"Why do I never see crash of rhinos as a win con, even though that overcosted 8/4 hunk of man used to stomp my KT group in 6th grade?"
Wow. Both patronizing and wrong. This comparison is idiotic, to the point of not even deserving a real response.
My meta runs from very tuned but still casual to cEDH. I win more games than are my fair share. Your comment presumes I don't know how to play, and that I have not evolved my play since I was 12, or that no one I play with is any good. Check your ego, treat others with respect, and take a moment to think before you speak.
GG is somewhat of a hurdle, but for effects that can draw a card, that is not at all the worst. Phyrexian Arena is played all the time, and requires BB, and has a CMC of 3 instead of 2. Dark Confidant is only really common in cEDH circles, but this is close to comparable. It is not that hard to keep 7 cards in hand, especially early game, especially when you are drawing 2 cards per turn, and especially when you have a commander to play that is outside your hand. Any extra card draw, and you have a consistent engine that is a single card.
As a mana dork, many people run plenty of 2 CMC ramp, and while it produces colorless mana, so do a lot of ramp that people play. Mind Stone is a staple, and while not usually in green, colorless dorks are run pretty often, as Boreal Druid is also a staple. In more competitive meta than most battlecruiser style metas, bringing your curve down often results in more wins, and the ability to chump block, attack for even chip damage, ramp when needed, and draw cards, that is what wins games.
It is not flashy, but it works well, and fills a lot of roles. I think it is way overlooked, and I think that those people who overlook it are likely to get more consistently beaten by people who are willing to consider it in the right deck. Those decks are probably most decks that run manna dorks. I am surprised how little people appreciate it.
You are comparing situational card draw to card draw. You can ONLY draw a card if you have EXACTLY seven cards. If you has six or less or eight or more, you cannot draw a card. Plus you have to tap it so you cannot use it the turn it comes out.
Phyrexian arena and Dark confident do not require you to tap, do not require a tap ablity, and they draw whether you have exactly seven or not.
you claim you draw tons of cards off of magus, you should not be. if your deck is finely tuned you should be playing multiple cards a turn, and if you are yet still have seven card sin hand, then your deck has enough draw already and there is no need for magus.
as a mana dork, it is GG for C. Not a first turn dork like bird or elves and you still need GG to cast it. it is just a bad card.
—is really shallow. So what if Magus of the Library received a 4 star rating on Gatherer? What does that matter? Were you aware that only 13 people contributed to that score? Were you also aware that most of those ratings come from around 2010? That's nearly a decade ago. That's Worldwake. The Commander precons weren't even in print yet. None of those ratings have anything to do with Commander because Commander was barely on anyone's radar in 2010, so you're not proving anything by mentioning this. The community ratings on Gatherer are ancient and discontinued.
1) Its based on community rating which directly contradicts what Cranky said about how the community rated it.
2) Even decade old information is still useful.
3) Apparently you need help reading. You claim 13 people contributed, but I count 64.
4) You claim not on anyones radar? Even WOTC on the MTGO platform came out with a pair of duel decks for the format in 2009 featuring Rubinia Soulsinger and Xira Arien as the commanders. 2 years before the physical product.
Speculating about "community opinion of the card" based on ratings from a decade ago, when most people probably rate based on standard...I mean, who really cares.
Realistically I suspect the vast majority of the commander community's opinion of the card is "what is it?" I mean, Cancel gets played in over 15x as many decks on EDHrec, and no one thinks that card is good.
It's a nice little hidden gem for green-heavy control decks, but many decks would prefer more efficient ramp, or a more reliable draw engine. Underutilized but admittedly niche.
I play it in my Goreclaw all creatures deck, a hyper-budget build. It's primarily there as one of the nine cards that enable a turn three Goreclaw. The draw becomes relevant maybe 25% of the time I play it. The problem is, if I'm using that draw ability without something like Soul of the Harvest or Garruk's Packleader to back it up, that usually means I'm playing too slow. The problem is that it's a creature that's strong in a draw-go strategy in a colour that's mainly all about aggro.
It's flexible enough to be a hidden gem, but it's also outclassed in both its functions that it can never be a staple. The 2CMC for a colorless manadork part can be overlooked for non cEDH deck (at some point in games, especially casual ones 1 CMC difference doesn't really matter), but the precise conditions for the card draw are way too restrictive it can be considered nonfunctional by many builders to the point that replacing the "off-chance I get to draw an extra card" with "a better mana dork" would seem like a better choice.
Regardless of meta (cEDH, casual), it's a safer bet people don't want to keep a conscious check on their hand size on a specific number generally speaking. Even if there was a whole archetype around it (7-card-hands-matters), those decks definitely won't make a majority of numbers in any meta either.
Conditional cards don't usually make it onto staple lists, especially when the format as a whole is generally (slowly) moving towards optimization. Magus might be flexible, but one half of it is very, very conditional in the eyes of many.
Guys, keep to the topic at hand and don't let things get personal. There is nothing wrong with having a discussion about this card. Please keep things civil.
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I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
1) Its based on community rating which directly contradicts what Cranky said about how the community rated it.
Cranky said the community rates the card poorly, which isn't accurate, but a community score from Gatherer isn't anywhere close to accurate either, hence my post. The way Commander players actually feel about Magus of the Library is probably closest to what Dirk said. They're probably hardly aware the card even exists.
Decade old information can be useful depending upon what it is, but to suggest that this information is useful is ludicrous. Not only is it not representation of how the Commander community feels about the card (it's representative of how Magic players felt about the card in 2010), but even if it were a representation of how the Commander community felt about the card, so what? Some cherry-picked internet score with a tiny number of contributes isn't indicative of anything.
3) Apparently you need help reading. You claim 13 people contributed, but I count 64.
13 people left ratings that contributed to the community score. 64 people wrote comments about the card. Thanks for pointing out I need help reading though. That's a hell of a thing to say.
4) You claim not on anyones radar? Even WOTC on the MTGO platform came out with a pair of duel decks for the format in 2009 featuring Rubinia Soulsinger and Xira Arien as the commanders. 2 years before the physical product.
Okay, I'm done here. If you honestly believe that Commander had anywhere near the level of popularity in 2009 that it does today, there's no conversation to be had here. If anyone else wants to get picked apart by bad actors, they're more than welcome to. I've already said my bit, so I'm moving on.
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WUBRGMr. Bones' Wild RideGRBUW Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
3) Apparently you need help reading. You claim 13 people contributed, but I count 64.
13 people left ratings that contributed to the community score. 64 people wrote comments about the card. Thanks for pointing out I need help reading though. That's a hell of a thing to say.
Go and look at the actual comments people left. When you do that, you'll see that 13 of those comments actually rated the card while the rest were unrated comments. Why Wizards classified these as "votes" is beyond me. You'll notice that if there were 51 separate 0 star reviews for the card, it would have a very different score.
EDIT: Ah, I see my mistake. For whatever reason, I thought all of the unrated comments amounted to the rest of the votes for some reason and that the only votes that were being factored in were the 13 that also happened to have comments attached to them. My mistake. Consider everything I've said regarding the voter count redacted.
Go and look at the actual comments people left. When you do that, you'll see that 13 of those comments actually rated the card while the rest were unrated comments. Why Wizards classified these as "votes" is beyond me. You'll notice that if there were 51 separate 0 star reviews for the card, it would have a very different score.
I'm 95% sure that you could submit a vote, a comment, or both. The comments with ratings did both. The comments with a "0 star" rating submitted only a comment. Most people submitted a rating but no comment, which affects the community rating but doesn't add anything to the conversation thread.
I mean, there's only 27 comments, so that's the only way it's possible to get to 64.
I play a copy in my Xira deck because it fits the theme of activated abilities. It's been pretty good as I recall. Most of the time, my three-color (or more) decks don't want dorks that tap for colorless, but I'd seriously consider Magus of the Library for any two-color or mono-G deck.
The case of Zhur-Taa was not my point. (Though a pinger that taps for mana at the same time can be good, especially if you use standard pinger support.) The point was that it does it without some huge hoop. I rarely have exactly 7 cards. I often have more than 7 (enough that Thought Vessel and Reliquary Tower are auto-includes) or less than 7, but rarely exactly 7.
My real case would be Drumhunter, because a creature with power 5 or greater happens pretty much all the time in green decks.
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Card advantage is not the same thing as card draw. Something for 2B cannot be strictly worse than something for BBB or 3BB. If you're taking out Swords to Plowshares for Plummet, you're a fool. Stop doing these things!
The case of Zhur-Taa was not my point. (Though a pinger that taps for mana at the same time can be good, especially if you use standard pinger support.) The point was that it does it without some huge hoop. I rarely have exactly 7 cards. I often have more than 7 (enough that Thought Vessel and Reliquary Tower are auto-includes) or less than 7, but rarely exactly 7.
My real case would be Drumhunter, because a creature with power 5 or greater happens pretty much all the time in green decks.
You rarely have exactly 7...when you aren't trying for it. If you've got magus, you're more likely to have it because you're playing in slightly different ways to enable it. Also, of course you only need 7 at some point during the turn cycle - after you draw before you play a land, after you play a land, in your opponents turn after your cleanup, at eot when you cast your draw spell, whenever.
Drumhunter costs twice as much and is equally conditional imo. Ofc that's going to be deck dependent. Some decks are more likely to have large creatures, others are more likely to have large hands. Magus is a bit niche but in the decks where he's good, he's pretty good.
The case of Zhur-Taa was not my point. (Though a pinger that taps for mana at the same time can be good, especially if you use standard pinger support.) The point was that it does it without some huge hoop. I rarely have exactly 7 cards. I often have more than 7 (enough that Thought Vessel and Reliquary Tower are auto-includes) or less than 7, but rarely exactly 7.
My real case would be Drumhunter, because a creature with power 5 or greater happens pretty much all the time in green decks.
You rarely have exactly 7...when you aren't trying for it. If you've got magus, you're more likely to have it because you're playing in slightly different ways to enable it. Also, of course you only need 7 at some point during the turn cycle - after you draw before you play a land, after you play a land, in your opponents turn after your cleanup, at eot when you cast your draw spell, whenever.
This. I run Magus in my "suicide Bant" deck, which is often drawing plenty of cards (Sylvan Library paying 8 life, Drogskol Reaver, etc.), and very specifically does not run any cards that extend my maximum hand size. When you have more control over your hand size, it's actually exceptionally easy to have a 7-card hand at some point every turn cycle. (And then Azami's Familiar turns the draw into Anticipate, as well, and drawing prior to Sylvan Library's trigger gives you more options if you're not planning to pay 8 life.)
All I have to say is that my decks that want dorks have loved Magus of the Library. I have on problem getting it to work, even if I just sandbag an early turn, it pays off huge over the next few turns. Well worth it in accumulated value. Granted, I play mostly control, but that doesn't take away from how good the card is.
You are comparing situational card draw to card draw. You can ONLY draw a card if you have EXACTLY seven cards. If you has six or less or eight or more, you cannot draw a card. Plus you have to tap it so you cannot use it the turn it comes out.
Phyrexian arena and Dark confident do not require you to tap, do not require a tap ablity, and they draw whether you have exactly seven or not.
you claim you draw tons of cards off of magus, you should not be. if your deck is finely tuned you should be playing multiple cards a turn, and if you are yet still have seven card sin hand, then your deck has enough draw already and there is no need for magus.
as a mana dork, it is GG for C. Not a first turn dork like bird or elves and you still need GG to cast it. it is just a bad card.
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1) Its based on community rating which directly contradicts what Cranky said about how the community rated it.
2) Even decade old information is still useful.
3) Apparently you need help reading. You claim 13 people contributed, but I count 64.
4) You claim not on anyones radar? Even WOTC on the MTGO platform came out with a pair of duel decks for the format in 2009 featuring Rubinia Soulsinger and Xira Arien as the commanders. 2 years before the physical product.
23-1-9-20-9-14-7 | 6-15-18 | 13-20-7 | 20-15 | 2-5-3-15-13-5 | 7-15-15-4 | 1-7-1-9-14
Realistically I suspect the vast majority of the commander community's opinion of the card is "what is it?" I mean, Cancel gets played in over 15x as many decks on EDHrec, and no one thinks that card is good.
It's a nice little hidden gem for green-heavy control decks, but many decks would prefer more efficient ramp, or a more reliable draw engine. Underutilized but admittedly niche.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Regardless of meta (cEDH, casual), it's a safer bet people don't want to keep a conscious check on their hand size on a specific number generally speaking. Even if there was a whole archetype around it (7-card-hands-matters), those decks definitely won't make a majority of numbers in any meta either.
Conditional cards don't usually make it onto staple lists, especially when the format as a whole is generally (slowly) moving towards optimization. Magus might be flexible, but one half of it is very, very conditional in the eyes of many.
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Decade old information can be useful depending upon what it is, but to suggest that this information is useful is ludicrous. Not only is it not representation of how the Commander community feels about the card (it's representative of how Magic players felt about the card in 2010), but even if it were a representation of how the Commander community felt about the card, so what? Some cherry-picked internet score with a tiny number of contributes isn't indicative of anything.
13 people left ratings that contributed to the community score. 64 people wrote comments about the card. Thanks for pointing out I need help reading though. That's a hell of a thing to say.
Okay, I'm done here. If you honestly believe that Commander had anywhere near the level of popularity in 2009 that it does today, there's no conversation to be had here. If anyone else wants to get picked apart by bad actors, they're more than welcome to. I've already said my bit, so I'm moving on.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
Community Rating: 4.031 / 5 (64 votes)
(uncomfortable silence)
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
EDIT: Ah, I see my mistake. For whatever reason, I thought all of the unrated comments amounted to the rest of the votes for some reason and that the only votes that were being factored in were the 13 that also happened to have comments attached to them. My mistake. Consider everything I've said regarding the voter count redacted.
Trap your friends in an endless game with this 23-card combo!
I mean, there's only 27 comments, so that's the only way it's possible to get to 64.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
My real case would be Drumhunter, because a creature with power 5 or greater happens pretty much all the time in green decks.
On phasing:
Drumhunter costs twice as much and is equally conditional imo. Ofc that's going to be deck dependent. Some decks are more likely to have large creatures, others are more likely to have large hands. Magus is a bit niche but in the decks where he's good, he's pretty good.
EDH Primers
Phelddagrif - Zirilan
EDH
Thrasios+Bruse - Pang - Sasaya - Wydwen - Feather - Rona - Toshiro - Sylvia+Khorvath - Geth - QMarchesa - Firesong - Athreos - Arixmethes - Isperia - Etali - Silas+Sidar - Saskia - Virtus+Gorm - Kynaios - Naban - Aryel - Mizzix - Kazuul - Tymna+Kraum - Sidar+Tymna - Ayli - Gwendlyn - Phelddagrif 4 - Liliana - Kaervek - Phelddagrif 3 - Mairsil - Scarab - Child - Phenax - Shirei - Thada - Depala - Circu - Kytheon - GrenzoHR - Phelddagrif - Reyhan+Kraum - Toshiro - Varolz - Nin - Ojutai - Tasigur - Zedruu - Uril - Edric - Wort - Zurgo - Nahiri - Grenzo - Kozilek - Yisan - Ink-Treader - Yisan - Brago - Sidisi - Toshiro - Alexi - Sygg - Brimaz - Sek'Kuar - Marchesa - Vish Kal - Iroas - Phelddagrif - Ephara - Derevi - Glissa - Wanderer - Saffi - Melek - Xiahou Dun - Lazav - Lin Sivvi - Zirilan - Glissa
PDH - Drake - Graverobber - Izzet GM - Tallowisp - Symbiote Brawl - Feather - Ugin - Jace - Scarab - Angrath - Vraska - Kumena Oathbreaker - Wrenn&6
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
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WUBSente: The Politics and Metaphor of Stones
My Vampire Hunter Kit Innistrad Themed Cube!