I laugh at the people who say that this even deserved to be uncommon. For one more mana and no hoops, Manalith gives you access to all 5 colors, untapped so it starts tapping on the same turn. Imho, it is a vastly better card, and it was common.
If you think that coming down turn 3 untapped is better than coming down turn 2 tapped then your humble opinion probably isn't worth much.
That would be true if this didn't come with a clause where you may not even be able to use it on turn 3 is the biggest issue. This untapping on turn 3 doesn't mean much if you don't have a colored card in your graveyard, which you may not always have. For this to truly be of use there needs to be good one mana colored cards so you can make sure it is usable on turn 3, if not then all this does is untap on turn three and you need to cast something, which may mean not getting any true use until turn 4, or even later.
i get hyped for a set, good cards are spoiled, flavor is a home run.
then ***** like this gets spoiled and i don't even want to be bothered. this thing should be an uncommon and its totally unacceptable that it isn't at a lower rarity. its not game breaking in limited, its not a modern or legacy staple, it won't see play in edh, and its fringe playable in standard. so why make it a rare? why make such a generic and uninteresting mana rock a rare? why give it the conditionals of needing a colored card in the graveyard, and having it come into play tapped, at rare? its a waste. and its a waste of my money to buy packs (be them loose, draft, or sealed) to open a *****ty uncommon in my rare slot.
i'm hoping this is the only rare like this this set, too many and its just not worth buying into, which means i also don't draft, which means i'm also not playing as much. surely i'm not alone in that, and i'd much rather have people to play against than not, but garbage like this goes a long way toward not.
sure, its one card, and yeah you'll claim i'm overreacting... but its a trend thats gone on for the past several years as less and less people show up to drafts around here.
Seriously, overreacting is putting it mildly. There have ALWAYS! been bad rares. There have to be bad rares to keep people buying packs and trying to win the pack lottery. That said, this is a playable rare. It might not be exciting, and it might be worse than a card that was printed at uncommon 10 years ago, but it is still both playable and dare I say better than I would have expected a colorless 2 mana accelerator to be in a world where rampant growth and elvish mystic are considered too good for green. Additionally, this set so far has been absurdly packed with playable rares and mythics. This is hardly Battle for Zendikar or Dragon's Maze where buying packs felt like setting money on fire. Right now at a quick count there's 32! rares or mythics that are worth looking at for standard play, and some of them have applications in modern (I can't comment on older formats). That number is way above the norm and the set isn't even done being spoiled yet.
Compared with other options from magic's history this is aggressively mediocre, it comes into play tapped, it can only generate mana if you have a colored card in your graveyard and because of that outside of self mill and discard (not very reliable) it can never generate mana that you didn't already have access to (no mana fixing).
However when you take into account that wizards has been steadily neutering mana ramp so that mana creatures now average at 2+ and mana rocks / land fetching spells now average at 3+ getting any sort of 2cc mana rock even a mediocre one like this is amazing.
However unless things turn around soon there's also going to be a lack of good 1cc instant/sorceries (particularly of the cantrip/discard variety) in the new standard meaning that 1st turn land + spell, 2nd turn land + tombstone, 3rd turn land + 4cc creature/planeswalker etc. is unlikely and given that is the general strategy for using a mana rock like this it's more than a little disappointing. Also disappointing is the rarity, it's simply not powerful, interesting or complex enough to justify being a rare and it also doesn't seem strong enough in limited to justify being bumped up from uncommon (especially when guaranteeing it can activate early game is much harder to do in limited).
I think this illustrates the problem. People want their 2 drop accelerator to ramp them into 4 mana spells on turn 3 which is a thing that wizards is not keen on doing for non green decks. This rock seems to be a foray into allowing people to use acceleration not into doing one big thing early, but 2 little things sooner. I believe this will be an important tool in the arsenal of midrange and control decks in the new standard, but it is not typically what people look for from ramp so it might get overlooked at first and it is certainly getting pooh-pooh'd for essentially no reason. Being able to double spell on 3 and/or wrath on 4 is a thing that we haven't been able to do for awhile.
If it didn't come into play tapped, I'd almost be alright with jumping through the rest of the hoops this card requires, but it doesn't. I dislike the card because it's a high-variance, medium-power card disguised as a low-variance, high-power card. You could put this in your deck hoping to accelerate out a 4-drop, and actually just have it end up being a dead draw that actually slows you down. That's just not cool.
There are a lot of kinds of powerful effects I'm willing to jump through hoops for, but cards that need to be usable on turns 1 or 2 to be worthwhile already have a huge hoop to jump through. It's stupid and boring to put extra hoops on those, because there are going to be lots of times where it's just going to be a total waste of time and mana.
As noted above, you shouldn't run this trying to play your 4 drops on turn 3, but rather to hit play multiple spells on turn 3 while still jumping to 5 on turn 4. You still end up with 4 mana if you can cast a 2 mana non permanent spell on 3. That's not really a hoop to jump through so much as a different play pattern that is required to take advantage of it. That said, you might still go 1 cc spell, tombstone, 4 drop, but that is most likely not a reliable scenario (thankfully).
A set is only as good as the cards in it. The first few spoilers people got this season looked very good and I had some favorable hopes for the set. Most of what we've seen since has been a big disappointment: Lots of filler chaff, no ambitious new mechanics, phoned in content and starkly divided power levels between the pushed cards and the coasters. A few good ones inbetween at least. We can't just brush off bad spoils like this and say its irrelevant, I'm judging this set one card at a time.
People aren't complaining about one bad rare, they complaining about one bad rare that sets a bad precedent. There are two big problems with this card. It continues the trend of rares that have no right being rares, and it also continues the trend of powering down non-creature ramping. We can't even get Rampant Growth anymore.
I don't play Standard, so I really don't care, but I can see why people are annoyed with this card.
Pfffft.... If this set contains $2 commons and $5 uncommons nobody would have complained about this card. BUT we know that wouldn't happen. It's really embarrassing... There's nothing special about this card.
This is absolutely the best thing those green based eldrazi ramp decks could have asked for.
Why? They are all colorless or devoid cards.
2cmc mana rocks are pretty good in ramp strategies I hear.
For it to be a 2cmc mana rock you actually need to have a coloured card in your graveyard. If you play devoid cards ods are not that great to have that.
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This is a very mediocre card, and the fact that it's a rare is a little baffling. I'm not sure that slow color fixing at uncommon would have caused any problems at limited, and this is the kind of card that is immensely disappointing for a player to open in a pack. I don't think there's any format that wants this. Why they didn't tack on an "otherwise add C to your mana pool" and/or some self-milling clause is beyond me. Eh.
Pfffft.... If this set contains $2 commons and $5 uncommons nobody would have complained about this card. BUT we know that wouldn't happen. It's really embarrassing... There's nothing special about this card.
This kind of thinking is way off center. The only way this set could have $5 uncommons is for everything else in the set to absolutely blow. There is a cap on the value of sets still in print, multiply the value of each card by the chances of opening it and add all these together. If the average value of a pack comes out to be more than the pack costs then something HAS to drop in value based on simple supply and demand. Uncommons in this set may well be worth 5 dollars in a few years when the set is out of print but to argue that the uncommons are poor because they aren't worth 5 dollars shows a great ignorance toward market forces.
Well, it wouldn't be the first time WotC misevaluated a card. I don't see them printing this if they don't want it to get played.
90% of cards printed see no play outside limited. This card was never meant for anything but 10th pick limited.
And yet 90% of posts in these threads are from people who never play limited.
Being good at limited is hard stuff.
This card is WotC finally understanding how busted fast mana is; it only took them 20+ years! If delirium and it's enablers are relevant in contructed then this could see play; will be interesting to see if selfmill is a thing because this card will very likely be part of that deck if it is.
This is much worse than some of you are thinking, and it will see no play, including limited.
1. It doesn't ramp consistently in the early game, when mana rocks are most useful.
2. The color fixing is redundant, unless you discarded or milled something you couldn't cast.
Imagine the perfect deck for this - one that pretty much always meets the condition straight away and has heavy color requirements. Coldsteel Heart is much, much better in that deck. Coldsteel Heart fixes your mana however you need it to in the early game, and it works every time. Keep in mind that this is the payoff, the best case, and it's still not even close to the alternatives of the recent past. Corrupted Tombstone will not find a home.
I understand that playable 2-mana rocks are history, for now. They're slowing down green ramp, and colorless ramp has to be weaker than green. But it's not just the power level.
The real problem is that they didn't tack on some other effect. No one would be complaining if this card had an ability that self-milled, or looted, or something more interesting than that. It could've had Madness 1, or a Delirium effect. It clearly needed SOMETHING. Not even a sacrifice effect so you can put this rare mana rock into the graveyard for Delirium synergy?
This card is terrible, and it really distresses me that this is what we get for ramp from now on. Wizards seems to be too afraid to print anything even decent that isn't a creature that stomps in.
Compare Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to Ruin in Their Wake to see the change in philosophy in current MTG. We had combo, till they killed it. We had control, till they killed it. We had ramp, till they killed it. Now all we have is midrange and aggro. Wait until they kill aggro and it's nothing but midrange all day everyday. Seriously, this kind of stuff is why I quit standard.
This card is terrible, and it really distresses me that this is what we get for ramp from now on. Wizards seems to be too afraid to print anything even decent that isn't a creature that stomps in.
Compare Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to Ruin in Their Wake to see the change in philosophy in current MTG. We had combo, till they killed it. We had control, till they killed it. We had ramp, till they killed it. Now all we have is midrange and aggro. Wait until they kill aggro and it's nothing but midrange all day everyday. Seriously, this kind of stuff is why I quit standard.
Yah because one of the best decks in standard right now isn't combo(Rally the Ancestors). These comments show just how much people ignore reality when making comments, why use facts and logic when irrational anger and general lack of understanding of design philosophy and card power allow you to post now. Literally two minutes of searching shows that of viable top decks the only 'strategy' that doesn't show up often is control but standard before BFZ had plenty of control decks. So, you know, swinging pendulum and all.
This is much worse than some of you are thinking, and it will see no play, including limited.
1. It doesn't ramp consistently in the early game, when mana rocks are most useful.
2. The color fixing is redundant, unless you discarded or milled something you couldn't cast.
Imagine the perfect deck for this - one that pretty much always meets the condition straight away and has heavy color requirements. Coldsteel Heart is much, much better in that deck. Coldsteel Heart fixes your mana however you need it to in the early game, and it works every time. Keep in mind that this is the payoff, the best case, and it's still not even close to the alternatives of the recent past. Corrupted Tombstone will not find a home.
I understand that playable 2-mana rocks are history, for now. They're slowing down green ramp, and colorless ramp has to be weaker than green. But it's not just the power level.
The real problem is that they didn't tack on some other effect. No one would be complaining if this card had an ability that self-milled, or looted, or something more interesting than that. It could've had Madness 1, or a Delirium effect. It clearly needed SOMETHING. Not even a sacrifice effect so you can put this rare mana rock into the graveyard for Delirium synergy?
This card is terrible, and it really distresses me that this is what we get for ramp from now on. Wizards seems to be too afraid to print anything even decent that isn't a creature that stomps in.
Compare Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to Ruin in Their Wake to see the change in philosophy in current MTG. We had combo, till they killed it. We had control, till they killed it. We had ramp, till they killed it. Now all we have is midrange and aggro. Wait until they kill aggro and it's nothing but midrange all day everyday. Seriously, this kind of stuff is why I quit standard.
Yah because one of the best decks in standard right now isn't combo(Rally the Ancestors). These comments show just how much people ignore reality when making comments, why use facts and logic when irrational anger and general lack of understanding of design philosophy and card power allow you to post now. Literally two minutes of searching shows that of viable top decks the only 'strategy' that doesn't show up often is control but standard before BFZ had plenty of control decks. So, you know, swinging pendulum and all.
Ok, so I forgot about Rally the Ancestors. But seriously, that card was a mistake they made, and I'm convinced Wizards still wanted this to be a fully midrange format like the past few. And the only reason control existed in the standard before BFZ was because of Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time, cards they tried to overcost out of playability but failed miserably at. So no, if Wizards were competent at what they intended, all of the mentioned archetypes would be fully dead. Fortunately, wizards is incompetent and lets us occasionally play with mistakes that become the one deck that isn't midrange or aggro in a format.
Ima put this in a control deck and win a gp or something to show you that turn 3 languish is good.
Duress, despise, new 1 cmc counter target sorcery, and those are just the t1 plays I can think of off the top of my head.
But then again, I also own Jace, vp's so pitching a card into the grave is pretty easy.
In all seriousness though, this'll be all over standard. Anyone who thinks it won't, be ready to be wrong.
Reading these comments is making me depressed. This card is really cool and unique and powerful and definitely deserves to be rare. Now I have to decide whether I run the mana dork or this :C
Reading these comments is making me depressed. This card is really cool and unique and powerful and definitely deserves to be rare. Now I have to decide whether I run the mana dork or this :C
That would be true if this didn't come with a clause where you may not even be able to use it on turn 3 is the biggest issue. This untapping on turn 3 doesn't mean much if you don't have a colored card in your graveyard, which you may not always have. For this to truly be of use there needs to be good one mana colored cards so you can make sure it is usable on turn 3, if not then all this does is untap on turn three and you need to cast something, which may mean not getting any true use until turn 4, or even later.
Seriously, overreacting is putting it mildly. There have ALWAYS! been bad rares. There have to be bad rares to keep people buying packs and trying to win the pack lottery. That said, this is a playable rare. It might not be exciting, and it might be worse than a card that was printed at uncommon 10 years ago, but it is still both playable and dare I say better than I would have expected a colorless 2 mana accelerator to be in a world where rampant growth and elvish mystic are considered too good for green. Additionally, this set so far has been absurdly packed with playable rares and mythics. This is hardly Battle for Zendikar or Dragon's Maze where buying packs felt like setting money on fire. Right now at a quick count there's 32! rares or mythics that are worth looking at for standard play, and some of them have applications in modern (I can't comment on older formats). That number is way above the norm and the set isn't even done being spoiled yet.
I think this illustrates the problem. People want their 2 drop accelerator to ramp them into 4 mana spells on turn 3 which is a thing that wizards is not keen on doing for non green decks. This rock seems to be a foray into allowing people to use acceleration not into doing one big thing early, but 2 little things sooner. I believe this will be an important tool in the arsenal of midrange and control decks in the new standard, but it is not typically what people look for from ramp so it might get overlooked at first and it is certainly getting pooh-pooh'd for essentially no reason. Being able to double spell on 3 and/or wrath on 4 is a thing that we haven't been able to do for awhile.
As noted above, you shouldn't run this trying to play your 4 drops on turn 3, but rather to hit play multiple spells on turn 3 while still jumping to 5 on turn 4. You still end up with 4 mana if you can cast a 2 mana non permanent spell on 3. That's not really a hoop to jump through so much as a different play pattern that is required to take advantage of it. That said, you might still go 1 cc spell, tombstone, 4 drop, but that is most likely not a reliable scenario (thankfully).
Why? They are all colorless or devoid cards.
I don't play Standard, so I really don't care, but I can see why people are annoyed with this card.
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2cmc mana rocks are pretty good in ramp strategies I hear.
You choose a card in your grave - if it's multicolor, you get one mana of one of that card's colors.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
UR Melek, Izzet ParagonUR, B Shirei, Shizo's CaretakerB, R Jaya Ballard, Task MageR,RW Tajic, Blade of the LegionRW, UB Lazav, Dimir MastermindUB, UB Circu, Dimir LobotomistUB, RWU Zedruu the GreatheartedRWU, GUBThe MimeoplasmGUB, UGExperiment Kraj UG, WDarien, King of KjeldorW, BMarrow-GnawerB, WBGKarador, Ghost ChieftainWBG, UTeferi, Temporal ArchmageU, GWUDerevi, Empyrial TacticianGWU, RDaretti, Scrap SavantR, UTalrand, Sky SummonerU, GEzuri, Renegade LeaderG, WUBRGReaper KingWUBRG, RGXenagos, God of RevelsRG, CKozilek, Butcher of TruthC, WUBRGGeneral TazriWUBRG, GTitania, Protector of ArgothG
For it to be a 2cmc mana rock you actually need to have a coloured card in your graveyard. If you play devoid cards ods are not that great to have that.
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This kind of thinking is way off center. The only way this set could have $5 uncommons is for everything else in the set to absolutely blow. There is a cap on the value of sets still in print, multiply the value of each card by the chances of opening it and add all these together. If the average value of a pack comes out to be more than the pack costs then something HAS to drop in value based on simple supply and demand. Uncommons in this set may well be worth 5 dollars in a few years when the set is out of print but to argue that the uncommons are poor because they aren't worth 5 dollars shows a great ignorance toward market forces.
WUBRGPauper Battle BoxWUBRG ... and why I am not a fan of Wayne Reynolds' Illustrations.
And yet 90% of posts in these threads are from people who never play limited.
Being good at limited is hard stuff.
This card is WotC finally understanding how busted fast mana is; it only took them 20+ years! If delirium and it's enablers are relevant in contructed then this could see play; will be interesting to see if selfmill is a thing because this card will very likely be part of that deck if it is.
1. It doesn't ramp consistently in the early game, when mana rocks are most useful.
2. The color fixing is redundant, unless you discarded or milled something you couldn't cast.
Imagine the perfect deck for this - one that pretty much always meets the condition straight away and has heavy color requirements. Coldsteel Heart is much, much better in that deck. Coldsteel Heart fixes your mana however you need it to in the early game, and it works every time. Keep in mind that this is the payoff, the best case, and it's still not even close to the alternatives of the recent past. Corrupted Tombstone will not find a home.
I understand that playable 2-mana rocks are history, for now. They're slowing down green ramp, and colorless ramp has to be weaker than green. But it's not just the power level.
The real problem is that they didn't tack on some other effect. No one would be complaining if this card had an ability that self-milled, or looted, or something more interesting than that. It could've had Madness 1, or a Delirium effect. It clearly needed SOMETHING. Not even a sacrifice effect so you can put this rare mana rock into the graveyard for Delirium synergy?
It's insulting.
Compare Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet to Ruin in Their Wake to see the change in philosophy in current MTG. We had combo, till they killed it. We had control, till they killed it. We had ramp, till they killed it. Now all we have is midrange and aggro. Wait until they kill aggro and it's nothing but midrange all day everyday. Seriously, this kind of stuff is why I quit standard.
*Looks at URL of webpage he is on*
You realize this is MTGS right?
Ok, so I forgot about Rally the Ancestors. But seriously, that card was a mistake they made, and I'm convinced Wizards still wanted this to be a fully midrange format like the past few. And the only reason control existed in the standard before BFZ was because of Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time, cards they tried to overcost out of playability but failed miserably at. So no, if Wizards were competent at what they intended, all of the mentioned archetypes would be fully dead. Fortunately, wizards is incompetent and lets us occasionally play with mistakes that become the one deck that isn't midrange or aggro in a format.
Duress, despise, new 1 cmc counter target sorcery, and those are just the t1 plays I can think of off the top of my head.
But then again, I also own Jace, vp's so pitching a card into the grave is pretty easy.
In all seriousness though, this'll be all over standard. Anyone who thinks it won't, be ready to be wrong.
Meh
Modern
BUWEsper ControlWUB
BRUGrixis DelverURB
WRBGKiki ChordGBRW
WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW
BRGJundGRB
Legacy
UBRGrixis DelverRBU
Commander
Also meh
A conditional mana rock is far from unique.