paladin

It has a major difference from this card which is that it dies to removal and costs you both creatures.

Overall I really like to assume the worst worth cards to understand the true floor, and that's not necessarily reason not to play them but it can be important to think about when constructing decks.

Avenging Huntbonder does have a huge upside which is that it's never going to get you blown out by a single removal spell, which plays to a certain type of game (mostly toward playing a game where you don't overcommit to the board and can get a lot of virtual power out of a small number of bodies).

[Ruiner]

Personally I'd prefer to play Duelist's Heritage over this Avenging Huntbonder, although it doesn't keep spreading double-strike. I'm just a big fan of that card in general for the low cost though.

Avenging Huntbonder does seem playable in the right deck.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Pro: She costs less than True Conviction and not every deck can handle trips.

Con: She's more vulnerable than True Conviction.

Pro: If she dies, the double strike counters remain.

Con: It takes forever to use them, and the ability targets, so anything with shroud, protection from creatures, or protection from white is a no-go. Considering a big reason to play this at all is Voltron, and the other big reason is swords, awk-ward...

Also, I'm just going fo say it right here: Rare is the time True Conviction doesn't just start killing players, and even if it doesn't, you're effectively no longer going to be killed by finite life loss. Mass lifelink is busted as hell, imagine giving Baneslayer Angel double strike and now just off her alone, you're getting 10 life every turn. Sun Titan gives you 12 life every turn and has vigilance.

[Toshi]

Avenging Huntbonder

I can't tell you just how much i hate these keyword counter mechanics!

It is more than obvious, that they're pretty easy to handle on Arena, but they are absurd to keep track of in paper.
Even worse when you're adding +1/+1 counters to the mix.

[umtiger]

You can't put pants on True Conviction.

Meet Opalescence. If reserved list, try Starfield of Nyx.

Maybe this can be your next challenge and fits into the Living Plane enchantress deck idea.

One thing the Huntbonder has is the human creature type. Not everyone is trying to power up their decks. Humans is now one of the stronger tribes.