MTGNexus

It's Nether Shadow for Modern! And somehow way more complicated than Nether Shadow.

Flashback is good. Buyback is great. But this? For one more mana, Morbid Plunder. For two more, Gravedigger. For three more, Phyrexian Delver. For one less, Reanimate. Instant speed isn't this kind of effect's "thing", but it's the only thing that suggests this card in particular ovwr any of thosw.

3/10 Good in decks with a lot of delve when you want to say "You can't do anything to me that I'm not doing to myself "

Always hated the use-it-or-lose-it style of recover, it only amplifies the feel-bad of missing activations. So, honestly, I'm rather glad that its only on bad cards, and no-one seems to like it, because then I never have to make hard choices about whether to run it.

I like recover's design, but none of the cards with it are particularly spectacular. Maybe MH3 will run it back with greater success than Coldsnap. Buyback with weird timing is still pretty good, I think.

TheAmericanSpirit wrote: ↑

2 years ago

I like recover's design, but none of the cards with it are particularly spectacular. Maybe MH3 will run it back with greater success than Coldsnap. Buyback with weird timing is still pretty good, I think.

It would have to scrap the exile clause not to be actively feel-bad. Most bad mechanics are redeemable, but this can just go on the failure heap. It doesn't need more cards. It needs not to exist.

BeneTleilax wrote: ↑

2 years ago

TheAmericanSpirit wrote: ↑

2 years ago

I like recover's design, but none of the cards with it are particularly spectacular. Maybe MH3 will run it back with greater success than Coldsnap. Buyback with weird timing is still pretty good, I think.

It would have to scrap the exile clause not to be actively feel-bad. Most bad mechanics are redeemable, but this can just go on the failure heap. It doesn't need more cards. It needs not to exist.

Agree to disagree. Having extra options and compelling decision forks on cards never made me feel-bad. Sorry you don't like it, but I say it deserves another go.

For this - Raise Dead's aren't great in EDH, generally speaking, not when players don't have to pay much more for some very powerful true reanimation effects instead. If I was to run a Raise Dead, there's also a lot of competition:

- I actually think Omen of the Dead is the gold standard for this effect - instant speed, adds to devotion, triggers Constellation/enchantress effects, and can be cracked later to scry and trigger some sacrifice synergies. And I don't play Omen anywhere; it keeps making my maybeboards and just ultimately being a bit shy of "good enough".
- Sure enough Omen is the most popular "pure" one-shot Animate Dead. Grave Scrabbler and Call to the Netherworld are more played, but only because of Madness; Order of Midnight // Alter Fate is mostly played for its Adventure/Knight synergies, Wretched Confluence is a swiss-army knife and this is arguably its least useful mode, and Corpse Churn mills which makes it almost a cantrip and gives it a ton of other synergies.
- That's because in addition to all this powerful reanimator stuff, there's also Phyrexian Reclamation, Tortured Existence, and Palace Siege as repeatable
- There's also a whole host of "Raise Dead+" in Magic's history that are possible two-for-ones instead (Graveshifter, Return from Extinction, Ghoulcaller's Chant, Wander in Death, Aid the Fallen, to name just a few of the most popular).

As to Recover - this mechanic was a bit overcosted as an old mechanic that might allow for stalled out limited games. I'd love to see it make a comeback, but it's fundamentally awkward since you need spells that...

A) Fit well in a creature-heavy deck.
B) Have a low-enough cost and/or recover cost to be feasibly cast.
C) Be the kind of cards that reward holding a ton of mana up to make sure you don't miss the trigger.

It's both very limited design space for WotC and pretty niche deck design for players, although the fact that every single recover card is chaff or weak sauce except for the spicy Garza's Assassin sure doesn't help. I'd agree I'm open to seeing it in a stronger, leaner form in MH3.

Saturday, October 23rd, 2021; Bloodghast



Man this little fella really needs a reprint. So useful, please give me more than a "the list" reprint.

This card was a huge staple in my original playgroup with multiple people having stoneforge decks with skull clamps and bloodghast engines.

I used it a lot to feed fleshbag blinking myself and to fuel grave pacts etc.

Most games seem to be too fast for spamming bloodghast these days but I'll still play it now and then. Been thinking about it as a nice resilient cheap threat for breena. I could really go for a zombie equivalent for varina too lol.

Interestingly I have been seeing so little grave hate as everyone's decks are getting so linear so might be a good time for this guy and maybe reassembling skeleton shenanigans.

I love this card and would play it but the price tag has never been worth it to me. This should be in a commander precon.

Yeah, Bloodghast could really use a reprint. The body is unimpressive, but when you get it without paying any mana, that doesn't really matter. I've wanted to run it in my Teysa deck for ages, but at that price it really isn't worth it. Still, free recursion is pretty strong, and it gets even better if you can build around it with fetchlands / other landfall enablers - it works particularly well with Perilous Forays.

In general, I'm a fan of self-recursive creatures like Bloodghast and Reassembling Skeleton in aristocrats / sacrifice strategies - it's possible to run out of bodies, so having something recurrable is nice. I think Bloodghast is one of the better options due to not requiring mana, which can be a significant constraint if you want to dump a bunch of mana into Skullclamp and actually casting spells.

Really good with any sac commander. I have used it in Ghave, but you might also want Reassembling Skeleton and some persist/undying d00dz.

I mean, it's expensive in this economy, but $13 is by no means the most expensive card in this format.

Outside of enabling the sweet thing that is Perilous Forays, I could care less about this card. Perilous forays on the other hand, well, that would be a real RCotD....

Edit: Forays could also use a reprint, that price is super bloated

One of the best 3 cards in my He Who Hungers edh as it enables consistent Thoughtseizes on my opponents. Super fun and I love the card so much.

Sunday, October 24th, 2021; Mythos of Illuna



I wish this wasn't locked into a Temur+ colour identity.

I love all these mythos'. They're all pretty well balanced and cool. I wouldn't mind seeing more of these kinds of things.

I'll admit that these rankle me a bit more than even hybrid cards as to the overly restrictive nature of color identity.

Idk, these are all pretty much outclassed by several options unless you can pay the other colors, so you only really want them in 3+ color decks. I'm sure there are corner cases where you really want that extra clone thats a sorcery instead of a creature, but only Mythos of Snapdax seems like suffers from not being able to just be another mini cataclysm in mono white or Wx. Although, I could see for newer Ayers without much card access that might have opened a mythos and not a clone why it would be annoying. I do think it's an important limitation though, because with the Oath of the Gate watch rules change that allows any deck to produce any color of mana from things like mana confluence, or turning all their lands into every kind of basic, allowing these in mono color would be color pie breaking in a way that goes against the spirit of cor identity rules. Being able to play what is essentially a sultai card in mono blue wouldn't feel right, a mono blue clone shouldn't have fight tacked on, and likewise a mono black deck shouldn't have a 3 mana instant that can destroy any nonland permanent, and a mono green deck shouldn't have a tutor for any permanent that also gets another permanent from the graveyard. Interestingly Snapdax could actually be mono white, whole Vadrok could sort of be mono red, but screw stax getting extra help and Vadrok's mythos sucks.

onering wrote: ↑

2 years ago

Idk, these are all pretty much outclassed by several options unless you can pay the other colors, so you only really want them in 3+ color decks. I'm sure there are corner cases where you really want that extra clone thats a sorcery instead of a creature, but only Mythos of Snapdax seems like suffers from not being able to just be another mini cataclysm in mono white or Wx. Although, I could see for newer Ayers without much card access that might have opened a mythos and not a clone why it would be annoying. I do think it's an important limitation though, because with the Oath of the Gate watch rules change that allows any deck to produce any color of mana from things like mana confluence, or turning all their lands into every kind of basic, allowing these in mono color would be color pie breaking in a way that goes against the spirit of cor identity rules. Being able to play what is essentially a sultai card in mono blue wouldn't feel right, a mono blue clone shouldn't have fight tacked on, and likewise a mono black deck shouldn't have a 3 mana instant that can destroy any nonland permanent, and a mono green deck shouldn't have a tutor for any permanent that also gets another permanent from the graveyard. Interestingly Snapdax could actually be mono white, whole Vadrok could sort of be mono red, but screw stax getting extra help and Vadrok's mythos sucks.

I am not gonna rehash that entire thread here but I don't lose any sleep about all the massive color pie breaks that already exist so I would continue to not lose sleep over very slight increases in options for 1 and 2 color decks. Most of those decks would be more powerful never playing any of these Mythos' but instead playing more brown goodstuff anyway

For all those who cried out for land tokens, Mythos of Illuna is there for you.

Mythos of Illuna is Clever Impersonator with the added upside of allowing a copied creature to fight - not the most impactful upside, but still better than nothing. It can copy lands, which is somewhat unique. On the other hand, it also targets and is a sorcery instead of a creature, which yields some different synergies. I don't think it's the strongest clone available, but I could see it being played in Riku of Two Reflections or another clone-based deck. It does suffer a bit from being limited to Temur - commanders like Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer and Adrix and Nev, Twincasters would love to have access to this effect.

It's more...basic land tokens (and only basic land tokens, maybe a "tap for any color" land or a "tap for c" land) make sense. That's where I would end land tokens, except as copies (since right now I can Cackling Counterpart my Inkmoth Nexus). No non-mana abilities, no tapping for more than one mana, and even dual lands are more complex than the three examples I just gave, and I like to keep my land complexity low, and keep my token complexity low.

Anyway, this is kind of interesting as an example of "MaRo trolls us over and/or" Not as blatant as extort, but you can still see it.

I stopped being irritated by the temur identity here when they printed me Replication Technique.

Monday, October 25th, 2021; Maelstrom Archangel

When I started playing I loved this card
Funny how things change. I don't see myself ever putting this in a deck.

I always wanted to launch this thing off Kaalia.

One of the original creatures that prompted the Rule 0 commander exception. Genju of the Realm was a popular one as well. Probably many older cards, but I distinctly remember "Shoulda been Legendary" coming out of everyone's mouth at the time. Even back in Alara Block when commander was young this card seldomly connected. Slow, fragile, and scary when it connects made it difficult to get her into the red zone. Cool card, and I liked it very much, but never had any good experiences with her.