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

[ISBPathfinder]

I think I have played it before but its just kind of tricky to get a ton of tokens and move to attack with them on top of having this in play. Its powerful if you can keep this around but its a high profile target and it takes a bit of setup to make it work. All in all, I don't really play it much because I feel like the setup for it to shine is a bit intense. It totally can take over games but it just has a lot of things needed for that to happen (on top of being red).

[Outcryqq]

Five-Alarm Fire
Like ISB said, too much setup. To make it really great, you need to connect with what, 10-20 dudes? If I'm in a game where I'm able to connect with 10-20 creatures, my opponents should probably already be dead.

[Sinis]

Ha, I was just telling my gf a few weeks ago about how I wanted biscuits and gravy but hadn't seen any in NZ. Maybe I'll have to try dusting off my culinary skills while we're in lockdown.

I think I would take something with a static anthem-like ability like Thunderfoot Baloth over this, even though Blossoming Bogbeast would be thematically more appropriate in a lifegain deck, but I think you'd need a lot of lifegain for this to be deadly.

Lifegain isn't exactly hard to come by - Life Goes On gives you 8 life for 1 mana, after all, so the ceiling here is quite high. I think I prefer this to thunderfoot generally, simply because thunderfoot is horrible when it gets shot out from underneath you mid-combat. With a trigger, you're a lot less vulnerable. It'll still probably die pre-combat, but at least you'll have a more accurate picture of what you're working with. Though, thunderfoot does have immediate impact without haste, which bogbeast does not.

Ok, but are you really playing Life Goes On in EDH? I'm not saying the ceiling is low, I'm just saying that you'd need to gain a lot of life for it to get there. There are ways to do that, sure, but I wouldn't want to be stuck with the Life Gain card and without the payoff, or this card without the lifegain.

Also, NB, Blossoming Bogbeast is probably okay with extra attack steps.

[Sinis]

Wednesday, august 18th, 2021; Five-Alarm Fire

This card was a shoo-in in a Kari Zev, Skyship Raider deck I never built. Any go-wide strategy might like it, but, nowadays Strixhaven Stadium exists.

[The_Hittite]

Five-Alarm Fire
Like ISB said, too much setup. To make it really great, you need to connect with what, 10-20 dudes? If I'm in a game where I'm able to connect with 10-20 creatures, my opponents should probably already be dead.

One important note is that it triggers from any combat damage. Get chump blocked? Get a counter. Block something? Get a counter. If you're running a combat focused deck, and especially one that has lots of cheap disposable creatures, it rewards you for doing what you already wanted to do anyway. Think of it more like a force multiplier like an anthem rather than an outright win condition.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Everyone forgets it's combat damage, not simply combat damage to a player, but also combat damage to creatures and planeswalkers. So, you can use double strike and vigilance to your advantage as well.

I run it in Rith and Saskia. It's never really let me down in either deck.

[onering]

And importantly, you can aim the damage at creatures. So even if it's not going to kill a player, you can remove some key dudes with it, or simply use it to remove blockers so more of your guys can get it. It is a lot of setup, so it's really only good in decks that are going to be doing those things anyway.

[Mookie]

Five-Alarm Fire is.... fine? Not exciting though. Assuming you point all the damage at players, it's roughly equivalent to Cavalcade of Calamity. If you point the damage at creatures / planeswalkers, it's a reasonable repeatable source of removal, but still feels somewhat clunky - it does trigger on any combat damage (even if you don't hit a player), so it's not difficult to get one trigger.... but if you're already swinging with five (or more) creatures, then pretty much any Trumpet Blast effect will do.

Anyway, I'll believe it's good in red token-based decks, like Zada, Hedron Grinder and Krenko, Mob Boss.

[RadiantSophia]

-nevermind-

[3drinks]

Thursday, August 19th, 2021; Estrid's Invocation

Copy Enchantment who?

[Mookie]

I'm going to request that we go to our next upkeep so Estrid's Invocation can become a new card, since we already covered it a few months ago.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Blinking clone is good. Hey, anyone like constellation? There are like, 19 constellation cards plus a few unmarked ones that are worth considering. The real holy grail to constellation is Archon of Sun's Grace and Enchanted Evening, and both halves of that combo also combo with this.

[3drinks]

I'm going to request that we go to our next upkeep so Estrid's Invocation can become a new card, since we already covered it a few months ago.

You do so many cards over the years, and you forget some. I was just happy to get something playable, and not the twenty-third card in someone's draft deck...

[Mookie]

I'm going to request that we go to our next upkeep so Estrid's Invocation can become a new card, since we already covered it a few months ago.

You do so many cards over the years, and you forget some. I was just happy to get something playable, and not the twenty-third card in someone's draft deck...

Ha, no worries. I only called it out because it felt particularly recent - if it were from a year ago, I wouldn't have minded as much.

Now, Sea God's Revenge, on the other hand... that's a card I could wax poetic about for hours. Sure, it's outclassed in every way by River's Rebuke... but what if you throw in scry 1? At that point the card becomes truly unmatched! Plus, it gets bonus points for flavor text - you can run it in Sphinx flavor text tribal, Thassa, God of the Sea decks, and even 6-drop tribal! That's something you can't say about Cyclonic Rift, which is clearly a strictly less flavorful card.

Vedalken Entrancer I make no excuses for. He knows what he did.

[Serenade]

Sea God's Revenge's art feels like it's from a bygone era. Love it.

[Hermes_]

I'm going to request that we go to our next upkeep so Estrid's Invocation can become a new card, since we already covered it a few months ago.

You do so many cards over the years, and you forget some. I was just happy to get something playable, and not the twenty-third card in someone's draft deck...

umm excuse me it was the 21st and 22nd!

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Sea God's Revenge would be a baller instant in limited. Sadly, sorcery speed kills it for me. It's a shame, really. Timing is the make/break fulcrum that keeps many cool cards out of constructed.

Also, if it's gotta be a sorcery triple bounce, there's Baral's Expertise that comes with extra flexibility and virtual mana savings.

[3drinks]

Friday, August 20th, 2021; Angel of the Ruins

That reminds me I really need to add this to Kaalia. Both Kaalias, actually. That...doesn't happen much, typically the two decks are doing different enough things.....

[tstorm823]

I find the flavor here questionable. By my understanding, destroying something is breaking, where exiling something is sending it away. If you exile a couple artifacts, there shouldn't be ruins left by them being broken, cause they weren't destroyed, they were exiled. Obviously, this makes the card totally unplayable.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

It's cool, I guess. Big robot angels aren't really my bag, I'm more of a mutant-of-evolution organic monster guy (e.g. Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger) when it comes to fatties. The card is certainly playable, it's just not my type.

[pokken]

Just give me a 4 Mana exiling reclamation sage already.

[Dunharrow]

I really like the design. Get a plains, reanimate it for value. Of course, it is much worse than other reanimation targets, and you probably would rather run straight-up removal spells than have to reanimate this.
I am not sure if I have a copy somewhere, but I would definitely put this into a cube with a reanimator subtheme.

[Sinis]

Friday, August 20th, 2021; Angel of the Ruins

I've seen this function in reanimator decks and literally nowhere else. That mana cost is untenable for the effect/body (except, perhaps, in Karametra), but, it does helpfully deposit itself in the graveyard.

It's worth noting that it's self-referential. There is a distinct non-zero chance that someone will clone this and exile your copy.

[onering]

I find the flavor here questionable. By my understanding, destroying something is breaking, where exiling something is sending it away. If you exile a couple artifacts, there shouldn't be ruins left by them being broken, cause they weren't destroyed, they were exiled. Obviously, this makes the card totally unplayable.

She's not making the ruins, she's of the ruins. She's a big living angel statue that cleanses things, and survived the ruins becoming ruins.

[Outcryqq]

Angel of the Ruins
I really like this card! It's versatile - early on, I'll use it for the cycling to help fix my mana base. Late game, you can play it for its cost, and the ETB almost certainly has targets in the late game. And it's white AND an artifact, a good color and good type for recursion. I have it in Osgir, the Reconstructor, where it's an obvious choice and was in the precon, and I also use it in Mangara of Corondor. Solid card in the right deck!