[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Cosima, God of the Voyage

[Dunadain]

Never played it in commander, but it was neat in modern

👍

[3drinks]

Wednesday, March 13th, 2024; Flatline

The Fog Meta mtggoldfish prophecied is upon us. Ah haaaaa.

[Mookie]

Flatline gets a hard pass from me due to the fact that it doesn't stop Craterhoof Behemoth or other Overrun effects. I guess you can stop Overwhelming Stampede specifically, but otherwise it's a miss. I would actually prefer Polymorphist's Jest due to its additional ability to remove abilities (although I'm not particularly a fan of it either).

If you want a blue fog, Cyclonic Rift is the obvious choice, but Aetherize, Aetherspouts, and stuff like March of Swirling Mist can also work.

[Dunadain]

Yeah, just doesn't line up well against the stuff it needs to line up against.

Could be comboed with a number of cards to turn it into a Plague Wind I guess

👎

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

Tuesday, March 12th, 2024; Memory Deluge

I play this card in Alela, Cunning Conqueror (alongside the very similar Farsight Ritual) . Oh, and in my run-of-the-mill Standard Azorius Control list. It's a versatile drawing spell with flashback. Always happy for it to show up - allows me to dig for what I need. Is it super powerful? Nah, but it's flexible. I think it will stay in for a while.

Wednesday, March 13th, 2024; Flatline

Eh, this is a card I wouldn't run in Alela. There are much better options to choose from if I want to get rid off an opposing army.

[3drinks]

Thursday, March 14th, 2024; Fire Covenant

[Serenade]

Obosh, the Preypiercer gets okay use out of it. I might have cut Pestilent Spirit from that deck, but that spirit played well with FC as well.

[pokken]

One sided sweepers continue to be a pretty strong strategy in commander :D

[Mookie]

Judith, Carnage Connoisseur says hi, but I guess she also has more efficient board wipes.

Fire Covenant seems strong, and I could see myself picking up a copy if/when it ever gets a reprint. I think Toxic Deluge is generally better unless you really want to keep your own creatures alive - it costs less life if you want to kill everything and it also ignores protection / ward / hexproof. I'm not sure if I would run it over Damnation or other unconditional sweepers in Kess, but that deck is built with its own (symmetric) board wipes in mind and is generally light on creatures. Still, it is a very cheap Plague Wind if you are willing to pay the life to save your own stuff, and it's awesome against swarms of small creatures.

[folding_music]

i have like 11 Fire Covenants, my need to build a treasure hoard of ice age cards continues
you can cast it plus Treacherous Link and pretend it's channel fireball

[Dunadain]

cEDH staple, decent in casual games, but the life loss are up.

👍

[TheAmericanSpirit]

This card is solid for sweeping up little goons, but trying to pick apart a decently sized boardstate with this thing will hurt pretty bad. It has its niche, but I wouldn't autoinclude it unless I had a decent idea of what I was up against consistently.

It certainly kicked Raffine's ass though. 1 card and 12 life to wipe my board, wow.

[Toshi]

Rowan, Scion of War says hi!

Great card in high powered pods, gets considerably worse once big timmy creatures hit the field.

[3drinks]

Friday, March 15th, 2024; Thicket Elemental

Man, I used to think this card was so rad back in 2003. I never see it pop up though (think I had it in Goreclaw). That's gotta be a pretty good rate yeah?

[3drinks]

Judith, Carnage Connoisseur says hi, but I guess she also has more efficient board wipes.

Fire Covenant seems strong, and I could see myself picking up a copy if/when it ever gets a reprint. I think Toxic Deluge is generally better unless you really want to keep your own creatures alive - it costs less life if you want to kill everything and it also ignores protection / ward / hexproof. I'm not sure if I would run it over Damnation or other unconditional sweepers in Kess, but that deck is built with its own (symmetric) board wipes in mind and is generally light on creatures. Still, it is a very cheap Plague Wind if you are willing to pay the life to save your own stuff, and it's awesome against swarms of small creatures.

I played it for many, many years, before it was finally obsoleted by Last One Standing. And, similarly now, The Nipton Lottery. Tough card to obsolete, and even then it still has it's strong uses as an instant speed surgical strike (remember you don't need to hit everything, just everything that bothers you!) I would put it above Toxic Deluge if I'm being honest.

[PrimevalCommander]

Friday, March 15th, 2024; Thicket Elemental
Man, I used to think this card was so rad back in 2003. I never see it pop up though (think I had it in Goreclaw). That's gotta be a pretty good rate yeah?

Not so much. I've played Thicket Elemental back in battlecruiser commander, and paying for a vanilla 4/4 and a random creature off the top was fine, but not efficient. Tooth and Nail for 2 more mana was the bar all other creature cheating was measured against, and Natural Order was available then too. Gamekeeper is what you want if you are going for this type of effect. At , just replace the Elemenetal with whatever fatty you wanted to hit anyway and pay full price for it.

Redundancy if you want to cheat in a ton of Eldrazi, or have a "High CMC tribal deck", where the 7 to kick this looks like a bargain

[Serenade]

Is it okay in elementals or kicker.dec? The biggest draw for me is Ron's art.

[Dunadain]

Y'all are in denial

👎

[PrimevalCommander]

Yeah, I didn't say so in my previous post, but pretty bad in 2024. I was speaking from "back in the good old days" and it still didn't really measure up back then.

[pokken]

So this is actually a really cool card I might run in my specific build of Xenagos, God of Revels which does not play any bad creatures really. It's a little unfortunate it has such a bad body and no trample though.

Still, a random one of the creatures in my deck is really good :D

[Guardman]

This is something I might run in my Henzie "Toolbox" Torre deck, but it is just outclassed by Industrial Advancement, Ojer Kaslem, Deepest Growth // Temple of Cultivation, Gamekeeper, and Aspiring Champion.

[DirkGently]

Extremely bad since the 4/4 is borderline irrelevant.

I remember seeing this in the early aughts and thinking "wow, if you only put 1 other creature in the deck this could cheat in anything!" Which is true but the setup cost is way too high to justify.

[Mookie]

I played it for many, many years, before it was finally obsoleted by Last One Standing. And, similarly now, The Nipton Lottery. Tough card to obsolete, and even then it still has it's strong uses as an instant speed surgical strike (remember you don't need to hit everything, just everything that bothers you!) I would put it above Toxic Deluge if I'm being honest.

...I actually completely forgot Fire Covenant is an instant. xD I'll still lean towards Toxic Deluge in a vacuum - 5 life to kill 3+ X/5s is much better than 15+ life - but it certainly gets the edge in more competitive metas. I wouldn't say Last One Standing / Nipton Lottery directly obsoletes either though - there are plenty of times where my opponents have their commanders or something else threatening out and nothing else I really want all of the threats to die.

Thicket Elemental seems underwhelming outside dedicated kicker decks - seven mana for a 4/4 and a random creature feels overcosted. You can't flicker / reanimate / clone it either due to the kicker restriction. I would generally prefer to just pay 7 mana for a fatty directly unless we someday get more strong kicker support (like 'you may pay for kicker costs' or something).

[3drinks]

Saturday, March 16th, 2024; Keeper of the Accord

[Mookie]

I recently had a game where I kept a dodgy 2-lander. I never drew a third land... but I did draw Keeper of the Accord and Animate Dead. I ended up reanimating it after discarding to hand size, and within a turn or two I had just as many lands as my opponents, if not more.

I think Keeper is pretty good - I would say it is one of the better catch-up ramp options available in white. It can fetch up enough lands to catch up to your opponents by itself, and it doesn't require any additional investment or attacking - it starts working as soon as you pass the turn. If you have bouncelands or other ways to manipulate your land count, it goes up in value even further. It isn't as impressive if you're not having land problems, but a 3/4 human soldier isn't terrible... and it does have additional text. I don't think I would run Keeper just for its token production ability, but it's free value - there are plenty of ways to convert 1/1 tokens into additional value.

Ultimately, I would say I like Keeper because it's really effective at its primary job - if your opponents have more lands than you, it will rapidly catch up by itself. I wouldn't run it just on the off chance that I may get mana screwed - in that case, I would probably prefer just to have another land - but if I can make use of the token production mode, then it's a pretty easy inclusion. I like it more than Knight of the White Orchid because it is better at more points in the game than on the draw on T3, and it's much faster than options like Aerial Surveyor.