MTGNexus

It's hard to know where to put something like Marshal's Anthem - mass pump and reanimation are like opposite ends of a certain spectrum. One is most effective going wide, the other is most effective going tall. Still, two mana per Resurrection is a good rate.

Marshal's Anthem is a wonky card. I'm currently running it in my cube to theoretically support both the BW reanimation and GW go-wide themes, but... the two don't really have any natural synergy, so I've been debating cutting it for a while. Reanimator strategies are usually looking to get one massive creature into play, which means that the pump doesn't matter... while go-wide strategies may not have creatures worth reanimating. And of course, both strategies are often going to want something more efficient - four mana is a little pricey for a Glorious Anthem, and six mana is a lot for a reanimation effect.

....if anything, Marshal's Anthem seems most interesting in a ramp strategy, where you can kick it multiple times. I sort of prefer Ascend from Avernus and other mass reanimation options though.

Marshal's Anthem is fun in mono-W Darien soldier tribal, which has a few key creatures that it really wants to be able to recur if they're killed (*cough*Soul Warden*cough*) and also a ton of 1/1 soldier tokens. Dunno where else I'd play it, but both the anthem and the reanimation are really nice in that deck.

I built Jorn snow tribal, focused extremely heavily on the theme (there's a few instants and sorceries that are neither snow nor explicitly snow-themed, but that's it, and I still tried to pick things that felt like they wouldn't be out of place with new, winter-themed art). It's fun. I should break it out more soon in honor of the time around the winter solstice. I quite like snow, both in Magic and IRL, so it's fitting as a deck for me.

Jemolk wrote: ↑

1 year ago

I quite like snow, both in Magic and IRL, so it's fitting as a deck for me.

Foul stuff be the frozen precipitation. A cold wet deadly nuisance says I! Puts out one's cigarettes too if it's coming down. It's indefensible!

Ontopic: Marshal's Anthem seems pretty outdated by today's standards. In the super late game, it's probably a really poweful topdeck, but any earlier than that and it's likely worse than Miraculous Recovery.

Saturday, December 3rd, 2022; Freed from the Real

TheAmericanSpirit wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Ontopic: Marshal's Anthem seems pretty outdated by today's standards. In the super late game, it's probably a really powerful topdeck, but any earlier than that and it's likely worse than Miraculous Recovery.

Tbf, miraculous recovery|vis isn't exactly a bad card. Instant speed reanimation is pretty rare especially when it's not a one turn only rez. This card in particularly even had a role in my own Kaalia primer at one point.

3drinks wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Saturday, December 3rd, 2022; Freed from the Real

Well, it's no Superman but it combos just as well.

3drinks wrote: ↑

1 year ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Ontopic: Marshal's Anthem seems pretty outdated by today's standards. In the super late game, it's probably a really powerful topdeck, but any earlier than that and it's likely worse than Miraculous Recovery.

Tbf, miraculous recovery|vis isn't exactly a bad card. Instant speed reanimation is pretty rare especially when it's not a one turn only rez. This card in particularly even had a role in my own Kaalia primer at one point.

I never implied Miraculous Recovery was bad. I even said it was better than MA. Do you think MA is so much worse than MR that the comparison is unfair? I'm confused.

On topic: Freed is %$#%$#% combo cheese and everybody knows it. ONCE I saw it used defensively to repeatedly tap a dangerous Rafiq but if I had a quarter for every time I saw this dumb thing go infinite, I'd buy Twitter from Musk just to destroy it myself.

freed is stupid and a high-profile goldfish card and everyone's going to try and kill you when they see it. will say that Aura of Dominion is even more ridiculous if your plan is precisely to try and use Arbiter of the Ideal giggle

Sunday, December 4th, 2022; Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis

I have a copy, and despite loving golgari+ self-mill decks and included it in most of them, I've never managed to cast it.

Wasn't this card designed for commander and thrown in modern horizons as commander player bait. Then it utterly ruined modern? Also, I've never seen this card cast or even be in a deck. It seems like a pretty cool card though. I've been tempted to build it a few times but nothing ever pushed me over the edge in terms of interest.

I hate Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis design, cheating on mana is notorious for breaking stuff, they made a card that you cant play fair, just cheat 😡

You probably can play it more "fair" in a sidisi deck. probably...

RedCheese wrote: ↑

1 year ago

You probably can play it more "fair" in a sidisi deck. probably...

This is where I played it when I briefly tinkered with a Sidisi deck, and it's very good there. I'm not normally a fan of cards that only attack, but when you throw on nearly unlimited recursion it becomes something else entirely.

One of the worst design mistakes ever made. It just fails in it's mission in every way, was horrifically broken, and was just obviously a bad idea from the jump.

As others have said, it was designed for commander but sees almost not play here and ruined modern instead. What it does isnt very fun, it's just a huge beater that cheats on mana and can be repeatedly cast. Wow, who would have thought that being super cheap and repetitive would be a %$#% design that leads to boring gameplay.

Despite being strong in commander, it doesn't seem much play because of how boring it is, and partly due to it having been expensive when it first came out. As a commander, it's an extremely repetitive gameplay experience, just churn cards into the yard or spit out tokens and do some combination of delving and convoking it into play as fast as possible, then hit people with it 3 times. Easily recast it whenever it gets answered. Yawn. Not fun to play or play against. In the 99 it's more interesting because it loses the consistency that comes with being a commander and it takes more shots to kill someone. It ends up being a very hard to deal with, fairly easy to cast beater with trample, strong enough to be a legitimate plan B but not onerous.

Some context:

Maro wrote:I've explained that when I originally pitched my idea for the Hackathon, I called my idea "Future Sight 2." One of my favorite things about Future Sight's design was the use of "mix-and-match" spells that combined two different non-evergreen keywords on the same card. I (and others) designed a whole bunch of them for Modern Horizons, but they tend to get pretty wordy, so only three made it through the process to print. These are the three.

...

Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis combines two cost-reduction mechanics: convoke and delve. It doesn't matter whether you have creatures on the battlefield or in your graveyard (or other cards in your graveyard), there are many ways to pay. Hogaak even lets you cast it from your graveyard, lining up with the flavor of the delve mechanic.

(for reference, the other two mix-and-match cards in MH1 were Feaster of Fools and Throes of Chaos)
From a design perspective, I actually like Hogaak, Arisen Necropolis a lot - mix-and-match cards that explore synergies between different mechanics are sweet. That said, it definitely has some balance issues. Delve spells have historically been pretty difficult to balance - Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time have been banned from multiple formats, and Gurmag Angler was a Legacy staple despite being a common... until it was dethroned by the even-more-powerful Murktide Regent.

I'll call out that one of the main limiting factors for delve spells is the irreducible colored mana cost - even if you can delve away all the coloress mana, you still to pay some colored mana for most delve spells... but Hogaak also has convoke, which means you can actually cast it for free. Throw in the cast-from-graveyard ability to generate some virtual card advantage (since it's easy to mill / discard it), trample (so it can't be chump-blocked), and some massive base stats (8/8 for 7 is absurd, given that most delve threats are undersized relative to their cost) and you have a banworthy card.

...still, while Hogaak was banworthy in other formats, it's much less exciting in EDH. For one, singleton means you can't trivially set up the Altar of Dementia / Bridge from Below engines that it abused in other formats. Additionally, there's the classic problem of 'it's hard to find space for french vanilla beaters' - even as an 8/8 trampler, Hogaak isn't likely to win a game by itself. Certainly still worth consideration if you're playing a graveyard-based deck, but many of those decks are more interested in doing recursion shenanigans and are less interested in delving away a bunch of stuff.

I'm also not that excited about Hogaak in the command zone. Karador, Ghost Chieftain and Meren of Clan Nel Toth are both very powerful recursion engines for graveyard-based decks, while Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord scales better to multiplayer if you want to just kill your opponents by sacrificing something beefy (such as Hogaak). If you really want to do voltron, Ghalta, Primal Hunger and Skullbriar, the Walking Grave are also options.

Monday, December 5th, 2022; Awaken the Ancient

I loved this card when it was printed. It struck me as pretty cool; you get a 4 mana 7/7 with haste (potentially, if you have a land that doesn't need to tap to cast this), but, you open yourself up for a 2-for-1. Probably not good enough for EDH then but I played it anyway, and certainly not good enough now, eight years later.

But I do think it's a cool card.

I feel like
Wakey Ancient 2RRR
Creature-Giant
Haste
7/7
Is probably not playable in EDH anyways. This isn't even a "beatdown is dead" complaint; even in combat-heavy metas, creatures coming down after turn 3/4 in combat metas are going to have to contend with board-clog. Pure beaters need to be evasive or seriously fast to be good. They're not interesting enough to play when they're not good, imo.

I like the flavor text...

Nice that it gives haste eo you don't have track which of your lands was played last

I wouldn't play a 4 mana 7/7 even if it didn't cost me a mana to use and cost me a land when it dies.

Higher use rate on EDHrec than I would have guessed at 344. Still very low, though. No clear commander - Aegar, the Freezing Flame has the most use from it, but that still only accounts for10%.

Infinite attack phases with this, Aggravated Assault, Nykthos (enchanted by this), and three more red pips (achievable by running Kiki Jiki as your commander, which also gets you infinite copies of a non legendary creature). 4 more red pips nets you infinite R mana.

Who doesn't love convoluted, absurd combos?

onering wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Infinite attack phases with this, Aggravated Assault, Nykthos (enchanted by this), and three more red pips (achievable by running Kiki Jiki as your commander, which also gets you infinite copies of a non legendary creature). 4 more red pips nets you infinite R mana.

Who doesn't love convoluted, absurd combos?

I think you need 4 more pips to get infinite untaps/combat phases and 5 for infinite mana. 5 to activate the AA and 2 to activate the nykthos, so 7 required per cycle, or 8 to net a mana. 3 from Awaken the Ancient means 4/5 from elsewhere.

Also you'd need to somehow make nykthos a mountain without making it not-a-nykthos, so add Navigator's Compass or whatever.

And note that infinite combat phases won't be very useful unless you have evasive vigilance creatures (or some combo of creatures that tap for 2 to activate Nykthos between combats).