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

[Dunharrow]

Ad Nauseum should be banned and anybody who argues otherwise is not someone I need to play against. This card results in a win 99% of the time, and it takes a long time to resolve.

I understand why Griselbrand and Yawgmoth's Bargain are banned, and I don't understand why this is not given the same consideration.

[TheGildedGoose]

Ad Nauseam and Necropotence should be banned, but I play with both because I lack self-control.

[kirkusjones]

Running Ad Nauseam and Necro should both be clear messages about the kind of game you're looking for, in the same way "no tutors" or "no infinites" are for the more casual/battlecruiser crowd.

They're not everyone's idea of a good time, but that doesn't mean they should be banned.

Pubstompers are an unfortunate side effect of the format's cardpool. They exist in all kinds of hobbies though and spawn in retaining ponds fed on run-off from local game stores, indie record shops and Game Stops.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Let me introduce you to Necrologia.

Anyway, I like how the flavor text is literally saying "play with some way to have negative life and not die". Platinum Emperion will also work.

Though I must say, as a Laboratory Maniac enabler, it has nothing on Demonic Consultation.

[kirkusjones]

Let me introduce you to Necrologia.

Anyway, I like how the flavor text is literally saying "play with some way to have negative life and not die". Platinum Emperion will also work.

Though I must say, as a Laboratory Maniac enabler, it has nothing on Demonic Consultation.

Necrologia and Platinum Emperion is a non-bo. The Imperium prevents you from paying life. You'll need Platinum Angel instead.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Okay, no, I meant Ad Nauseam and Platinum Emperion.

What made me think of Necrologia is, the rules are so different from the card just to get a one-turn Necro.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

The biggest oof in magic. Nothing feels worse than tapping out into an opponent casting this and having to watch them figure out their one-card combo. Best case scenario, they whiff and kill themself. It never happens.

[pokken]

This card is kind of a blight on cEDH, but I don't remember the last time I saw it in normal games.

I have seen Necropotence a lot and even as just a value card where you refill your hand every turn it's pretty ridiculous.

Definitely cards I would not mind seeing banned as they really don't add much to the format for anyone.

[Mookie]

Ad Nauseam is, arguably, the strongest (non-banned) black pay-life-for-card-draw spell. Necropotence and Necrologia have clunky timing restrictions, while cards like Vilis, Broker of Blood and Greed cost mana to activate. In many cases, Ad Nauseam doesn't even have a downside - if you cast it from 40 life, you're almost certainly going to win with the cards you drew before your life total matters, given that it is, for some reason, an instant. Of course, if you do care about your life total (or want to actually draw your entire deck), you'll need Phyrexian Unlife or another way to not die, after which you can play Thassa's Oracle or another win condition.

Anyway, as others have mentioned, Ad Nauseam is a card that doesn't see much play in casual EDH - I could see it (and Treasure Hunt) in a lands deck, but otherwise it's a little too cutthroat. It's also a card that happens to be objectively stronger in cEDH decks - the lower your curve, the more cards you can draw. ....I guess you can also treat it like Blue Sun's Zenith and use it to draw ~5-10 cards to refill your hand, just as a value card. I'm unsure if that is preferable to lower-profile draw effects like Painful Truths - it probably depends on the deck.

[Igzex]

Yeah that guy in the artwork is me whenever this spell resolves. Just replace all the arcade writings on his parchments with the word "NO!"

[Sharpened]

Ad Nauseam is a full-fledged member of the "Hermit Druid All-Stars" club.

It's a card that is too powerful for non-cEDH games, but is not problematic. It doesn't accidentally ruin games. No one put the card in the deck and repeatedly triggers an "Oops, I guess I win" scenario. No one mistakenly convinces themselves that they are playing it fairly when they aren't.

Yeah, I suppose you could play it fairly. Stick it in a random deck, draw 3-6 cards at instant speed and hitting yourself for 5-10 damage. I don't think anyone would have a problem seeing the card played that way. It's just never played that way. You could stick it in with that new Witherbloom commander precon and it would work well there and be not broken, giving you some nice card draw and life loss to go with your synergistic cards. I'd expect everyone to raise an eyebrow when you cast it, and be pleasantly surprised when its merely good.

Look, this is a card that has Legacy and Modern decks built around it. In those decks, if you resolve it, you should win. You absolutely can build commander decks that meet that criteria. In non-cEDH games, no one wants to play against a 5 mana instant that should win the game if it resolves. Fortunately, almost everyone knows not to do that, so it's not a problem.

As for in cEDH, this is obviously powerful, but is it really more busted than several other things you can be doing?

[toctheyounger]

The card is very powerful. Banworthy? Maybe. I think taking flash away from it and having just a sorcery could water it down some but thats neither here nor there I guess.

I play it in one deck that cares about life loss and gain. If I didn't I wouldn't, purely because its usually an efficient way to dig for combo lines and not much more. 40 life goes a long long way.

Its certainly not a card thats on my radar for ban status (and there are like 5) but I can see why its on other peoples'. Its unquestionably one of the best draw spells in the format.

[materpillar]

I don't think this card is banworthy. It's actively bad in battlecruiser and lower powerlevels. Once it starts being good people should be aware of how busted it is. I have less of a problem with busted cards that take significant effort to be fully busted. If someone is ruining games with this they know exactly what they're doing.

[illakunsaa]

I think cards like ad nauseu are a good reason to drop the max life total.

[lyonhaert]

Alright, now it makes sense why I saw so much new-comment activity for this thread. lol

[Lifeless]

The most aptly named card in Magic.

[Myllior]

I don't think this card is banworthy. It's actively bad in battlecruiser and lower powerlevels. Once it starts being good people should be aware of how busted it is. I have less of a problem with busted cards that take significant effort to be fully busted. If someone is ruining games with this they know exactly what they're doing.

This is my thought on it too; it's powerful, but not remotely banworthy. Like Necropotence, I consider it a card that indicates you are generally trying to play at a higher power level; its inclusion is a conscious choice in how you're approaching the game.

I was tempted to include it in my Hive Mind deck, maybe along with some wheels so I can Ad Naus for zero and then make my opponents discard everything they just paid life for, but that's a chaos deck, so it hardly follows traditional deckbuilding paradigms.

[umtiger]

Ad Naus plus Manabond is fun for me.

One should be allowed to have fun when playing ~60 lands.

[onering]

For everyone who said it should be banned (or the life total lowered), let me ask you this: when was the last time you saw this problematically used outside of cEDH (where its full power use is not problematic)?

In cEDH, it wins the game. Its also 5 mana, and cEDH decks are more likely to be able to answer it, and cEDH is a format where games end quickly based on plays like this. Its what that sub format is about, and it doesn't dominate the way Flash Hulk did.

In regular EDH, I've rarely seen it, and I think that's the common experience. In the rare cases I HAVE seen it, its been fair. Its a strong card that trades a sometimes significant amount of life for cards. Necro will usually be a lot better, and if there's a card that's reasonable to discuss banning that's it (not that I necessarily would agree). Its a nice, instant speed draw spell that's got a decent amount of variance in non cEDH decks because the life loss can quickly add up. Its possible to use it end of turn to just dig for a combo for your turn, yes, but outside of cEDH the average mana values are high enough to make that dangerous (not to mention that it doesn't get cast as quickly and the caster is more likely to have absorbed chip damage, giving them less life to work with).

[3drinks]

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2021; Diabolic Servitude

I always liked this card. I think it's a tad under-played, though it's no Corpse Dance but sometimes you just want to keep picking up big dumb dumb fatties and place them on the board. Reasonable plan b type of card when the first one gets countered.

[Mookie]

Diabolic Servitude is sweet - it's a repeatable reanimation effect at a reasonable price. It's also a very weird card - for one, it's not actually an aura, even though it functions like one. I'll also note that it only returns to hand if the reanimated creature dies - if it is exiled or bounced, Diabolic Servitude just sits out doing nothing.

Anyway, at four mana, it's a little expensive for a reanimation effect, but its recursive nature makes it good at grinding out value in the lategame, assuming you don't run out of reanimation targets. It would be pretty amusing to blink repeatedly with Aminatou, the Fateshifter. Still, I think I would favor the cheaper Animate Dead for most decks - it isn't that common for there to be multiple creatures I want to reanimate, and my decks often care about reanimating the same thing multiple times, which doesn't work if it gets exiled.

[Hawk]

One of my all-time favorite reanimator spells, dating back to picking up the old "Fiendish Nature" preconstructed deck from Urza's Destiny that featured the card heavily.

Nowadays, I don't run it nearly as much. Part of that is that I finally actually own a few copies of Animate Dead and Reanimate. Those are the obvious go-to reanimation spells, and their existence (alongside Exhume, Persist, Stitch Together, Life // Death, and Necromancy for those that own them or are interested) makes a 4+ CMC reanimator spell a lot less palatable. After all, at 4 CMC you're just one off mass-reanimation back-breakers like Living Death and Patriarch's Bidding or more high-value reanimation spells like Phyrexian Delver (reanimate on a stick!) and Beacon of Unrest (hits any 'yard, hits artifacts, recycles itself) instead.

If I'm doing some sort of aristocrat-y thing (a thing that Servitude really rewards, so you can sacrifice in response to a bounce/exile effect or reuse Servitude a bunch in a single turn), this has competition instead from its Urza Block contemporary Victimize and from the instant-speed Rescue from the Underworld. More to the point, those kind of decks tend to do better with self-recurring dorks and token makers (your Gravecrawlers and Reassembling Skeleton and Bitterblossoms and what not).

Among 4 CMC reanimation spells, the two decks I have that reanimate stuff also prefer the flashback options on Dread Return and Unburial Rites since they play better with discard/self-mill effects. It doesn't help that most (although not all) top reanimator commanders come with their own way to reanimate stuff, which means you don't need a ton of redundancy and tend to gravitate towards only the 3-5 most powerful and efficient versions of this effect.

Even so, this is for sure underplayed at less than 1000 decks on EDHRECs. It's not "strictly" better than Rise from the Grave or Zombify and I know those cards are more accessible for newer players, but I think this card is better enough than those spells to replace them in most decks (they both currently outnumber this, and Rise by a lot).

[hyalopterouslemur]

It's okay.

<- Is spoiled with early reanimator.

[onering]

I'm not surprised Rise From the Grave is in more decks, it can reanimate opponents creatures. That means it's useful in decks that Diabolic Servitude isn't useful in, in addition to ones they are both useful in. Its also a less common effect, so there are more decks running it not as a strict budget option but as redundancy.

[3drinks]

Thursday, November 4th, 2021; Collector Ouphe...and incredibly similar big sister card null rod. Note that I'm not listing Karn, Great Creator here as it's one-sided while the former two are symmetrical.

With all the treasure use around, you'd think these would see far, far more play......