Random Card of the Day 12

Sacred Nectar

This card is awful. It is. Compare it to Soothing Balm which is just better in every way.

I always wondered how aggressive a lifegain spell would have to cost versus how much it would have to gain to be played. Lifegain itself just is not very good when by itself.

It's good on creatures or when done infinitely. A spell by itself just doesn't work well.

But yea, Sacred Nectar is just not that much of an interesting card. Soothing Balm kind of makes me go, "Is this good?" But Sacred Nectar just upsets me.

Random Card of the Day 11

This is a Excommunicate before it was white.

It's an okay card, but I don't think it does anything very interesting or intriguing.

I wonder what the comparison is between this and returning a creature to its owner's hand. I think in comparison to cards like Unsummon there is an interesting look at how much tempo is cost.

Reminds me of my favorite counterspell: Memory Lapse.

Random Card of the Day 10

Goblin Sky Raider

I'm not going to talk about how awful this card is.

Because it's awful.

What I do want to talk about are these:

Suntail Hawk / Lantern Kami
Flying Men
Scryb Sprites

The first ever C for a 1/1 flyer was printed in Alpha, and it was green! Green was the original color of small flying creatures! It had two! The other one being Birds of Paradise. Red had a sometimes flying one drop in the form of Goblin Balloon Brigade, and black had Will-o'-the-Wisp! Blue and white didn't have one drop creatures that could fly!

But Goblin Sky Raider reminded me that I'm still waiting for there to be a B 1/1 flyer and a R 1/1 flyer.

I don't know if that will ever happen, but I think it's something that would be very interesting and telling of how the game has evolved throughout all these years.

Random Card of the Day 9

Afiya Grove

This obviously the precursor to the graft mechanic.

I really enjoy the concept and idea behind this card. Creatures eat the fruit and become stronger but the grove will eventually run out of fruit. Very rarely do the mechanics and the concept of a card integrate so well together, this is one of those times.

The card is obviously incredibly underpowered and underwhelming, and I think it would be pushed greatly if there was a similar card printed today.

Also, I feel that there is a discrepancy between Oracle text and actual text; I always thought bury meant to destroy without being regenerated and not sacrifice. Just something that I thought might be a little inconsistent.

Random Card of the Day 8

Murmurs from Beyond

At first looking at this card, the first connection I make is to Fact or Fiction. You're revealing some cards from the top of your library, your opponent makes a choice, and then you get another card in your hand.

What makes Murmurs so awful is that you're always going to get what your opponent wants you to get. I think that is what makes the card so bad. Yes, unlike Fact, you will always get card advantage, but that doesn't make up for this. If there is one car dyou need, you will never get it with Murmurs.

I wonder what the power level of the card would be if they separated it into two piles, and then you were able to chose one of those piles!

Now that would have been interesting.

Random Card of the Day 8

Entangler

This is such an underused ability. There are five creatures with that ability and two spells that give that ability to a creature you control, and they all are white.

This is obviously something that has a lot of potential. I really like how it works and what it does to combat. Palace Guard is the last thing that was printed with this ability since Lorwyn's Thoughtweft Trio. Three years between using that ability!

And it's weird because it appears at common, so it's not like it's a complicated ability. I just think there is a lot that can be done with this ability, and I really want something like the Trio that has this ability and be relevant.

As creature combat becomes more relevant, I think this ability is something that should become more common.

Random Card of the Day 7

Goblin Festival

There are three things this card makes me want to talk about:

1) I absolutely hate it when there are cards that encourage people to use the effect numerous times in response to each other. You can activate this card four times in a row, and even if you lose control of it on the first flip, the other three activations still go off. It just seems silly, and it rubs me the wrong way. Specifically because the only way to play it correctly is to know that you can respond to activating it, and that is somewhat advanced rulings.

2) I think coin flip effects are in general really bad. I think there are better ways to have coin flip like effect but not have the coin; that's why I really really liked the clash ability from Lorwyn. It has an unsure outcome like the coin flips, but can be impacted and altered through playing correctly and knowing the cards in your deck. I think the game would be better if all coin flips were turned into clashes.

3) Tribal. This reads like it should be a Tribal Enchantment - Goblin. Remember when they did the creature update a long time ago and added each creature types to cards without them and reworked everything to make it fit all nice and neatly? I feel like that is what they should have done with Tribal. It was a way to make all older cards fit in a modern setting. However, cards like Goblin Assault completely destroyed what they should have done.

I feel like there needs to be a decision around Tribal very soon, because it's something that if they decide to come back to it... Well, there will be many years of cards without it and that will just look really confusing.

Random Card of the Day 6

Seismic Assault

This card reminds me of the comboness of enchantments. For the most part, it seems that enchantments are very uninteractive and rarely if ever get played.

There are 55 nonaura enchantments in Standard.

Dark Tutelage, Journey to Nowhere, Pyromancer Ascension, and Tempered Steel are the only ones that seem to see any amount of consistent constructed play.

I don't if that changes how I feel about enchantments, but they usually seem more comboey than any other card type. It's funny, I think, that the two really combo enchantments here are both red. But I guess because they are so hard to remove and intrinsically uninteractive, I guess that is why there aren't as many and why they aren't really ever that great.

I don't know. I just really feel like there is so much more to do with enchantments.

Random Card of the Day 5

Blue Elemental Blast

This card would obviously never be printed today because destroying permanents is completely out of blue's color pie, but I really do like the ideals behind this card. At the beginning of the game, the enemy colors were really enemies and absolutely hated each other. You could do dangerous and powerful things to players who had your enemy colors because your spells were just that much more powerful.

Now, color hosers are definitely nowhere near as powerful, but maybe that is for the better. Powerful "strategy" hosers are much more interactive than color hosers.

Random Card of the Day 4

Porphyry Nodes

There are somethings I really don't like about Magic, and cards that do stuff without targeting really bother me. (And by that I mean cards that seem like they should target but don't.) I don't like how this gets around protection abilities and shroud; it seems like it is so backwards.

Does that bother you at all?

Mistform Sliver

I'm going to compare this card to the changelings of Lorwyn block. There were a bunch of "mistform" creatures in the Onslaught block that became a creature type instead of already being them.

Changelings are what the mistform creatures wanted to be because they added creature type accessibility to all colors instead of just blue. In addition, since the mistform creatures could only be one type at a time and was a discretion of the controller, there was a lot less interactivity.

Mistform Silver is unique among the mistform creatures because it is the only one that retains its original creatures types while gaining a new one. Obviously, this is so that it doesn't stop giving itself its ability. (If you made it a cleric and it didn't have that addendum, it would be a Creature - Cleric instead of a Creature - Cleric Illusion Sliver.) I understand the change, but part of me also feels like it functions so differently from the rest of the mistforms that it could result in a lot of confusion.

Random Card of the Day 2

Rod of Ruin

Rod of Ruin is a good limited card. I feel that its mana cost and activated ability are both reasonably price.

Part of me wonders how much an pinging artifact would need to cost to be playable in Standard. Cunning Sparkmage saw standard play, but that may have been just because its combination with a certain equipment.

I'm thinking maybe 2 and 2 might make it constructed playable, but I don't know if that is still too weak or too powerful.

What this card does bring into light is what artifacts allow colors to do. Rod of Ruin is obviously a "red" card, but it can go into any deck. It is very similar to Flame Javelin in that any color can get access to almost anything at the right price of mana.

But only if that mana is colorless.

Random Card of the Day 1

Following was Aaron Forsythe does on Twitter with his random card of the day, I'd figure I'd do the same.

Urza's Tower

This, along with Urza's Power-Plant and Urza's Mine make up the Urzatron.

What I find interesting about this "cycle" is how the Tower is the only one that produces three mana. Why does only one produce more than the others? It seems like an interesting choice to have one significantly more powerful than all of the others.

I really enjoy all three of these cards because it really seems like the "referential" part of them is not forced. It seems like you would need all three of these cards to get a great effect. It's where the mechanics and flavor interact really favorably.

One final note about this card is how it was used in Masters Edition 4 which was just released on Magic Online. Instead of a basic land being the 15th card in a pack, it was one of the Urzatron. This creates such an interesting dynamic in the packs because now the cards actually matter in limited since you are able to reliably get multiples of all three. It also makes the 15th card relevant and not just another land.

I'm hoping that it is something that might possibly be used in the future.