[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - North Star

[Ruiner]

Never seen this card before but my immediate instinct is to combo it with Fractured Identity. That could potentially just close out a game for you if you've already recovered from the initial land loss pretty decently due to being a green deck.

Splendid Reclamation or Teferi's Protection are other good combo pieces.

[onering]

Seems like a huge play in certain decks, dangerous but with a high reward. Mana doubling is very strong, but nuking your own lands sucks, and as has been said you set yourself up for a blowout if it gets removed. If nuking your own lands is easily mitigated, or even something you are ok with doing, then this becomes great.

[3drinks]

Friday, January 7th, 2022; Inspiring Statuary

[hyalopterouslemur]

What are numbers in gray circles? My deck has none of those thanks to her.

But seriously, Eldrazi, Fireballs, that sort of thing. And...morph.

[Mookie]

Inspiring Statuary is a bit of an odd card. The most widely played artifacts are generally mana rocks, so it isn't likely to be useful unless you're also running a lot of random utility artifacts - particularly ones that don't need to tap to activate. On the other hand, if your deck is really heavy on artifacts, you may not have many spells to improvise. As a result, it can be a bit tricky to find the right deck for it. The baseline of just tapping itself for is... fine, but worse than a Manalith.

....on the other hand, if you're making piles of treasure tokens off Smothering Tithe / Dockside Extortionist, or you're an equipment-based deck, or you have a bunch of big X spells you want to cast, then Inspiring Statuary can be generating absurd amounts of value. It's a little like Earthcraft in its ability to turn an expendable resource into absurd amounts of mana.

I'm currently running it in my Thada Adel, Acquisitor deck - I have a fair number of equipment to tap, and plenty of expensive spells to cast, plus Thada can always find more artifacts to tap. It's not uncommon for Inspiring Statuary to be generating 4+ mana. On the other hand, I'm not running it in my Sharuum the Hegemon deck - most of my expensive spells are artifacts, and I really want my mana rocks to be able to pay for abilities. It might still be right to be running it there though.... I should probably test it out sometime.

[Sinis]

Friday, January 7th, 2022; Inspiring Statuary

I really like this card, but it's only really good with things that make artifact tokens; since you can't cast artifacts with it, you probably wouldn't include it in a deck with a high density of artifacts. It's an interesting tension, to be sure.

Maybe it'd be good in equipment decks, too? Since equipment rarely needs to tap for anything, and between creatures, equipment itself, and equip costs, it'd be nice to defray costs (even if you can only defray the cost of casting creatures.

[hyalopterouslemur]

The trick is to find artifacts with abilities which don't require a t. But even then, yes, it's very antilinear.

[pokken]

I love this card but have never successfully put it in a deck. It's just such a neat space. I like convoke too. Just fun way to cheat on mana but in a fairly balanced fashion

[3drinks]

Saturday, January 8th, 2022; Mindclaw Shaman

[TheAmericanSpirit]

Not bad in theory. You only need to get a 3 drop for this to be basically even value. However, the odds of blanking outweigh the odds of hitting a 7 cmc bomb in today's EDH metagame, so I'd provably just find a better 5 drop (not hard).

[Jemolk]

Played this back in the day in my Bolas deck. Seemed like a good card at the time, but it only ever managed anything worthwhile once or twice in all the years I played it. But when it did, boy was that great.

This card is one of the reasons I kinda wish Wishes worked in EDH -- It's so overly narrow, and rather overcosted most of the time as well, but so brilliantly flavorful for a Bolas deck, and so funny when you can make it work. Hell, even a 5-mana Cultivate in Grixis can be worth it, but you can never count on it not just completely whiffing and having spent 5 mana on a vanilla 2/2. If I could only pull it in against the occasional spellslinger deck, though....

[Mookie]

Mindclaw Shaman is sweet. I don't think it's a particularly strong card, but it's certainly fun - I'll never forget the time I snagged a Tooth and Nail (and entwined it!) with it while playing my Animar deck.

The main issue with Mindclaw Shaman is that it is extremely high variance - unless you have a Telepathy effect, it's difficult to know what your opponents are holding. You can't even control it by bouncing something back to hand with an Unsummon - instead, you need to rely on the chance of your opponent both having something in hand and it being something you're interested in casting - snagging a counterspell or board wipe usually isn't what you want, nor are X spells like Torment of Hailfire.

....still, could be fun if you're playing a deck like Nekusar, the Mindrazer that can keep its opponents' hands full. Alternatively, could be a good meta call if your meta is particularly heavy on instants/sorceries. May also be reasonable disruption against combo decks, since red doesn't have a lot of tools to interact with its opponents' hands.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Not bad. Depends on your opponents. Like, I would gladly use this with a removal spell or some direct damage or card draw or ramp. Possibly even a combat trick or a blink. The big problem is landing on a counterspell or a fog or a removal spell you can't even use. If all the spells are that, we have a problem.

[Igzex]

I got a bit of use out of this guy back in the day. Even when it missed, it still gives the table information about what the leading player was holding onto. Can't imagine it being worth it anymore nowadays.

[Wallycaine]

You can't even control it by bouncing something back to hand with an Unsummon

Pulsemage Advocate's time to shine!

[3drinks]

Some day I'm gonna rez this with Alesha and hit a Cruel Ultimatum.........

[DirkGently]

They should make a commander that does Telepathy and uses a bunch of (new) cards like this. In theory it's super cool but the inconsistency is just too brutal.

[3drinks]

Sunday, January 9th, 2022; Orcish Lumberjack

[kirkusjones]

Sunday, January 9th, 2022; Orcish Lumberjack

This takes me back. Unsleeved, rubberbanded decks in my backpack with Lumberjack and Tinder Wall, trying to hit lethal with Kaervek's Torch…

[hyalopterouslemur]

This can be great with Crucible of Worlds or Sun Titan. And it doesn't even have to be an untapped forest.

[Mookie]

Orcish Lumberjack is a pretty absurd card. Obviously, sacrificing a land is a pretty massive cost and somewhat counterproductive for a mana dork to do. On the other hand, it's a 1-drop that taps for three mana, which is approaching Black Lotus territory. Dropping a 5-drop on turn 2 can certainly be worth it, even if it does cost a land. I would generally expect to see it more in cEDH-style decks that are looking to win extremely quickly, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see it in a deck like Lord Windgrace that both cares about lands and has a bunch of recursion for them. If you have Life from the Loam or another way to recur your sacrificed lands, Orcish Lumberjack becomes much more convenient to use.

[3drinks]

Orcish Lumberjack is a pretty absurd card. Obviously, sacrificing a land is a pretty massive cost and somewhat counterproductive for a mana dork to do. On the other hand, it's a 1-drop that taps for three mana, which is approaching Black Lotus territory. Dropping a 5-drop on turn 2 can certainly be worth it, even if it does cost a land. I would generally expect to see it more in cEDH-style decks that are looking to win extremely quickly, but I also wouldn't be surprised to see it in a deck like Lord Windgrace that both cares about lands and has a bunch of recursion for them. If you have Life from the Loam or another way to recur your sacrificed lands, Orcish Lumberjack becomes much more convenient to use.

I used to do this to run out a T2 Uril, the Miststalker. Follow up with Rancor and watch the table scramble.

[Sinis]

Sunday, January 9th, 2022; Orcish Lumberjack

This card felt so broken back in Ice Age. I had still have this deck, it was super fun, though it probably needed more card draw:

An Old Deck from a Cafeteria Table

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Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Creatures

4 Orcish Lumberjack|ICE

4 Tinder Wall|ICE

4 Kird Ape|3ED

4 Earth Elemental|4ED

4 Erhnam Djinn|CHR

Enchantments

4 Stormbind|ICE

Sorceries

4 Pyroclasm|ICE

Instants

4 Lightning Bolt|4ED

4 Incinerate|ICE

Lands

4 Karplusan Forest|ICE

10 Mountain|ICE

10 Forest|ICE

Approximate Total Cost:

[Hermes_]

I'm a lumberjack and that's okay

[TheGildedGoose]

Sunday, January 9th, 2022; Orcish Lumberjack

This card felt so broken back in Ice Age. I had still have this deck, it was super fun, though it probably needed more card draw:

An Old Deck from a Cafeteria Table

Show

Hide

Decklist

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Creatures

4 Orcish Lumberjack|ICE

4 Tinder Wall|ICE

4 Kird Ape|3ED

4 Earth Elemental|4ED

4 Erhnam Djinn|CHR

Enchantments

4 Stormbind|ICE

Sorceries

4 Pyroclasm|ICE

Instants

4 Lightning Bolt|4ED

4 Incinerate|ICE

Lands

4 Karplusan Forest|ICE

10 Mountain|ICE

10 Forest|ICE

Approximate Total Cost:

Rad. T2 Erhnam is serious business. Would've liked to see Juggernaut instead of Earth Elemental to better capitalize on the Lumberjack though maybe surviving Bolt was more relevant.