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

[Gentle Giant]

Chulane, Teller of Tales and Korvold, Fae-Cursed King are so obvious in their brokenness.. I recall reading an article on the mothership from Melissa DeTora about designing these decks and how they struggled to find wincons, but the decks of these two commanders should've had no issues with that (clearly signaling an issue imo). It just shows that the lack of card pool in Brawl made them ignore some pretty basic safety valves to achieve a play dynamic akin to EDH (requiring some pretty powerful cards), as though they didn't consider the wider impact at all. Melissa having just started back then and being a super competitive player, it's not completely surprising to me that they flew off the handle in designing these. Competitive players are very hit or miss in actually designing balanced cards (evidence: see most of the first versions of cards submitted by World Champions).
Chulane, I think, was supposed to focus on the adventure mechanic (hence the bounce and 'teller of tales'). If it didn't have that bonkers etb effect and instead something more in line with the recently printed adventure doubler commander, we'd have an actually interesting card, but alas.

[toctheyounger]

Chulane, Teller of Tales and Korvold, Fae-Cursed King are so obvious in their brokenness.. I recall reading an article on the mothership from Melissa DeTora about designing these decks and how they struggled to find wincons, but the decks of these two commanders should've had no issues with that (clearly signaling an issue imo). It just shows that the lack of card pool in Brawl made them ignore some pretty basic safety valves to achieve a play dynamic akin to EDH (requiring some pretty powerful cards), as though they didn't consider the wider impact at all. Melissa having just started back then and being a super competitive player, it's not completely surprising to me that they flew off the handle in designing these. Competitive players are very hit or miss in actually designing balanced cards (evidence: see most of the first versions of cards submitted by World Champions).
Chulane, I think, was supposed to focus on the adventure mechanic (hence the bounce and 'teller of tales'). If it didn't have that bonkers etb effect and instead something more in line with the recently printed adventure doubler commander, we'd have an actually interesting card, but alas.

Yeah Melissa did a few interviews about Oko too. She handled it as best she could but that was a hell of a start to her game design career with Wizards.

Carmen Handy in specific designed the Chulane deck, and as another PT alumni its probably easy to see how they went off the deep end with Chulane and Korvold.

[aliciaofthevast]

Wednesday, July 20th, 2022; Chulane, Teller of Tales

Oh boy. grabs popcorn

If you bring this to my table, I'd just as soon pack up and go home and play on my Switch instead. Nothing says try hard like yet another Bant commander that draws cards and rewards you for playing the game.

[RxPhantom]

Wednesday, July 20th, 2022; Chulane, Teller of Tales

Oh boy. grabs popcorn

If you bring this to my table, I'd just as soon pack up and go home and play on my Switch instead. Nothing says try hard like yet another Bant commander that draws cards and rewards you for playing the game.

I've heard that complaint levied against so many commanders, but nobody embodies that concept more than Chulane. Gosh I just hate his stupid old man face and dumb floating book and 'do nothing then profit' mechanics. I bet his stories aren't even all that good.

[Guardman]

Wednesday, July 20th, 2022; Chulane, Teller of Tales

Oh boy. grabs popcorn

If you bring this to my table, I'd just as soon pack up and go home and play on my Switch instead. Nothing says try hard like yet another Bant commander that draws cards and rewards you for playing the game.

I've heard that complaint levied against so many commanders, but nobody embodies that concept more than Chulane. Gosh I just hate his stupid old man face and dumb floating book and 'do nothing then profit' mechanics. I bet his stories aren't even all that good.

Random Person: Chulane tell me a story.
Chulane: There once was a man from Nantucket. Every time he saw me he told me to...
Random Person: Wait a minute. That's not a story. That's a limerick.

[Crazy Monkey]

Not even a 69 land meme deck redeems Chulane, Teller of Tales to the point of being enjoyable to play against. I keep it built mostly for the novelty, but it rarely sees the light of day.

[Sinis]

I think Chulane, Teller of Tales could be fair if you played Keruga, the Macrosage as a companion, so you can't just play one-mana creatures and mass cycle. If you're playing Keruga as a companion, you'll (probably) get bottlenecked by mana.

[illakunsaa]

I play him in my Kynaios and Tiro activated ability tribal. I can use the tap ability to protect my combo/stax pieces and helps me get around my stax pieces. Eg. bounce Archon of Emeria back to hand during my turn. He is a human and couple of cards care for humans and he has synergy with Dusk // Dawn.

[pokken]

Chulane, Teller of Tales


Noooooooope. The biggest of nopes. Commander on easy mode.

Chulane and Korvold belong in the dustbin of magic history with Golos as failed attempts at commander design.

Commanders that both ramp and draw cards or draw cards from ramping or ramp from drawing cards are so suspect

[Gentle Giant]

Quick question to everyone: should they ban this, or would the hypothetical Banned as Commander be enough? I think the latter would be fine, for Korvold too. They are still strong, but less egregious.

[Melua]

Quick question to everyone: should they ban this, or would the hypothetical Banned as Commander be enough? I think the latter would be fine, for Korvold too. They are still strong, but less egregious.

Chulane still does a lot of work in Roon, and Korvold is so damn good in Windgrace.

[Gentle Giant]

Quick question to everyone: should they ban this, or would the hypothetical Banned as Commander be enough? I think the latter would be fine, for Korvold too. They are still strong, but less egregious.

Chulane still does a lot of work in Roon, and Korvold is so damn good in Windgrace.

True, but isn't the recastability of these two the worst about them (if played as a commander)? They'd still be kill-on-sight in the 99, but banworthy?

[3drinks]

Quick question to everyone: should they ban this, or would the hypothetical Banned as Commander be enough? I think the latter would be fine, for Korvold too. They are still strong, but less egregious.

Korvold would be just fine in the 99. No stronger than Prossh having access to Food Chain tbh. Korvold's biggest problem is the inevitability he presents from ready access. Even in my white border Korvold (where I still had access to Fecundity, Greater Good|9ED, and grave pact|8ed), having regular access to the dragon was too much. But it's moot because Sheldon and the RC determined that banned as commander was "too complicated" of a mechanic -_-

So I'm turning mine into Zangief, the Red Cyclone, whenever my box arrives.

I think Chulane, Teller of Tales could be fair if you played Keruga, the Macrosage as a companion, so you can't just play one-mana creatures and mass cycle. If you're playing Keruga as a companion, you'll (probably) get bottlenecked by mana.

Keruga sure does "casualize" a lot of unfair things into very fair decks, doesn't it.

[Gentle Giant]

Quick question to everyone: should they ban this, or would the hypothetical Banned as Commander be enough? I think the latter would be fine, for Korvold too. They are still strong, but less egregious.

But it's moot because Sheldon and the RC determined that banned as commander was "too complicated" of a mechanic -_-

That's a common misconception, see this article for their perspective: https://articles.starcitygames.com/magi ... good-idea/

One reason they give is that it's too much of a negative in the short term. Ripping the bandaid off would kill a lot of decks. But I highly recommend reading the whole article.

[3drinks]

Yeah, I've seen that, and I don't buy it. That whole article is just lip service bordering on gaslighting any players that don't play like they do™.

[3drinks]

Thursday, July 21st, 2022; Pontiff of Blight

[Serenade]

Even back then the six CMC spot had to put you in an excellent spot to win in EDH. I always thought this guy was so cool, the weird stats, great typing...but it needs too much else (more spells to be cast, more creatures on board, more mana for extorting) to be great, so I never used it.

You make a Bishop of Blight 0/4 for four today...well, that's also a competitive spot these days, and it probably would need a weird ward ability, too.

[Hawk]

I've tried this in a lot of places - zombies, Doran, the Siege Tower, spellslinger-y token decks, lifegain decks. It seems like it should be so good, but in practice it's so underwhelming. It's effectively a 2/7 do nothing for six which isn't where you want to be in EDH, and requiring you to both have a decent board of creatures and a hand of spells to cheaply toss out for extort triggers is just really niche. It's tough out there since typically Exquisite Blood /Sanguine Bond are going to be more resilient and powerful for lifegain matters decks while even humble Grave Titan is just a more powerful gorilla card for 6 MV in most decks. Tough to find a good home for the ol' Pontiff these days.

[void_nothing]

The circumstances where you can really take advantage of all those extort triggers are relatively narrow simply because you need to have a lot of creatures out, cast a lot of spells, and have a lot of extra mana. I actually have used the Pontiff in Doran and he's been so-good-he's-okay.

[OneAndOnly]

The dream is that you'd have the Pontiff plus three creatures out, play a 1MV cantrip, but spend four more to drain four, gain four -- and then hopeully draw something worthwhile to cast next turn. The problem is that 1MV spells are often nigh useless, the swing in life is meaningful but only when you get to high enough numbers with creatures, and it's a continual mana dump that restricts the mana you can hold open for more meaningful interactions. At least it doesn't require you to tap your creatures, so you can still block and activate abilities, but it feels very grind-y and not terribly exciting.

[Gentle Giant]

Yeah, I've seen that, and I don't buy it. That whole article is just lip service bordering on gaslighting any players that don't play like they do™.

Big oof, that's quite a pessimistic read of it: why would you buy the weird 'too complex' argument over what's argued in the piece itself? Feels as though you're not giving them a fair shake at all.

Pontiff of Blight is a bomb in my playgroups, take from that what you will

[hyalopterouslemur]

The only deck where this is even remotely viable is a token deck with Earthcraft and similar, and that's very low on the list of Fun Times With Hundreds of Mana.

[RedCheese]

I really like him, but the mana cost is a bid downer for me

[Mookie]

Pontiff of Blight is cool, but it does need the right deck - generally, a deck that both has a bunch of creatures and a bunch of mana. At that point in time, every spell you cast turns into an Exsanguinate, which is pretty sweet. It is a bit slow / telegraphed though - I usually see Exsanguinate cast for X=15 or more as a finisher, and draining for 3 or so with every spell will make you archenemy pretty quickly. At least you'll have a nice life buffer?

Also, like the recently-discussed Necropolis Regent, it's a black 6-drop, which is a pretty competitive slot. Similar to the Regent, I'm generally a bit hesitant to include win-more cards that require already having a decent board, and that need to stick around for a while to generate value. I'm a bit more forgiving of Pontiff though - extort is a pretty slow mechanic, so if you're playing it, you're probably aiming for a longer, grindier game anyway, in which case a board stall seems more likely.

[NZB2323]

Pontiff of Blight is a win-con in my cleric tribal deck, but it's probably the worse win-con in the deck after Sorin Markov, True Conviction, and Skemfar Shadowsage.

The lifegain can have nice synergy with cards like Voice of the Blessed, but it's definitely not one of the best cards in the deck and I hate seeing it in my opening hand.

But late game if I'm putting a creature with Ravos, Soultender into my hand and drawing 3 cards a turn with Tymna the Weaver, and drawing cards with creatures like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician and Twilight Prophet, and I have a bunch of cheap creatures in play and in my hand, like Mother of Runes, Soul Warden, Changeling Outcast, and Legion's Landing // Adanto, the First Fort, it can end the game.