Can someone answer a question for me? Why does this draw you cards when your opponent Wraths you? Is it because you can decide which creatures hit the graveyard first, making sure that Grim Haruspex is the last to hit the graveyard? Or does it all happen at the same time?
Your evaluation does not even skim the surface of what this card offers. Sure, you talk about each individual effect and the mana cost associated to the original card, but you fail to mention the opportunity cost of having 3 different and versatile abilities on 1 card. And the fact that the card can effectively double cycle is insane on a removal spell. Your card evaluation is exceptionally far off and lacking.
I guess we'll see who's right. Obviously the other charms I referred to had the same versatility benefits that you're talking about, but the individual modes had a better rate for the mana cost. You had versatility AND the proper rate of power, not just versatility.
As for the cycling - I don't value it that highly UNLESS i want to use my graveyard as a resource. This is not card advantage, and that matters. Standard may not be that fast, but spending 3 mana to see more cards a single time is NOT a powerful thing to do. It is a loss of tempo. Your spending mana to just see more cards and effectively do absolutely nothing. A divination at least gets you up a card for the tempo loss. You hope the card advantage - i.e. drawing more removal spells - makes up for the loss in tempo.
With Sultai Ascendency letting you look up to the top 3 cards every turn, I am not sure why anyone would really value this Catalog mode a single time.
I am not in favour of the 'blue' mode - it is not really card advantage... it is more card cycling. It is only good in a graveyard strategy I guess, but there are a lot of enablers for that.
I am not sure if mono-colored creatures are going to be a big threat. Remember in Innistrad/RTR block, how Ultimate Price was not used all that much? That was because a lot of the RTR creatures were dominating the meta, including cards like Huntermaster or Olivia.
Then Theros block came, and suddenly the format was all about mono-colored critters, except for a few exceptions (Blood Baron, etc.)
I think we're going to go back into another shift where the mono-colored creature targeting will not be all that great. Of course, there's no way for me to know this as a fact or anything... I can't possibly know that... but let's just call it a hunch.
I like the second mode, but that's not enough to include it in a deck. I'd say the format really has to include a lot of mono-colored creatures other than tokens for this be good.
The format is going to basically revolve around courser of kruphix and people are going to be playing stormbreath dragon a lot. That's enough for the removal part imo.
The last ability is perfect for the same reason the cycle ability on azorius charm is perfect, it ensures that it's never dead. This is really really powerful card that will see a ton of play if people can figure out the bug manabase.
Okay, so I have had more time to digest the card. I am still not a fan of it, although I admit it may a necessary evil for a BUG player to run.
First of all, I think paying 3 specific coloured mana for Ultimate Price is horrible. Yes, Ultimate Price is a good effect when you have a target, but paying 1 more mana for it - and 3 specific colors - is overcosted. It's not just 1 mana more - it's more like 2 mana more if you had to convert this to colorless.
But that's not the worst offender here. The worst offender is the blue mode - the Catalog effect. I am not a fan of Catalog. It doesn't net any kind of card advantage. While Catalog is 3 mana, again, you're paying 3 specific mana for a card that is quite bad.
Let's compare this charm to Esper Charm. On the Esper Charm, you can use both Divination AND mind rot. Both of these modes are worth 3 mana, and neither mode is gimped in any way. So was Catalog chosen to differentiate Sultai Charm from Esper Charm? It seems like a nerf big time. So blue loses Sphinx's Revelation, and doesn't even get a card advantage tool on one of its charms. You really have to be going for the graveyard strategy to get any valid use out of this mode.
Naturalize *is* a good mode on a charm, but once again you're paying 3 specific mana for a 2-mana spell.
Part of what made the Shards of Alara charms good is that two of the modes were worth 3 mana. Yes, you had to pay a steeper colour-restricted cost for the same effect, but that's where versatility of the modes came in.
But in Sultai Charm's case, the modes are either worth 2-mana, or it's an over-costed 3-mana effect that wasn't worth 3 mana to begin with. While on a 2-mana charm, I don't expect every mode to be as awesome as a 2-mana effect, but 3-specific colors is much harder to do than 2-specific colors. You shouldn't be punished all that much due to the versatility because the cost is prohibitive.
All-in-all, this charm is actually below the rate of what you'd want for 3 mana. I'm sure the Ultimate Price and Naturalize modes will be useful, but they are overcosted by a lot.
It may turn out that BUG has to run this because they can't afford not to in Standard, but that doesn't mean the card is actually any good. It can be replaced very easily.
And with Suppression Field entering Standard, there's even more ways to get rid of Courser of Kruphix.
Well, if it were reprinted, the stars kind of aligned for it to happen. I don't think it would have saw a reprint in Theros, Return to Ravnica, Innistrad, etc. If there was going to be a reprinting of it (and it kind of makes sense since each uncommon sells for $13 now), it would make sense to put it in Khans.
I noticed that avens are part of the Jeskai clan. Since Future Sight showed cards in future sets... and since the Onslaught fetch lands are being reprinted again... does that mean Aven Mindcensor is going to be reprinted in Khans or a future set?
It's very powerful. The only things holding this back for me are the color requirements (you MUST be Junk to play this) and the fact that it's three mana. Three mana is a crowded spot on the curve, especially for Junk which already has Courser of Kruphix, Hero's Downfall, and Banishing Light.
That's true - I wasn't considering the 3-mana cost.
Still, I see potential. These little innocent-looking value cards that don't visibly do something explosive and broken (yet totally impractical) usually turn out to be rather good.
I just saw this card today, and this is exactly the kind of value card I like, and the colors are pretty good for it (green/white/black). Sacrifice effects could make this really good too.
Just the idea of getting free creatures whenever one of my creatures dies is such incredible value. This is a card I definitely want to try a deck with.
I am not in favour of the 'blue' mode - it is not really card advantage... it is more card cycling. It is only good in a graveyard strategy I guess, but there are a lot of enablers for that.
I am not sure if mono-colored creatures are going to be a big threat. Remember in Innistrad/RTR block, how Ultimate Price was not used all that much? That was because a lot of the RTR creatures were dominating the meta, including cards like Huntermaster or Olivia.
Then Theros block came, and suddenly the format was all about mono-colored critters, except for a few exceptions (Blood Baron, etc.)
I think we're going to go back into another shift where the mono-colored creature targeting will not be all that great. Of course, there's no way for me to know this as a fact or anything... I can't possibly know that... but let's just call it a hunch.
I like the second mode, but that's not enough to include it in a deck. I'd say the format really has to include a lot of mono-colored creatures other than tokens for this be good.
I think a lot of the discussion here is really good and productive
I'm glad to see that some people at least think the card is good, just not amazing - as opposed to total rubbish. I really don't think the card is rubbish. It's not as good as Thundermaw Hellkite - I will agree with that, and have thought that before I even posted
I also didn't think it would fit well into an existing deck, but I also thought a home could be developed for it. While red vs red is not happening in the metagame really, it does seem like it would be a powerful trump in that matchup.
I think it's worth investigating, if only a little. Maybe there's a colour combination other than Rakdos that would really benefit from using it.
I think the card is good, but I think Fanatic of Mogis is better. And they share the 4cmc slot in a color that races opponents.
I wouldn't say the Fanatic is strictly better, or even better at all. They are very different cards. I wouldn't say red devotion is all that great of a strategy these days. I've tried deck numerous times - various versions of it - and they all kind of suck to be honest.
I never said it was bad, but a card has to be more than just not bad to see play on its own merits. The problem is that it becomes whichever one would be worse at the time like:
You are playing an aggro deck and drop this on t4. If your opponent has the Verdict or D-Sphere or Cyclonic Rift or whatever they give you a 5/5 and you've just lost an entire turn which is not something you can afford as an aggro deck. If your opponent doesn't have an answer then yes it can be good, but Stormbreath Dragon really is just way better.
How is this different than any other 4-drop though? You play a DD on turn 4, and your opponent still casts Supreme Verdict. People play DD - it is considered very strong. It has a very annoying tap trigger. The Phoenix is a 5/5, which is a little smaller, but it is much better after you untap with it. It is significantly more powerful than DD after you untap with it.
I would argue that the problem isn't with the Phoenix - it's with the player casting the card into a Supreme Verdict. Sometimes that's exactly what you want actually.
Also, you cannot compare the phoenix to Stormbreath Dragon - it's 1 less mana. In fact, there is no reason why you couldn't run both.
If your opponent has a removal spell then it becomes equivalent to Desecration Demon and they'll both die. If they don't have a removal spell they get to shrink the Phoenix to a 3/3 haste for 4. Not all that great. Punisher cards are just bad.
I don't think a 3/3 flying, haste creature that provides inherant card advantage for 4-mana is "bad" though. It's still above rate. Both modes are above rate. This mode is much better than Chandra's Pheonix. You don't have to cast another spell to get it back - you just get it back. It doesn't even cost mana to bring it back. Am I the only one that sees how good this effect is compared to every other Phoenix that has been printed?
I get that punisher cards are generally quite bad. But initially, without testing the phoenix of course, I would not be upset with either of these modes. I don't think the card is super-duper overpowered, but I can't say it's bad. It's decent.
If my opponent uses removal on the phoenix when it's a 5/5, then all the better. I would hope to have a threat-heavy deck anyway.
I like the effect, but Sorcery speed is quite bad. I also don't see the point to ramping from 4- to 6-mana. As long as Doom Blade, Hero's Downfall, etc. exists, I don't see much point to running this unless you really, really didn't want to splash for white or green.
I know how many people feel about this card. I've read the opinions of various MT:G set reviewers and columnists on it. Everyone has written the card off.
I am not the best card evaluator on the planet. However, if you go back to my set reviews that I wrote on here, you'll see that I got a few things right. I thought Boros Reckoner was obvious sleeper, and I have the online receipts of paying $3.40 per copy to prove it I'm lucky sometimes
I've also been suspect of Brimaz, and after seeing him in play, my evaluation of him has been correct too.
I also make mistakes too. It happens. I am not perfect, lol.
When I first saw Flame-Wreathed Phoenix, I didn't think it was bad. In fact, I thought this card and Ephara were both much better cards than most people were giving them credit for. You see, I try to find cards that are valued low and might be sleepers, because that part of the game is interesting to me.
Now, I have not tested with Flame-Wreathed Phoenix yet - I'm too busy making 50 different decks with Ephara, because I think it has a lot more potential. Still, I don't see why Flame-Wreathed Phoenix is so terrible. Either of these modes is acceptable to me, and one of these modes is much better than Desecration Demon since your opponent cannot tap it down. A 5/5 for 2CC is already a great rate, and with flying, I would consider this creature undercosted, even without the haste.
I realize some people think it's bad because your opponent can opt to make it a 5/5, only to supreme verdict it away on the next turn, but how is that different than any other 4-mana creature? Every 4-mana creature I can think of that is played in standard would also die in this situation. Maybe the problem wasn't Flame-Wreathed Phoenix, but the problem was playing him into a Supreme Verdict.
The only real problem that might arise is if your opponent has something like a Stormbreath Dragon that is blocking, and you can't get your Flame-Wreathed Phoenix into the red zone. But you're playing red, right? That is what Mizzium Mortars is for, among other spells. Even if you attack with your 3/3, you can cast Magma Jet or Searing Blood to do the remaining damage and your Flame-Wreathed Phoenix comes back to your hand. It's actually doubtful your opponent will actually block it knowing this.
I guess it's a bad blocker if it's a 3/3, so infinitely chumping with it for 4 mana is probably a big tempo loss. Still, that is what you should use your removal for. No card exists in a vacuum.
Now, cards like Rakdos, Lord of Riots are probably better in more situations than not, but the phoenix doesn't have to be used in a black deck either.
While I haven't found a deck for Flame-Wreathed Phoenix, I think one does exist. It probably works best in Red/Black strategies, but that is where my instinct lies. I have not tested it. Conveniently, Temple of Malice exists to make this possible.
What do you guys think of the card? Does it suck? Has it been misevaluated? Let's discuss
I still have to watch round 6 and onwards, but I think the real all-stars in Born of the Gods were the new scry lands. They seem to have made G/R, U/W/x, etc. strategies move into tier 1, or have a chance of staying in tier 1. G/R looks really amazing, but that shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. This is yet another matchup where I don't see Brimaz doing anything in. With mono black devotion still being the most played deck, I don't think Brimaz dodges as much removal as people seem to think he does. He still dies to Doom Blade, Descecration Demon in many situations and Hero's Downfall. In fact, the only good strategy I've seen Brimaz used is to draw out Hero's Downfalls so that you can get your planeswalkers to survive, but a lot of cards can do that - not just Brimaz. Just look at the G/R deck - every creature it plays draws out a Hero's Downfall.
It's a good card in aggressive strategies, but there's so many other good 3 drops to play too. I've tried it in mono-white, green/white, blue/white, and it's been good in all of these decks. With control being so dominant, you'll never get me to stop playing Boon Satyr though. Not happening. And I don't think the card is really so dominant that it defines a format or anything.
Just seeing all of the weaknesses play out on camera the way I thought they would has been very interesting.
I guess we'll see who's right. Obviously the other charms I referred to had the same versatility benefits that you're talking about, but the individual modes had a better rate for the mana cost. You had versatility AND the proper rate of power, not just versatility.
As for the cycling - I don't value it that highly UNLESS i want to use my graveyard as a resource. This is not card advantage, and that matters. Standard may not be that fast, but spending 3 mana to see more cards a single time is NOT a powerful thing to do. It is a loss of tempo. Your spending mana to just see more cards and effectively do absolutely nothing. A divination at least gets you up a card for the tempo loss. You hope the card advantage - i.e. drawing more removal spells - makes up for the loss in tempo.
With Sultai Ascendency letting you look up to the top 3 cards every turn, I am not sure why anyone would really value this Catalog mode a single time.
Okay, so I have had more time to digest the card. I am still not a fan of it, although I admit it may a necessary evil for a BUG player to run.
First of all, I think paying 3 specific coloured mana for Ultimate Price is horrible. Yes, Ultimate Price is a good effect when you have a target, but paying 1 more mana for it - and 3 specific colors - is overcosted. It's not just 1 mana more - it's more like 2 mana more if you had to convert this to colorless.
But that's not the worst offender here. The worst offender is the blue mode - the Catalog effect. I am not a fan of Catalog. It doesn't net any kind of card advantage. While Catalog is 3 mana, again, you're paying 3 specific mana for a card that is quite bad.
Let's compare this charm to Esper Charm. On the Esper Charm, you can use both Divination AND mind rot. Both of these modes are worth 3 mana, and neither mode is gimped in any way. So was Catalog chosen to differentiate Sultai Charm from Esper Charm? It seems like a nerf big time. So blue loses Sphinx's Revelation, and doesn't even get a card advantage tool on one of its charms. You really have to be going for the graveyard strategy to get any valid use out of this mode.
Naturalize *is* a good mode on a charm, but once again you're paying 3 specific mana for a 2-mana spell.
Part of what made the Shards of Alara charms good is that two of the modes were worth 3 mana. Yes, you had to pay a steeper colour-restricted cost for the same effect, but that's where versatility of the modes came in.
But in Sultai Charm's case, the modes are either worth 2-mana, or it's an over-costed 3-mana effect that wasn't worth 3 mana to begin with. While on a 2-mana charm, I don't expect every mode to be as awesome as a 2-mana effect, but 3-specific colors is much harder to do than 2-specific colors. You shouldn't be punished all that much due to the versatility because the cost is prohibitive.
All-in-all, this charm is actually below the rate of what you'd want for 3 mana. I'm sure the Ultimate Price and Naturalize modes will be useful, but they are overcosted by a lot.
It may turn out that BUG has to run this because they can't afford not to in Standard, but that doesn't mean the card is actually any good. It can be replaced very easily.
And with Suppression Field entering Standard, there's even more ways to get rid of Courser of Kruphix.
That's true - I wasn't considering the 3-mana cost.
Still, I see potential. These little innocent-looking value cards that don't visibly do something explosive and broken (yet totally impractical) usually turn out to be rather good.
Just the idea of getting free creatures whenever one of my creatures dies is such incredible value. This is a card I definitely want to try a deck with.
Too bad voice is gone when this comes out, lol.
I am not in favour of the 'blue' mode - it is not really card advantage... it is more card cycling. It is only good in a graveyard strategy I guess, but there are a lot of enablers for that.
I am not sure if mono-colored creatures are going to be a big threat. Remember in Innistrad/RTR block, how Ultimate Price was not used all that much? That was because a lot of the RTR creatures were dominating the meta, including cards like Huntermaster or Olivia.
Then Theros block came, and suddenly the format was all about mono-colored critters, except for a few exceptions (Blood Baron, etc.)
I think we're going to go back into another shift where the mono-colored creature targeting will not be all that great. Of course, there's no way for me to know this as a fact or anything... I can't possibly know that... but let's just call it a hunch.
I like the second mode, but that's not enough to include it in a deck. I'd say the format really has to include a lot of mono-colored creatures other than tokens for this be good.
I'm glad to see that some people at least think the card is good, just not amazing - as opposed to total rubbish. I really don't think the card is rubbish. It's not as good as Thundermaw Hellkite - I will agree with that, and have thought that before I even posted
I also didn't think it would fit well into an existing deck, but I also thought a home could be developed for it. While red vs red is not happening in the metagame really, it does seem like it would be a powerful trump in that matchup.
I think it's worth investigating, if only a little. Maybe there's a colour combination other than Rakdos that would really benefit from using it.
I wouldn't say the Fanatic is strictly better, or even better at all. They are very different cards. I wouldn't say red devotion is all that great of a strategy these days. I've tried deck numerous times - various versions of it - and they all kind of suck to be honest.
How is this different than any other 4-drop though? You play a DD on turn 4, and your opponent still casts Supreme Verdict. People play DD - it is considered very strong. It has a very annoying tap trigger. The Phoenix is a 5/5, which is a little smaller, but it is much better after you untap with it. It is significantly more powerful than DD after you untap with it.
I would argue that the problem isn't with the Phoenix - it's with the player casting the card into a Supreme Verdict. Sometimes that's exactly what you want actually.
Also, you cannot compare the phoenix to Stormbreath Dragon - it's 1 less mana. In fact, there is no reason why you couldn't run both.
I don't think a 3/3 flying, haste creature that provides inherant card advantage for 4-mana is "bad" though. It's still above rate. Both modes are above rate. This mode is much better than Chandra's Pheonix. You don't have to cast another spell to get it back - you just get it back. It doesn't even cost mana to bring it back. Am I the only one that sees how good this effect is compared to every other Phoenix that has been printed?
I get that punisher cards are generally quite bad. But initially, without testing the phoenix of course, I would not be upset with either of these modes. I don't think the card is super-duper overpowered, but I can't say it's bad. It's decent.
If my opponent uses removal on the phoenix when it's a 5/5, then all the better. I would hope to have a threat-heavy deck anyway.
I am not the best card evaluator on the planet. However, if you go back to my set reviews that I wrote on here, you'll see that I got a few things right. I thought Boros Reckoner was obvious sleeper, and I have the online receipts of paying $3.40 per copy to prove it
I've also been suspect of Brimaz, and after seeing him in play, my evaluation of him has been correct too.
I also make mistakes too. It happens. I am not perfect, lol.
When I first saw Flame-Wreathed Phoenix, I didn't think it was bad. In fact, I thought this card and Ephara were both much better cards than most people were giving them credit for. You see, I try to find cards that are valued low and might be sleepers, because that part of the game is interesting to me.
Now, I have not tested with Flame-Wreathed Phoenix yet - I'm too busy making 50 different decks with Ephara, because I think it has a lot more potential. Still, I don't see why Flame-Wreathed Phoenix is so terrible. Either of these modes is acceptable to me, and one of these modes is much better than Desecration Demon since your opponent cannot tap it down. A 5/5 for 2CC is already a great rate, and with flying, I would consider this creature undercosted, even without the haste.
I realize some people think it's bad because your opponent can opt to make it a 5/5, only to supreme verdict it away on the next turn, but how is that different than any other 4-mana creature? Every 4-mana creature I can think of that is played in standard would also die in this situation. Maybe the problem wasn't Flame-Wreathed Phoenix, but the problem was playing him into a Supreme Verdict.
The only real problem that might arise is if your opponent has something like a Stormbreath Dragon that is blocking, and you can't get your Flame-Wreathed Phoenix into the red zone. But you're playing red, right? That is what Mizzium Mortars is for, among other spells. Even if you attack with your 3/3, you can cast Magma Jet or Searing Blood to do the remaining damage and your Flame-Wreathed Phoenix comes back to your hand. It's actually doubtful your opponent will actually block it knowing this.
I guess it's a bad blocker if it's a 3/3, so infinitely chumping with it for 4 mana is probably a big tempo loss. Still, that is what you should use your removal for. No card exists in a vacuum.
Now, cards like Rakdos, Lord of Riots are probably better in more situations than not, but the phoenix doesn't have to be used in a black deck either.
While I haven't found a deck for Flame-Wreathed Phoenix, I think one does exist. It probably works best in Red/Black strategies, but that is where my instinct lies. I have not tested it. Conveniently, Temple of Malice exists to make this possible.
What do you guys think of the card? Does it suck? Has it been misevaluated? Let's discuss
It's a good card in aggressive strategies, but there's so many other good 3 drops to play too. I've tried it in mono-white, green/white, blue/white, and it's been good in all of these decks. With control being so dominant, you'll never get me to stop playing Boon Satyr though. Not happening. And I don't think the card is really so dominant that it defines a format or anything.
Just seeing all of the weaknesses play out on camera the way I thought they would has been very interesting.