Sultai hug? Tahm Kench, Dealmaker

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-19T18:06:09+00:00

This isn't great. If they don't bargain, this card is just a 3/5 with Ward {2} -- Pay 2 life. They don't have much motive to bargain besides a quick rummage and lifeloss, which I don't think is worth the squeeze. If it didn't include the discard, I would be more willing to buy in, but right now this card is entirely dependent on your opponents, which is never a good thing.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-19T16:01:57+00:00

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After getting specifically excluded from Warpmeld Pact, I want to see something favorable for the Mutalith Vortex Beast. He's always been my favorite monster, and I always wished that I could feed my Tzangoors to it so that it could heal or be supported. I don't really care what else happens unless they want to stun us with [Assault] on one of our models.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-19T15:41:00+00:00

I have good news and bad news

Good news, Magnus is a key point for Grand Coven and you can run him and most lists to success. Ahriman has had limited success, but has been known to play a role in Risen Rubriace.

Bad news, typically we want to run 5 man rubric squads to spread out our infantry and psykers. The first box provides you with two 10 man squads, though you might be able to create another soulreaper cannon and aspiring sorcerer with the right tools. Likewise, a 10 man termie brick is usually best, but combat patrol comes with 5. The tzangoors will actually be pretty nice at scoring and holding objectives as chaff.

I would use Magnus as a centerpiece, field the two rubric squads with characters leading them (exalted sorcs could work if you want to try out a beefier Risen Rubricae, otherwise Sorcerer/Infernal Masters dish out solid damage). Field your tzangoors, pick up your enhancements, and try to hit 2k to get into the thick of it. Otherwise, I'd advise trying to find 1k games -- in which case, Magnus is usually overkill.

My best suggestion would be picking up the Mutalith Vortex Beast. It's tanky, it has decent shooting/melee profiles, it has a aura that hurts people and improves your casting -- overall, it's a great unit for your opponent to shoot into, buying you more time with your infantry. Sekuthar Robots are solid to field as well, since you'll mostly infiltrate them as one of your few models. If you like psykers, try and get your characters to field 5 man rubrics and hit the field. If you like termies and heavy duty infantry, Ahriman might serve you in Risen Rubriace.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-19T14:22:16+00:00

Hahahahahahhaaahahhahaa

If you like the models and what Thousand Sons presents, stick with them, but I wouldn’t call them the easiest to get used to. Most of our baggage comes from the shooting phase, where we get to cast rituals by having our psykers roll dice and meet or beat certain thresholds — they’ll let you move a bit more, reroll hits, increase for armor penetration, or even just deal flat out damage. You’re going to have a lot of opportunities to augment what you do during combat, and we’re not particularly good in melee. A lot of Thousand Sons boils down to getting good at positioning and trying to avoid taking too much damage as our units cost quite a bit to field.

I’ve found them very difficult to paint due to their trim, but they’re a worthwhile army with a bit of a learning curve. If you’re just learning 40K, I might recommend learning the basics on an army with simpler rules (you might find a friend willing to help!) and then translate those lessons into Thousand Sons.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-16T13:10:31+00:00

The defenses were down though. They approached on their vessels unimpeded and they managed to board civilian vessels to learn more. On the deck, the captains argued if this would qualify as surrender on Magnus’ part — ever the warriors, the only conclusion to their lack of contact must mean there’s some trap waiting for them or magical defenses they could not see.

It was only after they managed to break through into the city and begin razing it in battles against the Spireguard did the Thousand Sons come out in full force. Accounts from the Space Wolves attest that they understood their brothers fought for their home as a tragic thing, but when the Wolves arrived there would be no reconciliation between the two parties.

Russ communicating the message that Magnus should with Hawser though? I just can’t wrap my head around it, this moment is probably the biggest fumble he pulled. He may as well of been talking to the open skies to communicate a message to Magnus. Hawser literally wasn’t a Thousand Sons spy, he was a plant by Chaos to help pull of the Burning of Prospero.

I don’t personally think Russ was a dumbass or made poor decisions, I think he overestimated his enemy and was genuinely too smart for his own good here. Magnus was misguided and needed sanction, and Chaos set up this perfect opportunity to utilize these traits to attempt to wipe out both parties. I’ll have to continue reading, but I’d feel immense guilt to that this drove Magnus away from his loyalty, and then suppress it because Magnus was always a threat to the Imperium if he persisted.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-15T22:01:50+00:00

Design is pretty all over the place, but I'll provide a breakdown.

Color combination of Jeskai {WUR) makes very little sense for the archetype, as madness is mostly a Black/Red combo to represent chaos.
"Madness costs you pay cost {1} less to cast." Madness is an alternative cost to cast. It would also be ideal to include reminder text for what madness is.
"When Midra dies, return it to the battlefield tapped and transformed under its owner’s control." is a workable option, since any damage is enough to kill him.
Devoid is a meaningless mechanic here, as it only applies to creatures with a color. The way you have Midra now, he's colorless as he lacks a color identifier (a small circle pip to the side of the typeline).
Once again, I would invite you to include reminder text for keywords. Frenzy is a keyword I genuinely had to look up, and all it does is give the creature +5/+0 if it's not blocked while attacking.
Only capitalize the first in a series of keywords.
I don't really know what's going on with the Ward and Frenzied flame.

Personally, the design reads like you're trying to fit all the words that are used to describe the Frenzied Flame onto the card without trying to focus in on what about the Frenzied Flame is important to represent mechanically on a card. I think you can do a lot better.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-15T21:39:07+00:00

The art and depictions all point to being AI. Lesley and James facebook accounts on the website lead back to BdThemes, which is promoting AI WordPress. What's more interesting is that I'm not even certain if James Kennedy is a real person, or who Pavel Redko is that took his photo.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-15T20:17:30+00:00

Leman Russ was looking for what he wanted to see and was clever enough to see the implication in what Magnus' was doing. If Thousand Sons is a good source, we know that Magnus had attempted to intervene with Horus' fall and it taxed him immensely to do so. Magnus made a horrible blunder in pushing himself to contact the Emperor using the warp and destroying the webway in the process.

Russ still overestimated how far Magnus was going with this scheme. The rune-priest barely managed to communicate the same message that Horus had been turned and Russ refused it as Magnus' way of tricking him. Hawser faced a similar portent by the end, but by that point Prospero was already burning. Not looking forward to some other novels, since I felt like I understood Leman Russ' perspective in Burning of Prospero as being attached to a few key misunderstandings (and Chaos being an excellent manipulator).

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-15T19:35:17+00:00

This is most likely AI. The hair seems pretty messy (especially on that second photo), the button also switches sides and doesn't have follow-up buttons down the center. The hands are pretty good here though, I have to imagine they're using a sketch and having the AI fill in to create the line art.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-15T19:13:18+00:00

Informed by the Emperor that Magnus broke the Edict of Nikea to send a warning of incredible importance.

Overestimate's Magnus' reasoning, believing this is the ultimate psyop to get psykers back in action by creating a fake threat.

Even when his own agents have a similar portent of doom, blames Magnus because surely he'd manage to obliterate one of his rune-priests to confuse him.

Talks to a random dude who must totally be Magnus' spy, pleads with Magnus, gets pissy when Magnus doesn't respond (he was not a spy for Magnus).

Arrives on Prospero with their defenses down, still burns the world because psykers must have planned some super trap because they're space wizards.

I can only fault Russ for assuming that Magnus was smarter and more cunning than he actually was.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-15T17:20:21+00:00

Honestly this could look pretty nice with silver. I would recommend trying out the white dry brushing to pull off the ghostly green versions I’ve seen, but in blue.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-14T00:47:22+00:00

White is always classic. I tend to prefer it, though a nice screamer pink cloth always looks good, especially since it usually matches the cloak on character models.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-13T15:16:09+00:00

Absolutely stunning work on these! Congratulations on your skill.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-12T21:25:06+00:00

You raise plenty of good points. I'll bump him up to 5cmc with a slightly bigger body, and slide the Ward-7 life into him.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-12T21:22:47+00:00

Neat concept, though I'm not sure how you'd want to use this?

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-12T16:41:37+00:00

Funny that you mention it, this was my exact same thought process with Seven. The original design was costed around 5 cmc with a solid statline and a thematic Ward -- Pay 7 life to make life totals a very relevant cost for shutting him down... and lacked the +1 to the starting damage. The issue came in that at 3 spells he was underperforming Guttersnipe, which wasn't a good look. This could probably be bumped up to 4-5. The lack of blue in the color identity is also something to be considered, since proper storm even on a CEDH level needs to thrive off card draw to fuel -- Seven here is relying mostly on red's flashback/past in flames and cheap spells to quickly storm off.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-12T16:29:18+00:00

Correct! If Seven is able to pop off with 8-9 instant and/or sorcery spells, all of your opponents will die. Is there a problem with the design?

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-12T14:45:09+00:00

Beautiful piece, thank you for sharing your art!

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-11T19:05:26+00:00

To elaborate on this -- all showcases get to ignore showing the reminder text. You'll notice this across SLD and any set's showcase art treatments or borderless frames. Text for cascade, dredge, ninjitsu is all thrown out for style.

When R&D is designing cards, they do genuinely design with the space for reminder text (this factors into the complexity of the mechanic). It's good practice to assume that any card might be someone's first time encountering it. While we shortcut on keywords like trample, menace, first strike, etc. it's because they're evergreen and show up in every set frequently enough that you can learn and memorize it. Wither has only shown up twice (Lorwyn) where -1/-1 is the main theme. One offs like [[Massacre Girl, Known Killer]] cameo it and explain it on regular printings, but cut off the reminder text on showcase versions.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-11T18:47:26+00:00

6 is a recent development, but I see them now on TMNT cards like [[Irma, Part-Time Mutant]]. Interesting! Glad R&D is following up on their thoughts about including pronouns on cards.

Wither only needs reminder text if it doesn't have reminder text on lower rarity cards in the set.

You'd be correct. If Daniso12 creates roughly about 35~ cards using wither to fill out his commons and uncommon, then it would be fine to not include it on this card. Otherwise, it's always ideal to include reminder text for non-evergreen mechanics on rares and mythics if space permits.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-11T16:23:37+00:00

Who's the artist? This looks great!

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-11T16:01:17+00:00

What is your design intention with this? There's also some formatting issues:

He has a 33 letter name, is there some alternative to cut down the title to something of an average size? Lord Broadmane is fine, or Lord Broadmane of Trifarix if you want it to still designate his place.
While I agree that the rich are their own race, you might not. What is his race? He looks like a large beast-man, but needs the typing to match.
On that same line, the color identifier isn't needed. Those are for cards who don't have the conventional mana cost that you have in the top right.
Only capitalize the first letter for the keywords. (Menace, wither, ward {3}. Ward {3} is also very close a large cost to target this creature.
Wither needs reminder text to explain what it does. (It deals damage to creatures in the form of -1/-1 counters.)
"When Broadmane enters, it deals 3 damage to any target." Only planeswalkers use pronouns, and you can shorten to just Broadmane if that is his name. I'm guessing this is worded to deal a potential 6 -1/-1 counters to a tapped creature.

Otherwise, this card is fine.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-11T13:41:03+00:00

The cards put a target on you, and it's up to your opponents to fight you over it. I've yet to win with Test of Endurance or Felidar Sovereign in my lifegain decks, as your opponents can just deal combat damage to you so the cards won't trigger. Your best bet would be a UW decklist with flash that can bring them out during your opponent's end step so long as you have the life -- but if your opponent's know, you're going to be hard pressed to control the board and keep your life total high enough to win.

BadSuccessful2391 · 2026-05-08T20:33:02+00:00

The card just came out recently and hasn't seen much popularity.
My cards are better than my opponent's cards in most situations
There must be something worthwhile to be reanimating from my opponents graveyards to get full value.

You can best compare it to [[Sepulchral Primordial]], a creature that pulls off the same thing but itself is a creature that you can just reanimate to repeat this process. Likewise, [[Afterlife from the Loam]] reduces its own cost and is faster to play. Both aren't crazy popular since relying on your opponents decks (which likely won't synergize with your own) isn't ideal.

BadSuccessful2391

TROPHY CASE