[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Rishkar, Peema Renegade

[Lifeless]

I honestly picked this guy up because of his amazing alternate art and ended up really enjoying him. Admittedly I added him to our group's shared Okaun, Eye of Chaos \ Zndrsplt, Eye of Wisdom deck so he's a bit of an obvious include anyway. All in all he's fun and right in line with what the deck wants to be doing.

[hyalopterouslemur]

That "If you win five flips this way." is unlikely. That's 1/32, and even with Krark's Thumb, it's 243/1024, so, 3.1% and 23.7%, respectively.

So, you're better looking at just 1 or 2.

[Dragoon]

I've been playing him since his release in my random deck, I've never been disappointed to see him unless I'm already on the verge of dying.

That "If you win five flips this way." is unlikely. That's 1/32, and even with Krark's Thumb, it's 243/1024, so, 3.1% and 23.7%, respectively.

So, you're better looking at just 1 or 2.

If I have more than 10 life or if I need to draw an answer, I'm definitely picking 5!

[DirkGently]

Honestly the draw power for a 3-drop is absurd. 2.5 cards per turn with no support? Jesus.

Luckily they stuck the words "flip a coin" on there, so despite being a broken standalone draw engine, everyone builds him as coin flip tribal.

Edit: also the "choose 1-5" implies that choosing 5 might be a bad idea when it isn't. You should always choose 5 unless you're on very low life (but still attacking for some reason).

They designed a broken commander but wrote his abilities in a way to make people build and play him badly. It's kind of genius tbh.

[3drinks]

Saturday, May 21st, 2022; Dragon Mage

[Sinis]

Dragon Mage is a fine issue originally from Scourge. I'm not sure I like symmetrical draw effects anymore, and I definitely don't like them at 7 mana. But, you know, it seems kind of cool?

[Mookie]

Dragon Mage has always felt pretty clunky to me - there's a reason it was downgraded to uncommon. Seven mana, no ETB effect, has to deal combat damage, and the effect is symmetric (which means your opponents will have a turn to dump their hand to get benefit from it). I'm not going to say that there aren't ways to abuse a free Wheel of Fortune every turn, but unless you're doing Sneak Attack / Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded shenanigans, I would probably look elsewhere. Magus of the Wheel and Wheel of Misfortune are both significantly less mana, or you could use Runehorn Hellkite if you really want a dragon.

[kirkusjones]

Dragon Mage, either of the mono-red Nehebs and Aggravated Assault is a great, relatively low power way to get a ton of extra combats.

[Dragoon]

He has lost a bit of his shine with time but he's still a fine card. Works obviously well with GY synergies such as Patriarch's Bidding or Eerie Ultimatum. He's also the only dragon wizard besides Niv-Mizzet. I wish the old frame foil wasn't so expensive though.

[Guardman]

I would really love to see a revamped Dragon Mage. Either cheaper or maybe built in haste. Just something as the card is borderline playable, but just needs that extra push.

[hyalopterouslemur]

It's good in Nekusar, the Mindrazer. Because, you know, doing an additional seven damage for each Underworld Dreams, Spiteful Visions and Nekusar himself. Plus a double Sudden Impact for each Megrim, Liliana's Caress, or Bloodchief Ascension.

[Igzex]

Good ol' Bondage Hood Dragon. Always a funny card but unless you build your deck around wheel abilities the card's usually going to be the exact opposite of a bomb in a multiplayer game.

[TheGildedGoose]

Honestly the draw power for a 3-drop is absurd. 2.5 cards per turn with no support? Jesus.

Luckily they stuck the words "flip a coin" on there, so despite being a broken standalone draw engine, everyone builds him as coin flip tribal.

Edit: also the "choose 1-5" implies that choosing 5 might be a bad idea when it isn't. You should always choose 5 unless you're on very low life (but still attacking for some reason).

They designed a broken commander but wrote his abilities in a way to make people build and play him badly. It's kind of genius tbh.

I built him as Time Walk tribal with payoffs for that above and beyond his attack trigger. It was, predictably, oppressive, but it was really fun.

[3drinks]

Subday, May 22nd, 2022; Cartographer's Survey

I suspect people sleep on this because it's not a Cultivate. Digging seven deep is pretty legit and the fact it finds up to any two lands, not just basics. Idk, I think there's lots of sweet design space here that many decks would enjoy.

[RxPhantom]

Cartographer's Survey seems fine, but I don't want to pay four for anything with whiff potential.

[Mookie]

I wouldn't compare Cartographer's Survey to Cultivate - the comparison here is with Explosive Vegetation / Skyshroud Claim. Cartographer's Survey has the upside of being able to hit nonbasics, but it also has the very significant downside of sometimes missing entirely. A brief hypergeometric calculation from the start of game (99 cards in deck, 38 lands) puts it at 82.9% chance of hitting two lands, which feels a bit lower than I would like. It does have a 97.1% of hitting at least one land, at least.

I'll also call out that I don't value Survey's ability to hit nonbasics that highly. One of the primary reasons to run ramp spells is to fix your colors, and if you can fetch whatever lands you want, you're guaranteed to be able to do so, assuming you have sufficient lands to fetch (and since you only need 1-2 fetchables, that isn't hard). You could feasibly support a light splash off a single basic, for example. However, Survey doesn't guarantee color fixing, which makes it much less reliable on that front. It does have the upside of being able to hit nonbasics that can produce multiple colors, but I would prefer the guarantee of being able to produce a missing color over the chance of hitting Command Tower for most decks. That math may change if you particularly value your nonbasics though - maybe Titania, Protector of Argoth wants Survey for the chance of hitting fetchlands, and doesn't care about fixing, for example.

That said, I do think Cartographer's Survey has some potential in 3+ color decks with few basics - if you're running a 4-5C deck with only one of each basic, that may not be enough to support a ramp suite of 5+ basic-fetching spells. There are workarounds for that - stuff like Farseek and Skyshroud Claim can get nonbasics - but most green ramp only gets basic lands, with the nonbasic fetchers doing so at a less efficient rate. Cartographer's Survey also has the upside of sometimes being more relevant in the lategame. If you've resolved Boundless Realms or another big ramp spell, you may not have any basics left to fetch, but at least the Survey still has a chance of hitting something. It also has the niche upside of dodging Aven Mindcensor and other tutor-hate effects.

[Dragoon]

I play it in my random deck. I haven't whiffed with it so far, but it's definitely a possibility. Still, hitting two triomes or two rainbow lands with it feels so nice.

I don't think I would play it over other options though (outside of theme restrictions). Skyshroud Claim could aso fetch for those triomes for example, Migration Path can be recycled late game and Circuitous Route offers gate synergies which will become more relevant with the next set.

[hyalopterouslemur]

The big issue is a whiff. It can be mitigated by the usual cards, but that's about it.

On the plus side, if you're playing Sylvan Library, then if nothing else, it will take the two cards you leave (and I hope at least one of them is a land) and put them on the bottom of your library.

[Mookie]

On the plus side, if you're playing Sylvan Library, then if nothing else, it will take the two cards you leave (and I hope at least one of them is a land) and put them on the bottom of your library.

....I'll note that this is true of any shuffle effect, if you're thinking in terms of refreshing the top of your deck. I suppose it has some niche uses if you care about the top of your deck though (ex: Tunnel Vision, Grenzo, Dungeon Warden).

Re: Circuitous Route - I wonder if the new gates will actually make a gate-based manabase worth playing. Currently, I only see them as part of 5C Maze's End decks, but new options may make them worth consideration for 3C decks. Gond Gate in particular seems like a strong option to fetch, and Baldur's Gate is a fetchable Cabal Coffers (if a bit more limited). There is certainly the issue of them generally entering tapped without Gond Gate out, but could be interesting to try out.

[kirkusjones]

Archelos, Lagoon Mystic can help with the whole ETB tapped thing.

[Sinis]

Archelos, Lagoon Mystic can help with the whole ETB tapped thing.

I think Archelos is one of the only place these cards are playable, unless there are very special considerations for the deck. It's not that I underrate Cartographer's Survey, it's that I think that effect is no longer powerful enough unless the result is steeply discounted (like it is with Skyshroud Claim).

[DirkGently]

Merely getting a random nonbasic isn't much better than getting a random basic. I guess in this case, nonbasics that etbt have their downside effectively removed, so there's that, but in general a basic isn't that much worse than a nonbasic. The issue with this card is that it invites comparison to ramp that tutors, which is a lot more reliable. Even if you manage to hit 2 lands with this card, they might not give the colors you need. Reliability is something I value in my ramp, and this ain't it.

if you really like your nonbasics and want to ramp them, just run Hour of Promise. One more mana and you get perfect selection.

[onering]

This card is straight trash and there are just too many better options at around the same mana cost. It's generally worse than Kodama's Reach and Cultivate, though at least it actually ramps the second land. Compared to Skyshroud's Claim especially and Explosive Vegetation it's upside is incredibly narrow and it's downsides are significant. Then Hour of Promise, despite being one mana more, is much better because it can actually find bomb lands. The only reason to run this is because you hate shuffling, or you plan on locking out library searching.

[BeneTleilax]

It's an interesting idea, but mana fixing and ramp is one of the areas defined by trying to reduce variance, so a card that has variance as a drawback is gonna be fundamentally unattractive. Same reason some groups I've seen that are incredibly anti-tutor are still fine with cards that tutor land for mana fixing or ramp.

[3drinks]

Monday, May 23rd, 2022; Component Pouch

Kinda like a more bankable Coalition Relic. And a dice enabler. I like it. Aannndddd I think we're seeing that I look at cards in a vastly different light and that's probably what my problem has been.