[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Leonin Shikari

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3drinks
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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

pokken wrote:
4 years ago
3drinks wrote:
4 years ago

"Every deck can play wasteland."

Srsly. Lands are only harder to interact with than other cards when one looks at them as though they were upon a pedestal. Once you graduate from such an erroneous train of thought, you understand that there's nothing "sacred" about lands and perfect mana is a privilege, not a right.

Play what you want, by all means. I will play what I want.
How many ways do you have to remove lands vs. creatures? that's right...creatures are easier to remove. many colors can't even remove lands, and so you're playing with 1 or 2 land destruction lands that are actually playable, and that's it.

I play ways to deal with lands in all my decks but there just are fewer ways to approach that than creatures, or even enchantments/artifacts.
Bounce it, kill it, steal it, or my personal fave option - player removal. If it's a problem for you, you will find ways you need to get rid of it, and if not, then clearly it wasn't the issue you needed to worry about, and as such you didn't need to find a reliable way to deal with it in the first place.

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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

Wednesday, October 23rd, 2019; Jeskai Ascendancy


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Post by Dunharrow » 4 years ago

It is one of those combo cards that is frustrating because it is often non-infinite - so people play 20 spells then pass the turn.
Kykar is probably the best general to play this in since it allows you to go wide as well.
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

3drinks wrote:
4 years ago
Wednesday, October 23rd, 2019; Jeskai Ascendancy
It's really great. I have often wanted to live the 5-colour dream of casting Life (from Life // Death) and then doing whatever I wanted since all my lands are creatures. There's something I find very cute (holistic? Mildly satisfying?) that Life // Death and Jeskai Ascendancy have exactly one of each mana symbol, plus a 1 over the two cards.

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Post by onering » 4 years ago

Hands down best of the cycle, untaps are so useful, looting is great, and it even has a built in way to win in combat. Good for your combo needs, you card draw needs, your jeskai aggro needs, just fantastic all around.

Whenever I see a cycle card come up I also like to discuss the rest of the cycle with it. In this case the others are largely forgotten in this format. The synergy and broad usefulness of Jeskai's abilities is what really makes it stand out. Abzan is a solid value generator but its first ability (putting a +1/+1 on your creatures) has little overlap with it's second (giving you a 1/1 flying spirit whenever a non token creature you control dies). It's a pretty solid value generator in a sacrifice deck, can enable combo, and works quite well with doubling season. Mardu's first ability (making a tapped and attacking 1/1 goblin when a nontoken creature you control attacks) is decent but the decks that can most abuse that ability tend to rely on tokens and not flooding the board with creature cards, while it's second ability (sacrificing it to give your army +0/+3) is niche and weak. Sultai is stronger than it looks as a card selection machine that fills your grave a bit. It's effect is too small to get excited about though. Lastly, Temur is the second best. Giving all your guts haste and drawing you cards whenever you land a 4 power or higher creature work well together, letting you hit with your fatties right away while refilling your hand to keep the threats flowing. It wants a specific deck but really shines in it.

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Post by lyonhaert » 4 years ago

onering wrote:
4 years ago
Hands down best of the cycle, untaps are so useful, looting is great, and it even has a built in way to win in combat. Good for your combo needs, you card draw needs, your jeskai aggro needs, just fantastic all around.

Whenever I see a cycle card come up I also like to discuss the rest of the cycle with it. In this case the others are largely forgotten in this format. The synergy and broad usefulness of Jeskai's abilities is what really makes it stand out. Abzan is a solid value generator but its first ability (putting a +1/+1 on your creatures) has little overlap with it's second (giving you a 1/1 flying spirit whenever a non token creature you control dies). It's a pretty solid value generator in a sacrifice deck, can enable combo, and works quite well with doubling season. Mardu's first ability (making a tapped and attacking 1/1 goblin when a nontoken creature you control attacks) is decent but the decks that can most abuse that ability tend to rely on tokens and not flooding the board with creature cards, while it's second ability (sacrificing it to give your army +0/+3) is niche and weak. Sultai is stronger than it looks as a card selection machine that fills your grave a bit. It's effect is too small to get excited about though. Lastly, Temur is the second best. Giving all your guts haste and drawing you cards whenever you land a 4 power or higher creature work well together, letting you hit with your fatties right away while refilling your hand to keep the threats flowing. It wants a specific deck but really shines in it.
Because it irks me when people don't link the cards they're talking about, I added links above. By the way, I pretty much agree, though. I'd actually consider Sultai Ascendancy for Sidisi, Brood Tyrant if it was top 3 cards instead of top 2.
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Post by SocorroTortoise » 4 years ago

This entire cycle is high on the list of cards I like but rarely play. The combination of wedge colors and relatively narrow effects makes them tough to fit into decks even though I think they're at a pretty good power level and CMC.

For Jeskai Ascendancy in particular, it's clearly a powerful card. The biggest problem with it is how obnoxious it gets to play. If you're comboing off with it, the nondeterministic nature makes it painful for the rest of the table at lower power levels and the number of moving parts seems like it would be less viable at higher power levels. If you're using it as a value card, the number of triggers and asymmetric buff (assuming you're continuing to play creatures or generate tokens) makes it a pain to track. It sits in a similar place to Cathars' Crusade for me: a powerful card that's not worth the bookkeeping headaches it generates, even when it's thematically appropriate for a deck.
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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 4 years ago

3drinks wrote:
4 years ago
"Every deck can play wasteland."

Srsly. Lands are only harder to interact with than other cards when one looks at them as though they were upon a pedestal. Once you graduate from such an erroneous train of thought, you understand that there's nothing "sacred" about lands and perfect mana is a privilege, not a right.

Play what you want, by all means. I will play what I want.
This so much (though instant land destruction is a rarity). TBH, the reputation land destruction gets is from two things:
  • Cards like Boil, Tsunami, Flashfires, Conversion, Acid Rain.... Note that I don't put Ruination and Blood Moon on that list because "you did it to yourself". But if you target just one color, it is pretty unfair.
  • People playing land destruction poorly. My first target for all land destruction is big mana lands. Then utility lands, with special emphasis on particularly busted ones like The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, Bazaar of Baghdad, and Glacial Chasm. Dual lands, the last set of nonbasic lands, only come third. For mass land destruction, though, there are special rules. Unlike other wipes, you use this when you're ahead. But too many players just drop Armageddon in a tantrum.
Anyway, so I get a Morale and some looting for each noncreature spell. Sounds useful. Usual "looting is great with Alhammarret's Archive" applies. Easily the best of the cycle. If you have Anger in your graveyard, it can play nice with any instant or sorcery that makes tokens.
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

I like Jeskai Ascendancy a lot. It's really very good at multiple roles. It's a value engine through looting. It's a surprise overrun sometimes in not-green. And the actual deterministic infinite combos with it feel slick and rube-goldbergy. It can be an uncomfortable card to play against if people are trying to "go off" like the 60-card Jeskai Ascendancy decks, but that's the nature of a deck full of mana dorks and cantrips. I recommend it as a quality support card rather than a deck strategy.
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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

Jeskai Ascendancy does a lot of things - it untaps your creatures, pumps them, and loots, all of which are useful actions. It being three colors limits it somewhat, and also makes it difficult to untap mana dorks with it to go infinite (although Fatestitcher and Urza, Lord High Artificer work). A powerful option for decks with lots of noncreature spells - Kykar, Wind's Fury is the obvious choice. If you have a way to abuse the looting (such as Alhammarret's Archive), that could also be interesting. Alternatively, play a bunch of creatures with tap abilities (ex: Arcanis the Omnipotent).

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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

Thursday, October 24th, 2019; Abzan Charm


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Post by Serenade » 4 years ago

I've only played the color combo as enchantress, and this card did not make the cut. First two modes are great. I have been viewing the third mode as trash, but it has combat usefulness. I shall reevaluate a spot for it.
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Post by PrimevalCommander » 4 years ago

The colors of Abzan Charm have so much better cards that do each of these things that the juice just isn't worth the squeeze here. The more popular charms have less narrow abilities that are much more useful for the colors. If the removal piece was non-restrictive... BOOM playable in almost every deck of the colors. Bant Charm did something similar with the removal piece and was solid tech back when tuck was a thing. The other modes are great too, so I don't think "Exile Target Creature" would have broken Abzan Charm. I played it in my Bant decks regularly. Probably still would.

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Post by Morganelefay » 4 years ago

2 decent and one terrible mode...for a 3-color charm to be truly playable, each mode must be at least "Useful" in most situations so that even if there's a clear winner, you could occasionaly run the other options out. That just isn't the case here. It's not a terrible card for My First Abzan deck but it'll soon be phased out.
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

3drinks wrote:
4 years ago
Thursday, October 24th, 2019; Abzan Charm
I really like it. Even with just the removal and draw modes, it's pretty decent, and the +1/+1 counter mode can be useful in corner cases (or in decks that care about the +1/+1 counters. If you have an Evolution Sage or Karn's Bastion, maybe it does more than just a couple of counters).

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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 4 years ago

I can think of a few corner cases for that third, but it depends on
The charm is reasonable, I'd say, with two good modes and one so-so mode. It's no, I don't know, Gruul Charm is the modern charm I use as an example of how not to do a charm. (Yeah, I get it, all the Gruul can do is hate, but still, really?)
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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

hyalopterouslemur wrote:
4 years ago
The charm is reasonable, I'd say, with two good modes and one so-so mode. It's no, I don't know, Gruul Charm is the modern charm I use as an example of how not to do a charm. (Yeah, I get it, all the Gruul can do is hate, but still, really?)
I'm okay with a charm being all hate. One of my favourites is Rakdos Charm, which only has hateful modes (against graveyards, artifacts, or massive creature swarms).

The problem with Gruul charm is that the modes range from 'situationally meh' to 'awful'.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

The first two modes are genuinely decent, but that last mode is really quite niche, which takes it from being a really versatile charm to non-staple. I can think of decks that would want the counters, but none I play. The other thing is those particular colours have plenty of ways to abuse counters without resorting to an instant, and that's part of what makes it a middling charm - in these colours it's not particularly reusable easily.

That being said, a second look at those first two modes reveals quite a bit of value. Most decks don't play enough exile, and for the same CMC as Phyrexian Arena it gives you two turns worth of Arena right away. That's far from bad. Again, I think these colours tend to be heavily creature based, so it's hard to justify adding these when you have critters that do similar things and have greater synergy for being critters.
I'm okay with a charm being all hate. One of my favourites is Rakdos Charm, which only has hateful modes (against graveyards, artifacts, or massive creature swarms).
Agreed here, too. Rakdos gets things DONE. Like, I've won games of the back of it against swarm decks. All for the low, low cost of like .30c and .
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Post by onering » 4 years ago

Conditional removal for 3 mana, an instant speed sign in blood for 3 mana, and a weak pump spell for 3 mana. None of these are worth it on their own, but the first two as options get it just around playable, with the last being negligible outside of certain decks. I'd pretty much only run this in decks where the last mode is actually useful and can sometimes lead to big plays, so that its a card that supports your theme but can be cycled or used as removal in a pinch. There are just too many better removal options in these colors, and while you might want to use your creature removal to remove and artifact or counter a problem instant (Bant Charm), its less often you want to trade a removal spell in hand and 2 life for 2 unknown cards, so unless the last mode is an option that's going to be reasonable to pitch a removal spell to pretty often in the deck I'd rather just run better removal.

So its a cycle again (from Khans again). Jeskai Charm slow bounces a creature, fires 4 to the dome or a walker, or pumps your team and gives them lifelink. All are pretty mediocre. Mardu Charm is pretty overcosted for all 3 abilities in this format. There's much better creature removal than 4 damage for 3 mana, the token ability is weak, but the 3 mana instant Duress is actually interesting. Its usually trash, but its a surprise anti combo piece for certain combos, so its got that going for it. I didn't say that makes it good though, just interesting. Sultai Charm is probably the best in the cycle. Its a 3 mana Ultimate Price or Naturalize, 2 cards that aren't quite good enough on their own but not that far off, and perfectly serviceable in more budget metas. Just the first two abilities combined together makes this card worth it, so the ability to draw 2 and discard one in a pinch is gravy. Temur Charm is a pretty straightforward limited tier fight spell, a limited tier counter spell, and a below limited tier panic spell stapled together. Mana Leak isn't that great in this format (outside of metas where games end early and mana is always used efficiently), so putting it at 3 colored mana is generally just bad. I can't see a deck that's willing to just play draw go making use of the other two modes, and by the time your casting other spells with enough mana left to hold up for this your opponents will just be able to pay the tax. The last ability will help you get through token swarms assuming their controller is both leaving them tiny and not using them as sac fodder for some reason. The fight ability is probably going to be the most relevant since if you are considering it your probably running enough beef that its just going to be instant speed kill a creature, and there are plenty of smaller utility creatures that need to die so you can do this without risking your fatties. That's just not good enough though when coupled with the other two weak modes.

So all in all, I see Abzan here as the second best in the cycle, but there's a gap between it and Sultai, and then another gap between itself and the bottom three on the other end.

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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

Abzan Charm is pretty meh. Exile mode is outclassed by many other white and black removal spells. Card draw is decent, but I'm not going to be excited by a harder-to-cast-and-more-expensive Night's Whisper. Two +1/+1 counters is pretty niche - can swing some combat math or provide value for a counter-based deck, but not as relevant in a vacuum. Obviously, you're paying a premium for the flexibility for any charm, but at three mana, I really want my cards to be doing more.

I could see it being played in a more thematic deck - Ramos, Dragon Engine charms.dec, or anything KTK-themed.

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Post by Dunharrow » 4 years ago

It's a good card completely outclassed by the amazing cards in these colours.
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Post by gilrad » 4 years ago

I'm okay with the third mode being very narrow, because the first two modes make the card decently flexible on its own. Then when the third mode is useful, it's going to be game-winning useful. At least in incremental combat-heavy metas, it's pretty common for me to fail to kill players, resulting in them untapping with one or two life left.

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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

Friday, October 25th, 2019; Titania's Song



Here's one hate card for the oldies in us, whoaholyshit.

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Post by Serenade » 4 years ago

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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

3drinks wrote:
4 years ago
Friday, October 25th, 2019; Titania's Song
I like this card in theory, but I think it taps into design space that's... complicated. There's some irritating questions about how it works with cards like Liquimetal Coating and Mycosynth Lattice. These questions can be answered, but it's not an especially fun exercise.

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