For any one of the "Ring of" series from M13, you get the counter at upkeep, an additional ability, and one less mana cost to equip, and even those are fringe-playable at best. Even when I'm building around +1 counters for Marath or Vorel, I've filled all the slots I need long before I've dug down to this card.
Eh, maybe decent. As others have mentioned I already run Sphere, Hart, plus Solemn Simulacrum and Pilgrim's Eye in the average colorless land-fetch package, by which time I'm starting to fill too many slots with land tutor durdling. And if I need more there's still Expedition Map, for fetching any land I please. So this is OK, but it's got some competition and even in builds where you're desperate for land tutors, there's only so many basic lands you even want in a deck.
Huh, I find all the hate puzzling considering I see Burnished Hart run all the time, even in some spiky decks. It's an artifact, so Esper artifacts uses it. It's a creature, so graveyard-recurring decks use it. It's two power, so Alesha gets mileage off it considering Mardu colors aren't exactly swimming in ways to ramp. Good utility card like Solemn Simulacrum, fits almost anywhere.
I keep wanting to sell the Ishkanah I pulled, its price has to fall down any minute. Every time a GB spider comes up, somebody's all "meh, maybe in Ishkanah." If all the spiders are blah, what's the point getting excited for spider tribal? Until spiders get their own Olivia / Gary / Tiago, maybe we can put the arachnid tribe on the back burner.
Hmm, it is repeatable, but then reanimating Caustic Caterpillar isn't that hard and at least it's a Naturalize on legs. But for recurring artifact / enchantment hate on a body, I always have a soft spot for Nullmage Advocate, since it's also political and that's what you want when three of you gang up on the Stax deck.
This guy's trying hard, and I might side him in if I was desperate, but not better than lukewarm.
I'd almost rather run Codex Shredder (AKA colorless Eternal Witness) over this. Since it wants only instants it's going to be hanging around in your paw a while before it does some work, and then it's four mana for a random one. I'd only prefer it in spellslinger decks, and even there things like Anarchist and Charmbreaker Devils are much easier to work with. There's only so much spell recursion a spellslinger deck needs before it's crowding out the useful stuff.
That is without a doubt one of the most unexpected cards in green. I could see this working in Bant Stax against a player with a combo in hand. 5 mana is steep, but since when did mana costs slow down a green deck?
Yeah, "first draft" pretty much describes it. If you're starving for card filtering in your colors, you'll usually end up with a Mad Prophet or two. Best I've done with him is in an Alesha deck, since the discard feeds Alesha's reanimator ability, which is usually more crucial than the replacement card you draw. Plus Alesha can reanimate Mad Prophet himself.
But in this day and age, colorless artifact card advantage is good enough that you're never hurting for it in any colors.
Huh, seems way too slow for EDH. Chasm Skulker is far easier to break, and even Twilight Drover can be broken if you have a mana engine out. And that's not starting on a zillion other token engines, especially in white.
Yeah, I'm all for Dulcet Sirens too, the old-skool goad before it was cool.
As for Coveted Peacock, this is another card where the name sets you up to expect something cooler than what the card actually does. I was expecting something that would make players fight for control over it.
Even though graveyard shenanigans are my middle name, I've never had this card on my acquire list. Win-out-of-nowhere cards like this just seem to be frowned upon in multiplayer. At best, you'd want this in Sidisi, Brood Tyrant with Alchemist's Refuge to flash it in end of turn. See how dirty that is?
The art sells it, I'd want it for that reason alone.
But as non-basic land hosers, these guys always come up handy in multiplayer. This one's a little better than some I've seen, since it has flying. And yes, there's dozens of these, Reef Shaman, Kavu Recluse, Orcish Farmer, and my favorite name Slimy Kavu, just to name a few.
My meta is absolutely infested with decks that abuse specialized lands. The only caveat is that there's plenty of repeatable non-basic land destruction on a body already, such as Dwarven Miner, albeit most of it's in red. So it's a niche purpose.
It's just the right card for my Nin, the Pain Artist deck. As others point out, instant-speed is a big plus. It's a classic Izzet spell-slinger build, so by the time I add on the value from Pyromancer's Goggles, Talrand, Sky Summoner, Guttersnipe and whatnot, even a humble Lightning Bolt is worth including. All the deck asks of spells is that they be cheap and fast.
Derevi tends to draw a lot of hate, though. If your playgroup frowns on Derevi, a nice alternate I've stumbled upon is Marath, Will of the Wild. He has a powerful Swiss-army-knife ability on his own without demanding you build around him. Works in many versatile builds.
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is also decent as goodstuff, although people seldom build her that way. You don't have to make the entire deck out of <=2/x creatures; just have a slight bias towards those and treat her ability as a handy utility rather than the deck's entire focus.
One last idea is Marchesa, the Black Rose. She's good, again, as a utility general without demanding the deck revolve around her. Just a few key cards is all the synergy you need.
This guy's trying hard, and I might side him in if I was desperate, but not better than lukewarm.
BTW, who's the apeman playing chess in our gracious host's avatar?
But in this day and age, colorless artifact card advantage is good enough that you're never hurting for it in any colors.
This bird-man's gone to seed.
As for Coveted Peacock, this is another card where the name sets you up to expect something cooler than what the card actually does. I was expecting something that would make players fight for control over it.
But as non-basic land hosers, these guys always come up handy in multiplayer. This one's a little better than some I've seen, since it has flying. And yes, there's dozens of these, Reef Shaman, Kavu Recluse, Orcish Farmer, and my favorite name Slimy Kavu, just to name a few.
My meta is absolutely infested with decks that abuse specialized lands. The only caveat is that there's plenty of repeatable non-basic land destruction on a body already, such as Dwarven Miner, albeit most of it's in red. So it's a niche purpose.
Alesha, Who Smiles at Death is also decent as goodstuff, although people seldom build her that way. You don't have to make the entire deck out of <=2/x creatures; just have a slight bias towards those and treat her ability as a handy utility rather than the deck's entire focus.
One last idea is Marchesa, the Black Rose. She's good, again, as a utility general without demanding the deck revolve around her. Just a few key cards is all the synergy you need.