MTGNexus

Tuesday, December 7th, 2021; Embargo



Hmm...so Simic lands matter, right? I'm confident this is a superb stax card.

A much more manageable stasis effect. Doesn't quite lock the board down as heavily but can be sustained much longer. The one obvious downside is that because it uses life as a resource, such a card opens up its player quite a bit of aggro, particularly alpha strikes which embargo does diddly to prevent. 4 is also a lot of mana for a tuned stax list, whose curve should ideally top out at 4-5 anyway to effectively break parity with mana denial effects.

I think it's a mediocre stax card. Superb is a grade for winter orb, static orb, smokestack, and their ilk. Solid C+ though.

Tuesday, December 7th, 2021; Embargo

A classic (and very boring) Zedruu card.

This is stunning in its mediocrity. The obvious cards (creatures with vigilance, planeswalkers, creatures that can untap themselves, manlands, Seedborn Muse, possibly Ana Sanctuary) could be used with this, but there are so many better options for these things, especially Seedborn Muse, Stax's "I don't hurt myself" card.

This can be used for lulz with Life and Limb I guess. Actually, a Life and Limb landfall deck sounds fun.

It's not difficult to build a deck that can take advantage of Embargo - there are plenty of decks that don't need to play / tap many nonland permanents. Unfortunately, that also means there are a lot of decks that aren't affected by it that badly. It shuts down mana rocks after the first use, and creatures get hit by an unconditional Meekstone effect... but that's it, and there are more direct ways to deal with mana rocks / creatures, even in mono-blue (ex: Energy Flux, Propaganda).

I guess it combos with Orb of Dreams / Kismet effects?

Wednesday, December 8th, 2021; The Kamigawa Spirit Dragons



I debated adding Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang since it's kinda a dragon spirit too but it's probably not the same. But in spirit though 😂

Everyone knows what you're doing if they see these, right?

Yosei/Kokusho: Unfun stuff
Keiga: Possibly unfun stuff or possibly trying too hard at fun stuff
Ryusei: You just needed a 100th card in the deck, and this card was closest.
Jugan: This was a proxy once for something new you wanted to try out, but you forgot to put in the actual card once you got it. "OLD GNAWBONE" is written on it.

I've played most with Keiga, whose size always seemed to be too big in Nin, or it ate exile removal, or it was the only thing on the table when it died. And I'd try it again in a heartbeat. Barrin, Master Wizard sac stuff deck? It'll be in there. Griefer Kels, Fight Fixer? Oh, for sure it lives there. Control Ertai, the Corrupted? You know where it's going.

I play or have played Keiga, Yosei, and Kokusho. Keiga has some pitfalls as mentioned above. Bad against board wipes, exile removal, or just having poor targets.

Kokusho has been a good win conditions for me in graveyard decks where a few iterations of it's death trigger really pads your life total. Good in decks that use life as a resource as well for that reason. Solid black creature.

Yosei is my late game finisher, or midgame middle finger to anyone who it too far ahead. Typically I'll let it chill in the library or graveyard until one or two players are eliminated, then bring it out to lock down the last player. Maybe not the most fun thing, but without big swingy combat steps, this is one of the more fair ways for my Karador deck to win. I don't see many others playing Yosei, which is good for me. It has helped me many a time and will continue to be my favorite spirit dragon.

Ryusei I could see in a dragon heavy deck that wants to wipe any ground chaff that may be putting some pressure on them. I don't think its a bad card, just not as widely useful as Kokusho.

I use three in my Grixis death trigger tribal deck. Just talking about them makes me miss Flash so much. One of the coolest plays I've ever made was Flashing in Keiga, the Tide Star to take control of a Blightsteel Colossus that was coming my way.

They're all kind of dated tbh. Even Koko isn't half as good as it used to be, and it was banned for a bit. These days, 6 mana just needs to do much more and immediately for the juice to be worth the squeeze. I doubt I'll play any of them in the future.

I softlocked an opponent with their Yosei, the Morning Star + my Mimic Vat. The fact that it only hit one opponent meant that it wasn't quite as useful as one may expect... and the fact that it made the game absolutely miserable for them meant I haven't even considered Yosei for a deck since.

Anyway... all of these got significantly better in the command zone after the rules were changed to support death triggers, but by then I think they had already been power-crept out of a job. They still have some use in the 99, but there are better options - Kokusho, the Evening Star competes with Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Keiga, the Tide Star competes with Agent of Treachery, and I'm not sure what niche was ever filled by Jugan, the Rising Star other than 'big green flyer'. I think Ryusei, the Falling Star may be the most relevant as a one-sided board wipe / rattlesnake out of dragon tribal / Kaalia of the Vast decks.

If you have ways to loop them or otherwise multiply their death trigger (ex: Teysa Karlov, Chainer, Dementia Master), they go up in value, but otherwise, power creep is a thing.

Ah kitchen table classics...

Keiga: Is too easy to play around to be an effective rattlesnake, but I ran it in my old Intet, the Dreamer dragon build because I had ways to keep making token copies of Keiga so I could just take anything that actually manages to be better than my dragons. Somehow.

Yosei: Groan...And the scary thing thing is that this isn't even the worst you'll find in decks that abuse this card.

Ryusei: Meh. I never found the floating effect to be that useful, especially if it died from a wipe already. Also this card deserves extra resentment because they put this in Draconic Domination over so many other better mythic rare dragon creatures and those better mythics spiked dramatically for a bit as a result. Like, it's not like this precon wasn't already gonna be price gouged into the shadow realm anyway might as well have given people some value out of this precon.

Kokosho: I love this card because even if you're not going out of your way to abuse it with sac and reanimation effects, it's still just a generically good beatstick for tables that still run beatsticks. A complete package of a creature even with all the exile effects that have entered the game as of late.

Jugan: Why must green non-insect fliers cry...(Oh hi didn't see you there Old Gnawbone)

Kokosho represented the essential shift in reanimator strategies, from creature damage and value to looping ETB and death triggers. It's fitting, in a way, that Koko was in turn pushed out by it, with Gary having a much bigger ETB at the expense of a far less relevant body.

These are okay, if a bit dated.

Yosei is me doing Stax stuff. (I have used it with Mikaeus, the Unhallowed in Ghave. Actually, all three of the Abzan ones have this advantage. But "You can't untap and your whole board is tapped" is my special sadism.)

Keiga is fair. Stealing for six mana is more than fair.

Kokusho isn't really that broken? Just a five-point Exsanguinate

Ryusei is a blast in Kaalia of the Vast or any other deck with all flying creatures.

Jugan is...a rare green creature with flying. But hey, it's something. Okay, a few deck strategies like infect and Simic goodstuff can use the counters, and Hardened Scales can effectively double it.

Yeah I don't really see the need for these anymore. I actually just recently traded my two Kokos and have no regrets. They're fine, if dated and a bit less potent than they once might have been considered*.

*Jugan always sucked though.

Yosei is the only one I have ever played. I play it in both my Karador decks - the stax deck and the spirit tribal deck. I have definitely won games on abusing Yosei repeatedly and attacking for 3 until the game ended.

Takes too long so added combos to my stax deck to end the game faster.

Spirit tribal deck is not staxy at all, Yosei is just there because Abzan has terrible spirits. I would only sac Yosei to put a speedbump on the person winning the game or to tap out my opponent for a lethal swing.

Thursday, December 9th, 2021; Silent Arbiter

Honestly I have been looking at this card a lot lately after constantly getting blown out by dragons. But every time I look at on-board stax pieces that affect combat, I realize I have to defend them. So I'm feeling like I might move more toward removal to deal with this, or things that are at least a surprise (flash critters, say).

Peacekeeper probably better most of the time in the decks I am worried about, but I kinda like this one for Toxrill, the Corrosive where I'm jamming so much stuff that defends him. Gonna have to think on that a bit.

I play it in Phenax, God of Deception since good toughness and slows down aggro. This is not for a competitive deck, but does a fine Crawlspace impression if you have a deck with several combat deterrents.
The biggest issue is if you rely on this to keep you alive and it gets blown up before an alpha strike. It should be an early game aggro deterrent, and that's it.

It's something I liked in my Etali, Primal Storm deck since it almost always meant there was a safe attack with her. But I transitioned away from it since there were just better ways to get in free attacks and it could sometimes back fire if she hit something juicy that would want me to attack with multiple creatures.

Thursday, December 9th, 2021; Silent Arbiter

Great for planeswalker decks, or decks that just want to slow things down a touch.

I used to run it in my Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest I don't know why I cut it it used to be pretty ok in a voltron deck

Early game answer to aggro. Do not rely on. Crawlspace is usually better, and Crawlspace and Training Grounds are less vulnerable.

One of my first lines of defense when I'm playing a deck that's absolutely going to have the entire table want my head and rightfully so...

It occurs to me that this with Blade of Selves and a good threat can cause some melviny weird politics.