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

[DirkGently]

To really want to play this, much like in standard decks running it, I think you want triple value instead of just double value. Meaning, you've got a way to sink your mana into abilities as well as your two spells. So ideally your commander is a mana sink. And it would also be cool if it provided some interaction so you're not irrelevant on enemy turns.

I think it can be a bit tricky to use in commander compared to standard as well, because standard is usually going to have a more narrow size of spell, and you're more likely to want to cast more than 2x spells in a turn. In commander, I think you're more likely to end up with your hand clogged with little crappy spells that you wanted to play early, but aren't worth your 2x casts per turn now. Whereas in standard, if you're playing a 3 and a 5 drop every turn you're going to win.

Idk, it still seems powerful but I think it needs the right home.

[Cyberium]

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.

There's a very nasty Kumano, Master Yamabushi deck using this card, it was showcased on MtG Muddstah.

[tempoEDH]

Grenzo, Dungeon Warden works wonders with this card. A lot of the time you're just sinking mana into him instead of casting spells anyway, so this basically gives you 2 free spells.

[Mookie]

Fires of Invention is a powerful card - it's a mana tripler, with some significant restrictions. I would argue that not being able to cast spells on your opponents' turns is a more significant downside in multiplayer than it is in 1v1 (due to there being more of them), and being 100-card singleton also makes it much more difficult to actually draw the card on demand, which makes it riskier to build around.

Still, it's a mana tripler. What more do you want? There are definitely decks that operate primarily at sorcery speed, or that aren't running many instants. You'll generally want a mana sink to make use of the mana you're not spending, but those aren't hard to come by - even Arch of Orazca or Kessig Wolf Run in the manabase can be enough. If you're running Shattergang Brothers or another commander capable of getting rid of the enchantment on demand, that's also an option. I wouldn't be surprised to see it in a deck like Xenagos, God of Revels either, but mana sink commanders do make the most sense.

To me, the restriction on number of cards cast per turn almost feels like a more significant restriction than not being able to cast instants. It's obviously necessary (due to the whole 'free spells' thing), but out of my own red decks, half of them need to cast a bunch of spells in a single turn to win (Mizzix, Animar), while the other half (Samut, Kess) tend to do so anyway when they're doing well.

[Dragonlover]

I'm flip-flopping on running this in my Lathliss, Dragon Queen deck. Two free dragons a turn plus being able to pour loads of mana into her pump (or Balefire Dragon if it's around) seems pretty decent, but I'm convinced there's a catch somewhere.

Dragonlover

[lyonhaert]

The catch is probably when you run it out. It's probably not a play-asap kind of card. But as far as getting rid of it if it becomes a liability, one could still cast a removal spell for free (as the second spell, preferably) to get rid of it and then proceed without restriction. Even in mono red there's Chaos Warp.

[KMA_Again]

At least there are cards like Claws of Gix to remove it when there's no need for it, and it easily fits in mono-R. Of course, finding better uses for the claws other than working with one card is necessary.

[gilrad]

I'm flip-flopping on running this in my Lathliss, Dragon Queen deck. Two free dragons a turn plus being able to pour loads of mana into her pump (or Balefire Dragon if it's around) seems pretty decent, but I'm convinced there's a catch somewhere.

Dragonlover

I think Lathliss-style commanders are one of the better use-cases for this card:
5 mana: Fires of Invention and another utility/setup/CA card, maybe even a dragon
6 mana: Commander and dragon.

This card helps mitigate a major issue many commanders have: Your commander is vulnerable to a "tap out and then get removed" play, but also needs to be followed up with another expensive spell and/or mana to gain value. Kenrith is an obvious example, but there's also off the top of my head Bosh, Iron Golem, Kess, Dissident Mage, Feather, the Redeemed (if you want to follow up with a bigger spell), Riku of Two Reflections is also a big one.

[toctheyounger]

I've considered using it inPurphoros, Bronze-Blooded. I wasn't quite bold enough to make the leap, but there's plenty of scope for it to be quite good there. It's a decent way to keep some presence on the field for cheap if I can't find a way to cancel my commander's sacrifice trigger.

Ultimately I decided to leave it purely because it doesn't play nicely with Underworld Breach which is a great finisher.

[3drinks]

Monday, May 18th, 2020; Lavalanche

I'm a fan. It's probably underwhelming...somehow. But I'd jam it all day.

[Mookie]

Hmmm... I think Lavalanche is a sweet card, but I don't think it to be particularly playable. Damage-based removal tends to be pretty inefficient - if you want to kill something like Sun Titan, you need to invest at least 9 mana into this. It does have the significant upside of being a targeted boardwipe, but I'm not convinced the additional cost is worth the asymmetry over Chain Reaction or Blasphemous Act. Losing instant speed compared to Starstorm and Comet Storm is also a downside, although in those cases I'd probably still consider it if I were in the appropriate colors - one extra mana for asymmetry is an easier cost to stomach.

I'd say that the primary place it would make sense would be ramp decks that expect to be able to generate enough mana to use it as a finisher - while it does require more mana than other options to get going, it's a strong effect if you happen to have 10+ mana available. However, at that point, there are still better finishers available - Torment of Hailfire, Genesis Wave, and Exsanguinate are the first three that come to mind, but there are a lot of options in those colors. Lavalanche is a bit more flexible than those, I suppose - while casting it for X=4 won't necessarily kill everything, it is enough to deal with a lot of boards, while I would never want to cast the others for that small of a number. It also has the bonus of not being as widely played.

Consider comboing it with Repercussion for massive style points. Consider also Bonfire of the Damned, which does the same effect at a more efficient rate if you can deal with the miracle restriction.

[DirkGently]

Man that oracle wording is....ick.

Realistically, if you want a board wipe you can do it for a lot less. If you want to nug someone in the face, you can do it a lot more efficiently. The flexibility is nice, but I think the premium is too high. Being 3c means you have a lot of superior options available for whatever you're trying to do, generally.

[BeneTleilax]

this is the jund vilainous wealth

[Dunharrow]

I remember drooling over this card when I started out. At some point I picked one up, at which point I realized it really wasn't all that interesting.

Oh well. Maybe it can go in a cube.

[Hawk]

Color me unimpressed. Once upon a time, teenage Hawk thought Flame Wave was the sickest card, so an adjustable flame wave ought to also be pretty sick right? Sadly, when you add two more colors to it (and spend over a decade playing EDH and two decades playing Magic), the answer is "nope". First of all, Flame Wave is generally trash outside of a (weird, slow) limited environment. Secondly, from my own analysis this would need to be cast with X=5 to reliably hit enough targets, and at that mana cost you're now in the range of casting far more powerful spells like Overwhelming Forces or Ezuri's Predation and just one off of of casting In Garruk's Wake or Plague Wind - all of these generally seem like better 'wipes for a ramp-heavy build.

If you're in the market for flexible instead of raw power, Dregs of Sorrow, Kindred Dominance, and Sudden Demise are likely easier to build-around as "one-sided Wraths". And that's not to mention that you are in the colors to run real boardwipes like Toxic Deluge, Damnation, Crux of Fate, Life's Finale, and Blasphemous Act as well as instant-speed damage based removal like Comet Storm and Starstorm. There's also Mizzium Mortars which can't hit walkers but does hit ALL opponents for a more efficient rate AND can be cast as a Flame Slash if you are in a pinch.

Oh, and if the option to "Go Face" was what excited you...you should be playing Exsanguinate, Profane Command, Torment of Hailfire, Banefire, or Fall of the Titans.

Basically, while this looks fun it is really inefficient and not even among the top 20 Jund "Boardwipe" effects.

[pokken]

I have definitely lost to lavalanche but in general I don't like playing things that just crap on one player like this - usually don't do enough. I usually wind up cutting things like Aetherspouts for this reason too. They always seem great and then never quite work out as well as normal sweepers.

[onering]

The difficult Mana cost restricts it to jund and decks that fit jund while making it inefficient. 5 Mana for pyroclasm is bad, and even with scaling the inefficiency compared to similar spells is terrible. That it only hits one player is also pretty bad. There is a real trade-off between something that hits everyone, yourself included, and something that hits one opponent, but it's usually better to hit everyone.

Online, it's Roiling Earthquake all the way. In paper, that's too expensive but I'd rather run Inferno than lavalanche.

The decks that most want poor lavalanche unfortunately can't run it (Rosheen Meanderer, Gisela burn, and Torbran). Maybe there's a jund based build with the hellion companion that could use it, it looks better when it deals double damage and it's got an odd cmc.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, May 19th, 2020; Rites of Spring

(No, this isn't Heartbeat of Spring nor is it Rites of Flourishing 🤔)

I...wow, it's a card the walking magic encyclopedia didn't know about. I kinda dig it too, like in all the same decks that would enjoy Satyr Wayfinder or especially Manabond. Let's talk about that!

[DirkGently]

Rites was actually a whole cycle. They're designed for madness synergies. They're all pretty awful except Rites of Initiation which can alpha strike people out of nowhere if you have a decent size hand and a couple attackers. Nobody expects your team to get +6/+0 for 1 mana.

Rites of spring...is terrible. Unbelievably terrible. I can see people are using it in Sasaya, orochi ascendant but I think that's a mistake. You're putting yourself down a card to tutor BASIC lands to HAND. As a SORCERY. Ewwww. If you're playing Sasaya, just run more draw and play a high land%. Maybe there's some weird niche case (maybe in a temur deck with Rielle, the Everwise? even that seems mediocre) but I'm really having a hard time seeing it. If it was an instant, it'd be a hilarious "answer" to Thoughtseize ?

Actually, it's crazy that rielle now makes Rites of Refusal a reasonable card to include somewhere. That's one card I never thought would be playable, lol.

[Mookie]

The full cycle: Rites of Initiation, Rites of Flourishing, Rites of Refusal, Sacred Rites, Last Rites.

Speaking just for Rites of Spring, it looks... incredibly niche. Taken at face value, it's a bad Lay of the Land - it doesn't get you any basic lands by itself, and turning actually useful cards into basics isn't great either. You might be able to do something with Manabond to build a janky ramp engine in a Damia, Sage of Stone deck, but... yeah, pretty niche.

I guess one other potential use case is copying it several times and using it to dump all the basic lands in your deck into your graveyard to fuel land recursion synergies - either Splendid Reclamation, The Mending of Dominaria, or another of those effects. I'd question why you would want to do so instead of just running Rampant Growth effects directly, but...

Anyway, this looks pretty nice unless you're extraordinarily dedicated to madness / graveyard strategies. And even then, I'd probably prefer something that is more functional in a vacuum. I suppose one benefit it has over Wild Mongrel is that it does refill your hand after discarding, but...

On the other hand, I have heard good things about Rites of Initiation as a finisher.

[BeneTleilax]

this is combo with bloodgast

[Hawk]

As others have noted, this is super niche.

- Looking for a cheap way to nab lands for fixing? This is terrible. In green, you have Nature's Lore, Rampant Growth, Farseek, Into the North, Sakura-Tribe Elder, and Three Visits at the same CMC which all actually ramp you, or have Sylvan Scrying to get ANY land to hand, or have Traverse the Ulvenwald or Land Grant as cheaper fixers with possible upside, or have Sylvan Ranger or Gatecreeper Vine which leave a body behind to later exploit. And that's just the 11 best possible effects at 2 CMC or less - I could easily rattle off another 10 or 15 if we wanted to go super deep.

- Looking to fill the 'yard, perhaps in a Gitrog deck? I think I'd tend to prefer Crop Rotation, Satyr Wayfinder, Winding Way, or Mulch - and note that in my Gitrog list at least, I've reached a point of no longer running Mulch. While these don't have the crazy ceiling of "grab 6+ lands" that Rites does, they also have the possibility to generate card advantage or the ability to tutor any land, and are never "dead" draws (wheras Rites on a hand of 0 or 1 other cards is a dead draw). Rites slightly higher ceiling doesn't make up for its abysmal floor.

- If the discarding specifically is what matters, I think I'd tend to prefer Noose Constrictor or Wild Mongrel (or, as this is a hypothetical Gitrog deck, any number of black cards) - those green cards can trigger Gitrog multiple times whereas this only triggers it once.

That leaves us only two extremely narrow and niche places where this is good:

1) You want to mondocombo with Manabond.

2) You are a G/R spellslinger deck (maybe Wort?) that wants to copy this a ton to use as a pseudo-Mana Severance for...reasons, but don't have blue to just play Severance.

[onering]

Seems ok in reanimator. Throw a couple fatties in the yard and grab a couple lands in exchange. Its card disadvantage and a one shot effect, which is a serious drawback that makes it just ok even where it has uses (and decks like Gitrog have lots of competition for its space). Its nice that the cards you discard actually get you something useful in return, so when you dump reanimation targets, escape spells, flashback spells, madness spells etc into your yard you get extra value. Not sure how many Gx decks play around with those abilities though. Maybe there could be a flashback deck that uses green, but idk.

[Sinis]

Tuesday, May 19th, 2020; Rites of Spring

It was once a consideration in a Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant // Sasaya's Essence deck I built, but it didn't make the cut.

Mind you, this deck was 8 years ago (link). I don't think its fortunes have improved, given the existence of Nylea's Intervention.

[materpillar]

Actually, it's crazy that rielle now makes Rites of Refusal a reasonable card to include somewhere. That's one card I never thought would be playable, lol.

I run Rites of Refusal in my Lasav deck. It does a fair amount of work there because I actively don't want to cast a large portion of my deck (lol no) and does want to dump my hand for hilarity like Oath of Scholars and Drake Haven.

In other news, Rites of Spring is really bad. Off hand the most broken thing I can think of doing with it is drawing a massive hand and then using this with Borborygmos Enraged to throw your hand at someone's face.