[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Consecrated Sphinx

[BeneTleilax]

Mardu is already sort of niche, and this seems worse than Tragic Arrogance. So it's not bad, it's just limited to Mardu decks that want two+ of this.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

It's a second Tragic Arrogance for the those who feel 5 mana is too much, two pips is too little, and true blue Cataclysm is too far. 5.8/10

[Sinis]

....I do wish more of the disturb creatures had useful triggers - it's really have for french vanillas to see play in constructed. Malevolent Hermit seems reasonable, and Dennick is fine if you want a hatebear, but I think the only other one I would consider is Lunarch Veteran // Luminous Phantom (who actually seems pretty amusing with Brago, as a self-recurring Soul Warden).

Lunarch Veteran was one of the ones I had my eye on, and I would definitely call it second or third best behind Malevolent Hermit and Dennick, but it's not quite as good as Soul Warden. It's only creatures you control (whereas Soul Warden is everyone's). Is the 2-mana buyout with flicker worth it? I wonder if it's impactful enough.

Friday, October 8th, 2021; Mythos of Snapdax

A fine card in Mardu, if your colour fixing is on point. Otherwise, I'd just play Tragic Arrogance. There's an argument for this card and Tragic Arrogance, of course...

[Crazy Monkey]

Similar to what others have said; I've only run Mythos of Snapdax in a deck that was already running Tragic Arrogance. They perform well in my experience because they aren't stopped by the more common protection pieces like Boros Charm or Heroic Intervention. However, that does complicate your own effort to make them asymmetric.

I had a recent game where I used both Mythos of Snapdax and Arrogance to keep control of the board, and want to specifically reference Guardian of Faith as a great way to make these type of board wipes more asymmetric. Especially with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge in knight tribal.

[Lifeless]

I love these effects and certainly wish they came around more often. My only real criticism here is that the colors are unfortunately restrictive.

[hyalopterouslemur]

I remember playing Alliance of Arms for one followed by Tragic Arrogance. A fine use of seven mana. Other times I just.look fo Grave Pact and friends.

This is slightly cheaper, and probably better in Mardu. More debatable in wubr, brgw, and {wubrg}, though green has a ton of mana fixing.

The key word here if "floating". Leave mana floating to rebuild your board.

[Igzex]

Not going to lie, every time the name of this card comes up I keep misreading it as Mythos of Spandex. The card itself is alright I guess but I don't see myself picking this over my other wipe options in this card's colors.

[Serenade]

Love the extended border versions of this cycle.

[onering]

Seems pretty good, but it's value is going to be highly variable. Rarely worth it unless you pay with RB, and then it can be devastating, but you can also run into situations where what you really want to kill is the only permanent of that type a person controls. It also runs into a lot of competition in those colors, including the absolutely busted ultimatum printed in the same set.

For Dennick, I think his biggest problem is the conflict between the two sides. His front side is an efficient hate bear with lifelink, and his backside is an inefficient flyer with a build around mechanic (both around creatures hitting the yard and clues). Building with him, you really want to use his backside and build around it because that's where the most proactive value is, and because he's a potential investigate commander, but his front side does nothing to support it and is just a hoop to jump through. The end result is the backside is overcosted. Then, when situations arise where his front side is needed, it leads to feel bad gameplay, either because you can't access it because you followed your gameplan and he's on his back half, or because by leaving him on his front half you can't execute your own gameplan. He would have been better, and more satisfying, if he lost the hate bear effect and got the investigate ability on both sides, and to compensate for it lifelink was taken from the front and given to the back half. There would still be tension between the sides, because the back side would gain combat relevance over the front side but keeping it on the front side would still have its benefits. Basically, you'd want to keep it on its front side until someone else kills it, then disturb it, so you'd basically only be paying commander tax every other time it dies, and getting an upgrade every other time it's out. As it stands, it's too unreliable.

[Mookie]

I used to run Tragic Arrogance in a bunch of decks, but I've cut it over time. Is Mythos of Snapdax's mana discount enough to make it worth consideration? Maybe. I think my main issue with Mythos (and Tragic Arrogance) is that Mardu has an extremely deep pool of board wipes to pull from - Merciless Eviction and Ruinous Ultimatum are both excellent on the high end, while Blasphemous Act and Toxic Deluge are both excellent on the low end. Certainly worth considering them if you can make use of their ability to hit a bunch of card types (or if you're running a voltron deck that wants to keep a particular creature alive), but there is a lot of competition.

[3drinks]

Saturday, October 9th, 2021; Dark Petition

[pokken]

Another functional copy of Demonic Tutor that rewards the style of gameplay we don't want (storm) was a pretty big design fail. I still really enjoy the card and will play it if I have the volume of instants/sorceries to enable it.

[toctheyounger]

I like it. The hoops are easy enough to jump through but its still not too pushed. I play it where it fits and its never egregious enough to be game breaking. Strong but not stupid strong is fine by me. I've nothing against the top tier tutors, but I do prefer cards like this, that really require that extra tiny bit of synergy to work well.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Card is saaaa-weet. Basically anything that discounts or rebates mana is doomed to be good.

[onering]

A very fair tutor. It needs a high enough instants and sorceries to be worth it, because 5 mana for a sorcery speed tutor isn't very good. Being a mana rebate rather than reduction is more fair because it makes it less likely to be fired off early game, but there are situations where it can actually be better as a rebate, and Dark Petition can be situationally better than even the venerable Demonic Tutor. If you, for instance, can reduce its mana cost by 1 it becomes a 1 mana tutor, if you can do it by 2 it becomes a free tutor, and if you can somehow can reduce it by 3 it becomes a free tutor/ritual. If you copy it, its a free double tutor/ritual. These are corner cases that probably venture into win more territory, and you already have to be doing fairly strong things in order for them to happen, but its still pretty neat.

[Mookie]

Dark Petition is pretty solid, but I've found myself cutting it from decks, mostly in the name of increasing deck variance. My personal heuristic is that three mana is a fair price for a tutor, so if you're paying the full five mana, it's pretty clunky. On the other hand, if you can get the Dark Ritual, it's pretty efficient. It does suffer a bit from losing flexibility compared to Demonic Tutor - you can't use it on turn 2 to fetch up a land, and you won't always have a great use for the extra mana (although you obviously could tutor for a three mana spell - Toxic Deluge and Necropotence are both obvious followups).

On the other hand, it works very well when copied or reduced in cost, since you get even more mana back. I recently cut it from my Kess, Dissident Mage deck, but it will probably return as soon as I finish testing some new cards and can free its slot back up.

[3drinks]

This is a good compromise for people like me that want to jam tutours, but since I don't want to feel like I'm playing a "bad" tutourless deck, I can cull my power level just enough that I'm not so consistent every game.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Storm. This can tutor for Tendrils of Agony and nearly pay for it. Or if you already have Tendrils, go for second breakfast.

[3drinks]

Sunday, October 10th, 2021; Magister Sphinx

An oldie but a goodie. How does the ol girl line up in this age?

[pokken]

Still hate these effects. Anything that says "%$#% you in particular" is something that irks me in commander I guess. Player removal is legit I guess but something about targeted laser beaming is not my fave? not sure exactly why.

My best guess would be that it's lingering rage at being the constant target of sorinning back in the day

This particular effect is just so tough to interact with. It maybe connects with my dislike of counterspell-only interaction stuff.

[Treamayne]

Sunday, October 10th, 2021; Magister Sphinx

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An oldie but a goodie. How does the ol girl line up in this age?

I despise this card, and all similar cards (Rune-Tail, Serra Ascendant, etc.). I believe they have no place in the format ("Interact poorly with the format" a la Shaharazad) - but I don't think the RC should ban them.

Since WotC has already tacitly acknowledged that life references to a specific number react poorly in formats outside the 20-life-60-card formats for which they were designed (see Angel of Destiny, Anya, Merciless Angel, Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, etc.); I think we are passed due for the functional errata to make these things match the new, current template.

A Magister sphinx (or Sorin) that set "half starting life" would be much better than the annoying, troll version we have now. I can only be thankful that I don't see it multiple times/week (as was common 5+ years ago).

PS: Poison should also be "half starting life" - for the same reasons.

[maeos]

great for dealing with players who gain too much life in decks that dont do enough commander damage. i understand people don't like it but a commander game has to end so this card is just facilitating it. if you dont have a right target to point it at, generally it means that you would be the target. in that case hold it just incase your health dips below 10 and you can spot heal yourself. love the card and have never been disappointed in it when i put it in decks.

[Igzex]

Looking at old cards like these that have no consideration for EDH is pretty funny these days as now WOTC seems to primarily consider EDH with its card design.

[Mookie]

Magister Sphinx (and Sorin Markov) are cards that interact a bit poorly with the format - setting a player's life total to 10 is much more impactful when people start with 40 life instead of 20. Additionally, if you do set someone to 10 life, it's usually possible to follow up with enough damage to take them out entirely.

....I used to see Magister Sphinx around somewhat frequently, but as decks have become more tuned, I see it less and less. Seven mana is a lot for something that doesn't win the game - it looks pretty tame compared to cards like Nyxbloom Ancient and Nezahal, Primal Tide. I have considered the Sphinx for my Sharuum deck - as an artifact creature, it's pretty easy for me to cheat in off Sharuum - but the rest of the deck doesn't really have any synergy due to its primary focus on winning through combo. If I ever make a more aggressive sphinx tribal deck, it's probably going in though - seems like a fun hit off Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign.

I'll call out Torgaar, Famine Incarnate as a more recent instance of this effect.

[hyalopterouslemur]

I mean, at 7 mana, the effect should be game-ending, right?