[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[3drinks]

Friday, September 25th, 2020; Season of the Witch

I love when these obscure old cards come up, it gives me a surge of nostalgia like I needed more of that. Not sure I'd pay $23 for a Total War variant, but that art is spooky as hell.

[Dragoon]

I've always wanted to try a Merieke Ri Berit pillowfort deck that forces other players to attack with stuff like Siren's Call or Norritt, but I was never satisfied with the list I ended up with at the end of each theorycrafting session. When the goad mechanic was introduced, I was even less tempted to build it in Esper. Seeing Season of the Witch as the card of the day now makes me want to rethink that list again.

[Mookie]

Season of the Witch isn't quite Grand Melee or Fumiko the Lowblood, but forcing attacks (extorting them, I suppose - 'attack or die') isn't a thing that black really gets. Pair it with a No Mercy effect and it seems pretty potent, assuming you have sufficient life to weather any attacks that come your way. Alternatively, use Koskun Falls.

I've been batting the idea of a 'come at me, bro!' deck for a while - force opponents to attack, then have stuff to benefit from that or punish your opponents for doing so. That said, the tentative commander would be Queen Marchesa, who already gives access to red for some actual forced attack effects. Still, at three mana, this is a pretty cheap instance of the effect. I could also see it in Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts. I'll also call out the triple devotion for mono-black decks.

[Dragoon]

Season of the Witch isn't quite Grand Melee or Fumiko the Lowblood, but forcing attacks (extorting them, I suppose - 'attack or die') isn't a thing that black really gets. Pair it with a No Mercy effect and it seems pretty potent, assuming you have sufficient life to weather any attacks that come your way. Alternatively, use Koskun Falls.

I've been batting the idea of a 'come at me, bro!' deck for a while - force opponents to attack, then have stuff to benefit from that or punish your opponents for doing so. That said, the tentative commander would be Queen Marchesa, who already gives access to red for some actual forced attack effects. Still, at three mana, this is a pretty cheap instance of the effect. I could also see it in Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts. I'll also call out the triple devotion for mono-black decks.

Mmh, maybe the best color combo for that idea is Grixis. But the only general that currently fits the theme is Tetsuo Umezawa.

[DirkGently]

Is there a reason not to just play it as Thantis, the Warweaver ?

I've never really been tempted to play this card. The casting cost is pretty restrictive and I can't think of any commanders who'd really want it. It does have major old school flavour though. And probably in the top percentiles of obscurity.

[Mookie]

Re: Queen Marchesa vs other commanders - part of the appeal for running white is access to Ghostly Prison effects, but the real reason is the original 'come at me!' bro.

(yes, I'm aware Propaganda and Collective Restraint are cards, but I also already have a Grixis deck)

[tstorm823]

I think the argument over correct color combo isn't necessary, Red has so many attack forcing cards AND many of the best punishers (Disrupt Decorum + Repercussion anyone?) It's sort of like, what's your secondary theme going to be? Do you pillowfort so people have to attack each other? White and blue have those. To you play one-sided or exceptionally disruptive fog effects? White and green have those. Do you want deathtouch? Green and black have that. Like, there's a lot of angles you can take this.

[Dragoon]

I think the argument over correct color combo isn't necessary, Red has so many attack forcing cards AND many of the best punishers (Disrupt Decorum + Repercussion anyone?) It's sort of like, what's your secondary theme going to be? Do you pillowfort so people have to attack each other? White and blue have those. To you play one-sided or exceptionally disruptive fog effects? White and green have those. Do you want deathtouch? Green and black have that. Like, there's a lot of angles you can take this.

That's it, five colours O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami, no more choosing!

[JWK]

I don't own one of these, but if I did, I could see it fitting well into Queen Marchesa.. It would fit nicely with Ghostly Prison, Sphere of Safety, Archangel of Tithes and No Mercy.

[Sinis]

Friday, September 25th, 2020; Season of the Witch


I love when these obscure old cards come up, it gives me a surge of nostalgia like I needed more of that. Not sure I'd pay $23 for a Total War variant, but that art is spooky as hell.

Definitely not worth the pricetag, unless the art really gets your blood pumping. I'm pretty sure I have a copy or two somewhere, and may have even played this once.

[Hawk]

Evaluated on its own merits (and ignoring that at $24 and climbing it is a tough sell to pick up if one doesn't have it laying around), it is interesting but doesn't seem amazing:

- with BBB it is of interest to a deck like Erebos, God of the Dead or Erebos, Bleak-Hearted that is trying to pump its devotion count as high as possible, but I'd say it's solidly in the middle of such cards - it actually does something reasonable unlike Murderous Betrayal and it (debatable) does more than Gravestorm, Phyrexian Etchings, or Underworld Dreams in a vacuum, but is much worse than Infernal Tribute, Dark Prophecy, and of course the granddaddy of all powerful black enchantments Necropotence. Realistically how many such cards are you going to play? I'd wager just one or two, maybe three, which will leave this in the maybeboard.

- It's unique as a force-attack card. For monoblack its only real competition is Maddening Imp as all other cards with the effect are just terrible. While black does have cards like Hissing Miasma, Dread, and No Mercy, there's no real Commander or incentive to play such a deck. Most incentives for such a deck would move into other colors, where this card is suddenly very prohibitive to cast and potentially competing with more powerful effects like Grand Melee, Alluring Siren, Disrupt Decorum, Thantis, the Warweaver, War's Toll, Warmonger Hellkite.

Then we do see that price tag and it's tough to justify this over buying almost all the above. Neat old card though, with cool art!

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Season of the witch seems to actually read "incentivize all players to attack you mercilessly for threatening their board". Any deck running this should pack some serious defenses to combat that mob mentality. I like it alongside things like Lightmine Field to create chess-like guaranteed losses, but that's a two card combo that only punishes swarms, not tall threats.

Maybe there's a way to break it, but for now it's too niche IMHO.

[Mookie]

....thinking a bit further, Season of the Witch + Dueling Grounds / Silent Arbiter is a cute interaction, and a significant upside over other forced attack effects. Season being symmetric is a bit awkward though, and it's effectively just a needlessly complicated Archfiend of Depravity.

[3drinks]

Saturday, September 26th, 2020; Triskaidekaphobia

I knew it was only a matter of time before this came up. What a wild card. Shame it isn't any good though.

[Serenade]

Two thirteens on the 26th? =P

Crossing over with the aesthetics topic: These Masters 25 watermarks are mostly misses. I "get" it, but were I to use this card, I only would own the original version. Feels more like Magic than just...product.

I don't think you get style points for playing this. I think everyone will just be mad as you tinker with life totals and telegraph your path to victory. Some people like that, though.

[Mookie]

Triskaidekaphobia is an interesting card, but feels pretty underwhelming in EDH - bringing an opponent down to 13 life is significantly more difficult when they start with 40 instead of 20. I could see running it for flavor reasons or style points, I guess. Maybe Selenia, Dark Angel → Repay in Kind / Axis of Mortality? There may be a use for it as an incremental life gain / life drain engine, but it's outclassed by stuff like Palace Siege.

I will call out Tree of Perdition as a combo piece though.

[onering]

It's an interesting card, an alt win that isn't super strong with other uses. It's easier to kill an opponent by getting them down to 0 than 13, because they lose at less than or equal to 0 immediately as opposed to exactly 13 and with a delayed trigger. It does function as a life loss or life gain every turn to trigger numerous things, with the upside that it's whatever you happen to need and the downside that it's both a small effect and symmetrical. It is one of the few ways to actually force your opponents to gain life, and one of the very few repeatable ways, and there are some payoffs there, just not a lot and most want big chunks of life gain to matter.

[Sinis]

Saturday, September 26th, 2020; Triskaidekaphobia

Okay, wild story time.

I once had a Selenia, Dark Angel life manipulation deck with all the goodies; Mirror Universe, Repay in Kind, all the lifeswap cards, Tainted Sigil, Children of Korlis, you get the picture.

I mentioned I was playing Triskaidekaphobia in the deck, and mentioned it to a friend saying that I wanted to swap my 13 for someone else's life total with Triskaidekaphobia on the stack for the win, and he bet me a bottle of scotch I wouldn't be able to do it.

The first game, he owed me a bottle of scotch. So, it worked out for at least one person.

[3drinks]

Sunday, September 27th, 2020; Nine Lives

Hard to imagine anyone figuring it out in full given it's young age, but it reminds me a fair bit of the way Transcendence would play.

[JWK]

The one time I have seen this played, that player lost the game immediately after as the next player cast Austere Command, removing all enchantments and (I think) creatures CMC 4+.

Austere Command is, of course, a very good card. This one, I'm not so sure.

[Dunharrow]

too much mass removal for this to be playable.

Also don't think I would play it unless I had a way to remove counters from it. Solemnity is probably good.

[Serenade]

Is this okay in Zedruu?

[Toshi]

The Artwork is so terribly over the top, i love it.

I could see this in some weird Zur the Enchanter list, that actively fetches Solemnity first or in Zedruu the Greathearted.
Other than that? Phew...

[Mookie]

Nine Lives is interesting - it prevents damage nine times, then you lose the game. So, the ultimate question is whether in a vacuum you will lose before or after being dealt damage nine times, and that is generally going to be a meta call. However, I would generally say that it isn't worth playing this - it feels too easy for an opponent to just chip in with a 1/1 token to add counters, and that is before we even get into the possibility of losing due to some other reason (such as life loss or being milled out), plus mass removal is going to ruin your day. Cyclonic Rift is also a thing.

If I were to run Nine Lives, it would generally have to be as part of a specific synergy - Zedruu the Greathearted is the obvious commander, since Donate-ing it away when it starts to get too many counters on it seems pretty potent. You could also run Solemnity to prevent damage being dealt to you entirely, or just include some countermagic to prevent mass removal from dealing with it.

If you just want to prevent damage from being dealt, consider Delaying Shield. Works the same way as Nine Lives with Solemnity, but isn't as vulnerable to mass removal.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

I love the flavor, but I dislike cards with "You Lose" clauses in general. Only final fortune provides enough value for that kind of drawback, and that card still costs a R too much for what it does IMO.

What I've discovered about these high liability cards is that nearly every opponent is competent enough to exploit their inherent weaknesses, at which point you've basically lost by virtue of deckbuilding, not even by being outplayed. That kind of loss sears my soul.