MTGNexus

Honestly, I don't like it.

Its a creature and that's fine if you ever red zone it. But usually what happens is you get in the idea that well if it dies from combat, I just won't get the use out of it I should, so it just sits there waiting for a wrath. That and it depends on how well others are doing so its never doing either of the things you would like if your ahead. If I wanted to play a do-nothing card I'd rather spend on Archaeomancer's Map which comes down earlier and fixes better in two or three colored decks while being less killable. Its not a horribly bad do-nothing card but it has no front end or other redeeming features that make me want to play it either when at 4cc I'd rather develop with something better.

My experience with keeper has been that it is only really good if you are actively going down on lands as a matter of gameplay. If you are on a ton of karoos and lotus lands it's really super strong. If not it sucks.

It is also really good on a perilous forays plan where you intend to sacrifice the tokens you get on the regular. This is tricky to pull off but I have had altar decks that did well with keeper.

Decent card so with multiple avenues. You can do aristocrat, you can go Lotus Field, or you can just throw it in asa modeling value engine.

Actual power is pretty low, but it's neat.

👍👍

I run Keeper in Avacyn, Angel of Hope. Solid card that can help you keep up with the green players (of which there are quite a few in my meta) as well as provide you with some chump-blockers, which is pretty valuable in slower mono-white decks.

Sunday, March 17th 2024; Nature's Resurgence|6ed



Well, that's pretty nutty...

These types of cards are almost always way better in your imagination than they are. Crypt of Agadeem is an example of one that I have only ever had go well in Varina, Lich Queen where I actively am filling my yard and have a very high creature count.

It takes quite a bit of doing to get enough creatures in your bin to outdraw all your opponents, and then you're stuck thinking about wanting to run graveyard hate to prevent them from getting advantage, all for one stupid card.

It makes Harmonize look pretty good :D

pokken wrote: ↑

2 months ago

It takes quite a bit of doing to get enough creatures in your bin to outdraw all your opponents, and then you're stuck thinking about wanting to run graveyard hate to prevent them from getting advantage, all for one stupid card.

This^
The only time I have seen this perform well was in a Golgari Leyline of the Void deck - and then it didn't do much unless the combo was out (Lifeline) in which case it was mostly redundant.
The most interesting use I have seen was with Reito Lantern in a not-quite-group-hug build hoping to turn symmetrical effects asymmetrical (when possible).

graveyard hate tribal, let's go!

👎

I don't think this card makes the cut for Sidisi, Brood Tyrant because it's not a creature.

I keep looking at Keeper and never quite get myself to slot it in somewhere. Moving from 4 mana to 5 would be very relevant for Eowyn and could be decent in a few other decks, but it feels like too often it's going to be a Solemn Simulacrum variant that will occasionally pop out a token (unlikely in Eowyn). Maybe I'm undervaluing it?

Monday, March 18th 2024; Odric, Blood-Cursed

Blood tokens are not worth all that setup.

Boring and awful.

If we skipped the whole keyword collecting nonsense, how much blood would a 3 drop need to make to be worth it? 3? 4? 5+? I'm not sure what the rate should be, blood is harder to measure than clues or treasure.

i love that the ability is so wordy that he can't also have first strike/whatever
really footshooty in terms of anyone wanting to play this card
and actually i think they should just stop doing the Escaped Shapeshifter ability collecting concept altogether or find an elegant way to phrase it like
for each different nonactivated, nontriggered ability among creatures you control get a blood token

also they have had three attempts at Odric but he seems so forgettable

Odric, Blood-Cursed seems pretty underwhelming. Theoretically, you could have a bunch of creatures with keywords and generate a bunch of blood tokens... but then what? Blood tokens have relatively low inherent value, so you'll probably also want a payoff for artifact tokens, such as Ghirapur Aether Grid or Reckless Fireweaver. However, playing Healer's Hawk and Odric to get two blood tokens doesn't sound particularly exciting when you could just play any other artifact card instead to get a trigger directly. Odric becomes a bit more exciting if you have blink effects and can get degenerate amounts of artifact tokens, but there is the eternal question of 'why not just play Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon, Akiri, Line-Slinger, General Ferrous Rokiric, or one of the other rw artifact commanders?'

Overall, I think Odric wants too many things. 'A + B' decks are doable, but Odric feels like 'A + B + C + D'. It is possible to have all the necessary parts come together, but I don't think it would happen consistently. If I wanted to play tons of keywords, I would go with Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh + Akroma, Vision of Ixidor instead.

...also, I'll agree that it would be nice if 'a bunch of keywords' could itself be keyworded. It's sort of annoying that every keyword soup card seems to have a different set of keywords.

Blood tokens require mana and a hand to use. This guy had lots of potential and wasted all of it.

"Count each ability only once" is lame, too. "Creatures you control have haste"--SWEET, five blood tokens or whatever would have been great (and different)!

At first I thought this was OG Odric, Lunarch Marshal and got excited.

Must have been quite the curse to drag him down to this uninteresting, uninspired piece of cardboard.

👎👎

@Dunadain Odric, Master Tactician is the original, not lunarch Marshall.

Marshall is obviously the most interesting of the three though. Huge downgrade for the third version.

Tuesday, March 19th 2024; Bogardan Hellkite



Still a fine card right? Can be used in infinite blink interactions as a win con, flash so it works with the mana combos. Reasonable reanimate target. I've never seen this thing not iMPACT the board in some way, even if it's just impersonating a Flametongue Kavu|f05 and leaving behind a 5/5. Can't just ignore a 5/5 after all.

Great in Zirilan of the Claw. Probably power-crept out of most decks but it's an iconic big red dragon so I have nothing bad to say about it.

👍👍

I loved this card in the old UR Dragonstorm deck, what an elegant wincon. But 8 mana can do so much better these days. Flash is this thing's only saving grace now.

You haven't lived until you Shallow Grave this thing into Ephemerate. I wholeheartedly recommend doing it at least twice a week. Good for the soul 👀

Bogardan Hellkite is a card I don't see myself playing. I think there are much stronger versions of this effect available - Dragonlord Atarka is a pretty direct upgrade, but Scourge of Valkas and Terror of the Peaks are also better Dragonstorm payoffs. Eight mana is also a lot, and numerous playable dragons have been printed in the 4 and 5 mana slots - Glorybringer, Decadent Dragon // Expensive Taste, and Goldspan Dragon are all quite good.

It may be possible to run Bogardan Hellkite in a deck that plans to ignore its mana cost (such as Ilharg, the Raze-Boar or Kaalia of the Vast), but I think there are still better things to cheat out. Ancient Copper Dragon, Drakuseth, Maw of Flames, and Balefire Dragon all seem more exciting to get for free.

Bogardan Hellkite has aged a bit poorly, but so have thousands of cards over the last few years. I play it in one deck for two key reasons
1. It has 10 total power and toughness and
2. It has an ETB that can win me the game and impact the board.
2a. It works well with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker

Still a decent card to me, though not obviously not a first pick in any dragon focused strategies. Scourge of Valkas, Terror of the Peaks, and Red Dragon are fine enough Miirym, Sentinel Wyrm clone spam OTK options as is.