[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Golgari Thug

[yeti1069]

Used to run Curio in Kadena as a fair way to reset morphs, but 90% of the time it came out everyone assumed it was a combo piece and focused fired me into the ground, so I cut it.

[Mookie]

I run Cloudstone Curio in Animar, because I'm a monster. Assembling 2x morphs + Cloudstone Curio + payoff sometimes feels like more effort than it is worth, but infinite is infinite.

Outside of a combo context where you are looping things for free, I'm not sure if Cloudstone Curio is worth it these days. I recall playing Curio and Crystal Shard to bounce ETB value creatures back to hand, but that feels too slow these days. It's usually preferable to do something more tempo-positive and play new stuff to the board, opposed to playing the same thing over and over - there's enough card advantage available for most decks to never run out of new cards to play. Hmmm...

[ironic gesture]

Lightning bolt is a completely viable card

Agree. Similarly, I run Lightning Helix in General Ferrous Rokiric. Originally, I put it in there because it's a cheap spell that will get me a 4/4 body, thinking that it'll sometimes have a good target. But it always has a good target.

I just cast lightning helix last night playing General Ferrous and can confirm does work.

Oh hey one of those cards that essentially tell the table exactly what you are planning to do and that by casting this card you have forfeited your right to complain when we kill you.

This sums up my opinion perfectly.

Idk, I used it pretty fairly in Kaalia, Zenith Seeker. Did what it said on the tin.

Sure, it technically can be used fairly. It's much better practice to aggressively murder whoever cast this, looking at their deck after the game and then apologizing afterwards. Then, making an exception to the above rule for specifically that player in future games .

I run Curio in a fair way in my Reaper King typal typal deck which is heavily built to use the etbs of changelings. But I agree this use is an exception and the safe thing is to assume the owner is up to no good. Even I was briefly tempted to throw Aluren in that deck just for the combo but quickly decided against it because I want to keep the deck at a certain power level.

[3drinks]

Monday, February 26th, 2024; Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods

This reads like the kind of card that's support rather than the helm because it does the thing, but has no way to enable the thing.

[yeti1069]

I run Cloudstone Curio in Animar, because I'm a monster. Assembling 2x morphs + Cloudstone Curio + payoff sometimes feels like more effort than it is worth, but infinite is infinite.

Outside of a combo context where you are looping things for free, I'm not sure if Cloudstone Curio is worth it these days. I recall playing Curio and Crystal Shard to bounce ETB value creatures back to hand, but that feels too slow these days. It's usually preferable to do something more tempo-positive and play new stuff to the board, opposed to playing the same thing over and over - there's enough card advantage available for most decks to never run out of new cards to play. Hmmm...

I had Animorphs with this setup before Kadena came out. It never felt like a morph deck, more like an Animar deck that occasionally had morph pieces for support.

Kadena is a little more morph-centric, though her using them for draw also pulls away from the morphs themselves a little. Her not being any kind of threat on her own helps move that focus back to the morphs themselves, however.

Cloudstone I would probably still use if it didn't draw so much hate. As it is, I run Equilibrium as a sort of better version of Crystal Shard that can be used offensively with more success.

[3drinks]

Outside of a combo context where you are looping things for free, I'm not sure if Cloudstone Curio is worth it these days. I recall playing Curio and Crystal Shard to bounce ETB value creatures back to hand, but that feels too slow these days. It's usually preferable to do something more tempo-positive and play new stuff to the board, opposed to playing the same thing over and over - there's enough card advantage available for most decks to never run out of new cards to play. Hmmm...

This, but I had to use Erratic Portal because no u in Kaalia's colour identity. Surprise, adding +1 mv makes that effect ridiculously more fair...

[yeti1069]

Monday, February 26th, 2024; Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods

This reads like the kind of card that's support rather than the helm because it does the thing, but has no way to enable the thing.

I just played against the new (not) morph precon and this guy showed up. Did a ton of work for both building a sticky board and ramping. It was one of the strongest pulls I saw to build a morph deck outside of Kadena. This card does a TON.

Mass haste is very useful in any creature heavy deck.
It draws cards.
It protects all your fragile 2/2s from removal, wipes, and combat.
It cheats big morphs face-up.
It cheats morph effects face-up (at instant speed with a sac outlet).
If you've got a decent amount of manifest/cloak in the deck, makes for a solid ramp engine.

Actually, allow me to revise my earlier statement. This is one of the cards that pushes me to really want to build a 4- or 5-color morph deck. This alongside Kadena would be fantastic! Sac a Kheru Spellsnatcher, return it, flip it up and counter a spell, then draw a card from Kadena. I'm already running Yedora, Grave Gardener in Kadena, and this does much of the same thing without being a potential combo piece, but providing the morph effect in place of a land. Sometimes one would be better, sometimes the other.

I honestly wish there were better 5-color morph options, though I don't know that I could fit all the related cards into a 100 card deck anyway.

[Dragonlover]

So this immediately went into 4 colour morphs, where it's been doing excellent work. I've also Rule 0'ed this and the new Etrata as the commanders a couple of times, which is strong but not overbearing. It's really reinforced that I need to get a couple of sac outlets into the deck though.

I honestly wish there were better 5-color morph options, though I don't know that I could fit all the related cards into a 100 card deck anyway.

Don't bother, there's not enough in white to make it worth the aggro of sorting out a 5c manabase, stick to four colours. My list is https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mH9qHgTNFk6E0isV49RiEA.

Dragonlover

[Dunadain]

Well it encourages morph/disguise, which is my least favorite mechanic in the game, but it could also be used to with cloak/manifest, which is fine. The actual abilities look pretty sweet.

A begrudging 👍

[Mookie]

Don't bother, there's not enough in white to make it worth the aggro of sorting out a 5c manabase, stick to four colours.

I was going to call out Exalted Angel, but then I checked the list of morph creatures and realized it was the only one worth playing. I guess Aurelia's Vindicator and Unyielding Gatekeeper also look decent. White does bring some support cards though - True Identity, Assemble the Players, and Mastery of the Unseen are all reasonable. I think the biggest thing white brings to the table is probably blink effects, but those are better with manifest / cloak unless you don't care about your morph triggers.

...anyway, Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods looks like a strong enabler for facedown strategies - he gives your creatures haste, then your opponents have the awkward choice of letting you draw cards or killing them and letting you flip them faceup for free. I don't know if there are enough morph/disguise cards in RG to fill out an entire deck, but you can also just ignore that part of his text box and focus on the mass haste. I think Samut, Voice of Dissent and Xenagos, God of Revels are better if you just want to play hasty beaters, but Yarus does come down a turn sooner. Otherwise, he's a great support card in 3/4 color morph decks - toss him in Animar with a Cloudstone Curio to reset your morphs and you're good to go.

...more broadly, my I'm not particularly a fan of morph / disguise, but I do think they have a lot of very sweet support cards, Yarus included.

[DirkGently]

Nobody gonna mention Ashcloud Phoenix?

Morph is a weird mechanic but it plays really well in limited sooo...shrug.

[yeti1069]

So this immediately went into 4 colour morphs, where it's been doing excellent work. I've also Rule 0'ed this and the new Etrata as the commanders a couple of times, which is strong but not overbearing. It's really reinforced that I need to get a couple of sac outlets into the deck though.

I honestly wish there were better 5-color morph options, though I don't know that I could fit all the related cards into a 100 card deck anyway.

Don't bother, there's not enough in white to make it worth the aggro of sorting out a 5c manabase, stick to four colours. My list is https://www.moxfield.com/decks/mH9qHgTNFk6E0isV49RiEA.

Dragonlover

I don't know, some of the new white morphs, and some of the white morph-support pieces look pretty good.

How consistent is your deck? I feel like morphs are clunky without support; neither of your commanders does anything for them, so you're left with paying for a junky 2/2 and then also needing mana up to do anything with it unless you happen to draw into one of the support cards.

Separately, I want to note that Tunnel Tipster looks bad to me. A 2-mana dork that only makes one color and grows slowly turn after turn doesn't look like it's worth the slot. On the other hand, I want to recommend Printlifter Ooze--I've had it show up twice so far, and both times it was fantastic. I prefer that to Experiment Twelve.

Also, rereading Expose the Culprit I'm only just now realizing that it doesn't work with morph or megamorph, and am significantly less interested in it than I had been.

Ultimately, you look like you're leaning much more into aggro than I am--I like the tricky, controlly nature of morphs.

Don't bother, there's not enough in white to make it worth the aggro of sorting out a 5c manabase, stick to four colours.

I was going to call out Exalted Angel, but then I checked the list of morph creatures and realized it was the only one worth playing. I guess Aurelia's Vindicator and Unyielding Gatekeeper also look decent. White does bring some support cards though - True Identity, Assemble the Players, and Mastery of the Unseen are all reasonable. I think the biggest thing white brings to the table is probably blink effects, but those are better with manifest / cloak unless you don't care about your morph triggers.

...anyway, Yarus, Roar of the Old Gods looks like a strong enabler for facedown strategies - he gives your creatures haste, then your opponents have the awkward choice of letting you draw cards or killing them and letting you flip them faceup for free. I don't know if there are enough morph/disguise cards in RG to fill out an entire deck, but you can also just ignore that part of his text box and focus on the mass haste. I think Samut, Voice of Dissent and Xenagos, God of Revels are better if you just want to play hasty beaters, but Yarus does come down a turn sooner. Otherwise, he's a great support card in 3/4 color morph decks - toss him in Animar with a Cloudstone Curio to reset your morphs and you're good to go.

...more broadly, my I'm not particularly a fan of morph / disguise, but I do think they have a lot of very sweet support cards, Yarus included.

One of the problems I'm noticing with the new cards especially is that nearly all of the support cards come in at 4 CMC, which is annoying. That cost crowds out other options/each other, comes a turn (or 2) later than you really want a support piece for 3 mana spells, and makes it difficult to curve a morph on 3 into an effect trigger on 4. I feel like WotC plays it a little too safe with morph/disguise, and don't know why. Did we need the two new land fetch morphs to be so bad/expensive? 4 mana for a slightly upgraded Lay of the Land and 8 mana for a slightly upgraded Cultivate?

The Gardener could have been "to battlefield tapped" instead of "to hand" and it would have been decent, but not powerful (we have plenty of 4-mana search for a nonbasic and put it into play cards), and Bloom-Kin could have been 3 mana.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, February 27th, 2024; Capricious Efreet

[materpillar]

Tuesday, February 27th, 2024; Capricious Efreet

This card is so cool! But power creep be creeping. Although, it might have always been a bit slow now that I think about it.

[onering]

It's slow, but fun. You can easily make the permanent you own be something you don't care about using or something you would benefit from getting destroyed.

iMO it's too slow for a 75% meta, but it's good for more casual metas, where these odd effects can really shine and create great games. I'd really want ways to get more triggers, either cards that copy triggers or grant upkeep steps.

[yeti1069]

I don't know. 6 mana for a mediocre creature that has a random effect, which may pop your own card, seems like a big ask for not much payoff, even at a lower power level.

[Mookie]

I do love mono-red enchantment destruction, but I'll pass on Capricious Efreet. I guess it will usually hit your opponents' stuff, and it's not difficult to feed it some spare tokens... but an otherwise vanilla 6/4 for 6 doesn't particularly excite me. I'll point to Chaos Defiler as a significantly upgraded version of this effect. Tyrant of Discord is also an option if you're looking for more color pie breaks, or you could run Haphazard Bombardment.

More broadly, I think WotC has generally moved away from this sort of variance, where the effect will backfire a significant percentage of the time. There are still plenty of random effects in the game, but they've leaned towards other forms of randomization. Something like Chaos Defiler or The Nipton Lottery will generally always have a positive effect, but the magnitude differs - sometimes you'll kill the best thing, sometimes the worse, but you'll generally be happy with the outcome.

[Dunadain]

Honestly, the trigger could hit what you wanted to hit 100% of the time, and I still probably wouldn't run it. So the ability is not really strong, and I really don't like chaos effects, so the downside is doubly bad.

👎👎

[Dragonlover]

I don't know, some of the new white morphs, and some of the white morph-support pieces look pretty good.

How consistent is your deck? I feel like morphs are clunky without support; neither of your commanders does anything for them, so you're left with paying for a junky 2/2 and then also needing mana up to do anything with it unless you happen to draw into one of the support cards.

Separately, I want to note that Tunnel Tipster looks bad to me. A 2-mana dork that only makes one color and grows slowly turn after turn doesn't look like it's worth the slot. On the other hand, I want to recommend Printlifter Ooze--I've had it show up twice so far, and both times it was fantastic. I prefer that to Experiment Twelve.

Also, rereading Expose the Culprit I'm only just now realizing that it doesn't work with morph or megamorph, and am significantly less interested in it than I had been.

Ultimately, you look like you're leaning much more into aggro than I am--I like the tricky, controlly nature of morphs.

I'd say it's fairly consistent - if nothing else, playing junky 2/2's significantly lowers your threat profile compared to all the other people swinging haymakers, so I generally get time to do a bit more setup. Tipster went in because it's an on-theme dork thats better than Qarsi Deceiver, which was previously in that slot. I elected not to run the Ooze because the board gets cluttered as it is, I don't need another set of game objects to track. Expose being limited is a bit sad, but the fact it can flip a Cyberman up means there's some extra utility to that first mode.

Dragonlover

[3drinks]

I do love mono-red enchantment destruction, but I'll pass on Capricious Efreet. I guess it will usually hit your opponents' stuff, and it's not difficult to feed it some spare tokens... but an otherwise vanilla 6/4 for 6 doesn't particularly excite me. I'll point to Chaos Defiler as a significantly upgraded version of this effect. Tyrant of Discord is also an option if you're looking for more color pie breaks, or you could run Haphazard Bombardment.

More broadly, I think WotC has generally moved away from this sort of variance, where the effect will backfire a significant percentage of the time. There are still plenty of random effects in the game, but they've leaned towards other forms of randomization. Something like Chaos Defiler or The Nipton Lottery will generally always have a positive effect, but the magnitude differs - sometimes you'll kill the best thing, sometimes the worse, but you'll generally be happy with the outcome.

Last One Standing is probably my fave. A 3mv hard wipe is under costed even if it has a percent to not hit the card you want. But at $2 vs $20 for a Damnation, I'll take it.

[Sinis]

I love Capricious Efreet. First, the good: I like that the results are manipulatable. You choose targets when the trigger goes on the stack (bear in mind you can choose only one target you don't control), and then before it resolves, you could eliminate the one you control via sacrifice outlet (on resolution, it chooses one of the remaining targets) to destroy something you're struggling with like an enchantment. You're also clear to target indestructible permanents (though, not Darksteel Citadel), so it can be a kind of a no-lose proposition. It's repeatable. You can keep going as long as you have permanents to target.

Okay, now the bad: I feel like it's a relic of an older time. Craw Wurm stats, upkeep trigger (rather than ETB or upkeep or combat). There's just more efficient ways of dealing with permanents red can't easily destroy (like Liquimetal Torque/Liquimetal Coating and ubiquitous artifact destruction), or simply playing other colours. With Capricious Efreet's mana cost, slow timing, and uncertain execution, you are probably better off playing Unstable Obelisk or even Scour from Existence.

The strongest thing it has going for it is that it's repeatable and manipulatable, but all this to (probably) destroy an enchantment... doesn't feel hot.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, February 28th, 2024; Gandalf the White

[3drinks]

Okay, now the bad: I feel like it's a relic of an older time. Craw Wurm stats, upkeep trigger (rather than ETB or upkeep or combat). There's just more efficient ways of dealing with permanents red can't easily destroy (like Liquimetal Torque/Liquimetal Coating and ubiquitous artifact destruction), or simply playing other colours. With Capricious Efreet's mana cost, slow timing, and uncertain execution, you are probably better off playing Unstable Obelisk or even Scour from Existence.

I feel this in regards to my ol faithful Charmbreaker Devils. I wonder what a modern powered version of the devils would look like.

[ISBPathfinder]

Gandalf as a legend is kinda boring because its mono white ETB / Deaths which mono white doesn't do all that well if I am being honest but I think we are starting to get such a density of this effect that in the 99 he is quite reasonable. As a commander he probably can do some combo stuff with like Ashnod's Altar + two Myr Retriever and a little cost reduction but that sounds like a lot of work still. I think he probably goes into the 99 more likely even though he is probably fine as a commander it probably leads to some weird combo list that is outclassed by being mono white.

If you somehow pull a non combo wincon out for Gandalf as a commander then I guess having a bunch of divination ETB artifacts is probably cool but I think he goes into decks better than he leads them.

[Dunadain]

WOTC put the most iconic wizard of all time into a game about playing as a wizard, took SIX PASSES at him and every single one is a forgettable snooze fest.

The fact that there are six of them make it so much worse, but I've ranted about this subject before so I'll stop myself there.

👎👎