[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[RxPhantom]

I love this card. I run it in two decks: Merieke Ri Berit and Yarok, the Desecrated. I think it's obvious as to why, but it lets you keep creatures you steal with Merieke, and lets you abuse more sweet triggers with Yarok. I wish they'd print more AVR-templated blink cards.

[Sinis]

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2020; Conjurer's Closet

I first ran this card in Rasputin Dreamweaver (alongside Tawnos's Coffin). Play Rasputin, get 5 mana from Rasputin, play Closet. Good times.

It's pretty good, though, the 5 mana is pretty steep for the effect. Still, it's a gift that keeps on giving (with Mnemonic Wall or Wall of Omens or... well, a lot of cards).

[Mookie]

I've wanted to run Tawnos's Coffin in my Sharuum deck, but.... reserved list. So I'm running Conjurer's Closet instead. There are some solid targets in that deck - Baleful Strix, Solemn Simulacrum, Trinket Mage.... but the main goal is usually to flicker Sharuum herself, which makes using a trigger to recur the Closet effectively free. Also occasionally useful as a combo piece, since some of them require a Sharuum ETB trigger, which can be hard to get without having her die and be recast from the command zone.

I'm also running it in Brago, for what should be obvious reasons - sweet, sweet vaaaalue. I'd consider it for a lot of decks that either have a blink theme (and a correspondingly large number of things to flicker), or even just a commander that I want to flicker over and over. Gonti, Lord of Luxury decks tend to see it frequently. Triggering at end of turn means you'll pretty much always get value, as long as you have something to flicker, which is a nice perk. My general heuristic is that a 4 mana artifact/enchantment that draws a card every turn at no extra cost is worth playing, and I don't think it's difficult for Closet to generate roughly that much value. However, once you start getting into stuff like Agent of Treachery or Sphinx of Uthuun, the value of flickering goes way up.

[Outcryqq]

Conjurer's Closet is good but slow. I ran it in my first versions of Roon of the Hidden Realm but it got replaced. In blink-heavy decks I still like it over Mimic Vat because it requires no further investment and you aren't exiling your own dudes. Blink decks usually have white, and white has a lot of quality recursion options.

[Dunharrow]

I used to love closet and use it a lot.. but it just seems so slow now and does nothing by itself. There are decks for it, but I think it makes sense to take it out of decks like Karador, which while they have a lot of ETBs, don't really want a 5cmc artifact.

Definitely something to think about should I ever want to revive Yasova Dragonclaw. I had it as a tiny leader.

[onering]

Its a great card that is still good today. It was an auto include for many decks when it came out because magic was going through an "etb: the gathering" phase where every creature had some ridiculous etb effect attached, so if your deck ran creatures this was pretty much pure value every turn.

[3drinks]

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020; Vampire Hexmage

By far this card is criminally under played. All the times you need to get the counters off something, let alone the original planeswalkers kill spell. Should be seeing play in far more than it does see play in.

[Mookie]

Is it actually underplayed? I'm not a huge fan of Vampire Hexmage. It's certainly a cute card, but if you really want to kill planeswalkers, I feel like Hero's Downfall is a better card the vast majority of the time. Not that I see planeswalkers frequently enough to justify running a removal spell for them either....

A few points in Hexmage's favor are that it is one of the few ways for black to interact with artifacts and enchantments. In this case, clearing stuff like Luminarch Ascension and Darksteel Reactor. It's also easy for black to recur Hexmage and tutor it up if it's relevant. However, I don't see artifacts/enchantments/lands with counters on them that often. I suspect a more common use case is to remove counters from your own permanents, like Dark Depths.

In contrast, Hero's Downfall is also capable of dealing with planeswalkers, while also having the huge upside of being able to deal with creatures. Black does have a lot of other options for dealing with creatures though. Again, if you're running some sort of toolbox package and you want a tech card, Hexmage may be relevant... but I don't expect the average deck to have that many targets. Looking through my own decks, it appears that most have only 2-4 cards with counters on them. May be more worthwhile if your meta does happen to have some counter-based decks though.

Compare Hex Parasite, Aether Snap, and Thief of Blood.

[Outcryqq]

Vampire Hexmage is mediocre. Has some various uses both offensive and defensive. But I prefer Hex Parasite for the easily repeatable nature of it for my sagas, their walkers, and other small stuff.

[Sinis]

Wednesday, June 3rd, 2020; Vampire Hexmage

By far this card is criminally under played. All the times you need to get the counters off something, let alone the original planeswalkers kill spell. Should be seeing play in far more than it does see play in.

I think it depends on the deck. If you're playing a low to the ground aggro deck, it's pretty good at dealing with walkers and a handful of other cards. But, the things it will actually handle are quite limited. Second, it doesn't handle anything with precision and it's one-shot; so, it's pretty much useful for dealing with your opponents Quest/Ascension-type cards, walkers, or your own Dark Depths. I think it'd be pretty much worth it only if you were interested in the 2/1 First Strike or were already playing Dark Depths.

I don't believe it's overplayed at all, and if it's an effect you really want, Hex Parasite is available as others have mentioned. Moreover, Hex Parasite offers more precision and reusability than Vampire Hexmage; if you want to redo the second chapter on a saga over and over (say repeatedly wiping the board with Phyrexian Scriptures), Hex Parasite is your guy.

It's also worth noting that Thrull Parasite has this effect, though it's significantly less flexible than Hex Parasite.

[DirkGently]

I don't play niche answers unless their primary use is to do something proactive. If I'm dedicating a slot for an answer, I want something broad.

I could maybe see running it in a heavy vampire deck, or for the DD combo (although that's a bit crap in commander). Besides that, nah.

[Hawk]

I also don't find it underplayed - it currently sees play in exactly Mirri the Cursed Vampire Tribal for us, as a small threat that wears equipment well, comes down ahead of the tribe's lords, can throw itself away to trigger Grave Pact in a pinch, and is occasionally but rarely a rockstar versus a random Planeswalker or Quest. I ran it in Kresh the Bloodbraided but that was a decade ago, in an era where a lot of the best sacrifice outlets didn't exist (or I didn't own them in the case of the Altars) - I wouldn't include it there now. I'm not sure it'd make the cut in Alesha, Who Smiles at Death or Meren of Clan Nel Toth either, as it isn't the sort of effect one is likely to need over and over again unless their meta is full of SuperFriends.

It can't count as an answer because what it answers is so narrow and rare (and sometimes it isn't even a good answer; for instance it can stop a Beastmaster Ascension or Luminarch Ascension or The Ozolith like once), so you're really looking for a deck that highly values the body - which is generally tribal.

[ISBPathfinder]

When it comes to multiplayer commander, my opinion is that generally speaking planeswalkers die fairly quickly in most situations and the only time I really feel the need to have direct interaction for them is if someone is playing a planeswalker deck like Atraxa. I don't think that hexmage pulls its weight in most metas or decks and my usual suggestion to someone running it is to cut it.

If your meta plays a lot of defensive walker decks then I guess its the right situation to include it but generally speaking, just attack it down is my suggestion.

[3drinks]

Thursday, June 4th, 2020; Silent Gravestone

I'm a fan. Ground Seal is quite potent of an effect, and getting it in sans G decks is a welcome addition.

[Mookie]

Hmmmm.... Silent Gravestone is certainly a powerful hate piece. It shuts down a lot of graveyard-based strategies, especially anything based around reanimation or recursion (although there are some non-target options too). However, it doesn't work against Kess, Dissident Mage or other cards that operate out of the graveyard directly - you'll need Grafdigger's Cage for that. And while you can crack it in a pinch to draw a card (or to nuke graveyards), the cost to do so is significantly higher than Relic of Progenitus or Nihil Spellbomb. Keeping 4 mana open for grave hate is... very painful.

Anyway, always interesting to see different grave hate options. As a 1 mana artifact, there are plenty of ways to tutor it up (Artificer's Intuition is always fun), and it's not hard to slot into decks that aren't planning to use their graveyard. Shutting off targeting does feel like a much more powerful passive ability than Relic's 1-card-per-turn. On the other hand, I generally find myself really wanting to just exile stuff permanently, instead of temporarily locking it down. Graveyard-based decks should always have some removal available for hate cards, and this just delays the problem instead of solving it forever. And, again, costing 4 mana to exile graveyards outright is really expensive.

I'll call out Soul-Guide Lantern as another newer option that I've generally been happy with.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I really like Silent Gravestone because it is both an effective hate piece on board and grave hate when popped. Neither option is the best in class, but the flexibility of having two layers of defense against graveyards is quite nice.

It's not my first choice for its function, but it's usually second or third in consideration.

Edit: 4 mana is admittedly a lot though. You really have to find windows for this card to avoid time walking oneself.

[3drinks]

I like that the exile is part of the effect rather than the cost. I think that's why it costs 4 to crack.

[Sinis]

Thursday, June 4th, 2020; Silent Gravestone

That 4 cost ruins it for me. IME, rarely are people all offending at the same time with exactly graveyards. Soul-Guide Lantern is enough of a shutdown, as is Relic of Progenitus. Even still, I'd take Nihil Spellbomb or Tormod's Crypt over this.

[Hawk]

I've never remotely considered this as good hate. When I think of why, I perused the "Graveyard Theme" EDHREC page. Let's see how well Silent does...

Kenrith, the Returned King - Yeah, this stops him good.
Sevinne, the Chronoclasm - Does absolutely nothing to stop most of Sevinne's stuff; it blocks a few of his favorite cards like Sevinne's Reclamation but the core of the deck functions fine under a Gravestone.
Chainer, Nightmare Adept - Again it blocks a few of his favorite cards but the core of the deck functions fine.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain - Doesn't stop the core of this deck either....
Nethroi, Apex of Death - It does stop him.
Sidisi, Brood Tyrant - Does almost nothing; she's more concerned with the act of dredging than the actual contents of her 'yard.
Lord Windgrace - Lord Windgrace HATES this as it stops his -3 and his Life from the Loam although it isn't unwinnable for him by any means.
Varina, Lich Queen - Stops a few cards, but generally doesn't stop the deck.
Muldrotha, the Gravetide - Stops a few cards, doesn't stop the deck or Commander itself.
Child of Alara - Yeah, this also generally stops a Graveyard-heavy Child deck.

So for 6/10 of the top Graveyard-heavy Commanders, this doesn't really stop them at all. I'd also say it isn't a total nightmare for Windgrace. So compared to other hate tools this just isn't reliable enough.

[Dragoon]

I like that the exile is part of the effect rather than the cost. I think that's why it costs 4 to crack.

Exile is not part of the cost though. Night Soil this is not.

[onering]

Pretty mediocre hate that is only useful against about half of gy strategies and then only should be considered if you lack access to better options, so basically you aren't black or white.

Vampire Hexmage: By far its best application is with Divine Intervention for the troll factor. Yeah, you don't technically "win", but it sure feels like you do. And really, given the rarity of draws, it may even feel even more like a win than actually winning.

[Mookie]

I like that the exile is part of the effect rather than the cost. I think that's why it costs 4 to crack.

Exile is not part of the cost though. Night Soil this is not.

Exiling is part of the effect and not the cost, which means you could bounce it with Master Transmuter or sacrifice to Trading Post in response to activation, unlike Relic of Progenitus. Still a pretty niche use case, and not one I would consider to be worth paying extra mana for, but occasionally relevant.

[3drinks]

I like that the exile is part of the effect rather than the cost. I think that's why it costs 4 to crack.

Exile is not part of the cost though. Night Soil this is not.

Right. Which is why I specifically said it's part of the effect.

[Dragoon]

I like that the exile is part of the effect rather than the cost. I think that's why it costs 4 to crack.

Exile is not part of the cost though. Night Soil this is not.

Right. Which is why I specifically said it's part of the effect.

Somehow, I managed to read that backwards. I might need to get some more sleep

[Mookie]

Drakuseth is sweet!
...did I finally do it?