MTGNexus

"put them into your hand". Ewww.

Saturday, September 19th, 2020; Commander's Sphere



This should be a lively discussion. We all know the power of two drop rocks over three but judging from the number of spheres I see I'm not sure if this isn't just sneaky powerful or there's that many people over valuing it. Myself I don't play it outside of Welder decks where it lives with the wellsprings.

To me, it is slightly worse than mind stone, which I consider to be one of the best mana rocks in a 1 or 2 color deck.
I think Sphere is the best 3-cmc rock after Coalition Relic
I wouldn't play it over a signet but I would play it over a lot of rocks other people play.

I replaced them with Arcane Signet. We have so many 3cmc rocks now that I'm only playing them if they have synergy (Dragons! Cycling! Proliferate! GY meta!).

Commander's Sphere is a perfectly fine choice if you're not super-optimizing your list. Taps for any of your colors, and if it's about to be exiled/destroyed you can just sac it to draw for free. Can't do that with Mind Stone.

Commander's Sphere is one of the better Manalith variants, but I'm not currently running it in any decks. Instead, I generally load up on Talismans and other two mana ramp, or I go bigger with Thran Dynamo / Worn Powerstone. Commander's Sphere does go up in value if you're playing a 3+ color deck and need the fixing, but that isn't the case for any of my decks... and if you don't need the fixing but do want the ability to cantrip, I'd go with Mind Stone instead.

As for where I would run it... it looks a lot better if you have lots of recursion, like Glissa, the Traitor. Alternatively, sacrifice synergies, like Korvold, Fae-Cursed King. But I think the real reason to run it is ultimately going to be fixing for a 3+ color deck. Of course, in that case it will be competing with Coalition Relic and Chromatic Lantern. Sphere is a good budget option though.

I'll call out Bonder's Ornament as another new alternative. Same fixing, but can also serve as a draw engine if you need it.

okay card is okay

It's a good budget piece and I like that it can produce mana and be cashed in for another card in the same turn if needs be; that interaction can be useful for Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion. Maximising how deep I can dig with each Neheb trigger is key to the deck winning and setting the Sphere up a turn before storming off can allow me to sandbag an extra land to feed into Neheb's triggers, so it earned a place in the deck on that basis alone.

Works pretty well with Sun Titan-ish effect, though Mind Stone is quicker and with Arcane Signet around I'd run Mind Stone over Sphere.

Sunday, September 20th, 2020; Hinder and extremely close replicant, Spell Crumple



Ah, yes, the era of the format when these alongside Spin into Myth were among the most feared answers in the format, and your atypical smug douchebag U always had them when it mattered most.

Of course that's not true anymore. But I like to think these tuck answers are still quite playable. Call me old school, but I still find value in dealing with problems without placing them in the 'yard......

Since they nerfed tuck on generals, I've been using Dissipate and Faerie Trickery for this spot. I usually stick to cheaper counters, though.

I miss tucking generals, and still think changing the tuck rule was a mistake.

These days I don't play these cards at all, preferring either cheaper counterspells or ones that exile (Dissipate, Faerie Trickery) or which have added versatility (Disallow) or function (Narset's Reversal). Given blue's options, I can't really come up with any reason why I'd play these any more.

Spell Crumple has a special place in my heart, I've been playing it in my 5c dredge deck for just shy of a decade. I love doing dumb things people wouldn't expect with spells. My favorite line with this card is Spell Crumple your general. Untap, Tunnel Vision targeting myself naming Spell Crumple. Unburial Rites targetting Laboratory Maniac, flashback Think Twice. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure everyone here is groaning while reading that. Let me just say I was the hipster doing it in 2011 and it was way way cooler then. Unfortunately, Lab Man has kind of been played to death, and Thassa's Oracle hasn't burned its uniqueness to the ground.

Anyway, it has a special place in my heart because I found a deck that uses the "put on the bottom of your library" as an upside. I'd imagine that's a downside for most decks. It's got a permanent spot in that deck for that play and also because I can prevent myself from decking by casting it once a turn rotation if my library is empty, which can be pretty relevant for the deck. I don't think I've seen anyone else cast this in years though. The removal of tuck pretty much removed it from relevancy. Disallow just seems almost strictly better now.

I remember getting multiples of these cards just before tuck was removed from Commander. Oh well. They are pretty unplayable now. Exile effects are better, and there are so many good counterspells available already.

As others have already said, these are largely outclassed by Dissipate and similar effects. Significantly better back when the tuck rule was a thing. That said, not completely useless, largely due to the existence of Tunnel Vision. There are definitely easier ways to take an opponent out of the game, but it's certainly a classy option.

....I do still miss the tuck rule sometimes. It really promoted a different style of deckbuilding - when you aren't guaranteed to have access to your commander at all times, you need to include more backup plans and resiliency. I feel that that tended to make for more interesting decks than the current plan of many decks to just play an overpowered general and ride it to victory. Meh.

One small way that Hinder and Spell Crumple could be playable is if you are running bribery effects. And I mean you have multiple Bribery effects like Praetor's Grasp and Acquire in your deck, so you have a reasonable chance to counter something and then get to steal it from the library. I'm not sure its worth it though, you could just run desertion effects instead, though Hinder is cheaper to hold up mana for.

lousy band, but okayish card

I don't think its all THAT bad, is it?

I mean its a 3 cmc counter, sure, but its still a hard counter that doesn't let your opponent use their yard.

That being said, it's been a while since I've put it in a deck. In fact, of the 2 blue decks i have, it's not in either of them.

Monday, September 21st, 2020; Curse of Bounty



Hmm. That's a scary effect to give out.....

Curse of Bounty is.... interesting. To me, the most obvious use case is as a reverse Bear Umbra - tap a bunch of mana rocks and mana dorks for mana, attack the cursed opponent, and get a bunch of mana to use in your second main phase. That's certainly a powerful scenario, but it also requires a fair amount of setup. I'd much prefer to just run Bear Umbra, or another self-contained effect.

I've contemplated using it for my Samut deck (tap ability tribal), but that deck has the awkward property of not actually being very good at attacking - most of my creatures are tiny, so I would have to sacrifice a token or something to trigger this. Not a big sacrifice (especially since said token probably came from a tap ability in the first place), but still annoying. Still, it's pretty cheap mana-wise, so maybe I should give it a test sometime.

As for the up/downside of letting opponents also untap... yeah, that's pretty hard to evaluate. Letting opponents double-dip on their mana rocks seems pretty bad, but if you have a way to benefit from the untap on your opponents' turns, it may be worth it.

I'll call out that this in a different color than Dramatic Reversal - and arguably a worse one, since green decks tend to have a lot of land-based ramp that this doesn't touch. Still, if you want Seedborn Muse #N+1, it's worth consideration. I don't know if I would run it as another Mobilize for a janky storm deck - not getting extra mana until your second main phase feels sort of awkward.

3drinks wrote: ↑

3 years ago

I remember some time ago, when i was sitting in a pod with group hug Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis, maneuvering my Ezuri, Renegade Leader deck. Group hug guy felt cheeky and cast Curse of Bounty, targeting the alleged top dog at the table (some generic good stuff commander i can't recall) without doing the math.
When it was my turn i did a few shenanigans, spread out my attackers evenly and knocked out the whole table - thanks to the extra untap.
Needless to say the rest of the pod wasn't too happy and reminded him, that even when trying to be the good guy, blatant misplays can make you the actual bad guy.

Generally speaking the card is very powerful and therefor pretty risky in the wrong pods. So far i did shy away to run it in my Elfball list, for said reason.

Of the cycle i like Curse of Opulence and Curse of Verbosity the most. They are reasonably good, less risky and usually make for interesting turns.

3drinks wrote: ↑

3 years ago

Monday, September 21st, 2020; Curse of Bounty

The 200 IQ play I've heard about this card is that you play it on yourself so you always have blockers. Then again, the cursed player can be freely attacked if it's not you. I've never played it, but in my theorycraft, it's cool at casual tables.

I really liked this whole cycle; the owner getting paid every time it triggers is pretty great, unlike the two previous commander block cycles from 2011 and 2013 which only paid out the attacker.

Seems like it could be good in a Yeva deck that uses dorks.

Played it in a Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca deck as another way to untap all my merfolk. Did some work, wasn't the best one of those effects, but it was an extra one.

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2020; Helm of Chatzuk and I guess related enough, the objectively better but not strictly so, Baton of Morale.



(Any creatures with banding, and up to one without, can attack in a band. Bands are blocked as a group. If any creatures with banding a player controls are blocking or being blocked by a creature, that player divides that creature's combat damage, not its controller, among any of the creatures it's being blocked by or is blocking.)

Ohmygod yes, %$#% yes! Banding my guys! The most egregiously busted combat ability of all time yet that only 2% of the population knows how tf it's supposed to work! The ability I designed Trynn & Silvar around because the nightmare kitty really does like friends (before he eats them at least 😂).

If phasing can come back...then banding has to be next. C'mon WotC. Just uhh.....don't get me started on the differences between this and bands with others 🙄