Lantern because it was a card I played like crazy in standard so there is nostalgia for it but also because I love playing it as fixing in 3 color decks.
Chromatic Lantern is probably the only one that I consider and in Kynaios and Tiro of Melitis, as that deck is very intensive on colored mana. Edit: That is out of the ones that are played as traditional mama rock. I do play Basalt Monolith in a variety of combo decks but that seems different to me.
They’re discussion on cursed mirror felt like 4 people who had never played commander. There’s almost always a good target for the card and if there isn’t it’s still a fine mana rock.
This cursed mirror conversation actually is frying my brain. In what commander game has there ever been a situation where not a single player had a creature that if copied for a turn would not be worth it for 3 mana and giving a mana rock. If you play this in a boros or grixis hell even jeskai it is playable because those decks can hedge into reanimator, artifacts, etbs, all kinds of strategies can abuse the crap outta that card and apart from that mardu and rakdos copying an aristocrat or a big damage dealer card for a turn is huge. Izzet copying a spell cost reducer creature or token maker. Naya can use it for super ramp or just to do some insane stuff like copying mass token makers like avenger of zendikar or even something like a powerful anthem creature for a turn. It is one of the biggest upside mana rocks with literally no downside or huge cost. Makes every krark clan infinite 12 times easier cause you get double trawler more consistently.
Yeah they severely underrated the mirror. I also found it ironic given they talked about how the relic was a decent top deck because of the six Mana mode earlier. The mirror is typically a great late game draw compared to other rocks because it will almost always have an effect that isn't just make more mana.
It feels like Richard was evaluating it as Modal, without taking into account that it ALWAYS copies AND is STILL a mana rock on the next turn. You get the copy for a turn then its ramp.
Why would you want that effect on a mana rock? I get that this effect can be great, but you can get it better and cheaper on other cards, and the fact that it's bad ramp does not make up for that. The only situation where i feel this is good, is if you have a deck that can use it for combos, or if someone throws out a good etb on the first few turns, which (at least in my experience) is very.
@@RichJMoneyTV most of the time, if you're copying something good with this, you're at a stage of the game where ramping for 1 red is going to be mostly irrelevant
Huge fan of it in Krark-Clan Ironworks decks as well. A 3 mana artifact that goes neutral on mana if you tap and sac it to KCI means that it's really easy to get your scrap trawler loops going with Myr Retriever. And unlike other 3 mana artifacts, it also provides an outlet for your infinite mana, because you can go -2 mana on the loop to draw a card without needing any more pieces. I'm shocked that any artifact that can freely sacrifice itself for a card would be ranked that low, but I guess none of them strike me as Eggs players.
Crim is the most confusing human being on the planet. Half of his takes are absolutely brilliant and the other half sound like a five year old making stuff up cause he wants to disagree with you
I thought the arguments made since. Everything essentially boiled down to "does this extra one mana in the casting cost provide me with enough additional value beyond simply ramping that its worth running". That makes sense for 2021 magic, where 3 mana is a decent investment now (which I think is reflected by Crim's playstyle, you'll notice he very rarely runs anything over 4 mana that isn't either extreme value or a potential win).
Most of his takes come from the view of Grixis color pie. Many times your "Ideal turn" is halted by pip count instead of mana count. Black, blue, and red all have very powerful combo cards with high pip numbers. High power Izzet and Rackdos tend to run into a similar issue, but pure Dimir tends to not see this issue because it tends to be value focused and has more flexible turns.
I feel crim mind is so transfixed in to thinking around his style of play that it leads him to very weird arguments. Sometimes that argument can highlight something wrong with your mind set help you see a point of view you didn’t. Other times it feels like crim is rejecting reality and can’t get past his own bias and play style to a high degree.
I would play Cursed Mirror in any Mono-Red deck, nearly any two color with red and probably some three color that has red. Copying any creature is much more valuable than has been expressed by these guys, lol.
Yeah just imagine someone playing a grave titan or something. Like hell yeah i'll take 4 2/2 zombies and attack someone for 6 with my manarock. Or a random dockside extortionist, sure i'll take 10 treasures to go along with it. Or copy a muldrotha and get insane value. The base is never bad and the ceiling is so insanely high. It honestly is the best manarock imo
56:38 I am astonished at the ranking for cursed mirror, the card is so good, in my osigir and hofri deck its so good to get an extra ETB, hell in my wulfgar deck for an extra attacking trigger, this card is always amazing to find, hell ive copied peoples commanders like muldrotha and gotten a ton of value or just copied a dockside
I've just learned that crim's evalutation of cards is actually wonky as hell. Tbh cursed mirror can do some really crazy stuff with etbs, crim really out here tryna get a 3 cost mana rock to do more than a non mana rock at 3 mana.
Me too; just the fact that dockside exist makes this card b tier on its own, then there’s even more upside, that could have me arguing for a or even s tier. Card’s great
It’s a heat shimmer that sticks as a mana rock after it’s done…cEDH players are even using it in some of their lists…That tells you something when cEDH players value the effect high enough to put it in their list over another card
In my experience cursed mirror is great. Everyone is playing dockside extortionists and you play this make it a dockside and boom tons of mana that then is a rock the next turn.
I’m at “A” for cursed mirror, but I didn’t get what Seth’s point was for rocks in mono red, most mana rocks are colorless so there’s plenty of options… especially at 3MV so they’re definitely comparable to Cursed Mirror whether they’re better or worse.
I think grading it as a mana rock with upside almost makes you blind to its potential. Thinking of it as a 3 cost spell that copies the best etb on the board and leaves a mountain behind sounds a lot better.
Chromatic Lantern, by your own definition, is a clear B. Great in Crim decks that need the flexibility of multiple pips, or in Tomer's lazy decks, but just OK in Seth's fine-tuned mana bases.
The problem with chromatic lantern is that when it is helping you, blowing it up will lock you out of the game, and when it isn't helping you, it is mediocre.
As someone who plays mostly 3 color decks with the most expensive of mana bases, I still play it. It lets all my fetches tap for mana. As well as all my utility lands that normally only tap for colorless or no mana can now make mana. I don't rely on it, but I never hate to see it.
I will say, as someone with a 4 color deck with a very spendy manabase, chromatic lantern has saved my ass. I won a game because I top decked it t3 after the person to my left dropped a t2 blood moon. Without it I would have been dead in the water because red is the color I don't play, and I didn't have any of my 4 basics.
Cursed Mirror has so much possibilities considering that it can interact with your creatures and your opponents creatures. So much shenanigans can happen ane gettung that value for a turn coud be very good.
I as a brain dead player love chromatic lantern. I also really like how it lets me hold up maze of ith for both a counter spell and as a defensive ability. Its pretty good with boseiju and glacial chasm too.
Even if you're not control you sometimes don't wanna commit more to the board or you wanna keep up a removal. Flipping day back and forth is so easy, since others cant influence it. Later on you can activate it to loot, if you're out of gas. I honestly think it's S-tier. I was very impressed by its performance everytime i played it.
Agreed. Watching it in Stephen Green's Slogurk deck in the Commander VS game suprised me how effective it turned out to be. It would go perfect in Vadrik, Astral Mage spellslinger flashback
@@keep7smiling Yeah I have had fantastic success with the Celestus. Granted I am playing a RG weres deck, but even without using it for wolf flipping, I have found the looting and life gain to be really helpful. Im excited every time I pull it, and I think that speaks to how well things work in whatever deck youre playing.
I think Cursed Mirror is the best 3mana rock in the game. You are in red, copy dockside, copy Imperial recruiter, lol. Plus you can copy something insane opponents have, including their commander. It is such an insane card. I play it in Osgir where it is extra good. Edit: It is Heat Shrimmer you can exploit because it is artifact, and it serves as mana rock in downtime. I just don't see how that card is bad.
I agree. I think the group underrated this card because of the lack of experience with it since it’s not on MTGO. Also they don’t play Dockside much in their games (not at all last season). This card is hot in my Grixis Silas/Toggo artifact reanimator deck with Welder and Engineer (secret commanders). Copying other peoples creatures is just a bonus. In addition I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it played in the CEDH channels I watch like Play to Win, Playing with Power, and such.
See, I look at it as a one-time temporary copy, and that’s just not good enough imo. There’s better things you can be doing for 3 mana and there’s better rocks you could cast. If your gonna be copying dockside, recruiter, sun titan, etc…. You either better be winning on that one copy or be prepared to go 3v1 the rest of the game, because you just made yourself a massive target. Which is why I say it’s generally better to do infinite copies/blinks or none at all. Basically, it’s 2021 magic. The curve is way lower and the game is way faster across all formats. 3mv isn’t a low cost anymore, it’s more middle of the road towards the high end (5-6 mv being the typical cutoff point). And there’s more then enough 2mv or less mana rocks now that, in order to be even remotely playable, a 3mv rock really has to be some highly valuable effect (either sustained value, like continued scrutiny every upkeep, or explosive value, like making a small army of tokens) First and foremost , and ramp as just icing on an already good cake. In other words, the 3mv rock has to be worth it even without the ramp. Being part of a combo doesn’t make it a good card if it’s only useful in that combo. And mirror just has too many restrictions. The fact it’s only good in decks built around ways to abuse it means it’s a niche combo piece at best. That’s not to say bad cards shouldn’t be played, there’s plenty of bad cards out there. Heck, Anje Falkenrath is a CEDH deck built around playing really bad cards. It’s just recognizing they have little generic value outside their specific decks/combos.
Absolutely in for Chromatic Lantern, saved my ass more times than I'd like with 4 color decks. No more being just shy of a www boardwipe or ggg pump spell, turns utilities into command towers, and cures jank scenarios. A rank for me!
Yeah, I agree. As a Free to Play arena player, whenever they first started Brawl, or the first singleton event, I just shoved all my best rares into a pile. And the best land fixing. The Lantern was A tier in that deck because as soon as I played it I didn't have to worry about mana color anymore. Just had you play the game to my outs at that point.
I mean, you really shouldn’t play cards with that many identical colored pips in 4+ color decks, or even 3+ color decks. That should be clear based on the fact that you need Chromatic Lantern to make them work. If you have multiple cards in your deck that all need one specific card to even be able to use them, no offense, but that’s bad deck building. They’ll be dead draws any time you don’t have the Lantern out.
I get sooo much mileage out of It in my Dino deck when Mirari’s Wake is live. The flexibility it gives you makes it feel like you have triple the mana and not just double
And in chulane it’s one of the few non creature spells I run. On top of dryad of the Elysian grove. Once the chromatic is activated the mana is basically infinite.
I added the Celestus in my Sefris of the Hidden Ways deck. It's very good. Like they said in the video, I pay 3 to flip it once, and I'm almost guaranteed a second flip. This allows me, most of the time, on two different turns, to put a creature in my graveyard and trigger Sefris' ability twice. And the rare off-time where it becomes night without me activating it, is extra juice.
Thank you Seth for reminding the othes about the actual ranking scale when you were talking about inspiring statuary. As others have pointed out, you should probably had that more in your mind in earlier rank discussions as well (i.e. chromatic lantern).
To be honest by their tier list words. All 3 mana rocks are b tier or worse. The idea of a 3 mana rock is to offer utility AND mana but excel at neither. None of them are usable in every deck. And none are incredibly great. They like the skyclave because they judged it as a 3 mana rock when they looked at it for 6. They liked worn but bashed coalition but then stated turn 4 and 5 rocks are blown up. The only time worn is better than coalition is 2 turns later. Assuming no synergy. They bashed celestus even tho it will draw more cards than clock tower if you know how to use it(also clock takes blue for both active and cast and no life gain) you can hurt wolves by forcing night etc. However the list that was given by Tomer about the rank was pretty bad of a description to judge by anyway. Rip all the unique 3 mana non manaliths
D -don't play C-average(but unhappy?) B-very good in certain/niche A-mana rock is good overall exceptional in some very best at 3 mana S- so good run it in all or most/ best card in some decks Honestly all of these fall at C or B with only Celestus striking A, but only with/against wolves. 3 mana rocks are just bad. Usually it's better to cast a 2 into another 2. Than use a 3. Or hold up removal. It's right at the threshold for someone dropping wincons and everyone tapping out. It's the worst spot for mana rocks. They have to be exceptional.
I'm super surprised Crim doesn't like Coalition Relic. It's so good in instant-speed/blue decks. You can leave mana up for interaction then pit a charge counter on it if you didn't do anything.
As a ultra-budget player (generally 50 dollar decks and less for commander), I enjoy playing Bonder's Ornament in decks like Selesnya that don't have super efficient ways to repeatedly draw cards.
I don't really consider Midnight Clock a Mana Rock. Its ramp for 2 (3 if you can take advantage of it the turn you play it) turns before it goes away and timetwisters. Ramp for only 2 turns just doesn't find a home as a ramp spell. Thats not to say I wouldn't consider running the card, I just don't categorize it as a Mana Rock.
Inspiring Statuary is a tough one. I can see the arguments both ways, but I personally settle on thinking it's extremely underrated. At worst it makes 1 mana by itself, but you only need 1 other artifact to make it good. And from there it just scales up if you have any incidental artifact token makers
Statuary is great if you're producing treasures and want them to stay on the board, or if you're generating myr tokens or something. Also, with Toggo, it turns your rocks into mana rocks, so that's really fun. Lonis? Yeah, investigation is going to make you cards and also mana, that's good.
I think B was the right score. A large majority of artifacts that see play in most decks are mana rocks, which are pointless to use this on. Most decks won’t have more than a couple of non-mana-producing artifacts. But if you’re specifically playing an artifact-centric deck, it’s really good. That was their criteria for B, right? Really good in certain decks, but not good at all in anything else?
@@Kryptnyt Very much this. It's a COMBO piece with your treasure. On its own, it's unplayable. The balance/struggle between having artifact to tap with it and nonartifact for it to benefit is stupid. I would go as far as "Don't touch this if you don't produce treasure.
When you guys are talking about "All the rocks are gonna die, so Skyclave relic good" I'm just sitting here thinking about how the most common boardwipe is Cyclonic
Sure, it's the most played one but it isn't the only played one. Stuff like austere command is popular enough in the format to wreck your other artifacts. And people often play artifact specific wipes such as vandalblast in a good number of decks. And that is addition to all the ETBs with targeted removal that just happens to blow up artifacts. Also, cyclonic rift is more of a finisher than an actual boardwipe so it has a bit of a special slot as well.
The most common individually isn't actually the most common type when all boardwipes are combined. You're gonna see 4 or 5 "Destroy everything" boardwipes for every 1 Rift (or even more). The name of the unique spell is meaningless. The real question is "How much do I see destroy boardwipes vs bounce boardwipes vs exile boardwipes?", and you probably see them in that order. Relic gets past the 2 most common type boardwipe, and those wipes are much more numerous than the other two.
@@iPhonix07 I don't think it happens 'that' often, but artifact destruction in general also happens more often than you think, which is the main point. When someone has a "destroy 2+ artfiacts/permanents" style spell, there's usually only one real 'problem artifact' and then the extra targets are just utility pieces...like mana rocks. Or they're just using it to get the spell out of their hand because it doesn't seem like there will be a real 'problem artifact' in the opposing decks anyway, in which case those mana rocks will be the main targets in the first place. You always assume "no-one's gonna wanna destroy my little, benign mana rock", but that's often not the case - it just gets caught in the crosshairs of more general destruction. So sure, all-out artifact boardwipes don't happen often, but artifacts are probably in general danger of destruction at least twice a game, and considering the average game is only 10 or so turns, that works out to be - on average - every 5 turns your artifacts have a chance of getting destroyed.
I still really like Coalition Relic, especially in draw-go decks. You can hold up mana and when not used, just put the charge counter on it at the end step before your turn. Then in your main phase, it helps you cast something small like another rock or your commander and still hold up mana for interaction in the upcoming turn cycle. Rinse and repeat.
It blows my mind how no one besides seth values a 3 drop that enables your 6 drop next turn. I hate to break it to them but i'm almost definitely certain they are all wrong (except seth) on this. If you cast this and not abusing its two mana capability, you are doing it wrong.
They are completely off when it comes to Coalition Relic. Seth was the only one who was close. It is at least an A on this list, if not more. Ramps the ramp up to Six on turn four (given fourth land drop) is insanely good.
maybe this is a hot take, but I prefer component pouch it's really nice to not have your second mana constrained to you your first main phase, especially in draw go decks, and it works just as well as coalition relic for ramping from 3 to six, potentially better if you get lucky main downside is that it adds two mana of different colors and can't tap for mana on the turn you play it
This is also an amazing mana rock in a 5 cmc WUBRG commander like The First Sliver, Niv-Mizzet Reborn. Play it on turn 3, put a charge counter on it, and then turn 4 you cast your WUBRG commander.
Worn powerstone and coalition relic were better back in the day because we didn't have the better rocks we have now and they are both great to get your 6 cmc commander out on turn 4. While the format has moved towards lower cmc commanders, these rocks are too under valued. If you are playing a 6+ cmc commander, consider these more often
You know Crim saying that "Seth doesn't play Grixis" gives me an idea..they should go through and see what two colors each player has played the least and build a deck with those colors. Edit : Also Chromatic Lantern was once great but time has passed it by.
Dunno when this was recorded but it's missing the new black one Crowded Cyrpt, I'm running it in a new gisa deck and honestly it's incredible, suddenly spawning out a ridiculous amount of zombies in someones end step to hit them with on a mana rock is really good.
@@Adrianovaz2007 I think you have to play it bearing in mind it's not the game plan to blow it up but eventually that can be an option when the counters build up incrementally
Yeah I really like that card it gets a shit ton of counters. Like in WIlhelt I have a pop off turn with phyrexian altar while this is on board it gets like 20 counters on it and then crack it for 20 zombies and 20 more mana
Happy to see Skyclave Relic so high up! Very underrated, and honestly my fav to play with. Especially since the kicker is ETB, my favorite deck is Yarok! 5mana Yarok, then 6mana Skyclave Relic which makes me 5 indestructible mana rocks!
I'm going to chime in on a few of these: Cursed Mirror: You may have undervalued the ETB effect argument. In a 1 or 2 colour deck where my commander has a strong ETB, I'm already putting this in over Mind Stone or Thought Vessel. Because I'll (almost) always get a good effect. If I'm in a blink deck, or another deck that has an ETB theme (and thus 20+ strong ETB effects in the 99) then this becomes very strong. It's still niche but "overcosted" doesn't apply if I'm getting Meteorite golem ETB, or Mulldrifter, or something like that. Coalition Relic: If your commander is 6 cost, and you're in a deck where you want to rush it out, this is okay. If this is the only ramp spell you draw, it still lets you cast your 6 cost commander on turn 4, skipping 2 turns. So I think it still has a deckbuilding niche. That being said, I don't think it's good at all outside of that. If you only care about the mana value and quality, this outperforms Sphere and Powerstone, and allows you to waste less mana on turns which you don't fully tap out. See below for details on that. Worn Powerstone: This card also fills the above niche of letting you cast a 6 cost commander 2 turns early on turn 4 with no other ramp. In terms of mana value, I think this is worse than most 3 mana rocks. Think of it this way - On turn 3 if I cast a Commander Sphere, I spent 3 mana but I get 1 mana back. The Worn Powersone gets me nothing. Turn 4, Commander Sphere has got me 2 mana of any colour, and worn powerstone has got me 2 colourless. Turn 5 Sphere gets me 3 of any colour, Powerstone gets me 4 colourless total. The result, Sphere is more favourable on turns 4, 5 in terms of the overall effect. Turn 6, after 3 full turns, worn powerstone finally gets slightly more total mana value, but only in colourless mana, and without the added option to draw a card. To me, Powerstone is never worth it, especially compared to 2 mana rocks, where they pay themselves off in only 2 turns as early as turn 3. So much more value, so much earlier in the game. It's not even close. Thran dynamo is also better than Powerstone in terms of value, even at 4 mana. It pays itself off in 2 turns rather than 3, and has already profited you 2 mana over just 1. Powerstones 2 main advantages are - first, getting you to 6 mana on turn 4, which 3 mana rocks usually can't do (hehe Coalition Relic). Second, if you have many ways to blink or untap your rocks in your deck such as Displacer Kitten and Dramatic reversal in the Spellslinger archetype, then you can generate much more value from Powerstone's 2 mana tap. In decks where this many specific conditions are met, for example a spellslinger deck which can abuse Powersone by untapping it repeatedly, and also has a 6 mana commander, I might play powerstone. If I can't abuse untapping the powerstone and I'm in a 0 or 1 colour deck, with a 6 mana commander, I might play it. If the latter is true but I'm in 2 or more colours, I would probably prefer Coalition Relic. Everywhere else Commander Sphere is better. Scyclave Relic: do you really want to spend your whole turn 6 playing 3 mana rocks? Many decks will be threatening to win by then. If not, compare this to other 6 cost effects. A spell that costs 6 mana can exile the board, draw you 8+ cards, and whatever else. Spending 6 mana on 3 rocks that don't even enter untapped is not good enough for me to ever consider casting, so I wouldn't ever run a 3 mana rock just for that. Yes, I am ignoring the indestructable thing. I don't care about that. The only other reason I would consider running this over anything else is if you have some synergy, like being able to double the tokens, or something like that. If you read all of that you're a goat.
Another day another chance to fight over card board. I miss being able to just sit down with a bunch of cluestones and other shitty mana rocks. Those were the good days. I’ve always wondered if you could make a format with only 3 mana rocks or more
Check with your local LGS and the people that okay there, you would be surprised how many players are willing to play leagues with restrictions. You may find alot of people want to build a commander deck with only 3 cmc rocks, and you can put other restrictions as long as everyone is on board.
One of the biggest flaws I can see in this discussion, is that the goldfish crew assumes everyone just throws away their collection and buys new cards whenever they're comming out. I still play darksteel instead of relic, simply because I have them and not the new ones. I would assume the same goes for many other people - hence the reason edhrec has a lot of not-great cards in the top list. Also with the amount of cards released in the last two years, I quite frankly have no idea which cards are available that'd improve my decks. That too plays into the edhrec not reflecting their opinions. In my playgroup artifacts aren't destroyed every two turn cycles (mass destruction cards cost money), so for me lantern is definetly an S tier card. Stadium and Heraldic banner I'd never heard of before, so maybe I'll get those at some point, but they'd probably not be more than B anyway. To be honest the only 3cmc rocks I use are Lantern, Darksteel and Cultivators caravan ; primarily because those I have in my collection.
How is that a flaw though? It's not "best 3cmc rocks that aren't new", it's "best 3cmc mana rocks". They can't account for every player's situation so they do the simplest list- which is all of them.
Edhrec is such a garbage way to try and evaluate playability. It is not that kind of tool. It brings in decks that people are play testing and building online before likely building in paper.
Unless I'm mistaken, Worn Powerstone is the cheapest artifact to produce (2) outside of Sol Ring and friends and Ashnod's Altar? So if Sol Rings and other busted fast mana rocks were gone (which they should be) then WP would be the best mana rock in terms of ratio of mv to mana produced at 3:2?
While i wouldnt put it at s, there is another argument for it that tomer forgot. For decks that heavily rely on mana rock based ramp, it gets around null rod/collector ouphe effects. Improvise isnt an activated ability, so you can still end up tapping your now useless rocks for non artifact spells, so it helps get those specific decks out of a pinch. Hugely meta dependant, and if your playgroup doesnt run effects like that, it is a moot point, but still one that should be mentioned anyways
I generally agree on most takes, with the notables being Cursed Mirror (B) and Worn Powerstone (D, I'm giving to Crim here). 3cmc rocks sacrifice early game development for mid-late game utility. Drawing a rock late usually does nothing, but with a utility 3-rock, you can at least get something besides mana. Cursed Mirror's ceiling is whatever the best creature on the board is. Clone effects are very easy to underestimate because it's reliant on board state and requires creative thinking, which is what makes the ceiling on the card very high. Worn Powerstone on the other hand...it's a fragile (artifact), slow (enters tapped 3-rock), one-trick pony (ONLY adds mana) that only adds colorless. If you are playing a mana-hungry deck, you're probably loading up on ramp sources, meaning this is IN ADDITION, not replacing, a 2-rock. If you're playing white, understandable. Red and Blue? No excuses, you can recur artifacts no problem and this entering tapped hurts. Red also has rituals, Black has mana doublers, and the non-white colors can play card draw instead to dig FOR ramp instead of PLAYING more ramp. Even if you had tap-untap synergies, you'd be playing this as a budget monolith or crypt. It's C at best, but severely underwhelming.
The thing with Worn Powerstone is there's only so much colourless mana you can use generally, and colourless decks can pop off in better ways. There's so many ways to add more mana instead of a tapped 3 mana rock, terrible.
Manascape refractor is the best mana rock (outside of mox, lotus, and sol ring imitators). I can't believe it didn't get more love here. For as much love as Worn Powerstone got, Manascape Refractor is at least as good as soon as there's a land that taps for 2 (kavu lands, cabal coffers come to mind), but it also gets all the utility land abilities as well. Your Serra's Sanctum, your Arch of Orazca, your Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin, your opponent's Rogue's Passage or their Gaea's Cradle. If you're playing lands that say anything other than "tap for one mana", and you are in the market for a 3 mana mana rock, this has got to be the pick.
Inspiring Statuary is definitely an S tier. It puts in so much work in: Voltron, treasures, clues, foods, and the grand majority of artifact decks (basically not Breya). In most other decks, if you’re just running like 5 other non-rock artifacts, this thing is a worn power stone that doesn’t etb tapped. In artifact decks, chances are this can help you cast 1/2 - 2/3 of your deck for almost free, and it basically negates commander tax if your commander isn’t an artifact. It is so powerful and completely underrated!
Seems like the take away is that it's better to approach 3-for-1 rocks more as spells in your deck, rather than as acceleration. If your deck wants the effect, then the flexibility is probably worth a slot.
And that is it's floor. In a flash/control deck it is not hard to just not play something on your turn and force it to night or play a couple cheap canytips to force day. And if you really have extra mana while it is night, you can pay 3 to make it day and ythen pass turn going back to night and get a second loot. Add in that unlike the old werewolves, day/night only cares about the active player so other people can't prevent a flip to night.
I definitely agree with Crim on Worn Powerstone. Untapped rocks you can often weave into your midgame turns by dropping a rock and immediately using it to cast something else. You can drop a talisman turn 2 and have mana for a Path, you can play a signet turn 3 and play another 2-drop. Worn Powerstone is just a 3 mana investment, full stop. Good on turn 3, maybe, but terrible any time after that.
@@WaterlooFlu Yeah. I think Crim slightly underrated it but the other three severely overrated it, possibly because of nostalgia. I'd put it in low-B to C range.
It just kind of hilarious that they give some of the other rock lower grades do to them not doing anything on the turn they come in or being slow with secondary effects. But they give A+ to a rock that does nothing when it comes in and you hope they don't blow it up. Worn Power stone should be at most a C tier as it does nothing for play extension and fails to promote advantage late game. If your not playing it turn 2 or 3 with curve it's more or less a dead card as other card options should be better at that point.
I really enjoy these kinds of episodes I enjoy the whiplash of vehemently agreeing with someone on one card and then completely flabbergasted by their wrongness on another good stuff. I will say that your arguments venture into being downright terrible advice sometimes to get your point across like no Crim, mfdcs are not a replacement for ramp lol.
I have to agree with Seth on coalition relic. The power of reaching a 6 drop a turn earlier is very strong. Same reason that worn power stone is so strong. I might even say coalition relic is better than worn power stone in most decks.
56:30 Cursed Mirror can copy any commander. Any eldrazi with annihilator 4; can copy etali primal storm and you get 4 things off the top all for 3 mana. Can copy anything! Emrakul, the Promised End... if you still live... copy a terastodon and blow up the original casters stuff as payback. ETB and HASTE. All for 3 MV. and oh yeah its a mana rock ramp in red for the rest of its life on the board.
Cursed mirror is an S to me. I play quite a bit of in person magic and I have never played it and not had an amazing turn when it enters. It scales amazing. Early game: early ETB effect, some ones commander, next turn you ramped one. Late game: A huge threat like Etali, a general ETB effect, a demon or literally anything I slide it into every deck that runs red. I’ve personally never seen it be a dead card
And finally, despite disagreeing with Crim the entire video, I lean more towards his opinion on Worn Powerstone. Rarely do I ever need more rocks that tap for double colorless than Sol Ring and I do not at all like that it comes in tapped. It's good in a heavily colorless or artifact deck, and that's about it. Even then in artifact decks I would rather combo Basalt Monolith with an untapper.
I would rather have 1 colored mana than 2 colorless in most decks. If Sol Ring was 2 mana it would not be nearly as good. At 3 mana it is not great. Coming in tapped at 2 mana would be playable, but 3 is bad. Tapped vs untapped is a huge deal because you may not always play it on curve.
I agree, I was surprised the others rated it so high. Maybe its because I rarely play decks that need a lot of colorless mana generation, but the way I see it sol ring already fits the bill of a double colorless generator while costing 2 less (meaning it taps mana positive) and enters untapped that having a card that does the same thing just worse in every way possible seems not only redundant but just bad in general. It's the same reason why I'm not huge on thran as I once was and ended up cutting it from all my decks. Maybe if I played decks with an average cmc of greater than 3 I would have a different opinion.
Midnight Clock: (B) Shuffling away your GY is a huge drawback, and therefore it generally gets taken out of my blue decks. It's also hella slow, so unless I'm a controlling deck that doesn't use the GY (somehow), I would leave it out. But it is great in slow blue decks. Skyclave Relic: (B+) I will only play this if I'm in a deck that cares about artifacts. 3 mana is already a lot, and spending SIX MANA to not win the game but just make a few mana rocks isn't that great. In the specific scenario Richard mentions, where you failed to protect your board, it's fine. It's better than Darksteel Ingot, but I wouldn't play that either. But if you care about artifacts, it's 3 for 6 plus 3 mana back, which is good. Commander's Sphere: (C) Would maybe play in 4-5 colour decks, but otherwise no. Cycling for (3) sucks, and there are so many better choices. And as Crim mentions, MDFC's are usually just better. It's often in the initial build of a deck, but also often gets cut. Chromatic Lantern: (B) I put this in every 4-5C deck. It's just the best fixer in the game, and it plays around Blood Moons and whatnot. In 0-3 mana decks it's not great, but if you have a lot of non-mana utility lands than I might still play it. It's also one of the few mana rocks that still functions (somewhat) under cards like Stony Silence, Ouphe, and Karn. Not only is World Tree only 5C, but the fixing doesn't come online until after you need it most (if you're a 5C deck at 6 lands, you should be able to cast everything). Inspiring Statuary: (B) This is the most B. It's a solid S in specific decks, and a C everywhere else. Heraldic Banner: (C) I feel like I'm giving B to everything, but not this one. This is okay in aggro decks, but not great, and useless everywhere else. Strivhaven Stadium: (B+) If you're a tokens/fog/pillow-fort deck, this is a fantastic wincon. As Seth mentions, it draws hate - but that's because it wins games. It's hard to ask for more from a mana rock, but you need a specific style of deck for it to be good. If it isn't good in your deck, it will actively get you killed. Cursed Mirror: (A) I don't think it's an S, but this is a fantastic card. Fantastic in combos, great everywhere else (yes, you get the ETB, it's the same as every other clone, LOL). They really drop the ball on this one, but it isn't on MTGO, so that's probably part of it. You can definitely tell Crim has never played against the card even once. Coalition Relic: (C+) I will play this on occasion in 4-5C decks where I really need rocks (ie. non-Green decks). The Celestus: (C+) If you care about day/night, it's great to the point of being a staple. If you don't, it's really bad. Worn Powerstone: (B+) Used to be great, but power creep pushed it down. Entering tapped can suck sometimes, but it's still reasonable. I put this in every non-green deck that isn't super low to ground.
Shuffling you GY is S tier in some playgroups. My group has tons of mill so I have Midnight clock in every blue deck, and elixir of immortality in every deck. Many downsides can be positives. I do skyclave in both my orvar deck and any deck that has doubling season because I love the idea of pay 6 and get 5 indestructible rocks.
So Tomer was saying that mana rocks get blown up all the time in their meta, but then he says he gets to be lazy with Chromatic Lantern, but what happens when the lantern gets blown up and you realize that you tapped wrong? Chromatic Lantern is bad.
You know what. I think you've convinced me that chromatic lantern is bad. Richard and crim are crazy about cursed mirror though, that card is actually busted, but it does have to be in the right deck. Decks like kiki jiki, panharmonicon etb decks, artifact looping decks, there's a lot of homes for it. The ceiling is absurd though, since godo decks literally use this card to win the game, usually by using goblin engineer to put it in the yard, then playing godo to get hammer of nazan, and getting a copy of godo with the mirror to get helm of the host. Other notes. I've had great success with celestus in draw go control decks like nymris. It curves nicely into nymris at 3, and you will usually get 1/2 loots a turn, which is especially good in nymris's sort of graveyard strategy. Stryxhaven stadium might be better than I thought at first. Go wide decks can use it, sure, but it's especially good in evasive decks like tetsuko umizawa fugitive. Another home is infect decks which can generally proliferate and push through damage, and sometimes struggle to take out more than one person. I'm surprised Richard was so down on this card, because it'd actually be really good in his bird tribal deck.
On cursed mirror, I think Crim and Richard's arguments made sense. The ranking system they were using is based on how generically good a card is, and just generically, a color-restricted mana rock that copies a one-time etb isn't very good. Yeah, the Godo combo and the similar magda combo make good use of it, but being useful in a combo does not inherently make a card itself good. Pixie Guide is extremely powerful when combined with Delina, but on its own Pixie Guide's solidly hot garbage. the ceiling's through the roof (pun intended), but the floor is so low its not even worth it outside of a small number of very specific decks. I'd rate it a low c for red/ red-x decks, and a d for anything more then 2 color.
@@darkflame9410 I wouldn't say it's an S, but I would say that it's at least a B, which is where they seem to put very average rocks with some solid situational upside. Cursed mirror doesn't have to enter as a copy of your creatures, and the likelihood of an opponent having either a creature with a good etb (rec sage is pretty ubiquitous, land ramp creatures, card draw creatures, there's a lot of very common things) or just a beater to get a clean big hit off of, is pretty high. Even played fairly flexible effect that will be better than a C card like commanders sphere most of the time.
By definition, all 3 MV mana rocks are *B* , _at best_ . The only ones I ever play are Basalt Monolith, Worn Powerstone, Coalition Relic, and Skyclave Relic, and they're all B's.
Coalition Relic (CR) and Worn Powerstone both ramp you from 4 to 6 and CR doesn't only make colorless mana or enter tapped... I don't understand Tomer or Richard's massively different rankings for these rather similar cards. I wish someone would have argued more for the CR. (Especially while Tomer was ranting about either card, lol).
I was ready to jump on them if they said inspiring statuary was good for equipment decks. It sounds appealing, "tap your equipment to help pay for things", but the problem there is that it doesn't help cast your equipment, nor helps pay for equip costs, and the spells that it does work with are generally not that expensive, i.e., your not getting the big discounts that you want. It would be better to just play a mana rock that can pay for anything, like skyclave relic.
I used to play Ccromatic Lantern, Darksteel Ingot and some other 3CMC Ramp. Then I realized having 4 and 5 mana to spend is far better than 2 and 5. I'm building Brion at the moment and will add the Cursed Mirror. I put Inspiring Statuary and Midnight Clock to my wantlist because their €cost is quite low and find some space to test. But Seth where is your Magnifying Glass? :D
31:00 Hard agree. I played return to dust on an esika player's Lantern and Prismatic Bridge at a local commander night and they just scooped it right up (though they did try to pact of negation, which I hit with a mana tithe which might have been the clincher).
I've been very unimpressed with Chromatic Lamtern, even in three-colour no-green decks. That being said, Tomer may have just convinced me to pick up an Inspiring Statuary for my Magda treasures deck.
@@vaporeon344 Mine is a house too. I think it's my strongest deck! I never did put Inspiring Statuary in it because I worried it would do too little when behind.
Lantern is the only mana rock at this cmc that allows to cast two-pip cards, if you've been missing one color. For ex. you have no W mana. Top decking Lantern would immediately allow you to cast Wrath of God, etc. In this situation a plains or any sub 4 cmc rock wouldn't help.
The funny thing is: Hedron Archive is actually better than 3 cmc rocks when combined with 2 cmc rocks. Because you can go turn 2 Signet, turn 3 Archive, Turn 4 = 7 mana. Whereas most 3 cmc rocks would give you less.
I agree with Crim and the worn powerstone. These days there are much better things to be doing at 3 mana and coalition relic basically does the same thing for turn 4, but gives you color fixing.
Lol, the chromatic lantern conversation tells you exactly who in the group enjoys playing one and two color decks and who enjoys playing three to five color decks. As someone who plays almost exclusively 4 and 5 color decks, chromatic lantern, world tree, urborg and yavimaya are like actual lifesavers when it comes to mana with a nod to chromatic orrery as well (for being able to turn cabal coffers mana into mana of any color). I run stuff like tempt with discovery, pir's whim, hour of promise to search out my world tree just because if I don't I can basically forget about playing magic.
Expedition Map. 3 mana rocks all unplayable if you're on crypt/vault/tomb, but as you crank down the budget, different rocks suit different deckbuilding styles. Every colour has better ramp options than rocks. Enchantment, rituals, utility creatures, or straight up tutors can ramp you massively or get powerful lands that tap for multiple mana. These will always be better than any rock over 2cmc, and even most 2cmc rocks. Tuned decks only play 2cmc rocks for consistency. Consistency is boring though, so cards like Cursed Mirror, Crowded Crypt or Heraldic Banner are ultimately just more interesting cards to build and play around than a generically weak rock. Generally I'd rather play around a cool weak rock than fill up my deck with tutors for better effects.
5:44 While it only adds blue mana, it does offer some fixing for 5 colour decks, in that it draws you a fresh new hand which will increase the chance of you getting the lands you need.
Surprised Crim doesn't like Coalition Relic. My first thought is you can always leave that rock up for counterspells, and if you don't use it then on the next turn you get the mana from it anyway.
I have some love for the less flashy rocks that still find their utility. Commander's sphere is the used card every deck drives around in college. A lot of decks will outgrow it as they get tuned but when you're running budget it's a great piece of tech to fall back on until you find exactly what you need and will always be at least "good enough." Worn powerstone hurts for the entering tapped and only giving colorless, but there are certainly decks that just need that oomph to Get To The Point. If my Liesa, Shroud of Dusk can hit the board early, I'm going to run it.
In my experience, save blowing up Midnight Clock til right before it would blow itself up. Nothing like letting that blue player build up those counters, then denying them the satisfaction of getting it.
I think Richard is wrong about white been horrible at Mana rocks. They're the second deck at ramping behind Green and Mana rocks are just icing on the cake.
Maybe Seth likes Coalition Relic so much because he likes playing cube a lot and it is very powerful in cube. Jumping from turn 3 to turn 6 or jumping 2 mana on a given turn can be super strong in vintage and legacy cubes.
Chromatic lantern is also good in a landfall deck, because it allows you to tap your fetch lands for mana and save up the extra land drop triggers for a specific effect.
Worn Powerstone is great if you’re running the Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter combo as a backup for, or in addition to Sol Ring to enable the combo.
No manascape refractor? Which I think is probably the best one. You can't fix mona of colours you don't have and it etbs tapped but that ability is so insane and it leads to so many combos and busted synergis
I think Seth knocked this one out of the park. I agreed with pretty much every one of his rankings. I'm shocked he was the only one who thought Coalition Relic was good.
I'm actually pretty sad that EDH has gotten to the point where 3CMC mana rocks are basically unplayable without "extra" stuff. EDH used to be about casual cards that you couldn't play in competitive formats and now it's become another turn 3/turn 4 format. That aside, this ranking video was awesome!
Chromatic Lantern is good in 2 and 1 color decks that are steal your stuff decks, Etali is a great example I've stolen things like deadeye and greed before and Latern allowed me to use those cards
I think the only deck I have worn powerstone in is brudiclad. I make a token of it, and then turn all my tokens into untapped versions for it. Helps me go crazy with things like walking ballista.
Cursed Mirror is incredible with the existence of commanders with ETBs, Tap Abilities, Attack Triggers, or even combat damage triggers (which all are very prevalent in the format). It is good when you are behind AND ahead. It is general value because of it's copying effect (which doesn't target, BTW), but even better value if there is a bigger threat on the board.
Midnight Clock! One of my favorite cards ever. I will put it in every deck that can contain blue pips. It's a wheel on a ramp spell, but it's even better than that! Since the wheel happens on a later turn, you can guarantee you'll have all of your mana ready on the turn you wheel. It leads to some absolutely explosive plays. Never once have I been disappointed when I play it.
My playgroup had similar thoughts on Cursed Mirror when they first saw it and decided not to put it in their decks. Then the first time I played it I copied someone’s Etali. Now everyone plays it. Realistically there will always be a target for the etb unless you are playing it the turn after a board wipe, unless everyone is just playing meme/jank decks.
What's your favorite 3MV mana rock and where do you play it?
Cursed Mirror and in Osgir.
Lantern because it was a card I played like crazy in standard so there is nostalgia for it but also because I love playing it as fixing in 3 color decks.
Chromatic Lantern is probably the only one that I consider and in Kynaios and Tiro of Melitis, as that deck is very intensive on colored mana.
Edit: That is out of the ones that are played as traditional mama rock. I do play Basalt Monolith in a variety of combo decks but that seems different to me.
Worn powerstone is my bae!!!
Altar of the Pantheon, because devotion.
They’re discussion on cursed mirror felt like 4 people who had never played commander. There’s almost always a good target for the card and if there isn’t it’s still a fine mana rock.
This cursed mirror conversation actually is frying my brain. In what commander game has there ever been a situation where not a single player had a creature that if copied for a turn would not be worth it for 3 mana and giving a mana rock. If you play this in a boros or grixis hell even jeskai it is playable because those decks can hedge into reanimator, artifacts, etbs, all kinds of strategies can abuse the crap outta that card and apart from that mardu and rakdos copying an aristocrat or a big damage dealer card for a turn is huge. Izzet copying a spell cost reducer creature or token maker. Naya can use it for super ramp or just to do some insane stuff like copying mass token makers like avenger of zendikar or even something like a powerful anthem creature for a turn. It is one of the biggest upside mana rocks with literally no downside or huge cost. Makes every krark clan infinite 12 times easier cause you get double trawler more consistently.
THANK YOU. I felt like I was taking crazy pills listening to them.
Yeah they severely underrated the mirror. I also found it ironic given they talked about how the relic was a decent top deck because of the six Mana mode earlier. The mirror is typically a great late game draw compared to other rocks because it will almost always have an effect that isn't just make more mana.
It feels like Richard was evaluating it as Modal, without taking into account that it ALWAYS copies AND is STILL a mana rock on the next turn. You get the copy for a turn then its ramp.
Why would you want that effect on a mana rock? I get that this effect can be great, but you can get it better and cheaper on other cards, and the fact that it's bad ramp does not make up for that. The only situation where i feel this is good, is if you have a deck that can use it for combos, or if someone throws out a good etb on the first few turns, which (at least in my experience) is very.
@@RichJMoneyTV most of the time, if you're copying something good with this, you're at a stage of the game where ramping for 1 red is going to be mostly irrelevant
Crim doesn’t like Worn Powerstone because it doesn’t help him cast Cruel Ultimatum lol
Agree with seth on commander's sphere, it actually cycles for 2 mana because you can tap it and then sac
Came here for this comment, I also play alot of things like sun titan in my deck so it bumps Sphere for me even more
It's awesome in my Vadrok deck. Mutate, add two with Birgi God of Storytelling, draw a card, AND add another mana?
Huge fan of it in Krark-Clan Ironworks decks as well. A 3 mana artifact that goes neutral on mana if you tap and sac it to KCI means that it's really easy to get your scrap trawler loops going with Myr Retriever. And unlike other 3 mana artifacts, it also provides an outlet for your infinite mana, because you can go -2 mana on the loop to draw a card without needing any more pieces.
I'm shocked that any artifact that can freely sacrifice itself for a card would be ranked that low, but I guess none of them strike me as Eggs players.
Crim is the most confusing human being on the planet. Half of his takes are absolutely brilliant and the other half sound like a five year old making stuff up cause he wants to disagree with you
Your description is so spot on it made me giggle a little
I thought the arguments made since. Everything essentially boiled down to "does this extra one mana in the casting cost provide me with enough additional value beyond simply ramping that its worth running". That makes sense for 2021 magic, where 3 mana is a decent investment now (which I think is reflected by Crim's playstyle, you'll notice he very rarely runs anything over 4 mana that isn't either extreme value or a potential win).
Maybe he intentionally creates controversy to get more attention and popularity as a consequence.
Most of his takes come from the view of Grixis color pie. Many times your "Ideal turn" is halted by pip count instead of mana count. Black, blue, and red all have very powerful combo cards with high pip numbers. High power Izzet and Rackdos tend to run into a similar issue, but pure Dimir tends to not see this issue because it tends to be value focused and has more flexible turns.
I feel crim mind is so transfixed in to thinking around his style of play that it leads him to very weird arguments. Sometimes that argument can highlight something wrong with your mind set help you see a point of view you didn’t. Other times it feels like crim is rejecting reality and can’t get past his own bias and play style to a high degree.
I would play Cursed Mirror in any Mono-Red deck, nearly any two color with red and probably some three color that has red. Copying any creature is much more valuable than has been expressed by these guys, lol.
Yeah just imagine someone playing a grave titan or something. Like hell yeah i'll take 4 2/2 zombies and attack someone for 6 with my manarock. Or a random dockside extortionist, sure i'll take 10 treasures to go along with it. Or copy a muldrotha and get insane value. The base is never bad and the ceiling is so insanely high. It honestly is the best manarock imo
@@keep7smiling Grave Titan isn’t a great example as that card is overall pretty bad these days, but yeah, they evaluated that card so ass-backwards.
56:38 I am astonished at the ranking for cursed mirror, the card is so good, in my osigir and hofri deck its so good to get an extra ETB, hell in my wulfgar deck for an extra attacking trigger, this card is always amazing to find, hell ive copied peoples commanders like muldrotha and gotten a ton of value or just copied a dockside
I've just learned that crim's evalutation of cards is actually wonky as hell. Tbh cursed mirror can do some really crazy stuff with etbs, crim really out here tryna get a 3 cost mana rock to do more than a non mana rock at 3 mana.
whats wonderfull is that its also good if drawn lategame when you dont want more ramp but fuel
Me too; just the fact that dockside exist makes this card b tier on its own, then there’s even more upside, that could have me arguing for a or even s tier. Card’s great
It’s a heat shimmer that sticks as a mana rock after it’s done…cEDH players are even using it in some of their lists…That tells you something when cEDH players value the effect high enough to put it in their list over another card
The cards busted with some synergy's. Goblin engineer and this lets me tutor literally all the best artifacts in my deck over turns.
In my experience cursed mirror is great. Everyone is playing dockside extortionists and you play this make it a dockside and boom tons of mana that then is a rock the next turn.
They all underrate how good etb effects are.
Its funny because they love panharmonican too lol
I’m at “A” for cursed mirror, but I didn’t get what Seth’s point was for rocks in mono red, most mana rocks are colorless so there’s plenty of options… especially at 3MV so they’re definitely comparable to Cursed Mirror whether they’re better or worse.
@@EPICLYFATALERROR I think he was saying that without the best 2 mana rocks (signets and talismans) there are a lot of open slots to fill
I think grading it as a mana rock with upside almost makes you blind to its potential.
Thinking of it as a 3 cost spell that copies the best etb on the board and leaves a mountain behind sounds a lot better.
Chromatic Lantern, by your own definition, is a clear B. Great in Crim decks that need the flexibility of multiple pips, or in Tomer's lazy decks, but just OK in Seth's fine-tuned mana bases.
Like no shit if you’re playing premium lands, no shit chromatic seems bad by comparison.
The problem with chromatic lantern is that when it is helping you, blowing it up will lock you out of the game, and when it isn't helping you, it is mediocre.
O
As someone who plays mostly 3 color decks with the most expensive of mana bases, I still play it. It lets all my fetches tap for mana. As well as all my utility lands that normally only tap for colorless or no mana can now make mana. I don't rely on it, but I never hate to see it.
I will say, as someone with a 4 color deck with a very spendy manabase, chromatic lantern has saved my ass. I won a game because I top decked it t3 after the person to my left dropped a t2 blood moon. Without it I would have been dead in the water because red is the color I don't play, and I didn't have any of my 4 basics.
Cursed Mirror has so much possibilities considering that it can interact with your creatures and your opponents creatures. So much shenanigans can happen ane gettung that value for a turn coud be very good.
Even if it is not awesome, it can make games a lot more fun!
I as a brain dead player love chromatic lantern. I also really like how it lets me hold up maze of ith for both a counter spell and as a defensive ability. Its pretty good with boseiju and glacial chasm too.
Celestus is good in control decks where you land go every turn because someone will flip it back by the time it gets back to you
I would also add Flash decks like Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage or Yeva, Nature's Herald.
Even if you're not control you sometimes don't wanna commit more to the board or you wanna keep up a removal. Flipping day back and forth is so easy, since others cant influence it. Later on you can activate it to loot, if you're out of gas. I honestly think it's S-tier. I was very impressed by its performance everytime i played it.
Agreed. Watching it in Stephen Green's Slogurk deck in the Commander VS game suprised me how effective it turned out to be. It would go perfect in Vadrik, Astral Mage spellslinger flashback
Even if someone doesn't or if you're not flipping it to night, you can always pay three mana on your turn to loot and turn it from day to night.
@@keep7smiling Yeah I have had fantastic success with the Celestus. Granted I am playing a RG weres deck, but even without using it for wolf flipping, I have found the looting and life gain to be really helpful. Im excited every time I pull it, and I think that speaks to how well things work in whatever deck youre playing.
I think Cursed Mirror is the best 3mana rock in the game. You are in red, copy dockside, copy Imperial recruiter, lol. Plus you can copy something insane opponents have, including their commander. It is such an insane card. I play it in Osgir where it is extra good.
Edit: It is Heat Shrimmer you can exploit because it is artifact, and it serves as mana rock in downtime. I just don't see how that card is bad.
It's ANY creature! It can ETB copy to get an Eternal Witness and it's with haste so you can abuse tap effects
Yep, it was at that point I stopped watching the video.
I agree. I think the group underrated this card because of the lack of experience with it since it’s not on MTGO. Also they don’t play Dockside much in their games (not at all last season). This card is hot in my Grixis Silas/Toggo artifact reanimator deck with Welder and Engineer (secret commanders). Copying other peoples creatures is just a bonus.
In addition I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it played in the CEDH channels I watch like Play to Win, Playing with Power, and such.
@@seanbaumann8825 Yep, in Godo and Magda off the top of my head
See, I look at it as a one-time temporary copy, and that’s just not good enough imo. There’s better things you can be doing for 3 mana and there’s better rocks you could cast.
If your gonna be copying dockside, recruiter, sun titan, etc…. You either better be winning on that one copy or be prepared to go 3v1 the rest of the game, because you just made yourself a massive target. Which is why I say it’s generally better to do infinite copies/blinks or none at all.
Basically, it’s 2021 magic. The curve is way lower and the game is way faster across all formats. 3mv isn’t a low cost anymore, it’s more middle of the road towards the high end (5-6 mv being the typical cutoff point). And there’s more then enough 2mv or less mana rocks now that, in order to be even remotely playable, a 3mv rock really has to be some highly valuable effect (either sustained value, like continued scrutiny every upkeep, or explosive value, like making a small army of tokens) First and foremost , and ramp as just icing on an already good cake. In other words, the 3mv rock has to be worth it even without the ramp.
Being part of a combo doesn’t make it a good card if it’s only useful in that combo. And mirror just has too many restrictions. The fact it’s only good in decks built around ways to abuse it means it’s a niche combo piece at best.
That’s not to say bad cards shouldn’t be played, there’s plenty of bad cards out there. Heck, Anje Falkenrath is a CEDH deck built around playing really bad cards. It’s just recognizing they have little generic value outside their specific decks/combos.
0:05 Intro
2:44 Midnight Clock
12:20 Think Twice 😂
12:54 Skyclave Relic
19:55 Commander's Sphere
25:09 Chromatic Lantern
35:28 Inspiring Statuary
42:38 Heraldic Banner
48:44 Stryxhaven Stadium
56:19 Cursed Mirror
1:10:26 Coalition Relic
1:18:15 The Celestus
1:24:45 Worn Powerstone
1:36:09 Outro
Absolutely in for Chromatic Lantern, saved my ass more times than I'd like with 4 color decks. No more being just shy of a www boardwipe or ggg pump spell, turns utilities into command towers, and cures jank scenarios. A rank for me!
Yeah, I agree.
As a Free to Play arena player, whenever they first started Brawl, or the first singleton event, I just shoved all my best rares into a pile. And the best land fixing. The Lantern was A tier in that deck because as soon as I played it I didn't have to worry about mana color anymore.
Just had you play the game to my outs at that point.
i feel like every card on this list is an s in a wubrg deck
I mean, you really shouldn’t play cards with that many identical colored pips in 4+ color decks, or even 3+ color decks. That should be clear based on the fact that you need Chromatic Lantern to make them work. If you have multiple cards in your deck that all need one specific card to even be able to use them, no offense, but that’s bad deck building. They’ll be dead draws any time you don’t have the Lantern out.
I get sooo much mileage out of It in my Dino deck when Mirari’s Wake is live. The flexibility it gives you makes it feel like you have triple the mana and not just double
And in chulane it’s one of the few non creature spells I run. On top of dryad of the Elysian grove. Once the chromatic is activated the mana is basically infinite.
I added the Celestus in my Sefris of the Hidden Ways deck. It's very good. Like they said in the video, I pay 3 to flip it once, and I'm almost guaranteed a second flip. This allows me, most of the time, on two different turns, to put a creature in my graveyard and trigger Sefris' ability twice. And the rare off-time where it becomes night without me activating it, is extra juice.
Celestus has a lot of cool synergy, i dont think Rich and Crim are thinking quite wide enough.
Thank you Seth for reminding the othes about the actual ranking scale when you were talking about inspiring statuary. As others have pointed out, you should probably had that more in your mind in earlier rank discussions as well (i.e. chromatic lantern).
To be honest by their tier list words. All 3 mana rocks are b tier or worse. The idea of a 3 mana rock is to offer utility AND mana but excel at neither. None of them are usable in every deck. And none are incredibly great. They like the skyclave because they judged it as a 3 mana rock when they looked at it for 6.
They liked worn but bashed coalition but then stated turn 4 and 5 rocks are blown up. The only time worn is better than coalition is 2 turns later. Assuming no synergy. They bashed celestus even tho it will draw more cards than clock tower if you know how to use it(also clock takes blue for both active and cast and no life gain) you can hurt wolves by forcing night etc. However the list that was given by Tomer about the rank was pretty bad of a description to judge by anyway. Rip all the unique 3 mana non manaliths
D -don't play
C-average(but unhappy?)
B-very good in certain/niche
A-mana rock is good overall exceptional in some very best at 3 mana
S- so good run it in all or most/ best card in some decks
Honestly all of these fall at C or B with only Celestus striking A, but only with/against wolves. 3 mana rocks are just bad. Usually it's better to cast a 2 into another 2. Than use a 3. Or hold up removal. It's right at the threshold for someone dropping wincons and everyone tapping out. It's the worst spot for mana rocks. They have to be exceptional.
"they disregard the stadium and somebody dies" is something that has a much darker meaning on other podcasts
It's so underrated
I'm super surprised Crim doesn't like Coalition Relic. It's so good in instant-speed/blue decks. You can leave mana up for interaction then pit a charge counter on it if you didn't do anything.
My group plays a lot of Cursed Mirror. It has ALWAYS performed well at all stages of the game. This card is an A/B card hands down.
As a ultra-budget player (generally 50 dollar decks and less for commander), I enjoy playing Bonder's Ornament in decks like Selesnya that don't have super efficient ways to repeatedly draw cards.
I don't really consider Midnight Clock a Mana Rock. Its ramp for 2 (3 if you can take advantage of it the turn you play it) turns before it goes away and timetwisters. Ramp for only 2 turns just doesn't find a home as a ramp spell. Thats not to say I wouldn't consider running the card, I just don't categorize it as a Mana Rock.
Inspiring Statuary is a tough one. I can see the arguments both ways, but I personally settle on thinking it's extremely underrated.
At worst it makes 1 mana by itself, but you only need 1 other artifact to make it good. And from there it just scales up if you have any incidental artifact token makers
It only scales with non-tapping artifacts, though.
Statuary is great if you're producing treasures and want them to stay on the board, or if you're generating myr tokens or something. Also, with Toggo, it turns your rocks into mana rocks, so that's really fun. Lonis? Yeah, investigation is going to make you cards and also mana, that's good.
I think B was the right score. A large majority of artifacts that see play in most decks are mana rocks, which are pointless to use this on. Most decks won’t have more than a couple of non-mana-producing artifacts. But if you’re specifically playing an artifact-centric deck, it’s really good. That was their criteria for B, right? Really good in certain decks, but not good at all in anything else?
My negan equipment deck loves it.
@@Kryptnyt Very much this. It's a COMBO piece with your treasure.
On its own, it's unplayable. The balance/struggle between having artifact to tap with it and nonartifact for it to benefit is stupid.
I would go as far as "Don't touch this if you don't produce treasure.
When you guys are talking about "All the rocks are gonna die, so Skyclave relic good" I'm just sitting here thinking about how the most common boardwipe is Cyclonic
Sure, it's the most played one but it isn't the only played one. Stuff like austere command is popular enough in the format to wreck your other artifacts. And people often play artifact specific wipes such as vandalblast in a good number of decks. And that is addition to all the ETBs with targeted removal that just happens to blow up artifacts. Also, cyclonic rift is more of a finisher than an actual boardwipe so it has a bit of a special slot as well.
The most common individually isn't actually the most common type when all boardwipes are combined. You're gonna see 4 or 5 "Destroy everything" boardwipes for every 1 Rift (or even more). The name of the unique spell is meaningless. The real question is "How much do I see destroy boardwipes vs bounce boardwipes vs exile boardwipes?", and you probably see them in that order. Relic gets past the 2 most common type boardwipe, and those wipes are much more numerous than the other two.
I honestly don’t get the “expect to get artifact wiped turn 5 every game” argument. Happens rarely to me
@@iPhonix07 I don't think it happens 'that' often, but artifact destruction in general also happens more often than you think, which is the main point. When someone has a "destroy 2+ artfiacts/permanents" style spell, there's usually only one real 'problem artifact' and then the extra targets are just utility pieces...like mana rocks. Or they're just using it to get the spell out of their hand because it doesn't seem like there will be a real 'problem artifact' in the opposing decks anyway, in which case those mana rocks will be the main targets in the first place. You always assume "no-one's gonna wanna destroy my little, benign mana rock", but that's often not the case - it just gets caught in the crosshairs of more general destruction. So sure, all-out artifact boardwipes don't happen often, but artifacts are probably in general danger of destruction at least twice a game, and considering the average game is only 10 or so turns, that works out to be - on average - every 5 turns your artifacts have a chance of getting destroyed.
@@iPhonix07 They're somewhat vulnerable but less so than creatures
I still really like Coalition Relic, especially in draw-go decks. You can hold up mana and when not used, just put the charge counter on it at the end step before your turn. Then in your main phase, it helps you cast something small like another rock or your commander and still hold up mana for interaction in the upcoming turn cycle. Rinse and repeat.
It blows my mind how no one besides seth values a 3 drop that enables your 6 drop next turn. I hate to break it to them but i'm almost definitely certain they are all wrong (except seth) on this. If you cast this and not abusing its two mana capability, you are doing it wrong.
Seth is definitely right about the coalition relic. The card is great for high casting cost commanders in addition to draw go like you mentioned.
They are completely off when it comes to Coalition Relic. Seth was the only one who was close. It is at least an A on this list, if not more. Ramps the ramp up to Six on turn four (given fourth land drop) is insanely good.
maybe this is a hot take, but I prefer component pouch
it's really nice to not have your second mana constrained to you your first main phase, especially in draw go decks, and it works just as well as coalition relic for ramping from 3 to six, potentially better if you get lucky
main downside is that it adds two mana of different colors and can't tap for mana on the turn you play it
This is also an amazing mana rock in a 5 cmc WUBRG commander like The First Sliver, Niv-Mizzet Reborn. Play it on turn 3, put a charge counter on it, and then turn 4 you cast your WUBRG commander.
Worn powerstone and coalition relic were better back in the day because we didn't have the better rocks we have now and they are both great to get your 6 cmc commander out on turn 4. While the format has moved towards lower cmc commanders, these rocks are too under valued. If you are playing a 6+ cmc commander, consider these more often
You know Crim saying that "Seth doesn't play Grixis" gives me an idea..they should go through and see what two colors each player has played the least and build a deck with those colors.
Edit : Also Chromatic Lantern was once great but time has passed it by.
Dunno when this was recorded but it's missing the new black one Crowded Cyrpt, I'm running it in a new gisa deck and honestly it's incredible, suddenly spawning out a ridiculous amount of zombies in someones end step to hit them with on a mana rock is really good.
4BB is so high to make a one time army tho, I'm playing it on Zombies but I just know it'll get blown before it reaches 5+ counters 90% of the time
@@Adrianovaz2007 I think you have to play it bearing in mind it's not the game plan to blow it up but eventually that can be an option when the counters build up incrementally
Yeah I really like that card it gets a shit ton of counters. Like in WIlhelt I have a pop off turn with phyrexian altar while this is on board it gets like 20 counters on it and then crack it for 20 zombies and 20 more mana
Happy to see Skyclave Relic so high up! Very underrated, and honestly my fav to play with. Especially since the kicker is ETB, my favorite deck is Yarok! 5mana Yarok, then 6mana Skyclave Relic which makes me 5 indestructible mana rocks!
Also great for more tapped artifacts in Aliboi
I'm going to chime in on a few of these:
Cursed Mirror: You may have undervalued the ETB effect argument. In a 1 or 2 colour deck where my commander has a strong ETB, I'm already putting this in over Mind Stone or Thought Vessel. Because I'll (almost) always get a good effect. If I'm in a blink deck, or another deck that has an ETB theme (and thus 20+ strong ETB effects in the 99) then this becomes very strong. It's still niche but "overcosted" doesn't apply if I'm getting Meteorite golem ETB, or Mulldrifter, or something like that.
Coalition Relic: If your commander is 6 cost, and you're in a deck where you want to rush it out, this is okay. If this is the only ramp spell you draw, it still lets you cast your 6 cost commander on turn 4, skipping 2 turns. So I think it still has a deckbuilding niche. That being said, I don't think it's good at all outside of that. If you only care about the mana value and quality, this outperforms Sphere and Powerstone, and allows you to waste less mana on turns which you don't fully tap out. See below for details on that.
Worn Powerstone: This card also fills the above niche of letting you cast a 6 cost commander 2 turns early on turn 4 with no other ramp. In terms of mana value, I think this is worse than most 3 mana rocks. Think of it this way -
On turn 3 if I cast a Commander Sphere, I spent 3 mana but I get 1 mana back. The Worn Powersone gets me nothing. Turn 4, Commander Sphere has got me 2 mana of any colour, and worn powerstone has got me 2 colourless. Turn 5 Sphere gets me 3 of any colour, Powerstone gets me 4 colourless total.
The result, Sphere is more favourable on turns 4, 5 in terms of the overall effect. Turn 6, after 3 full turns, worn powerstone finally gets slightly more total mana value, but only in colourless mana, and without the added option to draw a card. To me, Powerstone is never worth it, especially compared to 2 mana rocks, where they pay themselves off in only 2 turns as early as turn 3. So much more value, so much earlier in the game. It's not even close. Thran dynamo is also better than Powerstone in terms of value, even at 4 mana. It pays itself off in 2 turns rather than 3, and has already profited you 2 mana over just 1.
Powerstones 2 main advantages are - first, getting you to 6 mana on turn 4, which 3 mana rocks usually can't do (hehe Coalition Relic). Second, if you have many ways to blink or untap your rocks in your deck such as Displacer Kitten and Dramatic reversal in the Spellslinger archetype, then you can generate much more value from Powerstone's 2 mana tap. In decks where this many specific conditions are met, for example a spellslinger deck which can abuse Powersone by untapping it repeatedly, and also has a 6 mana commander, I might play powerstone. If I can't abuse untapping the powerstone and I'm in a 0 or 1 colour deck, with a 6 mana commander, I might play it. If the latter is true but I'm in 2 or more colours, I would probably prefer Coalition Relic. Everywhere else Commander Sphere is better.
Scyclave Relic: do you really want to spend your whole turn 6 playing 3 mana rocks? Many decks will be threatening to win by then. If not, compare this to other 6 cost effects. A spell that costs 6 mana can exile the board, draw you 8+ cards, and whatever else. Spending 6 mana on 3 rocks that don't even enter untapped is not good enough for me to ever consider casting, so I wouldn't ever run a 3 mana rock just for that. Yes, I am ignoring the indestructable thing. I don't care about that. The only other reason I would consider running this over anything else is if you have some synergy, like being able to double the tokens, or something like that.
If you read all of that you're a goat.
Another day another chance to fight over card board. I miss being able to just sit down with a bunch of cluestones and other shitty mana rocks. Those were the good days. I’ve always wondered if you could make a format with only 3 mana rocks or more
Check with your local LGS and the people that okay there, you would be surprised how many players are willing to play leagues with restrictions. You may find alot of people want to build a commander deck with only 3 cmc rocks, and you can put other restrictions as long as everyone is on board.
One of the biggest flaws I can see in this discussion, is that the goldfish crew assumes everyone just throws away their collection and buys new cards whenever they're comming out. I still play darksteel instead of relic, simply because I have them and not the new ones. I would assume the same goes for many other people - hence the reason edhrec has a lot of not-great cards in the top list. Also with the amount of cards released in the last two years, I quite frankly have no idea which cards are available that'd improve my decks. That too plays into the edhrec not reflecting their opinions. In my playgroup artifacts aren't destroyed every two turn cycles (mass destruction cards cost money), so for me lantern is definetly an S tier card. Stadium and Heraldic banner I'd never heard of before, so maybe I'll get those at some point, but they'd probably not be more than B anyway. To be honest the only 3cmc rocks I use are Lantern, Darksteel and Cultivators caravan ; primarily because those I have in my collection.
I only buy if a Mana rock or a land gets powercrept hard ( like skyclave relic and dark steel ) otherwise I just use cards I've drafted in decks
How is that a flaw though? It's not "best 3cmc rocks that aren't new", it's "best 3cmc mana rocks". They can't account for every player's situation so they do the simplest list- which is all of them.
@@Frostgiantbutsmall What they can acount for is price and availability - which they don't
@@NeiroAtOpelCC none of these rocks are more than $10 (most are less than $4), and tcgplayer exists.
Edhrec is such a garbage way to try and evaluate playability. It is not that kind of tool. It brings in decks that people are play testing and building online before likely building in paper.
You guys are sleeping on Cursed Mirror, ETB creature decks are some of the most popular. It also lets you copy bombs like Eldrazi Titans or whatever.
Eldrazi titans trigger on cast but the annihilator ones are still great
Seth's face when Crim said "usually 32" 🤣👌
Commander's sphere actually cycles for 2 mana sometimes, since you can tap it before sacrificing it 😉
Unless I'm mistaken, Worn Powerstone is the cheapest artifact to produce (2) outside of Sol Ring and friends and Ashnod's Altar? So if Sol Rings and other busted fast mana rocks were gone (which they should be) then WP would be the best mana rock in terms of ratio of mv to mana produced at 3:2?
While i wouldnt put it at s, there is another argument for it that tomer forgot. For decks that heavily rely on mana rock based ramp, it gets around null rod/collector ouphe effects. Improvise isnt an activated ability, so you can still end up tapping your now useless rocks for non artifact spells, so it helps get those specific decks out of a pinch. Hugely meta dependant, and if your playgroup doesnt run effects like that, it is a moot point, but still one that should be mentioned anyways
Preach it!!
OMG Richard was brutal on chromatic lantern lol. I was dieing, every comeback from Richard was great!
I love the new editing! It looks amazing
I generally agree on most takes, with the notables being Cursed Mirror (B) and Worn Powerstone (D, I'm giving to Crim here).
3cmc rocks sacrifice early game development for mid-late game utility. Drawing a rock late usually does nothing, but with a utility 3-rock, you can at least get something besides mana.
Cursed Mirror's ceiling is whatever the best creature on the board is. Clone effects are very easy to underestimate because it's reliant on board state and requires creative thinking, which is what makes the ceiling on the card very high.
Worn Powerstone on the other hand...it's a fragile (artifact), slow (enters tapped 3-rock), one-trick pony (ONLY adds mana) that only adds colorless. If you are playing a mana-hungry deck, you're probably loading up on ramp sources, meaning this is IN ADDITION, not replacing, a 2-rock. If you're playing white, understandable. Red and Blue? No excuses, you can recur artifacts no problem and this entering tapped hurts. Red also has rituals, Black has mana doublers, and the non-white colors can play card draw instead to dig FOR ramp instead of PLAYING more ramp. Even if you had tap-untap synergies, you'd be playing this as a budget monolith or crypt. It's C at best, but severely underwhelming.
The thing with Worn Powerstone is there's only so much colourless mana you can use generally, and colourless decks can pop off in better ways. There's so many ways to add more mana instead of a tapped 3 mana rock, terrible.
Manascape refractor is the best mana rock (outside of mox, lotus, and sol ring imitators). I can't believe it didn't get more love here. For as much love as Worn Powerstone got, Manascape Refractor is at least as good as soon as there's a land that taps for 2 (kavu lands, cabal coffers come to mind), but it also gets all the utility land abilities as well. Your Serra's Sanctum, your Arch of Orazca, your Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin, your opponent's Rogue's Passage or their Gaea's Cradle. If you're playing lands that say anything other than "tap for one mana", and you are in the market for a 3 mana mana rock, this has got to be the pick.
Was worried that they are starting to actually fight but my guy Seth actually listens and changes his opinions and I love that.
Inspiring Statuary is definitely an S tier.
It puts in so much work in: Voltron, treasures, clues, foods, and the grand majority of artifact decks (basically not Breya). In most other decks, if you’re just running like 5 other non-rock artifacts, this thing is a worn power stone that doesn’t etb tapped.
In artifact decks, chances are this can help you cast 1/2 - 2/3 of your deck for almost free, and it basically negates commander tax if your commander isn’t an artifact. It is so powerful and completely underrated!
Seems like the take away is that it's better to approach 3-for-1 rocks more as spells in your deck, rather than as acceleration. If your deck wants the effect, then the flexibility is probably worth a slot.
You can always read the Celestus as 3, T: loot and gain life. It can be pretty good in the late game and the looting is optional.
And that is it's floor. In a flash/control deck it is not hard to just not play something on your turn and force it to night or play a couple cheap canytips to force day. And if you really have extra mana while it is night, you can pay 3 to make it day and ythen pass turn going back to night and get a second loot. Add in that unlike the old werewolves, day/night only cares about the active player so other people can't prevent a flip to night.
I want Tomer's shpeal as a Commander Moment. Seth's reaction to Tomer bumping it up to S made me smile wide.
I definitely agree with Crim on Worn Powerstone. Untapped rocks you can often weave into your midgame turns by dropping a rock and immediately using it to cast something else. You can drop a talisman turn 2 and have mana for a Path, you can play a signet turn 3 and play another 2-drop. Worn Powerstone is just a 3 mana investment, full stop. Good on turn 3, maybe, but terrible any time after that.
Im with Crim on this one too. Moonsilver Key >>> Worn Powerstone by a wide margin
Enters tapped cannot possibly be S tier, but it isn't D.
@@WaterlooFlu Yeah. I think Crim slightly underrated it but the other three severely overrated it, possibly because of nostalgia. I'd put it in low-B to C range.
It just kind of hilarious that they give some of the other rock lower grades do to them not doing anything on the turn they come in or being slow with secondary effects. But they give A+ to a rock that does nothing when it comes in and you hope they don't blow it up. Worn Power stone should be at most a C tier as it does nothing for play extension and fails to promote advantage late game. If your not playing it turn 2 or 3 with curve it's more or less a dead card as other card options should be better at that point.
I really enjoy these kinds of episodes I enjoy the whiplash of vehemently agreeing with someone on one card and then completely flabbergasted by their wrongness on another good stuff. I will say that your arguments venture into being downright terrible advice sometimes to get your point across like no Crim, mfdcs are not a replacement for ramp lol.
I love how the thumbnail has inspiring statuary at S tier.
I have to agree with Seth on coalition relic. The power of reaching a 6 drop a turn earlier is very strong. Same reason that worn power stone is so strong. I might even say coalition relic is better than worn power stone in most decks.
you guys are awesome so glad I discovered you guys. I love the topics you guys discuss
56:30 Cursed Mirror can copy any commander. Any eldrazi with annihilator 4; can copy etali primal storm and you get 4 things off the top all for 3 mana. Can copy anything! Emrakul, the Promised End... if you still live... copy a terastodon and blow up the original casters stuff as payback. ETB and HASTE. All for 3 MV. and oh yeah its a mana rock ramp in red for the rest of its life on the board.
Cursed mirror is an S to me. I play quite a bit of in person magic and I have never played it and not had an amazing turn when it enters. It scales amazing. Early game: early ETB effect, some ones commander, next turn you ramped one. Late game: A huge threat like Etali, a general ETB effect, a demon or literally anything
I slide it into every deck that runs red. I’ve personally never seen it be a dead card
And finally, despite disagreeing with Crim the entire video, I lean more towards his opinion on Worn Powerstone. Rarely do I ever need more rocks that tap for double colorless than Sol Ring and I do not at all like that it comes in tapped. It's good in a heavily colorless or artifact deck, and that's about it. Even then in artifact decks I would rather combo Basalt Monolith with an untapper.
I would rather have 1 colored mana than 2 colorless in most decks. If Sol Ring was 2 mana it would not be nearly as good. At 3 mana it is not great. Coming in tapped at 2 mana would be playable, but 3 is bad. Tapped vs untapped is a huge deal because you may not always play it on curve.
I agree, I was surprised the others rated it so high. Maybe its because I rarely play decks that need a lot of colorless mana generation, but the way I see it sol ring already fits the bill of a double colorless generator while costing 2 less (meaning it taps mana positive) and enters untapped that having a card that does the same thing just worse in every way possible seems not only redundant but just bad in general. It's the same reason why I'm not huge on thran as I once was and ended up cutting it from all my decks. Maybe if I played decks with an average cmc of greater than 3 I would have a different opinion.
Midnight Clock: (B) Shuffling away your GY is a huge drawback, and therefore it generally gets taken out of my blue decks. It's also hella slow, so unless I'm a controlling deck that doesn't use the GY (somehow), I would leave it out. But it is great in slow blue decks.
Skyclave Relic: (B+) I will only play this if I'm in a deck that cares about artifacts. 3 mana is already a lot, and spending SIX MANA to not win the game but just make a few mana rocks isn't that great. In the specific scenario Richard mentions, where you failed to protect your board, it's fine. It's better than Darksteel Ingot, but I wouldn't play that either. But if you care about artifacts, it's 3 for 6 plus 3 mana back, which is good.
Commander's Sphere: (C) Would maybe play in 4-5 colour decks, but otherwise no. Cycling for (3) sucks, and there are so many better choices. And as Crim mentions, MDFC's are usually just better. It's often in the initial build of a deck, but also often gets cut.
Chromatic Lantern: (B) I put this in every 4-5C deck. It's just the best fixer in the game, and it plays around Blood Moons and whatnot. In 0-3 mana decks it's not great, but if you have a lot of non-mana utility lands than I might still play it. It's also one of the few mana rocks that still functions (somewhat) under cards like Stony Silence, Ouphe, and Karn. Not only is World Tree only 5C, but the fixing doesn't come online until after you need it most (if you're a 5C deck at 6 lands, you should be able to cast everything).
Inspiring Statuary: (B) This is the most B. It's a solid S in specific decks, and a C everywhere else.
Heraldic Banner: (C) I feel like I'm giving B to everything, but not this one. This is okay in aggro decks, but not great, and useless everywhere else.
Strivhaven Stadium: (B+) If you're a tokens/fog/pillow-fort deck, this is a fantastic wincon. As Seth mentions, it draws hate - but that's because it wins games. It's hard to ask for more from a mana rock, but you need a specific style of deck for it to be good. If it isn't good in your deck, it will actively get you killed.
Cursed Mirror: (A) I don't think it's an S, but this is a fantastic card. Fantastic in combos, great everywhere else (yes, you get the ETB, it's the same as every other clone, LOL). They really drop the ball on this one, but it isn't on MTGO, so that's probably part of it. You can definitely tell Crim has never played against the card even once.
Coalition Relic: (C+) I will play this on occasion in 4-5C decks where I really need rocks (ie. non-Green decks).
The Celestus: (C+) If you care about day/night, it's great to the point of being a staple. If you don't, it's really bad.
Worn Powerstone: (B+) Used to be great, but power creep pushed it down. Entering tapped can suck sometimes, but it's still reasonable. I put this in every non-green deck that isn't super low to ground.
Commander sphere basically cycles for 2 since you can tap it before you sacrifice
So what is your S-tier 3cc mana rock? I mean, scale doesn't make sense if you don't have something to represent the highest grade :P
Shuffling you GY is S tier in some playgroups. My group has tons of mill so I have Midnight clock in every blue deck, and elixir of immortality in every deck. Many downsides can be positives.
I do skyclave in both my orvar deck and any deck that has doubling season because I love the idea of pay 6 and get 5 indestructible rocks.
So Tomer was saying that mana rocks get blown up all the time in their meta, but then he says he gets to be lazy with Chromatic Lantern, but what happens when the lantern gets blown up and you realize that you tapped wrong?
Chromatic Lantern is bad.
You know what. I think you've convinced me that chromatic lantern is bad. Richard and crim are crazy about cursed mirror though, that card is actually busted, but it does have to be in the right deck. Decks like kiki jiki, panharmonicon etb decks, artifact looping decks, there's a lot of homes for it. The ceiling is absurd though, since godo decks literally use this card to win the game, usually by using goblin engineer to put it in the yard, then playing godo to get hammer of nazan, and getting a copy of godo with the mirror to get helm of the host.
Other notes. I've had great success with celestus in draw go control decks like nymris. It curves nicely into nymris at 3, and you will usually get 1/2 loots a turn, which is especially good in nymris's sort of graveyard strategy.
Stryxhaven stadium might be better than I thought at first. Go wide decks can use it, sure, but it's especially good in evasive decks like tetsuko umizawa fugitive. Another home is infect decks which can generally proliferate and push through damage, and sometimes struggle to take out more than one person. I'm surprised Richard was so down on this card, because it'd actually be really good in his bird tribal deck.
On cursed mirror, I think Crim and Richard's arguments made sense. The ranking system they were using is based on how generically good a card is, and just generically, a color-restricted mana rock that copies a one-time etb isn't very good. Yeah, the Godo combo and the similar magda combo make good use of it, but being useful in a combo does not inherently make a card itself good. Pixie Guide is extremely powerful when combined with Delina, but on its own Pixie Guide's solidly hot garbage.
the ceiling's through the roof (pun intended), but the floor is so low its not even worth it outside of a small number of very specific decks. I'd rate it a low c for red/ red-x decks, and a d for anything more then 2 color.
@@darkflame9410 I wouldn't say it's an S, but I would say that it's at least a B, which is where they seem to put very average rocks with some solid situational upside. Cursed mirror doesn't have to enter as a copy of your creatures, and the likelihood of an opponent having either a creature with a good etb (rec sage is pretty ubiquitous, land ramp creatures, card draw creatures, there's a lot of very common things) or just a beater to get a clean big hit off of, is pretty high. Even played fairly flexible effect that will be better than a C card like commanders sphere most of the time.
By definition, all 3 MV mana rocks are *B* , _at best_ . The only ones I ever play are Basalt Monolith, Worn Powerstone, Coalition Relic, and Skyclave Relic, and they're all B's.
Coalition Relic (CR) and Worn Powerstone both ramp you from 4 to 6 and CR doesn't only make colorless mana or enter tapped... I don't understand Tomer or Richard's massively different rankings for these rather similar cards. I wish someone would have argued more for the CR. (Especially while Tomer was ranting about either card, lol).
Inspiring sanctuary is so good in Urza, it great in any artifact producing deck. Straight up A
I was ready to jump on them if they said inspiring statuary was good for equipment decks. It sounds appealing, "tap your equipment to help pay for things", but the problem there is that it doesn't help cast your equipment, nor helps pay for equip costs, and the spells that it does work with are generally not that expensive, i.e., your not getting the big discounts that you want. It would be better to just play a mana rock that can pay for anything, like skyclave relic.
Cursed mirror is so gooood
"Where you gonna get treasures in mono black!?" allow me to introduce you to a cute little card called Revel in Riches.
And like they said, pitiless plunderer. It plus revel in any mono black that likes killing stuff *chefs kiss*
I used to play Ccromatic Lantern, Darksteel Ingot and some other 3CMC Ramp.
Then I realized having 4 and 5 mana to spend is far better than 2 and 5.
I'm building Brion at the moment and will add the Cursed Mirror.
I put Inspiring Statuary and Midnight Clock to my wantlist because their €cost is quite low and find some space to test.
But Seth where is your Magnifying Glass? :D
as someone who plays budget, with mostly basic lands, Chromatic Lantern is A+ tier for me. Always wanna see that mana rock!
31:00 Hard agree. I played return to dust on an esika player's Lantern and Prismatic Bridge at a local commander night and they just scooped it right up (though they did try to pact of negation, which I hit with a mana tithe which might have been the clincher).
I've been very unimpressed with Chromatic Lamtern, even in three-colour no-green decks. That being said, Tomer may have just convinced me to pick up an Inspiring Statuary for my Magda treasures deck.
My best friend plays a Magda deck. It’s an absolute house.
@@vaporeon344 Mine is a house too. I think it's my strongest deck! I never did put Inspiring Statuary in it because I worried it would do too little when behind.
Lantern is the only mana rock at this cmc that allows to cast two-pip cards, if you've been missing one color. For ex. you have no W mana. Top decking Lantern would immediately allow you to cast Wrath of God, etc. In this situation a plains or any sub 4 cmc rock wouldn't help.
If Hullbreacher or any x/2 wreaks your plan Dromar's charm stops it before and after they hit the board.
The funny thing is: Hedron Archive is actually better than 3 cmc rocks when combined with 2 cmc rocks. Because you can go turn 2 Signet, turn 3 Archive, Turn 4 = 7 mana. Whereas most 3 cmc rocks would give you less.
i appreciate that richard's green screen makes him the real doctor anime
I agree with Crim and the worn powerstone. These days there are much better things to be doing at 3 mana and coalition relic basically does the same thing for turn 4, but gives you color fixing.
Lol, the chromatic lantern conversation tells you exactly who in the group enjoys playing one and two color decks and who enjoys playing three to five color decks.
As someone who plays almost exclusively 4 and 5 color decks, chromatic lantern, world tree, urborg and yavimaya are like actual lifesavers when it comes to mana with a nod to chromatic orrery as well (for being able to turn cabal coffers mana into mana of any color). I run stuff like tempt with discovery, pir's whim, hour of promise to search out my world tree just because if I don't I can basically forget about playing magic.
Expedition Map.
3 mana rocks all unplayable if you're on crypt/vault/tomb, but as you crank down the budget, different rocks suit different deckbuilding styles.
Every colour has better ramp options than rocks. Enchantment, rituals, utility creatures, or straight up tutors can ramp you massively or get powerful lands that tap for multiple mana. These will always be better than any rock over 2cmc, and even most 2cmc rocks. Tuned decks only play 2cmc rocks for consistency.
Consistency is boring though, so cards like Cursed Mirror, Crowded Crypt or Heraldic Banner are ultimately just more interesting cards to build and play around than a generically weak rock. Generally I'd rather play around a cool weak rock than fill up my deck with tutors for better effects.
5:44 While it only adds blue mana, it does offer some fixing for 5 colour decks,
in that it draws you a fresh new hand which will increase the chance of you getting the lands you need.
Coalition relic is kinda nuts. Definitely evaluated it incorrectly for the most part.
"You can't pin the hopes of your yank mana base on a lantern that get blown up on turn 5"
- Richard
Surprised Crim doesn't like Coalition Relic. My first thought is you can always leave that rock up for counterspells, and if you don't use it then on the next turn you get the mana from it anyway.
I have some love for the less flashy rocks that still find their utility.
Commander's sphere is the used card every deck drives around in college. A lot of decks will outgrow it as they get tuned but when you're running budget it's a great piece of tech to fall back on until you find exactly what you need and will always be at least "good enough."
Worn powerstone hurts for the entering tapped and only giving colorless, but there are certainly decks that just need that oomph to Get To The Point. If my Liesa, Shroud of Dusk can hit the board early, I'm going to run it.
The way Seth's face changes at 38:13 killed me
In my experience, save blowing up Midnight Clock til right before it would blow itself up. Nothing like letting that blue player build up those counters, then denying them the satisfaction of getting it.
I think Richard is wrong about white been horrible at Mana rocks. They're the second deck at ramping behind Green and Mana rocks are just icing on the cake.
Maybe Seth likes Coalition Relic so much because he likes playing cube a lot and it is very powerful in cube. Jumping from turn 3 to turn 6 or jumping 2 mana on a given turn can be super strong in vintage and legacy cubes.
I think you might be right. Good ol' cube bias.
Jumping 2 mana on a turn is strong in any format. The 2 mana of any color can also be great for 3 or more color commanders.
Chromatic lantern is also good in a landfall deck, because it allows you to tap your fetch lands for mana and save up the extra land drop triggers for a specific effect.
Chromatic lantern is an auto include in 3 color decks it’s amazing helps you fix your mana and allows more utility with lands.
Worn Powerstone is great if you’re running the Dramatic Reversal + Isochron Scepter combo as a backup for, or in addition to Sol Ring to enable the combo.
No manascape refractor? Which I think is probably the best one. You can't fix mona of colours you don't have and it etbs tapped but that ability is so insane and it leads to so many combos and busted synergis
Yeah surprised no mention of it, Its so fun to double up on Phyrexian Tower and High Market stuff like that
I think Seth knocked this one out of the park. I agreed with pretty much every one of his rankings. I'm shocked he was the only one who thought Coalition Relic was good.
Seth was clearly the most accurate in this episode. Especially on Coalition Relic.
I'm actually pretty sad that EDH has gotten to the point where 3CMC mana rocks are basically unplayable without "extra" stuff. EDH used to be about casual cards that you couldn't play in competitive formats and now it's become another turn 3/turn 4 format. That aside, this ranking video was awesome!
Seth hates Chromatic Lantern…I love it because then you don’t have to sac fetches and that helps with stack pieces prohibiting searching.
Chromatic Lantern is good in 2 and 1 color decks that are steal your stuff decks, Etali is a great example I've stolen things like deadeye and greed before and Latern allowed me to use those cards
How did Basalt Monolith not make the cut into this video? It's got burst ramp potential, and combos with so many things.
Might have forgotten it
It's not a mana rock. Its a combo piece.
27:19 True due diligence. This gave me a good laugh :D
I think the only deck I have worn powerstone in is brudiclad. I make a token of it, and then turn all my tokens into untapped versions for it. Helps me go crazy with things like walking ballista.
Cursed Mirror is incredible with the existence of commanders with ETBs, Tap Abilities, Attack Triggers, or even combat damage triggers (which all are very prevalent in the format). It is good when you are behind AND ahead. It is general value because of it's copying effect (which doesn't target, BTW), but even better value if there is a bigger threat on the board.
Cursed Mirror is insane with Goblin Engineer.
I agree with Crim. I never play Worn Powerstone anymore.
Midnight Clock! One of my favorite cards ever. I will put it in every deck that can contain blue pips. It's a wheel on a ramp spell, but it's even better than that! Since the wheel happens on a later turn, you can guarantee you'll have all of your mana ready on the turn you wheel. It leads to some absolutely explosive plays. Never once have I been disappointed when I play it.
My playgroup had similar thoughts on Cursed Mirror when they first saw it and decided not to put it in their decks. Then the first time I played it I copied someone’s Etali. Now everyone plays it. Realistically there will always be a target for the etb unless you are playing it the turn after a board wipe, unless everyone is just playing meme/jank decks.