Rune-Scarred Demon or Sidisi, Undead Vizier?
Commander Deck Help forum
Posted on March 6, 2023, 8:22 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
I have a copy of Rune-Scarred Demon in these two EDH decks, but, since both of those decks center around the theme of reanimating creatures, both my own and my opponents', I am considering replacing the demons with copies of Sidisi, Undead Vizier, as I can sacrifice her to her own effect and then reanimate her, using her ability multiple times.
What does everyone else say about this? Should I replace Rune-Scarred Demon with Sidisi, Undead Vizier?
DemonDragonJ says... #3
Triton, thank you, very much, and I shall be very glad to make that replacement!
March 6, 2023 9:13 p.m.
I love Black Sidisi in Meren, I have never wanted to run Rune-Scarred. I ran Burning-Rune Demon over Rune-Scarred, but even that has been removed. 7 mana is a heck of a lot of mana if you ever want to just cast it later game, a thing you can do with Sidisi or Burning. FWIW Burning also gets two things, as long as you get the right two things it doesn't matter where they end up.
March 7, 2023 7:37 a.m.
griffstick says... #6
I remember when Rune-Scarred Demon was an auto include for any deck running black 7 yrs ago. In today's cmdr Rune-Scarred Demon is over costed
March 7, 2023 10:41 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #7
griffstick, how is it overcosted, now, compared to before? Surely, mana fixing has only improved since the demon was first printed?
March 7, 2023 8:26 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #8
DemonDragonJ: In general, (casual) Commander has sped up considerably. It used to be common for average mana value to be in the 3.5-4.0 range and you could afford to still be setting up with a 7 drop. Now most decks run half a mana lower in avg MV and 7 drops need to be game winning. Of course depending on playgroup and exact deck you may still be able to get away with playing slower, but when discussing it on a website suggestions are going to come from a standpoint of what is commonly encountered.
March 7, 2023 10:32 p.m.
griffstick says... #9
It's over costed because cards like Bolas's Citadel exist at 6 mana or Vampiric Tutor at instant speed is the best tutor and thats 1 mana. The best fit for Rune-Scarred Demon is in Rakdos, Lord of Riots. If its a tutor your looking for its very bad at that. The power of tutoring for any card is strong. It gets worse the more you spend for that tutor. Being able to cast the spell you tutored for in the same turn is what makes for a strong tutor.
March 8, 2023 2:17 p.m. Edited.
In part I think 7 was always 'too much', people just didn't notice how often the card left you screwed because other people were also screwed more often because the average player's heuristics are wildly better than they were 5 years ago, in addition to our pool of cards being much better stocked with pushed cards. 10 years ago most of the best cards were on the Reserved List (maybe even more than most), most of the Reserved list has better options now, meaning that for even the best decks, most of us are playing way more (potentially) Modern legal cards than we did. Combine most people being better at deckbuilding/playing and having access to better cards and we can expect to see cards like Rune-Scarred Demon plummet in play.
As a rough rule of thumb, to hit 7 mana a turn early, you need enough lands to not miss your drops and enough ramp that you actually have it to cast. If you want to see 1 piece of ramp reasonably early (by turn 3) most games you should run ~10 pieces, and to hit 6 land drops you'd need to play ~45 lands. If you are fine spending two turns ramping before casting you can run even more ramp and shave a few lands, but if you shave more than 5 you won't hit your 5th land drop very reliably. For the record, to hit your 4th land drop for Sidisi, you only need ~34 lands and 10 ramp effects, that sounds a lot like a deck people actually build!
If you run Demonic Tutor (which I consider the best tutor, since it puts the card into hand immediately and isn't card disadvantage, ymmv), you only need to hit 1B to cast it, meaning you can cast it turn 1 in competitive metas, and in non-competitive metas you can cast it turn 2 pretty often, if you even want the option to play your Rune-Scarred you're looking at turn 5 in a deck that's probably got too much ramp, and turn 6 for a deck that's still high in ramp while running more lands than most people run in Lands Matter decks. Note, if you're running a Demonic Tutor in a hypothetical deck that runs lots of lands, by the time you can literally cast the Rune-Scarred you could probably cast both Demonic Tutor and whatever it tutored up.
In conclusion I think the numbers were never very kind to Rune-Scarred, you need to build a weird deck that's using weird ramp sources for a card that clunky to make sense, stuff like weird Storage lands from FE and MM, which most people openly laugh at afaik, I suppose you might run lots of weird ramp that ramps you more than 1 pip, Worn Powerstone and Thran Dynamo coming out on curve will get the casting done sooner, but those are the only cards I can think of that make it reasonable to cast the Demon early or to cast it later and still have mana to cast something else.
March 8, 2023 3:22 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #11
griffstick, DreadKhan, I understand that, but the majority of tutors simply replace themselves, so I like tutors that have an additional effect, such as Primal Command, Shared Summons, or Rune-Scarred Demon; or, if I use a tutor that is simply one-for-one, I use it in a deck where I can copy it, such as me having Solve the Equation in my Riku of Two Reflections deck.
March 12, 2023 11:49 a.m.
DemonDragonJ honest question, but would you seriously play a 5 mana 6/6 Flyer with no other abilities in Commander? And it's got a subtype that doesn't have oodles of payoffs/synergies, it's not an Elf/Goblin/Zombie? Probably not, we want more than just a body usually, even if a cheap 6/6 would be worth 'a card' in an average meta, there are still much better cards. So, if that 5 mana card probably isn't worth it, does the card get better when you tack on a Demonic Tutor for full cost? 7 mana for both effects sounds like a bad card to me, one that I'd expect to pay under $1 for, not one that's closer to $10. As noted, it's hard to cast early (and most people want tutors in decks that are fairly competitive), while also being hard to follow up with another spell as it's 7 mana, so whatever you tutored could end up discarded depending on your meta, and if it's a 'has an effect next turn' type card then you're going to be waiting 2 turns to get actual value. Why wouldn't you just run something that actually changes the board state for 7 mana, like Necromantic Selection? You get a wipe and you get back the best body, that's usually better than a 6/6 flyer in my book, ymmv and if it does you can certainly run Rune-Scarred. I feel like it's a lot easier to build around board states happening where you care about a Wipe Plus vs care about a 6/6 Flyer.
Out of curiosity, why run Rune-Scarred Demon over Burning-Rune Demon? You get access to 2 cards, lots of decks care a bunch about the graveyard, it's quite possible to dig out two cards where both are good wherever they end up, and it's less mana for the same 6/6 Flyer, why run Rune-Scarred and have to wait yet another turn hoping for another land drop?
I will say, I often prefer 'do more' tutors like Primal Command (I literally play it in my Legacy Elves deck as a 'solve the problem' type card), but I'm not sure getting a 6/6 flyer for 5 more mana is really a great deal on that scale, especially when you could get either 2 cards or a Deathtouch creature for less mana. It might be overstating things to call Rune-Scarred a 'bad card', but I don't think it's an especially good one, and if I spend more than $2 for a card I expect some pretty impressive stuff at this point! What qualifies as impressive varies by format obviously, but even in Legacy there are budget cards that make the cut. What doesn't make the cut though, even in Reanimator decks, is Rune-Scarred Demon, there are wildly better things you can be doing, and Commander has almost all of them in it's card pool.
March 12, 2023 2 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #13
DreadKhan, the best answer that I can give is that I made those two decks before Burning-Rune Demon was printed, and, even after it was printed, I do not want my opponent to chose which card goes to my graveyard; if I could choose which card went where, I would definitely use that creature, but I usually make an effort to avoid giving my opponents a choice unless I am certain that all choices shall benefit me.
Also, you looked at Rune-Scarred Demon from the reverse perspective of how I looked at it; you looked at it first as a creature, then with a tutor ability added to it, whereas I looked at it first as a tutor, and then with a powerful flying creature after the tutor effect has resolved. Using that same logic, would you rather save one mana to cast Regrowth over Eternal Witness, or spend the additional mana for a creature that can very easily be sacrificed and reanimated or "flickered?"
March 12, 2023 4:31 p.m.
Vs Burning Rune I guess you might not have a match, but you might look at the cards you can include to improve that situation. You might look at different piles even, but I honestly don't know what you're on so idk, I just know that a lot of decks can make more use out of Burning Rune vs Rune Scarred because the graveyard isn't a prison.
The difference between Rune-Scarred and Eternal Witness is that E-Wit is very little total mana, and you can use it reliably early, but using Rune is awkward and always late, there is not a situation in which you can use it early period, it doesn't have Cycling, it doesn't have anything but 7 mana Demonic Tutor and body that will almost certainly not matter by the time people have 7 mana. If Rune-Scarred came on a 1/1 body, it might be a good spell, but on a 6/6 flyer you almost certainly want to be doing something else.
Triton says... #2
I'd definitely say go for it! I have her in my Mimeoplasm list, and she puts in a ton of work! The mana value feels less bad to hard-cast her as well. :)
March 6, 2023 8:56 p.m.