[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Jetfire, Ingenious Scientist

[hyalopterouslemur]

4/5 flying is reasonable but uninspiring. Contra development, blue shouldn't have better creatures than green and white, better removal than black, and be able to win the game faster than red. The saboteur ability is by its nature inconsistent. I mean, if you whiff (counterspell, x spell, convergence, Doom Blade against a monoblack player, etc.), it's not the end of the world, but it would be nice to do something.

[ilovesaprolings]

Missed that card and honestly it's not bad. Good in a spellslinger, but a little meta-dependant

[3drinks]

Friday, July 16th, 2021; Dread Presence

I kinda like it. Idk much to do with a Hill Giant|4ed, but I at least like what it's trying to sell me.

[PrimevalCommander]

Dazzling Sphinx, I was thinking about this card for my tempo Kalamax, the Stormsire deck since I play a few cantrips that give additional evasion and having multiple creatures attacking give me more targets for copies of Fists of Flame and Charge Through. The new blue dragon is probably better so if that one is cheap I'll try it first. Drawing it has better stats and some form of protection.

Dread Presence is a good card for Landfall decks in black. Can pull double duty as draw and win condition when you go for a big Scapeshift with Urborg in play. I don't see this being played much outside of with some type of landfall synergies. Lord Windgrace would like this card.

I did pick up a Ob Nixilis, the Fallen just to have because I saw some YouTube games where this guy drained people for 12-15 life per cycle. I may have to grab a Dread Presence to go along with it if I every make a deck like that.

[Melua]

I run it in my Windgrace and I'm always happy to see it - it's plain, but both modes are always active. It's a treasure that deserves more play.

[Igzex]

It's basically black's take on Tatyova, Benthic Druid in most cases. It's a pretty solid card.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Really great with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Play a fetch, crack it for another swamp. Or just use Explosive Vegetation Draw more cards, or take a huge chunk out of someone's life total.

Living the dream is Boundless Realms and Urborg. 7+ triggers!

[Mookie]

Dread Presence = Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle // Tatyova, Benthic Druid, assuming you're running sufficient swamps (or, more likely, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. It's a very solid card in any black land-based strategy - I'd consider it a very strong inclusion for most mono-black decks. If you aren't running enough swamps, it goes down in value significantly. It's on my shortlist of cards to throw in Tasigur if/when I ever get a copy of Urborg. 2 damage to any target also means it can serve as a pretty solid removal engine - it can snipe down a lot of utility creatures, and gets even more powerful alongside ramp / fetchlands.

[FenrirRex]

Beyond solid in landfall decks, though I've actually really enjoyed it in mono black too. K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth wants both card draw and ways to buffer life totals, so this guy has been a solid workhorse in that deck every time I've gotten to play it.

[onering]

Yeah, its really solid in mono black. Going straight for Urborg + Coffers is just a good plan, and this guy provides a solid payoff. Just incidentally drawing cards off of swamps or pinging utility creatures is pretty nice when most of your lands are swamps.

[DirkGently]

This guy is cool and fair in commander. Bloody brutal in limited, though, man. I remember this thing crushing me at the prerelease.

[3drinks]

Saturday, July 17th, 2021; Mirari's Wake

I can't actually remember when was the last time this came up. If it ever did. Hard to believe it's barely the price of a pack though. Time has not been kind.

[folding_music]

love the Wake in my enchant land deck; Stone-Seeder Hierophant, Argothian Elder, Krosan Restorer, Hope Tender get huge benefits and you can spiral out of control from there, and you don't have to be scared of the card like you'd be of Heartbeat of Spring or Vernal Bloom. plus there's certain ways you end up making tokens in a deck like that (Monastery Mentor is most exciting) so the anthem effect has its uses

Mirari's Wake when it hit distorted my casual play group and everyone was suddenly running white green even when it was out of character for them; the bonuses back then added up to something too tempting and eventually damaged the feel of the game. in modern commander its underpowered because everyone plays like an assassin

[pokken]

I really hate mana doublers almost entirely. This one is one of my least disliked because it offers something else. But in general I think mana doubling (or actual doubling like Mana Reflection) is a dumb mechanic that usually is a massive tempo blowout where you pay for it and someone kills it before you succeed at using it. And if you don't you often run away with the game. I tend to prefer my effects incremental overall.

[cheonice]

Sweet, sweet Wake! This was and still is staple in my playgroup since the beginning. No GWx deck without some mana doubling. And I really like Chainer's and Kamahl's story arc, so this an additional bonus. [card]Karametra, God of Harvests[card] feels like a successor you have to build around.

[BeneTleilax]

I think the ramp has been outdone by dumber green ramp cards, but the anthem is enough of a bonus that it remains a staple in any GW widish deck. It's nostalgic for me, because my second EDH deck was Rhys, which loved this.

[The_Hittite]

Mirari's Wake when it hit distorted my casual play group and everyone was suddenly running white green even when it was out of character for them; the bonuses back then added up to something too tempting and eventually damaged the feel of the game.

To be fair, that's pretty on-brand for the Mirari.

[Hermes_]

would be good in ur dragon if i didn't already have enough cost reduction or other ways to drop dragons

[onering]

This is how Mana "doubling" should be done. This is more fair than most such effects while still being broadly powerful for a few reasons. First, it only cares about lands, so artifact and creature ramp don't benefit, which is very important in restraining the power of the effect in edh. Yet it cares about any land, so it's not overly gimped or forced into mono color like Caged Sun style effects. Second, it doesn't actually double Mana, it just adds an additional Mana, which is highly relevant in edh with ancient tombs and gaeas cradles running around. It turns out that doubling Mana can actually be really fair, so long as your only doubling lands that produce a single Mana.

[Mookie]

Hard to believe it's barely the price of a pack though. Time has not been kind.

Looking at the price history for different versions is actually pretty consistent - they all start at $8 or so and slowly creep up over time. Until recently, the cheapest version was C17, at around $28. The price has certainly fallen significantly as a result of the reprinting in MH2, but that's partially because of all the alternate art version of it - I imagine that demand for the borderless and foil-etched versions have lowered the demand for the vanilla version significantly. That said, the amount of MH2 being opened means that we may have finally reached the price floor / saturation point for Mirari's Wake - the chase cards like fetchlands and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer eat up a huge percentage of MH2's EV, so non-chase cards are going to have their prices drop accordingly. Still, I expect that the fancier versions of it will once again creep up in price over time.

Anyway, as for Mirari's Wake itself, it's still an excellent card - mana doubling is really strong, and at five mana, it's one of the cheapest ways to do so - Vernal Bloom and Keeper of Progenitus are technically cheaper, but also much more limited in scope. The anthem effect is often forgotten, but still a nice perk for go-wide and token strategies. Selesnya also has good support for enchantress strategies (ex: Sythis, Harvest's Hand), and other strong enchantments like Aura Shards, so it's a card I often assume GWx decks to be running by default. The format may have sped up since its initial printing, but big-mana strategies never really go out of style.

[Igzex]

For most decks, this card offers you what you want, not what you need...

[hyalopterouslemur]

It always felt weird to me. The anthem is there just to justify including w in the mana cost. If you have a lot of mana sinks or x spells, feel free to run it. Token and other "go wide" players can always use an anthem that does something else as well, too. (And you can now just tap a forest to activate Ant Queen, or a forest and a plains to activate her twice. Or just get a bigger Decree of Justice.)

But yeah, I'd say most decks don't really need this.

[3drinks]

Sunday, July 18th, 2021; Maze of Ith

[pokken]

Maze is one of my personally favorite cards partly because I cracked one in a pack back in the day and have good member berries. But also I just love the fun times and politics of it.

I play a number of maze effects in breena and they always over perform. Most damage in edh is either pecking or hoofing and this shuts most pecking off completely which is very nice.

[Sinis]

Sunday, July 18th, 2021; Maze of Ith

What can one say, except that they're a-maze-ing?!