[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[pokken]

Yet Lil Jimmy across the table

DAMNIT JIMMY

[RedCheese]

I love this card. Sidisi, Brood Tyrant favorite card

[BeneTleilax]

Ah yes, the secret group hug card that only helps a random opponent who is playing a deck even more graveyardy than yours.

I've generally seen this paired with effective gravehate, general graveyard abuse (think Rise of the Dark Realms) or played for a combo the same turn. Just dropping it for incremental graveyard value seems like a bad bet.

[Dunadain]

come on, this is for Basalt Monolith and nothing else XD.

[pokken]

dropping it for incremental graveyard value seems like a bad bet.

and yet it doesn't stop people at least, again, in my experience.

[Crazy Monkey]

I run Mesmeric Orb almost exclusively as value over time, and it is removed often. That's why I enjoy it in Osgir, the Reconstructor; removing it just let's me make 2-6 more of them.

[Mookie]

In a vacuum, Mesmeric Orb is a group hug card. It is a reasonable choice to run it in a mill deck, but on average, I think the extra value people get from filling their graveyards outweigh the increased chance of them milling out. That opinion might be biased based on my own decks though, since most of them are graveyard-focused. If I were to want to run Mesmeric Orb, I would plan to either back it up with a ton of grave hate (if I'm trying to mill out my opponents), or just run a bunch of graveyard synergies of my own (and ideally both).

Outside mill / self-mill synergies, I'll note that it's a core component of Four Horsemen-style decks - throw in Basalt Monolith as an easy way to mill your entire deck for Dread Return → Thassa's Oracle.

[TheGildedGoose]

Never have I ever seen this card used remotely "fairly". Yet Lil Jimmy across the table will still send their Rec Sage on my signet instead of...this. -_-

Dude, what even is your playgroup? I've never seen someone murder a Signet. It's like Stripping someone's land. Great, you're both behind. Neat. Like most EDH players, I see awful play all the time, but Jesus.

[3drinks]

Never have I ever seen this card used remotely "fairly". Yet Lil Jimmy across the table will still send their Rec Sage on my signet instead of...this. -_-

Dude, what even is your playgroup? I've never seen someone murder a Signet. It's like Stripping someone's land. Great, you're both behind. Neat. Like most EDH players, I see awful play all the time, but Jesus.

Right up there with sliming a karoo. The horrendously bad threat assessment is ohsoreal.

[DirkGently]

Interesting, I see people blow this up as quickly as possible...but usually not for a good reason. It's usually because "grr you're making me mill all my best cards".

[ironic gesture]

Interesting, I see people blow this up as quickly as possible...but usually not for a good reason. It's usually because "grr you're making me mill all my best cards".

Yes this.

I've played this in a couple (casual) decks over the years just for the lols and people get incredibly offended by being forced to put random cards into their graveyard. I've almost thought about running it in more decks (that shouldn't) just to see that reaction and have the conversation about it.

[Serenade]

See, my buddies are less bummed out because they still like seeing more of their decks in games.

Sure, it can backfire by helping zombies or whoever, but I still love it in Syr Konrad, the Grim/Geth, Lord of the Vault.

[materpillar]

Ah yes, the secret group hug card that only helps a random opponent who is playing a deck even more graveyardy than yours.

Once I played a T1: Shelldock Isle hiding away Laboratory Maniac. My opponent played a T2 Mesmeric Orb. The look on their faces when I activated isle during my upkeep once the orb had decked me was delightful.

[3drinks]

Friday, March 17th, 2023; The Twilight Cycle

[onering]

They all seem pretty good in theory, but very costly. Green Sun's has to cost 6 to get you a "free" creature and land, and that's off just the first 5 cards of your library so it needs help to be reliable. White Sun is just a better Martial Coup, and might be better by enough to make it more relevant than Coup has become as it's not really kept up with the speed of the game. Red Sun is an interesting card because of the "up to" in it's text. Paying 7 to steal a Sol Ring, Mana Crypt, and a Sword seemed pretty nice, and that's not even it's full potential. It can be very swingy, yet can be serviceable (if overpriced) artifact hate at lower X values. Blue Sun would have been bonkers ten years ago, but with decks being more synergistic today it's value goes down. Still, the ability to pay 6 to steal and copy a creature can be huge, and the lower average mana costs of today's decks makes it hit more relevant things at lower values for X. Finally, Black Sun is similar to Blue Sun, less of a swing (Blue Sun is a 3 for 1 while Black is a 2 for 1) but the creature you get is more likely to be relevant to you since it's already in your deck, and as an instant it's more flexible and can, potentially, be a 3 for 1 or more if your reviving an etb creature and/or then using it to surprise block and kill an attacker while surviving.

[Serenade]

I'm probably testing them in any {X} deck. Standalone, probably just using the white one.

The extended arts all have a great feel to them, so that's the copy I got of each of them.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

They're all fine, but none are quite as exciting as a good ol' Earthquake.

[folding_music]

blue and black suns are both exactly my types of card :3 big swings, creature-based gaming. ugh just imagine putting Noxious Gearhulk into play with BST at the end of someone else's turn

[Mookie]

• I've cast Red Sun's Twilight once so far. It was okay, but a bit awkward, given that both it and Vandalblast were in my hand at the time - I don't think many decks want more than one mass artifact destruction effect. RST seems better if you have artifact / sacrifice synergies, but I'm not entirely convinced it's better in a vacuum - getting a mana rebate from smashing and grabbing a Sol Ring seems sweet, but not getting death triggers from Solemn Simulacrum / Wurmcoil Engine due to the exile is sort of annoying.
• White Sun's Twilight is alright, but I prefer Martial Coup. I guess it gains life, and can be good in a deck that cares about artifacts or toxic, but I prefer having blockers.
• Blue Sun's Twilight is an upgrade over Entrancing Melody, but I'm not convinced it beats Mass Manipulation or Blatant Thievery.
• Black Sun's Twilight looks weak as a removal spell compared to any Doom Blade. Instant-speed reanimation is interesting, and I'll never totally disregard a 2-for-1, but you're not getting any mana discount on the reanimation either.
• Green Sun's Twilight is okay, but I would generally prefer the consistency of Green Sun's Zenith. I suppose it has the upside of also getting a land, but when you account for the chance of missing, I'm a bit lower on it.

...overall, I think this cycle is alright, but I don't think any of them are amazing. I think the Finale cycle is a bit more interesting if you're looking for splashy lategame X spells.

[DirkGently]

Last night my opponent cast Blue Sun's Twilight (at x=5 ofc) on my Tyrranax Atrocity. I had a Maze's Mantle with 3 up. Probably one of the most savage blowouts I've had in limited in a while.

@onering Just to clean up a few things, it's 7 mana on blue sun to get the copy, and you typically can't get a surprise block off black sun because it enters tapped.

@3drinks I refuse to believe that it's mere coincidence that we've gotten 4 cards from the latest set out of the last 8 cards.

White is a pretty scary card imo. Yes it's expensive but removing all blockers and putting down a wide board of toxic creatures is definitely capable of killing someone, especially if you're doubling your token production. Easily the best of the 5 imo, but you kinda need to go x>4 because otherwise it's pretty awful unless you're hastily killing someone or you don't want to wipe the board. B+.

Blue is pretty overexpensive when Control Magic has existed since alpha. It's also awkward that the thing you most likely want to steal - someone's commander - doesn't typically get value from the copy. It's a fairly high impact spell, but as removal I'd rather have something cheap and instant-speed, whereas for value I'd rather have something reliable. C.

Black has a similar issue to blue. It is an instant, but it loses the ability to semi-permanently handle an enemy commander. I've talked before about how I don't like having value tacked onto my removal at the expense of efficiency, but I especially don't like conditional value, because now you can also have a situation where you need to use the removal but can't get the value when spending x>4. Good in limited, but these sorts of numbers don't really work in commander imo. C-.

Red can be pretty decently efficient just as artifact removal in the right situation, but I'm underwhelmed at the extra value mode. Seems like plenty of situations wouldn't really be able to use those artifacts for much value beyond recovering some mana. I guess it's a decent option for mass artifact removal but red does already have good options on that front. C+

Green is probably the boringest one at x<5, best case it's sort of a janky divination. I guess if you have pure lands/creatures you can cycle it for 1 and have a decent chance of a draw 2 for 2, but those aren't exciting and ofc the card itself isn't a creature. At x>4 it's a bit of a gamble, I guess you don't need to hit blightsteel for it to be worthwhile though. Solemn simulacrum with an extra land for 6 isn't the end of the world. But I think you need the high roll potential to offset the risks of whiffing, which limits it to green decks with big creatures. Overall it's not that exciting but I think it does pull its weight in the right context. C+

[pokken]

I hate all of these, but I love that I hate them? We could use a reprieve from the "resolve an 8 mana sorcery win the game" cards tbh. It's fine that these kinda suck.

(I guess in the abstract, white is "resolve a 7+ mana sorcery, maybe win the game over several turns" but that's a lot better than...Finale of Devastation, Expropriate and Torment of Hailfire so on)

[onering]

I missed that black sun entered tapped. That does weaken it quite a bit in my eyes, as it means you will usually need an etb creature to make it a 3 for 1 and you need the etb itself to be more than a 2 for 1 in order to get to a 4 for 1 and beyond. I've been rather high on surprise blockers lately because I've seen people be more apt to swing in for chip damage over the past year or so, which means surprise blockers can often mug utility creatures. Losing that is big.

[Hawk]

White Sun's Twilight isn't quite "strictly better" than Martial Coup - your tokens not being able to block is a significant downside, one that Toxic + gaining X life probably doesn't quite solve. Still very good in a token deck or a poison counter deck. That being said, the day of Martial Coup being one of the better boardwipes in the format is long over and this card is a pretty niche role player.

Blue Sun's Twilight is actually strictly better than Entrancing Melody, but that really isn't saying much. It's costed the way it is because it is a beating in limited - and that cost makes it too weak for our format. At most MVs you'll almost always prefer spells like Control Magic, Corrupted Conscience, or Confiscate; if I were to play an X spell I'd go old school with Dominate for its instant speed and in mono-blue Mass Manipulation is the true king and Invoke the Winds is also quite strong. There's also big gun non-X Spells like Blatant Thievery or Expropriate). Note that except Expropriate which is a stupid, stupid card most of these are niche players in the format these days despite creature stealing being very powerful in a vacuum due to how slow, ponderous, and fragile these cards are. The power of Twilight here to get a copy just isn't good enough imo.

Black Sun's Twilight is also sort of awkward. You need to make X=6 to reliably kill most threats in the format, and that's a lot for a kill spell. At X=7...well if I wanted to be able to kill stuff and then reanimate something, I'd play Necromantic Selection right?The flexibility here doesn't help enough. I do think this probably sees play in Toshiro Umezawa though, since he loves flexible instants.

Red Sun's Twilight is poor artifact destruction if we're just comparing it to spells like Meltdown, By Force, Shattering Spree, and Vandalblast, so we're really here to cast this for 7+ and get the rider. That's interesting especially if you can nuke your opponents or your own Wurmcoil Engine or Myr Battlesphere and have ways to sac stuff for profit, but it's still pretty niche. I'd consider it for Daretti though.

Green Sun's Twilight requires a bit too much luck to be Divination and is just worse than Summoning Trap at the top-end; clearly the worst of the bunch by a lot.

Summary: White > Red > Black >>>> Blue >> Green, imo.

[3drinks]

@3drinks I refuse to believe that it's mere coincidence that we've gotten 4 cards from the latest set out of the last 8 cards.

Random is as random does. I just spin it until I don't get some silver border nonsense, Barbary Apes, actual token card, plane/phenomena, or wtf draft chaff leftover/23rd card. While also trying to avoid cards we recently did.

[3drinks]

Saturday, March 18th, 2023; Arena of the Ancients|leg