[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Jetfire, Ingenious Scientist

[PrimevalCommander]

I need to pick up one of these after the reprint. I never paid much attention to the Silence ability, but instant speed interaction is ubiquitous now, so having this at least forces opponents to either use it early, or deal with the equipment instead of blowing out my combat step after declaring attackers. So I have this and Dragonlord Dromoka on my buy list.

[void_nothing]

At the max pump level this is absurd - are there 5C commanders who want it?

[OneAndOnly]

I like the "As long as this is attached" mechanic; I think it's underused.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I can count on two hands the amount of times one of my goons has eaten dust because I tried to equip this thing. It's good, but too conspicuous maybe. It's usually unwise to forfeit your ability to interact, so it usually gets an answer.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Colorless worse Grand Abolisher. With two colors, it's strictly better than Vulshok Morningstar; with three, strictly better than Vulshok Battlegear.

[illakunsaa]

I think it's pretty decent. I like low cost equipments that have an effect and also pump power. People having on board activated abilities is pretty rare.

[3drinks]

Saturday, September 3rd, 2022; Sakashima's Student

[Serenade]

They need to reprint this card into oblivion. Fair clone cost, promotes aggression, has a tribe, good art. Price tag wrecks it.

[hyalopterouslemur]

This could get busted fast, what with all the "can't be blocked" creatures in blue.

[Ruiner]

I really want an option to get this in foil for my Sakashima the Impostor deck.

It's a great card that can really catch people off guard for potentially a lot of damage depending on the board state.

[Mookie]

Four mana for a vanilla Clone is somewhat overpriced these days. Clever Impersonator, Stunt Double, Dack's Duplicate... the four mana clone slot is pretty competitive, so I would be hesitant to run any single one of them unless I were confident that it synergized more with my deck than the alternatives. On the flip side, two mana for Phantasmal Image is a bargain. As a result, Sakashima's Student seems like a pretty solid option if you can ninjutsu it in consistently. Obviously at its best in decks like Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow that care about the ninja tag, but I could also see it being played elsewhere. Although if most of your creatures are Flying Men, then I would have some concerns about whether or not there are consistently other creatures worth copying.

....given the price tag, I'd probably lean towards other options for the foreseeable future, but could be a nice option if it gets a reprint.

[NZB2323]

Four mana for a vanilla Clone is somewhat overpriced these days. Clever Impersonator, Stunt Double, Dack's Duplicate... the four mana clone slot is pretty competitive, so I would be hesitant to run any single one of them unless I were confident that it synergized more with my deck than the alternatives. On the flip side, two mana for Phantasmal Image is a bargain. As a result, Sakashima's Student seems like a pretty solid option if you can ninjutsu it in consistently. Obviously at its best in decks like Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow that care about the ninja tag, but I could also see it being played elsewhere. Although if most of your creatures are Flying Men, then I would have some concerns about whether or not there are consistently other creatures worth copying.

....given the price tag, I'd probably lean towards other options for the foreseeable future, but could be a nice option if it gets a reprint.

And we just got Activated Sleeper, but I'm not sure how good that card is.

[3drinks]

Sunday, September 4th, 2022; Ritual of Subdual

[TheAmericanSpirit]

This is one brutal finisher. MonoGreen has the ramp to sustain it long after its paralysis has done the necessary damage.

[materpillar]

Seems really good with the Defiler of Vigor. This looks like Contamination but green. I tend not to play people who play Contamination.

Never seen it before. Seems like a pretty sweet old card to slam down in a more cutthroat meta. Also, that flavor text is great.

[OneAndOnly]

Green also has the most access to non-land mana producers (that aren't arifacts). Plus, foreknowledge means that you can build your deck around it.

[kirkusjones]

How does this feel as a stax piece? I've been kicking around some ideas for mostly colorless Meria, Scholar of Antiquity and have contemplated including some stax elements.

I guess the broader question is, how do people feel about stax pieces as a way to guarantee a win either on the same turn or within a turn cycle?

[RedCheese]

Never seen this card before. And is kinda sweet as a tax piece. of coruse been a stax piece isn't favored by others XD, but nonetheless is an interesting card.

[Mookie]

I may have seen the card name for Ritual of Subdual and confused it with Culling Ritual or Glare of Subdual. Maybe. I can neither confirm nor deny.

...anyway, it looks like a moderately questionable stax piece. Cumulative upkeep means it will usually go away eventually (unless you have Chisei, Heart of Oceans or some other way to remove counters), but even just a turn or two of shutting down your opponents' colored mana can be enough to steal a game. Of course, there are plenty of ways around it - mana rocks and other non-land mana sources in particular, but constraining your opponents to the colored mana produced by just a few mana rocks still limit them to just 1-2 spells per turn.

Still, it's not a card I've ever seen played, nor do I expect to see it. Stax is a strategy where you sort of have to be all-in on it - if you want to lock your opponents out of the game, you want to use the strongest pieces available, and Ritual of Subdual looks to be strongly outclassed by stuff like Blood Moon and Back to Basics. On the flip side, if you're only doing a little bit of stax, then it probably won't be worth the amount of hate it draws from the rest of the table, so you may be better off not doing it at all.

I guess the broader question is, how do people feel about stax pieces as a way to guarantee a win either on the same turn or within a turn cycle?

Personally, I'm in the anti-stax camp - being unable to do anything is a frustrating experience. If you play a stax piece and then close things out in a turn or two, then that's fine... but my experience is that most stax pieces aren't enough to win the game by themselves, and just result in the rest of the table playing draw-go for a few turn cycles until they find an answer.

[3drinks]

Monday, September 5th, 2022; Chromatic Orrery

Let's see if this gets the same discussion level as the other chromatic mana fixer. For the record, I'm in the camp of this is $30 jank. There's your 3drinks™ Hot Take of the Day!

[TheGildedGoose]

Why is this card $20?

[3drinks]

Why is this card $20?

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Why is this card $20?

My thoughts exactly. If this us the best you can do for seven mana, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

[Hermes_]

Why is this card $20?

Modern? The art is pretty cool.

[OneAndOnly]

Well -- it looks like a powerhouse, so Timmy likes it a lot. It adds five mana of any color! It draws five cards! (Sometimes.)

Hardcasting it for 7 is silly; there are plenty of other cards that'll finish the game for you in the same range of mana, or at least get you onto the home stretch.

Cheating it into play yields the same answer -- there are better targets.

So it ends up in the "win-more" pile, maybe getting played at the casual deck, or m-a-y-b-e an astrology themed deck (?)