MTGNexus

Card advantage is always nice on a Hill Giant body.

One of many cards that I'd be all about if it cost one less. Not impactful enough at the 4 CMC slot for my taste.

Cascade is one of my favorite mechanics, so I was pretty happy when Treasure Keeper was printed. As for the card itself... it has a bit too vanilla of a body to justify running most of the time. Could be good in a deck like Meren of Clan Nel Toth or Glissa, the Traitor though - recur it every turn to generate more value. Given that you're getting a free spell out of it, paying four mana isn't that expensive, assuming you get enough value from whatever you're sacrificing it to.

Interesting to compare with Matter Reshaper, who does a similar task.

I run Matter Reshaper over Mr. Keeper in Meren. Reshaper gives you the choice to put the card into your hand and costs less. In Meren, Reshaper also comes back earlier and it can be recurred with Unearth and Cavalier of Night. It also ramps — Keeper does not

Saturday, September 14th, 2019; Invocation of Saint Traft



#BuildYourOwnGeist

Invocation of Saint Traft is.... pretty underwhelming. Most auras I see played are part of a voltron strategy, for a commander like Rafiq of the Many or Tuvasa the Sunlit. However, Invocation doesn't help that strategy, since it doesn't provide any keywords, protection, power boost, evasion... or anything else, really. It just gives you a 4/4 when your creature attacks, which is.... pretty underwhelming, as things go.

It might have some use if you really care about ETB triggers, are running Populate cards, or have a sacrifice outlet for the tokens. However, I think I would usually favor a different token producer over Invocation. It is a fairly efficient from a size-to-cost ratio, but the token not sticking around makes it pretty underwhelming. I'd recommend Moonsilver Spear if you really want repeatable Angel token generation.

A 4/4 flying token is admittedly nice because proliferate, and something you can put on Invisible Stalker, but generally not as good as most of the swords you could use here instead. (You can still use Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Blood and Sinew. The one sword that might be a problem is Sword of Body and Mind, which should only be played if you already have an active Bloodchief Ascension or something like Leyline of the Void, or you're playing reanimator yourself.)

Even for a 4/4 flying token, Divine Visitation is just better all around: It costs more, sure, but you can use it pretty much immediately, and it goes in more decks, including decks where you're already making a lot of tokens.

If enchanted creature has hexproof, it would be a great Aura and true to its origins.

hyalopterouslemur wrote: ↑

4 years ago

A 4/4 flying token is admittedly nice because proliferate, and something you can put on Invisible Stalker, but generally not as good as most of the swords you could use here instead. (You can still use Sword of Feast and Famine and Sword of Blood and Sinew. The one sword that might be a problem is Sword of Body and Mind, which should only be played if you already have an active Bloodchief Ascension or something like Leyline of the Void, or you're playing reanimator yourself.)

Even for a 4/4 flying token, Divine Visitation is just better all around: It costs more, sure, but you can use it pretty much immediately, and it goes in more decks, including decks where you're already making a lot of tokens.

Wut? How exactly are you proliferating a token? That's not uhh...that's not how this works.

Probably meant populate.

Serenade wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Probably meant populate.

Oh, right. Duh, haha.

Fun fact, I've made the same slip-up enough times that my Ghired is named proliferate.cod on Cockatrice That said, the card's cute and all, but ultimately not super useful in EDH land. I've seen a guy slinging Moonsilver Spear in Aurelia, not sure if it's still there or not given the existence of Flying Anvil or not.

Sunday, September 15th, 2019; Well of Lost Dreams



Probably the best life gain payoff card ever.

Ultimate combo piece with Pristine Talisman.

Well of Lost Dreams is one of the best draw engines available for a lifegain-focused deck. A 1:1 ratio of mana:cards is really efficient, and pretty much always worth paying. Lifegain is also an action that you will usually have a lot of control over, which can make it more convenient than holding open mana for Mind's Eye.

I would have said that one of the downsides of building your deck around Well is that you only get one copy of it, but we have a second(ish) version in Dawn of Hope now. And that is ignoring all of the use-life-as-a-resource cards, like Necropotence and Ad Nauseam.

Also: works well with Words of Worship. There are lots of other ways to gain life too though.

Ridiculous if you know what you're doing. With a Mirrodin lucky charm, this becomes "All COLOR spells have kicker 1 and "If this spell was kicked, draw a card.""

3drinks wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Probably the best life gain payoff card ever.

No, that goes to Aetherflux Reservoir.

I still like Well of Lost Dreams though.

3drinks wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Sunday, September 15th, 2019; Well of Lost Dreams

Remains pretty great for lifegain, but that 4-mana buy-in is so hefty. I can't complain, though; it definitely pays for itself in fairly short order.

3drinks wrote: ↑

4 years ago

The first card that came to mind when i put together my Kambal, Consul of Allocation life gain/drain deck.
I've had games where people started killing Soul Warden and Soul's Attendant ASAP just because they couldn't deal with an artifact at the time. That's just how good the card is when left alone. I once got to untap with it and Venser's Journal. Good times.
Plus, it's very rewarding to draw cards off Glimmerpost, Kabira Crossroads, Radiant Fountain, Scoured Barrens and Seraph Sanctuary.

Monday, September 16th, 2019; Temporary Truce

Yeah, I'm taking the two cards every time. But also "holy terse rules text, batman" - my brain needed to read that an extra couple of times.

I wonder if anybody in the history of the game ever took the life. On the other hand, once upon a time a particularly weird Fact or Fiction had me 5-0 a guy, which was somehow optimal, and them he binned the five, which was also optimal. Stranger things have happened.

That said, not playing this anywhere. Without checking EDHREC, I'm willing to bet Hippo's the most common commander for this.

run with mind's eye

Rumpy5897 wrote: ↑

4 years ago

That said, not playing this anywhere. Without checking EDHREC, I'm willing to bet Hippo's the most common commander for this.

Hippo followed by kynaios and Tiro of Meletis and lastly, Selvala, Explorer Returned

Hermes_ wrote: ↑

4 years ago

run with mind's eye

Rumpy5897 wrote: ↑

4 years ago

That said, not playing this anywhere. Without checking EDHREC, I'm willing to bet Hippo's the most common commander for this.

Hippo followed by kynaios and Tiro of Meletis and lastly, Selvala, Explorer Returned

Similarly, I guess in any deck with Con Sphinx.

edit: Actually, we're all wrong. It appears most often in Elesh Norn............

Weird.

3drinks wrote: ↑

4 years ago

Similarly, I guess in any deck with Con Sphinx.

edit: Actually, we're all wrong. It appears most often in Elesh Norn............

Weird.

It's in 1 Elesh Norn list and 29 Phelddagrif lists on that site, so I'm not sure where you're getting that. Hermes_ listed out the top 3.

I don't think white is so hard up for card draw that this is an actual good option. I'd relegate it to niche lists where you're both trying to get your opponents to draw cards (though it doesn't force the draw, so it's not even particularly good at that) and you're in white, which probably cuts the potential list down to almost nothing.