[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Rishkar, Peema Renegade

[DirkGently]

I might run Vortex Elemental instead if I wanted this effect.

Why? It seems much worse. For one use, your choice costs 7 total mana and requires the target creature to be untapped, while the card of the day costs 5 total mana and doesn't care about whether the target is tapped. They're both on fragile bodies and both must wait a turn to use it.

There's some interesting play with vortex elemental. If you're holding up a blue and have at least 5 mana on board, your opponents are motivated to swing into each other to avoid getting tucked by vortex elemental. Then you can just...not use it, and continue doing whatever you want, so long as you keep a blue open (or have good blocks). And, if you absolutely most, you can actually use his ability (potentially for multiple targets if you've got enough mana).

In the world of "commanders are powerful cards that work well with the deck" vortex elemental is pretty interesting. Which was much more the cast back in 2014. In the modern hellscape of "commanders can't be suffered to live for a single turn or the game might be over", vortex elemental is probably a bit clunky.

(Also it gets around hexproof on the block.)

[3drinks]

I might run Vortex Elemental instead if I wanted this effect.

Why? It seems much worse. For one use, your choice costs 7 total mana and requires the target creature to be untapped, while the card of the day costs 5 total mana and doesn't care about whether the target is tapped. They're both on fragile bodies and both must wait a turn to use it.

It doesn't, though. Elemental hits creature blocking or blocked by, and just costs U to activate. The five cmc effect only matters if you want to swing in. I imagine this is just a fine attack deterrent.

I would, however, favour Void Stalker over it since i dont need to rely on the target being an attacking creature.

[Legend]

Saturday, March 21st, 2020; Void Stalker

Ah, yes, the bane of all our commander centric decks that lacked hexproof! Or at least was. How often do you see him pop up?

It's in my cube.

[Mookie]

I considered Void Stalker for decks back when tuck was a thing - 2+3 mana to deal with a commander semi-permanently is a pretty reasonable deal. Not amazing (summoning sickness makes everything worse), but the format was also slower then.

But now? No tuck rule, and blue has some much better options for spot removal - I'd probably lean towards Reality Shift most of the time. There are some arguments for running it in an Elemental deck, at least - it does trigger Risen Reef, and there aren't that many elementals that act as removal.

Sidenote re: tuck rule: Mindslaver effects really bug me, primarily because even with the tuck rule gone, they're still capable of dealing with commanders permanently, which I consider to be in violation of the spirit of the replacement rule ("you should always have access to your commander"). I don't expect a rules patch ever, but I would like one.

[Serenade]

It costs one mana to block like a champ.

[Hermes_]

I don't recall running into it even when tuck was a thing.

[3drinks]

I don't recall running into it even when tuck was a thing.

We used to activate this, and then sac to Diamond Valley with the trigger on the stack so we could shuffle away your commander and then Sun Titan this thing back latre.

[3drinks]

Sunday, March 22nd, 2020; Invoke the Firemind

Sometimes you want a Blaze and a Mind Spring but only have one slot.

Geez this has not aged well...

[Serenade]

Me: Well, at least it's an instant, so you can dump Braid of Fire mana into it. [reads the card] This trash.

Expansion / Explosion would take this slot. Mmm, Explosion with a Mindcrank out...

[onering]

It's not that this card didn't age well, it's that it was never good. It was always way too much Mana for the effect. The blaze effect was tragically overcoated, the draw effect moderately so. I think the draw side was correctly costed for the flexibility, but the burn side needed to tack on damage in addition to X, probably +2.

Still, it was reasonable in mizzix if only because you usually had 7 or 8 going into X before paying any Mana into it, and it's still good there, but it's an example of a bad card finding a deck that lets it shine.

[pokken]

Sorcery speed X draw spells and getting cut, name a better combination.

[onering]

Sorcery speed X draw spells and getting cut, name a better combination.

I wonder if it would be good as an instant. Sphinx's Rev is also XCCC and is great, and reactive decks can hold up a bunch of Mana and just drop 5 into X when able at the end of their last opponents turn. But Sphinx's Rev also gains you life while drawing the cards, and unless it's a desperation play where X=2 it's usually a decent cushion. I think that the Burn side is just so bad, even at instant speed, that it's not work it over the mono U instant speed X draws, because you're rarely going to use the burn side. How often does the burn side need to be relevant for an instant speed version of this to be better than Stroke of Genius? I'd bet that it would be most relevant in the same decks the sorcery speed version is, where you just expect X to be huge when you cast this due to Mana reduction effects, but maybe the burn side occasionally doming a player or removing something key would be enough for UR draw go to consider it.

[pokken]

I think itd probably see some fringe play at least as an instant. A draw spell that doubles as instant speed creature combo killing is pretty reasonable. It's basically stroke that can occasionally kill a creature at that point.

[3drinks]

Sorcery speed X draw spells and getting cut, name a better combination.

I wonder if it would be good as an instant. Sphinx's Rev is also XCCC and is great, and reactive decks can hold up a bunch of Mana and just drop 5 into X when able at the end of their last opponents turn. But Sphinx's Rev also gains you life while drawing the cards, and unless it's a desperation play where X=2 it's usually a decent cushion. I think that the Burn side is just so bad, even at instant speed, that it's not work it over the mono U instant speed X draws, because you're rarely going to use the burn side. How often does the burn side need to be relevant for an instant speed version of this to be better than Stroke of Genius? I'd bet that it would be most relevant in the same decks the sorcery speed version is, where you just expect X to be huge when you cast this due to Mana reduction effects, but maybe the burn side occasionally doming a player or removing something key would be enough for UR draw go to consider it.

I might not be searching precise enough, but the closest I could find was Illuminate, which is still a sorcery. I thought I had seen a new ish card that was instant with these options, but i guess not.

So, the problem with this is that, yeah the draw is well costed. Braingeyser/Mind Spring is still fair, so paying +1 for modal is fine. The Blaze side is just where we're getting hung up. When was the last time we'd pay the +2 mana to flash a Ghitu Fire? Pretty hard. Hmm. I'd reckon we need the other half to be somewhere between Crater's Claws and Comet Storm to make the other half worthwhile.

[Sinis]

Braingeyser/Mind Spring is still fair, so paying +1 for modal is fine.

Both of these are kind of worse than Finale of Revelation.

[Mookie]

Expansion // Explosion says: why not both?
Anyway, I've never really been a fan of Invoke the Firemind - sorcery speed isn't particularly exciting for these effects, given how many instant-speed options there are. There are some arguments for flexibility, but this is going to be card draw the vast majority of the time, except when you have enough mana to burn someone out for lethal. (and even then, you could just draw a bunch of cards and find a burn spell that way)

....I'm certainly open to sorcery-speed draw/burn, but I'm generally going to want a bit more upside than this - either Finale of Revelation's rebate on large casts, or Banefire's uncounterability. Better a card that does one thing really well than a card that does two different things poorly.

[3drinks]

Expansion // Explosion says: why not both?

Mmm, needing cmc5 for X = 1 is not gonna get it done. Though it scales wonderfully in the space where you have copious amounts of mana. I'd say when X is 3+ is where this gets really incredible. So, cmc8 and on.

[DirkGently]

I think itd probably see some fringe play at least as an instant. A draw spell that doubles as instant speed creature combo killing is pretty reasonable. It's basically stroke that can occasionally kill a creature at that point.

It'd be pretty heinously overpriced at that rate, although flexibility is still flexibility (only 15 mana to kill ghalta!). Mostly I think it'd be useful for burning people out. If someone starts to get low, it's pretty nice knowing you can KO them as an instant if they start doing shenanigans or getting aggressive towards you. Those cards aren't generally worth running because they're so inefficient and don't do anything else well, but with the draw as the primary option I think it'd be pretty playable (though certainly not overpowered) as an instant.

[schweinefett]

Yea, it's not great. In a weird way, even stroke of genius is better just 'cuz you're able to say "stroke you for 100".

Ive no idea what the power level was way back then, but I'm not sure it's good enough to fit into any of my (horribly badly built) decks.

[3drinks]

Monday, March 23rd, 2020; Dimir Cutpurse

It's like they tried to recreate Finkel. They failed the legend on so many levels.

Is this even remotely good? It's bulk price point suggests otherwise.

[Segrus]

I considered finding a place a place for Dimir Cutpurse in my Sultai Spirit tribal deck as another card draw effect, but ultimately decided against it. While it could represent a decent card advantage engine, you're likely trying to attack on turn four which could mean using your fourth turn to grant him evasion (which you could be using your fourth turn for something stronger). And without decent setup you likely aren't getting in more than one attack, so you might be better off just playing a 3-mana draw spell if you need the card draw.

[ilovesaprolings]

I love the art (nothing is better than Kev Walker's Ravnicas) but sadly it's unplayable everywhere

[DirkGently]

Kinda funny that you're using its low price as evidence for its badness, while pointing to another card that costs half as much as being good.

I mean, this card is bad, and SMI is good, but prices can be deceiving.

In 1v1 this might be a trigger worth finding a way to force through, but in multiplayer the discard trigger is really not very exciting, which is why SMI is good and this sucks. SMI's evasion means it needs no additional setup, whereas this really does, and while SMI has a weaker trigger, it gives you the much stronger half. So the setup cost isn't really worth the effort.

If you imagine a version of this that said "each opponent discards a card"...that would be a reasonable card imo.

This is still probably ok in vela the night-clad? You'd really need your commander to do the work of granting evasion.

[pokken]

I think if your aim is to connect with combat damage, which is a pretty valid theme of a deck these days, this guy is pretty good, but falls generally behind all the stronger options like mindblade render, oakhame adversary and ohran viper.

I'd probably toss this in as my 10th combat damage trigger guy and then eventually cut it for either more enablers or removal

[WizardMN]

Dimir Cutpurse, so far, has been really good in my Sygg, River Cutthroat deck. The deck wants small, low to the ground creatures to get in for small bits of damage just to keep my hand full. Since the rest of the deck is built around keeping things off the board, it has actually worked out really well to keep cards in my hand. The opponent discarding is just the icing on top.

I wouldn't say it is fantastic or anything, but the 2 power is very relevant in that deck compared to the Infiltrator's 1 damage which matters for Sygg. It doesn't allow for a focused attack and it is really something where it just attacks whoever is open but I have liked it so far and there aren't many other options for that effect for 3 or less mana.

I don't think I would ever put it into anything else but in that deck it does what I need it to do.