[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Golgari Thug

[3drinks]

Wednesday, May 20th, 2020; Sphinx of Lost Truths

Man I remember this bad boy in ZEN era, what a freakin house. Etb cephalid Coliseum is incredibly powerful and that late game 7th turn stretch....but mostly this was a reanimate target that set up future reanimates. So strong.

[Mookie]

I ran it briefly in Animar, where it was pretty awkward. The idea was it was a creature that draws three cards, but triple blue was pretty rough. Plus the lack of graveyard synergies meant I really didn't want to cast it unkicked. If you're running it as a source of card advantage, I'd go with Sphinx of Uthuun, Inspired Sphinx, or Sphinx of Enlightenment instead - they all work much better when flickered, reanimated, or cloned, which I value higher than the flexibility of the kicker.

If you do have graveyard synergies, it's a lot more interesting - setting up reanimation targets is pretty solid. Still, five mana is pretty expensive for a discard outlet in comparison to Frantic Search or Chart a Course. Maybe if you have sphinx or flying creature synergies from Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign or Isperia the Inscrutable? Kicking it off a free cast from Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign is also pretty solid.

Obligatory sphinx riddle check, because all sphinx cards should mechanically ask a riddle: 'kick or no kick? which cards should you discard?'

[PrimevalCommander]

I really like this sphinx despite not playing it much. I have usually been happy to see it when drawn. Play it in decks that have a bit of graveyard synergies or decks that need to dig for cards. Good blocker in the midgam that digs you several cards for modest investment. I think the card is a bit underrated, but only slightly since the body is small and competition for Blue creatures is real steep. I play it in commander cube and have used it to good effect to dig through my deck.

[Sinis]

Wednesday, May 20th, 2020; Sphinx of Lost Truths

I really liked playing this until Sphinx of Uthuun was printed.

[Hawk]

I have a foil one so it ends up in the "Maybeboard" of my decks often, but outside of my very first Mimeoplasm list when his precon was released I don't think it's ever made a final cut.

- At 5 CMC, I tend to prefer Mulldrifter since it puts you up one more card and can be cast as Divination, as well as playing much better with Blink, Flicker, or self-bounce.

- at 7 CMC, it is roughly equal with Sphinx of Uthuun but has lower power and toughness, and again plays less well with Blink and Flicker.

So, you'd tend to run this in a deck where the discard was a feature not a bug (like Mimeoplasm Reanimator) although even then competition is stiff.

[3drinks]

I really like this sphinx despite not playing it much. I have usually been happy to see it when drawn. Play it in decks that have a bit of graveyard synergies or decks that need to dig for cards. Good blocker in the midgam that digs you several cards for modest investment. I think the card is a bit underrated, but only slightly since the body is small and competition for Blue creatures is real steep. I play it in commander cube and have used it to good effect to dig through my deck.

Strikes me as the perfect roleplayer in any Muldrotha deck, tbh. Never pay more than 3UU for it.

[lyonhaert]

I really like this sphinx despite not playing it much. I have usually been happy to see it when drawn. Play it in decks that have a bit of graveyard synergies or decks that need to dig for cards. Good blocker in the midgam that digs you several cards for modest investment. I think the card is a bit underrated, but only slightly since the body is small and competition for Blue creatures is real steep. I play it in commander cube and have used it to good effect to dig through my deck.

Strikes me as the perfect roleplayer in any Muldrotha deck, tbh. Never pay more than 3UU for it.

Pretty much how I use it in my Spider Spawning deck.

[FoxOfWar]

If this was 'pick three from the top six, grave the rest' this would make the cut in Sidisi. Alas, that deck wants to actually mill, and not just draw-discard.

...and curiously, my decks that want the draw-discard don't seem to be very blue. Hmm.

The kicker puts it in high enough total cast (unless you're casting it for free I suppose) that at that point there's just better stuff for the slot in most decks.

I do remember seeing it a lot more than I do currently.

[3drinks]

Thursday, May 21st, 2020; Hymn of the Wilds

I don't think this card is very well known. Selesnya is not known for it's ability to rise from the grave. Should be a good discussion.

[Mookie]

Hymn of Rebirth, not Hymn of the Wilds.

When compared to Reanimate or Animate Dead, this looks pretty mediocre. Five mana is a lot of a reanimation spell, and this doesn't provide any additional flexibility or upside when compared to cards like Unburial Rites and Beacon of Unrest. However, it's not entirely fair to compare to those spells - black is the king of reanimation, with white reanimation spells being significantly less common.

Still, when compared to white reanimation spells, this still doesn't look great. You can get a cheaper version with Resurrection, or the flicker-friendly combo enabler Karmic Guide. Hymn does have the upside of being able to hit an opponent's graveyard, but I don't value that ability that highly, especially in Selesnya - it is much harder to control the cards in an opponent's graveyard than it is to fill your own. In addition, there's the recurring theme of 'the cards in my deck have more synergy with my deck than the cards in my opponents' decks'.

Another issue is that Selesnya isn't a color pair that is known for filling its graveyard. Green does provide some self-mill from Life from the Loam, Mulch, and other effects. However, white is generally pretty bad at filling its graveyard - it doesn't have access to self-mill, and not a lot of good discard outlets or looting either. I won't say a Selesnya reanimator deck to be totally hopeless, but it does feel like it would be facing an uphill battle. The card pool is certainly deep enough to make it possible, but the efficiency is pretty lacking.

[DirkGently]

Man, I really like that old school RKF art.

Pretty much the only reason to run this card though. Gold cards need to beat out the competition in at least 2 colors. There are many better things to do in GW than pay 5 for a reanimation spell.

[Serenade]

Some of these early Selesnya cards were neat, before receiving any real direction. Being able to swipe something of an opponent's that you just wrathed? It's a cool casual trick that no one expects, like Debt of Loyalty orJabari's Influence.

Wellspring, Femeref Enchantress, Hunting Grounds, and Dueling Grounds, all cards that make me want to dig back through the older sets for unique gold cards.

[onering]

White reanimation makes me want a bant reanimater deck. It would be very stupid, but why the hell not. Blue for looting to fill the yard. I'd stick the Sphinx from yesterday in it. I run that Sphinx in Sedris and it's legit.

[Hawk]

Tough to justify this even allowing for Selesnya having limited reanimation because it is the same CMC as Karmic Guide (which allows for all sorts of neat synergies) and Miraculous Recovery (which I almost never run but which is frequently in "maybe" piles as an instant speed reanimation spell which is a rare niche to occupy). Being able to hit opposing 'yards isn't quite enough to make up for this being a vanilla Resurrection otherwise especially since most GW decks that care about reanimation are also Black and thus have the full suite of superior reanimation spells to play with.

Still, it's a card I'm tempted to pick up a few copies of now. I have never seen it before, and it has neat art as well as a unique effect in these colors. Someday I am sure we'll get a powerful Bant-animator commander and this thing will become a solid roleplayer? I occasionally run Beacon of Unrest even over a 4-CMC alternative purely for the option of nabbing opposing cards, and GW has a ton less options than Black for these sort of shenanigans. Mostly I'm just surprised that I've literally never seen this - I've seen almost everything!

[Sinis]

Thursday, May 21st, 2020; Hymn of Rebirth

Unplayably bad.

Resurrection if you want to trade for . If you just want to nix the green, Breath of Life. False Defeat is pricey for a crap card, so, I'd leave it out of this analysis (but it is better than Hymn of Rebirth).

At 5 cmc, there's Defy Death, Miraculous Recovery and Karmic Guide.

Once you're out of W/G, there are some incredible options out there (I'm a huge fan of Obzedat's Aid and Unburial Rites as 'premium' rez cards, even though they're nothing spectacular).

Basically, adding green somehow makes the card just worse.

[Wallycaine]

Thursday, May 21st, 2020; Hymn of Rebirth

Unplayably bad.

Resurrection if you want to trade for . If you just want to nix the green, Breath of Life. False Defeat is pricey for a crap card, so, I'd leave it out of this analysis (but it is better than Hymn of Rebirth).

At 5 cmc, there's Defy Death, Miraculous Recovery and Karmic Guide.

Once you're out of W/G, there are some incredible options out there (I'm a huge fan of Obzedat's Aid and Unburial Rites as 'premium' rez cards, even though they're nothing spectacular).

Basically, adding green somehow makes the card just worse.

While I don't disagree overall, it's worth pointing out that all of your examples are "your graveyard", where Hymn does have the upside of hitting any graveyard. Typically, that's not an upside worth building around, but it gives it the nod over Defy Death, unless one's playing angel tribal, and at least argues for why it might be worth the extra mana over the 4CMC options. That said, there's not really much support for a green/white mass mill strategy, so... still probably not worth it.

[Sinis]

While I don't disagree overall, it's worth pointing out that all of your examples are "your graveyard", where Hymn does have the upside of hitting any graveyard. Typically, that's not an upside worth building around, but it gives it the nod over Defy Death, unless one's playing angel tribal, and at least argues for why it might be worth the extra mana over the 4CMC options. That said, there's not really much support for a green/white mass mill strategy, so... still probably not worth it.

Oh, that's a fair cop. I missed that.

At that point, sure, it's well-costed at 5. But, I still probably wouldn't play it.

[Dragoon]

Thematic and kinda useful for a Rienne, Angel of Rebirth deck?

[3drinks]

Friday, May 22nd, 2020; Sidisi, Undead Vizier

So, like what do we got here? The premiere MBC commander but realistically, getting a 5, then 7 diabolic tutour isn't all that great. In fact you can already do this with Increasing Ambition, and we know how much play that card sees........

Obviously in an etb deck, whether it blinks or enhances the quantity of etb triggers (a la Yarok) then sure, getting two tutours off a card is great. Wait is it? Don't you lose the trigger on resolution if you didn't exploit?

So why this? Runescarred demon is seven and you keep a fat body around. I think this card is seeing too much play, and if edhrec ever had me on the show, I'd love to use this as my challenge the stats card.

[Dragoon]

Well, it's a tutor that can be reanimated over and over again. You can also sac another creature so it could serve as a one-shot sac outlet as well. And black decks that love to sac & recur don't really care about the body anyway since they usually don't win through combat. So I can totally see it being more played that Rune-Scarred Demon or Diabolic Tutor.

[Mookie]

I run Sidisi, Undead Vizier in Teysa. For that deck, five mana is significantly easier to afford than the seven mana for Rune-Scarred Demon, plus I have plenty of expendable bodies to exploit.... and even if I don't, triggering Teysa / Grave Pact / Blood Artist is always relevant. A 4/6 deathtouch body is also pretty beefy and hard to attack into, and being a creature makes her significantly easier to recur than Diabolic Tutor.

I don't think Sidisi is the most competitive card - the cheap tutors (Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and Diabolic Intent) are obviously more efficient. However, I think that Sidisi has enough upside to justify the inclusion over less efficient tutors.

Compared to Rune-Scarred Demon.... I think the demon really needs reanimation to be good, while Sidisi is perfectly reasonable to hardcast. Zombie synergies are also occasionally relevant. The one downside I'll call out compared to Rune-Scarred Demon is that the tutoring is conditional on Sidisi being around when the exploit trigger resolves... which means that if someone uses removal in response, you get nothing. I've caught a lot of people off-guard with it.

I'm also of the opinion that sacrificing Sidisi to her own ability is usually wrong - unless you plan to immediately use recursion, the body is too valuable to throw away. If you're in a creature-light deck without expendable creatures, I'd probably run a different tutor instead - probably Dark Petition.

As a commander, I expect her to draw a decent amount of hate - throwing a tutor in the command zone is usually a sign that you're up to no good. Not necessarily the most competitive commander, but just running out a fast Ad Nauseam or Doomsday is enough to win a lot of games. Not a commander I'd be interested in building myself, since it seems like the deck would be pretty repetitive.

[3drinks]

Huh. Guess I've just played too much Kaalia to prefer demon to this.

[PrimevalCommander]

I play Sidisi in Karador for heavy creature synergies. I have cast Tooth and Nail for this and Mindslicer as a mini-combo and tutor for draw like Corpse Augur. Sidisi is one of my favorite "fair" Tooth and Nail targets for pairing with Yosei, the Morning Star and Kokusho, the Evening Star. Always happy to see it and never stays in the GY for long in my deck. My highest priority tutor target is Living Death, and it likes to see creatures dying.

I did play Rune-Scarred Demon, but this was back when Primeval Titan was legal and Clone effects abounded. Rune-scar was much more liability than advantage at that point. Anyone with a clone would create an entire field of 6/6 fliers by tutoring all their other clones until they ran out of mana. Sidisi has some small clone protection with the exploit trigger. I have never has Sidisi cloned. Though cloning is MUCH less prominent nowadays.

Overall excellent card for creature centric decks. Meren of Clan Nel Toth [/card], Karador, Ghost Chieftain [/card], Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord [/card], etc.

edit- I didn't know Exploit only resolves if the creature is in play during resolution. I'll have to look out for that in the future. It has not happened to me yet. Though I figure many don't know that is even an option to stop the trigger. Doesn't change my opinion of the card.

[RedCheese]

I had her as a commander for a long time, and i must say, having a tutor in your commander zone was so valuable, always having access to a card in your deck available was so good.

[BeneTleilax]

I only see it in reanimator shells where it they can repeat it cheaply. It does work there, but I've come to find general tutors bland.