[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[Toshi]

What I was surprised to see is that Strip Mine is only in 10% of EDHRec's decks from the past 2 years, Ghost Quarter is in 9% and none of the other land killing lands cracked the top list. I won't build a deck without an answer to a problematic land, but it seems people like me are a much smaller minority than I thought.

Reminds me, i have to order 16 Dust Bowls and a few Strip Mines...

Ghost Quarter is the bare minimum of land disruption i include in my decks.
The number of lands you shouldn't leave untouched is just too long:
Academy Ruins
Cabal Coffers
Cabal Stronghold
Dark Depths
Gaea's Cradle
Glacial Chasm
Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun
Hall of Heliod's Generosity
Maze of Ith
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Phyrexian Tower
Serra's Sanctum
Volrath's Stronghold
...

[SocorroTortoise]

Virtually all of my decks start with Wasteland/Strip Mine, so this should usually be able to find a target. The problem is that including cards to answer 1-2 cards in an opponent's deck is usually synonymous with adding dead cards - too many games where you're not going to draw it at the same time, not have mana up, or the conditions just aren't met. It's a shame, because I'd love to be able to use this one. It's such a blowout when it works.

[3drinks]

Friday, February 7th, 2020; Rafiq of the Many

Isn't this antiquated as commander in this day and age? Surely no implementation as a random 99 yeah?

[cheonice]

Ha! A friend of mine tries to make him work since his printing. He sneeks a win once in a blue moon, but is easily outclassed by today's options. Nice card design though, very straightforward.

[Xar]

That is the thing I'am trying to work out right now, even have a topic on it. Good, old Voltron face smashing

[Mookie]

I don't see Rafiq of the Many around that often, but he's still a scary commander - definitely capable of one or two-shotting someone with commander damage. That said, it's pretty rare for me to see a Rafiq deck actually win - people know to have blockers and removal, and the decks tend to run out of steam after Rafiq gets answered once or twice. You can try to beat down with other creatures instead, but it's harder to get that much damage through. If you want to take the deck in a direction other than voltron, I struggle to think of other viable options - only getting the exalted bonus when attacking with a single creature means you don't want to go wide, so even builds not focused on commander damage will still just be attacking with a single large creature.

As part of the 99... Rafiq's ability to grant double strike is most at home in other voltron decks, as one may expect. Not that there are a ton of those in Bant colors, but if you expand to five colors there are options like Progenitus and Karona, False God. Rafiq does face competition from his frequent partner Finest Hour though.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Rafiq is one of those commanders with an ability that is immediately useful: Exalted and can give himself double strike. Obviously other exalted things are useful. (Quick Gatherer search found Angelic Benediction, Ardent Plea, Cathedral of War, Finest Hour, Noble Hierarch, Qasali Pridemage, and Sovereigns of Lost Alara, so, seven that I might consider. Sovereigns especially seems interesting.) You would also want things that stop your opponents from attacking en masse (Dueling Grounds, Silent Arbiter, Crawlspace, Lightmine Field, Propaganda and friends) and things that give Rafiq evasion abilities and help him dodge removal.

Beyond that, Rafiq often shows up in infect builds because at a bare minimum, each infect creature is now a potential four counters per turn. Cast Giant Growth on one to one-shot an opponent.

[RxPhantom]

I have a Bant enchantress/aura deck headed by Jenara, Asura of War, but Rafiq is in the 99. Sometimes, I'll use Jenara and maybe an aura or two to bait out removal so I can safely play another creature to load up with auras. Sometimes it's Rafiq, and it can be a beating. Typically, it's a late game play when I can put something like Alpha Authority on him the turn I cast him.

As a commander though, I don't think Rafiq's been outclassed more than he's become predictable. He's never been the most exciting commander anyway.

[3drinks]

Saturday, February 8th, 2020; Explore

2explores? >_> 👀👀

[umtiger]

People sleep on Explore.

Besides the memes, an additional land drop is better than putting a land from your hand into play ala Growth Spiral.

[Rorseph]

People really do sleep on Explore. I know I was until I picked up Faceless Menace. I figured it would be a card to get cut, but it stayed in there. I liked it so much that it was one of the first cards I put into my Tatyova deck. It cantrips at worst, but almost always ends up ramping, too.

I'm kinda shocked it's a 7% card on EDHREC.

[Mookie]

Explore is a fine card, but it can look a bit awkward in comparison to other two mana ramp like Rampant Growth and Nature's Lore. My default mental model of it is that both Explore and Nature's Lore get one additional land in play, and cost a card from hand. However, Explore has a fail case if you don't actually have a land in hand to play out. Not that it is a particularly significant fail case, of course - it still cantripped - but if your primary goal for the card is to ramp, it will have failed to perform its job. My goal when playing two mana ramp spells is usually to hit four mana on turn 3 - on opening hand of three lands + Rampant Growth guarantees that, while an opening hand of three lands + Explore doesn't.

That said, I'd favor Explore if I have some way to reliably get lands in hand - its ability to replace itself makes it much better in the lategame. I should probably consider it for my Samut deck - I'm running Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger, so having too many lands in hand is a recurring concern.

I'll call out Growth Spiral as an almost-strictly-better card for Simic decks - instant speed is a significant improvement. Doesn't work with Ramunap Excavator or Crucible of Worlds though, while Explore works really well with them.

[hyalopterouslemur]

People sleep on Explore.

Besides the memes, an additional land drop is better than putting a land from your hand into play ala Growth Spiral.

Eh, being able to play it on an opponent's turn is worth something, especially if you're also in blue. It's also something landfall decks might consider, either as a combat trick or just as part of the "wait as long as possible" trope. The other time being Seedborn Muse with a spell with landfall.

[Sinis]

Saturday, February 8th, 2020; Explore




2explores? >_>

I play it ahead of other 2 mana ramp, because it feels better in the late game while being worse in the early game. In the early game, you might not be able to capitalize on the extra land, because the card you draw isn't guaranteed to be a land. Rampant Growth et al. 'draw' a land for you to get the extra play on.

But, later in the game, Explore really shines, because you have a good chance not to draw a land. If you've used a lot of fetches, other ramp, Land Tax, etc., it might just cycle for 2. Which would be preferable to a Rampant Growth analogue.

P.S. %$#% Alex Bertoncheaty.

[3drinks]

Sunday, February 9th, 2020; Deranged Hermit

Well...it certainly #CombosWithReveillark.

[Mookie]

Do you like squirrels?

In terms of pure bodies-per-card, Deranged Hermit is pretty efficient - you get five bodies for five mana. It's a reasonable inclusion if you have Skullclamp or some other way to benefit from all the tokens, or if you have a way to flicker it. It also supercharges stuff like Craterhoof Behemoth, Gaea's Cradle, and other payoffs for going wide.

That said though.... if you're looking for token quality over quantity, I'd probably look elsewhere - 1/1 tokens aren't that exciting, even if you do have an anthem. In comparison, I'd say that Rampaging Baloths, Avenger of Zendikar, and Hornet Queen produce much more valuable tokens. I'd also throw out Tendershoot Dryad as an alternative. I do expect most token decks to have payoffs for going wide, but if you're somehow stuck without any payoffs, I'd favor a token producer that produces more value by itself.

I'll also point out Deep Forest Hermit, which is an almost-strictly-better alternative. The echo cost makes Deranged Hermit pretty costly to keep around, which complicates any plans to flicker it. I suppose you may favor the self-sacrifice in a Meren of Clan Nel Toth deck, but outside of that I favor not dealing with echo.

[3drinks]

As a rule, I generally would perceive Hornet Queen as the superior, power crept version of Hermit, Deranged, as you point out @Mookie, so I agree with your assessment.

[DirkGently]

Auto-include in acornelia, fashionable filcher. Otherwise...eh, decent way to trigger some stuff if you can blink it - it'd be great in purphoros 1.0 if it was red, for example. I think the main draw relative to other token production is that it's an etb effect on a creature, if you have a way to exploit that, like corpse dance maybe, for acornelia.

[WolfWhoWanders]

I use him in my low boarded version of kenrith, he gets some things done there and the echo cost is trivial because you want to reanimate him anyways. Not a great card, but they don't always have to be. Kenriths power level can be kind of silly, it was admittedly harder to make a "bad" deck that still functioned well enough for me to have fun than it was to make the beast of a control deck that he also is

[hyalopterouslemur]

This is one of my favorite cards to use with Purphoros, God of the Forge. You knock everyone down for 10. If you have Panharmonicon as well, it becomes 36 (8 tokens from the Hermit, and each plus the Hermit triggers Purph twice) and nobody gets up from that except the lifegain player. Of course, it's only the most efficient, except maybe Avenger producing that fifth token most of the time.

[JoeyB11223]

Does nice work in Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest. Gives four extra bodies and self sac's on the next turn.

[3drinks]

Monday, February 10th, 2020; Prohibit

I've always liked this. Hard counter without the heavy pip requirement, likely strongest in more competitive games though.

[DirkGently]

Huh, really? I mean, sure, it's a hard counter, but it's so limited in its targets. I'd rather have mana leak, or probably any of the pay-2 variants as well over this. There are just so many good counters in commander that I have a hard time believing I'd ever seriously consider it. Even in a competitive game, there are plenty of game-winning spells that this won't be able to hit.

I'd be more interested if it was 1 cmc with a 3-mana kicker (I mean, obviously - but I think that would still be extremely fair for commander tbh, and still likely be too restrictive for kitchen-table or even 75% EDH. It would just be way too good for modern/legacy/vintage. Or maybe if it had no restriction on cmc when kicked?) Idk, I've got decks with lots of counters (less than 20 but well over 10) and this never really seriously crossed my mind. So I think you'd have to have one hell of a counterspell deck to get this low down the list. I get that cEDH cmc is really crucial, but even there I feel like disallow is easily worth the extra mana.

In formats like modern/legacy you can totally trade 1:1 with your opponents setup spells, like ramp or tutors or whatever. But in commander, counters really need to be reserved for only the most critical targets, and that means you want the flexibility to hit those specific targets, rather than just be able to hit SOMETHING.

[Sharpened]

This card is bad. There are a significant number of better options. You should not play it.

[schweinefett]

Yea i concur. It's pretty bad. pretty unplayable.

consider:

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

arcane denial

confound

corrupted resolve

delay

disdainful stroke

dispersal shield

essence scatter

evasive action

extinguish

false summoning

flash counter

flashfreeze

grip of amnesia

horribly awry

jaded response

mana leak

memory lapse

miscalculation

negate

neutralising blast

remand

remove soul

scent of brine

spell siphon

split decision

thassa's rebuff

Approximate Total Cost:

Just off the top of my head, those 1u counters are better than prohibit. Some are more limiting, sure, but they have a considerably more powerful effect.

And anyways, unless i'm actually going for full-on high powered competitive try-hard mode, i doubt the 1u would make such a huge difference to a uu counterspell.