[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[BeneTleilax]

Survives Flame Blitz for a turn if you + him.

[illakunsaa]

I've been trying him out in Muldrotha stax list and I think he is pretty decent. Shutting off commander and problematic creatures/artifacts. With muldrotha you can keep the party going for a long time.

[3drinks]

Sunday, May 30th, 2021; Felidar Umbra

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Neat trick, but I'd rather play the Nikes if I want a 2 mana protection thing. Better in aura/voltron decks obviously, albeit the more voltron your strategy, the less valuable the instant switch becomes. 5/11

[pokken]

I love all the umbras, but they have some sneaky bad wording that makes them very, very susceptible to edicts which I hate, so I tend to make sure I jam a bunch of ways to kill Grave Pact in whatever decks I am running these types of things in. Still, you get Fleshbag Marauder'd now and then, but that isn't quite enough to keep me from trying them

[hyalopterouslemur]

I have used the umbras in Uril, the Miststalker, though I prefer most others to this. The P/T boost is important. Eland Umbra is great in Doran.

This and Eel Umbra are best used to save a creature.

Snake Umbra is probably my fave. Just put it on Squallmonger or Pestilence Demon. Close second? Bear Umbra

[3drinks]

Monday, May 31st, 2021; Mavinda, Students' Advocate

[pokken]

Pretty cool card suffers a lot from being mono-colored as a general. Has a lot of applications across a variety of derpy deck types.

That said, as an Ephara player I know this is weird but I could kinda do without them pushing blink effects so hard.

(and this card inevitably steers toward reusing Eerie Interlude type stuff, since that's most of what's actually good at the EDH level in white)

[TheAmericanSpirit]

The 8 mana tax seems dumb to me. Seriously, grixis gets kess, white gets this. Just let white have it, for crying out loud. Green slides into card draw like new silk pajamas, but white's gotta pay 8 for friggin' flashback. And don't tell me this card is busted without the tax. Maybe busted in 60 card constructed, but in edh this thing sans tax wouldn't take top dog off sram or heliod2. If there's gotta be a tax, 2-3 is sufficient. We all know ramp is hard in white, why charge them 8?

[Ruiner]

I've been debating putting this in my Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest deck, since it is full of single target spells, but it's tough to find room for extra cards in that sort of deck.

[Sinis]

Monday, May 31st, 2021; Mavinda, Students' Advocate

Off-brand Kess in the worst colour isn't very good. But, it could be better if they ever print good white cards.

So, probably never.

[Dragoon]

Wish it had green, to be able to recast all those fight spells that target both a creature you control and a creature you don't control.

[hyalopterouslemur]

It grants flashback. While every color has flashback, only blue and red, as the spell colors, can grant flashback. (Alsp black, but lolbroken.)

White is on the opposite side of things, having the most creatures.

Also, green has had card draw since last century: Gift of Estates, Greater Good, Collective Unconscious

(And of course card draw and mana are things you get plenty of as artifacts.)

[DirkGently]

The 8 mana tax seems dumb to me. Seriously, grixis gets kess, white gets this. Just let white have it, for crying out loud. Green slides into card draw like new silk pajamas, but white's gotta pay 8 for friggin' flashback. And don't tell me this card is busted without the tax. Maybe busted in 60 card constructed, but in edh this thing sans tax wouldn't take top dog off sram or heliod2. If there's gotta be a tax, 2-3 is sufficient. We all know ramp is hard in white, why charge them 8?

You're missing a huge point of upside compared to Kess - this can activate on every turn. The potential is here to be 4x as powerful (though ofc most of the nastier effects are sorceries). Doing it without tax at all would be kinda bonkers.

I agree 8 is kind of absurd. I did win a limited match by flashing back a counterspell though.

Also - standard legality and monocolored = weaker are in effect.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@DirkGently

More or less we agree, though on a gradient. I'll concede that 0 tax is probably too few and we both think 8 is too much. What number between 0 and 8 then do you suppose would be best? My gut says 3, but since I've never played it in limited (and haven't played standard since new phyrexia), I dunno if that is too few. Thoughts?

Edit; I don't think I need thread-consuming block quotes to get dirk's attention, so cut them. Still trying to break the habit of just slamming the quote button all the time, it's deceptively hard.

Edit #2: you gotta sig your mavinda deck sometime. It may be an "abject failure", but it's your abject failure. Ya boi plargg has two slots, chisei even has one, just give the bird counselor her honor roll already.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, June 1st, 2021; Quartzwood Crasher

I know we don't seem to appreciate creatures that are just merely efficient in their size::cmc mana value ratio, but this seems much more than that given it can create a whole army without attacking itself. With a Gruul War Plow effect it's almost trivial to go out of control, so I'd imagine this would be a quite preferable member of the ninety-nine. Bet this thing was an absolute house in limited too.

[3drinks]

@DirkGently

Edit #2: you gotta sig your mavinda deck sometime. It may be an "abject failure", but it's your abject failure. Ya boi plargg has two slots, chisei even has one, just give the bird counselor her honor roll already.

I'd be interested in reading that.

[duducrash]

I love Mavinda. Love they are helping their students. It's a cool cool card that is much better in the 99 than the command zone.

Quartzwood Crasher. I havent seen much outside Brawl. But did got absolutely demolished by it there

[materpillar]

RAWR!

[Dragoon]

That's the kind of card I put in the kind of deck I play when I don't have much brain power left for the evening. I like it, it's simple and efficient.

[JWK]

Quartzwood Crasher is a very solid card that would probably see more play were it not for the fact that there are literally dozens of solid cards in G, R or G/R that are of similar CMC - so many that you probably can't fit them all in any deck - and that most decks these days are running fewer large CMC effects, so that the 5+ drop slots are really competitive. If you are running a Gruul stompy deck that includes tramplers, this is a card well worth considering.

And yes, this is obviously good in dino tribal.

[Outcryqq]

Gishath, Sun's Avatar - plays very well with Maskwood Nexus.

[Rumpy5897]

This card originally got spoiled in non-English, so I started calling it Gruul Chungus prior to its official name being revealed by the image gallery. The name stuck within the group, with Grungus becoming a shortened form.

Gruul Chungus has been a transformative card in my Ghired deck. I needed to carve out a slot for it, so I sat down and ran some basic numbers for two scenarios, resulting in probably the only Nexus primer update with log-scale damage plots. Grungus is one of my most formidable beatsticks if successfully copied and populated, and also happens to bring more than any other option if the copying hasn't come online and I'm stuck poking people with Rhinos. The card's inclusion marked a change in deck performance, with its power and versatility allowing the win rate to creep up. I added Green Sun's Zenith in as a result. The deck has seen further power-ups (Rionya and Angel of Destiny) being printed since, but Grungus remains a firm favourite and a riidiculous performer.

[Mookie]

Quartzwood Crasher is a cool Timmy card. The base stats (6/6 trample for 5) are good, and it generates an exponentially increasing amount of additional tramply, stompy power each combat. If you have other creatures with trample (such as Gishath, Sun's Avatar or Borborygmos Enraged), it looks even better. And if you're running a Stonebrow, Krosan Hero trample tribal deck... yeah.

Of course, it does suffer a bit from being a stompy card - not every deck wants to do a bunch of attacking. I've contemplated it for my Samut deck (since combat triggers love haste), but it doesn't quite mesh with my gameplan. Maybe if I ever make a second, stompier version of the deck. I'll note that both Kessig Wolf Run and Skarrg, the Rage Pits exist to grant trample to creatures if necessary.

[Serenade]

It's been a long day: Does this trigger twice if you combat-damage two different opponents?