[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Rishkar, Peema Renegade

[yeti1069]

Used to run this in Kadena, but replaced it with Yedora, Grave Gardener. Doesn't have the manifest benefit, but having your dead creatures come back as Forests is much stronger.

[Mookie]

Used to run this in Kadena, but replaced it with Yedora, Grave Gardener. Doesn't have the manifest benefit, but having your dead creatures come back as Forests is much stronger.

I'll note that Yedora doesn't trigger Kadena, since the returned cards aren't creatures. I imagine you have other synergies for face-down cards though (or you just want to recur morph creatures).

[DirkGently]

Ah, fate reforged and its absolutely cracked limited rares. Good thing I opened a lot of Citadel Sieges and Ugin, the Spirit Dragons.

In commander, WWE is pretty niche/mid though. Unlike ugin.

[yeti1069]

Used to run this in Kadena, but replaced it with Yedora, Grave Gardener. Doesn't have the manifest benefit, but having your dead creatures come back as Forests is much stronger.

I'll note that Yedora doesn't trigger Kadena, since the returned cards aren't creatures. I imagine you have other synergies for face-down cards though (or you just want to recur morph creatures).

The thing is, if you're sacrificing Whisperwood it's probably in the face of a board wipe, so Kadena isn't around to see the new manifests anyway, unless she's indestructible. The EOT manifest is nice.

Yedora does a few things:
[*]your morphs (especially the face-up ones) become excellent blockers since they die and come back as mana.
[*]anything that kills your face-up creatures essentially becomes a free reset AND ramps you.
[*]alongside Primordial Mists you are happy to turn all of your creatures, including Kadena, into a Forest, because you can easily change it back.
[*]the effect works turn after turn, rather than the one shot from Whisperwood.
[*]morph is a very mana-hungry mechanic, and I already run Elven Chorus, and was running Cryptolith Rite, so it's a welcome ability of itself.
[*]while rare, if you see a second board wipe in the turn cycle after using Whisperwood, you lost all those manifested cards; with Yedora, everything is pretty safe until you start flipping them up again.

I'm also running enough noncreatures that I don't LOVE blindly manifesting the top of my library without a way to access those cards. For instance, in a game I played last night, I manifested Vampiric Tutor, a land, Arcane Signet, Nature's Lore, and Ugin, the Ineffable over a few turns with Primordial Mists and was able to still use all of those, which I wouldn't have been able to do with Whisperwood.

Yedora is strong enough that I have returned to considering whether I should put more tutors into the deck as well as a couple of free sac outlets to abuse it as almost a hidden commander, but I'm never quite invested in the idea enough to allocate the deck space to making it work. I don't think anyone is building around Whisperwood.

If I were running, say, a Yedora deck, then yeah, Whisperwood goes in 100%, but in Kadena I find that there are only so many slots that can be given over to non-morph cards, or ones at 5+ mana.

[Dragonlover]

I run it in Glissa, but then I also have Temur Sabertooth to reset non creatures, and I'll soon have that new colourless enchantment as well.

Dragonlover

[3drinks]

Saturday, August 12th, 2023; Kiora, the Crashing Wave

[Mookie]

Kiora, the Crashing Wave is pretty niche. Her baseline is double Explore over two turns, which is fine, but doesn't compare that impressively to Urban Evolution or Eureka Moment. The (+1) can protect her (or you) from stuff, but scales poorly to multiplayer (and prevents the targeted thing from hitting your opponents instead). It is relevant against noncreatures like Purphoros, God of the Forge or Repercussion, but otherwise a bit narrow. The ultimate is reasonable, but making a vanilla 9/9 token every turn isn't necessarily going to win the game by itself - there are plenty of decks capable of bouncing or chump blocking tokens repeatedly.

...anyway, I don't mind Kiora as a flavor choice for Kiora, Sovereign of the Deep or other sea monster decks, or potentially in UG superfriends / proliferate decks, but I think there are more impactful planeswalkers available.

[Igzex]

She is so frail that upticking to Saran Wrap a creature isn't gonna do anything with 2 other boards looking right at her. You're getting a Growth Spiral out of her for twice the mana and that's about it.

[3drinks]

Sunday, August 13th, 2023; Serra Ascendant

*grabs popcorn*

[Dunadain]

The card is good. Yes, the nature of EDH makes a 1 mana 6/6 with flying and lifeline not as busted as it would be in other formats, but that's still far above rate.

The card sees quite a lot of play in cEDH, so don't tell me big beaters aren't viable in EDH. They are, they just need to be ridiculously above rate.

Don't get me wrong, it's no staple, but it's certainly strong.

[kirkusjones]

One of Raffine's best goons.

[Hermes_]

Does anyone else remember the days of "Ban Serra Ascendant"?

[illakunsaa]

This card should have gotten a reprint in CMR.

[Serenade]

Concur on reprint. Cost is still pretty high.

[cheonice]

Love him in Selvala :D Table groan is always guaranteed.

[Mookie]

Serra Ascendant is broken from a card design perspective, but pretty meh from a power level perspective. I can't remember the last time I saw one played. I did someone recently mulligan when they had it in their opening hand (they had a 1-lander), so I'll put it below Sol Ring / Mana Crypt in the context of 'makes a sketchy 1-lander keepable'.

Design-wise, we can see that WotC has shifted away from referencing specific life totals due to the growth of Commander - Righteous Valkyrie and Path of Bravery are two examples. Those cards function identically in other formats, encouraging lifegain and giving a payoff if you can reach or maintain a certain threshold. Serra Ascendant functions differently - in 20-life formats, it is an aspirational goal... but in 40-life formats, it's a clock ticking down, as you hope to draw and play it before your life total falls too low.

Anyway, I think Serra Ascendant is just so-so. It's not necessarily bad in a vacuum - if you play it on T1, it's probably going to deal 12-24 damage, which is an absurd rate for a 1-drop... but that alone won't win the game unless you're running other sources of pressure. If all you want is to pad your life total, Soul Warden / Soul's Attendant do the job while attracting significantly less attention. As a result, I would generally only consider it in decks that are particularly aggressive (and want a large, cheap beater) or decks that are actively gaining life (and will still have it active even in the lategame).

...that said, it could definitely use a reprint.

[brainface]

Ravenloft Adventurer secret commander to one shot a player a turn after a bit of mill? Shuffle clause at the very end ruins it. Pretty worthless card.

Days, days late, but I'm still going to gloat: I've done this, it was incredibly stupid and absolutely worth every hoop jumped through.

[Treamayne]

Does anyone else remember the days of "Ban Serra Ascendant"?

SPOILER

Show

Hide

Design-wise, we can see that WotC has shifted away from referencing specific life totals due to the growth of Commander - Righteous Valkyrie and Path of Bravery are two examples. Those cards function identically in other formats, encouraging lifegain and giving a payoff if you can reach or maintain a certain threshold. Serra Ascendant functions differently - in 20-life formats, it is an aspirational goal... but in 40-life formats, it's a clock ticking down, as you hope to draw and play it before your life total falls too low.

I didn't want a ban, but I did (and still do) want this (and similar cards like Felidar Sovereign) to have functional errata to bring them in line with the "starting life total" card template. IMO All of the cards (and poison) whose mechanics were based on a 60-card 20 life format should follow the new "starting life" template:
- Poison - half starting life
- This - 10 more than starting life
- Felidar - double starting life
- Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant = 10 more than starting life
- etc.

[NZB2323]

I play Serra ascendant in human tribal, cleric tribal, and have played it in Edgar Markov.

It's probably the best in cleric tribal with Voice of the Blessed, Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant, Auriok Champion, Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, Suture Priest, and True Conviction, despite it not being a cleric. But aren't Monks really Clerics?

[Ruiner]

Dropped a Turn 1 Serra Ascendant this past weekend with my Liesa deck. That never gets old.

It's a great card for what it does obviously, but not really a huge problem unless you are in one of those weird no/low interaction playgroups, in which case it should be teaching those groups a lesson.

[pokken]

This card has been utterly dominant in my Breena, the Demagogue deck. But it's a lot scarier when it's a 12/12 and draws cards when it attacks

[3drinks]

Monday, August 14th, 2023; Hithlain Rope

Good, safe group hug at least. Not the type that vomits resources and super speeds the game. Like the kind of thing I might play in a Gluntch, the Bestower styled deck.

[yeti1069]

Are there more impactful 1-drop creatures?

It's the most aggressive 1-drop available for aggro decks.
It's one of the best cards available to slower decks that want to pad their life totals (along with the other 1-drops that gain a life when an opponent makes a creature).
It holds equipment well.
It's a great blocker, if that's what you need.

I have several decks this could easily go in, but I've limited it to Eowyn humans, and Queen Marchesa. I'd had it in Tymna/Tevesh clerics, but took it out for being not a cleric, and being too strong early in a deck that cares about cheap evasive creatures and life gain.

I do really wish WotC would errata all the cards like this to reflect the modern tech of "starting life total +X" rather than a fixed value.

[yeti1069]

I really dislike group hug, but yeah, this is a pretty safe/friendly version of it. My biggest complaint about this, otherwise, is that you can't pass it to the player who is struggling--if they aren't the player to your right, it has to work its way around.

[3drinks]

I really dislike group hug, but yeah, this is a pretty safe/friendly version of it. My biggest complaint about this, otherwise, is that you can't pass it to the player who is struggling--if they aren't the player to your right, it has to work its way around.

I like this in theory, though if we templated it as such then it would just become another piece of coercion for two players to run away with the game, like Trade Secrets was.