[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Spinal Embrace

[Mookie]

Combos with Thragtusk!

Restoration Angel is still an excellent creature, IMO. The body is solid - 3/4 flash flyer for four mana is plenty fair. But the real draw is the flicker ability - saving one of your creatures from spot removal, re-triggering ETB effects, or just resetting a creature to use as a surprise blocker. There is a lot of potential, especially in dedicated flicker decks - I'm never sad to see it in Brago, and it also can do gross things with Yorion, Sky Nomad. It obviously goes down in value outside flicker-based decks, since you do want a high density of flicker targets.

Comparing it to Teleportation Circle / Ephemerate... I would rate it higher in the context of Brago / Yorion due to its ability to be flickered by them for free. If your blink deck is Roon of the Hidden Realm or otherwise single-target and expect to only get one trigger out of Restoration Angel, I could see going for a different flicker effect instead.

Also: a bit of a nonbo with angel tribal decks.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Resto is good. I would say all instant blink is good. Getting an extra body is nice, but not the end all and be all.

Teleportation Circle is repeatable, but not an instant. Ephemerate is cheap but no body. And neither is infinite.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, January 5th, 2022; Amulet of Vigor|sld

[Serenade]

Geth, Lord of the Vault
Mesmeric Orb
Zen3 spell-lands
Cycling lands
Thawing Glaciers
Worn Powerstone

That's all stuff I've used with it. Efficient. Not going into every deck, but it helps a ton in the right ones. Surprised it has not been reprinted to death.

[kirkusjones]

Wednesday, January 5th, 2022; Amulet of Vigor|sld

It's a second-ish copy of Archelos, Lagoon Mystic and is fetchable with Urza's Saga. What's not to love?

[Dunharrow]

Cool card but hard to use in EDH since there is no redundancy.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Also cycling lands and tri-lands and the like. You also get something off of diamonds and Coldsteel Heart.

Yeah, it's mostly going to be used for mana sources. But it can also be used to counter Kismet and friends.

The lack of redundancy does hurt it, since you'll want to play this early.

[Mookie]

Yeah, lack of redundancy hurts Amulet of Vigor a lot. The simplest way to build around it is with bouncelands or other tapped lands, but the tempo cost compared to just playing normal untapped lands is pretty massive if you don't have Amulet available. Beyond that use case, I could see it in decks like Averna, the Chaos Bloom, Karametra, God of Harvests, or Geth, Lord of the Vault that put permanents onto the battlefield tapped.

...I suppose Trinket Mage and Artificer's Intuition exist, so you could run it as a tutor target and fetch it with some consistency. I'm not aware of any particular combos that require it though. Maybe something in a UB zombie deck? A lot of zombies (particularly tokens) enter the battlefield tapped, so could be useful there.

[Jemolk]

I've got it in my fairly janky build of 5c Lands, where it does work. Not essential, but very useful. Especially if I ever get Maze's End going. The lack of redundancy does hurt it, though, especially as any sort of build-around.

[umtiger]

Cool card but hard to use in EDH since there is no redundancy.

...but I thought that this was a feature to be cherished deeply in elder dragon HIGHLANDER! So much so that there is a great disdain for tutors.

I've got it in my fairly janky build of 5c Lands, where it does work. Not essential, but very useful. Especially if I ever get Maze's End going. The lack of redundancy does hurt it, though, especially as any sort of build-around.

My man, "lack of redundancy" is an understatement if you're going the Maze's End route. You're one errant Guildgate getting exiled from the graveyard or removed from play and having a sad face for the rest of the game.

Amulet of Vigor being a one-of is just a cost of doing business when you run crap like Maze's End. Being able to activate Maze's End multiple times on the same turn with Exploration(s) + Amulet is the height of MTG for me. Or was...I haven't played paper MTG in a while.

[Serenade]

Meloku the Clouded Mirror/Patron of the Moon don't mind it.

[Mookie]

My man, "lack of redundancy" is an understatement if you're going the Maze's End route. You're one errant Guildgate getting exiled from the graveyard or removed from play and having a sad face for the rest of the game.

Two, technically - Gateway Plaza exists.

[Toshi]

My man, "lack of redundancy" is an understatement if you're going the Maze's End route. You're one errant Guildgate getting exiled from the graveyard or removed from play and having a sad face for the rest of the game.

Two, technically - Gateway Plaza exists.

May i also interest you in Pull from Eternity? A card, so quirky and tempting, yet i never found a deck for it...

[Jemolk]

My man, "lack of redundancy" is an understatement if you're going the Maze's End route. You're one errant Guildgate getting exiled from the graveyard or removed from play and having a sad face for the rest of the game.

Two, technically - Gateway Plaza exists.

May i also interest you in Pull from Eternity? A card, so quirky and tempting, yet i never found a deck for it...

Don't forget Riftsweeper.

[Dunharrow]

Cool card but hard to use in EDH since there is no redundancy.

...but I thought that this was a feature to be cherished deeply in elder dragon HIGHLANDER! So much so that there is a great disdain for tutors.

You know I love singleton. If I were to make a Patron of the Moon deck for sure this would be in it. I have tried it in other decks and it is hard to build with it. It often does nothing.
Some cards are just better in 60 card formats. A lot of turn 1 cards are like that. Look at Aether Vial.

[3drinks]

Thursday, January 6th, 2022; Overlaid Terrain

I bet this is a fascinating deck to make work, albeit risky AF.

[Mookie]

Overlaid Terrain looks to be high risk, medium reward. Sacrificing all of your lands is obviously a massive cost, and your reward for doing so is a four mana doubler, which is.... good, but not amazing, given that stuff like Mirari's Wake, Keeper of Progenitus, and Mana Reflection exist. It can be better if you have Splendid Reclamation / Planar Birth / World Shaper to recur those lands, or if you can play it turn 2-3 off a bunch of mana dorks before you have many lands to sacrifice, but... still pretty awkward, especially if it gets blown up or your recursion is countered.

....Titania, Protector of Argoth seems like the most interesting commander for this.

[Hawk]

I forgot this existed. Seems spicy and interesting in, say, The Gitrog Monster - draw a ton of cards, then use the Exploration effect from the Frog to slam out a bunch of turbo lands. Could be good in Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest or Korvold, Fae-Cursed King too - basically anyone who rewards sacrifices.

It's really risky though. Best case scenario you likely still lose one or two lands (assuming you cheat it out with some Elves or Rings), and then if this gets nuked you're way behind. And this grants an extra ability; it is not additional mana off of the land like Wild Growth. So it plays poorly with some nonbasics and other doublers. Probably more cute than good, at the end of the day, but it is really interesting.

[hyalopterouslemur]

At the time, the card of choice was Planar Birth (or Rising Waters on the flip side). Also another use for Second Sunrise. Or Land Tax.

These days, I think most players would consider Sun Titan and friends first, but there's also the problem of more mana doublers.

@Hawk close, but that "or more" means you only get one card without help.

[Serenade]

I just want to name its Nemesis brother, Death Pit Offering.

[Rorseph]

Seems like it could be good for setting up a massive play for Splendid Reclamation + Field of the Dead in Simic. I might have to try this in my Uro deck. Although, Zuran Orb could do the same thing for free.

[Sinis]

I wouldn't want to be on the bad end of a Nature's Claim for this. It seems really cool, but the risk is just catastrophic. Additionally, there are plenty ways to divest yourself of lands for Titania or as some kind of value play for Splendid Reclamation or World Shaper; Squandered Resources, Zuran Orb, Sylvan Safekeeper, God-Eternal Bontu, etc.

The most interesting parts of this card are obviated by more efficient things to make it go, regardless of what you want to happen on the other side of a Splendid Rec, World Shaper, or Planar Birth.

[materpillar]

Huh. I've never seen this card before. I can't use that sentence very often. My gut response is to just Stifle the trigger. Well because I'm dumb it was technically Opalescence + Torpor Orb but i like jumping through hoops.

[Mookie]

Huh. I've never seen this card before. I can't use that sentence very often. My gut response is to just Stifle the trigger. Well because I'm dumb it was technically Opalescence + Torpor Orb but i like jumping through hoops.

Unfortunately, there is no trigger to Stifle - it's a replacement effect modifying how it enters the battlefield, similar to a Clone. I assume it's designed that way so you can't float a bunch of doubled mana in response.

[materpillar]

Huh. I've never seen this card before. I can't use that sentence very often. My gut response is to just Stifle the trigger. Well because I'm dumb it was technically Opalescence + Torpor Orb but i like jumping through hoops.

Unfortunately, there is no trigger to Stifle - it's a replacement effect modifying how it enters the battlefield, similar to a Clone. I assume it's designed that way so you can't float a bunch of doubled mana in response.

Oh. This card is bad.

Goes infinite with Reiterate, Boomerang, Splendid Reclamation, Leyline of Anticipation, Amulet of Vigor though I suppose. XD