#raotw

[cucumbers-and-olives]

random ask of the weekend: what’s your favorite thing that happened this week?

one of my teachers not realising that I didn't do the work and giving me full credit anyways?

[monoblueartificer]

Random Artifact of the Week #11 - Pentavus

Pentavus, part of a class of Artifact Creature that come into play with +1/+1 counters and can remove those +1/+1 counters for an effect.  In Pentavus’ case, the effect is a 1/1 flyer.  As with any card that deals in +1/+1 counters and creatures, there are a ton of combo partners for it.  It’s essentially a colorless Ghave, Guru of Spores.

Energy Chamber gives your Pentavus an extra +1/+1 counter every turn, and is decent in an artifact-heavy deck that is running cards with +1/+1 counters or charge counters.  Any proliferate cards also work well with Pentavus.  Ashnod’s Altar can let you turn those Pentavites into 2 colorless mana, add Blade of the Bloodchief, and you get a +1/+1 counter back for the effort.  Throw in Disciple of the Vault, and now you’re dealing 1 damage each time.  Doubling Season gives you a 10/10 Pentavus that can pump out 20 1/1s.  Favorable Winds makes those Pentavites into 2/2s.  Intangible Virtue makes them into 2/2s with Vigilance.

And I’m sure I’m missing some combos.

[monoblueartificer]

Random Artifact of the Week #9 - Bone Saw

Because this puts the random into Random Artifact of the Week...

"Hey freak show! You're going nowhere. I got you for three minutes. Three minutes of PLAYTIME!"

Oops, not that Bone Saw.  RIP Macho Man.

Incredibly off-topic, but I try my best Randy Savage impersonation every time this part of the movie comes up when my kids are watching it.  They love it, even though its god awful.

So, a zero-cost artifact.  Some of the most broken cards in the history of the game have been zero-cost artifacts.  It is really hard to find a card that isn’t too good when it’s free.  WotC succeeded in this card.  It’s not broken AT ALL.  To be fair, one could argue that this artifact is no really free, since it has an equip cost before it’s usable.  However, it has it’s uses before it is equipped.

In an affinity or metalcraft deck it is one more step to getting a bigger effect.  The main issue would be having a deck that needed a free artifact so bad that it included this card AFTER it had included other free/cheap artifacts.  Is it worth a slot in your 99?  That’s the question.  I suppose it can also be used for Master Transmuter fodder, so there is that.

Of course, you can always include it in a Spider-man or Evil Dead theme deck…  In which case, this is an awesome find.  You’re welcome...

[monoblueartificer]

Random Artifact of the Week #7 - Dingus Egg

A classic combo card.  This beauty existed in every core set up to Eighth Edition.  Dingus Egg was classically used with any card that destroyed a large number of lands or in decks where land destruction is a thing.  I would say that Dingus Egg isn’t just for MLD, but could also be used in Numot, the Devastator, potentially hitting for 10 total damage.  Shattergang Brothers would probably enjoy this card in their arsenal as well.  This card also taxes the fetch lands a bit.  Really to do the most with Dingus Egg, you need to be able to copy it.  Luckily, there are plenty of cards that allow that to happen.

Flavor wise, they did print a Dingus Staff in Weatherlight, which has a similar ability, but for creatures.  So, is there a Dingus Mage running around the multiverse?  Heh, Dingus Mage.  I believe that Dingus was just used as filler that stuck with the printing of the card, as dingus is used to denote something whose name the speaker cannot recall.  Or maybe that’s just what the evil Dingus Mage want’s you to believe...

[monoblueartificer]

Random Artifact of the Week #5 - Chariot of the Sun

This week we are back to an interesting artifact.  Chariot of the Sun never saw much use.  The fact that it has to target a creature you control AND gives it a toughness of one makes it fairly risky and keeps it from being actually interesting.  If you change either of those two restrictions, things open up.  If it could target any creature, then that gives it the ability to combo with a pinger for an easy kill.  If it didn’t give the creature a toughness of one, it could also be used as a cheap evasion source for colors with limited evasion (looking at you green!).

So, what could it still be used for?  I guess you could use it in a hydra deck, +1/+1 counter matters deck, or a Thromok the Insatiable deck for a evasive fatty.  Those +1/+1 counters keep the toughness from being one.  In fact, for most creatures with +1/+1 counters, it will increase their toughness by one!

The flavor of this card is very good.  Like Icarus knows, flying near the sun is risky!

[monoblueartificer]

Random Artifact of the Week #4 - Millstone

A much better card to talk about this week than last!  A card so original that they named a deck archetype after it.  In fact, in just about every other *CG that I have played (off the top of my head: A Game of Thrones, Netrunner, Call of Cthulhu, L5R, I’m sure I’m missing some), if removing cards from your opponents deck is a thing, they call it milling!  How awesome is that?  Millstone was originally printed in Antiquities and was one of the first cards to help the win condition of your opponent being unable to draw a card from their deck.  I’ll talk about it more in a bit...

Now, some people in MTG are really anti-mill, either because they feel it is a weak strategy that takes longer than straight-up taking an opponent to zero life, or because they hate it and feel the strategy is akin to denial decks.  I am a bit of a milling homer.  I love it, so I’ll try to address these two groups.  For the first group, I would say that the strategy depends on the format and meta.  In a limited environment, milling can be viable.  I milled most of my opponents during the Gatecrash pre-release weekend at the helm of a Dimir deck.  However, most people I faced were playing 40 card decks, really 33 card decks after they drew their hand.  In a constructed environment, milling can be a win condition for strong control decks.  For the second group who feel it is a d-bag move, I would hope that most decks can recover from losing a copy or two of a particular card.  It is almost as if knowing what cards were milled has a stronger psychological effect than if the cards were just placed face down…

There is actually one other reason that some feel milling is weak, in many formats the graveyard is a resource, and it is actually better to have a card in the graveyard than in the library.  So, if you are playing in such a format (like commander/edh) you have to run graveyard meta like Leyline of the Void.

Finally, milling in commander/edh can be a real challenge.  It has gotten a boost over the years, most recently in the form of Phenax, God of Deception.  Is Millstone great as part of your 99?  Eh…  I have it in my mill deck, mainly for happy memories of pulling it in a Revised booster as a young lad and as a respectful nod to the archetype’s namesake.  If I could get an Antiquities Millstone, it’d stay there for good.  But by itself, its not great for commander/edh milling.  Removing two cards out of 92 or less cards is not a great strategy, especially since you usually have more than one opponent at the table.  You can run untap effects such as Mind Over Matter to get more uses out of it, but you could also get more uses out of stronger mill effects.

Still you HAVE to respect a card that affects naming conventions of OTHER card games!

[monoblueartificer]

Random Artifact of the Week #2 - Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho

As a L5R gamemaster, I had a huge soft spot for the Kamigawa block.  Personally, I really enjoyed the flavor and all of the samurais (but would a monk lord have been too much to ask for!?!).  Mechanics wise, this can help in any deck where your commander is a samurai, although the return feature wouldn’t have much of an impact in a Konda deck.  The +3/+1 bonus is secondary, but decent considering the return effect.  The main downfall is that if the daisho is destroyed, the equipped creature is exiled.  Not a big deal if equipped to your commander, but may cause a hitch in your plans if you attach it to a non-commander samurai and your opponent destroys the daisho.  This card can work with Ashnod’s Altar as a loop for death trigger shenanigans, so that’s something and probably where this could shine the most (Grave Pact anyone?).

Flavor-wise, good stuff.  Takeno seemed like a really cool commander possibility for samurai tribal, and this would fit in nicely.  A samurai needs his daisho, as they are often considered one.  Too bad this didn’t increase the wielder's Bushido or had a force bonus related to the Bushido value.  Finally, this card is neutered in mono-blue, as their are zero blue samurais…  Such a shame...

[monoblueartificer]

Random Artifact of the Week #1 - Barl’s Cage

Interesting card from a maligned set with some interesting gems, The Dark, sets if you count Chronicles.  It is sentimental to me to an extent due to the fact that I started playing right after The Dark.  This can be a nice lock-down component with cards that tap, or as a rattlesnake in a pillowfort deck.  Decent mana sink, although most decks are cutting a lot of good artifacts already.  Maybe worth a shot in a Derevi deck?  One downside to this card is that other cards are not stopped from untapping the target.  Another is that it only hits creatures.

From a flavor perspective, pretty cool for a card that existed pre-major story arcs.  Anyone else read The Gathering Dark?  I believe a piece of trivia about this card is that Barl is supposed to be Ith’s first name, however, in that novel Barl became the creator of the cage that became Ith’s prison.  So what started as the cage that held Barl became the cage that Barl created to hold others.