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

[DirkGently]

It's cute, but in commander there's not a lot of upside to a 2/3 flyer, and a lot of potential downside to only temporarily countering the spell. Ofc some spells are essentially fully countered (anything with X, other counterspells, etc), and maybe you can end the game before it comes back, but you're also paying 3 for a counterspell with limited targets. So you'd really better get value out of that body.

one potential way is to blink it Fiend Hunter style to perma-exile the spell, though this gets trickier on repeat activations (you'd probably need to blink it twice if it's already on the battlefield to pull the same stunt). Could also get creature-entered-the-battlefield triggers, or maybe just spirit tribal to buff it up into a more meaningful threat.

I think I ran it in Isperia the Inscrutable as a tutorable counterspell of sorts. Not amazing but it can sometimes fit into a niche.

[Serenade]

Maybe it hits a wrath or Blood Moon, and your opponents want to protect it because it benefits them.

Maybe it draws a removal spell that would otherwise hit a higher-priority card of yours.

Decks are so tuned that it might not be a drawback anymore, but delay-countering something that has "as an additional cost to cast this spell" is nice.

I liked it less before today, but I am not racing to add it to decks.

[MeowZeDung]

Love it in cube, not as much in Commander. I might run it in Crystal Shard.dec to do the perma exile stack trick I suppose, but after you do it once everyone gets to play around it and/ or hate on you with their >4 cmc spells. Not sure it's worth it.

[BeneTleilax]

I don't currently run this anywhere, but I like what it represents. As others have said, there are way better counterspells, so you're really only running this if you have creature- or spirit-matters synergies in your deck. I really like having cards like this that provide casual alternatives to stock utility effects that fit specific themes. They add diversity to the format without really increasing power, and if I have any single criterion for what makes a card "good", it would be that.

[pokken]

I adore this card in ephara. Many times I have had scoops from displacer queller.

I love all the shenanigans it causes like putting someone's counterspell or removal under it and saving for later. I love quellering animar and kinnan

But most of all I love is getting people's uncounterable spells they think are safe. Verdict is the best.

[Sinis]

It's tricksy. I like it, but I think I've only ever played it in Isperia the Inscrutable.

I think more than anything, it's hard to compete with its cousins Glen Elendra Archmage, Mystic Snake, or Frilled Mystic (or even Venser, Shaper Savant), with the CMC limit and recast.

Still not totally useless.

[Mookie]

I don't see Spell Queller played that often. It feels like it's sort of a combination of a conditional counterspell and an Oblivion Ring, with the downsides of both. As a counterspell, it's fairly inefficient at 3 mana, and it's also conditional - the most important spells to counter are usually expensive. Simultaneously, if it gets blown up for some reason, they get their spell back, which can be rather inconvenient. All this stapled to a 2/3 flyer, which is... fine but not amazing.

That said, it does have some nice additional attributes. For one, it's possible to mitigate the downside of your opponent getting their spell back. Quelling something conditional like another counterspell means that there may not be any valid targets when Spell Queller goes away. Alternatively, if you have Teferi, Time Raveler or a similar effect out, then they may not be able to cast the spell at all. Spell Queller is also good for hitting X spells and other spells that lose value when cast for free - not that there are a ton of them at 4 CMC or less, but still... I'll also call out the ability to hit an opposing commander - some opponents may leave their commander exiled if they don't want to pay commander tax, which can cause issues if Spell Queller sticks around for a long time.

[MeowZeDung]

I love quellering animar and kinnan

I approve of this message. Screw those guys.

Ever hit a Cyclonic Rift?

[pokken]

I love quellering animar and kinnan

I approve of this message. Screw those guys.

Ever hit a Cyclonic Rift?

rift, vandalblast, an opposing winds of abandon. I've gotten a few buyback spells too and that always feels good.

[umtiger]

The timing and ordering on spells is so important. I can see how in many games, Spell Queller is play similar to a hard counter.

Having a 2/3 body isn't important per se. But just HAVING A BODY is! The blink and bounce shenanigans you can pull off in azorius cannot be discounted. Also, as planeswalkers become more common, the flash+flying+2/3 combination is nice and able to pressure them.

Spell Queller gets a big thumbs up from me.

[3drinks]

Thursday. July 23rd, 2020; Patron of the Nezumi

Finally, a way to punish those Nim Deathmantle combos >_>

Uhm, at least sometimes it gets a cost reduction? How many playable rats do you see in your decks, not counting oddball rat colony esque strats?

[Mookie]

Hmmm.... as far as Blood Artist effects go, Patron of the Nezumi ranks near the bottom for me. I would also say that it also ranks at the bottom of the cards in the Patron cycle.

Breaking down each part of the card.... Offering is a pretty narrow mechanic - flash is great, as is cost reduction, but requiring a rat to sacrifice significantly limits the number of decks it can go in. Might be interesting if there were a lot of rat tribal support, but there haven't been that many strong rats printed. Maybe if you're running Marrow-Gnawer or a Relentless Rats deck? I'll call out that most rats that have been printed are pretty small, which reduces the maximum amount by which you can reduce Patron's cost. Meanwhile, if you're paying 7 mana for a 6/6, that's pretty disappointing.

As for the life loss effect... triggering off any permanent does raise a few options (triggering off fetchlands, for example), but the most common type of card to hit a graveyard from the battlefield is creatures, by a significant margin. And unlike most Blood Artist effects, Patron only triggers off opponents' stuff, and not your own, which makes it significantly more difficult to abuse- you can't throw it in as a finisher for a tokens deck. You also can't redirect the life loss, which limits the political implications. Could be sweet with something like Wave of Vitriol or Planar Cleansing, but I would usually prefer the ease of use of Syr Konrad, the Grim or Zulaport Cutthroat.

[BeneTleilax]

Keep in mind this does not say "from the battlefield", so it does work with the discard subtheme of a lot of rats.

[tstorm823]

I built a deck for all 5 patrons at one point, and this one is decidedly the worst.

Patron of the Kitsune doesn't have a good tribe for synergy, but is actually a really strong lifegain effect that goes bonkers with any lifegain synergies.

Patron of the Moon is super unique and powerful with a tribe designed to combo with it.

Patron of the Akki is a goblin deck with an anthem in the command zone that stacks with multiple combats.

Patron of the Orochi is Seedborn Muse in the command zone AND snakes are cool.

Patron of the Nezumi is just terrible. It's almost a vanilla 6/6. Rat tribal isn't necessarily bad, but Patron does nothing to help it. It's trigger is super narrow, especially in the context of Kamigawa where black has no mass destruction. The trigger is any permanent, but that's still way too narrow, because rats in Magic and especially in Kamigawa have a subtheme of discard! Like, if they had made this part Blood Artist part Megrim, it might have had a chance. If they had made it trigger whenever any card went to a graveyard from anywhere, it still probably wouldn't be too strong at 7 mana. It's a weak card.

Keep in mind this does not say "from the battlefield", so it does work with the discard subtheme of a lot of rats.

It does not, cards in hand are not permanents.

[Hawk]

I dimly remember running this in the 1.0 draft of my Kresh deck...I think? It's like a decade ago, but back in that day Nezumi Graverobber // Nighteyes the Desecrator was a staple of the format so I had at least one rat (may have also been running OG Ravenous Rats don't judge me I was young and dumb and poor) and he seemed like a nice finisher fatty to add insult to injury once I resolved Grave Pact or Butcher of Malakir or hammered the table with Plague Wind. It was like a beefier Hissing Iguanar that also triggered when they cracked their fetchlands and Mind Stones...seemed reasonable right?

Obviously a ton has changed since 2011 - shortly after I built that deck Innistrad came out and gave us Blood Artist as the ultimate in drain effects. Grave hate needed to become a lot more streamlined, and we all started favoring Tormod's Crypt and Nihil Spellbomb over slow, grindy engines like Graverobber - not that a single rat was a good reason to effectively run a 6/6 vanilla with minor drain text. It was questionable even before Artist when you look at it next to Butcher, but as time has gone on they've added to Blood Artist with Poison-Tip Archer and Zulaport Cutthroat among many other effects.

As a commander, he's also bad - the text is minor, and rats have access to actual good commanders in Marrow-Gnawer. I agree that if he was worded like Syr Konrad, the Grim he might stand a shot at playability...but even then, I mean, look at Syr Konrad!

[Guardman]

While not exactly about Patron of the Nezumi, I always wished they made more creatures with the offering mechanic. It's a cool and unique mechanic that I feel could add some interesting new playstyles to tribal decks since it is both cost reduction and grants flash.

[3drinks]

Friday, July 24th, 2020; Isochron Scepter

Certainly a card divisive of opinion...what's your take?

[Mookie]

I suspect a large percentage of this discussion will be dominated by the interaction between Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal. EDHREC points to there being a ~77% overlap between the two, which isn't particularly surprising. Assuming you have a sufficient density of mana rocks, the two allow for an incredibly cheap and efficient infinite mana engine, which will immediately win the game alongside pretty much any commander with a mana sink on it. It's not quite as cheap mana-wise as Flash + Protean Hulk, but it's still incredibly efficient.

That said, I'm not a fan of two-card combos, and especially not ones as efficient as this. It doesn't really require any deck slots, and rarely contributes to an interesting game - it's just an efficient combo that can slot into pretty much any deck without that much thought. If you're running a cEDH deck, that's fine, but not a thing I particularly like in more casual settings.

Ignoring Dramatic Reversal, I think that Isochron Scepter is a pretty sweet card. It's somewhat high-risk, high-reward - you're down the card you imprint on it, and it's particularly vulnerable to bounce effects and other disruption. There's also the risk of just not having a useful instant/sorcery in hand when you play it. However, it's possible to get a lot of value by throwing pretty much any spell on it. Counterspell is one of the most common choices (or even scarier, Mana Drain), but even something like Doom Blade can do a lot of work if it sticks around for a while. That said, my experience is that if you throw something scary on it, opponents will kill it immediately - repeatable countermagic / removal is pretty annoying. Could be fun if you throw a less threatening card in it though - imagine just spamming Thought Scour over and over.

I'll call out Silence as another potential target that gets significantly better in 1v1.

[Outcryqq]

I don't think I ever saw that promo art. Cool.

[3drinks]

I just wanna stick it with a Price of Progress because I guess I wanna watch the world burn tbh....

[Sinis]

Friday, July 24th, 2020; Isochron Scepter

I've tried to play this card casually in instant-heavy decks, but have had very limited success. It may be a mostly competitive card.

[umtiger]

I played Isochron in an enchantment control deck. I could put a bunch of stuff on it...Counterspell, Enlightened Tutor, or Swords to Plowshares.

I've tried to play this card casually in instant-heavy decks, but have had very limited success. It may be a mostly competitive card.

How did Isochron Scepter not work in your casual deck? Isn't it easier for things to work in casual?

[pokken]

Even in cedh I find this combo to be uninspiring. The cards are both so poor on their own and require an outlet in the zone generally. The other thing about I that's unpleasant as a player is when someone bonks it on the first activation and now your combo is in exile.

I much prefer bloom tender combos for the virtue of not exiling one of your pieces and only one card being bad on its own.

The issue or both cards being completely dead if you eventually want to combo is bothersome. I prefer my combo pieces in the "I'll just run this out and see if I win later" vein. That's just my quirk tho. At least with freed only half is bad.

And then there's the awkwardness of also needing enough rocks or dorks to go infinite. Such a wonky combo

In less competitive games spamming the same spell is boring period. So it doesn't really have a place in that side of the format to me.

[3drinks]

I stuck a Rakdos Charm on it vs an Iname, Death Aspect once. Fun game...............for me.

[Dunharrow]

I have had this card since I started playing magic and got Duel deck - Izzet vs Golgari. And... I have only ever had one home for it. Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest has a lot of cheap instants and can do really well with this card. There are very few rocks in the deck so no dramatic reversal.
I think it's really good with Izzet Charm, but I also like things like Shadow Rift and Shelter .
Also Brainstorm , Unexpectedly Absent and Swords to Plowshares should be mentioned.