On the one hand, this does slot nicely into a “package” of cards that are fairly easy to slip into mono-white decks. path to exile, winds of abandon, oath of lieges, ghost quarter, and field of Ruin can all proactively trigger this card… and all five of those cards can also potentially get you a treasure out of smuggler’s share… and all of them except field could potentially put you behind on lands to benefit from effects like land tax or weathered wayfarer (the latter of which can find nonbasic lands like lotus field to make sure you stay behind on land count). That is neat.
Also, I acknowledge that this card’s reactive “sweet spot” (tables where people have the money to play fetches but are casual enough that a normal tutor might not signal an immediate infinite combo) likely exists out there. Probably not all that common but it exists.
If this card is relying on fetches and mana ramp like nature’a lore and farseek, I actually do think that this card will often end up drawing at least 2 cards a good deal of the time, which I think is enough to justify this. I do think that this card would be incredibly frustrating to use when compared to a similar hatebear like containment priest as 1) players are more likely to burn through their unexciting mana search cards in turn 1-2, meaning that you’ll be fretting over missing card advantage opportunities and worrying if you might not see more (whereas you probably won’t really benefit from containment priest until you reach the point in the game when you can cast it) and 2) this card won’t feel effective against meaningful tutors most of the time (whereas we are used to other hate bears like containment priest actively stopping someone when they are making their move to try winning the game).
Mirror of Lifetrapping is surprisingly interesting anti-commander deck, though it's kind of sneaky.
When someone casts their (creature) commander and it enters the battlefield, they have to choose whether A) they return it back to the command zone from exile (kind of pointless) or B) they let it get exiled with the promise of returning later... but they may lose their commander permanently if the mirror is destroyed (really dangerous).
1) Can you "take the initiative" to enter older dungeons, from the last D&D set?
2) Can the reverse happen? Can cards that have you "venture into the dungeon" grant you passage to the Dungeon cards from the last D&D set?
Both of these questions can be answered as thus.
If you are not already in a dungeon, Taking the Initiative can only bring you into undercity and venturing into the dungeon cannot bring you into the undercity. If you are already in a dungeon, however, taking the initiative can help you venture through a non-undercity dungeon if you are already in it from venturing. Likewise, venture can move you through the undercity if you are already in it from taking the initiative.
I guess that the question worth asking for this card is if there are decks with high MV commanders that can regularly reach the point of generating 8 mana but that don't (often) produce 15+ mana per turn.
This card promotes the use of high MV commanders, which often encourages the use of intense ramp and mana doubling. If you regularly reach the point where casting spells for 20 mana isn't a problem, you might as well use Genesis Wave. If you run such a deck where your mana flow tends to stabilize around 8-10, though, I would very much appreciate the effective 7 mana discount on casting this spell for Ghalta or Thrasta.
Looks good in the 99 for the Jeskai Activated Ability commander (as it can tap to use its ability, flicker untapped, and then use its ability again as it has haste).
Mixing this with Raised by Giants sounds interesting. You can use the mana from this card to cast it the following turn, giving you a 10/10 vigilance who can add 10 mana.
The way that I see this card:
1. If your deck can effectively curve out and you will regularly have a second creature to give pseudo-vigilance to when this drops down (also meaning a second blocker if the enemy has kill), you are in a good spot.
2. If you have blink, this is also good (this and ephemerate is a 5/5 vigilance for 4 that trades a card in your hand for a land and that drains 5 and draws a card next turn).
3. If small evasive creatures are plentiful in your cube, the usefulness of this type of effect plummets much faster than the power of monarch effects.
Wulfgar, Jolene, and Isshin all make this potentially mana-positive on the turn you play this (assuming you play it after the commander). Partners also play really well with this and I can imagine seeing low curve decks with Rograkh using this, though the potential ability to pay 2 mana and generate 4 treasures that turn may even let this card crack certain cEDH lists.
Cheap commanders like Zurgo Bellstriker and Ragavan allow this card to be mana neutral even if you play this card on curve and this card likely has a place in nearly all such decks.
I know that some people are going to see a treasure token and instantly have their mind go to Korvold but I'm not actually sure if this is good enough to crack the tighter korvold lists I've seen
I personally worry about the 40k decks regarding power level.
If you haven’t heard they are reportedly going to have 42 new cards in each deck. Even if there is a cycle of uncommon artifacts like there were in the original DND commander decks, we are still talking about ~160 brand new rares/mythics, specifically designed for Commander.
Again, we are getting twice the number of rares that we would get from an average Standard set, none of which have the power/complexity constraints of Standard or Limited formats. There will also be (to my knowledge) no additional copies appearing in collector boosters to keep prices low and doing the UB treatment stranger things received in the list is a much harder task when you have 160 cards that you can’t otherwise print without a rebranding due to IP reasons.
While Wizards could potentially pull this off without a problem (especially if the print runs are decent), there are two very different ways that things could go wrong depending on how Wizards crafts these.
Situation A: Wizards may choose to make the decks fairly parasitic and insular (squadron deck, Tyranid tribal, etc). Much like the Friends Forever mechanic, this limits the potential damage of most cards on the format in general. Even if Tyranid tribal is strong, it is far less likely that those cards are going to be format staples or see a bunch of different builds (especially as we aren’t likely to see new Tyranids in the near future). As we’re talking about parasitic strategies that do not have and are unlikely to receive replacement components, the entire deck kind of implodes and becomes worthless (other than as a collector item) if the strategy isn’t judged to be good enough. If a tyranid deck doesn’t feel good and there aren’t more tyranids you can plug in, for example, you are just kind of stuck with a dud. Even if they are “good enough” to start, the fact that they will get fewer usable cards over time than other decks would put a soft expiration deck (at least regarding competitiveness) in the future.
Situation B: If wizards doesn’t make the decks super insular, the normal risk of a highly powered mistake slipping through seems highly elevated due to the sheer number of commander-aimed cards being pushed out at once. If the Mono-black deck has a card that triggers when your artifacts are destroyed and accidentally makes something that benefits every single treasure build, that could be a problem of its own (especially with the difficulties of reprinting these, as mentioned above).
Of course, I realize that all of this is kind of moot. Wizards may do a fantastic job or may shove an overpowered cycle
into the decks even if the main mechanic of the deck is super parasitic. Whenever I see this many for commander rares being shot out all at once, however, I do feel a bit concerned.
Nope, this card is cruel feeding, which is worth like 5 cents at most. Sorry, dude. The black symbol to the right in the middle section means that the card is common. Rare cards have a golden or orange symbol (and even those aren't guaranteed to be worth over a dollar).
On the one hand, this does slot nicely into a “package” of cards that are fairly easy to slip into mono-white decks. path to exile, winds of abandon, oath of lieges, ghost quarter, and field of Ruin can all proactively trigger this card… and all five of those cards can also potentially get you a treasure out of smuggler’s share… and all of them except field could potentially put you behind on lands to benefit from effects like land tax or weathered wayfarer (the latter of which can find nonbasic lands like lotus field to make sure you stay behind on land count). That is neat.
Also, I acknowledge that this card’s reactive “sweet spot” (tables where people have the money to play fetches but are casual enough that a normal tutor might not signal an immediate infinite combo) likely exists out there. Probably not all that common but it exists.
If this card is relying on fetches and mana ramp like nature’a lore and farseek, I actually do think that this card will often end up drawing at least 2 cards a good deal of the time, which I think is enough to justify this. I do think that this card would be incredibly frustrating to use when compared to a similar hatebear like containment priest as 1) players are more likely to burn through their unexciting mana search cards in turn 1-2, meaning that you’ll be fretting over missing card advantage opportunities and worrying if you might not see more (whereas you probably won’t really benefit from containment priest until you reach the point in the game when you can cast it) and 2) this card won’t feel effective against meaningful tutors most of the time (whereas we are used to other hate bears like containment priest actively stopping someone when they are making their move to try winning the game).
When someone casts their (creature) commander and it enters the battlefield, they have to choose whether A) they return it back to the command zone from exile (kind of pointless) or B) they let it get exiled with the promise of returning later... but they may lose their commander permanently if the mirror is destroyed (really dangerous).
Both of these questions can be answered as thus.
If you are not already in a dungeon, Taking the Initiative can only bring you into undercity and venturing into the dungeon cannot bring you into the undercity. If you are already in a dungeon, however, taking the initiative can help you venture through a non-undercity dungeon if you are already in it from venturing. Likewise, venture can move you through the undercity if you are already in it from taking the initiative.
There are only 27 cards that choose a background. 4 uncommons per color, 1 rare per color, and two mythics (this and Volo).
Just for the record.
I mean, those were the changeling colors in Kaldheim…
This card promotes the use of high MV commanders, which often encourages the use of intense ramp and mana doubling. If you regularly reach the point where casting spells for 20 mana isn't a problem, you might as well use Genesis Wave. If you run such a deck where your mana flow tends to stabilize around 8-10, though, I would very much appreciate the effective 7 mana discount on casting this spell for Ghalta or Thrasta.
1. If your deck can effectively curve out and you will regularly have a second creature to give pseudo-vigilance to when this drops down (also meaning a second blocker if the enemy has kill), you are in a good spot.
2. If you have blink, this is also good (this and ephemerate is a 5/5 vigilance for 4 that trades a card in your hand for a land and that drains 5 and draws a card next turn).
3. If small evasive creatures are plentiful in your cube, the usefulness of this type of effect plummets much faster than the power of monarch effects.
Wulfgar, Jolene, and Isshin all make this potentially mana-positive on the turn you play this (assuming you play it after the commander). Partners also play really well with this and I can imagine seeing low curve decks with Rograkh using this, though the potential ability to pay 2 mana and generate 4 treasures that turn may even let this card crack certain cEDH lists.
Cheap commanders like Zurgo Bellstriker and Ragavan allow this card to be mana neutral even if you play this card on curve and this card likely has a place in nearly all such decks.
I know that some people are going to see a treasure token and instantly have their mind go to Korvold but I'm not actually sure if this is good enough to crack the tighter korvold lists I've seen
Pest has been a creature type since Mirrodin, Buster.
Delayed Fireball Blast
Sorcery
Delayed fireball blast deals X plus 2 damage to any target.
Suspend X -
If you haven’t heard they are reportedly going to have 42 new cards in each deck. Even if there is a cycle of uncommon artifacts like there were in the original DND commander decks, we are still talking about ~160 brand new rares/mythics, specifically designed for Commander.
Again, we are getting twice the number of rares that we would get from an average Standard set, none of which have the power/complexity constraints of Standard or Limited formats. There will also be (to my knowledge) no additional copies appearing in collector boosters to keep prices low and doing the UB treatment stranger things received in the list is a much harder task when you have 160 cards that you can’t otherwise print without a rebranding due to IP reasons.
While Wizards could potentially pull this off without a problem (especially if the print runs are decent), there are two very different ways that things could go wrong depending on how Wizards crafts these.
Situation A: Wizards may choose to make the decks fairly parasitic and insular (squadron deck, Tyranid tribal, etc). Much like the Friends Forever mechanic, this limits the potential damage of most cards on the format in general. Even if Tyranid tribal is strong, it is far less likely that those cards are going to be format staples or see a bunch of different builds (especially as we aren’t likely to see new Tyranids in the near future). As we’re talking about parasitic strategies that do not have and are unlikely to receive replacement components, the entire deck kind of implodes and becomes worthless (other than as a collector item) if the strategy isn’t judged to be good enough. If a tyranid deck doesn’t feel good and there aren’t more tyranids you can plug in, for example, you are just kind of stuck with a dud. Even if they are “good enough” to start, the fact that they will get fewer usable cards over time than other decks would put a soft expiration deck (at least regarding competitiveness) in the future.
Situation B: If wizards doesn’t make the decks super insular, the normal risk of a highly powered mistake slipping through seems highly elevated due to the sheer number of commander-aimed cards being pushed out at once. If the Mono-black deck has a card that triggers when your artifacts are destroyed and accidentally makes something that benefits every single treasure build, that could be a problem of its own (especially with the difficulties of reprinting these, as mentioned above).
Of course, I realize that all of this is kind of moot. Wizards may do a fantastic job or may shove an overpowered cycle
into the decks even if the main mechanic of the deck is super parasitic. Whenever I see this many for commander rares being shot out all at once, however, I do feel a bit concerned.