[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Spinal Embrace

[TheGildedGoose]

If you aren't recurring fast mana, undercosted tutors, or ridiculous combo pieces, it's a mediocre to bad way to recur cards from your graveyard. It's not something you play to reanimate a creature, or get a second use out of a kill spell or something. If you want to do those things, you want something else, because Will is not particularly good at that.

Well, if Will is mediocre for those, then what are your better suggestions for those functions - especially the noncreature cards - in monoblack?

There may not be a better way to do those things in monoblack. They doesn't make it not mediocre.

I'm a pretty poor basketball player. I may be the best basketball player in my office (I'm almost certainly not, but for the sake of argument). As a result, I would probably choose to find away to have our office avoid playing basketball rather than rely on my basketball skills.

Without a better option that Yawgmoth's Will to recur noncreatures (and nonplaneswalkers), most monoblack decks go without that recursion.

Sure, price and availability keep the card out of most people's hands. But lets be honest, if you could substitute the card into every commander precon that has black in it, it would be mediocre to bad in pretty much all of them.

You don't know what you're talking about.

[Mookie]

Magus of the Will is an interesting card. Compared to Yawgmoth's Will, you trade the immediate payoff for a 3/3 body, which... really isn't worth it. Summoning sickness means your opponents will usually have a full turn to prepare before you activate it, giving them the opportunity to kill it or exile your graveyard - the odds of untapping with Magus and a stocked graveyard are pretty low. I'll also call out that Magus exiles itself, which eliminates recursion shenanigans (one of the main benefits to using creatures instead of instants/sorceries). Additionally, if you have some way to give it haste, you need to pay 2B again.

...so yeah, Magus is a pretty significant downgrade.

On the flip side, if we're not comparing Magus to Yawgmoth's Will directly, it looks a lot better - it is effectively designed as a budget alternative, after all. In a vacuum, being able to recur your entire graveyard is an incredibly powerful ability. This is especially true in storm decks that have a bunch of cheap spells and rituals to recur, but you can also use it to play lands / artifacts / creatures out of your graveyard. I do think there are better ways to accomplish this - black has actual reanimation effects, and Crucible of Worlds is a better way to grab back lands - but it's still not a bad value play. I would say that it is pretty clunky though - three mana to activate is a lot.

I'll call out Mnemonic Betrayal as another budget alternative to Yawgmoth's Will, if you're using it as a value play. (edit) Gaea's Will also exists, but putting it in green means it tends to play very differently.

[Sharpened]

It's certainly possible that I don't know what I'm talking about. But since you didn't elaborate, it's hard to judge. So I checked out your primer linked in your post:

As I reminder, I said:

If you aren't recurring fast mana, undercosted tutors, or ridiculous combo pieces, it's a mediocre to bad way to recur cards from your graveyard.

Here's what I got from your primer:

Yawgmoth's Will: Arguably the strongest Magic card ever printed. In Vintage, which is full of fast mana and powerful card draw, being able to replay all of the broken cards you just played is incredibly good. While our deck doesn't have fast mana, it has big mana, which in some cases is even better. I've won many games on the back of resolving this stupid card. From replaying a Cabal Coffers that was destroyed, recasting the Bubbling Muck you just played to generate all the mana, or simply wiping the board and tutoring for something else, this card delivers.

and

If the other decks have managed to hold on through your attrition, I will typically tutor up Yawgmoth's Will to bury them in value. Replaying the tutor you used to find it in the first place is a great start

I say that if you aren't doing stupid things with mana and tutors, the card is mediocre. You say that the card is great, clearly you should use it to do stupid things with mana and tutors. I mean, seems like we're on a similar page.

I still maintain that:

if you could substitute the card into every commander precon that has black in it, it would be mediocre to bad in pretty much all of them.

After all, what commander precons let you do stupid things with mana and tutors. Otherwise, it's just ok.

[Sinis]

Y'all don't use Ill-Gotten Gains to recur noncreatures in monoB? (I stopped because it kept helping my opponents more.)

Combo IGG with Leyline of the Void, and I promise it'll work better

[toctheyounger]

Will Magus is fine. Its the closest ill ever get to Yawg Will personally. Its slow and expensive but if its in the right place it'll do what it needs to, which is either get your pieces back online, or give you access to enough spells to effectively either end the game or bury your opponents in enough value to more or less make the game end.

I guess the bonus is literally no one can get mad at this, because the opportunities to nullify this are pretty wide open. Its fine all in all, abd if you need the effect you'll run it, but its clearly a pretty far cry from its predecessor.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Y'all don't use Ill-Gotten Gains to recur noncreatures in monoB? (I stopped because it kept helping my opponents more.)

Will exiles itself after it resolves. (There should probably be reminder text there.)

But yeah, the big problem with IGG is the group hug factor, barring Leyline of the Void, in which case you owned everyone.

Anyway, more about Will, I agree it's either busted (like, storm) or merely okay.

[3drinks]

Thursday, September 23rd, 2021; Virtus's Maneuver

[Dunharrow]

I try to play edicts that are instant-speed. Lost too many games to Bruna, Light of Alabaster + boots one-shots.

[onering]

I look at this more as filling a value card role than a typical edict role. In a 4 player game it's a cheap 4 for 1 that is also a solid tempo play early on. Sometimes the edict everyone side is just meh, sometimes it takes out 3 good things. Unlike some of the other cards in the cycle, this is deck dependent based on the recursion side. That can be fairly weak or solid enough value to make the total package work depending on what sort of creatures are in your deck. Grabbing back Sakura Tribe Elder turn 3 and making everyone else sac a creature turn 3 isn't splashy, but it's pretty nice. Its a solid role player in a number of places, but it's not worth it in every black deck nor is it really an all star anywhere. One additional bonus is that you can play politics or make deals with it by naming an opponent as a friend, and there aren't many options that let you get an opponents creature back from the yard to their hands, which can be relevant if an opponent has an answer in their gy for something another opponent is doing.

[Mookie]

Hmmm.... Virtus's Maneuver is interesting. I'm usually not a fan of edict effects - it's too easy for your opponents to have expendable bodies and tokens lying around. They can be good in the early game - a T3 edict to kill two cheap commanders is often fantastic - but in the lategame, they tend to go down in value. Virtus's Maneuver helps a bit with that, since recurring a creature to hand goes up in value the later the game goes on. It's somewhat interesting to compare to Fleshbag Marauder - Fleshbag is good if you can recur it or otherwise care about it being a creature, but if you're not making use of that, Virtus's Maneuver looks superior.

...I guess The Eldest Reborn does something similar, but it is also significantly slower. Seems like something I might consider for my Kess and Tasigur decks, which can make use of a value-generating Raise Dead effect.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Well, it's +1 card advantage on everyone for two mana? Just...worse drawing two, recurring two, or edicting two. And I prefer removal to be instants or stapled on a creature.

[onering]

Well, it's +1 card advantage on everyone for two mana? Just...worse drawing two, recurring two, or edicting two. And I prefer removal to be instants or stapled on a creature.

Its +3 CA in a 4 player game, you spend a card to make everyone else sac a creature and you get a creature back from the yard. Drawing two is +1 CA, a card for 2 cards. Recurring 2 is +1 CA, a card in hand for 2 from the yard. Only the double edict is more CA, 1 card for everyone else sacrificing 2 creatures (6 cards). Barter in Blood costs an extra black mana and makes everyone, yourself included, sac 2, making it a 6 for 3 in a for player game, +3 CA. In terms of CA, this is certainly above rate.

[Serenade]

Not sure what other corner cases there are, but I'd love to name a Skullbriar, the Walking Grave opponent a friend and make myself a foe when I have Academy Rector on the field.

[Jemolk]

One more note on Yawg Will -- it's not something you fire off to just recur one thing, no. Its unique value is as much its explosiveness as its ability to recur absolutely anything in black, which only usually recurs creatures. I play the thing in multiple fair, battlecruiser decks, and its explosive potential for recurring an enormous amount of power (and toughness) all at once very abruptly is really excellent there too. No, you don't use it to recur one card (a "value" Will), but if you play a land and cast two removal spells and three creatures off it, it can be pretty worthwhile.

Virtus's Maneuver is neat. Though, as others have said, there's good reason to want your removal to be instant-speed. It's not the best at reanimation, nor at removal. On the other hand, it does do both, so if you want an okay reanimation spell with bonus upside, this seems fine. If you want an edict with upside, you probably want to find something else.

[3drinks]

Friday, September 24th, 2021; Vengevine

[Jemolk]

Friday, September 24th, 2021; Vengevine

Can be terrifying in 60-card formats where you build around it, but here? Potentially a decent value creature in sacrifice decks on the basis of its self-recursion, but 4 power with haste isn't going to break any games open, I don't think.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Okay in Animar or Mayael or even Ruric Thar, but merely okay. If you're playing black, you probably have better.

[illakunsaa]

I once saw a 4 color dredge that ran vengevine (and bunch of other self returning creature). It was pretty cool to see a "classic" dredge work in edh. I think it was ludevic+ikra shidiqi.

[3drinks]

Saturday, September 25th, 2021; Callous Bloodmage

[BeneTleilax]

Three seems a bit much for one of these minor-effect swiss army knives. I just don't really see what deck wants to pay 3 for flexibility rather than slotting in a better and cheaper way to do any of those three effects.

[Sinis]

Saturday, September 25th, 2021; Callous Bloodmage

I was very hot on this card when it was spoiled, and have played with it since. I think it's decent; I have run Agent of Erebos and Angel of Finality in symmetric recursion-heavy decks (more than just Living Death), and this guy is 1-mana cheaper with other options.

I think it shines best in token/sacrifice decks, though. If all three modes are relevant to you, it's probably good enough to run, but the moment the token option isn't good, it's either cycle or graveyard hate, and that's probably not good enough for a slot.

[Toshi]

Really decent in my Grenzo, Dungeon Warden deck, where Agent of Erebos often times turned out to be somewhat vanilla, when no opponent was gy-based,

[Mookie]

I've been meaning to try out Callous Bloodmage in my Teysa deck - flexibility is strong. The base case (draw a card and lose a life) isn't bad, and tactical graveyard hate is sometimes even better. The token is a bit more niche, but quite solid if you have a Skullclamp available. Still, the reason I haven't gotten one for my deck yet is that it feels a little too fair - I suspect it would function as Phyrexian Rager 90% of the time, which isn't a card I'm excited to run. It almost certainly plays better than it reads, but it also doesn't provide enough synergy for me to be willing to play it over other three mana card advantage creatures like Mentor of the Meek and Midnight Reaper.

Still, the more often you find the flexibility useful, the better it is. If you're using each mode 1/3 of the time, it's going to be amazing. It also happens to be one of the most efficient ways to nuke an opponent's graveyard in black - Agent of Erebos and Author of Shadows are other options, but they're also a bit more expensive, and their lack of flexibility makes them have a higher opportunity cost. As a result, Callous Bloodmage seems very solid for any deck that wants to be running another grave hate option.

[hyalopterouslemur]

lol power creep

Okay, this is actually a good card. Gravehate is always good in this format. A cantrip is always a good failure mode. And the token does allow for lifegain triggers, entry triggers, or death triggers.

Hey, if you have Creakwood Liege this is six total power for 2b

[onering]

I have it in Whisper, because the token mode shines there and having the flexibility to draw a card in a pinch or remove a card from a yard gives it a leg up over similar cards. I also have it in vampire stax headed by Anowan 1.0, because it's a vampire that draws a card, and therefore helps break the symmetry of both Anowan and the discard effects. He's probably pretty nice in Teysa 1.0 for the same reason as he's good in Whisper, though I'd think I'd be more likely to use the non token modes there a little more often. I'd imagine he'd be good in black based blink or tiny guy recursion, which BW seems to be building towards.