MTGNexus

Vilis, Broker of Blood is a blast. As noted by others, probably better in the 99 of K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth, but I've enjoyed playing mono-black suicide with him at the helm.

"You know? Your Lightning Bolt was a lot better when it wasn't an Ancestral Recall...for me."

You're never going to not be happy if you can get Vilis out - he always does work.

I can't help but to feel that Vilis and Darien, King of Kjeldor have really weird guys night outs...

Thursday, July 7th, 2022; Force of Vigor



This ought to be interesting.

Top tier removal. Destroying 2 of some combination of artifacts and enchantments at instant speed for 4 is still good, and being able to cast it for free plus pitching a spell is awesome.

I've seen people get tripped up by the subtle difference between this cycle and FoW though. You can't pay it's alternate cost on your own turn, which can be relevant. I've seen people need to remove an artifact or enchantment and not have enough mana to cast this because they thought they could cast it for free and played something else first.

Force of Vigor is a very powerful card - it's free, instant-speed, high-tempo, and not even card disadvantage. You can't use it for free on your own turn, and you do need to have enough green cards to pay the alternate cost... but the base case of double-Naturalize isn't that bad either. I'd say the main downside is that green usually doesn't have a lot of synergies with instants, so you may prefer a creature / land version of this like Reclamation Sage or Boseiju, Who Endures.... but given that it's free, I would definitely expect to see this played at faster / higher-power tables.

As a general rule though, I'm not a big fan of this or other free spells - playing around them adds a ton of mental burden because you can no longer ignore tapped out players... and if you aren't playing around them, they often result in feel-bad blowouts. As a result, I think they lead to pretty poor gameplay patterns, even if they may be necessary in Legacy/Modern. Of course, part of that may just be salt from their generally high pricetags.

Mookie wrote: ↑

1 year ago

As a result, I think they lead to pretty poor gameplay patterns, even if they may be necessary in Legacy/Modern. Of course, part of that may just be salt from their generally high pricetags.

Legacy yes, but Modern no. Instead they've warped Modern because it doesn't have the strength or depth of cardpool to withstand the stresses these free spells (and that goes double for the MH2 evoke elementals) have done to the format.

Irked because I was too cheap to buy them early on...at one-fourth the current price.

I put it #2 for this effect after Nature's Claim.

Force of Vigor is phenomenal, especially in a 2 color or mono green deck where you can be pretty sure you'll have something to exile to it. I'd be a little more reluctant to include it in a 3+color deck unless I was already heavy on green spells. It's great because you are likely wanting to tap out on your turn playing green unless you are playing simic.

The only real downside is that it doesn't exile, but now I'm just getting greedy. Fade into Antiquity or Deglamer are some other options you might consider. I'm also seriously looking at Ruinous Intrusion.

Serenade wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Irked because I was too cheap to buy them early on...at one-fourth the current price.

I put it #2 for this effect after Nature's Claim.

Agreed, excellent card, but there are waaaaaay too many flavors of Naturalize for me to pay the current price tag on it.

Overall one of the best instant speed ways to destroy artifacts and enchantments. Luckily, if I'm in green I'll probably favor creature-based versions of this that I can tutor and recur at will and get equal or greater value in the long term.

Did you guys know free spells are good!

Very glad to have picked this up for a few bucks on release. Doesnt deserve the current price, but still very, very good card.

Friday, July 8th, 2022; Noetic Scales



The irony of a counter to reanimator that's actually too slow unless it's also being reanimated out.

I don't know, this would at least be good when your hands start to get empty.

Obligatory Grant Morrison reference. "Empty is my hand" suddenly isn't just some narm. (Especially since, as of this year's FCBD, his hand has finger puppets OF DOOM!)

It has potential against populate decks. Your tokens are nullified at the next upkeep.

hyalopterouslemur wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I don't know, this would at least be good when your hands start to get empty.

Yup, it's better at punishing overextension in general than reanimator in particular IMHO. One of those funky little Urza block artifacts that gets relatively ignored in favor of the, uh, more popular things from that era.

It has potential against populate decks. Your tokens are nullified at the next upkeep.

This however ain't necessarily so. Power, not CMC.

This card is strong against battlecrusier decks that actually try to combat damage you to death and really weak against anything remotely unfair. It actively helps flicker decks.

Hnh neat the new phrasing adds the "its" . [Older cards seem to say "to owner·s hand" while newer cards say "to its owner·s hand" . I wonder why they did it that way .]

I put it into Sydri, Galvanic Genius vehicles since my vehicles are not creatures during the upkeep anyway.
I don't think I have ever drawn it though. The deck doesn't see a lot of play because it is grindy and staxy.

Dunharrow wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I put it into Sydri, Galvanic Genius vehicles since my vehicles are not creatures during the upkeep anyway.
I don't think I have ever drawn it though. The deck doesn't see a lot of play because it is grindy and staxy.

I also had it in my Sydri Vehicle deck, for the same reason. I liked that the value dorks that would obviously abuse being recast were rarely bounced because they were too small to trigger unless a player was Hellbent.

Every time it's hit the battlefield I was told it was "not casual" as people ragequit the game. When I updated that deck for NEO, I removed the scales. Granted, those games were on MTGO, where the threshold for a ragequit is tiny.

On paper, it sounds like it'd be self-limiting: The more creatures get bounced, the more cards you have in hand, so the higher-power cards can stick around. But the decks that want to abuse it, really, really abuse it with ETB effects since it is, as materpillar points out, free and repeatable flicker.

I used to see this more with control decks -- one 5-6 cmc creature and a full grip and you were good to go.

Saturday, July 9th, 2022; Eaten Alive



We've seen this effect before but I think the upsides of 1mv, exile, and getting multiple types makes this more than fringe playable, if you can manage the disposable body req.

Exile is good. Aristocrats decks can easily use this as a pretty okay part of a removal suite.

I probably need to update Juri and Kels with this over Bone Shards (which was the better version of Bone Splinters). I like to have a few of these spells in those decks but limit the number of non-instant-speed variants. I do not expect to add as main removal any time soon.

If this was an instant it'd be solid. At sorcery, nah.