[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Journeyer's Kite

[EonAon]

Technically this isnt limited to mono color, you could play it decently in duo. Probably doable in triple if your using alot of basics but thats likely not happening. Overall killing superfriends or wrath + animate dead is pretty good even if its 6cc.

[brainface]

Super belated on Kozilek's Return since I couldn't remember my password yesterday: seems like a potentially good fit on Ilharg, the Raze-Boar, who works well with breaker of armies, and it just barely spares him.

[Melua]

Return is a cast trigger, so it's a nonbo with ilharg.

[Serenade]

You're probably already running Dead of Winter, so why not throw in BotS!

[Toshi]

It's also neat that it's an effective mono-black payoff that leans away from Coffers, just for diversity's sake.

You're probably already running Dead of Winter, so why not throw in BotS!

All of the above was just why i decided to convert my Gonti, Lord of Luxury MBC/Reanimator deck to a snow mana base.

I just love getting package based pay-offs in my mono decks, from cards like Blood on the Snow, Dead of Winter, Defile and Mutilate.
If my meta were to evolve more into aggro and voltron territories, i'd include Sunstone as well.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, June 30th, 2021; Jace's Sanctum

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Most cost reducers are 2 cmc. For 4, I need a helluva lot more than scry 1 to justify the doubled upfront investment. 2.2/13

[materpillar]

Wednesday, June 30th, 2021; Jace's Sanctum

If someone casts this, I'm going to immediately assume they're a storm deck and do everything in my power to murder them until proven otherwise. Also, scry on everything seems like it'd slow the game down a lot. Not a fan.

[Hawk]

I currently run this in Sevinne, the Chronoclasm; I like my cost reduction since flashback can be expensive, and I run a fair amount of boardwipes (especially damage-based ones that Sevinne can dodge) so this seems better to me than Goblin Electromancer or Baral, Chief of Compliance or whatever.

That being said, it's been really medium and it's not uncommon I just pitch it. I suspect I'd find that Thran Dynamo or Smothering Tithe do 99% of what I want this to do which is help scale my mana to cast a few extra spells per turn. Sevinne only doubles the first spell of a turn, so I am rarely "storming off" so much as I am casting 1-2 spells every turn for #value. It's on my list of cards to test a few more times before cutting.

I think that'd be the question, generally, for a non-storm Spellslinger deck: since the scry is so meh (Scry 1 isn't that exciting repeatedly), are you reliably going to be having this enable the casting of 3+ spells per turn? If no, you likely just want a mana rock in that slot.

[Mookie]

I ran Jace's Sanctum for a while in my Mizzix deck, but ultimately cut it because I had too many 4-drops. It's a reasonable card - cost reduction is good, and some incidental scry is reasonable - but I didn't quite find it to pull its weight. There is some value in being an enchantment instead of a creature so that it's harder to kill, but increasing the cost from two to four mana is... a significant increase. I am still running Primal Amulet // Primal Wellspring though, which generally felt like a superior version of this effect - copying spells is much higher value than reducing their cost, especially once Mizzix starts rolling.

If you aren't a spellslinger / storm deck, this is obviously significantly worse - if it's going to be better than Thran Dynamo, you want to be casting at least three spells per turn with it, which is a pretty significant ask.

[SocorroTortoise]

I've run it in a couple spellslinger and/or storm decks and been pretty consistently underwhelmed. It comes down a little too late to be a good setup card and it's not high impact enough to merit taking the time to play it once you're going off.

The similar card I've been pleasantly surprised by is Arcane Melee. You have to be a little careful about the other decks at the table, but the 2 CMC reduction is significant enough to be worth the risk and the time to play it.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Good (not great) in storm.

[Serenade]

Permanent cards in spellslinger decks have to be gold. This one is more like silver for me.

[3drinks]

Thursday, July 1st, 2021; Thalia, Heretic Cathar

[JWK]

Solid card, she's been good in my Odric keyword tribal deck.

[toctheyounger]

I remember a game in which this dropped early playing my Bruna, the Fading Light build and one of my opponents promptly lost their sh1t. I was nonplussed, and found myself having to defend the honor of my build from them, heartily and vociferously accusing me of bringing stax to a friendly table. Pretty sure I just scooped, either that or they did. There was no convincing them, despite it being a fairly ridiculous assertion.

At any rate, Thalia 2.0 is very good. I'd generally actually say she fits in more places than her predecessor in this format specifically. She gives a nice tempo adjustment, which, in the context of where I use her, is always welcome. It's not a complete hatebear, more like a slowbear, just making expensive mana bases more fair and stopping blowout attacks. It even slows down fetches which is cool, and makes things like Tooth and Nail>Avenger of Zendikar>Craterhoof Behemoth harder to pull off, which is also cool, because that one is tired af.

I think she's well designed, eminently fair, and well priced to purchase. Nice little control piece that I don't see played as much of as she probably deserves.

[Sinis]

Thursday, July 1st, 2021; Thalia, Heretic Cathar

This card does serious work. It's not in my only current deck with white, but now that I'm reminded it exists, I might find a slot for her.

[hyalopterouslemur]

While I prefer artifacts and enchantments, she can be a great Kismet variant in her own right. Be forewarned, she will die to a ton of removal (e.g., Massacre, Pyroclasm, Massacre Wurm, Pestilence, Earthquake) and that's not counting being deliberately targeted, as hatebears tend to be. Just getting her toughness to 4 can take her out of a lot of the danger zone. And red decks especially hate her for the anti-haste clause.

[onering]

I built a deck with her at the helm a while back and it performed pretty well. It was hate bears and tax effects, ways to protect my board, moderate stax effects, it's strategy was to slam her down asap with other hate bears and start swinging while slowing everyone down. I haven't played it in years so I don't remember the exact deck list, but while I remember it's performed well it also had a pretty wide performance range. Opponents that relied on creatures or who were heavy on nonbasics or both, would find themselves significantly slowed down, while against opponents playing creature and nonbasic light decks I had to hope I found other hate pieces to slow them down and sometimes I just wouldn't have an answer.

She makes it into a lot of my white decks, people on mtgo have a tendency to go too deep on nonbasics. She's good in the 99, but being able to reliably get her out turn 2-3 just soft answered some decks.

[materpillar]

Thalia, Heretic Cathar is pretty solid. She seriously slows down multicolor decks a lot. She is a huge pain for anyone with extremely expensive fetchland based manabases. I've also found haste based decks to be harder to interact with so keeping them fair takes a huge chunk out of their power. I hate seeing her whenever I play Gishath, Sun's Avatar for example.

I'm not running her in anything at the moment. I should really slot her into Chromium.

[3drinks]

Friday, July 2nd, 2021; Sleight of Hand

How bad does a cantrip have to be to no longer be playable?

[DirkGently]

There's a pretty long list of strong blue cantrips, and none of them (except brainstorm if you have some synergy I suppose) are really much better or worse than the rest. Play them if you're triggering spellcraft, otherwise they're just filler basically. Sleight is a bit weak as a sorcery, though it gives you more information than opt. So yeah, I'd play it if I was triggering spellcraft and had enough slots.

[TheGildedGoose]

Cantrips are criminally underrated in EDH. They replace the worst cards in your deck and enable you to run fewer lands, all while giving you more options when you cast them. They're great in 60 card formats and great in 100 card formats. Sleight of Hand is on the weaker side of cantrips, but it's still playable.

[folding_music]

I've been trying to play look-at-their-hand cantrips (Sorcerous Sight, Peek, Clairvoyance, Gitaxian Probe) instead of the quiet scry ones. Peeking is so violent and informative, makes other players think you're in it to affect the game rather than to sit and tutor stuff up, makes the aggro players less wary of you and more likely to gang up against people who look like they're trying to combo off, generally adds valuable chaotic energy to a game

People casting Sleight or Ponder are incredibly suspicious and attackable imho

[Serenade]

Doesn't draw the card (for better or worse)
Sorcery speed
Elite Foglio art on Portal Second Age version

So it has pluses and minuses. I put Opt ahead of it because of instant speed.