[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - The Golden Throne

[3drinks]

Helluva ash tray there, I tell ya what.

I read this in Hank Hill's voice for some reason, and now I can't stop imagining the whole device being powered by propane and propane accessories lol.

Bold of you to imagine it's not supplied by Strickland Propane, dang it American Spirit!

[Mookie]

Bolas's Citadel is an extremely powerful card when built around - it's effectively Necropotence mixed with Channel, letting you convert excess life into a giant pile of value. If you back it up with some lifegain / extra land drops / topdeck manipulation, it's capable of dominating a game, if not just winning outright. It also benefits massively from EDH's higher starting life total - if you can get it out while still at a high life total, it represents a massive pile of value.

....and yet, it feels like every time I cast it, I immediately flip two lands in a row and take 30+ damage from my opponents after I'm forced to pass turn. If you're not building around it, I think it's a significantly weaker card - still a strong value engine, but not an auto-win. Simultaneously, it paints a massive target on your back - your opponents are massively incentivized to throw as much damage at you as possible. There's also tension if you're running other effects that put pressure on your life total, and it doesn't work particularly well with X spells.

Anyway, as mentioned, it works well with lifegain (such as Aetherflux Reservoir) and extra land drops. It also works really well alongside topdeck manipulation, particularly Sensei's Divining Top (which just makes it Yawgmoth's Bargain).

[hyalopterouslemur]

Can be fun in lifegain obviously. Also has potential in tokens since you're triggering all those death triggers.

[TheGildedGoose]

Unban Yawgmoth's Bargain.

[plushpenguin]

This card lets you basically spew out a good chunk of your deck by itself in the right build. Just be sure to survive the inevitable attention it brings.

[BeneTleilax]

I've heard this is good in Villis. If it was less broken, it would be an interesting wincon for black pain-and-gain decks, but as is it is far too blatantly powerful and homogenizing.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Unban Yawgmoth's Bargain.

See, I never understood why Bargain was banned and not Necropotence. Necro is far and away the better card even with the EoT delay and the discard-exile clause. You can't just go land, ritual, bargain t1, but you can do it with necro as sure as the sun doth shine. The cmc makes all the difference. But hey, I've had ~12 years of excellent times with the 'potence, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

[3drinks]

Monday, June 28th, 2021; Kozilek's Return

[TheAmericanSpirit]

It gets around protection, so that's cool I guess. I think by the time you're casting cmc 7+ Eldrazi though, the pyroclasm effect is probably not getting you very much value anymore. 3.4/12

[3drinks]

Unban Yawgmoth's Bargain.

See, I never understood why Bargain was banned and not Necropotence. Necro is far and away the better card even with the EoT delay and the discard-exile clause. You can't just go land, ritual, bargain t1, but you can do it with necro as sure as the sun doth shine. The cmc makes all the difference. But hey, I've had ~12 years of excellent times with the 'potence, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

I've seen this argument before. When Bargain was printed, it was supposed to be "the fixed Necro", they cleaned up all that extra text. However it turns out drawing cards immediately, for free, is still too good for even a six mana value enchantment. Necro having triple pips is also a not insignificant cost, dark rit aside.

I love me some bargain, but yeah, this one they absolutely made the right call on. One of the few cards like Fastbond that should never come off the list.

[3drinks]

It gets around protection, so that's cool I guess. I think by the time you're casting cmc 7+ Eldrazi though, the pyroclasm effect is probably not getting you very much value anymore. 3.4/12

Imagine if Conduit of Ruin was +1 mana value. That'd be the best way to make me want to play this spell.

[tstorm823]

See, I never understood why Bargain was banned and not Necropotence. Necro is far and away the better card even with the EoT delay and the discard-exile clause. You can't just go land, ritual, bargain t1, but you can do it with necro as sure as the sun doth shine. The cmc makes all the difference. But hey, I've had ~12 years of excellent times with the 'potence, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

To put it bluntly, it's because that delay is a really big deal, nobody should ever even reach their end step with Yawgmoth's Bargain. You resolve Bargain, you fiddle around for 5-20 minutes, then the game ends. You never pass the turn.

[DirkGently]

Stapling a free and probably-near-total-wipe onto you having the biggest baddest creature - after getting some early cleanup value on mana dorks or whatever - sounds like a recipe for success. The problem is just that I've never wanted to build a red Eldrazi tribal deck (which also ideally doesn't have many <6 toughness boys). Great payoff, but way too niche.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

@3drinks @tstorm823

Okay, okay, I get it. I'm wrong. I take it back! :white flag:

Edit: why don't we have a surrender/white flag emoji? Oh great and powerful @Feyd_Ruin, can we have a white flag/surrender emoji? Pretty please?

[materpillar]

Stapling a free and probably-near-total-wipe onto you having the biggest baddest creature - after getting some early cleanup value on mana dorks or whatever - sounds like a recipe for success. The problem is just that I've never wanted to build a red Eldrazi tribal deck (which also ideally doesn't have many <6 toughness boys). Great payoff, but way too niche.

100% this. I wish it was any large colorless creature not Eldrazi. I'd love to staple this effect onto Darksteel Colossus.

[Mookie]

Kozilek's Return is an interesting card. I don't think Pyroclasm effects are particularly powerful in commander - two damage doesn't kill many relevant creatures. Being colorless does mean it gets around protection, which is somewhat interesting, but still pretty niche. However, the graveyard trigger is an extremely powerful ability - pretty much anything that functions from the graveyard is potentially valuable if you have a way to mill / discard the card for value, and a free board wipe is pretty huge. Killing all the small creatures to clear the way for your Eldrazi seems very on-theme.

It is, however, pretty limited in what decks it can go in - most Eldrazi-focused decks are, well, colorless, and thus can't run Kozilek's Return. I'm not sure what red decks would be excited to be running a bunch of Eldrazi. Echoing some of the previous comments - if this triggered on any expensive colorless creature, it would be very relevant for the various red-based artifact decks. As-is, I'm not sure what decks would want it outside Morophon, the Boundless Eldrazi tribal decks.

[hyalopterouslemur]

It gets around protection, so that's cool I guess. I think by the time you're casting cmc 7+ Eldrazi though, the pyroclasm effect is probably not getting you very much value anymore. 3.4/12

Imagine if Conduit of Ruin was +1 mana value. That'd be the best way to make me want to play this spell.

You're doing it wrong. You get a Pyroclasm for 2r. You then get a free five damage when you cast a big Eldrazi.

[3drinks]

Tuesday, June 29th, 2021; Blood on the Snow

It's a little slow, but the baked-in value is usually worth that.

[3drinks]

It gets around protection, so that's cool I guess. I think by the time you're casting cmc 7+ Eldrazi though, the pyroclasm effect is probably not getting you very much value anymore. 3.4/12

Imagine if Conduit of Ruin was +1 mana value. That'd be the best way to make me want to play this spell.

You're doing it wrong. You get a Pyroclasm for 2r. You then get a free five damage when you cast a big Eldrazi.

The reference was Conduit being the best eldrazi that isn't a titan, and it's pretty good, such that had it been mana value 7 instead of 6, this would be the best play with it. I get a half-assed Worldly Tutor|mir and then a future reduction on my dudes. Oh, and I wiped out all the dismember|tsrable creatures.

[BeneTleilax]

Tuesday, June 29th, 2021; Blood on the Snow

It's a little slow, but the baked-in value is usually worth that.

Turns out when you combine the borderline-playable-6-mana-black-wrath with the borderline-playable-6-mana-reanimate you get a quite solid card. It's also neat that it's an effective mono-black payoff that leans away from Coffers, just for diversity's sake.

[Outcryqq]

Blood on the Snow
This card dunks me in standard. I haven't found the time to add snow to any of my decks, which I blame on my lack of having many snow lands, but if I did, this seems like a very reasonable include in EDH.

[Hawk]

Because Damnation and Toxic Deluge are so much money, a non-white deck with black in it typically has to look to pay more for a boardwipe. I typically find Life's Finale fine but a bit overcosted and mediocre. I tend to prefer Crux of Fate. For Blood on the Snow, the upside here is significantly better and having meaningful snow mana in your deck has never been more affordable (sure helps that Blood is like 0.50 while the other "budget" spells are a little more). I've sincerely considered Necromantic Selection in some decks, and this is close to strictly better as long as you have meaningful snow mana access.

I think Dead of Winter is better for a truly all-in snow deck like Jorn, God of Winter // Kaldring, the Rimestaff but it's also very much a "why not both" situation.

And I think this is actually just underrated even with very little/no snow - I'd wager that the option to "kill all 'walkers" is going to mean more than Extracting three cards in 95% of games, meaning this is a nice upgrade (and better budget option) than Finale in most decks.

[TheGildedGoose]

A fine board wipe for mono-black. I used it to replace Oblivion Stone after I decided keeping my disruptive enchantments in play is more valuable than a total board cleansing. Getting back Gary, Crypt Ghast, or one of my three Liliana planeswalkers is just delicious gravy. I've yet to cast it for the planeswalker mode but randomly taking a game back from Super friends is solid upside, too.

[Mookie]

I've been meaning to give Blood on the Snow a test. Six mana is a bit pricy for a board wipe, but when you throw in an Animate Dead, it looks a lot better. It doesn't even exile itself, so you can do stuff like looping Eternal Witness every turn, which is sweet. It does want a snow-heavy manabase though, which can make it a bit awkward in multicolor decks. Recurring planeswalkers is a bit niche, but not a bad option either - I don't hate the idea of killing all the creatures to recur a planewalker that you don't want to be attacked.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Interesting if you like s, I guess. But getting something can be nice. I mean, you can get Grave Titan this way.

Now I'm wondering how the trope of red/white contrast relates to the zombie trope.