[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Jetfire, Ingenious Scientist

[Jemolk]

There are a few red damage wipes I actually like. Starstorm for instant speed, Hour of Devastation for removing indestructible and also hitting planeswalkers, and Blasphemous Act for costing one mana and actually being pretty darn thorough. Storm's Wrath just falls a bit short of good IMHO, and being merely good tends to fall a bit short of inclusion.

[cheonice]

Chain Reaction is so much more powerful than Storm's Wrath [/card]. Why would you even consider this outside of a Keranos flavour deck?

[Hawk]

I don't love this and have a foil prerelease version I'm not running.

Blasphemous Act is red's gold standard. 13 damage is enough to kill almost any thing, and while it looks like 9 it often is going to be 3-4.
Mizzium Mortars is one of my favorites. Flexible to be cast on 1R if you need to just kill one thing, and I'm thrilled to pay the extra RR in most decks to have a one-sided wipe. 4 damage misses a fair amount of stuff, but hits more than you'd think.
Chain Reaction is one I don't run everywhere, but it's hard to deny the efficiency and efficacy especially in a deck that is built around a planeswalker or indestructible commander. I think it's much worse than Blasphemous, but still good.
The "X" ones are all sorta awkward. I like cycling more than most and can't seem to stop running Starstorm; Rolling Earthquake and Earthquake are strong if you are fireballing folks. I run these more than I should, and suspect in plenty of decks that in practice Storm's Wrath and Hour of Devastation are likely better.

The trick is - how many decks want more than 3 boardwipes and don't have access to better White or Black ones? Few, is the answer - mostly Izzet Control lists.

[PrimevalCommander]

For a fixed damage wipe, I'm playing Mizzium Mortars and Delayed Blast Fireball,both of which pull at lot of work in my Kalamax, the Stormsire tempo deck. Being one-sided is good and in that deck I just want to keep the creature count low. I don't necessarily need to wipe the whole board. I still play 2 full resets, but having one or two of these in my deck has really helped me stay relevant even with a low creature count.

Starstorm sounds pretty good since I can scale it to be just under Kalamax's toughness and it would be cheap mana wise to get it up to 6 damage, which kills a lot of creatures.

[Mookie]

I'm currently at five board wipes in my Mizzix deck - Blasphemous Act and Chain Reaction are clearly the two best, and I'm also running Immolating Gyre, Consuming Tide, and Crush of Tentacles. I may have to try another damage-based board wipe over one of the latter though, since I'm probably undervaluing them. Hmmmm.... given how few creatures I'm running, I probably don't need the asymmetry of Mizzium Mortars, but I don't know that I'm interested in running Storm's Wrath either. I'll have to think about it some more. Delayed Blast Fireball does look pretty sweet at instant speed, even if it does cost a bit extra.

[ISBPathfinder]

Storm's Wrath falls short in a lot of ways. It lacks flexibility and generally the need to hit all walkers for direct damage isn't really needed in this format. There tend to be a lot of other red sweepers I do think are totally reasonable but this one really never makes my list due to the fact that hitting all walkers just isn't something needed very often in commander.

[DirkGently]

I think it's actually pretty nice to have access to, for the reason @Sinis stated. There are a ton of 3 damage wipes, but few 4 damage ones (without searching, I can only think of this and Breath of Darigaaz). So if you can minimize the damage this does to your board, it can resemble a 1-sided-ish wipe.

If you're trying to use it as a symmetrical wipe, yeah, it's pretty bad and there are a lots of better options.

[3drinks]

I like that it hits walkers. Pretty clean for four mv.

[Yatsufusa]

Storm's Wrath, the R version of Languish, I guess? Personally, planeswalkers aren't around commonly around enough (the few are are already dispatched via more efficient means anyway) that hitting them is a factor, so just like Languish, this probably a "coincidental choice" wipe for decks that already naturally dodge it in the first place, because no one really plans their creatures around dodging their wipes. If you're playing damage enhancers, then at that point chances are the 3-mana 3-damage wipes (e.g. Brotherhood's End) will be preferable simply by virtue of their mana cost.

Personally, Najeela, the Blade-Blossom and Extus, Oriq Overlord // Awaken the Blood Avatar already have access to WB and have no real benefit from damage-based wipes. Animar, Soul of Elements can dodge by virtue of size, but I've reached the point spot removal (and Curse of the Swine) is enough to get rid of truly troublesome cards and if I'm not threatening enough that the other creatures die because they have to block my battlecruisers, then that game already ran wrong for me anyway.

Ryusei, the Falling Star is damage-based (with enhancers AND Repercussion), so I would prefer the 3-mana ones over Storm's Wrath to begin with, but the Commander itself is the wipe, so those don't even make the cut. Blasphemous Act is de-facto finisher there and I've found it sufficient enough I don't even need Chain Reaction nowadays. I run Nevinyrral's Disk there as my "in-case I really need the destruction over damage" because as an artifact it can serve other purposes even if it doesn't activate (I used to run Obliterate long ago).

I only run 10 creatures and 6 of those have flying (having carved around the Commander) and I also run 2 Swords with Protection from Red. I have no real need for generic one-sided wipes, even as dangerously double-sided my general game-plan is. Fault Line is my default X-wipe now, instant-speed is worth the extra mana over Earthquake and my natural dodging is worth the cycling of Starstorm.

3 Wipes is enough for a deck with a Commander that already does the job, but I have an additional current toy in Structural Assault, because I don't run Dockside Extortionist (I do generate treasures via Gadrak, the Crown-Scourge, but it doesn't do enough to really matter) but more importantly I run all of Ichor Wellspring, Mycosynth Wellspring, Prized Statue and Nimblewright Schematic and while I do have sacrifice outlets, it'll be honestly fun to see Structural Assault fire off all 4 of them while dealing a boatload of damage. Also, it didn't really take over a creature-wipe, it technically replaced Scrap Mastery to begin with.

[Hawk]

I am convinced I undervalue this - since I've long thought Breath of Darigaaz is underrated and this is very similar. I think it's just that it doesn't fit into any of my Rx decks now:

- Daretti, Scrap Savant "Superfriends" prefers wipes that leave Daretti and his friends alive like Rolling Earthquake, Blasphemous Act, Nevinyrral's Disk. All Is Dust is also a big player since it kills a lot of walkers but can leave Karn, Ugin, and a horde of artifacts alive to win with.
- Sevinne, the Chronoclasm likes damage-based wipes, but this is also competing with real wipes. Honestly, I've found Divine Reckoning + Mizzium Mortars + Cyclonic Rift + Blasphemous Act to be "enough", and Chain Reaction likely gets the nod as a 5th wrath with Supreme Verdict probably getting the 6th slot if I went so high. While Sevinne lives damage-based wraths, my tokens don't and so 1-sided wraths are still of value here.
- Samut, Voice of Dissent is an aggressive deck and doesn't like running boardwipes. I only run Sunblast Angel and Balefire Dragon as cards that I can break the symmetry of or that aren't symmetric and can crack folks for a bunch of hasty flying damage.

[3drinks]

Thursday, February 16th, 2023; Mirrormade

It's like they power crept both Copy Artifact and Copy Enchantment and put them into one card. Sick.

[BeneTleilax]

Eldraine was a mistake.

[Hawk]

Not necessarily strictly better than Copy Artifact (costs more) or Copy Enchantment (UU is a possible challenge for some 3-color enchantress builds, although on the other hand this is clearly better in a mono-blue deck for Devotion purposes). Also worth noting that if you just want to clone enchantments, Estrid's Invocation is more flexible. I also enjoy Clever Impersonator even at 1 more, since it can hit creatures, walkers, and soon Battles (???) - if you just want generic value, it's the better spell.

All that said, there's no doubt this card is rock-solid in the decks that want it and it is better in practice than Copy Artifact, Copy Enchantment, and Sculpting Steel as a powerful way to double on your best effects.

[tstorm823]

This has an exceptional foil.

[Mookie]

I'm a little low on Mirrormade in artifact-based decks when Phyrexian Metamorph and Sculpting Steel exist - there are a lot of artifact synergy cards that care about cards being an artifact in zones other than the battlefield (Master Transmuter, Grand Architect, Sai, Master Thopterist, etc). Still, it is a reasonable option if you're already in the market for Copy Artifact.

On the flip side, Mirrormade looks sweet in enchantment-based decks (and hybrid decks like Alela, Artful Provocateur) - getting an extra copy of Sphere of Safety / Sigil of the Empty Throne / etc. seems sweet. I think it's slightly outclassed by Estrid's Invocation, but the extra flexibility does give it an edge in some situations.

...my general heuristic for copy effects is similar to my heuristic for theft effects - your opponents' cards are generally going to be of a lower quality than your own cards, primarily due to those cards being synergistic with their own decks instead of yours. As a result, I don't think I would play this Mirrormade in a random blue deck with the intent of copying my opponents' stuff (outside Sakashima the Impostor or another dedicated clone / theft deck). I do sort of miss the days when I could run clones in random decks with the intent of copying Prophet of Kruphix or another generic value engine (or just kill an opposing legend), but I do think that decks being more synergy-based is generally a good thing for the format.

[DirkGently]

this is clearly better in a mono-blue deck for Devotion purposes.

But it becomes a copy though...

I think a lot of decks would prefer a more powerful, less flexible option since they're planning to copy their own stuff and they know what they have. But ofc if you have a deck that runs a lot of artifacts AND enchantments, or if you just want an additional copy of your artifact/enchantment clone, it's solid. Especially compared to enchantment clones which have fewer strong copy effects - though blue enchantments is less common than blue artifacts, synergy-wise.

[tstorm823]

this is clearly better in a mono-blue deck for Devotion purposes.

But it becomes a copy though...

I have actually played this naked to feed Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. Not often, but certainly an option. But I also played it as a do nothing donation for Zedruu occasionally, so my experience may not be typical.

[Serenade]

Forgot this existed. Need to add to my messy Ovika deck (Another Coastal Piracy! More rock ramp! Three bodies!).

[Dunadain]

I had no idea people hated this card with such vitriol. Like sure, I suppose it is pretty blatant power creep, but it's relatively harmless in my experience.

[Serenade]

Plus…both of those copy enchantments are too $ expensive.

[ISBPathfinder]

Mirrormade is fine, I just think that if you are planning to play it as one of your own cards its a bit winmore and if your plan is opponents cards its a question of what the meta runs on average. I have been sort of down on clones the last number of years. I do think there are good targets out there but I also think that the time sitting in hand can be a bit high if you are hoping to clone opponents cards.

Overall I don't run that many clone effects. I do think this one is fine, I just opt to get set up over the idea of getting 2x of something set up. I think in a lot of cases its wishful thinking and you are better off just having something more consistent.

[3drinks]

Friday, February 17th, 2023; Tomb of Urami

...So what's the combo? It clearly has to have some known purpose to hold onto a $8 USD price tag.

[Dunharrow]

I got nothing. Anything I can think of is just terrible.

[BeneTleilax]

Friday, February 17th, 2023; Tomb of Urami

...So what's the combo? It clearly has to have some known purpose to hold onto a $8 USD price tag.

IIRC some reddit guys did a buyout for reasons known only to themselves.

[Mookie]

...So what's the combo? It clearly has to have some known purpose to hold onto a $8 USD price tag.

There are two reasons I see to run Tomb of Urami: you really care about legendary permanents (Shanid, Sleeper's Scourge, Kethis, the Hidden Hand), or you care about life loss / damage (Vilis, Broker of Blood, Greven, Predator Captain). Maybe a third reason if you're running Titania, Protector of Argoth. The legendary thing is definitely the biggest reason though - there aren't that many legendary lands, total, and even fewer that unconditionally generate colored mana. I wouldn't run it over Takenuma, Abandoned Mire or Shizo, Death's Storehouse (or even Urborg), but it's worth consideration if you want as many legends as possible.

...probably not worth the pricetag though.