I'm not too worried about Urza in EDH, because Arcum Dagsson is still legal, and banning Paradox Engine instead of Urza hits a lot of overpowered decks. I just wonder if he can slot into Whir Prison and maybe make the deck win 5-10 turns faster, so Game 3 is still possible against the deck.
I think the most amusing thing about this new Urza is that he was clearly under the planeswalker template at some point with something like this:
+1: Tap an untapped artifact you control: Add U.
-2: Create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with "This creature gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control."
-9: You get an emblem with "5: Shuffle your library, then exile the top card. Until end of turn, you may play that card without paying its mana cost.
And that's only assuming that the mana cost was still 2UU and had a starting loyalty of four (it's eventual toughness). IF they costed him higher, they could have attached more powerful abilities to this hypothetical version of Urza, i.e. putting the Construct token on plus, Tolarian Academy on the small minus, and his ultimate not requiring to shuffle before doing Mind's Desire.
However, as fun as it would be to speculate what a planeswalker version of Urza could have been, the card we have is a creature. In Modern, he seems fine. I would say that costing four is a problem for him, but costing four isn't exactly a potential killer as four cost cards see play all over Modern. It doesn't do him any favors though either. The token is... neat. The mana off artifacts can probably find a home because as the Command Zone podcast mentioned: he turns all your artifacts in Mox Sapphire, which is considered one of the best cards in the game. So yeah, there's that. Good luck doing all the things with his Mind's Desire dig effect, but I'm sure there's something out there.
As for commander... he's going straight to the top. He's everything Teferi, Temporal Archmage wants to be but without requiring a slot for The Chain Veil. Bannable, I dunno, but printing a card that looks like it captures the full spirit of the combo winter Urza Block doesn't seem to be like it's going to do nothing. Oh well, that's the Gitrog Monster's and Thrasios' problem.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
Honestly, my problems with Urza in EDH:
1. Extreme mana acceleration that doesn't make you wait for a turn, something rarely seen outside of Seton, Krosan Protector. I imagine that a player could reasonably cast this card "for free" a decent period of the time and produce sickening levels of mana thereafter.
Exactly how many non-mana rock artifacts are you thinking you'll have when you cast this? 2? Maybe 3? If it's past turn 5, there are multiple ways decks can have gone to effectively infinite mana by this point, even in mono-blue. Adding even 4 or 5 blue mana at that point is not a huge deal, when you sank 4 into casting the commander. High Tide gives you a more immediate impact than that most of the time.
2. It is a commander that ideally wants you to shuffle your deck several times per turn, slowing gameplay to a crawl. While Arjun, The Shifting Flame is a card, Urza gives a far more powerful (on average) payoff for the effect.
The shuffle is to randomize the deck in the case you've stacked it with scry effects or similar. As long as you don't do anything to un-randomize your deck between the activations, you can shortcut it and not shuffle.
3. This feels like the type of card that would warp gameplay. If it is allowed in the 99, this is the type of card that players will grab with Bribery and Reanimate from graveyards. Even as a commander, I can easily picture players wanting to Clone and Confiscate this from one another. Giving you a free body, turning your equipment and general artifacts into free mana rocks, and giving you a powerful colorless mana sink is a pretty great deal (especially late in the game).
This is about the only realistic point you've made, but comparing it to something like Primeval Titan that got banned for this reason, it seems a lot weaker. Primetime gives much more long-term advantage on a body that's a threat in itself. But Urza isn't going to be that significant to any players without a large amount of mana to sink into his effect.
4. On top of all of that, this card can be played as a Stax general with Winter Orb and Static Orb (making both of those cards asymmetrical), which "isn't in the spirit" of the format.
Cutting a stax deck to mono blue already makes it weaker than several other stax options. Hell, just compare him to Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - I'll take seeing Urza over that guy any day of the week.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
My only wish is that we could get a version with the old border.
that is what proxies are for. Want that version? Make it yourself at home as soon as a hi-res version of the art hits the internet.
At least at kitchen-table levels no one would give you problems for that.
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Whoa, I can't believe they did it. And it only took them 26 years…
Seriously though, this card is a BLAST! A powerhouse for Spike, a combo card for Johnny, and a flavor win for Vorthos. My only small complaint (as a commander player) is that the card being monoblue doesn't let me play many cool Urza-themed cards such as Urza's Rage or Urza's Ruinous Blast. I wish he were URW, to mirror Mishra, Artificer Prodigy's mana cost.
Also, as Caranthir has already pointed out, the card's artwork clearly shows Invasion-era Urza and not his preplaneswalker self, but I'm okay with that. At least it's a look I recognize.
This thing about the power level is bull*****, and was the same exact argument of when people said since forever that oldwalkers in general could never had a planeswalker card because that would never cover all the allmighty omnipowers an oldwalker got.
This! I'm so tired of people who say Urza was too powerful to be represented on a card. People who say so have clearly never read the novels because if they had, they would know the guy wasn't actually that powerful. He was versatile, yes, but nowhere near Nicol Bolas or Ugin level in terms of power. In fact, he was beaten be nonplaneswalker beings a couple of times in the story (Radiant, Gix, Kerrick, to name a few).
Training Grounds makes Urza's "shuffle and draw" ability cost 3, and Unwinding Clock untaps all your artifacts at the start of each other player's turn, leaving mana open for counterspells or Urza activations.
Be careful though, Urza's ability doesn't let you bypass timing restrictions, so if you activate it on another player's turn, you would only be able to cast the card if it's an instant or if it has flash.
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Sorry for my possible english mistakes, I'm not a native speaker.
this card the mox is much better then urza suprised others aren't talking about it how much you think it will go for. i think i might pick up 4 if not to expensive.
The problem with defining this format by what is "fun" is that everyone seems to define fun as what they don't lose to. If you keep losing to easily answered cards, that means you should improve your deck. If you don't want to improve your deck, then you should come to peace with the idea that you are going to lose because you chose to not interact with better strategies.
Unfortunate they didn't keep try to his planeswalker component but I guess lore suggests otherwise. Great to see an actual Urza card rather than Urza in Disguise.
this card the mox is much better then urza suprised others aren't talking about it how much you think it will go for. i think i might pick up 4 if not to expensive.
Training Grounds makes Urza's "shuffle and draw" ability cost 3, and Unwinding Clock untaps all your artifacts at the start of each other player's turn, leaving mana open for counterspells or Urza activations.
Be careful though, Urza's ability doesn't let you bypass timing restrictions, so if you activate it on another player's turn, you would only be able to cast the card if it's an instant or if it has flash.
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
this card the mox is much better then urza suprised others aren't talking about it how much you think it will go for. i think i might pick up 4 if not to expensive.
Mox?
The "Mox Ornithopter" someone mocked up earlier in the thread. It was a joke.
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Lapsed DCI Rules Advisor - Retired from playing but still hanging around
3. This feels like the type of card that would warp gameplay. If it is allowed in the 99, this is the type of card that players will grab with Bribery and Reanimate from graveyards. Even as a commander, I can easily picture players wanting to clone and confiscate this from one another. Giving you a free body, turning your equipment and general artifacts into free mana rocks, and giving you a powerful colorless mana sink is a pretty great deal (especially late in the game).
What? Oh please dude. I would rather reanimate or briber a Jin-Gitaxias or Consecrated Sphinx over Urza pretty much always for the immediate value regardless of what deck I'm playing.
leovold is another example of why urza could get banned
you could potentially win without trying and before they even have a chance to stop it
Let’s not get silly now. Leovold, Emissary of Trest costs 3 mana (in Green),
and he basically insta-wins with like a dozen cards in a number of colors.
Being Sultai, he also has access to all the best tools in EDH.
The Arcum Dagsson comparison is better;
Urza can run away with games, but he needs several pieces in place in order to do so.
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
I'm not an expert but if they are going to move anywhere, it's probably going to be up as more and more people want them and fewer and fewer are opened in boxes as the second and third waves of product yield fewer and fewer boxes per wave.
Unless Urza gets banned, then his price will probably drop quite a bit.
It's all a gamble, no one knows. If I had a foil Urza AND a regular Urza like your friend, assuming I only needed one, I'd keep the normal one and try to get more singles I wanted with the sale (or trade) of the foil Urza. I would keep one even if you don't need it because some day you may want to build that deck.
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If you're playing Urza you might as well be all in on the awful.
his foil will be obscenely priced, forever.
+1: Tap an untapped artifact you control: Add U.
-2: Create a 0/0 colorless Construct artifact creature token with "This creature gets +1/+1 for each artifact you control."
-9: You get an emblem with "5: Shuffle your library, then exile the top card. Until end of turn, you may play that card without paying its mana cost.
And that's only assuming that the mana cost was still 2UU and had a starting loyalty of four (it's eventual toughness). IF they costed him higher, they could have attached more powerful abilities to this hypothetical version of Urza, i.e. putting the Construct token on plus, Tolarian Academy on the small minus, and his ultimate not requiring to shuffle before doing Mind's Desire.
However, as fun as it would be to speculate what a planeswalker version of Urza could have been, the card we have is a creature. In Modern, he seems fine. I would say that costing four is a problem for him, but costing four isn't exactly a potential killer as four cost cards see play all over Modern. It doesn't do him any favors though either. The token is... neat. The mana off artifacts can probably find a home because as the Command Zone podcast mentioned: he turns all your artifacts in Mox Sapphire, which is considered one of the best cards in the game. So yeah, there's that. Good luck doing all the things with his Mind's Desire dig effect, but I'm sure there's something out there.
As for commander... he's going straight to the top. He's everything Teferi, Temporal Archmage wants to be but without requiring a slot for The Chain Veil. Bannable, I dunno, but printing a card that looks like it captures the full spirit of the
combo winterUrza Block doesn't seem to be like it's going to do nothing. Oh well, that's the Gitrog Monster's and Thrasios' problem.candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
~~~~~
The shuffle is to randomize the deck in the case you've stacked it with scry effects or similar. As long as you don't do anything to un-randomize your deck between the activations, you can shortcut it and not shuffle.
This is about the only realistic point you've made, but comparing it to something like Primeval Titan that got banned for this reason, it seems a lot weaker. Primetime gives much more long-term advantage on a body that's a threat in itself. But Urza isn't going to be that significant to any players without a large amount of mana to sink into his effect.
Cutting a stax deck to mono blue already makes it weaker than several other stax options. Hell, just compare him to Grand Arbiter Augustin IV - I'll take seeing Urza over that guy any day of the week.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
that is what proxies are for. Want that version? Make it yourself at home as soon as a hi-res version of the art hits the internet.
At least at kitchen-table levels no one would give you problems for that.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Seriously though, this card is a BLAST! A powerhouse for Spike, a combo card for Johnny, and a flavor win for Vorthos. My only small complaint (as a commander player) is that the card being monoblue doesn't let me play many cool Urza-themed cards such as Urza's Rage or Urza's Ruinous Blast. I wish he were URW, to mirror Mishra, Artificer Prodigy's mana cost.
Also, as Caranthir has already pointed out, the card's artwork clearly shows Invasion-era Urza and not his preplaneswalker self, but I'm okay with that. At least it's a look I recognize.
This! I'm so tired of people who say Urza was too powerful to be represented on a card. People who say so have clearly never read the novels because if they had, they would know the guy wasn't actually that powerful. He was versatile, yes, but nowhere near Nicol Bolas or Ugin level in terms of power. In fact, he was beaten be nonplaneswalker beings a couple of times in the story (Radiant, Gix, Kerrick, to name a few).
Be careful though, Urza's ability doesn't let you bypass timing restrictions, so if you activate it on another player's turn, you would only be able to cast the card if it's an instant or if it has flash.
Did you just assume the dogs gender?
Give irony and sarcasm, when ignorance and stupidity is found.
The whip is kept for special occasions
Do we wanna just call it the Temporal Aperture ability?
Unfortunate they didn't keep try to his planeswalker component but I guess lore suggests otherwise. Great to see an actual Urza card rather than Urza in Disguise.
'buster
HR Analyst. Gamer. Activist | Fearless, and forthright | Aggro-control is a mindset.
Elspeth and Jhoira rock my world.
Mox?
Just so happens there's an artifact for that.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
The "Mox Ornithopter" someone mocked up earlier in the thread. It was a joke.
What? Oh please dude. I would rather reanimate or briber a Jin-Gitaxias or Consecrated Sphinx over Urza pretty much always for the immediate value regardless of what deck I'm playing.
Glad he's 4 cmc and not 5. Being bolt proof helps.
Would be interested in what decks he goes into.
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
Let’s not get silly now.
Leovold, Emissary of Trest costs 3 mana (in Green),
and he basically insta-wins with like a dozen cards in a number of colors.
Being Sultai, he also has access to all the best tools in EDH.
The Arcum Dagsson comparison is better;
Urza can run away with games, but he needs several pieces in place in order to do so.
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
Just curious, should we hold on to both copies, or sell them? My feeling is that the price should not go down anytime soon... do you agree?
MTG Goldfish shows the non-foil staying stable at $39.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Modern Horizons/Urza Lord High Artificer#online
And the foil copy is also staying stable at $189 (mostly - slight dip the last few days looks like).
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/price/Modern Horizons:Foil/Urza Lord High Artificer#online
I'm not an expert but if they are going to move anywhere, it's probably going to be up as more and more people want them and fewer and fewer are opened in boxes as the second and third waves of product yield fewer and fewer boxes per wave.
Unless Urza gets banned, then his price will probably drop quite a bit.
It's all a gamble, no one knows. If I had a foil Urza AND a regular Urza like your friend, assuming I only needed one, I'd keep the normal one and try to get more singles I wanted with the sale (or trade) of the foil Urza. I would keep one even if you don't need it because some day you may want to build that deck.