[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Samwise the Stouthearted

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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 1 year ago

I've been sort of underwhelmed by Liliana's Standard Bearer in my Teysa deck. Best-case scenario, you cast it after a board wipe and draw a bunch of cards (or you can sacrifice a bunch of your own creatures as setup). That's fine, but what if you don't have a board presence? What if no one casts a board wipe when you have open mana? And if you do have open mana, would it be better to instead cast Teferi's Protection / Flawless Maneuver / some other protection spell instead? I found it to be sort of clunky compared to other, more incremental draw engines like Dark Prophecy and Smothering Abomination.

That said, I do think it underperformed a bit due to the makeup of my deck, which operates primarily at sorcery speed and doesn't usually go that wide. If you can routinely generate 5+ tokens, it starts to look a lot better. I could see it being sweet in a Varina, Lich Queen, Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor, or Raffine, Scheming Seer that plans to go really wide.

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folding_music
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Post by folding_music » 1 year ago

(re: Liliana's Standard Bearer)

I know this is gonna be ludicrous in Vishgraz, the Doomhive; an easy draw four from yr commander getting wrathed alone. plus it's worth resing with Life // Death or Reanimate on yr own turn assuming you are up to no good & i feel like I'll be running both those cards already! also gives you impetus (to a lesser extent in this case since it says nontoken) to run Caller of the Claw and I really enjoy that card

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Lifeless
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Post by Lifeless » 1 year ago

It ain't half bad with Rooftop Storm loops up and running smiles in Grimgrin.

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 1 year ago

I have done some pretty gnarly stuff with it with Haakon, Stromgald Scourge and Ashnod's Altar :)

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 1 year ago

Man, I just checked and I don't have this in Varina currently. I gotta set that right.
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Post by onering » 1 year ago

On Tawnos, I like the flavor win that is him exiling creatures from the yard and making them into artifact creature tokens. Sure, Tawnos was able to replicate anything Urza built and oversee mass production, but his central skills was making toys based on animals, an ability to study a living things and make a wonderful artifact simulacrum of it.

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3drinks
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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

Tuesday, January 31st, 2023; Seed the Land



...moved into my new place and still trying to get my internet on. So I'll be spotty until hopefully Thursday.

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materpillar
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Post by materpillar » 1 year ago

I forgot this card existed. I should really slot this into my Yurlok of Scorch Thrash group hug deck too. Seems fantastic in Grismold, the Dreadsower. I'd have to imagine that this card could see a fair amount of play in a surprisingly wide amount of decks. Needs some work but enables some wonky stuff.

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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 1 year ago

I've thought about this card, but I think saving 1 mana versus Zendikar's Roil, Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer, or Sporemound (and saving no mana versus Scute Swarm) isn't worth this being symmetrical. You also only save two mana versus Rampaging Baloths but you need a ton more triggers to get "value" (Baloths generally paid for itself it if triggers twice; this probably needs 5-6 triggers for you before opponents get that high). I think this was fringe playable in a deep landfall build before the printing of Swarm and Greensleeves in the last few years but is totally unplayable now.

Probably still worthwhile in a deck like Grismold, the Dreadsower that cares about all player's tokens, or a snake tribal deck just due to the paucity of playable snakes? But definitely a fringe card.

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Post by Treamayne » 1 year ago

I tried breaking parity on this in my Kaseto, Orochi Archmage snake deck. . .
. . . unfortunately, I broke parity with Manabond and Storm Cauldron (and Sasaya to break Storm Cauldron Parity).

There's just no way to make Storm Cauldron fun.
V/R

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Post by Hermes_ » 1 year ago

Sounds perfect for my 98 forest Omnath, Locus of Mana if i ever get around to building it :P
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Mookie
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Post by Mookie » 1 year ago

Group hug effects can range from 'probably immediately loses its caster the game' to 'heavily skewed in its caster's favor'. Seed the Land is pretty close to the middle. As a baseline effect, turning land drops into tokens is pretty tame. It can be valuable if you're a token or landfall deck, but it's not quite as powerful as Felidar Retreat or Zendikar's Roil. On the flip side, the benefit it grants to your opponents isn't that painful either - most decks are limited to 1-2 land drops per turn, and there aren't many ways to break that limit outside nonsense like Life and Limb + Arcane Adaptation. As a result, I would generally expect the effect to be pretty symmetric, but presumably slightly in your favor if you optimize for landfall triggers.

...generally, I wouldn't consider a truly symmetric effect to be worth a card, but in a deck like Grismold, the Dreadsower or Thantis, the Warweaver, I could see there being an upside to giving your opponents extra bodies. If you're playing Seshiro the Anointed or other tribal effects, it goes up in value. It could also be interesting if you're playing a slow pillowfort deck and want to contribute to board stalls.

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Jemolk
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Post by Jemolk » 1 year ago

I need to remember this exists in case I ever get around to building Seshiro the Anointed. Having him as a commander would break parity nicely all on its own.
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Post by onering » 1 year ago

Granting your opponents creatures is one of the best group hug effects in terms of fair use. It's very easy to get them to attack each other with their dudes. This card let's you plan around it as well to make sure you get the most creatures from it. It's a rare hug card that works fine outside of hug decks, both as a token generator for the caster with a moderate downside and as a way to get your opponents fragile creatures you can easily kill for cards that care about opponents stuff dying.

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Post by 3drinks » 1 year ago

Wednesday, February 1st, 2023; Smothering Tithe



Oh boy......

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RTorbran, Thane of Red Fell (Red Deck Wins)
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materpillar
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Post by materpillar » 1 year ago

Good card is good. News at 11.

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Post by Toshi » 1 year ago

The type of so called staple that gets stale fast.
Picked up a playset early, played it a few evenings, got unbelievably bored, traded them all off for nearly double what I had paid initially.

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Post by illakunsaa » 1 year ago

I once saw a mono white deck with tithe and armageddon. Pretty cool synergy.

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Post by Igzex » 1 year ago

The designer for this card must be a "hoot" to sit and play a game with if it never crossed their mind at any point that having a player repeatedly ask the same question constantly would get really annoying really fast. It would be far more tolerable if it didn't trigger on everyone's regular draw for the turn but WOTC always has handled card draw punishers with the finesse of swatting a fly with a pipe bomb.

I did use this card in my Phelddagrif group hug prison deck to fuel a Prosperity for 69 so it at least had that moment going for it.

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Hawk
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Post by Hawk » 1 year ago

This card is obviously insanely good, but I think it's a bit overrated? In a vacuum it's marginally stronger than Thran Dynamo and Thran Dyanmo is no longer a staple auto-include in every deck. It's better than Dynamo in that it makes colored mana and can be "banked", but worse in that it does nothing the turn it is cast. This card gets a lot better in decks with token synergy, sacrifice synergy, artifact synergy, or a reason to "bank" their mana. It is also better if you your meta has a lot of draw or you run a lot of huggy effects. It's gotten admittedly better with the printing of cards like Cut a Deal and Your Temple Is Under Attack as well. It also isn't "invisible" like Dynamo - nothing like asking "Do you pay 2?" every turn to make the whole table infuriated with your nonsense.

Don't get me wrong - given that a lot of Wx decks are Artifact, Token, or Sacrifice based this deck finds plenty of homes and as good "big ramp" this is also good in plenty of non-Green decks. I just think we were all so starved for so long for good white spells that this card gets a lot more love and a lot more runs than it truly deserves.

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toctheyounger
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Post by toctheyounger » 1 year ago

I don't think it's as good as everyone else does personally. Still haven't found a good place for mine, and I have 5 decks that splash white.
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Post by TheAmericanSpirit » 1 year ago

White's answer to Rhystic Study, for better or worse.
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Post by Guardman » 1 year ago

Whether it is good or annoying really depends on whether you have either card draw or a mana sink. There was a game where a Liesa, Forgotten Archangel got a somewhat early Smothering Tithe and everyone just sort of ignored it. Yeah, they could cast whatever they drew or was brought back by Liesa, but in the grand scheme of things it didn't really do anything other than be a somewhat more annoying Fires of Invention.

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Post by BlackbirdPlaysMTG » 1 year ago

Guardman wrote:
1 year ago
Whether it is good or annoying really depends on whether you have either card draw or a mana sink. There was a game where a Liesa, Forgotten Archangel got a somewhat early Smothering Tithe and everyone just sort of ignored it. Yeah, they could cast whatever they drew or was brought back by Liesa, but in the grand scheme of things it didn't really do anything other than be a somewhat more annoying Fires of Invention.
Yeah, I would never put it in a deck like one of the Liesa's... probably not worth it.

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Post by ISBPathfinder » 1 year ago

So, I often say that Smothering Tithe isn't white and that might be a strange thing to say but name me a mono white / boros commander that this card actually performs well for. Its a white card that is useful when you pair it with good colors which might as well say that its multicolored. White on its own almost always lacks the explosive mana sinks and card draw to make this card perform at an impressive rate. I am not saying that it never will but largely its an effect that is good when you are in other colors other than boros or mono white.

Its an amazing card, when you pair it with better colors. It reminds me of Seedborn Muse in that when you use it in the right deck you break your opponents over the effect but when its the wrong deck it doesn't do that much but everyone is also trying to panic smash its brains out.
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