[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Golgari Thug

[PrimevalCommander]

I have a specific instance in Titania, Protector of Argoth where I have the ability to loop Fabled Passage probably 5-10 times in any given game. This would give Rootpath Purifier more impact than any instance of turning a single Harrow into Hour of Promise. Outside of decks that specifically want to loop fetches ad nauseam, I don't see it's value over other cards already mentioned.

I am already running sylvan scrying, crop rotation, expedition map, scapeshift, realms uncharted, Elvish Reclaimer and Ulvenwald Hydra, so it could come in for one of these as a test. Season with Life from the loam, Crucible of Worlds, and Ramunap Excavator for every splashy land I could want. I hope it tanks in price as people determine it's less powerful than it looks on paper and I can get one for cheap at some point.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, January 4th, 2023; Goblin Welder|ulg

An oldie but a goodie. Surely it's still relevant to-date, at least judging by the way it's price has rebounded.

[folding_music]

I was just thinking about how nuts it was that Rocco, Cabaretti Caterer can fetch this into play for four mana. still a nuts card and they print more Open the Vaults type-stuff all the time, I still fear the welder

[TheGildedGoose]

I love ashtrays.

[wildfire393]

Rootpath Purifier + Fabled Passage + Wheel of Sun and Moon = Infinite Landfall, Infinite land death triggers. Add payoff card and profit

Worth noting you will NOT get land death triggers in this situation as Wheel will replace the land dying.

Wednesday, January 4th, 2023; Goblin Welder|ulg

An oldie but a goodie. Surely it's still relevant to-date, at least judging by the way it's price has rebounded.

Card is absolutely still relevant. Cheat stuff like Bolas's Citadel and Portal to Phyrexia into play, while grinding value from your Ichor Wellspring type cards. On a 1 mana creature? Sign me up.

[PrimevalCommander]

Rootpath Purifier + Fabled Passage + Wheel of Sun and Moon = Infinite Landfall, Infinite land death triggers. Add payoff card and profit

Worth noting you will NOT get land death triggers in this situation as Wheel will replace the land dying.

Ah good point, slightly less fun, but still interesting.

[Hawk]

This is consistently one of the best cards in Daretti, Scrap Savant - probably second only to Scrap Mastery in terms of cards that have a very high win percentage when drawn by the midgame. Whether you're cheating out massive artifacts like Portal to Phyrexia, Triplicate Titan, and Darksteel Forge or grinding value out of Ichor Wellspring, Solemn Simulacrum, or Wurmcoil Engine (or both!) it's incredible, and while fragile it's so low investment that when it eats a kill spell its fair to say that the removal died to Welder. That it can also randomly "hose" opponents playing big artifact nonsense with small artifact value is just icing on the cake.

I think even with it targeting an opponent, I'd still want a critical mass of 30+ artifacts/treasure-makers in a deck to include it so it isn't quite an auto-include, but there's a lot of R/x decks that include that many artifacts.

[Mookie]

Goblin Welder is one of the most powerful 1-drops ever printed... if you have a good draw. It's not difficult to go T1 Welder → T2 Faithless Looting + 1-drop artifact + sacrifice artifact to reanimate something absurd. That said, it is extremely inconsistent, particularly in a 100-card format. That's true of many reanimation-based strategies though - if you could go T1 Dark Ritual + Entomb + Exhume every game, the meta would look very different. On the flip side, Welder is very soft to disruption, since it's stopped by creature removal, artifact removal, and graveyard removal... not to mention the possibility of just not having anything to sacrifice / reanimate.

Anyway, I would say it is a strong inclusion in any Rx artifact-based decks, such as Daretti, Scrap Savant and Saheeli, the Gifted. Even if you don't have any fatties to reanimate, turning a spare mana rock into your best dead artifact is still pretty good.

[3drinks]

Man, how long ago was Phyrexian Portal spoiled and why do I not remember seeing it. That's insane.

[RedCheese]

Goblin Welder only got better with time. One of the top dogs in my ol 1v1 Daretti deck. Still love my Elves vs Inventors copy <3

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Welder is the man! Pound for pound, very few cards can compete with the raw power of a Welder with a stocked yard. Easily one of the best one drops ever printed, gotta be in the top 10 if we exclude things banned in EDH.

[Igzex]

I can't believe this dumb little goblin keeps rebuilding this portal to robot hell

[Dunharrow]

Man, how long ago was Phyrexian Portal spoiled and why do I not remember seeing it. That's insane.

It is insane and I think somewhat broken as an artifact. So many ways to cheat into play.

[DirkGently]

Welder is the man! Pound for pound, very few cards can compete with the raw power of a Welder with a stocked yard. Easily one of the best one drops ever printed, gotta be in the top 10 if we exclude things banned in EDH.

So I'm curious - yesterday you were very negative about rootpath purifier presumably for power reasons, but you love welder for being a powerful cards. afaik purifier is relatively unproven as a strong card, and I think there's a compelling case that it really isn't that exciting. So why the hate for purifier (or the love for welder)?

@3drinks still curious to see your examples.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@DirkGently Welder is a classic mistake made glorious by its legacy in multiple formats, whereas purifier is a recent mistake custom-made-for-commander and smells like new money. I'm a simple man, I measure on a simple axis.

[3drinks]

Thursday, January 5th 2023; Soul Separator

Hmm. I can only speculate...

[3drinks]

Okay, then you create a scenario where running an etbt dual is better than running a better untyped dual (i.e. a BBD). Let's see how absurdly magical Christmasland this gets. And ofc keep in mind that literally every other dual-typed land is superior and would be run first.

Okay. Off the top of my head, the simplest path is just fetching these first to get them out of the path of drawing them, in those early turns where you conventionally might not have a play each turn to perfectly curve out (we've all seen that game). A typed dual, even a EBT typed dual, is still superior to an untyped dual a la a checkland. Consider, then, if it weren't superior then why would uw players in modern play Spara's Headquarters when they could play Glacial Fortress? By your previously pushed logic, these players should be playing the checkland first no? Because it's just two colour, uw isn't splashing optimally speaking. In this case it's just an EBT dual you can fetch. What this tells me is you're under-valuing the ability to fix your colours solely within the manabase slots, leaving your business slots to be, well, business. Surely every single uw player isn't wrong, just so Dirk can be right, correct? Why, that'd just be the most arrogant conceited point of view to maintain...surely that can't be right.

Second example, and maybe it's just me because outside of Kaalia I tend to curve my decks out at 5mv, and so maybe I can afford to fix my colours this way. I don't need to try and hit sixes and sevens on curve because I don't run sixes and sevens conventionally speaking. Perhaps this is where the clash of opinions comes from? Are you still trying to slam Avenger of Zendikars and Recurring Insights? Maybe it's the play patterns, because I don't fetch my cyclables first as I can try to leverage the cycling to maybe turn it into a fresh card latre - something you've seemed to downplay, presumably because you're trying scrambling to hit every land drop while I don't need to. Which, side note, also makes you sawft to that Ruination you scream is unfair...and that wouldn't happen if you weren't pressing yourself to hit your land drops. It's okay to sandbag lands in hand, really, because MLD is a fair and reasonable strategy one should generally and reasonably expect to face, rather than crying about "resetting the game" and playing for another two hours. Which, yeah there's some measure of irresponsibility in how some people use it, but that's not the fault of the strategy - that's a discussion for outside the game with those players.

Obviously now, you can't leverage these kinds of duals in 4c+ because you don't have near enough slots and have many more colour combinations to hit. So, 2c-3c is the sweet spot to be able to push these the most.

In summary, I think we're finding you're downplaying just how important being able to fetch-dual your colours onto the board in a myriad of ways, whether that be a gross under-estimation of how many fetches you expect to see or activate, the relative ineffectiveness of hoping to fix colours with a random untyped dual off the top (you can't fetch a checkland, leaving you to hope and pray to draw it when you need it), and a mana curve that forces you to to be unable to afford tapped, searchable fixing because you're crunched to hit all the benchmarks in your curve. Not to mention an unwillingness to consider cycling duals as late priority hits because the cycling can and is a relevant line of text.

A last note, I think the other disconnect here is you're looking for a definitive line of play where you always play these into that into whatever, but you can't look at it that way. Maybe you have a t1 play - an Esper Sentinel or Arcum's Astrolabe and as such you need to fetch differently. Every game is different, and you have to evaluate and often make changes to the plan on the fly to leverage your deck the most efficiently. Going on autopilot mode is a recipe to plateau as a player.

[PrimevalCommander]

Soul Separator

The high mana cost and single use makes this a no-go for me. If both costs were it would at least deserve a second look, but for 8 total mana for a single shot res, even across 2 bodies, doesn't seem worth.

Play God-Pharaoh's Gift instead. Or maybe Mimic Vat?

[3drinks]

Oh, wow, it does say sac ~. Welp to the trash can it goes.

[RedCheese]

I remember Game Knights hyping this card up sicne it was their spoiler card. Yeah didnt buy to it then and i knew this card would be forgotten and never used

[folding_music]

my rules-not-understanding brain asserts that if you Soul Separator a Lhurgoyf you get a Lhurgoyf and a flying Lhurgoyf. giggle
card is not particularly exciting. it CAN res at instant speeds so you can block with the beef then keep the ability you wanted in play but mmm there's a few instant-speed necro spells by now, maybe more worth looking at in red/blue?

[Dunharrow]

This card is terrible
I think Dollhouse of Horrors is more likely something we can get behind.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Maybe it's just me, but SOI block had a whole lotta terrible rares. This is a pretty sterling example of the crap I pulled in limited during that block (though I was in Peru for Eldritch Moon, so I was spared Soul Separator specifically).

[Sinis]

I like this card, but it's awful. Obligatory Sun Titan mention.

[Hawk]

The flavor of this card is excellent - reanimate a mindless, soulless shambling pile of beef while the spirit works on with all its powers and memories.

The playability of this card is terrible. 8 for two bodies, even in installment plan and at instant speed, is just not good enough. I don't play Ever After in a lot of decks; why play this? I Obviously this is available to any color and not just black, and if it didn't sacrifice maybe it'd be good - it's a huge investment, but it'd be potentially interesting in token decks or decks with powerful EtBs and no easy access to reanimation. But as pointed out, if you want that effect card]Mimic Vat[/card], Nim Deathmantle, Dollhouse of Horrors, and God-Pharaoh's Gift play in similar space but do so in a more efficient, powerful, or repeatable way.