[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Spinal Embrace

[3drinks]

Tuesday, January 18th, 2022; Telepathy|usg

[3drinks]

Looking at the EDHREC page, this assertion appears to pan out - most decks running Fireflux Squad are doing so as a sac outlet, and not for the polymorph payoff. Jirina Kudro and Trynn, Champion of Freedom like to cash in tokens for value, but that's probably also the precon effect in action. After those two, I see Rionya, Fire Dancer and Winota, Joiner of Forces, who have similar uses for expendable tokens.

Fun note, the reason you see Jirina and Trynn/Silvar on that list is because they were in the precon that fireflux squad came in. The reason you're seeing Rionya is likely a misunderstanding of how the 'Squad works because it does target, meaning no matter how you stack the triggers, you need to choose it's target before Rionya's resolves (as soon as it's trigger tries to go on the stack).

Winota however, seems to be the best home for it as it offers redundancy to Winota's own effect.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Telepathy is quietly bonkers. For one mana, it's hard to say you can't afford perfect information and it always has an outsized impact on gameplay.

I could justify playing it in every future blue deck I build. 10/10, 5 stars.

[BeneTleilax]

On the other hand, a lot of people find it annoying to play against. I've targeted the Telepathy player just to get rid of the thing.

[wildfire393]

Looking at the EDHREC page, this assertion appears to pan out - most decks running Fireflux Squad are doing so as a sac outlet, and not for the polymorph payoff. Jirina Kudro and Trynn, Champion of Freedom like to cash in tokens for value, but that's probably also the precon effect in action. After those two, I see Rionya, Fire Dancer and Winota, Joiner of Forces, who have similar uses for expendable tokens.

Fun note, the reason you see Jirina and Trynn/Silvar on that list is because they were in the precon that fireflux squad came in. The reason you're seeing Rionya is likely a misunderstanding of how the 'Squad works because it does target, meaning no matter how you stack the triggers, you need to choose it's target before Rionya's resolves (as soon as it's trigger tries to go on the stack).

Winota however, seems to be the best home for it as it offers redundancy to Winota's own effect.

Rionya DOES actually work with Fireflux, because unlike a lot of those kinds of effect, hers is a "beginning of combat" trigger and not an attack trigger. So beginning of combat you get to copy a thing, then you declare attacks and Fireflux gets to polymorph it.


As for Telepathy, perfect hand information isn't really worth the card disadvantage, IMO. This feels like one of these things likeSpellbook where I'd never want to play a card that just did that, but I'd consider Reliquary Tower or Thought Vessel versions of it where I could get the effect "for free".

[3drinks]

Looking at the EDHREC page, this assertion appears to pan out - most decks running Fireflux Squad are doing so as a sac outlet, and not for the polymorph payoff. Jirina Kudro and Trynn, Champion of Freedom like to cash in tokens for value, but that's probably also the precon effect in action. After those two, I see Rionya, Fire Dancer and Winota, Joiner of Forces, who have similar uses for expendable tokens.

Fun note, the reason you see Jirina and Trynn/Silvar on that list is because they were in the precon that fireflux squad came in. The reason you're seeing Rionya is likely a misunderstanding of how the 'Squad works because it does target, meaning no matter how you stack the triggers, you need to choose it's target before Rionya's resolves (as soon as it's trigger tries to go on the stack).

Winota however, seems to be the best home for it as it offers redundancy to Winota's own effect.

Rionya DOES actually work with Fireflux, because unlike a lot of those kinds of effect, hers is a "beginning of combat" trigger and not an attack trigger. So beginning of combat you get to copy a thing, then you declare attacks and Fireflux gets to polymorph it.

Whoops. I missed it's beginning of combat and not on declare. That's s game changer for sure.

[Dunharrow]

Not a fan of telepathy. Perfect information is sometimes helpful but not sure it is worth an actual card.

[folding_music]

I love playing Revelation in enchantressy commander decks where yr not playing many non-permanent cards so you cant give away too many tricks. Telepathy goes one better but I think it's a badly designed card for precisely that reason

[Legend]

I've always loved Telepathy and always will, but only from a distance because in two player games, it's kind of weaksauce and in multiplayer games it's exponentially time-consuming. I prefer Glasses of Urza for those reasons. And it's colorless.

[Mookie]

Telepathy is a card that seems interesting in theory, but is awkward in practice. Giving everyone perfect information tends to result in gameplay slowing down significantly - everyone needs to track a bunch of extra information, and the table will often play much more conservatively if there is a board wipe or countermagic in someone's hand. The fact that it only affects opponents does certainly help, and I could certainly see it as anti-combo tech (since you can track how close an opponent is to comboing from hand), but still not a fan. I don't think I would play it outside a commander like Isperia the Inscrutable that cares about its opponents' cards in hand.

I'll call out Peek and Gitaxian Probe as two cards I would consider if I wanted this effect - they cantrip, trigger miscellaneous instant/sorcery synergies, and only give you the relevant information.

[materpillar]

Pretty sure @DirkGently swears by this card.

I've never seen it cast. Personally, it feels kinda goodstuff to me. I like building silly engines and It feels like it'd be hard to build a synergistic deck around it. Maybe with the Planeswalker's Mirth cycle or something? Meh. Not exciting.

[TheGildedGoose]

Great for control decks, worthless elsewhere.

[DirkGently]

Not a fan of telepathy. Perfect information is sometimes helpful but not sure it is worth an actual card.

It's not perfect information - for perfect information you'd need to know the contents of all libraries in order (also I guess the outcome of coin flips and dice rolls...plus shuffles...). Actually having perfect information would probably be insanely strong but also probably beyond the limits of reasonable human intelligence to utilize fully, especially considering the variability in the different ways players might act.

Telepathy is a lot better than just getting information, though. In low powered groups, it isn't necessarily amazing, but in groups where people are threatening to combo off or drop a craterhoof or whatever, it can be absolutely stellar at pitting your opponents against each other. Say one person has a game-winning spell, and another has a counterspell - now they're both trying to eliminate the other, even though you've been sitting there with a counterspell the whole time. You can even pass priority on a game-winning spell because you know that someone downstream of you can stop it. But they can't do the same to you, because you're an unknown.

I also think perfectgood information is a lot more valuable in commander than in competitive 1v1. For one thing, in most 1v1 formats you probably know a lot more about the contents of their hand than in commander, since decks are so much better established and have duplicates. In a lot of cases, there's only a dozen different cards that could possibly be in their hand, compared to commander where there are thousands. You probably know what sorts of threats they're likely to have and what to expect them to do. For a second thing, CA is a lot more rigid in 1v1. In 1v1, a lot of the time you're answering threat for answer 1:1, so being down by a couple cards can mean you can't answer a threat and lose in short order. Obviously that model is not sustainable in multiplayer FFA. Being able to pick out the most important threats is crucial, and being down one card to vastly improve your targeting is well worth it. This is also a format where one card might draw you a dozen, so losing just 1 in order to significantly improve the effectiveness of all your answers - and threats, since you know which answers your opponents have - can be extremely worth it. Depending on the deck, of course, not all decks are going to change their play patterns significantly based on what their opponents have.

As far as slowing things down and/or drawing the hate of the table onto your head, I think that's pretty group dependent. A lot of times I've had people go "urg how dare you reveal my secrets" but the damage has already been largely done, so there isn't a lot of actual value to destroying telepathy or killing me. Or they've realize that, while telepathy is irritating, someone else is two turns away from winning the game so they can't afford to waste time on me. Time-wise, usually people don't spend too terribly long looking at other peoples' hands, but it does vary. More commonly I end up being a sort of interpreter saying "oh look, they've got X card and a tutor, so they could combo off" or whatever. It just generally provides a lot more ammunition for throwing shade at other people. While otherwise I might have to say things like "they have X in play, so if they do happen to draw/hold Y they might combo off". Savvy players usually keep their important cards in hand until they're ready to use them to maximum effect, so revealing those cards frequently gives away their best information. I guess that's slightly off-topic - as far as time-wasting goes, most of the time my opponents don't necessarily see those same connections so I end up pointing out the most important cards. The players who are knowledgeable enough to look through hands and pick out the relevant bits are also usually the ones who are expert enough to be quick about it and not waste too much time.

One last note - it also enhances the balancing effect of multiplayer. When one person becomes "the threat", you can coordinate a lot better when the information is all on the table. It also makes it a lot more clear who the threat is, of course, so you can head them off early before they get out of control. Since you're exempt from this effect, it's obviously quite beneficial to you. If you're considering going for the win, you will often have 100% of the relevant information about whether you'll be successful or not. And if you're being very sneaky, you can even direct your opponents to tap the important mana or use the important cards which can stop you. Or at least wait until they use them of their own accord before you go for the win. Finding the right window is one of the most important decisions you'll make when you win, so having near-perfect information about that can be extremely valuable.

[duducrash]

Every time I build that a deck I get every card I think it can fit into it into a fat pack. Telepathy is always in that list, never in the 99 though

[hyalopterouslemur]

I want to point out it's also useful against blue players. Glasses of Urza is the weaker but colorless version.

Telepathy isn't perfect information, but it's as close as you get in this game.

As for me, I see information as yet another commodity. One of my favorite cycles is the Seers because I can just keep revealing the same cards over and over.

[Igzex]

While it has its uses in a control heavy table, I'm more inclined to drop this on the table as a social experiment, to see how my opponents act towards each other when deception is no longer an option.

[Mookie]

While it has its uses in a control heavy table, I'm more inclined to drop this on the table as a social experiment, to see how my opponents act towards each other when deception is no longer an option.

....if my immediate response to Telepathy is to drop a Sire of Insanity, does that make me a genius or a monster?

[PrimevalCommander]

While it has its uses in a control heavy table, I'm more inclined to drop this on the table as a social experiment, to see how my opponents act towards each other when deception is no longer an option.

....if my immediate response to Telepathy is to drop a Sire of Insanity, does that make me a genius or a monster?

Bit of both

[lyonhaert]

While it has its uses in a control heavy table, I'm more inclined to drop this on the table as a social experiment, to see how my opponents act towards each other when deception is no longer an option.

....if my immediate response to Telepathy is to drop a Sire of Insanity, does that make me a genius or a monster?

Sire of Insanity doesn't have flash. /j

But I suppose the answer to the question depends on whether you were going to drop it anyway... which seems likely... so I'm leaning toward monster. lol

[3drinks]

Wednesday, January 19th, 2022; Black Lotus|2ed

I know it's not legal but I seen it pop up on random and, well I mean c'mon it's the most iconic card of all time! Appreciation/celebration of the most famous card! But for the sake of commander, let's also look at it's closest proximities.

[BeneTleilax]

Jeweled Lotus is still a mistake.

[Hawk]

It is good that Black Lotus is banned, but I'd give a spicy take that I don't think it's the most format-warping card on the list if you were going to unban. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely in the top 3 of "cards that would totally warp the format if unbanned" but there's lots more that I think would warp the game more or be more ubiquitous. Black Lotus is a strong ritual, but in a multiplayer format screaming out ahead on turn 1 can end up archenemy-ing yourself to death. I think like Sol Ring you'd still run it in near-100% of decks just to have the options (hence, along with price and barrier to entry, why banned it should remain forever), and of course there's room to go for broken/infinite with Auriok Salvagers and many other recurring effects, but I don't think any more so than any other strong combo piece and ritual.

Then again, seeing that Lotus Bloom is at over 6,000 decks on EDHRecs means maybe my spicy take is just dumb. I was going to say that seemed too high, but I guess I can see that between cascade decks like Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder, artifact abuse decks like Osgir, the Reconstructor, graveyard manipulation decks like Daretti, Scrap Savant and Vadrok, Apex of Thunder, and the recent glut of "cast from exile" payoffs in Vega, the Watcher, Ranar the Ever-Watchful, and Prosper, Tome-Bound that it actually has a ton of good homes.

Heck, Lotus Petal is in 63,000 decks - it does much of the cute synergy things Bloom does but is also just a cEDH player's dream as a way to get just a bit ahead of the opponent.

Jeweled Lotus is indeed a mistake. The card is badly designed imo because it isn't actually that strong due to all its limitations, but it makes the games where someone highrolls it in their opening hand and slams a turn 1 or 2 commander miserable for everyone else. That sort of hyper-feast-or-famine design is just not great for Commander. When Sheldon frets over the "increasing speed of the format", Jeweled Lotus is a poster-child as to why - those that play in the wild have to tune decks to play as fast as a Jeweled Lotus highroll and/or to be able to answer a scary turn 1 or 2 commander. I think its only cost and social contract that has kept this thing from being a bannable problem.


I have nothing to say on Lion's Eye Diamond other than bafflement at its 16,000 decks on EDHRECs. I know this card is good, that just feels really high especially since all its best commanders are partners.

[DirkGently]

The more powerful your deck is, the better black lotus is. In a casual deck it's not very impressive. In a cEDH deck, it would be pretty insane.

Personally I don't think it would be anywhere near the most format warping cards. Not even remotely close. For one thing, no one would be able to play it, so any impact it might have is largely academic. For a second thing, the decks which can best exploit it are also the ones which were already pretty stupid. It isn't like Griselbrand that's big and splashy and accidentally's the game. If lotus helps someone end the game on turn 2, you weren't going to have a fun game anyway. In a casual game, Sol Ring is much stronger.

[hyalopterouslemur]

I use Lotus Bloom (and for that matter, Lotus Field) in any deck featuring Sun Titan.

Surprisingly the fact that we can now make Lotus Petal tokens with plenty of cards hasn't hurt its popularity.

I have used Nyx Lotus and Gilded Lotus in some decks, but mostly if I really need big mana.

Lion's Eye Diamond is insane but extremely linear.

[toctheyounger]

The original is strong, but I'm also with Dirk here. Strong in the highest levels, middling at lower power.

As for legal equivalents, there are very few I run myself. Most of the actual lotus equivalents like Gilded or Petal or Blossom are either average or extremely narrow (Petal). And as for LED, its ubiquity speaks more to how strong Underworld Breach and possibly Muldrotha, the Gravetide are more than anything else. Its very narrow outside of dedicated graveyard strategies.