[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Jetfire, Ingenious Scientist

[lyonhaert]

"Yes, please play out this enchantment." -- Chainer

[ZenN]

The only place I ever saw Overabundance put to good use was in a Shattergang Brothers deck years ago. The guy would play that and Mana Flare basically as High Tide effects and then just sac them at the end of his turn. It was pretty cute.

As for other people trying to play them, unless you're specifically trying to do a group hug or group slug type deck they're pretty bad. What I've almost always seen happen is whoever goes next gets to have a huge turn and then it just gets blown up.

[Outcryqq]

Overabundance
I've been dunked by this card from a Prossh, Skyraider of Kher deck a few times. I don't run it personally, but theoretically it could fight for inclusions in my Marath, Will of the Wild tokens deck, as that deck uses vast quantities of mana more effectively than most decks.

[FoxOfWar]

It's a mana doubler that's balanced... until you also have more mana doublers that affect only you. Pretty great thing in a big, BIG mana kind of deck that attempts to make every land tap for at least four.

[onering]

Zen's shattergang guy had the right idea. This card and similar are really best thought of as high tides. You only want them if you plan on leveraging the Mana they immediately net you the turn they are played into a win, or you plan on them not surviving your turn (via sacrifice or other means) so even if they don't fuel a win you are the only one netting any value from them.

I suppose Overabundance could be used as a Mana Barb's with a drawback when paired with Torban (because 3 damage for 2 Mana added up quick), but that looks more cute than anything.

For group hug, it's a hard no from me, as is anything that give opponents lots of Mana. That is the worst form of group hug as it usually just hands the game to whoever is after you in turn order. Mana is the resource that is easiest to take advantage of and that is the most likely to fuel game ending nonsense early. Throwing in cards like this is what gives group hug a bad name. If you are doing group hug, you should first have a way to win, and second you should focus your hug on handing out life, tokens, or cards. Cards are the most powerful, but your opponents are limited in how much they can take advantage by their available Mana, so in practice it becomes more card selection than card advantage for them while you, having built your deck to take advantage of it, actually can play the cards your drawing and reap real card advantage from it. Tokens are easy to game by giving incentives for opponents to attack eachother and punishment for attacking you, and life often just doesn't matter much and is also very easy for you to take advantage of by having synergies in your deck while for your opponents it's just padding. Everyone can take advantage of tons of Mana, and there are few ways you can successfully leverage it more than your opponents. The only group hug deck I like that gives out Mana in any form is the 4 color lovers, and they do so in a way that isn't reliable for your opponents (it just lets them put an extra land into play each turn if they have one in hand and if they choose it instead of drawing a card), it's favorable to the pilot (who gets both effects, which incidentally makes it more likely they will have an extra land to put down to the effect) and is typically built without other Mana based hug.

[3drinks]

I'm not sure we're ever going to see eye to eye on this. There's only so many times I can try to explain how CA works in multiplayer before I feel like I'm just repeating myself.

I thought about this, and I'm just coming back to it. This "obsession" with CA is what leads this format to so many games that abruptly end because no one has removal. "Well it's cArD dIsAdVaNtAgE!!1111!!" So is losing the game. This is what happens when we stop playing removal because it's "card disadvantage". You cant just play 30sweeper.dek and expect success, that's utter insanity. I don't accept that, and any player with a modicum of logic won't either.

Is Force of Will an extra bad card now because you're down two vs the table being down zero? Of course not, that's absurd.

[Mookie]

I'm not sure we're ever going to see eye to eye on this. There's only so many times I can try to explain how CA works in multiplayer before I feel like I'm just repeating myself.

I thought about this, and I'm just coming back to it. This "obsession" with CA is what leads this format to so many games that abruptly end because no one has removal. "Well it's cArD dIsAdVaNtAgE!!1111!!" So is losing the game. This is what happens when we stop playing removal because it's "card disadvantage". You cant just play 30sweeper.dek and expect success, that's utter insanity. I don't accept that, and any player with a modicum of logic won't either.

Is Force of Will an extra bad card now because you're down two vs the table being down zero? Of course not, that's absurd.

I'll propose another option: draw enough cards that the card disadvantage doesn't matter.

More seriously, I sort of see two use cases for using removal. One use case is when your opponent plays something scary, like an Eldrazi or a Blightsteel Colossus, or pretty much anything that threatens to win the game. In these cases, you generally don't want to use removal, because as mentioned, it's card disadvantage. Ideally, someone else at the table will deal with it, or the problem will be swept up in a board wipe. However, if you're not planning to be able to outrace your opponents' threats, you'll need to have interaction to slow them down.

The other use case I see is if your opponent plays something that impacts you directly, such as a Pithing Needle on your commander or a Rest in Peace against a graveyard deck. In these cases, it is much less likely for your opponents to interfere, so you're going to need to deal with them on your own. On the other hand, in these cases, removal doesn't feel as much like card disadvantage. Instead, it could be thought of as freeing up your own cards.

So: Force of Will to counter an opponents' game-winning play? Bad, and card disadvantage. Do it only if you have to. Force of Will to protect your own game-winning play? Not nearly as painful.

Going back to the original point re: countering Harrow - would I counter it on turn 2 or 3 if I expect its caster to be able to leverage the ramp into a fast win? Yes. Would I counter it lategame when it isn't nearly as relevant? No. Would I counter it turn 2 or 3 in a casual meta if I don't expect the game to be ending in the near future? Also no.

[3drinks]

Saturday, May 16th, 2020; Benalish Marshal

How often is this worth the triple pips as compared to, say, a Celestial Crusader instead? Surely it's not played because it's a 3/3 for three.

[3drinks]

I'm not sure we're ever going to see eye to eye on this. There's only so many times I can try to explain how CA works in multiplayer before I feel like I'm just repeating myself.

I thought about this, and I'm just coming back to it. This "obsession" with CA is what leads this format to so many games that abruptly end because no one has removal. "Well it's cArD dIsAdVaNtAgE!!1111!!" So is losing the game. This is what happens when we stop playing removal because it's "card disadvantage". You cant just play 30sweeper.dek and expect success, that's utter insanity. I don't accept that, and any player with a modicum of logic won't either.

Is Force of Will an extra bad card now because you're down two vs the table being down zero? Of course not, that's absurd.

I'll propose another option: draw enough cards that the card disadvantage doesn't matter.

More seriously, I sort of see two use cases for using removal. One use case is when your opponent plays something scary, like an Eldrazi or a Blightsteel Colossus, or pretty much anything that threatens to win the game. In these cases, you generally don't want to use removal, because as mentioned, it's card disadvantage. Ideally, someone else at the table will deal with it, or the problem will be swept up in a board wipe. However, if you're not planning to be able to outrace your opponents' threats, you'll need to have interaction to slow them down.

It's almost like commander is turning into a giant game of chicken meets hoarders where everyone waits for the last possible moment for someone else to have an answer, but then no one does.

Or, it's some snowflake garbage where no one plays removal because they're afraid of being ostracized since it's "not fun".

Hmm. I'd rather the former than the latre, tbh. If I'm a jerk player because I Fire Imp'd your birds, or Char'd your Captain Sisay, then screw it, I'm a jerk player.

[gilrad]

I thought about this, and I'm just coming back to it. This "obsession" with CA is what leads this format to so many games that abruptly end because no one has removal. "Well it's cArD dIsAdVaNtAgE!!1111!!" So is losing the game. This is what happens when we stop playing removal because it's "card disadvantage". You cant just play 30sweeper.dek and expect success, that's utter insanity. I don't accept that, and any player with a modicum of logic won't either.

Is Force of Will an extra bad card now because you're down two vs the table being down zero? Of course not, that's absurd.

I'll propose another option: draw enough cards that the card disadvantage doesn't matter.

More seriously, I sort of see two use cases for using removal. One use case is when your opponent plays something scary, like an Eldrazi or a Blightsteel Colossus, or pretty much anything that threatens to win the game. In these cases, you generally don't want to use removal, because as mentioned, it's card disadvantage. Ideally, someone else at the table will deal with it, or the problem will be swept up in a board wipe. However, if you're not planning to be able to outrace your opponents' threats, you'll need to have interaction to slow them down.

It's almost like commander is turning into a giant game of chicken meets hoarders where everyone waits for the last possible moment for someone else to have an answer, but then no one does.

Or, it's some snowflake garbage where no one plays removal because they're afraid of being ostracized since it's "not fun".

Hmm. I'd rather the former than the latre, tbh. If I'm a jerk player because I Fire Imp'd your birds, or Char'd your Captain Sisay, then screw it, I'm a jerk player.

I think it has a lot to do with whether you (and your playgroup too, since Commander is inherently social) as more of a "1 vs 3" mindset or "4 vs 4" mindset.

In a 1 vs 3 mindset, everything your opponents do that can put them ahead of you should be treated as though they will put them ahead of you. Treat that captain sisay as though it will fetch a combo piece or a hatebear that ruins your game plan, better to not let the player untap with it in play just to be on the safe side.

In a 4 vs 4 free-for-all mindset, everybody is striving to maintain equilibrium as long as possible, until the table can no longer keep it up. Sure the Sisay represents an incredible source of card advantage and flexibiliy, but if all those cards are being used to keep other players' threats in check, it's tolerated as long as it's not being used to make a push to win the game. In these games, a player that is behind can be an incredibly useful resource as long as you're not ahead.

[DirkGently]

I think I've played it in knight tribal. Otherwise I'd rather have glorious anthem in most contexts, and GA is pretty outdated anyway. The 3/3 body isn't worth the risk of losing your anthem and your creatures to the same wipe so easily.

I thought about this, and I'm just coming back to it. This "obsession" with CA is what leads this format to so many games that abruptly end because no one has removal. "Well it's cArD dIsAdVaNtAgE!!1111!!"

I think you're misunderstanding me, or maybe I'm not being clear enough. Of course I play removal - I mean, Phelddagrif, my primary deck, is nearly half answers (not just half of the nonlands, either), most of it single-target counterspells and removal. But what keeps me from getting overrun in both CA and tempo is that I'm not using those 1:1 answers on every target that presents itself. Before I'm committing cards and tempo to answer an opponents play, I want to know that it's something worth answering. Both in terms of how powerful the card is, but also that the opponent I'm answering is a threat to me. There's no sense countering a harrow from the cat tribal deck when somebody else is playing a T&T cEDH deck that's going to need my answers - that probably goes without saying, at least I hope. But on a more subtle scale, sometimes it can take a while to see who's likely to get out of control and become a problem, and who is going to be fairly manageable. And at that point, a lot of the time I'd rather the weaker players had more help, or at least I don't care too much one way or another. So any answers I've used on them have been a bit of a waste. I'd rather keep those answers until I know where best to use them.

Of course, that means sometimes I'll wish I'd retroactively used a counter against, say, a harrow, because it would have kept the harrow player back from becoming powerful later. But I'd rather let the harrow resolve unless I'm pretty sure that person is the threat, because otherwise there's a good chance it'll be largely wasted.

As per your later examples: kill someone's birds? Nah, not worth it, not 1:1 at least, though I'm happy for it to be collateral damage in a wipe at some point. Kill captain sisay? Possibly, depends a bit on context but it's definitely a threat. Play char in any deck? lol no thanks I'd rather play good cards instead of cards that remind me of standard circa 2005.

I think part of the disconnect here is that, I suspect, when you play Kaalia you're usually treated as the archenemy pretty quickly, and thus you are effectively playing 1v3 and every enemy must be considered a threat to you personally. I usually play decks that allow other players to become more threatening than me, which allows me to ignore a lot more stuff from the other players since I know it's unlikely to be aimed at me. I intentionally try to keep the table state such that opponents are disincentivized from using their cards against me, so I don't need to treat every enemy card as a threat against me personally.

But I know when I play particularly aggressive decks, I'm a lot more likely to want to shut down somebody who's already behind, so I can keep the game as simple as possible for long enough to win. If I can lock somebody out of the game by, say, countering a harrow, that prevents them interfering with me while I kill my biggest nemesis, and then I can deal with them once the larger threats are gone.

That said, that's really only my mode when I've got an aggro deck that's really firing on all cylinders and usually I've accidentally outmatched the table. In most balanced games, the aggro deck won't be able to exert enough control over the game to keep itself ahead long enough to win outright. Usually it'll need to go into "remission" for a while to plan some surprise attack to kill people off, which necessitates a longer gameplan that isn't so CA-negative.

[3drinks]

As per your later examples: kill someone's birds? Nah, not worth it, not 1:1 at least, though I'm happy for it to be collateral damage in a wipe at some point. Kill captain sisay? Possibly, depends a bit on context but it's definitely a threat. Play char in any deck? lol no thanks I'd rather play good cards instead of cards that remind me of standard circa 2005.

I think part of the disconnect here is that, I suspect, when you play Kaalia you're usually treated as the archenemy pretty quickly, and thus you are effectively playing 1v3 and every enemy must be considered a threat to you personally. I usually play decks that allow other players to become more threatening than me, which allows me to ignore a lot more stuff from the other players since I know it's unlikely to be aimed at me. I intentionally try to keep the table state such that opponents are disincentivized from using their cards against me, so I don't need to treat every enemy card as a threat against me personally.

I think this is accurate. I AM often drawing the fire, and my brews tend to draw attention. Even Kari Zev, for reasons I still don't completely get. Despite my game plan doesn't change - "attack the U player first and never relent until they're eliminated." I attack with anything, then every player just attacks me, almost like I upset some natural balance where they just want to combo off outta nowhere like they think they're clever.

But I also prioritize hitting mana, and i will specifically pounce on someone that misstepped in mana.

You severely misunderestimate Char. Such an easy splash, good kill range, can hit walkers. It's really a more versatile hero's downfall honestly.

[DirkGently]

I think this is accurate. I AM often drawing the fire, and my brews tend to draw attention. Even Kari Zev, for reasons I still don't completely get. Despite my game plan doesn't change - "attack the U player first and never relent until they're eliminated." I attack with anything, then every player just attacks me, almost like I upset some natural balance where they just want to combo off outta nowhere like they think they're clever.

But I also prioritize hitting mana, and i will specifically pounce on someone that misstepped in mana.

You severely misunderestimate Char. Such an easy splash, good kill range, can hit walkers. It's really a more versatile hero's downfall honestly.

lol, was that an intentional Bushism?

I'm not sure there's a lot else to say since it mostly boils down to personal experience. But if I know someone is playing a combo deck, I'm a lot more likely to wait for their combo pieces to come down before I start firing off answers, instead of attacking their mana and hoping that does the trick, especially if I don't know what the deck is doing initially. And specifically in the case of countering harrow, if I've got counter mana sitting around that early, I'm probably pretty reactive and not proactive, so attacking mana isn't really a reliable strategy imo. I think you're applying lessons you've learned with very proactive decks to situations in which they no longer hold true.

Char (1) can't kill a pretty large segment of removal-worthy creatures, (2) can't kill a medium segment of planeswalkers - how is that more versatile? I'll grant that the 2 face damage is mostly irrelevant, but then you've gotta concede that the ability to send 4 face is also pretty irrelevant by the same metric.

The ability to splash I consider to be worth absolutely nothing because the only deck I've even begin to consider playing it in would be mono-red. Every other color has much better removal, except arguably green, which just has better things to do. The only place it sees any play on EDHrec is mono-red commanders famous for being good 1v1 commanders, not multiplayer ones - so I suspect it's getting played almost entirely in 1v1, where going face is a lot more relevant. Bolt is good because, while it's a little narrow, it's at least efficient when it works (though many people don't like bolt in commander either). At char mana, I'd be reticent to play that in a deck even if it guaranteed killed any pw or creature, 3 is pretty much the cap for 1:1 removal. And it's only 33% more powerful than bolt for 3x the cost.

[Mookie]

Benalish Marshal is pretty meh, IMO. It's not an inherently bad card, but it suffers from white weenie not really being a great archetype in EDH. I'm trying to think of Glorious Anthem effects that see play, and can't think of many. Pretty much all the buff effects I would consider in EDH scale massively - Cathars' Crusade, Craterhoof Behemoth, Beastmaster Ascension... +1/+1 just doesn't cut it. Mixed feelings re: it being a creature instead of an enchantment. The sort of deck that wants anthems is also going to want to have a lot of creatures, but additional vulnerability to board wipes is always awkward.

The one commander that I can think of that may want it is Heliod, God of the Sun. Benalish Marshal contributes to devotion, while also pumping all your tokens. Other devotion decks may also be interested. Other than that.... if you are doing white weenie or some sort of knight tribal deck, it may be worth considering.

[Sinis]

Saturday, May 16th, 2020; Benalish Marshal

Pretty meh, though I think your comparison to Celestial Crusader is slightly off; CC only affect white creatures, while this one will affect Saprolings or whatever you have on hand.

Benalish Marshal could be okay if you were planning some devotion shenanigans, but sadly white doesn't get a whole lot in that department (though, it does dovetail nicely with Heliod's Evangel and Springjack Shepherd who will both generate more tokens and those tokens will get buffed).

[pokken]

I just don't like anthems period. I'm very weird about it. I think the only one I ever play is Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite and only for the removal aspect - if the anthem helps me close that's nice but it's not meaningful to my gameplan. I've imaged a Norn a number of times to make a one-sided sweeper

I really hate letting people make combat math extremely complex by potentially removing my anthem creature. It gives people's removal spells too much power. It's one of the things that has been souring me on swords of x&y in general as well because people have so much removal now and almost anyone will kill a sword -- but at least then you're most likely only getting 1-for-1'd or at worst 2-for-1'd.

These types of anthem critters often say: "My dudes are bigger but I can't really reliably attack through a removal spell. Woops."

I've played a few other anthems in decks in recent years;
Tempered Steel in an artifact/affinity deck and it was pretty good, but it was always on the chopping block.

Mirari's Wake and only for the mana doubling and pump being a bonus

But that's all I can really think of. I'm a much bigger fan of stuff like Pathbreaker Ibex that forces them to remove it pre-attacks, or Ezuri, Renegade Leader that lets me pump in response.

[Serenade]

I still run Marshal's Anthem sometimes.

[DirkGently]

@pokken I think it's a little unrealistic to worry too much about instant-speed anthem removal in commander. In something like limited or even standard, sure, but in commander you're usually not attacking 3/3s into 2/2s or whatever. Usually an attack worth making with +1/+1 is at least a non-disaster without it. And usually if you're playing anthems, if you're losing anything it'll be tokens, so you're probably not down actual cards if your opponent has decent blocks sans-anthem.

Not to say you shouldn't consider the possibility, but I don't think it's actually a big deal very often.

That said, creature-based anthems are more vulnerable and I think significantly worse because of it.

I made a Brimaz deck back in the day with tons of anthems that was pretty decent. I don't think I ever got blown out by an anthem getting removed during combat. It leaned heavily on MLD to close out the game, though, so I probably wouldn't built it today.

[3drinks]

Sunday, May 17th, 2020; [Fires of Invention

The first card I got was Island on the random spin. I almost kept it, but that felt a bit too troll for this. We got a much more interesting card out of it anyway.

[Dragoon]

I still need to try this in a heavy "activated abilities" build, or maybe cycling.

[Sinis]

Sunday, May 17th, 2020; Fires of Invention

I hear it's tearing up standard right now.

I kind of like this card; I had a Radha deck that tried to t2 Radha into t3 Explosive Vegetation Analogues and it would reach a high threshold of land pretty fast. Fires would have been good if I had activated abilities to back it up.

I think Fires could breath some life into mana starved decks with plenty of activated abilities like Ashling the Pilgrim, but, it sadly precludes you from playing Zirda (for those in R/W/x) in those very same decks.

I will play it, some day.

[lyonhaert]

Fires of Invention might work better in my walker deck than Sunbird's Invocation, but my main concern would be not being able to use instant-speed removal or fogs. Maybe the advantage would drown out that liability, but this could also encourage over-committing to the board.

[3drinks]

Yeah, I'm super intrigued by the card while simultaneously being super scared to run it.

[Outcryqq]

I'll give it a whirl in a new Kenrith, the Returned King legendary and activated ability deck.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Fires is a weird animal; it cuts costs while limiting output, which frees up mana with which to do... whatever?

Usually when I want my spells for free, I also want a lot of them. Putting yourself under a weakened rule of law and your opponents in a city of solitude is a wicked nasty drawback too. Not my style.