Finally, a commander that wins a Commander game on turn 1? Well, this card is silver-bordered for a reason.
I'm not sure what format you do this in... casual silver bordered constructed maybe?
Activate for 4 phyrexian, and get a Lion's Eye Diamond, crack the Diamond+2 Phyrexian to get another LED, do this again to get another LED, then once more to get a Second Sunrise. Cast Second Sunrise and return the 3 LED's to play. Crack 2 LED's for BBBBBB and the other for WWW. Use BBBB to get another Second Sunrise. Repeat as much as you want, you now have infinite mana. Use some of that infinite mana to tutor and cast Upheaval, then tutor and cast a whole bunch of Lodestone Golems. Proceed to have no opponents with a board, and everyone locked out behind taxing effects. Win on your next turn. This requires either 3 mana+10 life or 18 life. If you want to cast Spike at 2 mana it will require +4 life to that total.
We will need clarification as to whether or not "helmets" qualify as "hats". One could argue that they both cover the head but helmets offer physical protection while hats are usually only for fashion. Of course, is the Suspicious Nanny wearing a hat? How about Ninja?
Okay, let's not split hairs here. The intent of the card is simple:
Would you call a hat when talking about it to someone else in normal conversation? I don't know about you, but I call helmets "helmets" when I'm talking about them. I don't call them hats in colloquial speech.
So is a hard hat a hat or a helmet, despite its intended use being protection?
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More than 3 but less than 4. More interesting, if you give this spell a lifelink. 8 copies are probably enough to get 1 additional point from it.
Seems like a lot of work, since combat damage from (non-Un I guess) creatures is going to be an integer, adding .1415 to your life total is effectively 1 anyway.
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Question: How would you go about enforcing the rules on these dexterity cards if your opponent has some kind of disability that prevents him/her from physically performing a certain action? There's nothing fun about telling someone in a wheel chair that they have to sacrifice their Skull Saucer just because some outside variable has left them physically unable to put their head on the table.
I see what you're saying, but hopefully:
what to expect when drafting Unstable is made clear before you buy in.
knowing what the set is like, you could possible skip drafting Skull Saucer.
hope that your opponent is a decent human being, since it's a joke set and all.
you're going to not care and have fun anyway, since it's a joke set and all.
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The novelty of Shoe Tree wore off really fast, but I thought Farewell to Arms was kind of fun. So we'll see where this ends up after I play with it. In the very least, you can use it as an inefficient removal spell and just not do the other thing. I guess it'll come down to if a 4/1 flier is super relevant to the board. A random 2/2 in Working Stiff rarely was.
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And the most legendary character in the old era of magic finally gets his card... and it is just a gag card in a gag set. Good way to piss the vorthos community wizards (or maybe not?)
Literally no serious Urza card could ever satisfy Urza fanboys.
Seriously. Although it's just his head so you could argue it's not a "real" version of Urza.
I'm not that familiar with the lore, did Urza have access to all five colors of mana? Or did old walkers just do whatever they wanted?
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Corner case, what if your opponent steals your library and Animate Library with the same effect. Can you still draw from a library you don't control?
The card says enchant your library. So how I would interpret is that even though you control the enchantment and you control the library it's enchanting, you don't own the library and therefore it's still enchanting an illegal target because the library isn't "yours."
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True, but then instead of the word permanent she could've had an "until she leaves the battlefield" like clause.
Or just nothing. Phoebe steals target creature's text box would IMHO intuitively mean "for as long as she's on the battlefield" since it lacks any kind of "until end of turn" phrasing. Unlike, say, Some Disassembly Required. Adding the word permanent heavily implies that it's, well, permanent (i.e. unaffected by zone changes). At least for the current game.
Edit: Really Epic Punch could have used the word permanent but it doesn't. Why the inconsistency?
I think it's clear at this point that:
1) Wizards isn't going to abolish the reprint list.
2) The future of Vintage and Legacy lies with MTGO. Especially if the program and interface gets updated throughout the years. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if at some point in the future sanctioned Vintage tournament were played LAN style ala Hearthstone.
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Hmmm... how is this going to work in conjunction with Split Screen?
I guess you could only enchant one of your libraries in that case.
Novellamental is another one of those "oh, this is a black bordered card" cards, but the art is hilarious.
Animate Library...YES.
But what if you played Split Screen after Animate Library? Would you chose one library to be enchanted or would they all be enchanted?
It specifically says on Split Screen "If anything refers to a library, choose one." so I'm inclined to believe you'd end up with one enchanted library and three that aren't.
What happens with a Mind Control? Can you draw cards from a library that isn't under your control?
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I wouldn't call the card unplayable, but now I don't understand why they even used the word permanent. It would have been more intuitive to how it really worked if they kept it the same but just left that word out. I guess because if she leaves the battlefield, the creature still remains blank?
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I wish that you could steal both main phases, similar to how Fatespinner works. It seems more useful that way. As is, you can't really deny your opponent from playing non-instants on their turn. I guess there's some novelty in playing sorcery speed bounce in their second main. I'm also not sure why you would steal their end phase?
It's not that the other options are bad per se, but in a vacuum they're generally a lot worse than just taking the beginning phase. Especially since without an untap, your opponent may not even have good attacks anyway.
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I like this card, but it clearly has the "playing the game at your local card shop" mentality like the other cards that rope in random players. After pre-release, I'll most likely be playing with friends at home, so these kinds of cards are less exciting to me.
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My turn, I play The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, go.
I see what you're saying, but hopefully:
what to expect when drafting Unstable is made clear before you buy in.
knowing what the set is like, you could possible skip drafting Skull Saucer.
hope that your opponent is a decent human being, since it's a joke set and all.
you're going to not care and have fun anyway, since it's a joke set and all.
Seriously. Although it's just his head so you could argue it's not a "real" version of Urza.
I'm not that familiar with the lore, did Urza have access to all five colors of mana? Or did old walkers just do whatever they wanted?
Or just nothing. Phoebe steals target creature's text box would IMHO intuitively mean "for as long as she's on the battlefield" since it lacks any kind of "until end of turn" phrasing. Unlike, say, Some Disassembly Required. Adding the word permanent heavily implies that it's, well, permanent (i.e. unaffected by zone changes). At least for the current game.
Edit: Really Epic Punch could have used the word permanent but it doesn't. Why the inconsistency?
1) Wizards isn't going to abolish the reprint list.
2) The future of Vintage and Legacy lies with MTGO. Especially if the program and interface gets updated throughout the years. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if at some point in the future sanctioned Vintage tournament were played LAN style ala Hearthstone.
What happens with a Mind Control? Can you draw cards from a library that isn't under your control?
It's not that the other options are bad per se, but in a vacuum they're generally a lot worse than just taking the beginning phase. Especially since without an untap, your opponent may not even have good attacks anyway.