[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Consecrated Sphinx

[3drinks]

It's not the greatest card, but big dumb green things wil always have a place in my heart. Hope we see more of this self-replication ability in the future, could be very cool!

I'm thinking you play essence in hydra decks where you get to play 1-2 mana value 6/6s which seems a little unfair. Thinking in a shell for, say, a Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, or Gargos, Vicious Watcher type with the bear coming in a bit ahead since it's less specialized.

Obligatory shout-out to Living Plane and Endless One.......

[TheAmericanSpirit]

It's not the greatest card, but big dumb green things wil always have a place in my heart. Hope we see more of this self-replication ability in the future, could be very cool!

I'm thinking you play essence in hydra decks where you get to play 1-2 mana value 6/6s which seems a little unfair. Thinking in a shell for, say, a Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, or Gargos, Vicious Watcher type with the bear coming in a bit ahead since it's less specialized.

Obligatory shout-out to Living Plane and Endless One.......

I think it may be a little too dangerous in goreclaw. Any smart opponent will target your cost-reducing bear before your undercosted threats, and the deck kind of falls apart in GC turns into a generic 6/6.

[Toshi]

The combination of buyback, convoke and it generating token(s) is just absurd.
Often enough in mid-game situations it helps me past the tipping point in my Slimefoot, the Stowaway build. Tokens go brrr!

[3drinks]

The combination of buyback, convoke and it generating token(s) is just absurd.
Often enough in mid-game situations it helps me past the tipping point in my Slimefoot, the Stowaway build. Tokens go brrr!

I cannot imagine what TSP limited looked like with this card at common! But it's telling that this did not even get to sniff TSR.......

[pokken]

I used to love this card in Wort, the Raidmother very much, created a lot of convoluted combos and was super fun just for value.


Back in the days you could sit around with a 6 mana commander on the board for 3 or 4 turns and screw around.

[Sinis]

It's not the greatest card, but big dumb green things wil always have a place in my heart. Hope we see more of this self-replication ability in the future, could be very cool!

But not like Permeating Mass, that's just gross.

Thursday, December 16th, 2021; Sprout Swarm

This card is okay. It becomes self-reinforcing with enough saprolings, but I haven't run this card in an age because it just doesn't feel efficient enough. It may have been a wincon in Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant // Sasaya's Essence once, but, really that deck just wants to win with whatever it can.

You would think it could have made a comeback with the Magecraft effects in STX, but I suppose there aren't enough good effects?

Back in the days you could sit around with a 6 mana commander on the board for 3 or 4 turns and screw around.

100%. This is what they took from us.

[pokken]

100%. This is what they took from us.

The first year I played people would not even attack half the time they'd just play their cards and hold up Spell Crumple to make someone so depressed they'd go on a food run

[ironic gesture]

Ironically the BOAT with yesterday's card 😂

I'm thinking 'coincidentally' is the word you meant there. Sorry, I'm still suffering trauma from Alanis Morissette.

[kirkusjones]

Ironically the BOAT with yesterday's card 😂

I'm thinking 'coincidentally' is the word you meant there. Sorry, I'm still suffering trauma from Alanis Morissette.

That so many people think the song is ironic when it's merely coincidental is a little ironic, don't you think?

[Dunharrow]

I have seen it as a combo piece with Intruder Alarm

[ironic gesture]

Ironically the BOAT with yesterday's card 😂

I'm thinking 'coincidentally' is the word you meant there. Sorry, I'm still suffering trauma from Alanis Morissette.

That so many people think the song is ironic when it's merely coincidental is a little ironic, don't you think?

Truth

[Toshi]

I have seen it as a combo piece with Intruder Alarm

The one time i did see it outside of Saprolings or Wort, the Raidmother builds was in a Dramatic Reversal & Isochron Scepter combo package.

[hyalopterouslemur]

It's also a combo piece with doublers. With at least four other saprolings, Mana Echoes will also work.

When I first saw this card, it reminded me of a card I've always enjoyed, Lab Rats. It just has convoke as well.

[Mookie]

Sprout Swarm is a card with a very clean design - convoke and buyback work very well together, and the token further contributes to it by providing a discount on future casts. The net effect is you have one of few examples of exponential growth on a common - it won't double every turn, unlike something like Scute Swarm, but even a 20% multiplier can end up being a massive presence over the course of a few turns. Paying 5 mana for a single 1/1 token is a pretty bad rate, but if you have a board presence, generating a few tokens for free can be useful.

....in practice though, I think it's a bit too slow in EDH, at least without some additional effort. If you already have 20 tokens, making 4-5 more isn't what you want - at that point, you want to find an Overrun before a board wipe happens. As a result, I feel like Sprout Swarm is more interesting for its combo potential, whether that be with Intruder Alarm or cost reducers / Parallel Lives.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

This card was literally unbeatable in the TSP limited environment. With sufficient ramp and/or bodies, it's still very serviceable in EDH. I love that it's a self-propelling engine; once you hit critical mass, only a boardwipe can meaningfully slow it down.

[The_Hittite]

Late to the conversation, but I think the best play for Essence of the Wild might be to Donate it to someone. Preferably before their commander hits the field. Wrong color for Zedruu, though.

[tstorm823]

Late to the conversation, but I think the best play for Essence of the Wild might be to Donate it to someone. Preferably before their commander hits the field. Wrong color for Zedruu, though.

I do that trick with Infinite Reflection sometimes.

[3drinks]

Friday, December 17th, 2021; Empty the Pits

[Dunharrow]

I play this in my monoblack control deck. I don't do much with the graveyard so I can usually delve quite a bit. It's a good finisher. Not Torment of Hailfire but usually good enough to knock out one player at least.

[hyalopterouslemur]

How much is delve worth? Because this looks like garbage next to Army of the Damned, and a bunch of other cards if you're willing to look toward other colors.

[BeneTleilax]

Depends heavily on the deck. Self-mill decks will often care a great deal about either lands or nonlands in the graveyard, and inevitably build up a bunch of the other. So those can burn a truly large amount of chaff and make game-ending zombie mass. Otherwise, it's a miss. But I'd rather decks play the niche wincons that sorta suck outside of their strat than yet another Torment.

[RowanKeltizar]

Empty the Pits Feels overcosted to me. Paying wither 2BBBB or exiling 2 cards and BBBB for just one 2/2 zombie seems really bad.

I think especially after these recent innistraad sets there are just far more efficient ways to make zombie tokens.

[Outcryqq]

I have a GP stamped copy that I drafted in day 2 of a GP. I guess I thought that a GP stamped copy would be worth something, and there wasn't anything left in the pack that would make it into my deck. Not a good card, but worth a story I suppose!

[Mookie]

Empty the Pits is... a card that exists. If you have a fully stocked graveyard (or a ton of mana), it can produce an army of tokens at instant speed, which is certainly a thing. However, there are much better finishers for both of those situations - Living Death is usually a better way to take advantage of a full graveyard, while Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire is a better mana sink. As a result, I'm not entirely sure what niche Empty the Pits fills. I suppose it could do work in zombie tribal, but Army of the Damned exists... plus many zombie decks want to keep their graveyards full due to the recursive nature of many zombies.

Hmmm.... I think it suffers a bit from the fact that delve is an extremely difficult mechanic to balance - Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time ended up being pretty busted, while stuff like Temporal Trespass went the other direction and ended up almost unplayable. There's not a lot of middle ground other than on creatures (due to the fact that even a vanilla 1 mana 5/5 still trades evenly with any Swords to Plowshares). Empty the Pits can have a very strong effect (given sufficient support), so it was costed pretty conservatively as a result. Would it have broken Standard at XBBBB or XXBB? No idea.

[3drinks]

Saturday, December 18th, 2021; Duplicity

Wierd card is wierd...(nice to see Starke here living his best life lol)