[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Argothian Enchantress

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Pick two martyrs, win an angel/zombie thing! Seems alright for 3 mana, albeit pretty slow. Probably good for one of those Boros Reckoner type decks, not sure where else it may fit.

[Sinis]

At 3 mana and a Saga, it's tremendously slow... but it's still a 3-mana reanimate.

[OneAndOnly]

This is one of the cards that make me peck at the flavor ... a lot. Generally, you aim Pariah effects at chumps, so they rarely want to be reanimation targets, too. The other alternative is to aim the Pariah effect at something indestructible (or with protection, etc.) but again, that means it's usually not available as a reanimation target.

And while it's a 3mv reanimator, you rarely want to play this turn three. Even if you did, it doesn't happen for two more turns, putting it in the same class as 5cmc reanimation effects, which is par for the course.

You can build around it, especially if you have some way of getting your Big Dude (tm) into the graveyard between turns four and five, but that's quite the curve.

All in all, a card that does more to make me go "Huh, weird" rather than "Heyyyy!"

[hyalopterouslemur]

Pick two martyrs, win an angel/zombie thing! Seems alright for 3 mana, albeit pretty slow. Probably good for one of those Boros Reckoner type decks, not sure where else it may fit.

Or just use something with indestructible. (Or Cho-Manno, Revolutionary.) Still a bit slow.

[onering]

Its not very comparable to a 5 mana reanimate when you cast it turn 3, because while you're getting it to pop off turn 5 you'll also have your mana available that turn. Granting flying is a nice upside, and the damage redirection is nice, although not as fitting for straight reanimate the fatty decks.

If not for the steep competition for slots, Alesha could make good use of it. That's a deck that wants to attack, wants to pick which of it's creatures go to the yard, and wants to reanimate critters for value rather than as a fast game ending threat. This would be two turns of enabling attacks followed by essentially an extra Alesha trigger that you don't have to spend mana on in her deck, which seems pretty nice. But again, the competition there is steep. Perhaps there are similar decks that are aggro yet reanimate for value.

[NZB2323]

This just doesn't seem worth it. If you want to run reanimation sagas in Orzhov, I think that Elspeth Conquers Death and The Eldest Reborn are both better.

[Serenade]

Maybe in Fleshbag.dec.

[hyalopterouslemur]

This just doesn't seem worth it. If you want to run reanimation sagas in Orzhov, I think that Elspeth Conquers Death and The Eldest Reborn are both better.

And unless you're doing an enchantment theme, Unburial Rites is quicker, and there are even cheaper options than that.

[3drinks]

Friday, October 7th, 2022; The Liege Cycle

[DirkGently]

Each of them are viable in the right context. But I'd rank them:

WB
UG
RW
GB
UW
GW
BR
UB
RG
UR

[Guardman]

While similar, the enemy and ally cycle have always felt like two different, but complimentary cycles.

Of the Shadowmoor cycle, Thistledown Liege is probably the best since it has flash, with Wilt-Leaf Liege being a close second due to stats and 50/50 chance someone will have you discard them randomly.

But, even though he isn't that good, I will always have a soft spot for Ashenmoor Liege. One of my first commander decks was a RB Knight deck built around getting Haakon, Stromgald Scourge into the graveyard. I can't even remember who the commander was, though I remember it not really mattering. I just played them for the RB color identity. Anyways, Ashenmoor Liege was a great lord in that deck since it was hard to answer and paying 4 life to target it adds up.

[Mookie]

While similar, the enemy and ally cycle have always felt like two different, but complimentary cycles.

Yeah, they really do feel like that - the allied Lieges are all Knights, and each of them have a keyword or other perk that make themselves better. On the flip side, the enemy-colored Lieges are Horrors, and the have an extra ability that makes your other creatures / spells better. Sort of interesting design, for the knights to be selfish with their extra text and the horrors to be selfless.

Anyway, the Liege cycle is cool, but a bit niche - they're worth consideration in go-wide aggro decks that card about anthems, but a bit less exciting otherwise. As a result, I lean towards the enemy-colored Lieges, since they bring some additional utility. Murkfiend gives additional untap value, Creakwood generates tokens, and Deathbringer can provide incremental removal, so those are the ones I find more useful. The others, I would probably pass on outside something specific.

[Sinis]

I think I've played Creakwood the most. In EDH's early days, Savra, Queen of the Golgari was a popular commander and good creatures that were both green and black were in short supply.

Anyway, I think a lot of these are cool, but, I've only ever played or seen a couple of them.

[3drinks]

I know I've definitely sleeved up many Ashenmoor Lieges over the years. And if it were odd mv then I'd sleeve it up again in Gut/Iron Throne/Obosh. Card is very, very good at what it does, but what it does is not what most people want.

[kirkusjones]

Big fan of Creakwood Liege. I've run it in basically every BGx deck I've ever made.

[NZB2323]

The only one I've played is Deathbringer Liege in my cleric tribal deck, which I ended up cutting. It's not a cleric, the deck isn't a super go wide deck, the deck likes a lower curve, and 5 mana is a lot to try and set up removal, which was an issue because a lot of times I had a hand full of white creatures.

It's a good card, just wasn't right for my deck.

[3drinks]

Saturday, October 8th, 2022; Fendeep Summoner

[BeneTleilax]

Like all land animators, this seems bad conventionally in that it opens your lands up to common removal, but probably enables some combo somewhere.

[materpillar]

Seems like a card that suffers heavily from powercreep. A 5cmc creature that has to untap for a middling effect? If someone cast this I'd guess they were either on tribal trees or more likely I'd need to kill it immediately because some infinite mana combo was incoming.

My first thought was Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Toshiro Umezawa to kill some Gaea's Cradles

[TheAmericanSpirit]

The flavor is pretty wicked. This tree is more chilling than most necromancers.

[hyalopterouslemur]

I've used the enemy-color lieges in token decks and never really had any complaints, though Mindwrack is a bit expensive. The ally-color ones, being 1HHH, do have the advantage of being generally cheaper, as only Creakwood is the same of the enemy-color ones.

Okay, that out of the way, Fendeep Summoner, my favorite land animator is Kamahl, Fist of Krosa because, well, I like being a little troll.

[onering]

Seems like a card that suffers heavily from powercreep. A 5cmc creature that has to untap for a middling effect? If someone cast this I'd guess they were either on tribal trees or more likely I'd need to kill it immediately because some infinite mana combo was incoming.

My first thought was Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Toshiro Umezawa to kill some Gaea's Cradles

Fendeep wasn't good when it was released. You can definitely use it with Urborg to slowly kill lands, and I'm sure there's a convoluted infinite mana combo that was bad in comparison to other infinite mana combos when it came out.

This was more of a limited house. Being able to just throw treefolk at people late game was nice because of the synergies.

[3drinks]

Sunday, October 9th, 2022; Willow Satyr|leg

[Serenade]

Can't justify this monetary cost.
Also, too slow for EDH these days.
Also also, who is following this guy? He looks so dopey.

[DirkGently]

This guy was strong in my "most expensive deck ever", but then I had to cut him because I realized he was too cheap to fit into that deck.

I'd say he's still pretty strong. 4 mana to repeatedly steal anyone's commander isn't bad, especially in green. He kinda demands an answer, and you can't expect much more than that for 4 mana. That said, he's not synergistic with many strategies so I don't play him super often. Neat card, though, definitely has some old-school magic vibes.