[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Argothian Enchantress

[hyalopterouslemur]

I've never played any of them other than Enduring Ideal, and I'm not sure I would want to.

Maybe Endless Swarm with some sort of Spellbook variant (Reliquary Tower, Thought Vessel, etc.) and a freak ton of permanents with activated or triggered abilities that function as spells.

[onering]

Swarm: 8mana for a bunch of snakes kinda sucks, since your aren't going to be able to leverage it very well and can easily be blown out. You can set it up with Cathar's Crusade or a sac outlet or Purphoros ahead of time to make use of all the snakes, but it's extremely easy for a single spell to wipe you out and make this just be 7 1/1s a turn without any support. And really that's assuming you actually have a lot of cards in hand, otherwise it's outright bad if you're only getting like 3-5 snakes the first few times it resolves. It can quickly add up if you have a near full hand and something like Cathar's Crusade or Purphoros out, giving a sizeable immediate impact in therma of counters or damage and then getting it repeated on your next upkeep, but it competes with plenty of other large token producers there.

Flames: Slow. And requires a restrictive deck building consideration. To actually be able to kill someone you need to reliably hit high cmc cards, but wouldn't you rather just be casting those?

Dominion: theft has gone down in value as synergy has become more important, but this being repeated means you can literally use it to grab your opponents' 2 card permanent based combos. Its telegraphed if you're going for that though, but oh wait you're in blue so use something to give this flash and win out of nowhere then tell people they can't complain because you had to spend 11 mana and 2 cards minimum and had to rely on somebody else's combo to actually combo. Even if you aren't going to use it to beat people with their own combos, it's fair use still means getting the best stuff in other players decks. Splashy and game winning, but slow enough and risky enough to never be a problem.

Torment: Bad in commander, because you can't get rid of their commander. I do like these sort of effects, and this adds up quickly enough that it can render someone incapable of winning in short order, but it's heavily dependent on what your opponents are playing and won't hit enough people quickly enough to prevent them from killing you, and that's even before considering they'll just kill you with there commanders after someone wipes the board once. As people make their decks more and more streamlined, ripping out key pieces from their library goes up in value, but it's not going to win on its own. Your basically hoping you can exile mill people with this after you render their deck toothless, but all casting this will ever accomplish in practice is handing the game to whoever you target last, after making it miserable for everyone (assuming it has much of an effect at all).

Ideal: like Dominion but uses your own deck, which means you already have a game plan for what you're getting even though you're restricted to enchantments. Pretty easy to just combo with it, but free casting big enchantments every turn is nice as well, and Eidolon of Rhetoric/Rule of Law can bring everyone down to near your level in spells per turn except yours are free and tutored.

[Mookie]

I was once in a game where one of my opponents Hive Mind'd Eternal Dominion... with Confusion in the Ranks and Grip of Chaos out. I've had plenty of games end in a draw due to time constraints, or wanting to restart to add a new player... but that was one of the few games I've been in that was a draw due to none of the players involved wanting the game to continue.

Anyway, I'm not a fan of this cycle - once you cast one, you toss your agency out the window for the rest of the game and are effectively on autopilot, which... doesn't seem fun. There are things you can do to make them better, like running plenty of interesting lands or copy effects, but I just don't think they lead to a fun game pattern. Enduring Ideal does give you some agency by letting you choose the enchantment you fetch, but most of the lists I've seen are just looking to assemble a lock (and hoping their opponents aren't packing any enchantment removal), which, again, seems slow and not very fun.

[Sinis]

I used to play Endless Swarm in a very old deck, Seshiro the Anointed|CHK. It was okay; you got to draw big if Seshiro was on the table, and then you (probably) hit Reliquary Tower and a sac outlet for Seshiro so you didn't draw out. If you have 50 cards in hand, the Snakes are basically out of control: People need to kill you with flying creatures or Massacre Wurm, prevent you from attacking, or win the game, or they just lose. All those conditions are pretty easy to meet, though; a simple Propaganda will hedge you out. At the time, there was no Boseiju, Who Endures to deal with that or Glacial Chasm.

I haven't played any of the others; Eternal Dominion was a semi-popular wincon in the old times as well, though if someone had Homeward Path in hand, it could get stalled (you'd basically have to find a Strip Mine analogue from someone's deck or your own to deal with it). I've never seen Flames or Ideal played, but I think Ideal is probably the one that people will try to win with the most; you only need a couple of iterations before you can assemble a lock or game winning combo, and it can double itself up quickly with Paradox Haze.

Finally, Neverending Torment. I very badly wanted to make this work in EDH, but it just... doesn't, because the pace is too slow. Not really. In practical terms, you can strip out any wincons and answers (like repeatable counterspells, ways to give themselves shroud or hexproof, or ways to skip/replace draws) in an opponents deck, forcing them to draw out in a few turns. This is easily accomplished by a huge draw (like Ad Nauseum) into Reliquary Tower/NT, or over several turns with Lighthouse Chronologist + Paradox Haze. There's always a risk that someone has an answer in hand already and can avoid the Torment or fatal draw in some way, leaving you to draw out... eventually.

[Hermes_]

Man. I have never gotten to play an Enduring Ideal deck, but I sure do enjoy watching them pop off every single time.

I've played one, it locked the game down. If you know the other players' decks then you can use Eternal Dominion for maximum advantage, I'm now tempted to order a copy.

[Treamayne]

I've had an Enduring Ideal deck on MODO for a long time, but it's been years since I've played it. I wanted a version that could be interactive (it's one combo backup plan is Day of the Dragons and, of course requires enough setup to have the creatures to Dracoize and a haste enchantment). It had the various enchantment removal (Seal of Cleansing etc.), Creatures via Cream of the Crop with Call of the Wild or Lurking Predators. Wheel of Sun and Moon was fairly key, along with discard outlets in case you draw something you want to "play."

Unfortunately, the plethora of Combo versions meant I was either hated out, or the table all quit as soon as I played EI.

[materpillar]

I god. I run Kaboom! and Pyromancy in my stupidly high cmc deck. How am I not running Undying Flames? It's the perfect amount of playable and terrible. Oh geez. Now I need to find a slot for that and cards that can work with it. Work work work.

[Serenade]

We'll probably never get an enchantment version of High Market because of stuff like this. Sigh.

[3drinks]

Friday, May 12th, 2023; Back for More

Removal + reanimation is already a good package, but at instant speed that's a killer bargain. Six feels about right for this tbh, given the going rate for vanilla reanimation at sorcery speed is four mv (Zombify/Breath of Life), and adding removal onto that is worth ~2.

[3drinks]

I've had an Enduring Ideal deck on MODO for a long time, but it's been years since I've played it. I wanted a version that could be interactive (it's one combo backup plan is Day of the Dragons and, of course requires enough setup to have the creatures to Dracoize and a haste enchantment). It had the various enchantment removal (Seal of Cleansing etc.), Creatures via Cream of the Crop with Call of the Wild or Lurking Predators. Wheel of Sun and Moon was fairly key, along with discard outlets in case you draw something you want to "play."

Unfortunately, the plethora of Combo versions meant I was either hated out, or the table all quit as soon as I played EI.

This is probably just one of the many versions of this deck I've watched happen over the years tbh.

[Guardman]

You know what, this seems like one of those cards I should probably be running in my Henzie "Toolbox" Torre deck since I usually have a couple of fatties in the graveyard that I wouldn't mind getting back at instant speed.

[Sinis]

Back for More is literally Zombify glued to Pounce. Pounce has been powercrept out by numerous variants, but... the instant Zombify is actually hard to come by. Makeshift Mannequin is the closest analogue, but it has a pretty big drawback.

I think I like it. Maybe I'll include it in my next b/g graveyard oriented deck.

[hyalopterouslemur]

I like this one. Sure, I usually prefer early, more broken reanimator spells, but getting a removal with it is great. I'm picking up something big anyway nine times out of ten, right? It just happens that at six mana, I'm usually talking It That Betrays or Pathrazer of Ulamog

8/10

[DirkGently]

Nah this card is trash. The problem is that when you want to use it is dictated almost entirely by the reanimation, so then the fight generally gets used on whatever happens to be around rather than a crucial target. And then it's only a fight so some targets will be poor (deathtouch etc), plus it fails vs grave hate or creature removal.

Comparing it to Zombify is silly since nobody has played zombify since 2011. Against GOOD reanimation spells this falls far short.

At 6 this is a limited bomb but 100% not worth it in commander, sorry.

[3drinks]

Saturday, May 13th, 2023; Rankle and Torbran

Huh. Well that goes in Vial/Dargo.......domes someone for 5, beats that same turn, and speeds up the clock. It'd be the first storybook frame card I acquired.

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[Mookie]

Rankle and Torbran seems fine - they're a repeatable Innocent Blood for token decks, or you can do aggro / burn things and buff your burn effects or combat damage from other creatures., Treasure generation is also always relevant. There's some overlap between those modes in Mayhem Devil and Judith, the Scourge Diva, so they could fit in an aristocrats deck.

Outside aristocrats, I feel like they're a bit more niche than Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and Rankle, Master of Pranks. Compared to Torbran, the damage buff only applies to damage to players / battles (and only on your own turn), which means you can't use it to control the board with pingers or make your opponents miserable with Manabarbs. Meanwhile, R&T lose Rankle's card draw and discard abilities, which mean you don't have any inherent hand manipulation. As a result, I'm not sure what decks would want them outside the previously-mentioned Judith / aristocrats decks - I feel like the original cards were more interesting both in the command zone and the 99.

[Sinis]

I really like this card! I might finally get around to that rakdos deck I want to build. Worth noting; Obosh, the Preypiercer enabled.

[pokken]

Man, i forgot about this card. I really like it. I wonder if I could make rakdos tokens work. It feels really strong. Everyone sac a creature and double anthem for dudes?
Kinda funny how it countersynergies with first strike dudes.

I also like how it goes apeshit with pestilence effects and both of them are in the color.

[DirkGently]

I'm not into it. The sac mode can be strong, and the damage mode can be strong, but it'd be pretty damn rare to get significant value from both. And both modes are already available in generally-superior form in their respective commanders, so the only thing I really see this doing is allowing you to add another color by playing a worse commander.

@pokken it's pretty risky with pestilence given that it hits you too. Original torbran is much, much stronger with it.

[pokken]

I'm not into it. The sac mode can be strong, and the damage mode can be strong, but it'd be pretty damn rare to get significant value from both. And both modes are already available in generally-superior form in their respective commanders, so the only thing I really see this doing is allowing you to add another color by playing a worse commander.

@pokken it's pretty risky with pestilence given that it hits you too. Original torbran is much, much stronger with it.

For sure. But putting everyone's life totals to 20 is usually fine for the aggro deck. And not making pest effects smack creatures is worse too. But you'd be playing it to basically blast people I'd guess

I think you're undervaluing having access to black in a torbran deck. Demonic tutor is a helluva card and having flying and haste and creature removal on torbran is nice. It's not just "adding a color" it's adding one of the best colors and adding some utility

I think it's more different than worse than torbran; the ability to remove blockers is real decent.

[3drinks]

Sunday, May 14th, 2023; Hushbringer

[Lifeless]

I love hatebears and this plays a couple great roles. Give those lips a smooch.

[cheonice]

I can't count the times this caused a grown at the table. Handles some decks all by herself. We need more of these effects that punish singular strategies.

[Mookie]

My usual response to Hushbringer is 'kill it with fire'. It's a potent hate piece that can shut down some decks by itself, although it is a bit fragile. Still, two mana for a creature with flying and lifelink isn't a bad fail case, particularly if you're running equipment or some other way to pump it up.

[hyalopterouslemur]

This and its cousins break a whole archetype over their knee. The other reason to make a portion of your removal slots instants.

TBH, my favorite is the hippogriff. I loves me some instant speed.