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

[DirkGently]

Hey, to be fair, the mill made it absurdly powerful in limited.

The real problem is that the swords are most popular in voltron, and if you're voltronning then almost 100% you'll kill them with commander before they die to mill,making the mill at best a wasted trigger, and at worst a major detriment. And the token is just medium because you aren't planning to win with tokens either, so it's just a chump blocker basically. You'd need to be a deck that isn't planning to kill with commander damage but still wants equipment. So...Nahiri, the lithomancer exclusively?

[Hermes_]

I run it in my line slinger voltron deck,mainly for the +2/+2/+1 it gives her.

[Neptune]

I was thinking about running Sword of Body and Mind in a Grothama, All-Devouring deck so I can fight him and save at least one creature.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, January 29th, 2020; Soul Diviner

[Toshi]

Really interesting concept!

Unfortunately, scrolling through possible Commanders for it all i can think of is munching +1/+1 counters, Atraxa, Praetors' Voice or Skeleton Ship Tappers Tribal.

[ilovesaprolings]

Unfortunately, scrolling through possible Commanders for it all i can think of is munching +1/+1 counters, Atraxa, Praetors' Voice or Skeleton Ship Tappers Tribal.

Volrath? You can put a -1/-1 counter on it and draw every turn. It ain't much, but it's honest work

[DirkGently]

Eating cumulative upkeep is cute. unfortunately most cumulative upkeep cards wouldn't even be good without cumulative upkeep (with a few exceptions, looking at you mystic remora).

[3drinks]

Eating cumulative upkeep is cute. unfortunately most cumulative upkeep cards wouldn't even be good without cumulative upkeep (with a few exceptions, looking at you mystic remora).

This wouldn't touch Mystic Remora, however.

[Mookie]

Best-case scenario, Soul Diviner is two-mana draw engine, which is really cheap. You do need some way to keep it fed, but there are a lot of ways to turn removing counters into an upside. Dark Depths, Cinderhaze Wretch, Fathom Mage, and River Delta all appreciate removing counters, while Toothy, Imaginary Friend makes the counter removal neutral. Sinking Feeling is also a cute interaction.

Blue and black do have other draw engines that require fewer hoops to jump through though - Phyrexian Arena seems to be preferable in most situations. On the other hand, Soul Diviner works really well with untap effects.

[Serenade]

Not hitting enchantments knocks it down so much. I guess they didn't want to do it with sagas running around...or stuff like As Foretold.

[Wallycaine]

Not hitting enchantments knocks it down so much. I guess they didn't want to do it with sagas running around...or stuff like As Foretold.

It was almost certainly Sagas they were trying to avoid the interaction with. Imagine the lock you could create with Kiora Bests the Sea God, just as an example. Or keep repeating the first chapter of The Akroan War, and gain control of all your opponents creatures for as long as you keep both alive.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Eating cumulative upkeep is cute. unfortunately most cumulative upkeep cards wouldn't even be good without cumulative upkeep (with a few exceptions, looking at you mystic remora).

You forgot my favorite, Glacial Chasm, which can use this, though it's better with Crucible of Worlds, Ramunap Excavator, or Sun Titan.

Mostly you'll use it on opponents' cards, though. And maybe to chomp a counter off a persist or undying creature.

[Serenade]

Can't use it on opponents' cards!

[toctheyounger]

I tried it for a little while in Varina, Lich Queen. It's ok. Like, it does some cute things with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and such, and as mentioned, keeps your age counters down with Glacial Chasm which is nice.

It just doesn't really do enough to see regular play though. It's nifty but not a must-add.

[kirkusjones]

I'm running it in Volrath, the Shapestealer. It's been decent.

[schweinefett]

what? y'all are missing the greatest interaction possible.

• musician

.

It's like a poor-mans tabernacle!

[3drinks]

Thursday, January 30th, 2020; Elspeth, Knight-Errant

[DirkGently]

My favorite thing to do with Elspeth is try to convince the table that me ulting her won't be THAT bad. I don't even have MLD, you guys, it'll just mean I have good chump blockers. You probably won't even notice. She's more valuable to me as a token producer anyway, so I probably won't even ult on 8. So you can totally leave her alone.

She's still sort of the gold standard for PWs imo. Good but not amazing starting loyalty, protects herself, has a strong but not ALWAYS game-winning ult. Pump ability is a bit weak in commander, but it can be situationally useful. I think in practice she's not nearly as good as something with more immediate impact, though, like her 6-mana version. Getting out a value engine earlier is great, but when we're talking about planeswalkers it's usually hard to keep them around, so making 3 blockers instead of 1, or wiping all the big creatures, means it's less bad if she dies right away, and she's a lot more likely to survive.

[pokken]

Her pump and flying mode has ended a lot of games for me over the years, on the giving and receiving side My buddy plays a Sram deck and has prevented himself from being able to fly-kill me with Sram by equipping sword of light and shadow first at least twice now, a fact for which I am thankful.

I used to play her in Sigarda as a kind of edict-hate effect, but she also got in for lethal a few times.

Sadly I think her rate of getting to ultimate is one turn too slow for me most of the time these days, and her + modes are not really jiving with my style of play.

I do have a dream of playing her again in mirri, weatherlight duelist seriously not slow superfriends full of ajanis, espeths, gideons and garruks.

[hyalopterouslemur]

The cool thing is, she can go tall or wide. Going wide with the first and last ability and going tall with the second. Always a welcome addition to any deck where such things matter.

[Hermes_]

I ran her in my solider token deck,but I think i traded my copy when I took that deck apart.

[toctheyounger]

Not as versatile as Sun's Champion, but still useful. Anything that defends itself as a walker gets points. The ult is strong, but probably isn't game winning on it's own. Which is fine, you probably shouldn't bank on hitting it anyway, because it looks scary (even if it isn't always).

I like that she can go wide or tall, and the ultimate should win you the game one way or another. She's not a must include, but she does have situation utility in a variety of decks, which is decent, and a like for like CMC to starting loyalty is decent.

As an academic point I really like that R&D seem to have steered away from 'tick up to ultimate' walkers, and have started giving us lower to the ground, more immediate utility walkers. I find them far more interesting. A good ult is fine, but you do get somewhat of a tradeoff with lesser tick up abilities, and that's less useful in this format where a walker really needs to do some good mileage right off the bat to justify a slot in most builds.

[Mookie]

I ran Elspeth, Knight-Errant for a while in my Teysa, Orzhov Scion deck. She was fine there, but not amazing - four mana for one token per turn is a bit slow. Ultimate is fantastic if you can protect her for long enough... but if you can't, you'll wish she were a Bitterblossom instead. (I'm still annoyed that white somehow has zero enchantments that create a token on upkeep)

I think part of the reason she didn't shine in that deck was I wasn't using the full card - Teysa favors black tokens over white tokens because I can double-dip on them, and the +3/+3 pump was generally irrelevant. My deck also isn't really built to protect planeswalkers or accelerate their ultimates.

On the other hand, Elspeth looks really good if you can get to the ultimate consistently, or have a way to take advantage of the pump. She does ultimate immediately off Doubling Season, and she does protect herself. I believe that it has been called out that her ability to protect herself has inspired a lot of modern planeswalkers that are aimed to see play.

[3drinks]

Friday, January 31st, 2020; Form of the Dragon

Whoa, cool card I had forgotten about it. A bit too risque for even my tastes. What a baller ass play outta Greven though.

[Toshi]

As an academic point I really like that R&D seem to have steered away from 'tick up to ultimate' walkers, and have started giving us lower to the ground, more immediate utility walkers. I find them far more interesting. A good ult is fine, but you do get somewhat of a tradeoff with lesser tick up abilities, and that's less useful in this format where a walker really needs to do some good mileage right off the bat to justify a slot in most builds.

Agreed!
That might be the reason why i don't enjoy most Superfriends decks so far. Sitting through countless rounds of uninteresting + and - abilities for a game breaking ult? No me gusta.
I'd much rather have PWs that influence the game with their + and - abilities and might ult somewhen. And let's face it, most PWs won't.