[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[Dunharrow]

I am hoping Stitcher's Supplier gets a reprint. The price point is kinda silly for an uncommon from a core set. Since I never buy Core Set products, I don't have one. Maybe if they reprint in a masters set I can get a couple one day.
Refuse to spend 4$ on this because it's one reprint away from being 25 cents.

[DirkGently]

I don't really get the hype on this card. Tome Scour is garbage and it only mills 1 less, without the need to sac it or anything. I can see why some decks would play it but it doesn't seem remotely exciting.

[toctheyounger]

I don't really get the hype on this card. Tome Scour is garbage and it only mills 1 less, without the need to sac it or anything. I can see why some decks would play it but it doesn't seem remotely exciting.

Its a yard filler in a reanimation build thats a creature itself. Its not an exciting card but it is very good.

[wildfire393]

I don't really get the hype on this card. Tome Scour is garbage and it only mills 1 less, without the need to sac it or anything. I can see why some decks would play it but it doesn't seem remotely exciting.

Being a body, especially one with a very relevant type, is a big deal. Think of it less about "needing" to sac it, and more of being ABLE to sac it. It's also incredibly easy to reanimate, bringing it back again and again to mill a bit more each type.

Black has more inherent graveyard synergies than blue does. Stuff like Reassembling Skeleton, Bloodghast, Gravecrawler, are great to mill into.

It's not a broken card by any stretch of the imagination, but it's a solid role-player that fills a well-defined niche.

[DirkGently]

Its a yard filler in a reanimation build thats a creature itself. Its not an exciting card but it is very good.

If I'm playing reanimator, I really want a lot more control over what's going into my yard, and I can't necessarily kill the body so it's not a reliable 6. 3 random cards has a solid chance of hitting lands, reanimation spells, control, etc. Give me a cheap discard outlet over this easy. @wildfire393 I don't think it's very often I'd want to reanimate a mediocre 1-drop in a reanimator deck, unless it gets caught up in a Living Death or whatever.

I feel like the place this makes more sense is something like Izoni, Thousand-Eyed that just wants any random crap in the grave and cares about creatures as a card type. Which, sure, is a genre of deck, but it's not so common that this becomes a major EDH player.

Mostly it seems stronger in other formats, where the 1/1 body is more relevant, rather than purely an obstacle to getting the rest of your mill.

[toctheyounger]

Its a yard filler in a reanimation build thats a creature itself. Its not an exciting card but it is very good.

If I'm playing reanimator, I really want a lot more control over what's going into my yard, and I can't necessarily kill the body so it's not a reliable 6. 3 random cards has a solid chance of hitting lands, reanimation spells, control, etc. Give me a cheap discard outlet over this easy. @wildfire393 I don't think it's very often I'd want to reanimate a mediocre 1-drop in a reanimator deck, unless it gets caught up in a Living Death or whatever.

I feel like the place this makes more sense is something like Izoni, Thousand-Eyed that just wants any random crap in the grave and cares about creatures as a card type. Which, sure, is a genre of deck, but it's not so common that this becomes a major EDH player.

Mostly it seems stronger in other formats, where the 1/1 body is more relevant, rather than purely an obstacle to getting the rest of your mill.

You're not gonna like this, but it being in a relevant tribe helps. I run it in Varina and its great there. I also run Skullclamp, which its a perfect target for. The idea is to fill the yard with zombies, bring em all back with arostocrst triggers upon death or entry and make people hurt. Its simple but it works, and there's enough redundancy in the list I'm not so fussed if I lose one or two lands or spells. The rest of the deck is much more specific what it tosses, so there's a bit of flex for something like this.

[3drinks]

Monday, September 12th, 2022; Promise of Power

I love this card as my favourite on-brand, off-type card in Kaalia, but also it's a B Tidings|P08 and that requires very little setup for a massive refill. For me, I love that both Kaalias love it for different reasons - the OG is happy to start the turn with Kaalia out and a fresh five off the top, and the latter can easily have cards in hand and cast this as a five mv evasive 7/7 with options late. It's never gonna be a competitive card for sure (contrast vs a five mv instant like Ad Naus to draw any number of cards) but one I'm always happy exists.

[PrimevalCommander]

Solid hand refill. 5 mana 5 cards is a good rate in any color. Long as you can sport the triple black, you should usually be happy to see this. Late game it can draw 5 and slap a 9/9 Flying demon into play just for fun.

[void_nothing]

The card draw rate is always going to be good and you can brush off the 5 life in a 40-life format. The Maro Demon token mode is fun!

[Sinis]

I love Promise of Power. It's one of my all time faves for low curve decks that want a big reload or a curve topper vanilla demon. If you're flooded or the game is going long, you get both! I think it's just great, and can be real crazy if you've just leveraged a huge draw or something.

[Hawk]

Used to jam this all day in Standard when it was legal and then in kitchen table, but it's really fallen off for me in EDH and I can't figure out why? I think the closest I can get is that nowadays black has ample "cheap divinations" in Sign in Blood, Night's Whisper, and Read the Bones and has always had incredible "engines" or value over time spells like Phyrexian Arena, Midnight Reaper, and Necropotence as well as the easiest time enabling Skullclamp. Black also has an abundance of powerful tutors, which have a bit of overlap with big dig spells in that they find you exactly what you need to close out a game. So even in monoblack, this has never seemed strictly necessary to me. I don't play a ton of Ambition's Cost either.

[hyalopterouslemur]

The card draw rate is always going to be good and you can brush off the 5 life in a 40-life format. The Maro Demon token mode is fun!

Not quite a Maro. Its P/T is determined when it's created. But yeah, there really is no reason not to run this.

It can also be useful just for the pseudo-Maro in Nekusar. (Not that activating Niv-Mizzet and The Locust God five times isn't fun.)

[Mookie]

Promise of Power is fine, but a bit bland. Five mana for five cards is a pretty solid rate, and the option of making a beefy demon is also quite nice. As a result, it's a solid option to have if you're looking to refill your hand after dumping it. However, black has a lot of more degenerate card options available - Necropotence, Ad Nauseam, Necromentia... plus scaling stuff like Stinging Study, Corpse Augur, and Minions' Murmurs. Vanilla card draw is fine, but I'm usually looking for something a bit more synergistic. Hmmmm....

[wildfire393]

Its a yard filler in a reanimation build thats a creature itself. Its not an exciting card but it is very good.

If I'm playing reanimator, I really want a lot more control over what's going into my yard, and I can't necessarily kill the body so it's not a reliable 6. 3 random cards has a solid chance of hitting lands, reanimation spells, control, etc. Give me a cheap discard outlet over this easy. @wildfire393 I don't think it's very often I'd want to reanimate a mediocre 1-drop in a reanimator deck, unless it gets caught up in a Living Death or whatever.

I feel like the place this makes more sense is something like Izoni, Thousand-Eyed that just wants any random crap in the grave and cares about creatures as a card type. Which, sure, is a genre of deck, but it's not so common that this becomes a major EDH player.

Mostly it seems stronger in other formats, where the 1/1 body is more relevant, rather than purely an obstacle to getting the rest of your mill.

You'll rarely want to target it with something like Reanimate, but there's a lot of little ways to eke incremental value out of recurring cheap creatures. Bringing this back with Tortured Existence, Phyrexian Reclamation, or Lord of the Undead a few times in the early game can set you up nicely. You can grab it along with other things with an effect like Reveillark, Proclamation of Rebirth, Call of the Death-Dweller. Gruesome Menagerie, Agadeem's Awakening // Agadeem, the Undercrypt, etc. It gets caught up easily in every Living Death, Rally the Ancestors, or similar. Spare triggers from Sun Titan or Abiding Grace easily point its way. And so forth.

Monday, September 12th, 2022; Promise of Power

I love this card as my favourite on-brand, off-type card in Kaalia, but also it's a B Tidings|P08 and that requires very little setup for a massive refill. For me, I love that both Kaalias love it for different reasons - the OG is happy to start the turn with Kaalia out and a fresh five off the top, and the latter can easily have cards in hand and cast this as a five mv evasive 7/7 with options late. It's never gonna be a competitive card for sure (contrast vs a five mv instant like Ad Naus to draw any number of cards) but one I'm always happy exists.

This is one of those cards that feels very 2010-2011 EDH. Draw 5 for 5 is perfectly serviceable, and you can get a solid token out of it too. These days, I'd likely be hard-pressed to find a home for it.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, September 13th, 2022; Sram's Expertise

Surely you can find some use for three bodies + a free < 3mv spell.

[PrimevalCommander]

I think if I look at this card as only costing , by adding the additional one mana to the cost of a 3 mana spell I already want to play, then it looks a LOT better as a card.
That being said, I don't have any decks right now that want : make three 1/1 servos. White weenie decks probably want something that makes tokens over time. Maybe white swarm decks that plan on triggering a bunch of draw triggers and don't mind spending the card on 3 vanilla 1/1's. Fine card, but I would need a pretty specific deck to make room for it.

Baral's Expertise Rishkar's Expertise Electrodominance

I like the Red and Green card of this cycle. What is the black one?
Electrodominance has been my favorite since you can scale it to cast pretty much anything you want, AND cheat timing restrictions.

[Serenade]

Yahenni's Expertise. I probably use Night Incarnate over it, but I don't use either (in favor of X spells).

I throw Electrodominance in anything that can generate big mana and Rishkar's Expertise in most green creature-based decks; the latter is one of my favorite cards. Can I use Twinferno to copy Electrodominance? (No because it already has been cast, right?)

I like the idea of casting Tempered Steel off Sram's Expertise. Not sure what deck wants that, though.

[Dunadain]

Rishkar's Expertise is the only one of these I'm interested in using fairly.

The rest I'd only want to cheese MV 0 cards like Living End with.

[PrimevalCommander]

The rest I'd only want to cheese MV 0 cards like Living End with.

In that case Electrodominance does it cheapest, and at instant speed

[aliciaofthevast]

Tuesday, September 13th, 2022; Sram's Expertise

Surely you can find some use for three bodies + a free < 3mv spell.

It's hard to justify this just on it's own merits in a vacuum but I imagine it's an aristocrats allstar.

[materpillar]

I'm running it in my Velomachus Lorehold Polymorph deck. It does a good job of dropping out some tokens with minimal mana investment. I've been pretty happy with it there. Not the best <6cmc sorcery but far from the chopping block also.

[Toshi]

Baral's Expertise Rishkar's Expertise Electrodominance

I like the Red and Green card of this cycle. What is the black one?
Electrodominance has been my favorite since you can scale it to cast pretty much anything you want, AND cheat timing restrictions.

Kari Zev's Expertise is the actual card in the cycle - and about the most bonkers card to run in Zada, Hedron Grinder packages!

[NZB2323]

It seems great in any token deck, but I've never put it in any of my decks.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Tuesday, September 13th, 2022; Sram's Expertise

Surely you can find some use for three bodies + a free < 3mv spell.

≤ We would also accept <= but < implies a mv equal to exactly 3 is forbidden.

Yeah, this is one of those cards people forget about. The addition of a free spell is always nice (well, so long as you have such a spell), and I often use it to squeeze out a utility creature, Spear of Heliod, or a removal. Or some dig and cantrip (Brainstorm, Opt, Ponder). Or even another token maker like Bitterblossom. The possibilities are right there if you know your deck.

Also, the black one is Yahenni's Expertise.

[PrimevalCommander]

Baral's Expertise Rishkar's Expertise Electrodominance

I like the Red and Green card of this cycle. What is the black one?
Electrodominance has been my favorite since you can scale it to cast pretty much anything you want, AND cheat timing restrictions.

Kari Zev's Expertise is the actual card in the cycle - and about the most bonkers card to run in Zada, Hedron Grinder packages!

Thats right, I thought they had a whole cycle. Thanks. Dominance was on my mind since I use is and it has similar templating. Kari Zev's expertise is actually pretty good if you want theft effects. Especially in decks with a high density of low mv cards.

Overall I think this cycle was actually done really well. Card effects that some decks want, with a little bit of added value, especially for the higher MV ones like Baral's and Rishkar's. Of course drawing cards gets the most attention, but the rest are definitely playable with a little boost in tempo due to free spells. Who doesn't like free spells. Making any of these Instant would have been a real boon, but also may have required an increase in base cost or reduction in effect.