[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[hyalopterouslemur]

Really good. Cantrip, can't be blocked, and passes the Sun Titan test. Likely to see this in decks with a lot of saboteur abilities, or just infect. 8/10 would recommend

[Igzex]

You know this is an old card because 1: This would be an equipment nowadays and 2: It's illustrated by Rebecca Guay and is not a special set/promo printing.

The Rebecca Guay drawin-er I mean the card draw etb makes this card. It offsets the risk of creature auras just a tad and offers some extra potential utility to spare.

[3drinks]

Thursday, August 12th, 2021; Thopter Foundry

"say something about this that doesn't involve Sword of the Meek"

[pokken]

This card is my #1 complaint about hybrid not working. I would have an Ephara artifacts deck so fast it'd make your head spin

I played the hell out of this in my 4c affinity deck where I'd sac stuff to trigger Scrap Trawler and do poor Sword of the Meek loop-ish impressions with Phyrexian Metamorph type stuff.

[RedCheese]

Is in my Breya Thopter tribal deck and im not using the combo

[Mookie]

Hmmmm.... Thopter Foundry is a fine card - it's obviously at its best alongside Sword of the Meek, but I've had pretty mixed results with the combo. Dumping a bunch of mana into gaining life and making thopters is fine if you want to grind out value, but sort of slow in terms of win conditions. I've found that I usually need something else for it to actually be enough, whether that be Krark-Clan Ironworks to make it actually infinite, or an anthem effect to turn the thopters into an actual threat.

Ignoring its combo potential, it's a pretty solid artifact sac outlet. There are significantly fewer sac outlets for artifacts than there are for creatures, and a lot of them are limited to only once per turn (ex: Trading Post, Phyrexia's Core). Very useful if you're running stuff like Mycosynth Wellspring. Flying means the thopter tokens are also great at both attacking and blocking. Thopter Foundry also works fabulously with Salvaging Station - every time a thopter dies, you get to recur something to turn into a new thopter.

[hyalopterouslemur]

A lot of value out of this engine. Yes, Ichor Wellspring, Mycosynth Wellspring, Solemn Simulacrum. Yes, Mycosynth Lattice Yes, a ton of cards like Sun Titan and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death...

And yes, goes infinite with Sword of the Meek.

[Serenade]

Is this the perfect hybrid-mana card?

[Igzex]

I really want to try to say something about Thopter Foundry that doesn't involve Sword of the Meek but it's no use...You can never escape the perpetual motion machine...

[3drinks]

Friday, August 13th, 2021; Nullmage Advocate and fairly similar in execution cousin, Pulsemage Advocate.

[pokken]

I like these guys but in a lot of ways they are kinda like...either way too good, or way too bad? I don't really run the advocate much anymore because of my discovery that Aura Shards type effects where you can remove any vaguely threatening setup piece repeatedly are *boring as hell*.

I can't think of many cards that cause games to become as tedious as stuff like that.

Pulsemage Advocate is one I haven't played but sounds really fun if you can set it up - but I expect it just involves spamming Gray Merchant of Asphodel a few times and winning the game, Or some other similar effect (say, Massacre Wurm.

I'm also really leery of tap effects as they sit on the board drawing attention for a turn before you can use them, but it is nice that Cursed Totem is not nearly as common as Torpor Orb mostly.

Overall I'd rather see these effects than the dumber alternatives, because the political angles are interesting. You're forced to make tough calls sometimes unless you work to break it by say adding a small mill subtheme. Which is also kinda fun sometimes?

I really do love cards that are fringe playable because rather than obviously slotting in they require some thought to use.

[Dunharrow]

Pretty political cards right? I mean sure you can return fetches and farseeks to their hand, but you can also negotiate returning removal spells to their hand.

[Mookie]

Nullmage Advocate is a pretty powerful effect - there aren't that many ways to repeatedly blow artifacts and enchantments. It is, however, limited by the rather crippling drawback of needing to return multiple cards in an opponent's graveyard to their hand. There are obviously political implications for this - you can make deals, or just return less-useful cards, or use it in response to recursion to turn it into janky grave hate - but the fact that it is fundamentally card disadvantage remains. As a result, it's hard to justify activating it repeatedly to blow up stuff like signets or other low-value targets, and you really only use it on bigger threats.

That said, there are also a few loopholes to use alongside the advocates. Using them alongside actual grave hate is the most obvious one - if you exile the cards in the graveyard, you get the benefit without the downside. If you can untap your advocate, you can activate it repeatedly, targeting the same cards. These make the advocates a bit more useful, but also require more setup.

I'll also note that Nullmage Advocate can also act as a rattlesnake, since its presence will make opponents less likely to play threatening targets. I suspect its main use case is in group hug / political decks, but it definitely has uses elsewhere.

[Jemolk]

I've got Nullmage Advocate in group hug. Great card there. Dunno where else I'd consider playing the advocates, but they're cool cards all around.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Has potential maybe? I supposed you CAN use them with Sadistic Hypnotist.

Most of the time I play Stax, so they have potential in Winter Orb-style lockdown decks, but less so in forced-sacrifice or forced-discard decks. Still some. (Mind Slash also exists.) but most of my Stax decks include plenty of ways to exile cards from the graveyard..

[onering]

These are good, but not stupidly so. I appreciate the political nature of the cards, as the downside can actually be more important than the upside (it's not inconceivable that someone has blown up their own Sol Ring in order to get someone else's counter back into their hand to stop a game winning threat). They also play well into the smart hug play style, where you hand out resources in a way that you get the bigger benefit, and have built in ways to deal with threats.

[The_Hittite]

They can pull double duty as reanimation hate if that's something you're looking for.

"That sure is a nice Victimize you got there. Be a shame if something were to... happen to its targets. And your Phyrexian Altar."

[3drinks]

Satuday, August 14th, 2021; Fire // Ice

Still the best split card to-date. Don't @ me.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

One of those things that's awesome in cube and terrible in edh. It's just too small-potatoes for the value to translate.

Edit: holy smoke, this was a common in ultimate masters? That limited format must have been zany.

[Serenade]

This came out after I got out of the game, and it seemed so weak when I got back into it (Alara) that I never understood the buzz. I don't use it in my UR/x decks, but I can see it doing lots of small things well enough to never be dead.

Can I cast Ice with Sunforger?

[onering]

It's a cheap cantrip that taps a creature, or weak burn that can occasionally be a clutch play. I've rarely seen it, but when I have it's been in spellslinger.

[The_Hittite]

Can I cast Ice with Sunforger?

709.4. In every zone except the stack, the characteristics of a split card are those of its two halves
combined.
709.4b The mana cost of a split card is the combined mana costs of its two halves. A split card's
colors and mana value are determined from its combined mana cost.

Red or White? Yes.
Instant? Yes.
MV less than or equal to 4? Yes.
Ice is Sunforger-able.

[Mookie]

Fire // Ice is an excellent card in cube and limited, but doesn't really play to the focus of EDH - dealing two damage with Fire isn't enough to kill most relevant creatures, and using Ice as a tempo play is also less valuable. I won't say it's totally dead - the floor for a cantrip is pretty high - but it's not a card I'm excited to include over a one-mana cantrip like Opt.

I'll call out cascade shenanigans as one reason to run Fire // Ice, but that's a somewhat niche use case.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Fire has use against utility creatures, or with things like Inferno Titan or Tims. Or, you know, Raka Sanctuary. It's never going to be as good as simply giving creatures deathtouch tho.

Ice is a cantrip. Not much to do with that since the way split cards interact with cmc matters cards made it "not stickable".

[TheGildedGoose]

🎵I've cast Fire and I've cast Ice🎵