#axelrod gunnarson

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Axelrod Gunnarson

Artist: Scott Kirschner TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[bhawk-goose]

Randomly decided to go through some legendary creatures and talk about how good I think they are, because clearly I'm qualified

Adun Oakenshield

Me: if it was 2 mana it could be playable, but at 3 it's shit

Cedhrec: 1678

Angus Mackenzie

Me: unsure. Could be good, but probably not

Cedhrec: 952

Arcades Sabboth

Me: shit. Even if he buffed power instead of toughness he'd still be awful. Even if he didn't set you back 3 mana he'd be bad

Cedhrec: 1866

Axelrod Gun arson(or Gunnarson if you're boring)

Me: shit. I'm looking at these as commanders, but even in a 1v1 game to my knowledge 5 mana for a 5/5 with trample is okay it best, so in a 1v1 setting with 20 life paying 3 extra just to occasionally do 1 damage and gain 1 life is complete shit. In commander, though, you have 40 life, and 4 players, so it's even worse.

Cedhrec: 2465

Ayesha Tanaka

Me: 4 mana for a 2/2 with banding is a comically bad rate that is not helped at all by the ability. It specifies 1 white mana, so it could work against non white decks, but it has to be an artifact, so it has to be a non white deck that uses artifacts. But hey, sol ring and other mana artifacts are pretty common in Cedh, but this can't target artifacts. It's such a specific hate piece for 4 mana that needs to tap to hate, it wouldn't be good in most formats, but this is commander, which doesn't have a sideboard, and I'm more specifically talking avout these being your commander, and if you're using your commander slot for this you might as well just play without a commander*

Cedhrec: 2346

Barktooth Warbeard

Me: shit. It's a vanilla and neither of its stats are higher than its mana cost.

Cedhrec: 2725

Bartel Runeaxe

Me: a 6 mana 6/5 with vigilance and a downside. Need I say more? Probably not but I will anyway. I know not being able to be targeted by aura spells COULD be an upside, since there are some offensive auras, but auras in general aren't very good, and this also protects it from your auras, so not good, and very bad as a commander

Cedhrec: 2721

Boris Devilboon

Me: I'm starting to realise how few cards are competitively viable, I think I'll start trying to be more lenient with these. Starting sfter this one, because it's a fucking 5 mana 2/2 that doesn't have every positive keyword in existence. 4 mana to create a token isn't a very good rate already, but you also have to tap it, so you can't even try to use a bunch of rituals cuz it's black and red to create a bunch of tokens. It doesn't matter if you found a way to give dark ritual storm and cast 50 spells before it, you get a single 1/1 demon. Even the name is an insult, they called it lesser.

Cedhrec: 2680

Chromium

Me: this is close to being decent, but permanently setting you back 3 mana is way too much. If it had trample and only set you back 2 it MIGHT be competitively viable, because then the rampage becomes useful, but without trample there's no reason not to just throw a 1/1 at it whenever it attacks, and at that point 3 mana every turn is way too much. 1 mana every turn would be too much considering it costs 8 mana. Flying helps it, but 8 mana PLUS an upkeep cost is too much

Cedhrec: 1786

Dakkon Blackblade

Me: kinda like Chromium, but closer. Just about any positive keyword other than banding or rampage would at least make this decent. A card that scales with you is good, but cedh has a lot of ramp with artifacts and stuff, and it doesn't check for those, so a chunk of your mana base won't affect it, but a lot of keywords could help it scale better. Lifelink could heal you as much as they damage. Sure life gain isn't too good, but I still think it could make this decent. Trample could allow there to be a difference between 8 lands and 80 lands even when your opponent has a lot of creatures. Flying, menace, or any other evasion ability could have a similar effect. Reach could also help, making them more of a defensive creature than offensive. Really anything, but with no abilities aside from their stats I don't think they're very good.

Cedhrec: 831

[aflo]

i want to study at a Tolarian academy

i will cast summon creature spells and use world enchantments. i will read about Urza's saga on my scroll rack all night while drinking a bottle gnome with my allies. i'll have a feast of the unicorn every day that's worth 5 venarian gold. i would go to a festival every night. i am also more likely to meet Axelrod Gunnarson, Dakkon Blackblade, Gerrard Capashen and Urza.

[mtgbracket]

Round of 1024 - Batch 7

This is a big one - with Sliver Queen vs Rofellos, Eldrazi Titans Emrakul and Ulamog, plus Jaya, Momir Vig, and Reaper King!

Voting is open for one week HERE.

Full list of matchups:

Atemsis, All-Seeing vs Momir Vig, Simic Visionary Ormos, Archive Keeper vs Iizuka the Ruthless Reaper King vs Jodah, Archmage Eternal Darigaaz Reincarnated vs Mistform Ultimus

Grakmaw, Skyclave Ravager vs Daghatar the Adamant Tromokratis vs Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant Gonti, Lord of Luxury vs Hanna, Ship's Navigator Dragonlord Silumgar vs The Lady of the Mountain

Oona, Queen of the Fae vs Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger Jaya Ballard, Task Mage vs Glissa Sunseeker Pianna, Nomad Captain vs Jerrard of the Closed Fist Colfenor, the Last Yew vs Kentaro, the Smiling Cat

Grismold, the Dreadsower vs Rafiq of the Many Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed vs Wydwen, the Biting Gale Oloro, Ageless Ascetic vs K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary vs Sliver Queen

Verdeloth the Ancient vs Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger vs Gabriel Angelfire Kaalia, Zenith Seeker vs Bosh, Iron Golem Axelrod Gunnarson vs Kwende, Pride of Femeref

Gishath, Sun's Avatar vs Jeska, Warrior Adept Sharuum the Hegemon vs Virtus the Veiled Xenagos, God of Revels vs Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo Gallia of the Endless Dance vs Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Ertai, Wizard Adept vs Surrak, the Hunt Caller Dragonlord Ojutai vs Zurgo Helmsmasher Dargo, the Shipwrecker vs Squee, the Immortal Tymaret, Chosen from Death vs Thryx, the Sudden Storm

Dong Zhou, the Tyrant vs Feldon of the Third Path Brinelin, the Moon Kraken vs Louvaq, the Aberrant Sakiko, Mother of Summer vs Saffi Eriksdotter Tymaret, the Murder King vs Omnath, Locus of Mana

[daily-mtg-tarot]

Concentrate upon your question, and draw from a deck of 67 red and black cards with CMC greater than 5...

The Present

Rakdos Ringleader

{4}{B}{R}

Creature — Skeleton Warrior

First strike

Whenever Rakdos Ringleader deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card at random.

{B}: Regenerate Rakdos Ringleader.

3 / 1

The Challenge

Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh

{4}{U}{B}{R}

Legendary Planeswalker — Bolas

+2: Target opponent exiles cards from the top of their library until they exile a nonland card. Until end of turn, you may cast that card without paying its mana cost.

+1: Each opponent exiles two cards from their hand.

−4: Nicol Bolas, God-Pharaoh deals 7 damage to target opponent, creature an opponent controls, or planeswalker an opponent controls.

−12: Exile each nonland permanent your opponents control.

{7}

The Past

Vampiric Dragon

{6}{B}{R}

Creature — Vampire Dragon

Flying

Whenever a creature dealt damage by Vampiric Dragon this turn dies, put a +1/+1 counter on Vampiric Dragon.

{1}{R}: Vampiric Dragon deals 1 damage to target creature.

5 / 5

The Future

Igneous Pouncer

{4}{B}{R}

Creature — Elemental

Haste

Swampcycling {2}, mountaincycling {2} ({2}, Discard this card: Search your library for a Swamp or Mountain card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.)

5 / 1

Above

Axelrod Gunnarson

{4}{B}{B}{R}{R}

Legendary Creature — Giant

Trample

Whenever a creature dealt damage by Axelrod Gunnarson this turn dies, you gain 1 life and Axelrod deals 1 damage to target player or planeswalker.

5 / 5

Below

Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

{4}{U}{B}{B}{R}

Legendary Planeswalker — Bolas

+3: Destroy target noncreature permanent.

−2: Gain control of target creature.

−9: Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker deals 7 damage to target player or planeswalker. That player or that planeswalker's controller discards seven cards, then sacrifices seven permanents.

{5}

Advice

Grave Upheaval

{4}{B}{R}

Sorcery

Put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control. It gains haste.

Basic landcycling {2} ({2}, Discard this card: Search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library.)

External Influences

Prossh, Skyraider of Kher

{3}{B}{R}{G}

Legendary Creature — Dragon

When you cast this spell, create X 0/1 red Kobold creature tokens named Kobolds of Kher Keep, where X is the amount of mana spent to cast Prossh.

Flying

Sacrifice another creature: Prossh, Skyraider of Kher gets +1/+0 until end of turn.

5 / 5

Hopes/Fears

Vaevictis Asmadi

{2}{B}{B}{R}{R}{G}{G}

Legendary Creature — Elder Dragon

Flying

At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice Vaevictis Asmadi unless you pay {B}{R}{G}.

{B}: Vaevictis Asmadi gets +1/+0 until end of turn.

{R}: Vaevictis Asmadi gets +1/+0 until end of turn.

{G}: Vaevictis Asmadi gets +1/+0 until end of turn.

7 / 7

Outcome

Progenitus

{W}{W}{U}{U}{B}{B}{R}{R}{G}{G}

Legendary Creature — Hydra Avatar

Protection from everything

If Progenitus would be put into a graveyard from anywhere, reveal Progenitus and shuffle it into its owner's library instead.

10 / 10

[magiccardz]

By committing to the whole "legends" concept, Wizards R&D realized, only too late, that they'd have to come up with a bunch of stupid names, names even stupider than the ones I come up with on this very blog. Sometimes they simply stole other peoples' ideas. This was 1994 and Neil Gaiman's "Sandman" comics, with their rich, archetype-laden fantasy universe, were an obvious prospect to be turned into a trading card game. Magic's ultimate future was not yet secure, and Wizards wanted to come up with other kinds of settings for a trading card game. They had created "Jyhad", a game about middle eastern politics that had been a massive public relations blunder with its arrogant handling of Islamic issues and its not-so-veiled insinuations that all Muslims are vampires. Other attempts at branching out included a game based on "Watchmen" by Alan Moore, in which the players are too locked in their private angst to ever attack each other--this failed in playtesting. Another game, "Baseball, the Eternal Struggle", attempting to appeal to jocks, just used Topps baseball cards and D&D dice but the jocks they hired in the want-ad to test the game kept asking when they were supposed to take a shot, and getting angry when they were told it was not a drinking game. Another game called "Wiccan: the Gathering" had players competeing as rival witches in the real world, casting curses on each other but also going to work at the Cinnabon, getting in long frustated phone calls with AOL customer sevice, and struggling to get through dull science electives at the local community college. It was rejected as a bit too on-the-nose. Anyway, Axelrod Gunnarson was one of several characters Gaiman invented for the "Sandman" TCG, and Scott Kirschner's illustration is simply a fleshed-out version of the concept art. Axelrod was 25 feet tall functionary of Dream who blew magic dust on trees and stuff, making it glitter with the sparkle of a psychologically crippling nostalgia. The character was to be featured in the 5th volume of the "Sandman" series, in which a sad 50-something guy gets lost the glory of his disco days, even while his body remains at his tedious desk job. Gunnarson is seduced by Desire, tormenting the poor man, and the only way for the Sandman to make things right is to get in a disco dancing battle with his androgynous sibling. The two page sequence in which Morpheus, clad in an all-black leisure suit, red gem around his neck, grooves out to "Funkytown" surely would have been one of the greatest in the series. Unfortunately, Gaiman could not agree with Wizards on several points, such as misogyny (he was into pedestal misogyny, Wizards was into derogatory misogyny), and also paying employees (he was in favor, Wizards was against) so the partnership ended. But Wizards stole the Gunnarson chracter from Gaiman anyway, and Gaiman was outraged. "Eight mana to put out a creature? How are you ever going to manage that before you're ripped to shreds?" As a result, Gaiman instead published his greatest piece of pedestal misogyny, "A Game of You", whose central narrative of a woman trapped in a fantasy realm of her own invention seemed like an obvious swipe at Wizards, though the world could scarcely care about the petty beefs of semi-powerful nerds.

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Axelrod Gunnarson

Artist: Scott Kirschner TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

[deactivated-silly]

Toryaki: list of possible first child names: AXELROD GUNNARSON. the most metal baby you will ever encounter

"A Cool Dude": a babby wrought of only the most metal womb.

Toryaki: This baby doesn't cry.

Toryaki: He only releases a ground-shaking "KYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH".

"A Cool Dude": When he was born, 20,000 widdows wept simultaneously.

Toryaki: Upon his birth, the delivery room immediately became a mosh pit.

"A Cool Dude": Fireworks went off in the epilepsy ward.

[mtgbracket]

Round of 1024 - Batch 7 results

Time for the results from Batch 7.  The full results spreadsheet is available here and today’s results can be browsed in visual format here.

And here are today’s results:

Feldon of the Third Path defeats Dong Zhou, the Tyrant with 89.4% of the vote Dragonlord Silumgar defeats The Lady of the Mountain with 89.3% of the vote Squee, the Immortal defeats Dargo, the Shipwrecker with 83.8% of the vote Xenagos, God of Revels defeats Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo with 81.1% of the vote

Pianna, Nomad Captain defeats Jerrard of the Closed Fist with 77.9% of the vote Sharuum the Hegemon defeats Virtus the Veiled with 77.9% of the vote Colfenor, the Last Yew defeats Kentaro, the Smiling Cat with 77.8% of the vote Saffi Eriksdotter defeats Sakiko, Mother of Summer with 77.0% of the vote

Jaya Ballard, Task Mage defeats Glissa Sunseeker with 76.9% of the vote Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger defeats Gabriel Angelfire with 74.4% of the vote Omnath, Locus of Mana defeats Tymaret, the Murder King with 73.9% of the vote Rafiq of the Many defeats Grismold, the Dreadsower with 73.6% of the vote

Ormos, Archive Keeper defeats Iizuka the Ruthless with 73.3% of the vote Emrakul, the Aeons Torn defeats Gallia of the Endless Dance with 69.7% of the vote Kwende, Pride of Femeref defeats Axelrod Gunnarson with 69.6% of the vote Gishath, Sun's Avatar defeats Jeska, Warrior Adept with 69.0% of the vote

Momir Vig, Simic Visionary defeats Atemsis, All-Seeing with 68.1% of the vote Wydwen, the Biting Gale defeats Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed with 66.7% of the vote Reaper King defeats Jodah, Archmage Eternal with 64.3% of the vote Thryx, the Sudden Storm defeats Tymaret, Chosen from Death with 62.5% of the vote

K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth defeats Oloro, Ageless Ascetic with 61.4% of the vote Gonti, Lord of Luxury defeats Hanna, Ship's Navigator with 60.0% of the vote Verdeloth the Ancient defeats Acornelia, Fashionable Filcher with 59.5% of the vote Bosh, Iron Golem defeats Kaalia, Zenith Seeker with 57.5% of the vote

Ertai, Wizard Adept defeats Surrak, the Hunt Caller with 56.6% of the vote Sliver Queen defeats Rofellos, Llanowar Emissary with 54.2% of the vote Darigaaz Reincarnated defeats Mistform Ultimus with 54.0% of the vote Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger defeats Oona, Queen of the Fae with 53.8% of the vote

Grakmaw, Skyclave Ravager defeats Daghatar the Adamant with 53.6% of the vote Dragonlord Ojutai defeats Zurgo Helmsmasher with 52.0% of the vote Tromokratis defeats Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant with 51.2% of the vote Brinelin, the Moon Kraken defeats Louvaq, the Aberrant with 51.1% of the vote

[mtgbracket]

Round of 16384 - Batch 76

Batch 76 voting is now open.  The following polls are currently open:

Batch 76 Batch 75 Batch 74 Batch 73 Batch 72 Batch 71 Batch 70

Batch 69 results will be up soon.

The full list of matchups for today is:

Dragonscale General vs Breaking Wave Revenant vs Wandering Ones Mistbind Clique vs Guardian's Magemark Goblin Mountaineer vs Emerald Charm Axelrod Gunnarson vs Spreading Plague Hallow vs Insist Blinding Spray vs Auriok Steelshaper Mana Echoes vs Scourgemark Lucent Liminid vs Cho-Arrim Bruiser Geralf's Messenger vs Molten Disaster Vandalize vs Dragon Blood Nature's Will vs Return to the Earth Lumengrid Gargoyle vs Marble Chalice Otarian Juggernaut vs Dredge Delif's Cube vs Confirm Suspicions Balshan Griffin vs Gaea's Skyfolk Restoration Gearsmith vs Killer Instinct Mindless Null vs Canyon Wildcat Fissure Vent vs Cloudblazer Cloudskate vs Lightning Prowess Wrecking Ogre vs Goblin General Phyrexian Walker vs Searing Flesh Turtleshell Changeling vs Clip Wings Runeclaw Bear vs Tenza, Godo's Maul Boon Satyr vs Exalted Angel Quietus Spike vs Stomp and Howl Riot Devils vs Village Bell-Ringer Static Orb vs Ironclaw Orcs Seasoned Tactician vs Legacy Weapon Darting Merfolk vs Skywinder Drake Kor Sky Climber vs Oracle en-Vec Syncopate vs Volition Reins