[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[Igzex]

Because the Quentin Tarantino classic needed more tentacles

[onering]

I literally have never seen this card before.

Desecrator demon doesn't do it for me anymore, it's too easy to keep tapped and too often opponents can take advantage of a free sac outlet.

This kraken is better than the demon. Trample is weaker than flying but it's still evasion, and ward 2 provides some protection. Notably, I think ward 2 is enough disincentive to target it with removal when coupled with simply being able to tap one of your creatures to deal with it for the turn. I personally value gaining an unlockable 1/1 over an opponent sacrificing the thing they least value (or actively want to sacrifice), and that's before considering that they also have to tap something.

I think this would be a very deck dependent card. It's only useful in decks that want to be turning creatures sideways as the main gameplan, which is something blue sometimes does but it's not the color's bread and butter. Sea monsters.dek wants it because that's exactly what the deck wants to do and it's a cheap kraken. Decks with plenty of triggers based on creatures dealing damage to opponents will be able to make great use of the unblockable fish. Decks that throw around mass pumps and +1/+1 counters will also benefit from tokens that can't be blocked. I'm not sure it makes the cut in most of them though, it's kind of a slow token generator.

[3drinks]

Sunday, November 26th, 2023; Andúril, Flame of the West

[Hermes_]

If i wasn't already at a good point with my voltron build I might slot this into it.

[Mookie]

Andúril, Flame of the West seems reasonable. As a 3-mana equipment that costs 2 to equip, it draws a comparison to the various Swords of X and Y - +3/+1 instead of +2/+2, and it loses the protection abilities but upgrades the combat damage trigger to an attack trigger. The spirit tokens are pretty good - I would certainly take them over Sword of Body and Mind's 2/2 wolf - but I think they're outclassed by some of the stronger Sword triggers (like Sword of Feast and Famine). I suppose it's also comparable to Sword of Vengeance and Loxodon Warhammer, trading keywords for tokens.

I would say Andúril seems most appropriate in voltron / equipment decks that have a naturally-evasive commander - protection isn't a very consistent source of evasion, and +3 power is better than +2. It also seems reasonable as a token producer in go-wide strategies or decks that have Spirit synergies. I've considered it for Teysa (two spirits are 2/3 of a Teysa exile), and I could see it in decks like Millicent, Restless Revenant, Inniaz, the Gale Force, or Thalisse, Reverent Medium. It also has the upside of being significantly more affordable than any of the Swords.

[Dunadain]

I'm significantly lower on this card.

As a token producer, 5 to make two tokens a turn with no additional investment is a good rate, but when you add the need to have a creature to equip that's willing to attack it becomes a lot less appealing. Additionally, the tokens can't block the turn you play it.

As an equipment, 5 to get +3/+1 is an awful rate.

Combined, the effects are well-worth the mana investment, but only if you actually want both effects. This is a rare card where the sum is LESSER than it's parts. At least for most decks. It probably works fine in decks like Elenda, the Dusk Rose that care about both fodder AND the power of their commander.

[3drinks]

Monday, November 27th, 2023; Subterranean Tremors

[folding_music]

ten out of ten card I adore!!!!! getting the lizard is both rare, pointless and not really part of any deck's plan imo

[Lifeless]

I actually dig the flexibility on this bad boy, although I've only ever played it in our Conspiracy cube. Often times I find that red in constructed EDH isn't looking for a Shatterstorm because it's the deck most likely to be abusing the artifacts in the first place. And while you get to determine how much mana you pump in here I can see a lot of scenarios where you have to destroy all artifacts in order to kill the problematic creatures even if you don't want to. So realistically you're much more likely to want Shattering Spree or Vandalblast but those aren't a potential board wipe.

[Mookie]

Subterranean Tremors looks sweet, but I'm not sure where I would want it. I'm a bit low on Earthquake because it's expensive to kill things (plus it misses flyers), and Shatterstorm is also a little niche... but having both on the same card adds a lot of flexibility. Plus the 8/8 token is a nice bonus if you ever get it. I think the main point of tension is that red decks are often artifact-heavy - you can't use it as a board wipe unless you're willing to nuke your own mana rocks. Seems worth consideration in decks like Omnath, Locus of Rage that are running mostly land-based ramp and may have big creatures that will live through some damage. Or decks that mostly run dragons.

[Hawk]

I've tried this in a lot of decks, and it's a case where I have found the added flexibility isn't worth the lower rate.

- If I want to kill creatures, I find Chain Reaction and Blasphemous Act do the job better, to say nothing of Rolling Earthquake.
- If I want to kill artifacts, I find that the asymmetry of Vandalblast or Shattering Spree is pretty tough to beat.

In general I've been down on X-spells anyhow, and even my old go-to Starstorm (which I like for its instant speed and option to cycle away) is getting played less and less in my R/x decks these days.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, November 28th, 2023; Quicken

[Dunadain]

Hard to imagine a deck running this, then again, Overmaster sees play in legacy, so maybe if some storm deck really wants to go off on their opponents turn, but also wants to resolve a sorcery?

Reset High Tide tech?

[Mookie]

Quicken is a strong but niche effect. The primary value provided by flash is flexibility - instead of having to choose on your own turn whether you want to tap out for a board wipe or a big draw spell, you can instead choose the optimal one based on your opponents' actions while also threatening countermagic. However, I feel like this is often a false utility - the value differential between your best and second-best options will often be difficult to measure, but increasing the cost by can be significant, particularly if you want to cast something expensive... and that's before accounting for the times when you don't even have a sorcery to cast.

Quicken is a cheap cantrip, so it does have a high floor.... but it competes with Ponder, Consider, and other premium blue cantrips. I've tested it in Kess and Mizzix in the past, but it ultimately felt weaker than the other options. I tested out Electrodominance for similar reasons, but wasn't thrilled by it either.

[yeti1069]

In general I've been down on X-spells anyhow, and even my old go-to Starstorm (which I like for its instant speed and option to cycle away) is getting played less and less in my R/x decks these days.

My sense has been that creature size has increased vs mana value over time (particularly in the last few years), so X spells that are necessarily 1-3 damage behind CMC just don't get the job done much of the time, especially alongside more efficient options. If you play a 4/4 for 4, I need to have 5, 6, or 7 mana to remove it. It's even worse when you drop a 6/6 for 5 (and we see some even bigger size vs cost disparities), which often means X-spell removal is simply too inefficient and slow for its task. Add to that more ways to provide indestructibility to important permanents, a resurgence of phasing, and other protection methods to blank a removal spell, and it becomes harder to justify spending a whole turn on one of these spells.

[yeti1069]

Tuesday, November 28th, 2023; Quicken

It's been a loooong time since I've run Quicken. I feel like you want to have some important sorceries you specifically want to be casting at instant speed, but in commander there are only so many slots that can be dedicated to that kind of game plan, and then to have so few ways of enabling it, and you're better off looking for an instant speed alternative, a more universal flash enabler, or resigning yourself to casting whatever it was at sorcery speed.

I'd say that if you're a spellslinger deck with a number of impactful sorceries that benefit from the timing change, it might be better to run Quicken over Ponder. Otherwise, it's just going to be a worse version of the same card too often to justify.

[NZB2323]

I cut Quicken from my Niv-Mizzet, Parun list a long time ago.

Teferi, Time Raveler has the same effect for +1, plus a whole lot more.

[onering]

There's plenty of permanent versions of this effect that are just better for decks that are committed to casting sorceries at instant speed. I feel like Quicken's niche is for decks with sorceries they'd like to be able to cast as instants if possible, because they already have a lot of instant speed interaction, yet are also very willing to just cycle this away if it's not needed. Basically, enough stuff that it actually has utility, but few enough that the effect might have nothing relevant to instantify and thus ability to just cycle it is relevant. Something like UWx control with 6 or 7 wipes but otherwise a ton of instant speed stuff, since adding U to the wipes to make them instants that also draw a card is sweet, but theres not enough them to justify leyline of anticipation. Not many decks like that, and there's likely better stuff to be doing, but I'm sure if UWx hard control is your bag then casting Supreme Verdict off of a Quicken in response to a Hoof hitting the field is exactly how you're looking to have fun.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, November 29th, 2023; Spell Queller

[Mookie]

Spell Queller is cool, but I'm not sure what decks would want it. 2/3 flash flyer for 3 mana is reasonably efficient, and you get a nice pseudo-counterspell / tempo play attached to it. It's not as flexible as Frilled Mystic or Ertai Resurrected, but the base body is certainly better. Its Oblivion Ring templating can also be an upside sometimes - if you exile an X spell or a counterspell that requires a target, then they may not do anything when Spell Queller leaves the battlefield. You could also counter a removal spell early, then free it to hit an opponent's thing later, or anything involving flickering. Stopping uncounterable spells like Supreme Verdict is also occasionally useful.

...that said, I feel like only hitting spells with mana value 4 or less is a pretty significant restriction in EDH. Most spells worth countering are more expensive, so I would prefer Dovin's Veto or another, more flexible counterspell. Skyclave Apparition is also capable of filling a similar role, and exiles things even more permanently.

[NZB2323]

Spell Queller seems good in Millicent, Restless Revenant.

[Dunadain]

Man i love this card, not sure how well it translates into EDH though, the MV<=4 restriction becomes a bigger restriction, and the 2/3 flying body becomes much less relavent.

[3drinks]

Thursday, Novembe 30th, 2023; Sticky Fingers

That's a lot of benefit for such minimal cost. And it cycles on {it's target's} death. What more could you want from an aura? I think this is wildly underplayed.

[PrimevalCommander]

Never seen this before, but I have a deck and instantly came to mind when I saw this. Pretty solid value for . Might have use in PDH as well due to the evasion and cantrip.

[Lifeless]

It's good but I feel like the ceiling depends a lot on how well incremental value cards play at your table. Then again if it sticks around for a while, and it likely will because it's so low impact, it's probably going to generate a ton of value for R. Might be worth considering the next time I make a goblin deck at very least.