MTGNexus

Friday, September 23rd, 2022; The Bridge Cycle



They're indestructible duals. With some strategic advantages. And they're not pricey. What's not to love?

I like these lands. I don't play any of them, but I'm glad they exist. For multi color artifact decks they seem like an auto include.

Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor and other land animator cards love these.

I love them. And they play much better than you would think in decks that want them. Honestly, these might be some of the strongest EtB tapped dual lands available with the exception of the Triomes. I've even survived Mass Land Destruction (it was a new guy with an "average power level" deck) in decent shape because of the indestructible.

PrimevalCommander wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I like these lands. I don't play any of them, but I'm glad they exist. For multi color artifact decks they seem like an auto include.

Obuun, Mul Daya Ancestor and other land animator cards love these.

When I re-evaluated the as I call it "baseline" Kaalia deck for the Primer rewrite, I loved very much I could use these with Hoarding Dragon|ima as a sort of wonky Trinket Mage|tsr and even went and baked an artifact package into Kaalia. That feels like a pretty good ceiling if they can get a not-artifact deck like Kaalia to cosplay as an artifact deck.

Good point, also turns Trinket Mage into a fixer for decks, which makes that card even more flexible.

I've seen these cards in the wild once: a friend of mine built MLD tribal superfriends with these alongside ABU duals and 10k worth of other cards.

I told him if he ever wasted 3 hours of my life again with that nonsense, I would only ever play against him in limited. Dunno if he still has that deck together, but I haven't seen it since that ultimatum either.

I'm a fan of the bridges. Historically, I've been low on Ancient Den and other artifact lands for the simple reason that they tend to get swept up by Vandalblast and other mass artifact removal. While the bridges can technically still be hit by Merciless Eviction or Farewell, indestructible makes them much more resistant to removal, which is quite nice. As a result, they actually feel pretty safe to play (and I'd rate them even higher if you care about MLD in your meta).

Anyway, the basic math for the bridges comes down to 'how much do I care about artifacts' vs 'how much do I care about my land entering tapped'. I wouldn't run them in a cEDH list, but if you have artifact synergies, they're certainly worth consideration. Trinket Mage and Artificer's Intuition particularly like them, but sacrificing them to Krark-Clan Ironworks or Trading Post, or discarding them to Thirst for Knowledge and reanimating them with Salvaging Station also represents nice value. If you have Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas or other ways to animate your artifacts, you can turn them into an indestructible body, which is also fun.

Love them specifically for the purpose of animating artifacts and/or lands. Overall, they're great.

void_nothing wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Love them specifically for the purpose of animating artifacts and/or lands. Overall, they're great.

A disclaimer: Most animate artifact cards say "P/T=MV", so, no. I mean, Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and similar still work, but March of the Machines kills artifact lands instantly.

This cycle has a lot of value in affinity and eggs. You can also use it with landfall abilities and Panharmonicon. Besides that, Trinket Mage, and things like Enlightened Tutor. (I have topdecked artifact lands like this for Bob before. I prefer to use dig abilities to do it, though.)

The downside, of course: It's a tapland.

Saturday, September 24th, 2022; Grinning Totem



When you want to cast Praetor's Grasp but aren't in B I guess.

It was perhaps the best card in my Golos, Tireless Pilgrim Bad Artifacts deck because it allowed me to search better decks for spells that weren't terrible.

I mean, it's not bad, but it just seems a bit much for an anti-Demonic Tutor.

You should have put this in that old Glissa, the Traitor deck, @3drinks! 😂😂😂

I've been wanting to be more positive about random cards lately, but Grinning Totem makes it a bit difficult. Let's see... I guess it's a sink for infinite mana, assuming your opponents have a juicy X spell? It also has some use against combo decks (although Jester's Cap does it better). I suppose it also functions as a tutor in non-black decks - six mana is, technically, cheaper than ten mana for Ring of Three Wishes (although tutoring from an opponent's deck obviously has some limitations). You can also activate it at instant speed to mess with your opponent's tutor - such value!

...yeah, I'm out of ideas. Praetor's Grasp is significantly better, and it's not a very good card in the first place - needing to pay the stolen card's cost is a surprisingly harsh restriction outside 5C decks. Depending on how synergy-based your opponent's deck is, there may not even be useful cards to steal in the first place, or at least not something worth the three mana investment when you could be drawing cards from your own deck instead.

Sunday, September 25th, 2022; Bane of Progress

This is some premium green.

This thing is the boogeyman of my artifact centric decks

This is the key interaction piece in my wanderer deck - it's designed to be able to just get this dude if it can't go off and win, and it always buys Soooo much time. It's inevitably huge and it blows up almost everything that deck cares about (since it can beat creatures by just out-creaturing them).

I really hate this card. I tend to lean into silly artifact synergy pieces and this almost always wrecks my board.

Fantastic card. 10/10, glad it exists. Really good for the format. Please stop casting it against me. XD

Hero to some decks, villain to others. Bane of Progress is always an impactful card, either by blowing up a bunch of mana rocks or sending an enchantress player back to the stone age (well, until they cast Replenish, at least). The mana rock thing is particularly worth calling out, since it strongly encourages leaning into green's land and creature-based ramp options. Beyond that, it leaves behind a big vanilla beater. I haven't ever seen it get in for significant damage due to its lack of evasion, but it's still a decent threat / blocker.

Synergy-wise, I'll call out that it's one of the few creature-based mass artifact/enchantment removal options. I suppose Hammer Mage exists, but Bane is definitely best-in-class. It's also somewhat annoyingly able to dodge Swan Song and Negate, both of which I'm running in my Thada Adel, Acquisitor deck for Cyclonic Rift. Bane isn't quite as widely played, so I'm not quite willing to tech in cards for it, but still worth calling out.

This is the card that taught me patience with Erebos and impatience with Daretti. Excellent card.

I see them chord for 6.
I whir for 2.

RedCheese wrote: ↑

1 year ago

This thing is the boogeyman of my artifact centric decks

Enchantress, affinity, eggs, Voltron, even Stax if you can manage to get six mana.

Big green man makes me go yes


10/10 go die in a hole Sythis, Harvest's Hand.