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

[onering]

It can be really good in the right decks, but otherwise the cost is too steep. Basically, I want it in decks where the legendary sorcery requirement is so easy to meet you can just count on it. Legends matters decks like Arvad or Kethis, or decks where the commander is cheap and easily protected so its always going to be out, like tiny Lazav or Rayami.

[3drinks]

Whoops, sorry guys, I woke up and got to work on my custom ROM and this had slipped my mind in the heat of hex editing.

Wednesday, May 26th, 2021; Dowsing Dagger // Lost Vale

I suspect this card is seeing far more play than it has any right to be seeing. And, I suspect far more players are under-rating Lotus Field when they should just play that over this, and get their lotus land without the hoops of a crappy equipment.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

This is a nice little equipment that only really costs 1 to play & equip if you get the lotus land rebate. The plants can be used politically too. I think it sees exactly as much play as it deserves.

[JWK]

This is an okay card. I have run it in the past but don't think I am currently running it. It is solid in things like dragon/angel/flying tribal decks, as the plants don't stop flyers and having a land that can tap for 3 helps you cast big angels/sphinxes/dragons.

[pokken]

I should probably play this a little more, I tend to like it a lot more than Sword of the Animist which somehow sees more play despite being generally worse overall.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Any evasion helps. Obviously blue likes this, but you can even use trample and/or super trample.

My Rith loves it because she is a 6/6 flier who can also get.trample through Armadillo Cloak and friemds or Rancor. Or just load her down with swords.

[Wallycaine]

Yeah, I can't really see how this is in any way comparable to Lotus Field. It's like comparing Basalt Monolith and Scorched Ruins. They're never going to be competing for the same slot, seeing as one is 4 mana ramp and the other is a land that eats 3 land drops. Dowsing Dagger seems like it sees the right amount of play, if not slightly underplayed. In multiplayer, it's fairly trivial to connect with *someone*.

[Mookie]

Re: Yawgmoth's Vile Offering - it's fine, but five mana is a bit clunky for reanimation, and exiling itself + needing a legend to cast adds to that clunkiness.

Dowsing Dagger // Lost Vale, on the other hand, is excellent. It's essentially a Thran Dynamo if you have an evasive creature to throw it on, but being a land makes it more resistant to removal, and producing colored mana is a significant upside. I also love the aesthetics of all of the transform-into-land cards. That said, you do really want an evasive creature to throw it on consistently, which isn't always trivial to do. If you're not flipping it on turn 3 / 4, it's a lot less exciting. I'll also note that not every deck necessarily wants a Thran Dynamo effect.

I definitely wouldn't compare to Lotus Field though. Lotus Field is a way to go down on lands for enabling Land Tax effects. Dowsing Dagger is a ramp spell. I guess both can work as combo pieces / ramp effects alongside Twiddle effects, but the decks that are doing that sort of thing rarely have the creatures necessary to flip Dowsing Dagger.

[Dragoon]

I definitely wouldn't compare to Lotus Field though. Lotus Field is a way to go down on lands for enabling Land Tax effects. Dowsing Dagger is a ramp spell. I guess both can work as combo pieces / ramp effects alongside Twiddle effects, but the decks that are doing that sort of thing rarely have the creatures necessary to flip Dowsing Dagger.

I think they fit perfectly well into a Derevi, Empyrial Tactician deck though.

[DirkGently]

The awkward part about this card, imo, is that decks that want equipment are generally voltron decks, but if they've already got their commander onboard and equipment attached then they don't really need more ramp. It is a nice feature that you can choose not to flip it, though.

I do love the flip lands, but I think its spot is a bit niche relative to some of the others.

Sword of the Animist (1) doesn't need to connect, (2) doesn't have a ceiling (besides the number of basics in your deck) (3) creates more targets to make it less vulnerable to removal in many circumstances (4) lets you keep the sword (5) doesn't give enemy tokens (though this is generally a pretty minor downside and could be an upside). I don't think it's surprising that people tend to play it more.

[toctheyounger]

Dowsing Dagger // Lost Vale is decent, and clearly underrated. Firstly, it allows you to be a little more forgiving of your own land base. Secondly, in the right deck it's super easy to flip. It drops early, equips relatively cheaply and no one really ever cares about the plants.

Generally I think it's best in shells that struggle to ramp, so there's probably no need to ever use it in a green deck, but it's been an absolute staple in my Bruna, the Fading Light build. Lots of folk don't account for flying, so if that's in your build, it'll be easy to get use from.

It really isn't comparable to Lotus Field. It is comparable to Sword of the Animist, and I think they work on slightly different metrics. If you're going for the 'fewer lands than your opponents' ramp that's ubiquitous in white/splash builds, Dagger is your jam. If you want landfall, Sword of the Animist is where it's at. I run both in Bruna, but it's a mono-white angel that costs 5ww to cast the very first time and only goes up from there, I'll take all the help I can get.

[Sinis]

Wednesday, May 26th, 2021; Dowsing Dagger // Lost Vale

I suspect this card is seeing far more play than it has any right to be seeing. And, I suspect far more players are under-rating Lotus Field when they should just play that over this, and get their lotus land without the hoops of a crappy equipment.

Are you trying to tell me that it's a Thran Dynamo with conditions?

[MeowZeDung]

My only gripes with Dowsing Dagger // Lost Vale are that it is an awful late game draw and that equip 2 makes it awkward on curve for some commanders. I think it's amazing for non green decks that need to ramp and have some native evasion in the list. I think it's perfect for Thada Adel, Acquisitor. I've considered it for kykar, but like Dirk said, it often occupies this space of "too late, already ramped".

[Dragoon]

My only gripes with Dowsing Dagger // Lost Vale are that it is an awful late game draw and that equip 2 makes it awkward on curve for some commanders. I think it's amazing for non green decks that need to ramp and have some native evasion in the list. I think it's perfect for Thada Adel, Acquisitor. I've considered it for kykar, but like Dirk said, it often occupies this space of "too late, already ramped".

I think that is something that can be said for most ramping cards though, which is why I hate running too many of those and tend to favour ramp cards that can also provide something else, like Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner or Herald's Horn.

[pokken]

My only gripes with Dowsing Dagger // Lost Vale are that it is an awful late game draw and that equip 2 makes it awkward on curve for some commanders. I think it's amazing for non green decks that need to ramp and have some native evasion in the list. I think it's perfect for Thada Adel, Acquisitor. I've considered it for kykar, but like Dirk said, it often occupies this space of "too late, already ramped".

Ehh, Dowsing Dagger // Lost Vale is one of the best ramps things to draw late since it's low tempo loss ramp (-1). Drawing Sword of the Animist on turn 11 costs 4 tempo and eventually ramps you 1 next turn.

It does have a higher setup cost since you need something to push some damage through, but that's pretty damn easy in Kykar.

Skyshroud Claim has a net tempo loss of 2 and sees a metric ton of play even in non-synergistic decks (although that's questionable). It's pretty hard to beat 4/3.

This is a *huge* upgrade over a signet late game where you spend 2 mana to make a spirit. Here you get to push 2 extra damage, affect the board by giving someone in the worst position blockers, and then having only lost 1 mana for the trouble.

Of course getting Kykar out a turn early is enormous and this rarely will do that, but as an option to get to endgame mana I think it's pretty solid -- and does it in a way that doesn't require you to open yourself up to getting Hour of Revelation'd or whatever, since you should always be able to drop it and trigger it.

That said, I think it's pretty likely Archaeomancer's Map outperforms almost all other endgame ramp options in Kykar since it provides on curve fixing and likely ramp.

[MeowZeDung]

@pokken solid points. It's certainly not bad in kykar, but the thing is every 1-2 mana rock is either mana neutral or positive for kykar plus build storm count, plus I have ramp in the command zone. Tl:dr - a late game -1 mana flip land that even marginally benefits an opponent and requires connecting (easy as that may be) loses some appeal.

I do like it though. Don't want to give the impression that I think it's bad.

[knight_seb]

I like it but so far, I couldn't find room for it in my Dakkon blackblade (saboteur theme) or Kemba, which are the most suitable decks to use it. But I will test it soon.

[BeneTleilax]

It's excellent in Feather, where the speed more than makes up for the lower ceiling relative to Sword of the Animist.

[pokken]

It's excellent in Feather, where the speed more than makes up for the lower ceiling relative to Sword of the Animist.

Has anyone ever attacked 4 times with Sword of the Animist? I've seen 3 before but never 4.

[BeneTleilax]

It's excellent in Feather, where the speed more than makes up for the lower ceiling relative to Sword of the Animist.

Has anyone ever attacked 4 times with Sword of the Animist? I've seen 3 before but never 4.

I think I did in a particularly grindy game with Varina. Moved from zombie to zombie as they died. Lost anyways to someone's Triumph of the Hordes.

[MeowZeDung]

It's excellent in Feather, where the speed more than makes up for the lower ceiling relative to Sword of the Animist.

Has anyone ever attacked 4 times with Sword of the Animist? I've seen 3 before but never 4.

My wife got like 7 swamps off of it once when she used to play Drana, Liberator of Malakir. Best I've ever seen it by far. As I recall Cabal Coffers and Lashwrithe ran away with that game.

Edit: fwiw Drana probably has more good games with dagger than sword statistically. Sweet curve out.

[Rumpy5897]

The thing about Sword of Rampant Growth versus Sword of Lotus Flip is in the timing of the effect. It's a lot easier to negotiate with someone to absorb a poke from the former than the latter. The ramp "damage" is already done on the swing, and as long as it's a small guy doing the poking then what's the harm in being nice to each other? Alternately, if you know your opposition is not exactly the friendliest, you can treat it as a literal Rampant Growth dispenser if you have disposable bodies to carry this to their doom. The latter though, that's a lot tougher to politics into flipping. The ramp only happens on connecting, so people are a lot less willing to just let it happen. However, it does offer a very good rate of return in terms of ramp - a Thran Dynamo tier payoff, in the form of a land once the initial susceptibility period passes.

These two serve complementary roles. Sword of Rampant Growth goes into slow burn decks which want the game to go long without drawing attention to themselves, especially if they can make expendable bodies to put this on. Sword of Lotus Flip goes into quicker decks which are more okay with drawing attention, especially ones with reliable access to cheap, evasive creatures to flip this with. I run the former in my Daxos and the latter in my Feather, which fit those dynamics like a glove

[3drinks]

Thursday, May 27th, 2021; Efreet Flamepainter

How comparable is this to Prophetic Flamespeaker? Casting spells you've seen and already used versus getting fresh ones off the top, albeit for the increased cost of +2 - r. Hmm, it does feel about right, but idk...

[Wallycaine]

The relevant bit of difference is the "without paying its mana cost" text. Without that, it would be a hard sell, but with it it's leagues and leagues better than flamespeaker.

[3drinks]

The relevant bit of difference is the "without paying its mana cost" text. Without that, it would be a hard sell, but with it it's leagues and leagues better than flamespeaker.

Derp I totally glossed over those words. Still, on a four drop with no evasion or haste, I can't imagine it gets in there much.