Well, there's the anti-Book/Haven tech. It will probably be played, regardless of how crappy it looks at first blush, for metagame reasons.
End of the day, it is still ramp, in colors that want to ramp, in an archetype (Bard Class) that they're pushing, it answers what is likely going to be a major annoyance all next year, it has additional flexibility besides, and you can do it twice. Good card.
I don't know what the set's key value is going to be, but I'm betting it's >1, so if you intend for this thing to snipe a relevant threat outright, you're gonna need archetype support.
In other words, don't take this early unless you're committed to forcing B/R Vamps.
I'm pretty sure the floor of this is good in Limited
It isn't.
Non-evasive 2/3s are notoriously bad in Limited. This reads like an experiment to see how much stuff you can pack onto a 2/3 and have it still be bad. This is last pick material.
Are they testing waters to erata cards rather than banning them?
It would not surprise me one bit.
With Magic being played more online than ever before, functional errata makes more and more sense.
I'm sure WotC doesn't enjoy paying the salaries for an entire development team only to have that team be completely outsmarted by the player base before sets are even released, time and again, and subsequently have their hands tied, unable to fix the problems they missed.
How many more packs would they have sold if Oko had gotten errata instead of the hammer? Omnath? Quite a few, I'd bet.
And let's be honest, they HAVE been releasing functional errata. The companion nerf and the Phyrexian creature type update both change the functionality of printed cards. You can split hairs and say it's not, but I disagree.
Sure, no Constructed player wants to pay that rate for that effect in a vacuum, but this set has magecraft and this enables that. I wouldn't rule out Constructed applications until more cards are revealed.
I suppose if you're evaluating this based on its ability to enable a T2 Tormod's Crypt into Tibalt's Trickery, yeah, look elsewhere.
End of the day, it is still ramp, in colors that want to ramp, in an archetype (Bard Class) that they're pushing, it answers what is likely going to be a major annoyance all next year, it has additional flexibility besides, and you can do it twice. Good card.
In other words, don't take this early unless you're committed to forcing B/R Vamps.
Gonna be last-picking a ton of these.
Non-evasive 2/3s are notoriously bad in Limited. This reads like an experiment to see how much stuff you can pack onto a 2/3 and have it still be bad. This is last pick material.
With Magic being played more online than ever before, functional errata makes more and more sense.
I'm sure WotC doesn't enjoy paying the salaries for an entire development team only to have that team be completely outsmarted by the player base before sets are even released, time and again, and subsequently have their hands tied, unable to fix the problems they missed.
How many more packs would they have sold if Oko had gotten errata instead of the hammer? Omnath? Quite a few, I'd bet.
And let's be honest, they HAVE been releasing functional errata. The companion nerf and the Phyrexian creature type update both change the functionality of printed cards. You can split hairs and say it's not, but I disagree.
I suppose if you're evaluating this based on its ability to enable a T2 Tormod's Crypt into Tibalt's Trickery, yeah, look elsewhere.
"Jerks!"
"Fine, we gimped it again. Pray we don't gimp it any further."
"..."