[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - The SHM Lieges

[pokken]

"I play this, then everyone has to kill it or I %$#% them in particular out of the game" is not a fun play pattern.

I know that's how many people feel. But is that really how this card ever played out?

Even a decade ago, it's not a given the Sen Triplets controller could even get an overwhelming advantage in one turn. And I've been around long enough to even remember the old mana generation rules that limited stuff like Gilded Lotus.

Now, it's lacking green, any come into play trigger and protections. It's kinda like a Don Andres that enables itself.

As the guy who was 100% of the time the target of Sen Triplets for a significant span of time...yes, that is how it plays out a lot. :D

[3drinks]

Sunday, April 7th 2024; Sauron, the Dark Lord

[onering]

Sort of emblematic of the problems with the set, this card has a lot going on rules wise that doesn't actually add up to all that much.

Before getting into the rules text, its baseline stats are fair. 7/6 for 6 is expensive but big enough to rumble and kill in three hits. Not great, not terrible.

Now for the rules text:

Its ward ability starts us off. Its one of those cutesy, complicated ones this set seems to love, and it makes for poor gameplay. Its pretty much just hexproof against lot of decks right up until you actually really need it to be, at which point it fails you because once an opponent is desperate they'll pay the cost, and against some decks its surprisingly trivial. Its also just a gigantic feel bad, because a lot of people will have to sacrifice a commander to pay it, which nobody likes being forced to do, yet because everyone has a commander (at least one) the ward ability will be ineffective at the worst moments often enough to feel bad for the pilot as well.

Next, amass orcs whenever an opponent casts a spell. Basically it brings along a Taurean Mauler to the fight. This is actually really neat. It will provide a really solid set of stats over time that makes the card's overall rate a lot better, but since it doesn't count as commander damage its not as crazy as if Sauron himself grew. I'm pretty low on armies in general, I think its a pretty bad and boring mechanic, but here its pushed enough to matter and is a flavor win.

Next, the Ring tempts you whenever an army you control deals combat damage. The army mattering is pretty neat, but it also means this won't trigger reliably. The Ring tempting is a pretty badly designed mechanic overall. Its overly complex and a massive flavor fail. The ring tempting you SHOULD NOT be a good thing, it really should have been designed as a negative dungeon you give to your opponent. The complexity is also large despite the payoff being generally mediocre. The first step makes something legendary and gives it skulk, which doesn't play well with Sauron or his army, its basically wasted. The second step gives the ring bearer a looter effect on attack. That's ok, but kind of a mid payoff for having to get two tempt triggers, especially since your ring bearer can be killed and then you have to get another trigger to get a new one. The third step is ok with Sauron, as either he or the army are going to be big enough you want to block them, and they'll take out anything that would otherwise survive with this active, but really your just going to see them getting chump blocked at that point (or blocked by something with deathtouch). Overall this stage plays weird with the first stage. Finally, the opponents lose three life when the ring bearer does damage is usually trinket text. I've seen a deck where it mattered, not a Sauron deck, but that was all in on the Ring and unblockable creatures AND had other drain effects. Certainly a mediocre payoff for getting that many triggers.

Lastly, when the Ring tempts you with Sauron out, you mini wheel your hand. Its a may effect thankfully, but since you only draw up to 4 you really want to be playing out your hand to take advantage of it. It does make the Ring tempting a LOT more worthwhile, and by extension makes the Army more relevant. Its actually enough of an incentive to actually run other cards that have the ring tempt you. Unfortunately, Sauron is the kind of commander that really wants a control shell, which doesn't play well with playing out your hand and trying to wheel repeatedly, so I think the wheel effect works best as a use when needed effect rather than something that you try to force.

Overall though, it the total package is still a big dumb beater who brings another big dumb beater along, and you really need to figure out how to both ramp it out in Grixis and give it some form of evasion. You could go deep on the ring tempting to maximize the wheels, or you could go deep on armies (though I think that's a mistake), but overall you just come back to him being a big boy that will occasionally refill your hand maybe. I've played against it a decent number of times and it just never seems like it knows what it wants to do and just ends up being a pretty boring fatty despite the essay worth of rules text.

[DirkGently]

Nice, I kinda wanted to talk about this guy.

I disagree strongly with @onering about the ward cost - I think it might be my favorite ward ability they've ever printed. Because it will rarely be trivial to pay, but it will almost always be possible to play, which means (as he says) that your opponents won't want to remove it - so it's a lot stickier than a big spicy 6-drop commander would normally be, who wants to tap out for their 6-drop and then see it eat a Ravenous Chupacabra right away before it's even done anything? That experience sucks. But at the same time, it's not very effective protection when it's going to run away with the game, which is when I think it's really obnoxious to have uninteractable pieces. Same reason everyone hates Narset, Enlightened Master. So "hexproof until it really matters", sure, but what's interesting about Sauron, though, is...when exactly is that? Unless he's swinging in for lethal on his own - which isn't all that common - he's a pretty incremental value engine, so it's hard to pinpoint a specific moment when he's really gotta die.

I do agree that the ring tempt mechanic is ugly and doesn't work flavor-wise, but at least when you're playing sauron ring temptation does make sense as a boon for you - as compared to playing the fellowship where it's obviously detrimental in the story. Anyway, as far as this commander is concerned I don't think the specifics matter that much tbh. Your commander is big, he makes a big token, so skulk is useless, the looting is outclassed by his own wheeling ability, the deathtouch is likewise pointless when your creatures are huge anyway, and the life loss isn't very impactful. It's annoying to need to track, but since it rarely has much impact on the game it's not that bad imo.

I think the wheel effect - especially with just draw 4 instead of a full grip - is intended to make Sauron play more aggressively, which is fine. Sure, his other abilities lean control but the wheel payoff is easily the most impactful proactive ability in commander so I think it supercedes them. I will note that it's annoying how some of the tempt cards will draw you cards, which then you have to wheel away if you're using Sauron.

Anyway, I've played him a fair bit as a set commander - one of the best set commanders around tbh, since his mechanics are so parasitic. Overall I think he's a great design from the standpoint of looking + reading awesome and powerful, while not actually being oppressive. A big token just isn't that great in commander, 6 mana 7/6 isn't going to brawl often, and the wheeling is cool but 4 cards is small enough that you can't reliably storm off afaik. The fact that he's the most played LTR commander speaks to the fact that people think he's cool, but I'd much rather people were attracted by big, splashy, and not-super-effective rather than something like Voja who is big, splashy, and extremely effective.

Marketing demands cards that capture people's attention, so given that reality, I say let's have more Saurons and less Vojas.

[yeti1069]

I agree that it's frustrating game design to have the tempt cards give you a card, and then Sauron wants you to wheel it away, especially in the case of Sauron's Ransom--why does HIS card work so poorly with him? Major fail.

Otherwise, I think you're overlooking a few things.

First, the ward ability is amazing, since it comes with a hefty cost, but also since it's a trigger, you can wait for that cost to be paid and then counter the spell, bounce Sauron, or otherwise negate your opponent's sacrifice.

Second, while sometimes building a big dumb army is the way to go, and it can get BIG very quickly, the ability also can read as: "Whenever an opponent casts a spell, create a 1/1 creature token." That is very strong alongside things like Goblin Bombardment or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician. It also means you can keep a big army to swing on your turn, then sacrifice it in response to a trigger to create a chump blocker if you think that will be necessary. Also, if you're playing with clones or changelings you can spread the counters around. Changeling Outcast is an unblockable army that can get SWOLE.

Third, the army damage = tempt trigger can be easily achieved with any number of equipment or enchantment pieces that grant trample or a form of evasion. Big dumb beaters start to look pretty decent when you slap Shadowspear or The Reaver Cleaver on them.

Finally, the wheel an do quite a bit. It's crazy card velocity (there are several ways to get multiple tempts either in one turn or over a few turns), and can play into either a strategy designed around dumping your hand over and over, or working out of your graveyard.

I've had a Sauron deck since LotR dropped, and I like it well enough. The issues I have are that the deck often looks more threatening than it actually is and gets a lot of hate for that, and that the abilities often feel like they're pulling the deck in vastly differing directions. Ultimately, I feel like you want to build around either the ability to make a body for each spell your opponents cast or the wheel. I'm running a few ways to make use of the repeated bodies made, but didn't go in too heavily on that, as I didn't want an aristocrats deck, have a few cards to support the big dumb army, and otherwise leaned heavily into the wheel with a moderate reanimator shell, prioritizing spells that can be played from the yard, and ways to recur spells.

[onering]

Dirk, I think its more sensible to compare his ward cost to other ward costs rather than hexproof. Obviously actual hexproof is cancer on splashy commanders, but that doesn't mean his ward cost is actually well thought out. A simple mana based ward cost can accomplish the same thing but be more or less not dependent on the decks you're playing against. Sure, Ward 1 is trivial, but Ward 3 will generally play the same "hexproof until you really need it to be hexproof" role of discouraging targeting. Except that Ward 3 is less likely to just become trivial to legendary decks or even decks that just happen to run a bunch of legends, which has become increasingly commonplace. Even ramp heavy decks are generally going to be trying to use their mana proactively, and thus be impacted by tacking 3 onto the cost of removal.

I'm sure he's great as a set commander, since he's pretty much generic goodstuff that can leverage the set's premier mechanic in a strong way, but if you aren't already limiting yourself like that I don't actually see him as eye catching. He's got a ton of text and seemingly pulls in multiple directions that don't really work well together. There's some good tempt cards, but not many, so you have to either run a bunch of mediocre cards to reliably get his wheel effect off, or you have to rely on the army he brings. I've seen him a fair amount of times, but I've also seen Smeagol Helpful Guide and that did a lot better as a tempt deck. He's eye catching as far as just being Sauron and big, but he's also kind of a mess.

[DirkGently]

Ward 3 will generally play the same "hexproof until you really need it to be hexproof" role of discouraging targeting.

I disagree. Voja is a great example since it typically comes out turn 3. Even an STP could be uncastable targeting it, let alone Beast Within or other more expensive removal. Even on a slower commander, if the commander is popping off and you didn't think to leave open extra mana to cover the ward, you're SOL. Or if you're not hitting lands, it can also be equivalent to hexproof. With Sauron, unless you haven't gotten your commander on the field, you CAN remove it, it's just going to hurt.

Except that Ward 3 is less likely to just become trivial to legendary decks

I can't say that I play against very many legendary decks - what percentage of the meta do you think they comprise? A few percent at most? Some small percentage of the meta being better at paying the cost doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

Anyway unless they're some sort of legendary-matter aristocrats decks, the sac would be easier for sure, but I don't it being trivial. Most legends are 3+ mana, plus losing a card. Okay, Ratadrabik of Urborg can shrug it off, but outside that specific situation I think the variance isn't so terribly wide, and I don't see that variance as being a problem any more than ramp decks being able to pay mana cost wards more easily. Ward sucks against wipes and sac effects too, so it's not a guaranteed speed bump regardless of how it's implemented.

Even ramp heavy decks are generally going to be trying to use their mana proactively, and thus be impacted by tacking 3 onto the cost of removal.

Even legendary decks are generally going to be trying to keep their creatures on the board, and thus be impacted by sacrificing one.

I think it's a lot more likely that sacrificing a legendary is 1) going to be somewhat painful pretty close to 100% of the time and 2) going to be payable most of the time if you need to. Imo both of these are positive things. Ward 3 could be irrelevant if you're flooded out, or make a game-winning commander hexproof in other circumstances, and I don't like either of those play patterns. I think Sauron's hexproof is an elegant solution that lets ward work as a reliable deterrent that doesn't prevent interaction whole cloth, which is how I'd prefer ward to play out as a solution to hexproof.

I'm sure he's great as a set commander, since he's pretty much generic goodstuff that can leverage the set's premier mechanic in a strong way, but if you aren't already limiting yourself like that I don't actually see him as eye catching.

He's got a ton of text and seemingly pulls in multiple directions that don't really work well together. There's some good tempt cards, but not many, so you have to either run a bunch of mediocre cards to reliably get his wheel effect off, or you have to rely on the army he brings. I've seen him a fair amount of times, but I've also seen Smeagol Helpful Guide and that did a lot better as a tempt deck. He's eye catching as far as just being Sauron and big, but he's also kind of a mess.

I agree with all of that - I wouldn't build him as a normal deck. He looked neat at first blush but the longer you look, the less interesting he is. Fine to play but pretty bleh to build.

But regardless of our veteran opinions on the card, it's clearly popular with a lot of (presumably newer) players, so I don't think it's fair to say it's not eye-catching - it just isn't catching OUR eyes. So I do think it serves a good role as a commander that appeals to some demographics without making games miserable, like so many of the other most popular commanders can. I wouldn't build it, but I'm glad it exists, basically.

[materpillar]

On a completely different axis. This guy is great in the 99 of my Changeling deck. His +1/+1 per spell can go on evasive Changelings like Changeling Outcast. Letting your tiny Changelings get swole while spreading around the counters so the counters aren't going to get blanked by a single removal spell (like on the generic orc army). It's also much easier to trigger his tempt/draw 4 with flying armies.

[onering]

I can agree that I'd rather see commanders like this than some of the broken nonsense like Chulane that usually get pushed as face cards, but I don't think it needed this much complexity to get there. Maybe merge the last to clauses, so instead of the Ring tempting you when an army you control deals combat damage to a player, you make it "whenever the Ring tempts you or an army you control deals combat damage to a player, wheel." It would be marginally weaker but the army triggering the Ring is so miniscule as to be disposable, so long as it still triggers the yield.

As for the ward, "unless you don't have your commander out" is a pretty big unless. If it had Ward 3, it wouldn't have the same issue as Voja. It's not coming down as quickly, and not getting ramped as reliably, because of the colors and costing more. It's also not as aggressive, lacking evasion and not growing reliably and explosively like Voja does.

[Jemolk]

I'll say one thing in favor of Sauron's ward cost -- I at least think it's very flavorful to sacrifice a legendary artifact to kill him. The legendary creature aspect is necessary for game balance reasons to make it reasonable to actually pay, though that's also rather flavorful, given how the ring actually gets destroyed in the end. I really like how deep into capturing the flavor of LotR the set designers got in general. I do think they could have done better with the ring temptation triggers, at least. It should have had a downside somewhere at minimum. Maybe losing life if your ringbearer dies?

[DirkGently]

I can agree that I'd rather see commanders like this than some of the broken nonsense like Chulane that usually get pushed as face cards, but I don't think it needed this much complexity to get there. Maybe merge the last to clauses, so instead of the Ring tempting you when an army you control deals combat damage to a player, you make it "whenever the Ring tempts you or an army you control deals combat damage to a player, wheel." It would be marginally weaker but the army triggering the Ring is so miniscule as to be disposable, so long as it still triggers the yield.

As for the ward, "unless you don't have your commander out" is a pretty big unless. If it had Ward 3, it wouldn't have the same issue as Voja. It's not coming down as quickly, and not getting ramped as reliably, because of the colors and costing more. It's also not as aggressive, lacking evasion and not growing reliably and explosively like Voja does.

I do agree that it's a bit overly complex mechanically. But, people do seem to like it, so I guess it's doing it's job.

I agree that ward 3 wouldn't have the issue Voja has, but I think it would be at greater risk of falling on the other side of the problem - by the time someone is aiming removal at him, ward 3 might not matter very much.

Either way would probably have the desire effect, though - having your 6-drop get killed immediately is sad, and either ward is enough to give people some pause before firing off removal as a knee-jerk reaction just because he's a splashy 6-drop. In Sauron's case, I don't think the specifics are too important - once people realize that he's not actually all that strong, they probably won't bother trying to remove him anyway. But I do think it's preferrable that people can more easily afford to pay the ward in a tight spot if things start to get out of hand somehow. Needing to keep up 3 extra mana at all times in order to keep a leash on him is a pretty major imposition. Keeping a legendary creature around, on the other hand, is something you wanted to do anyway, so you're almost always able to do it, even if actually paying it sucks.

[Dunadain]

He's alright, probably the least lame wheel commander, though that's not saying much. I'm in a good mood so I'll let him squeak by with a 👍.

[3drinks]

Monday, April 8th 2024; Screeching Scorchbeast

[3drinks]

Sunday, April 7th 2024; Sauron, the Dark Lord

I always prefered Sauron, Lord of the Rings to this guy. A free reanimate on cast plus a huge body is really good and it even works well with land cyclers. For eight you get a minimum of 14 power that disincentivizes removing it but having enough power to force a removal.

[Mookie]

Screeching Scorchbeast seems like one of the stronger support cards in its precon - even with a once per turn restriction preventing it from going infinite with Altar of Dementia, I could still see it generating 6+ tokens per turn cycle just off its attack trigger. It is six mana, and you probably want some other mill cards to trigger it the turn it comes down... but it seems good. Two evasive keywords also make it quite challenging to block.

It's somewhat interesting to compare to Grave Titan - Scorchbeast gives no tokens upfront, but it yields more tokens in the long term. Blight Titan also came out recently and fills a similar role. I don't expect either to replace the original, but they both have their merits.

[yeti1069]

Monday, April 8th 2024; Screeching Scorchbeast

I like the second effect a lot, but wish the card was either a Horror or 2 or 3 mana less. It's hard to justify including a non-horror that cannot mill opponents on my turn in Captain N'ghathrod that high on the curve.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, April 9th 2024; Xenic Poltergeist

[Lifeless]

God I love silly old card text like this. It really brings me back. My first thought is that I never remember anyone using this to kill Moxen back in the day, unlike our friend Mox Monkey, although the later costs less to cast and can kill Sol Rings and the like too. Definitely a weird space for a black card even by Antiquities standards.

[Mookie]

Xenic Poltergeist is theoretically black artifact removal - turn an artifact into a creature, then kill it with Doom Blade or whatever (but not Terror). Not particularly efficient, but it works if you're desperate. I think black has better options these days though... not necessarily good options, but I would prefer colorless options like Karn Liberated or Boompile over this, or even trying to steal an answer with Gonti, Lord of Luxury or Praetor's Grasp.

There may be some more interesting uses for it though, like using it to animate your own artifacts into creatures. Vehicles keep their keywords and triggers, which is somewhat interesting. You could also use it to blow up opponents' treasures and other artifact tokens.

[3drinks]

Xenic Poltergeist is theoretically black artifact removal - turn an artifact into a creature, then kill it with Doom Blade or whatever (but not Terror). Not particularly efficient, but it works if you're desperate. I think black has better options these days though... not necessarily good options, but I would prefer colorless options like Karn Liberated or Boompile over this, or even trying to steal an answer with Gonti, Lord of Luxury or Praetor's Grasp.

There may be some more interesting uses for it though, like using it to animate your own artifacts into creatures. Vehicles keep their keywords and triggers, which is somewhat interesting. You could also use it to blow up opponents' treasures and other artifact tokens.

Thornbite Staff, is that you?

[3drinks]

Wednesday, April 10th 2024; Flatline

[Serenade]

Didn't we have it within the past month?

[Dunadain]

Didn't we have it within the past month?

Yup, @3drinks is slacking *shakes head disapprovingly*

<3

[3drinks]

Did we? %$#% there's so many new cards i can't keep up anymore 😛

[Mookie]

Did we? %$#% there's so many new cards i can't keep up anymore 😛

Right here

...but yeah, there are a lot of new cards these days.