[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Archfiend of Depravity

[Serenade]

I am not the biggest fan of the tracking and the negatives here. Just so wordy. If you're running tribal, and you're the chosen opponent, you're golden. Otherwise they could steal whatever. Got it.

I first encountered it in early EDH days, and that's where it stayed. Sower of Temptation replaced it for a while, but as the format shifted away from battlecruiser, we got away from SoT as well. If you threw a red mana on here instead of colorless and gave it haste, I'd run it in Nin in a heartbeat. Otherwise it's just nice to see that old border.

[RxPhantom]

I just put Callous Oppressor into my Merieke Ri Berit deck, but it's now just a placeholder for the Secret Lair Empress Galina|71902, whenever that arrives.

[Crazy Monkey]

I've looked at Callous Oppressor before, but never played it.

I also had not thought about it with Mairsil, the Pretender on the mind before. As there is not a named type, that's an unbounded theft effect. Nifty.

[onering]

This really shouldn't be so obscure. anything that can steal something every turn is pretty awesome in the right deck. It's reasonably flexible, either steal something and keep this tapped to keep it, or steal something and sacrifice it for value, then repeat next turn (or with an untap). Generally it will steal almost everything, and its a neat choice trying to figure out which opponent you should choose to pick a creature type. Yeah, it's not game breaking and it is telegraphed, but it seems like an extremely solid value engine in the right deck.

[Sinis]

Friday, June 24th, 2022; Callous Oppressor

An ironic day for this to show up.

[Legend]

Friday, June 24th, 2022; Callous Oppressor

An ironic day for this to show up.

You spelled "iconic" wrong.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Friday, June 24th, 2022; Callous Oppressor

An ironic day for this to show up.

John the Baptist? Founding of Manila?

This card is good in Mairsil, the Pretender, but all that "opponents choose" and memory issues keep it out of the 99 in other decks.

[DirkGently]

I love this type of effect, loved it since the early aughts. Unless you're way ahead there's probably someone willing to let you steal the best creature on the board, and it only costs 3. Extra good with a sac outlet.

[3drinks]

Saturday, June 25th, 2022; Scourge of Kher Ridges

[Serenade]

You know when you open a bunch of Future Sight, hoping to pull a Tarmogoyf? I always got this guy.

[TheAmericanSpirit]

You know when you open a bunch of Future Sight, hoping to pull a Tarmogoyf? I always got this guy.

You think you had it bad. I think I traded a goyf for one of them at the prerelease.

[Hawk]

There was a brief time, fairly early in the history of EDH, where this card was decent imo. Even with immediate competition at printing from Ryusei, the Falling Star and Bogardan Hellkite this was a big, splashy, powerful dargon with text that could take over the game and it was at least near-strictly better than Shivan Hellkite as far as a manasink machine gun for dragon decks.

Of course power creep happens, and these days I think it loses out as a mana-sink to Inferno of the Star Mounts and Moonveil Dragon and as "removal on a dragon stick" to Tyrant's Familiar, Balefire Dragon, Steel Hellkite, and Drakuseth, Maw of Flames. More broadly, the top-end of dragon decks now have mega-value bonanza dragons like Ancient Copper Dragon, Hellkite Tyrant, Utvara Hellkite, and Lathliss, Dragon Queen which make it tough to justify a slower engine like this one - I don't even run a lot of that so-called competition I just mentioned.

It still has a niche though - none of the above are a repeatable boardwipe that interacts well with Lifelink or Deathtouch. If you are running lots of ways to grant that effect, this is interesting. Also interesting to consider this in an Enrage deck; most enrage spam is dino tribal but Vrondiss, Rage of Ancients should probably consider this as a flavorful, casual budget replacement or redundancy effect for Pyrohemia .

[Mookie]

Scourge of Kher Ridges definitely seems like a victim of power creep. In a slower meta, I could see it being sweet - dumping mana into its Rough // Tumble abilities to control the board can dominate a game while you beat opponents down with a large flier. However, these days, I don't see a reason to run it - eight mana is a ton, and I also have concerns about spending 6+ mana to wipe the board instead of spending it on something more proactive. There are just too many more efficient dragons available these days.

...still, an upgrade over Roc of Kher Ridges.

[3drinks]

I still play it in Kaalia of the Vast all these years latre. Still hasn't been strictly outclassed for that at-will pyroclasm. In such context, I still favour it - though not strictly so - over Balefire Dragon in most use-cases.

[hyalopterouslemur]

6/6 for 8 is bad. That said, I can see the value of its abilities in a deck like Kaalia where all your creatures are going to have flying. And that mana cost is largely irrelevant.

[Igzex]

I did once try Wasitora, Nekoru Queen as a commander and built the deck around removals on a body like this guy, Visara the Dreadful, and Polukranos, World Eater so that people would not have sac fodder getting in the way of my precious Cat Dragon tokens. All the mana doublers in the world could not make that card or anything in that deck any less unwieldy (albeit still kinda funny when it managed to do things). Alas, this card is very much a relic of the times where all dragon cards were terrible.

[3drinks]

Sunday, June 26th, 2022; Avacyn's Memorial

Wow. I missed this spoiler.

[Sinis]

I have yet to see anyone play Avacyn's Memorial. White seems better at "just play Avacyn". I suppose there's a boros artifact-themed deck that wants this out there, where they have access to Goblin Welder or Trash for Treasure before creature reanimates, but I don't know if I want to run both.

This card just feels weak for cost, and I don't really know what deck wants to run it.

[Mookie]

What if we took Avacyn, Angel of Hope, one of the splashiest white finishers, and:

• Made it unable to attack / block
• Made the indestructible effect only apply to legends, instead of everything
• Made it harder to cheat out / reanimate
• Remove any angel tribal synergies

So... yeah. I would say that Avacyn's Memorial is a pretty significant downgrade... which is a pity, given that Akroma's Memorial is a pretty sweet sidegrade/upgrade over Akroma, Angel of Wrath. There might be some niche cases where you prefer the Memorial due to artifact synergies, but even then, you still need a very high density of legendary cards to justify running it over the original Avacyn.

[Serenade]

There is the monetary value. AAOH could have used a reprint.

[onering]

Wow that sucks.

[Crazy Monkey]

As others have said, this is almost always just worse than Avacyn. I play it in a legendary dragons only deck, where an angel wouldn't make the cut. I have also considered it as a swap over Avacyn to intentionally de-powered a deck. I can not think of another use case beyond theme and power limitations.

[RxPhantom]

Avacyn's Memorial clearly sucks, but at what cost would this have been playable? At what cost would it have been good but not too good? Finally, at what cost would it have been busted in the right deck?

EDIT: I just read the flavor text. It's hilarious that it has indestructible despite being made of "wood, straw, twine, and clay." It does respect the oxford comma, so that's cool.

[illakunsaa]

If this was like 4 maybe 5 mana it would be playable. You could have your commander survive various wraths that white plays. Compare it to Bastion Protector which kinda does the same thing but also gives stats and costs 3 mana.

[Gentle Giant]

Hey, if the OG Avacyn costs $44, I'm more than willing to use this. Also, in low-powered this is much less oppressive than the actual angel. It's a lot less 'goodstuff' and I like the direction it asks you to go for: legendary is a nice theme.

So yeah, worse than Avacyn, but a nicer card because of it imo