[mtgnexus] Random Card of the Day - Samwise the Stouthearted

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pokken
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

This is one of the few things I run in Maelstrom Wanderer that I classify as an answer; but it's also a wincondition, because that deck tends to create big board stalls before it swings, and sometimes plays 4 or 5 lands in a turn. I've more than once stolen an entire board to break a board stall with multiple fetchlands.

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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 4 years ago

onering wrote:
4 years ago
hyalopterouslemur wrote:
4 years ago
Serenade wrote:
4 years ago
EDIT: If they ever banned tutoring, which I hope they do, this card is the only one I would miss.
Cards like this (tutoring for basic lands or basic land types) aren't really in the same category as Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, and friends. Neither is Diabolic Tutor or Beseech the Queen or "I'm only played because my owner is nouveau riche af" Imperial Seal*, but for different reasons.

*How do I explain this?
Broke: Instant-speed topdeck for b and seriously you're actually worried about shocking yourself?
Joke: Sorcery-speed topdeck, regardless of what it costs.
Woke: Understanding that a strictly worse card isn't worth an additional $400, especially taking a whole extra turn.

Oh, anyway, I do like this. As I said, I don't consider it a tutor, more like a fetch that you crack form your hand. It's great color-fixing in 3+ colors, and it even has benefits like graveyard-filling. You can even use it for colorless mana if you're using Kozilek's buddies.
On the imperial seal price thing: it's $2.30 on modo. It's a lot easier and cheaper to build tuned decks there because you only need one copy for all your decks and no reserve list. ABU duals are pretty cheap too. It really opens up deckbuilding options because you can put what would be a few grand worth of cards in paper into a wacky idea to boost it and not feel like it's a waste.
My issue with it is its speed, or lack thereof. Sorcery and a topdeck? The reason Vamp Tutor and friends work is because they're instants: At worst, I can play it just before the guy to my right ends his turn. At best, I'll have a card draw spell or activated ability right there. At absolute worst, Mesmeric Orb exists.

Anyway, Roil Elemental looks good. Adds 3 to devotion. Can easily steal a whole army. Why isn't this played more? Oh. Yeah. That.
Last edited by hyalopterouslemur 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

As a six mana, 3/2 flier, Roil Elemental is pretty fragile. Still, stealing creatures is a pretty strong landfall trigger. I could see it doing a lot of work in a Tatyova, Benthic Druid or Omnath, Locus of the Roil deck. Your opponents are very highly incentivized to kill it though, so I wouldn't expect it to stick around for that long unless you can protect it - how good it is will usually be inversely proportional to how much removal your opponents are playing.

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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

3drinks wrote:
4 years ago
Saturday, November 2nd, 2019; Roil Elemental
I've played with it and it has won me games. Obviously it's fragile, but, I think that requires some context: lots of cards in this format that we pay 6 mana for die to a Doomblade without giving much back. I don't think it's exceptional, but I also don't think it's unplayable.

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Post by onering » 4 years ago

Very swingy but needs either reliable protection or a cheap, preferably free, sac outlet. Getting this bolted doesn't feel as bad when you can just feed all the stolen creatures to goblin bombardment or Sadistic Hypnotist before you lose them.

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Post by The_Hittite » 4 years ago

You can also perma-steal creatures with Conjurer's Closet if you prefer that option.

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Post by Rorseph » 4 years ago

I've been thinking about a Roil Elemental for my Tatyova deck. Yes, it's fragile, but not really any more so than any other creature. I can definitely see it winning games.
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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

Rorseph wrote:
4 years ago
I've been thinking about a Roil Elemental for my Tatyova deck. Yes, it's fragile, but not really any more so than any other creature. I can definitely see it winning games.
If you're generating multiple land drops it's absolutely a valid wincon. Definitely would play it any landfall themed deck.

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Post by gilrad » 4 years ago

It fulfills the baseline requirements needed to be a win-condition: If unanswered, it can take over a game in 5-6 turns.

The problem is there are plenty of other cards that are better than this across those axis: consecrated sphinx and stormtide leviathan can dominate games if left unanswered for a single turn, and classics like inkwell leviathan or even the old sphinx of jwar isle can still get the job done eventually while being more difficult to answer.

Roil Elemental is kind of one of those classic examples of what used to be a solid third or fourth choice win condition back when the cardpool wasn't all that deep, but is now in that middling "run it if you specifically can take advantage of its special quirks, otherwise there are better choices" pool of cards.

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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

Sunday, November 3rd, 2019; Rewind


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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

I feel like this is a trap card. It lulls inexperienced players into thinking it's good because it's "free" but in reality they're still playing a 4cmc counter. And when they do this without an instant or other mana sink available, whoaboy.

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Post by Mookie » 4 years ago

I like the idea of Rewind - hold open mana, cast it if necessary, then untap lands and still cast Fact or Fiction or some other spell. The issue is that holding open four mana is significantly more difficult than holding open two mana for Counterspell or another two-mana counter, and the marginal upside of getting two extra mana to play with afterwards isn't really worth it, since it depends on having something else to spend the mana on. It's also really bad for fighting counter wars, since you don't get the refund until it resolves.

Still, could be good if you're playing a commander with a mana sink - Tasigur, the Golden Fang and Kefnet the Mindful both seem like natural fits.

The alternative way to run Rewind is to take advantage of the untap ability - if you have mana doublers or lands that tap for multiple mana, it can be mana-positive. I'm actually running it in my Mizzix deck because of this, since it works well with Mizzix's discount. It's also one of the better hits off Mind's Desire / Epic Experiment, again because it generates mana (at the cost of countering one of my own unnecessary spells, which is relatively minor).

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Post by pokken » 4 years ago

This card is great in lower power metas where you rate to be the only one with counterspells in volume. If there's a risk of getting it countered it's significantly worse.

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Post by FetalTadpole » 4 years ago

I played this in Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper, where it's a combat trick on top of being a counterspell, and even then it wasn't good enough to keep 4 mana up for.

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Post by MeowZeDung » 4 years ago

I would only play it in a draw-go style instants/flash deck. Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage, Baral, Chief of Compliance, Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper as mentioned, Talrand, Sky Summoner, or Niv-Mizzet, Parun could all use this and still have something to do with the mana before it comes back to their own turn.
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Post by hyalopterouslemur » 4 years ago

3drinks wrote:
4 years ago
I feel like this is a trap card. It lulls inexperienced players into thinking it's good because it's "free" but in reality they're still playing a 4cmc counter. And when they do this without an instant or other mana sink available, whoaboy.
It's not. It's just not as broken as the other Urza block free spells. (Well, technically, they had two shades of free, since Priest of Gix exists.)

N00bs might assume the point of this is simply lands that produce more than one mana like Tolarian Academy, mana doublers like High Tide, and cost reducers like Sapphire Medallion. The real point of this card is Stasis, Winter Orb, and (in Type 2 at the same time as this) Rising Waters. All free counters have a place in this strain of Stax deck; this, Thwart, and Daze have the added benefit of untapping/bouncing your own lands.

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Post by plushpenguin » 4 years ago

In decks with on board mana sinks, I like Unwind significantly more.

The difference between holding up 3 and 4 is huge, even with the slight downside of the newer version.

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Post by Sinis » 4 years ago

3drinks wrote:
4 years ago
Sunday, November 3rd, 2019; Rewind
I like this card, but it's not great the vast majority of the time. I only play it in extreme draw-go-with-mana-sink decks, like The Scarab God. In fact, TSG is the only deck I currently play it in.
Last edited by Sinis 4 years ago, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by toctheyounger » 4 years ago

4 is a LOT to hold up for answers, and it really needs to be able to make use of the untap somehow or some way. I can't see it in a deck without a mana sink. I've run it here and there in the past and it tends towards average unless it's in the right place.
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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

hyalopterouslemur wrote:
4 years ago
3drinks wrote:
4 years ago
I feel like this is a trap card. It lulls inexperienced players into thinking it's good because it's "free" but in reality they're still playing a 4cmc counter. And when they do this without an instant or other mana sink available, whoaboy.
It's not. It's just not as broken as the other Urza block free spells. (Well, technically, they had two shades of free, since Priest of Gix exists.)
Is it, though? Without the lands that tap for two, or something else in hand or on board to do, this is quite literally a four cmc generic answer. When it's great, it's really great, but it is situationally great because untapping lands only matters if you have something to do with it. I think, a condition one must be able to achieve, if one were to insist on a card being broken, is that it's a one card combo (Urza) or that on it's own it fundamentally reshapes the entire scope of the game. I'm very, very confident that Rewind just is not capable of this without assistance. If Rewind were, say, Frantic Search though, which is significantly stronger and more ubiqutious...and even then, frantic still isn't on it's own as it's a net -1 CA - it's just efficient, despite it's natural card disadvantage.

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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

Monday, October 4th, 2019; Mental Misstep. And, similarly, Spell Snare, Isolate, Disdainful Stroke


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Post by Dunharrow » 4 years ago

I mean, these are 4 different cards
Misstep is one of those interesting cards that is very playable in cEDH and absolutely awful in all other commander. Spell Snare operates in similar ground, but with slightly more use in 75% metas than misstep. I don't think I would play Isolate in any commander deck ever - It kills a mana dork fine but doesn't protect you from Swords to Plowshares or Nature's Claim.
Disdainful stroke is generally great... there are better counters in commander but I think this is better than anything that costs more than 2 mana.
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Post by tstorm823 » 4 years ago

Thought experiment time:

Mental Misstep was too good as a free counter for only 1 cmc. Spell Snare justifies the 1 mana, at least in Modern, so a free version would certainly be too good. But if a spell only countered 10 cmc spells, it would be unplayable everywhere, even if it was free and drew 3 cards. Additionally, just getting the number off of 1 so that MM couldn't counter itself would have avoided some play degeneracy. So question, if you were to fix Mental Misstep by only changing the cmc of the spell it targets, what number would you choose?

I think I would personally say 4 is the number.
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Post by 3drinks » 4 years ago

Dunharrow wrote:
4 years ago
I mean, these are 4 different cards
Misstep is one of those interesting cards that is very playable in cEDH and absolutely awful in all other commander. Spell Snare operates in similar ground, but with slightly more use in 75% metas than misstep. I don't think I would play Isolate in any commander deck ever - It kills a mana dork fine but doesn't protect you from Swords to Plowshares or Nature's Claim.
Disdainful stroke is generally great... there are better counters in commander but I think this is better than anything that costs more than 2 mana.
Like, Isolate hits sol rings, needles, skullclamps, mana vaults, and a lot of other quite potent 1 drops, regardless of colour or card type. I'd argue that's totally playable and currently very under valued. Hmm, I think I'm gonna suggest that to edhrec for their weekly challenge the stats segment, actually. Though, I'd have liked it to read more like "Exile target nonland permanent with cmc 1 or less", but that's just personal preference so it can hit crypt and various moxen.
tstorm823 wrote:
4 years ago
Thought experiment time:

Mental Misstep was too good as a free counter for only 1 cmc. Spell Snare justifies the 1 mana, at least in Modern, so a free version would certainly be too good. But if a spell only countered 10 cmc spells, it would be unplayable everywhere, even if it was free and drew 3 cards. Additionally, just getting the number off of 1 so that MM couldn't counter itself would have avoided some play degeneracy. So question, if you were to fix Mental Misstep by only changing the cmc of the spell it targets, what number would you choose?

I think I would personally say 4 is the number.
Honestly. All you'd have to do is;

Neo Misstep U
Instant
Counter target spell with converted mana cost 1 that doesn't share ~'s name.

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Post by Sharpened » 4 years ago

3drinks wrote:
4 years ago
hyalopterouslemur wrote:
4 years ago
3drinks wrote:
4 years ago
I feel like this is a trap card. It lulls inexperienced players into thinking it's good because it's "free" but in reality they're still playing a 4cmc counter. And when they do this without an instant or other mana sink available, whoaboy.
It's not. It's just not as broken as the other Urza block free spells. (Well, technically, they had two shades of free, since Priest of Gix exists.)
Is it, though? Without the lands that tap for two, or something else in hand or on board to do, this is quite literally a four cmc generic answer. When it's great, it's really great, but it is situationally great because untapping lands only matters if you have something to do with it. I think, a condition one must be able to achieve, if one were to insist on a card being broken, is that it's a one card combo (Urza) or that on it's own it fundamentally reshapes the entire scope of the game. I'm very, very confident that Rewind just is not capable of this without assistance. If Rewind were, say, Frantic Search though, which is significantly stronger and more ubiqutious...and even then, frantic still isn't on it's own as it's a net -1 CA - it's just efficient, despite it's natural card disadvantage.
I'm with you. The free spell mechanic is used poorly by Rewind, which in very rare cases is significantly worse than most 4 CMC counterspells.

The free mechanic has 2 primary uses-

Use 1: Generate mana by untapping lands that tap for more than 1 mana - Broken
Use 2: Cast a spell and still leave mana open - Powerful

The problem is both of those uses want to be on proactive spells, not reactive ones. As a reactive spell, Rewind is ill-suited to benefit from the mechanic.

Situations where it is better than something like Dismiss are few and far between (or require significant work to set up). It's not bad. It's just not good and there are tons of better alternatives.

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