Oh man, this card is awful. You need a high density of creatures to play it (or else it's probably going to brick), and the payoff is still terrible. You pay two mana and a card upfront to do absolutely nothing, and then you pay another card in addition to gobs more mana just to maybe get a creature, and a random one at that. Sure, you can use it every turn, but you're discarding a card every time you do so too. That means the cards you're discarding are going to have to be really bad in order to ever make this thing worthwhile. You'd basically have to have nothing else going on for you.
I could maybe see this in a Yeva deck where you're already green, creature heavy, and never want to tap out, but the folks that think this is good need to take their rose colored glasses off for a moment. War of the Spark is full of awesome cards. This is not one of them.
Well, no, it’s not awful. Far from it, actually. I’d say “pretty good”. Ditching anything in favor of something else, with only the amount of mana you have to spend limiting it is pretty sweet tech. Turn late game lands into creatures? Dude, sign me up. There are lots of times I “don’t have anything else to do” with a hand full of useless crap, like extra lands, irrelevant removal, high-cost cards.
I’d suggest throwing on a pair of your own specs before whipping around words like “awful”, because that’s hardly the case most of the time.
I kind of expected the bow to be more combat oriented, like it would put a creature onto the battlefield from your hand and have that creature fight another creature. End of fighting, return your creature to your deck.
I kind of expected the bow to be more combat oriented, like it would put a creature onto the battlefield from your hand and have that creature fight another creature. End of fighting, return your creature to your deck.
Like a SneakAmbush Attack? That would be cool, but I like this iteration. Like a mini G. Wave that’s reusable. I mean, at a certain point you’re going to have enough mana that you won’t ever whiff, which is pretty good stuff.
Oh man, this card is awful. You need a high density of creatures to play it (or else it's probably going to brick), and the payoff is still terrible. You pay two mana and a card upfront to do absolutely nothing, and then you pay another card in addition to gobs more mana just to maybe get a creature, and a random one at that. Sure, you can use it every turn, but you're discarding a card every time you do so too. That means the cards you're discarding are going to have to be really bad in order to ever make this thing worthwhile. You'd basically have to have nothing else going on for you.
I could maybe see this in a Yeva deck where you're already green, creature heavy, and never want to tap out, but the folks that think this is good need to take their rose colored glasses off for a moment. War of the Spark is full of awesome cards. This is not one of them.
Well, no, it’s not awful. Far from it, actually. I’d say “pretty good”. Ditching anything in favor of something else, with only the amount of mana you have to spend limiting it is pretty sweet tech. Turn late game lands into creatures? Dude, sign me up. There are lots of times I “don’t have anything else to do” with a hand full of useless crap, like extra lands, irrelevant removal, high-cost cards.
I’d suggest throwing on a pair of your own specs before whipping around words like “awful”, because that’s hardly the case most of the time.
I agree. It's basically adding 1G cycling to every card plus letting you cast a creature with flash.
This is cool, but being a bow I would have expected it to be an equipment... Just have it give reach, with some overcosted equip cost as to not add to the power level of the card. Just for flavor.
Oh man, this card is awful. You need a high density of creatures to play it (or else it's probably going to brick), and the payoff is still terrible. You pay two mana and a card upfront to do absolutely nothing, and then you pay another card in addition to gobs more mana just to maybe get a creature, and a random one at that. Sure, you can use it every turn, but you're discarding a card every time you do so too. That means the cards you're discarding are going to have to be really bad in order to ever make this thing worthwhile. You'd basically have to have nothing else going on for you.
I could maybe see this in a Yeva deck where you're already green, creature heavy, and never want to tap out, but the folks that think this is good need to take their rose colored glasses off for a moment. War of the Spark is full of awesome cards. This is not one of them.
Well, no, it’s not awful. Far from it, actually. I’d say “pretty good”. Ditching anything in favor of something else, with only the amount of mana you have to spend limiting it is pretty sweet tech. Turn late game lands into creatures? Dude, sign me up. There are lots of times I “don’t have anything else to do” with a hand full of useless crap, like extra lands, irrelevant removal, high-cost cards.
I’d suggest throwing on a pair of your own specs before whipping around words like “awful”, because that’s hardly the case most of the time.
I agree. It's basically adding 1G cycling to every card plus letting you cast a creature with flash.
I don't fully disagree with your sentiment, but one of the very points being made is that sometimes you're ditching something for nothing because you can whiff with this card.
I agree. It's basically adding 1G cycling to every card plus letting you cast a creature with flash.
That's a pretty optimistic reading. Vivien's Arkbow is only good a very specific situation, one in which you have enough mana to cast anything in your deck and are in top-deck mode. That's it.
That card seems fine in Limited but borderline unplayable anywhere else.
I agree. It's basically adding 1G cycling to every card plus letting you cast a creature with flash.
That's a pretty optimistic reading. Vivien's Arkbow is only good a very specific situation, one in which you have enough mana to cast anything in your deck and are in top-deck mode. That's it.
That card seems fine in Limited but borderline unplayable anywhere else.
You really don't need to be able to cast everything in your deck. You just need a decent chance to cast most things in your deck.
Things this does:
- Bypasses counterspells.
- Gives flash.
- Grants card selection.
- Fixes mana costs.
- Bypasses additional costs.
For all that upside, you get the chance you might whiff. That chance can be lowered by deck construction. And if you don't want that chance at all, topdeck manipulation is quite easy these days, with Scry being evergreen, Surveil being currently in Standard, and a variety of other one-off topdeck tricks existing.
Whether this is highly played will depend on what lives around it, but it certainly seems to have potential.
Oh man, this card is awful. You need a high density of creatures to play it (or else it's probably going to brick), and the payoff is still terrible. You pay two mana and a card upfront to do absolutely nothing, and then you pay another card in addition to gobs more mana just to maybe get a creature, and a random one at that. Sure, you can use it every turn, but you're discarding a card every time you do so too. That means the cards you're discarding are going to have to be really bad in order to ever make this thing worthwhile. You'd basically have to have nothing else going on for you.
I could maybe see this in a Yeva deck where you're already green, creature heavy, and never want to tap out, but the folks that think this is good need to take their rose colored glasses off for a moment. War of the Spark is full of awesome cards. This is not one of them.
Well, no, it’s not awful. Far from it, actually. I’d say “pretty good”. Ditching anything in favor of something else, with only the amount of mana you have to spend limiting it is pretty sweet tech. Turn late game lands into creatures? Dude, sign me up. There are lots of times I “don’t have anything else to do” with a hand full of useless crap, like extra lands, irrelevant removal, high-cost cards.
I’d suggest throwing on a pair of your own specs before whipping around words like “awful”, because that’s hardly the case most of the time.
I agree. It's basically adding 1G cycling to every card plus letting you cast a creature with flash.
I don't fully disagree with your sentiment, but one of the very points being made is that sometimes you're ditching something for nothing because you can whiff with this card.
Well, you can whiff with Collected Company too. This is uncounterable, ditches something unusable for something useful, and can dig as far as you want it too. It requires a specific deck, sure, but it’ll shine in its home.
You really don't need to be able to cast everything in your deck. You just need a decent chance to cast most things in your deck.
Things this does:
- Bypasses counterspells.
- Gives flash.
- Grants card selection.
- Fixes mana costs.
- Bypasses additional costs.
For all that upside, you get the chance you might whiff. That chance can be lowered by deck construction. And if you don't want that chance at all, topdeck manipulation is quite easy these days, with Scry being evergreen, Surveil being currently in Standard, and a variety of other one-off topdeck tricks existing.
Whether this is highly played will depend on what lives around it, but it certainly seems to have potential.
Okay then, in Standard, at what cost do you think it's correct to start activating this? 3 seems ambitious. 4 is pretty borderline. 5? Is the plan to play this on 2 and then just wait 3 turns for any payoff? CoCo this is not.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
You really don't need to be able to cast everything in your deck. You just need a decent chance to cast most things in your deck.
Things this does:
- Bypasses counterspells.
- Gives flash.
- Grants card selection.
- Fixes mana costs.
- Bypasses additional costs.
For all that upside, you get the chance you might whiff. That chance can be lowered by deck construction. And if you don't want that chance at all, topdeck manipulation is quite easy these days, with Scry being evergreen, Surveil being currently in Standard, and a variety of other one-off topdeck tricks existing.
Whether this is highly played will depend on what lives around it, but it certainly seems to have potential.
Okay then, in Standard, at what cost do you think it's correct to start activating this? 3 seems ambitious. 4 is pretty borderline. 5? Is the plan to play this on 2 and then just wait 3 turns for any payoff? CoCo this is not.
You really don't need to be able to cast everything in your deck. You just need a decent chance to cast most things in your deck.
Things this does:
- Bypasses counterspells.
- Gives flash.
- Grants card selection.
- Fixes mana costs.
- Bypasses additional costs.
For all that upside, you get the chance you might whiff. That chance can be lowered by deck construction. And if you don't want that chance at all, topdeck manipulation is quite easy these days, with Scry being evergreen, Surveil being currently in Standard, and a variety of other one-off topdeck tricks existing.
Whether this is highly played will depend on what lives around it, but it certainly seems to have potential.
Okay then, in Standard, at what cost do you think it's correct to start activating this? 3 seems ambitious. 4 is pretty borderline. 5? Is the plan to play this on 2 and then just wait 3 turns for any payoff? CoCo this is not.
Assuming you've built with this in mind, 4 mana isn't terribly borderline. With 28 hits (so less than half the deck), you're looking at a 93% chance of hitting at least one creature, and likely (65%) having some room for selection. If you've built a low to the ground deck, the same 28 hits nets you an 86% chance of hitting on 3. So it's most likely to start hitting on 4, in a deck that's properly built for it. And in those decks, turning extra lands into dude selection is going to be printing money, since it likely doesn't need many lands.
Assuming you've built with this in mind, 4 mana isn't terribly borderline. With 28 hits (so less than half the deck), you're looking at a 93% chance of hitting at least one creature, and likely (65%) having some room for selection. If you've built a low to the ground deck, the same 28 hits nets you an 86% chance of hitting on 3. So it's most likely to start hitting on 4, in a deck that's properly built for it. And in those decks, turning extra lands into dude selection is going to be printing money, since it likely doesn't need many lands.
And those are also the decks that can't really afford to be taking turns off to play do-nothing enchantments that won't advance their gameplay until turns later. These are a lot of hoops to jump through to give your 3 or 4 drops flash, and there is a pretty massive downside when you do actually miss and get straight nothing. It's just not worth it, especially while Vivien Reid is still in the format. A green deck looking for a way to keep drawing gas is almost certainly better off just playing her instead. At least in Standard.
You really don't need to be able to cast everything in your deck. You just need a decent chance to cast most things in your deck.
Things this does:
- Bypasses counterspells.
- Gives flash.
- Grants card selection.
- Fixes mana costs.
- Bypasses additional costs.
For all that upside, you get the chance you might whiff. That chance can be lowered by deck construction. And if you don't want that chance at all, topdeck manipulation is quite easy these days, with Scry being evergreen, Surveil being currently in Standard, and a variety of other one-off topdeck tricks existing.
Whether this is highly played will depend on what lives around it, but it certainly seems to have potential.
Okay then, in Standard, at what cost do you think it's correct to start activating this? 3 seems ambitious. 4 is pretty borderline. 5? Is the plan to play this on 2 and then just wait 3 turns for any payoff? CoCo this is not.
Uh CoCo doesn't also double as a discard outlet.
After thinking about this card for a while now, I think this should be how we truly evaluate it.
I mean, personally, I think it’s an excellent sink. Being able to flip Forest into, well, anything for whatever for the mana you have available, is super enticing, so that alone makes me like this card. Swingy EOT ETBs can be pretty sweet.
But, it can whiff. So do a lot of other spells, though. CoCo doesn’t just grab any creatures, either, having a specific suite to function. It bursts better, sure, but depending on how high impact and high density your low cost creatures are, I wouldn’t be exactly thrilled to draw into it late game. This doesn’t really suffer that fate, trading that off instead for a slower ramp up. I’d wager from X=4 onward puts you in a spot where you’d hit more than you’d miss, YMMV with curves and density(no different than CoCo, though.)
However, I think it really does have incredible value as a discard engine. The Grizzlybanned + Karmic Guide scenario really made me think about it differently. Instant speed discard for value is usually pretty strong. Not as strong as Zombie Infestation, with a single activation only, but you can potentially generate more value, and it can really swing a game late if you’re top-decking. But also binning creatures and digging to cards that recur the binned cards is pretty powerful. Fixing colors is pretty big too.
I just think it has a bunch of utility, but doesn’t really excel at all aspects of it. I’ll probably play it as a second copy of GSZ.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
goes riiiiiiight into my selvala heart of the wilds edh deck. the deck makes dumb mana. i'll gladly pitch something stupid to basically put any creature into play. its also probably viable in titania edh too. pitch a land for her to get back.. that deck makes a ton of mana too.
is it an all-star game breaking card?
hell no.
is it worth testing and ******* around with? sure is!
I like the comparisons to Collected Company, Survival of the Fittest, and Genesis Wave. A well designed card means that the power level is
Not too obvious and needs testing.
1: Graveyard matters because play, pass with your mana untapped but still furthering your engine sounds fun and okay.
2: purely fun/mediocre ramp deck that doesn't mind tapping for 15
This card would be good if it cheated the creatures in for less than their cost but it doesn't so you are paying the same if not more for the creature you get.
Well, no, it’s not awful. Far from it, actually. I’d say “pretty good”. Ditching anything in favor of something else, with only the amount of mana you have to spend limiting it is pretty sweet tech. Turn late game lands into creatures? Dude, sign me up. There are lots of times I “don’t have anything else to do” with a hand full of useless crap, like extra lands, irrelevant removal, high-cost cards.
I’d suggest throwing on a pair of your own specs before whipping around words like “awful”, because that’s hardly the case most of the time.
Like a
SneakAmbush Attack? That would be cool, but I like this iteration. Like a mini G. Wave that’s reusable. I mean, at a certain point you’re going to have enough mana that you won’t ever whiff, which is pretty good stuff.I agree. It's basically adding 1G cycling to every card plus letting you cast a creature with flash.
I don't fully disagree with your sentiment, but one of the very points being made is that sometimes you're ditching something for nothing because you can whiff with this card.
That card seems fine in Limited but borderline unplayable anywhere else.
You really don't need to be able to cast everything in your deck. You just need a decent chance to cast most things in your deck.
Things this does:
- Bypasses counterspells.
- Gives flash.
- Grants card selection.
- Fixes mana costs.
- Bypasses additional costs.
For all that upside, you get the chance you might whiff. That chance can be lowered by deck construction. And if you don't want that chance at all, topdeck manipulation is quite easy these days, with Scry being evergreen, Surveil being currently in Standard, and a variety of other one-off topdeck tricks existing.
Whether this is highly played will depend on what lives around it, but it certainly seems to have potential.
And for modern Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
Shuffle ability goes on the stack and potentially hit them again and cheat them in play
And don’t get me started and how broken it is in horde of notions and animar, soul of elements decks are with it
Well, you can whiff with Collected Company too. This is uncounterable, ditches something unusable for something useful, and can dig as far as you want it too. It requires a specific deck, sure, but it’ll shine in its home.
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord and The Mimeoplasm/Muldrotha, the Gravetide especially will love it.
Also, daaaaaaaaamn, Zack Stella!
You’ve come a long way fast, this art is AMAZING.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
Many thanks to DNC at Heroes of the Plane Studios
After thinking about this card for a while now, I think this should be how we truly evaluate it.
I mean, personally, I think it’s an excellent sink. Being able to flip Forest into, well, anything for whatever for the mana you have available, is super enticing, so that alone makes me like this card. Swingy EOT ETBs can be pretty sweet.
But, it can whiff. So do a lot of other spells, though. CoCo doesn’t just grab any creatures, either, having a specific suite to function. It bursts better, sure, but depending on how high impact and high density your low cost creatures are, I wouldn’t be exactly thrilled to draw into it late game. This doesn’t really suffer that fate, trading that off instead for a slower ramp up. I’d wager from X=4 onward puts you in a spot where you’d hit more than you’d miss, YMMV with curves and density(no different than CoCo, though.)
However, I think it really does have incredible value as a discard engine. The Grizzlybanned + Karmic Guide scenario really made me think about it differently. Instant speed discard for value is usually pretty strong. Not as strong as Zombie Infestation, with a single activation only, but you can potentially generate more value, and it can really swing a game late if you’re top-decking. But also binning creatures and digging to cards that recur the binned cards is pretty powerful. Fixing colors is pretty big too.
I just think it has a bunch of utility, but doesn’t really excel at all aspects of it. I’ll probably play it as a second copy of GSZ.
and I’ve heard that’s pretty good.
Obviously this has a couple of limitations compared to SotF,
but a slightly worse Survival is still... a slightly worse Survival.
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
is it an all-star game breaking card?
hell no.
is it worth testing and ******* around with? sure is!
Not too obvious and needs testing.
1: Graveyard matters because play, pass with your mana untapped but still furthering your engine sounds fun and okay.
2: purely fun/mediocre ramp deck that doesn't mind tapping for 15
This card would be good if it cheated the creatures in for less than their cost but it doesn't so you are paying the same if not more for the creature you get.
Card ID rather play is Call of the Wild or really any draw spell.