[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[toctheyounger]

I think there's a non-zero number of times this card is either second Bonus Round or effectively Flusterstorm. It's not an include for every deck but I think in a sans blue spellslinger type shell it could prove it's worth.

[3drinks]

Monday, September 11th, 2023; Underworld Breach

[materpillar]

Monday, September 11th, 2023; Underworld Breach

I'm sure this card will only be cast when people want to do fair things and not when they're going to monopolize game time with an unwieldy combo that's going to win in 10 minutes after all their opponents' eyes have glazed over with boredom.

[Toshi]

Strictly amazing busted card!
To be fair, it would be completely valid to run it for a single recast, but obviously gets naughtier the more you can cast off of it.
I love to hit it in my Zada, Hedron Grinder build and would wish i had more decks with it.

[Dunadain]

Fair and balanced magic card!

Don't know what @materpillar is talking about though, generally a very clean and quick combo.

[materpillar]

Fair and balanced magic card!

Don't know what @materpillar is talking about though, generally a very clean and quick combo.

I've only seen it with non-deterministic storm combos.

[PrimevalCommander]

I only play Underworld Breach fairly. That is, in decks without large rituals or self mill. I had it in a Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder storm deck for a short time, and it was a combo card there. Now it is just good value. Being able to cast the same card multiple times is good even if it is a Pongify on 2-3 creatures, then a Fact or Fiction to draw some cards. Sure it can be used for combo, but even when it's not it is a good card.

[Dunadain]

Fair and balanced magic card!

Don't know what @materpillar is talking about though, generally a very clean and quick combo.

I've only seen it with non-deterministic storm combos.

Ah, I've only seen Lion's Eye Diamond (Or Black Lotus in vintage) + Brain Freeze.

[materpillar]

I've only seen it with non-deterministic storm combos.

Ah, I've only seen Lion's Eye Diamond (Or Black Lotus in vintage) + Brain Freeze.

Vintage Cube?

Look at the other examples in this thread. Zada, Hedron Grinder is going to likely result in them drawing their deck and then wasting the table. Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder storm? Gonna end up monopolizing some game time. No shade on those decks it might be appropriate for their metagames. I'm just not a fan of cards that can so easily make a game miserable.

[Dunadain]

Vintage Cube?

No, vintage, though you could also pull it off in vintage cube.

[Moxnix]

Powerful card broken when built around and just good in general.

[Mookie]

Underworld Breach is a very powerful card when supported... but when the best support card is an expensive RL card, that keeps it out of most casual tables. I'll compare it to High Tide / Bubbling Muck, two other powerful cards that are kept out of many decks due to the best enablers being on the RL.

If you want to go infinite without LED, there are other options (like Turnabout and Brass's Bounty), but most of them require significantly more setup to go infinite. Alternatively, you could try to chain together smaller rituals and some draw spells for a non-infinite combo win... but if you're only getting +1 or +2 mana from Dark Ritual / Pyretic Ritual, you're likely to run out of cards in graveyard to exile before you can put together an actual win. The alternative to using it as a combo piece is to play it as a janky red Regrowth / Yawgmoth's Will, which isn't exciting, but is perfectly reasonable in some decks. Depending on what you're doing, Past in Flames or Mizzix's Mastery may be preferable.

[onering]

Is absolutely worth it if you can use it to recast two things. It's nearly a red Yawg's Will, which obviously means it has absurd combo potential, but it's plenty good when used fairly. I mean, just using it to recast a Jeska's Will is pretty sweet.

[3drinks]

What I love is it doesn't exile the rebought card. And also that this has actually gotten a positive response today. I really didn't expect that when this came up this morning.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I've grown to hate this thing. Please just kill me with an A + B combo if you're gonna combo, don't make me sit through this.

[DirkGently]

I'm 100% on team @materpillar/@TheAmericanSpirit. Screw this stupid card.

I was going to say that about 9 hours ago but then I got interrupted by taking my cross country test (I passed, woo).

[gsgfdf]

Underworld Breach was a bit underwhelming in my Kykar deck. I tried to use it for value but I was stuck with it in hand constantly. I ended up cutting it for Sevinne's Reclamation.

[yeti1069]

I play Breach in Queen Marchesa as a finisher alongside Smothering Tithe and a wheel to draw out the table or kill everyone with damage if that's not possible. What I like about it here is that each of the pieces are just good on their own, and I can reuse Breach later in the game thanks to Hall of Heliod's Generosity.

[yeti1069]

Ability counters are a mechanic that sound great in theory, but awkward in practice. If you happen to bring a stack of the punch-out counters with you everywhere, great! Otherwise, it feels like a mechanic that works much better in digital.

I like the idea of Kathril, Aspect Warper, but I'm not a fan of unnecessary bookkeeping. Ability counters are somewhat difficult to visually parse if you're playing in paper - if I look cross the table and see a bunch of stuff on Kathril, I can sense that it's threatening... but I'm unlikely to know whether it has indestructible / flying / other relevant keywords without actually walking over and reading. Additionally, playing against it requires tracking the Kathril player's graveyard - if they only have a menace creature in the graveyard, I may not care... but if they cast a Grisly Salvage and mill a bunch of stuff, my mental threat model needs to update. Things can also get even more complicated if Kathril gets blinked and throws more counters on other creatures... and of course, you also need to differentiate between ability counters and Kathril's +1/+1 counters.

...anyway, if I'm not willing to play Cathars' Crusade because I don't want to deal with all the dice, I'm definitely not interested in playing with Kathril.

I don't play Kathril, but I do have several counter types in Falco Spara, and I use dry erase cards: I just write the counter types and either put hash marks next to them, or a die beside each, then slip that partially behind whatever card(s) have non-+1/+1 counters on them.

[yeti1069]

Sunday, September 10th, 2023; Display of Power

How often is this really more than Chef's Kiss or Reverberate?

I feel like I would almost always prefer Bonus Round in a spellslinger deck.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, September 12th, 2023; Contagion Engine

[Hawk]

This card always felt too slow even in the dinosaur age of 2010-2011 EDH. 10 mana before you start killing a meaningful amount of creatures with those -1/-1 counters is just a ton, and you need a boatload of counters/'walkers/other synergies to feel like you're getting your mana's worth. I remember jamming this, and Contagion Clasp, in most "counters" or "superfriends" decks and always being crushingly disappointed at how slow it was to get value out of them. I currently play this nowhere, not even in Daretti, Scrap Savant.

Fast forward 12 years of powercreep and printing directly to the format, and I think this is more or less unplayable in all but the most durdly of decks. I think it's wildly overplayed.

[ironic gesture]

I agree with @Hawk, I've tried it a couple times over the years and it's always too slow. I even have a durdly -1/-1 counter deck (Scorpion God) and this doesn't make the cut there. It doesn't even hit all your opponents' creatures, just a single opponent.

[Toshi]

Contagion Engine is 15 bucks!?
Good lord, what drove its price? Planeswalkers? Infect/Poison/Toxic?
As said before, this card has been outclassed a long time ago and hasn't recovered at all.
I used to run it in one of the earlier iterations of Brago, King Eternal and even when blinking it and rocks to pay for its double proliferate, it was atrociously slow.
Even Anrakyr the Traveller, Daretti, Scrap Savant, Mairsil, the Pretender, Mishra, Tamer of Mak Fawa, Sharuum the Hegemon and Tocasia, Dig Site Mentor have plenty of better things to do.

[Moxnix]

Yea its never been good