MTGNexus

Reflecting Pool
This card is overplayed significantly. Not giving you a color you don't have means I almost never play it; I'd rather play an eventide filter land.

I play it in one place, my Pako, Arcane Retriever deck where I have so many mana rocks that fixing is less of an issue--it acts mostly like a flexible eventide filter in that deck because I have a number of spells with deep pip costs, but most of my spells have no pips (artifacts). I'm not 100% sure it's right in there either but I was trying to use fewer fetchlands to save time

Thursday, September 15th, 2022; Curse of Clinging Webs



What a good manner of stopping all the sac-based combos. Good card type, strong payoff.

pokken wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Reflecting Pool
This card is overplayed significantly. Not giving you a color you don't have means I almost never play it; I'd rather play an eventide filter land.

I play it in one place, my Pako, Arcane Retriever deck where I have so many mana rocks that fixing is less of an issue--it acts mostly like a flexible eventide filter in that deck because I have a number of spells with deep pip costs, but most of my spells have no pips (artifacts). I'm not 100% sure it's right in there either but I was trying to use fewer fetchlands to save time

This depends on if you're trying to cast spells like Torbran and Necropotence, or even just use a lot of Pestilence activations. I don't think I could call it overplayed, not when it's much more often a second command tower. If you're not having this fully turned on, I'd imagine it's because your mana is skewed such that it's favouring one particular color over any other, or you're just fetching incorrectly. Of which I'd imagine it's the former as I know you're not a bad player.

3drinks wrote: ↑

1 year ago

This depends on if you're trying to cast spells like Torbran and Necropotence, or even just use a lot of Pestilence activations. I don't think I could call it overplayed, not when it's much more often a second command tower. If you're not having this fully turned on, I'd imagine it's because your mana is skewed such that it's favouring one particular color over any other, or you're just fetching incorrectly. Of which I'd imagine it's the former as I know you're not a bad player.

My decks tend to want fetchable lands more than they want more colors, and so I'm skewed heavily toward fetchlands. But I also do tend to carefully watch my pip distribution and so filter lands with their ability to always tap for 1 on turn 1 and always make two different double colors on turn 2 to be more useful for my sequencing.

Another ding against it is making 1 land hands not keepable because it doesn't make mana on its own but that's faaairly minor.

The curse is cool. Never seen it played but I like it. The only thing is that it is kinda preemptive, which can be hard to calculate on the fly. Sure, Araumi and Meren and other obvious GY nonsense is a safe bet, but what about those games where graveyard synergies aren't immediately obvious? You can't just hold it like a Relic of Progenitus and wait for the right moment, it's gotta happen now or you'll miss all the free spiders! What are you waiting for?! Choose!

I don't like that kind of pressure. I prefer to wait and see.

Ahem, this is good with Grave Pact. It hoses nontoken sacs, and gives you more tokens to sac.

I'm also wondering how big this mill is that there are shortcuts through the mill, rather than by or around the mill. I mean, I'm imagining a water wheel or a windmill used to pulverize grain, not some huge complex, thousands of square feet on both sides of the river, that the only alternative is to go a whole mile out of your way to a much more convoluted passage.

Curse of Clinging Webs is usually going to be worthwhile. A handful of Spider tokens is always good air defense and you're never going to lack for a relevant opponent to target. Heck, you could put it on yourself and dare someone to wrath as long as you don't care about actually keeping creature cards in the 'yard/for some reason want them exiled.

hyalopterouslemur wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I'm also wondering how big this mill is that there are shortcuts through the mill, rather than by or around the mill. I mean, I'm imagining a water wheel or a windmill used to pulverize grain, not some huge complex, thousands of square feet on both sides of the river, that the only alternative is to go a whole mile out of your way to a much more convoluted passage.

This is Innistrad (and probably the Ulvenwald at that) - the mill probably has a footpath running directly through it with impenetrable forest for maybe a mile on other side. But, you're right, some flavor texts invite overthinking like that.

hyalopterouslemur wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Ahem, this is good with Grave Pact. It hoses nontoken sacs, and gives you more tokens to sac.

I'm also wondering how big this mill is that there are shortcuts through the mill, rather than by or around the mill. I mean, I'm imagining a water wheel or a windmill used to pulverize grain, not some huge complex, thousands of square feet on both sides of the river, that the only alternative is to go a whole mile out of your way to a much more convoluted passage.

I think the shortcut across the river is through the mill. Maybe the nearest bridge is a mile away.

Never knew this card existed lol

pokken wrote: ↑

1 year ago

My decks tend to want fetchable lands more than they want more colors, and so I'm skewed heavily toward fetchlands. But I also do tend to carefully watch my pip distribution and so filter lands with their ability to always tap for 1 on turn 1 and always make two different double colors on turn 2 to be more useful for my sequencing.

Another ding against it is making 1 land hands not keepable because it doesn't make mana on its own but that's faaairly minor.

So do I, with the full 11 fetches in 3c (9 in 2c and 6 in 1c), abus, shocks, bicyles, tangos, triomes, snows, and dom taps to further support.

Though I'd argue one landers weren't ever keepable anyway, unless you're on some toxic Edric BS or some cDH nonsense that just cares about vomiting busted fast mana on the board. I don't think the majority is on that, thus why Reflecting Pool is better than your assessment. For the broader applications within the playerbase.

3drinks wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Thursday, September 15th, 2022; Curse of Clinging Webs

What a good manner of stopping all the sac-based combos. Good card type, strong payoff.

"Sac my wide board, cast Massacre Wurm"

Not getting the trigger off tokens stinks. It never pulls its weight if you are running white, too, since Rest in Peace hits more things and more opponents.

Friday, September 16th, 2022; Synthetic Destiny



Instant speed Mass Polymorph. Nice.

Nasty with enough tokens

Polymorph effects are something that I find interesting in theory, but boring in practice. I love chaotic effects like cascaaaaade and Possibility Storm, but the Polymorph decks I tend to see only run ~4 creatures, max, which means it's mostly a matter of 'how do I cheat out an Eldrazi / Blightsteel Colossus out as fast as possible?' That isn't a deck I find to be particularly interesting. The Mass Polymorph decks I see are often even more focused, since then you can just grab Deadeye Navigator + Palinchron or some other combo win.

...anyway, Synthetic Destiny can be powerful in the right deck, but otherwise I don't think it promotes good gameplay.

Yup, Polymorph effects are boring for casual play. It's just the same thing every time.

Agreed. Even if you start with good intentions, they're the sort of effects that continuously push you to refining your deck to suit what they do. Have a bunch of token generators and a bunch of fatties in your deck, pour out like 8 goats, then mass polymorph them into Eldrazi and Leviathans? Seems neat in theory, but in practice that's a decent amount of setup, for an answerable board state, that might not even be that good. When it works right, getting a field of huge dudes and then being able to attack with them, it feels pretty much like a combo win, albeit a slow one, and when it doesn't it's a huge letdown. So you start fiddling with the deck to make sure you'll actually be able to make use of the dudes you get before they get answered, and to make sure that you are getting the best dudes you can from it and not a pile of sad robots and utility, and you just keep going down that path until you've ensured it always grabs a combo, and congrats, you've made a cheaper T&N that requires more setup.

Saturday, September 17th, 2022; Leather Armor



I think this is comparable to lightning greaves for a fraction of the price. Super cheap, freequip, and I think people really under value the tax effect on a piece of removal making others typically point that removal elsewhere.

3drinks wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I think this is comparable to lightning greaves for a fraction of the price. Super cheap, freequip, and I think people really under value the tax effect on a piece of removal making others typically point that removal elsewhere.

I most often play Lightning Greaves for the Haste. I don't think this is comparable at all. The effects are nice, but not especially impactful.

Ha! If greaves are Nikes, this thing is a pair of WalMart flip flops. If I was already gonna spend mana to kill your dude, you think 1 extra is gonna stop me? HA!

Yeah, I don't hate the idea of Leather Armor, but it's rare for me to want to play a purely protective piece of equipment - I'm not even a fan of Darksteel Plate. In contrast, Lightning Greaves granting haste is pretty important, since it lets you attack with any new creatures you play immediately. Ward also seems like a pretty minor speedbump.

...of course, my biggest complaint is that the once-per-turn restriction restricts any Cephalid Illusionist shenanigans.

It's free, but you can't go infinite. At best it might be useful in Doran, the Siege Tower, Phenax, God of Deception, or Arcades, the Strategist, just for being effectively +1/+1.

Do I think it's great. No.

Do I think it is undervalued. Yes.

As someone who played a ton of AFR limited (even getting to Mythic with the format), Leather Armor was a seriously underplayed card then and I think that also holds true for EDH. Being able to play your commander and give it ward 1 and +0/+1 for free is really nice. And I think it is a great card for decks looking for more cheap ways to protect their commander. I also think it belongs in any deck that cares about Equipment.

TheAmericanSpirit wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Ha! If greaves are Nikes, this thing is a pair of WalMart flip flops. If I was already gonna spend mana to kill your dude, you think 1 extra is gonna stop me? HA!

Spending the card is arguably the more important resource, but yeah. Anyone whose threat assessment is so easily shunted is almost certainly a weak player. If it's worth killing, it's worth paying 1 more to do so. At best this delays the removal, not redirects it (or if it does redirect it, it's probably onto another one of your creatures since you're ostensibly the threat).

This card is basically only playable-ish in a deck like Kemba, Kha Regent so you can start making 2/2s the turn after you play her. Unless you care about things being equipped, this is dumpster tier.

I agree with the folks that say Ward just isn't that impactful in EDH. Ward is where it can start getting really worthwhile, but even then, it's more of a nice upside than real protection in a format like ours. It will sometimes interfere with removal, but not often enough to be worth the card slot IMHO. In something like Kemba, sure, the armor makes sense due primarily to equip . In limited, too, seems like a solid card. But for general purposes in EDH? Probably not.