Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

[pokken]

it just sucked that we couldn't seem to get any removal for the Sphinx.

It's a bit depressing to me that Consecrated Sphinx seems to be making a comeback. I am seeing it friggin everywhere now.

It went way out of fashion for a while after like a year of intense banning discussions (at least that's how it seems to me heh) and now it's back with a vengeance.

[WizardMN]

Well, to be fair to my opponent, his decks tend to be quite underpowered so when he is able to get things like Sphinx in his deck, I just roll with it. I haven't seen it online much and no one else in my group plays it. And, of course, he hasn't touched his decks in nearly 6 months anyway so it was already there half a year ago.

I think things like this are cyclical anyway. New players getting into the format, or players trying something new, are just going to gravitate to powerful cards. And Sphinx is also a "fun" card in that the controller gets a bunch of cards in hand. Who doesn't like that!

I am guessing that after another year, once things settle back down again and people get to play in store, it might slip back to relative obscurity. Until the next wave of players want to try it. I guess we will see. We did go to a new store last night, we got a new person to play with, and we saw others playing, so hopefully we can see if the meta in my area is including things like Sphinx or MLD or whatever.

[RowanKeltizar]

Sphinx is definitely a glass cannon. I've considered taking it out of my deck many times in favor of cheaper less vulnerable draw spells. The reward though is just so high. If it's not answered in one turn cycle, I usually just win. It is a prime theft target as well.

Love hate card for sure and I can see myself eventually taking it out for something else. It's not great in more competetive settings for the aforementioned reasons.

Insight is a lot funner alternative and it's an enchantment so it's harder to get rid of and at 3 cmc it's easier to cast. I think players that play sphinx should also consider this.

[WizardMN]

Here are my thoughts on the cards from Modern Horizons 2:

White Cards

Esper Sentinel - I think this can be a good early drop to try to either slow people down a little or just get a couple cards out of it. In the later game, it really isn't the greatest card (it is definitely no Rhystic Study or Mystic Remora) but I think it deserves a shot to see what impact it might have.

Search the Premises - This seems like a pretty good draw engine. Sure, I need to pay 2 mana for each card, but it does trigger on each creature so I could get a bunch of Clues at a time. Maybe the mana is too much of a hindrance but I think this might be worth it to see what it can do.

Solitude - Removal on a creature is solid and being able to go "shields down" is even better. I want to be aggressive with this deck and this allows me to tap out without being dead in the water to things.

Red Cards

Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer - Ramp and card advantage in one card seems exceptionally good. And coming down on turn 1 allows for some early shots to really ramp. The only thing that is disappointing is that lands can't be played off of it which would have been even better but I think it has some good uses here.

Colorless and Land Cards

Sword of Hearth and Home - This is a better (sort of) Sword of the Animist. The main caveat is that this triggers on combat damage whereas Animist triggers on attack so this might not always trigger. But being able to blink something is useful as there are a few things with ETB triggers that would be good to get repeat use out of. I might just do a straight swap of those two swords to see how things go.

[WizardMN]

After the release of Modern Horizons 2. I started really thinking about trying to come up with a different direction for this deck or, more specifically, a deck in these colors. Gisela has had a very good run for me, but over the past year I have felt that I never really got her to a point where it felt like things were meshing together well. Other generals do equipment-matters themes better while others still are a bit more focused on combat and/or damage. Gisela has a pretty big downfall with her mana cost and it started to feel that a lot of the changes were being made because of how slow she tends to be.

I still have not found a Boros commander I want to replace her with, but I think there is likely something out there. I don't have many decks focused on combat so while Boros tends to get sort of pigeonholed into that role, I don't mind trying to find more to do in that space. Just with a commander that it actually works with. For now, I am going to stop updating the deck at Adventures of the Forgotten Realms and if I ever revisit this, I will know where to pick back up.

I am not taking it apart until I have a replacement, and even then it will still exist online, so I may still update this thread with game summaries from time to time, but I don't really plan on spending any time, and money, on keeping it updated.

[Vessiliana]

Have you considered partners? What about Akroma, Vision of Ixidor and Jeska, Thrice Reborn?

[pokken]

My favorite recent Boros commander is Quintorius, Field Historian - lots of interesting shenanigans. Very combat focused, but in a different way.

[WizardMN]

Have you considered partners? What about Akroma, Vision of Ixidor and Jeska, Thrice Reborn?

I haven't really. I think the main thing about, on a surface level evaluation anyway, is the mana cost. Part of my distaste for Gisela is her cost. While the Partner obviously allows for some early action, I am not sure how much different it ends up being.

With that being said, I have seen some pretty nasty things done with Akroma that are pretty appealing. I do like the idea of Jeska but I wonder if partnering Akroma with Rograkh, Son of Rohgahh would be the better option. Rograkh allows for quite a bit of early aggression while Akroma can sort of be the haymaker at the end. To an extent anyway.

My favorite recent Boros commander is Quintorius, Field Historian - lots of interesting shenanigans. Very combat focused, but in a different way.

I had looked at Quintorius as well and I didn't like the playstyle he leans toward. I know it isn't a huge limitation but he just didn't jump out at me as something I wanted to try.

I might revisit this in the coming weeks and see if I can come up with something.

[plushpenguin]

Personally I went really hard on the drawpower of a mono-red Godo value build and it makes 6+ mana feel a lot more feasible to hit over time.

I also went very nuts on the ramp since I knew I wanted to hit six every game and I also get value from casting the commander multiple times. I have the versatility of equipment to get me either damage, haste, resilience, lands, or card draw whenever I need it, and attacking twice makes some of those effects twice as good.

In total, I had twelve of each and felt pretty comfortable with that number.