[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Vault 101: Birthday Party

[onering]

Didn't the used to be an absolute staple? The tutor ability is always relevant, grabbing Crypt for free or Sol Ring or Vault for 1, his + ability untaps those for serious ramp, and he tutors other very relevant artifacts at need, to the battlefield, and you can often do so the turn he comes into play. Even at 5cmc, he's great.

Bonus little known fact, Tezz 1.0 has an ultimate.

[hyalopterouslemur]

Well, the first one is "untap two artifacts, which can be uaed for mana rocks, just as Garruk c an for lands, but there's so much moar. That alone justifies Tezzere.

The second is a tutor, another ability which would on its own justify including Tezzeret especially since you don't have to cast it.

The third ability does what Overrun does, bur better.

[toctheyounger]

I feel like Tezz 1 was the first truly playable planeswalker, along with Garruk 1. Both had immediately relevant abilities in the early stages of casting and ultimates that were both reasonable to hit and useful once hit. They kind of paved the way for the more 'Swiss army knife' design that most walkers printed these days have, a design i really like. Walkers shouldn't just be a ticking time bomb for an emblem or a game ending ultimate.

Tezz definitely doesn't see as much as play as he should. He has the potential to be mana positive within a turn of being cast, or of getting your best utility artifact into play immediately. Thats frankly pretty incredible value. I feel like he ought to see more play, and that he's one of the few walkers that justifies his fairly reasonable price tag these days.

I currently run him in Emry and he's been incredibly versatile.

[Mookie]

Tezzeret the Seeker is excellent - my general heuristic for tutors is that they're a fair price at three mana, so getting a 4-drop for only five mana is an excellent rate. I frequently fetch up Phyrexian Metamorph in my Sharuum deck as a combo piece, but using him to ramp by grabbing an artifact land or just grabbing a random utility artifact is also excellent. Alternatively, just tick up and produce a bunch of mana like Garruk Wildspeaker (or give artifact creatures pseudo-vigilance). The ultimate is pretty niche, but animating your artifacts for an alpha strike is certainly capable of closing out a game.

Doesn't protect himself, but all the modes are good, and using him as a sorcery to fetch a 4-drop is an excellent base case. If you're not running lots of artifacts, he obviously goes down in value significantly.

[Igzex]

I never cared for Planeswalkers that only give me little things as I uptick and pray for an ult that will never happen which is why I love cards like Tezzeret the Seeker. Get it to resolve, activate the middle ability, and drop something like Static Orb and now the momentum is all mine. Forget upticking I got your ult right here.

[3drinks]

Friday, October 1st, 2021; Witch's Cauldron

I like this. It's 1 mana value and generates CA. Great EoT effect, but poor if you're on aristocrats and need to mass sac. Reminds me of Etherium Astrolabe, but for creatures. Even works with Salvaging Station if someone actually spends removal on your one drop.

[PrimevalCommander]

Good card, but taps to activate, unlike Vampiric Rites. Close enough in use to almost be discussed together. Being an artifact can have relevant upside over rites, but ability to activate more than once per turn cycle is likely more valuable in all but corner cases. Glissa the Traitor may have a place for this.

If you like cheap artifacts in black, you'll love Executioner's Capsule too as part of your Salvaging station or Trinket Mage package.

[Sinis]

Friday, October 1st, 2021; Witch's Cauldron

I like this. It's 1 mana value and generates CA. Great EoT effect, but poor if you're on aristocrats and need to mass sac. Reminds me of Etherium Astrolabe, but for creatures. Even works with Salvaging Station if someone actually spends removal on your one drop.

Hard to justify over Vampiric Rites, but this isn't a 'strictly better' case: You can find Witch's Cauldron with Trinket Mage or Artificer's Intuition.

[BeneTleilax]

Culling Dais is both free to activate and more hipster points. I use that for artifact synergies (where its self-sacrifice and counter use are upsides) and the aforementioned rites otherwise. Given that all are less than a dollar, I can only really see someone using Cauldron because it's what they had on hand. That's fine, it performs its function in the deck, but also if you are running this I will give you a Vampiric Rites I have like five spare.

[Hawk]

Obviously the premier "kill your own dudes for fun and cards" artifact is Skullclamp which doesn't explicitly kill, but is generally better. For these kind of effects, I also tend to agree that I prefer Vampiric Rites for being activatable multiple times per round. More realistically - if I'm playing Aristocrats.dec what really matters to me is that my sacrifice outlets cost 0 to activate, and I'm far more inclined to run the altars (or Altar of Dementia) or to run Viscera Seer, Nantuko Husk, Yahenni, Undying Partisan, and any number of similar redundant effects.

This is unique as an artifact though - it is fetchable with Trinket Mage, adds to devotion, and draws you a card immediately regardless of creature size which gives it some narrow occasional upsides over Rites, Clamp, Culling Dais, and other outlets. A fine budget option that might even be a preferred option somewhere like Glissa, the Traitor.

[Mookie]

I've tested Vampiric Rites in my Teysa deck in the past, but it got cut pretty quickly - two mana to sacrifice a creature adds up really fast. In my experience, it's preferable to have free sac outlets and triggered card draw like Grim Haruspex. Still, a lot of those cards require nontoken creatures, so maybe if your deck is capable of generating a bunch of mana and tokens, but not many nontoken creatures? Hmmm.... I could imagine that happening in a deck like Izoni, Thousand-Eyed, but Izoni already has this ability.

Anyway, Witch's Cauldron looks like a worse version of Vampiric Rites due to its tap limitation. I suppose one upside is that it can be fetched by Trinket Mage and Artificer's Intuition - there aren't many one-mana draw engines, so it can be a nice option to toolbox for. I will note that Witch's Oven is superior as a fetchable sac outlet though, again due to its free activation.

[3drinks]

Culling Dais is both free to activate and more hipster points. I use that for artifact synergies (where its self-sacrifice and counter use are upsides) and the aforementioned rites otherwise. Given that all are less than a dollar, I can only really see someone using Cauldron because it's what they had on hand. That's fine, it performs its function in the deck, but also if you are running this I will give you a Vampiric Rites I have like five spare.

I can find this with my Hoarding Dragon, and I do have artifact synergies in Kaalia, Zenith Seeker for it as well as not having much need in repeatable sacs as much as turning something into a card (Butcher of the Horde does the repeatable thing for me though). Probably not as good as Claws of Gix though, but generating CA is relevant.

Meanwhile I don't really care about enchantments there, so I don't need rites. As I said though, it's got it's niche and I'm certainly happy it exists.

[hyalopterouslemur]

I like this. It's 1 mana value and generates CA.

No it doesn't. Not on its own. Unless you mean gaining 1 life, which can be used for more profitable engines. But I don't think you meant that. Or maybe you meant Grave Pact-like cards?

[Wallycaine]

I like this. It's 1 mana value and generates CA.

No it doesn't. Not on its own. Unless you mean gaining 1 life, which can be used for more profitable engines. But I don't think you meant that. Or maybe you meant Grave Pact-like cards?

It depends on what you're sacrificing. Yes, if you're only sacrificing creatures that "cost" you a card, then it's a net neutral on card advantage, since you give up the creature for drawing a random card. On the other hand, if you're sacrificing tokens you got as part of a side effect from a card or recursive creatures, it's clearly gaining you card advantage. Even without those, this can be card advantage against removal, since you can sacrifice in response to targetted or mass removal to draw a card for a creature that was going to die anyways.

[3drinks]

I do think this compares roughly equivalent to the Witch's Oven as Mookie said before. You trade the free sac outlet for a food (that's not always relevant), for a two mana value draw a card, typically more relevant. In my own case since I do care about artifact counts, this could make sense. It's probably correct to play both at that point, and typically after ashnod's altar if you have one anyway.

Honestly if there was a witch's oven that investigated instead of baked a pie, that'd be the best of both worlds.

[onering]

One fringe benefit here is that if your in a janky meta you can play it's friends, Bogbrew witch and festering newt. The witch searches up both the cauldron and the newt, and the newt gives something -4/-4 when it dies if the witch is out. Which is extremely mediocre, and asks you to spend 10BBB to gain a life, draw a card, kill something, and be left with a 1/3 and a mediocre sac outlet. But hey, jank commander is a thing, and specifically it's a thing I recommend playing every once in awhile, and this trio plus a way to recur the newt is a fun, underpowered 4 card engine.

[Wallycaine]

One fringe benefit here is that if your in a janky meta you can play it's friends, Bogbrew witch and festering newt. The witch searches up both the cauldron and the newt, and the newt gives something -4/-4 when it dies if the witch is out. Which is extremely mediocre, and asks you to spend 10BBB to gain a life, draw a card, kill something, and be left with a 1/3 and a mediocre sac outlet. But hey, jank commander is a thing, and specifically it's a thing I recommend playing every once in awhile, and this trio plus a way to recur the newt is a fun, underpowered 4 card engine.

You're thinking of Bubbling Cauldron, rather than this card. Bogbrew Witch would be much much stronger if she could fetch this instead.

[3drinks]

Saturday, October 2nd, 2021; Velomachus Lorehold

[materpillar]

I completely ignored this card during spoiler season. At the pre-release my friend opened the good art.

I saw it and was like "That art is sweet. I wanna build a deck around it." I threw together a token/polymorph deck. I intentionally built it at a slightly lower powerlevel for playing with randos. The primary gameplan is tokens. It's got spell doubling/polymorph/planeswalker subthemes. I have an absolute blast playing it. It's incredibly fun to cast Velomachus Lorehold, swing in and cast Release the Dogs and then cast it again with Double Vision. That's obviously not strong enough for a lot of meta-games but I really love playing this deck in meta-games where that is good enough. The deck has a ton going on and plays way different than all the normal boros/equipment/combat decks. Actually, I like this deck enough I should promote it into my signature. Sorry, Jaya.

[hyalopterouslemur]

I like this. It's 1 mana value and generates CA.

No it doesn't. Not on its own. Unless you mean gaining 1 life, which can be used for more profitable engines. But I don't think you meant that. Or maybe you meant Grave Pact-like cards?

It depends on what you're sacrificing. Yes, if you're only sacrificing creatures that "cost" you a card, then it's a net neutral on card advantage, since you give up the creature for drawing a random card. On the other hand, if you're sacrificing tokens you got as part of a side effect from a card or recursive creatures, it's clearly gaining you card advantage. Even without those, this can be card advantage against removal, since you can sacrifice in response to targetted or mass removal to draw a card for a creature that was going to die anyways.

More a case that tokens are card advantage, and Skullclamp is better.

Anyway, Velomachus Lorehold...wait, battle of...arrows? Vectors? Vellomachus might work better. (Vellum is calf skin used as parchment. Pen is mightiwr than the sword and all that.)

Doesn't take much to make this a free anything without an X. You just need four +1/+1 counters to use the winds.

[Mookie]

Velomachus Lorehold is sweet - you could build it as yet another Boros combat commander with a bunch of extra combat step spells (although Narset, Enlightened Master arguably does that better), but there are a also lot of other directions you can go - free spells are pretty good no matter how you build around them. The base case of 'big, hasty dragon' is also very reasonable. I also very much appreciate the 'less than or equal to power' clause - it makes the trigger significantly more fair than Narset, but it's also possible to build around that using equipment / other pump effects.

[onering]

One fringe benefit here is that if your in a janky meta you can play it's friends, Bogbrew witch and festering newt. The witch searches up both the cauldron and the newt, and the newt gives something -4/-4 when it dies if the witch is out. Which is extremely mediocre, and asks you to spend 10BBB to gain a life, draw a card, kill something, and be left with a 1/3 and a mediocre sac outlet. But hey, jank commander is a thing, and specifically it's a thing I recommend playing every once in awhile, and this trio plus a way to recur the newt is a fun, underpowered 4 card engine.

You're thinking of Bubbling Cauldron, rather than this card. Bogbrew Witch would be much much stronger if she could fetch this instead.

Damn, there goes that jank

[RxPhantom]

Velomachus Lorehold is cool. I run him in General Ferrous Rokiric because, ya know, duh. It's performed better than expected. It's a fun ability to resolve and it doesn't feel oppressive.

[Igzex]

His triggered ability is the most izzet thing I ever seen and here we go giving it to a Boros person. The haste is what really completes this package. I'd almost run him in my The Ur-Dragon build if my sorceries and instants weren't just all ramp and removal at this point.

[Serenade]

I also never understood how the Lorehold elder dragon fit in with the rest of his path. Hofri Ghostforge does the flavor better.