All of those cards are about a million times faster and better than this one.
I am not arguing this. I was pointing out some instances of card drawing that had been used in aggro because someone said aggro did not have time to spend 4 mana on card draw. I do not think someone would want to use aggressive mining in control or midrange decks due to them needing at least 5-6 lands in play. So my conclusion was that even though aggro wants card draw less than other archetypes it has used it in the past and is the archetype most likely to use aggressive mining.
A few people are advocating Aggressive Mining in Aggro, and that's just a terrible idea. Spending a turn on card draw and preventing yourself from playing 2 spells on a single turn is exactly what your opponent would want you to do! It gives them time to stabilize. If you have room for this in your aggro deck, you drafted poorly. End-game cards for aggro are like Lava Axe that give you reach on a stabilized board, not bad card draw.
This is my early vote for card that will most often be played even though it's a stone cold zero in this format, because players will dream of breaking it. Play it for kicks if you want to, but understand that it is a bad Limited card and does not improve any deck.
While I agree with you that it is likely a bad card that should not see play in limited, I think if it would see play the most likely place would be in an aggro deck. In the past some necropotence decks would run pump knights and burn spells in their decks to finish the game. In addition affinity ran skullclamp when that was legal and blue aggro decks have run both Coastal Piracy and Bident of Thassa. In addition Jon Finkel ran a Distant Melody in his Kithkin draft deck that won Pro tour Kuala Lumpur. Basically any deck will benefit from card draw, but only aggro decks can afford to throw away their lands to do so.
I think if you play this you definitely need to have a low curve and an aggressive gameplan. I would not draft it highly, but might consider picking it up late for a deck that had lots of cheap aggressive creatures and cheap tricks. I think it's value would certainly go up in red-green or red-blue since you could disenchant/bounce it after you got your value. You definitely need to treat it as a six or seven drop though and I would hedge towards the sideboard instead of the maindeck.
I attended two pre-releases this weekend. In the first I chose white and played green-white and in the second I chose black and played black-white. In the green-white I just opened a bunch of bombs so not much stood out as a n over/under performer. I will say that Spirespine was great since I had heroic creatures and fliers meaning it's drawback was irrelevant. Eagle of the WatchandAjani's Presence were both very good. I was impressed by several of the constellation creatures that my opponent played (Oakheart Dryads and Harvestguard Alseids) as well as Nyx-Fleece Ram. In the second sealed I had a bunch of mediocre creatures, but Godsendand Doomwake Giantwere all-stars. Grim Guardian impressed me with its ability to play defense while providing reach and Rotted Hulk actually did a reasonable job making attacks difficult for my opponents.
As for under-performers I thought that Font of Return was slow and situational. I did not play Lagonna-Band Trailblazer but it seemed unimpressive against me and in games I watched due to needing an investment up front to be a threat. I played a game versus Thassa's Ire where I got a large creature out quickly. My opponent used it to keep my threat tapped down, however he had to skip casting spells due to the mana investment. I think the card can be game changing, but you need to treat it as a 6 or 7 drop in terms of when it is going to affect the game.
Everyone else had some good advice for you. I would add that you want to be careful adding cards to your deck that are only situationally good. For example pump spells and equipment are only good if you have creatures to use them on, so you should only play a lot of pump spells if you are playing a lot of creatures. As for the format it is relatively aggressive so you should make sure either you are aggressive or you are prepared to deal with aggressive starts. White and red decks are usually aggressive in this format, while black decks are usually controlling.
I have definitely experienced this before (during Avacyn Restored). If you are primarily a Magic Online player you could try pauper since it sounds like you want to keep on a budget.
Hey Ottomund, thanks for uploading the Sealed Pool Generator! I generated several pools and noticed that I did not ever get a Lagonna-Band Trailblazer, which is strange considering it is a common.
I try very hard to make sure I don't make mistakes when I put the cards in the database, but sometimes I fail. I will check and make sure it is in there. Thanks for letting me know.
No problem. I and (I am sure) many others appreciate that you take your own time and effort to provide a sweet sealed simulator for us.
Hey Ottomund, thanks for uploading the Sealed Pool Generator! I generated several pools and noticed that I did not ever get a Lagonna-Band Trailblazer, which is strange considering it is a common.
I will say that I also like the Nessian Courser very much. It offers a strong and efficient body that dodges most cheap removal and that can attack into large blockers due to the great pump in green. Also there is only about one heroic creature at common per color that I actually want to target, so even in heroic decks you don't have more than 4 or 5 good heroic creatures.
As to the list I think I might switch blue and green but otherwise the color order looks good to me. I think green benefits the most from the nature of the format (i.e. removal is bad pump spells are good) and since many decks are aggressive and blocking profitably is difficult evasion is a little worse than normal.
As for my personal experience with the format, attacking with efficient green creatures is very effective, both heroic and bestow were underrated at first (by me), black is very slow and clunky and it is difficult to effectively use expensive removal especially Lash Of The Whip and Rage Of Purphoros. As other people have said I rarely ran out of things to do with my mana and would start most decks with 18 land.
I started out in blue/black splash red, but after getting trounced round one and the first game of round two I switched to red/green agro my two Nessian Courser and Bow of Nylea allowed me to out-tempo my opponents and win the final three rounds.
I am not arguing this. I was pointing out some instances of card drawing that had been used in aggro because someone said aggro did not have time to spend 4 mana on card draw. I do not think someone would want to use aggressive mining in control or midrange decks due to them needing at least 5-6 lands in play. So my conclusion was that even though aggro wants card draw less than other archetypes it has used it in the past and is the archetype most likely to use aggressive mining.
While I agree with you that it is likely a bad card that should not see play in limited, I think if it would see play the most likely place would be in an aggro deck. In the past some necropotence decks would run pump knights and burn spells in their decks to finish the game. In addition affinity ran skullclamp when that was legal and blue aggro decks have run both Coastal Piracy and Bident of Thassa. In addition Jon Finkel ran a Distant Melody in his Kithkin draft deck that won Pro tour Kuala Lumpur. Basically any deck will benefit from card draw, but only aggro decks can afford to throw away their lands to do so.
As for under-performers I thought that Font of Return was slow and situational. I did not play Lagonna-Band Trailblazer but it seemed unimpressive against me and in games I watched due to needing an investment up front to be a threat. I played a game versus Thassa's Ire where I got a large creature out quickly. My opponent used it to keep my threat tapped down, however he had to skip casting spells due to the mana investment. I think the card can be game changing, but you need to treat it as a 6 or 7 drop in terms of when it is going to affect the game.
No problem. I and (I am sure) many others appreciate that you take your own time and effort to provide a sweet sealed simulator for us.
As to the list I think I might switch blue and green but otherwise the color order looks good to me. I think green benefits the most from the nature of the format (i.e. removal is bad pump spells are good) and since many decks are aggressive and blocking profitably is difficult evasion is a little worse than normal.
As for my personal experience with the format, attacking with efficient green creatures is very effective, both heroic and bestow were underrated at first (by me), black is very slow and clunky and it is difficult to effectively use expensive removal especially Lash Of The Whip and Rage Of Purphoros. As other people have said I rarely ran out of things to do with my mana and would start most decks with 18 land.