Wow, hardly anyone talking about Grand Architect who should without a doubt make a big impact post rotation or possibly sooner. ...don't forget Treasure Mage tutors up Blightsteel Colossus ;).
It's an instant speed 5/5 trampler for 4. Wtf do you people want seriously? It has applications in populate/ above the curve beats decks, or in Bant control/ flash. I seriously think anyone mad at this card for any reason other than losing an attacker to instant speed wurm, should go home and make their own awesome card game and leave the rest of us alone.
there are some advantages compared to ramp.
creature can't be countered.
you can sometimes play multiple creatures a turn. eg voltaic key, or two amulets.
flash in etb creatures, as mentioned earlier.
leave mana open for more options, namely counters and discard.
Quicksilver Amulet and Emrakul together is a combo that is about as powerful as Splinter Twin, and it doesn't even need to be the central focus of the deck that it is in. Really, if I bring in an Emrakul at the end of your turn, what are you going to do?
I'm sure amulet has it's place in decks like Eldrazi Green, as a secondary method of getting out your fatties, but basing an entire deck around amulet will only let you down in the end, because the combo pieces are too narrow to work well with others should one of them get removed.
I've been saying that it's not supposed to be the central part of a deck. Here's a rough list of something that could work.
I don't know a whole lot about Eldrazi Green, so I might be missing something that could help the deck out. It might be better off without the blue, but that would require some testing to figure out. The sideboard would probably have counterspells, artifact removal, Beast Within, and Acidic Slime. Again, this is just a rough list. It might be better to just take an average Eldrazi Green list and throw three of these in.
So... It's a colorless Elvish Piper? Why exactly are people going batty over something that's never broken standard before, in much, much weaker seasons (Kamigawa/Ravnica/9th Ed, for instance) than Zen/SoM/2011. Even discounting the tired "dies to removal" argument, what exactly does this do that is so much better than Summoning Trap? Or just running more ramp? Heck, Piper was more efficient because its ability only cost G,t as opposed to ,t and could be tutored for much easier in almost every standard season.
You mention dropping Emrakul at the end of turn, but honestly I would rather just hard cast her and reap the benefits- "flashing" her out at the end your opponent's turn probably won't win you the game (Hello Geth's Verdict, Brittle Effigy, Sparkmage and his lovely Basilisk Collar, Vampire Nighthawk), whereas the extra turn will. Ditto for the other Eldrazi Titans. You mention Jin Gitaxis at end of turn, which you can do with straight-up ramp much easier. Vorinclex at the end of turn is of dubious value. Ditto for the rest of the Praetors. Terastodon comes out faster with normal ramp and really isn't that one-sided. Is the attraction being able to drop off-color fatties? Maybe you could run a Shape Anew, Kuldotha Forgemaster, or Mass Polymorph deck. The only good thing about the card is that it beats counterspells.
Seriously, what exactly are you expecting out of this card? Competitively, it's a mediocre secondary win-con in Eldrazi Green for those of us with shoestring budgets.
So... It's a colorless Elvish Piper? Why exactly are people going batty over something that's never broken standard before, in much, much weaker seasons (Kamigawa/Ravnica/9th Ed, for instance) than Zen/SoM/2011. Even discounting the tired "dies to removal" argument, what exactly does this do that is so much better than Summoning Trap? Or just running more ramp? Heck, Piper was more efficient because its ability only cost G,t as opposed to ,t and could be tutored for much easier in almost every standard season.
You mention dropping Emrakul at the end of turn, but honestly I would rather just hard cast her and reap the benefits- "flashing" her out at the end your opponent's turn probably won't win you the game (Hello Geth's Verdict, Brittle Effigy, Sparkmage and his lovely Basilisk Collar, Vampire Nighthawk), whereas the extra turn will. Ditto for the other Eldrazi Titans. You mention Jin Gitaxis at end of turn, which you can do with straight-up ramp much easier. Vorinclex at the end of turn is of dubious value. Ditto for the rest of the Praetors. Terastodon comes out faster with normal ramp and really isn't that one-sided. Is the attraction being able to drop off-color fatties? Maybe you could run a Shape Anew, Kuldotha Forgemaster, or Mass Polymorph deck. The only good thing about the card is that it beats counterspells.
Seriously, what exactly are you expecting out of this card? Competitively, it's a mediocre secondary win-con in Eldrazi Green for those of us with shoestring budgets.
Elvish Piper is very easy to destroy compared to Quicksilver Amulet. The Amulet also fits very well into Eldrazi Green, which is an already existing archetype. The difference between 4 mana to tap and 1 mana to tap doesn't matter all that much, since you've got the mana anyway.
What do you mean that it probably won't win you the game? That's crazy. Nobody is playing Geth's Verdict, Brittle Effigy, or Sparkcollar. Vampire Nighthawk is played a little bit, but even if Emrakul said "Target opponent sacrifices Vampire Nighthawk and 6 other permanents," I think I would still win the game if it comes down.
Ramping to Jin-Gitaxias isn't easier than Amuleting him into play. The Amulet requires 4 mana to play, and then the 10 cmc spell drops the next turn. Explain to me how you can get from 4 to 10 mana in a single turn.
Elvish Piper is very easy to destroy compared to Quicksilver Amulet.
However, the Piper is much easier to protect, reusing his ability is easier and cheaper, can be reanimated easier, and easier to get into your hand. Go figure.
What do you mean that it probably won't win you the game? That's crazy. Nobody is playing Geth's Verdict, Brittle Effigy, or Sparkcollar. Vampire Nighthawk is played a little bit,
First of all, the meta is in flux right now, so we have no idea what kind of removal is going to be played. However those four I mentioned, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Journey to Nowhere, Tumble Magnet, Phyrexian Metamorph, and Karn, Liberated are all possibilities. A pipered Emrakul without haste is not a guaranteed win.
but even if Emrakul said "Target opponent sacrifices Vampire Nighthawk and 6 other permanents," I think I would still win the game if it comes down.
This may very well be the worst argument for Emrakul I've ever read- and it's still invalid. The problem is that you've shot all your bullets to get Emrakul out, and while you've hit your opponent hard, you haven't cinched the deal. You're only marginally less hurt than they are.
Ramping to Jin-Gitaxias isn't easier than Amuleting him into play. The Amulet requires 4 mana to play, and then the 10 cmc spell drops the next turn. Explain to me how you can get from 4 to 10 mana in a single turn.
First of all, the only way you get guaranteed value out of Quicksilver Amulet is if you have 8 mana available, not 4. You need to be able to activate in response to artifact removal, bounce spells, or hand disruption, and you pray your opponent doesn't have any mixture of those three. Getting 8 mana available is only marginally easier than 10 mana by turn 4.
Example:
Turn 1 Forest, Treespeaker. Turn 2 Island, level up Treespeaker and cast Overgrown Battlement. Turn 3, Forest, cast Cultivate or Harrow (Search for Island and Forest), drop either Phyexian Metamorph, Lotus Cobra, or another Overgrown Battlement, Turn 4 Drop land and behold: 10 mana to flash out Jin Gitaxis with room to spare. This is without fetches, either.
Example:
Or: Turn 1 Island, Mox Opal. Turn 2 Island, Sphere of the Suns. Turn 3 Island, Everflowing Chalice kicked twice, into Palladium Myr. Turn 4, Drop a land, cast Jin Gitaxis.
Look, if you want to cheat out Emrakul and Jin Gitaxis, there are better ways that are easier to protect. Mass Polymorph, for example.
Look, if you want to cheat out Emrakul and Jin Gitaxis, there are better ways that are easier to protect. Mass Polymorph, for example.
Mass Polymorph has been been discussed and failed; I think comparing the two is a bad idea, especially because Mass Polymorph requires a deck built around it; at its worst, the Amulet can be thrown into numerous decks and it would at least do okay.
You keep talking about how you need 8 mana; the beauty of cards like Quicksilver Amulet is that you DON'T need 8 mana. You risk the Amulet getting bounced/destroyed for one turn, then reap the benefits. You are splitting the cost of a (hopefully) impossible to deal with threat, over the course of two turns.
If I was going to ramp to 8 mana so I could use the Amulet that turn, yes, you're right, I might as well just ramp straight into Jin and skip the middle man. But, duh, that's a lot more difficult than just playing out the Amulet on turn 3, for example. And requires more cards. Ramping to 8+ requires Cobras, Birds, Treespeakers, Rampant Growth; not just one, but more than likely some combination of all or some of those cards. the Amulet requires...uh, the Amulet. Giving you more deck space for cards that do things besides ramp. That means you have more threats, more responses, more OPTIONS than your opponent.
Yeah, you risk getting blown out by an EOT Divine Offering or something similar. Of course you do - the Amulet in that case is a "Must Answer" threat: your opponent either has the cards in hand/play to deal with it, or they lose. Its as simple as that. So in this theoretical U/G Amulet deck, instead of running 10+ ramp spells to ramp up to emrakul/Jin/whoever, you can run 4x Rampant Growth, maybe Lotus Cobra, and fill the rest of the list with Quicksilver Amulet, Summoning Trap, Wurmcoil Engines, and whatever other pet cards I'd want to put in, and I can do that because the list isn't filled with 16 ramping dorks that 1) aren't threats on their own and 2) STILL screw me over if they're destroyed prematurely.
And even in Scars format, you are much more likely to run across something that destroys your creatures than destroys your artifact. In the right decklist, Quicksilver Amulet would be a total bomb. I think it's definitely worth picking them up.
Edit: Palladium Myr? Seriously? Nobody plays Palladium Myr, and if they do, it gets destroyed on sight because I know why they're running it.
When I first heard the name, I thought it was the typical " Tap target creature" Quicksilver card. Then I read it, and I was like, wait, what?! Now I am trying to find a way to break the card, which doesn't seem all that hard.
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Dunno what the hate is for on this card, but having played with ramp decks in Blue and Green, I can tell you this card is going to be amazing. You see decks trying to cheat their cards into play; Birthing pod is a prime example of decks that do that. That cost 3 + 2 life or four mana for a restricted search engine.
I'll also let you know that this is nuts coming in from sideboard. I use a Grand Architect theme to power out a "Mindslaver Lock" to end the game or recur big/nasty artifacts on Prototype Portal. My usual turn sequences see me hit turn 2 Augury Owl, Turn 3 GA. I can tap them for a Prototype Portal, but there's no inherent 2 for 1 by using the Amulet. Augury Owl already sets me up to draw good things.
Turn 4 sees 8 artifact mana on the field. This speeds up my deck quite a bit.
In the end, I think that Quicksilver Amulet is not quite good enough for constructed play, but has an outside shot. Still, some of you have given reasons for it not being good enough that don't make a lot of sense.
First of all, saying that if Quicksilver Amulet was broken it would already be known is silly. We know that the card is too slow for Eternal formats, but this card was in URZA BLOCK. There were way too many broken cards in that Standard format to say this card has ever had a real chance.
Second, the fact that this card is vulnerable to artifact removal implies that people will still be playing those cards in a non-caw blade format. It is possible for sure, but recent history says that is unlikely.
Third, Saying that a creature AURA is less vulnerable than a artifact (in reference to comparing this card to Splinter Twin) because noone play enchantment removal is nonsense. Clearly auras are weak to all the things that kill what they enchant.
We as players often know by instinct what is good or bad. We should learn to say that and then seek verification, rather than come up with dumb reasons for 'knowing' something.
Dunno what the hate is for on this card, but having played with ramp decks in Blue and Green, I can tell you this card is going to be amazing. You see decks trying to cheat their cards into play; Birthing pod is a prime example of decks that do that. That cost 3 + 2 life or four mana for a restricted search engine.
I'll also let you know that this is nuts coming in from sideboard. I use a Grand Architect theme to power out a "Mindslaver Lock" to end the game or recur big/nasty artifacts on Prototype Portal. My usual turn sequences see me hit turn 2 Augury Owl, Turn 3 GA. I can tap them for a Prototype Portal, but there's no inherent 2 for 1 by using the Amulet. Augury Owl already sets me up to draw good things.
Turn 4 sees 8 artifact mana on the field. This speeds up my deck quite a bit.
Comparing this to Birthing Pod is like comparing Elvish Piper to Survival of the Fittest. There is no comparison. Birthing Pod gives you access to a number of different creatures, and you will almost always hit a creature with a relevant ability. Quicksilver only works with at most 4 creatures in the format, and you have to draw both the creature and the Amulet or either is a dead card.
The biggest problem besides it being a only decent card is that its in an environment where people are definitely going to have artifact hate sideboard and possibly main deck. Because of this 'protecting' it will be about as easy as protecting an elvish piper anyway.
Even if you hard cast the amulet, you can put it into play with flash for a flat rate of four. That's a very relevant note right there. This as a boost to some monsters will be what a few decks need to get moving fast.
When is paying significantly less mana for your fatties at instant speed bad?
I see very little down side to this card. Yes you have to draw creatures, but you to keep counter mana open which is huge. Just my 2 cents.
I think people really ARE forgetting, theoretically, if you untap with this in play, you have pretty much just won the game. Right? I mean, you wouldn't have played it without having a dude in your hand, or the reasonable impression you were going to have one soon, by draw, tutoring, or what have you. So if you don't have Divine Offering or Nature's Claim or whatever, I just uptap and plop down a very big, very cheap, fattie, that will be even harder for you to deal with than the Amulet was.
And if you blow up the Amulet....it's not like the game is over. It's turn 3? Turn 4? Okay, I guess my next turn will just involve me playing Primeval Titan and continuing on. I'm not going to build a deck that scoops when my Amulet gets blown up. It's going to die. Accept it, and build the rest of your list to play without it if need be.
Or play UW control and play the Amulet as a 2x to cheat in on-color fatties like Iona or Jin-Gitaxias, which you would probably get the mana for at some point anyway. Seems fun to me, there are a slew of fun counterspells in standard now.
Also, Quicksilver Amulet was never broken in the past for two reasons: One, as mentioned, it was in Urza block. People were a little too busy smashing face with a certain blue land and winning on turn 1 with Memory Jars, to focus on a card that could cheat in your stupid Crash of Rhinos. Two...actually, that was two. The best creatures to cheap into play were stupid cards like Crash of Rhinos, or MAYBE something as comboliscious as Palinchron. Why would you cheat something Morphling into play? Or Phyrexian Negator? You have to remember that Urza's block was still the stage of Magic where the spells were INFINITELY better than any creature you could play. The same cannot be said today, as there are 10+ creatures I would like to cheat into play with this broken, broken card.
However, the Piper is much easier to protect, reusing his ability is easier and cheaper, can be reanimated easier, and easier to get into your hand. Go figure.
[B]It's not easier to protect a creature at all. Piper dies to way more things than Amulet does. The mana cost for reusing the ability doesn't make too big of a difference if you're dropping a 10 or 15 cmc spell every turn. And how is it easier to get in your hand? I guess today we have Green Sun's Zenith, but there aren't usually a whole lot of creature tutors in Standard.[/B]
Really? Wait a minute...
Okay. Sure. Whatever you say.
[b]I was saying that I've never played an Eldrazi Green deck before and that the decklist may not be perfectly balanced. I don't know why that's so hard to believe.[/b]
Yep. Except for the whole "untap Elvish Piper and drop another Fatty" angle. Or the whole "Piper out a fatty, and then cast another fatty" angle.
[b]If I can only drop one of these guys a turn, I'll almost always be just as well off. The important thing is that the Amulet has a much higher chance of surviving until the next turn than Piper does.[/b]
First of all, the meta is in flux right now, so we have no idea what kind of removal is going to be played. However those four I mentioned, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Journey to Nowhere, Tumble Magnet, Phyrexian Metamorph, and Karn, Liberated are all possibilities. A pipered Emrakul without haste is not a guaranteed win.
[b]We have a basic idea of what the meta will be like. Karn is bad, so he won't see play. Tumble Magnet is pretty useless in a format without Stoneforge Mystic. The other three could see use. And like I said, even if it's not a guaranteed win, you're opponent will be so far behind that you should be able to take the win soon[/b]
This may very well be the worst argument for Emrakul I've ever read- and it's still invalid. The problem is that you've shot all your bullets to get Emrakul out, and while you've hit your opponent hard, you haven't cinched the deal. You're only marginally less hurt than they are.
[b]How exactly is playing a ramp card, an Amulet, and an Emrakul making you use up your whole hand? You've got way more cards after doing this than you would if you played a ramp deck. If Emrakul dies, you can bring in another fatty, or find a Primeval Titan to get an Eye of Ugin and find more Eldrazi.[b]
First of all, the only way you get guaranteed value out of Quicksilver Amulet is if you have 8 mana available, not 4. You need to be able to activate in response to artifact removal, bounce spells, or hand disruption, and you pray your opponent doesn't have any mixture of those three. Getting 8 mana available is only marginally easier than 10 mana by turn 4.
[b]You don't get guaranteed value out of Deceiver Exarch, Baneslayer Angel, or Doom Blade, but that doesn't mean that those cards don't see play. If the Amulet gets destroyed, you can play some more ramp. The game doesn't just end.[/b]
Example:
Turn 1 Forest, Treespeaker. Turn 2 Island, level up Treespeaker and cast Overgrown Battlement. Turn 3, Forest, cast Cultivate or Harrow (Search for Island and Forest), drop either Phyexian Metamorph, Lotus Cobra, or another Overgrown Battlement, Turn 4 Drop land and behold: 10 mana to flash out Jin Gitaxis with room to spare. This is without fetches, either.
Example:
Or: Turn 1 Island, Mox Opal. Turn 2 Island, Sphere of the Suns. Turn 3 Island, Everflowing Chalice kicked twice, into Palladium Myr. Turn 4, Drop a land, cast Jin Gitaxis.
[b]Neither of those ways are faster. They are just as fast, and they they use up your whole hand. Those plans also fall to any creature or artifact removal, which for some reason you mention as a big problem for Amulet but not for your ramp decks. Amulet gets out the creatures just as fast, and it won't have a problem if the Amulet gets destroyed.[/b]
Look, if you want to cheat out Emrakul and Jin Gitaxis, there are better ways that are easier to protect. Mass Polymorph, for example.
[b]Mass Polymorph is awful though. You need to have creatures out and get Mass Polymorph. The fatties you draw will be dead most of the time. Playing this card in Eldrazi Green gives you a faster way to drop your fatties. I'm also not sure why 0/1 tokens are easier to protect than an artifact.[/b]
this card has a lot of potential... and there are plenty of counter spells in standard... also remember sword of feast and famine lets you untap your mana. I think we can all come to the same conclusion that this card isn't "broken" but it has potential to effect the meta at least until rotation... which is what I was trying to point out in the first place.
I can't believe Massacre Wurm hasn't been discussed more in this thread... I'll go for some of that action!
It makes some sense to do it during combat, but it makes no sense to drop Massacre Wurm off of the Amulet any other time. You could just wait one turn and play him normally and not set yourself back a turn playing the Amulet.
this card has a lot of potential... and there are plenty of counter spells in standard... also remember sword of feast and famine lets you untap your mana. I think we can all come to the same conclusion that this card isn't "broken" but it has potential to effect the meta at least until rotation... which is what I was trying to point out in the first place.
It will have 0 effect on the Standard competitive meta before rotation.
Too many people are condemning this card because "all it does is get creatures in 1 turn faster"... Wrong. It also gets your creatures in while letting you keep mana up for counterspells, or removal, or even other creatures. While it may seem silly to use the amulet for a titan that would "come down the next turn anyway", it seems less silly when you're able to cast a titan and then a Doom Blade, or a titan and counter their removal.
creature can't be countered.
you can sometimes play multiple creatures a turn. eg voltaic key, or two amulets.
flash in etb creatures, as mentioned earlier.
leave mana open for more options, namely counters and discard.
........................
I've been saying that it's not supposed to be the central part of a deck. Here's a rough list of something that could work.
4 Primeval Titan
3 Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
3 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Rampant Growth
4 Cultivate
3 Quicksilver Amulet
2 Green Sun's Zenith
2 Blue Sun's Zenith
6 Island
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Eldrazi Temple
1 Eye of Ugin
I don't know a whole lot about Eldrazi Green, so I might be missing something that could help the deck out. It might be better off without the blue, but that would require some testing to figure out. The sideboard would probably have counterspells, artifact removal, Beast Within, and Acidic Slime. Again, this is just a rough list. It might be better to just take an average Eldrazi Green list and throw three of these in.
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You mention dropping Emrakul at the end of turn, but honestly I would rather just hard cast her and reap the benefits- "flashing" her out at the end your opponent's turn probably won't win you the game (Hello Geth's Verdict, Brittle Effigy, Sparkmage and his lovely Basilisk Collar, Vampire Nighthawk), whereas the extra turn will. Ditto for the other Eldrazi Titans. You mention Jin Gitaxis at end of turn, which you can do with straight-up ramp much easier. Vorinclex at the end of turn is of dubious value. Ditto for the rest of the Praetors. Terastodon comes out faster with normal ramp and really isn't that one-sided. Is the attraction being able to drop off-color fatties? Maybe you could run a Shape Anew, Kuldotha Forgemaster, or Mass Polymorph deck. The only good thing about the card is that it beats counterspells.
Seriously, what exactly are you expecting out of this card? Competitively, it's a mediocre secondary win-con in Eldrazi Green for those of us with shoestring budgets.
With GA out on the field you could play Treasure mage getting blightsteel.
Then next turn play the Amulet and play the cost with GA's ability.
Elvish Piper is very easy to destroy compared to Quicksilver Amulet. The Amulet also fits very well into Eldrazi Green, which is an already existing archetype. The difference between 4 mana to tap and 1 mana to tap doesn't matter all that much, since you've got the mana anyway.
What do you mean that it probably won't win you the game? That's crazy. Nobody is playing Geth's Verdict, Brittle Effigy, or Sparkcollar. Vampire Nighthawk is played a little bit, but even if Emrakul said "Target opponent sacrifices Vampire Nighthawk and 6 other permanents," I think I would still win the game if it comes down.
Ramping to Jin-Gitaxias isn't easier than Amuleting him into play. The Amulet requires 4 mana to play, and then the 10 cmc spell drops the next turn. Explain to me how you can get from 4 to 10 mana in a single turn.
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However, the Piper is much easier to protect, reusing his ability is easier and cheaper, can be reanimated easier, and easier to get into your hand. Go figure.
Really? Wait a minute...
Okay. Sure. Whatever you say.
Yep. Except for the whole "untap Elvish Piper and drop another Fatty" angle. Or the whole "Piper out a fatty, and then cast another fatty" angle.
First of all, the meta is in flux right now, so we have no idea what kind of removal is going to be played. However those four I mentioned, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Journey to Nowhere, Tumble Magnet, Phyrexian Metamorph, and Karn, Liberated are all possibilities. A pipered Emrakul without haste is not a guaranteed win.
This may very well be the worst argument for Emrakul I've ever read- and it's still invalid. The problem is that you've shot all your bullets to get Emrakul out, and while you've hit your opponent hard, you haven't cinched the deal. You're only marginally less hurt than they are.
First of all, the only way you get guaranteed value out of Quicksilver Amulet is if you have 8 mana available, not 4. You need to be able to activate in response to artifact removal, bounce spells, or hand disruption, and you pray your opponent doesn't have any mixture of those three. Getting 8 mana available is only marginally easier than 10 mana by turn 4.
Example:
Turn 1 Forest, Treespeaker. Turn 2 Island, level up Treespeaker and cast Overgrown Battlement. Turn 3, Forest, cast Cultivate or Harrow (Search for Island and Forest), drop either Phyexian Metamorph, Lotus Cobra, or another Overgrown Battlement, Turn 4 Drop land and behold: 10 mana to flash out Jin Gitaxis with room to spare. This is without fetches, either.
Example:
Or: Turn 1 Island, Mox Opal. Turn 2 Island, Sphere of the Suns. Turn 3 Island, Everflowing Chalice kicked twice, into Palladium Myr. Turn 4, Drop a land, cast Jin Gitaxis.
Look, if you want to cheat out Emrakul and Jin Gitaxis, there are better ways that are easier to protect. Mass Polymorph, for example.
Mass Polymorph has been been discussed and failed; I think comparing the two is a bad idea, especially because Mass Polymorph requires a deck built around it; at its worst, the Amulet can be thrown into numerous decks and it would at least do okay.
You keep talking about how you need 8 mana; the beauty of cards like Quicksilver Amulet is that you DON'T need 8 mana. You risk the Amulet getting bounced/destroyed for one turn, then reap the benefits. You are splitting the cost of a (hopefully) impossible to deal with threat, over the course of two turns.
If I was going to ramp to 8 mana so I could use the Amulet that turn, yes, you're right, I might as well just ramp straight into Jin and skip the middle man. But, duh, that's a lot more difficult than just playing out the Amulet on turn 3, for example. And requires more cards. Ramping to 8+ requires Cobras, Birds, Treespeakers, Rampant Growth; not just one, but more than likely some combination of all or some of those cards. the Amulet requires...uh, the Amulet. Giving you more deck space for cards that do things besides ramp. That means you have more threats, more responses, more OPTIONS than your opponent.
Yeah, you risk getting blown out by an EOT Divine Offering or something similar. Of course you do - the Amulet in that case is a "Must Answer" threat: your opponent either has the cards in hand/play to deal with it, or they lose. Its as simple as that. So in this theoretical U/G Amulet deck, instead of running 10+ ramp spells to ramp up to emrakul/Jin/whoever, you can run 4x Rampant Growth, maybe Lotus Cobra, and fill the rest of the list with Quicksilver Amulet, Summoning Trap, Wurmcoil Engines, and whatever other pet cards I'd want to put in, and I can do that because the list isn't filled with 16 ramping dorks that 1) aren't threats on their own and 2) STILL screw me over if they're destroyed prematurely.
And even in Scars format, you are much more likely to run across something that destroys your creatures than destroys your artifact. In the right decklist, Quicksilver Amulet would be a total bomb. I think it's definitely worth picking them up.
Edit: Palladium Myr? Seriously? Nobody plays Palladium Myr, and if they do, it gets destroyed on sight because I know why they're running it.
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I'll also let you know that this is nuts coming in from sideboard. I use a Grand Architect theme to power out a "Mindslaver Lock" to end the game or recur big/nasty artifacts on Prototype Portal. My usual turn sequences see me hit turn 2 Augury Owl, Turn 3 GA. I can tap them for a Prototype Portal, but there's no inherent 2 for 1 by using the Amulet. Augury Owl already sets me up to draw good things.
Turn 4 sees 8 artifact mana on the field. This speeds up my deck quite a bit.
First of all, saying that if Quicksilver Amulet was broken it would already be known is silly. We know that the card is too slow for Eternal formats, but this card was in URZA BLOCK. There were way too many broken cards in that Standard format to say this card has ever had a real chance.
Second, the fact that this card is vulnerable to artifact removal implies that people will still be playing those cards in a non-caw blade format. It is possible for sure, but recent history says that is unlikely.
Third, Saying that a creature AURA is less vulnerable than a artifact (in reference to comparing this card to Splinter Twin) because noone play enchantment removal is nonsense. Clearly auras are weak to all the things that kill what they enchant.
We as players often know by instinct what is good or bad. We should learn to say that and then seek verification, rather than come up with dumb reasons for 'knowing' something.
Comparing this to Birthing Pod is like comparing Elvish Piper to Survival of the Fittest. There is no comparison. Birthing Pod gives you access to a number of different creatures, and you will almost always hit a creature with a relevant ability. Quicksilver only works with at most 4 creatures in the format, and you have to draw both the creature and the Amulet or either is a dead card.
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I see very little down side to this card. Yes you have to draw creatures, but you to keep counter mana open which is huge. Just my 2 cents.
And if you blow up the Amulet....it's not like the game is over. It's turn 3? Turn 4? Okay, I guess my next turn will just involve me playing Primeval Titan and continuing on. I'm not going to build a deck that scoops when my Amulet gets blown up. It's going to die. Accept it, and build the rest of your list to play without it if need be.
Or play UW control and play the Amulet as a 2x to cheat in on-color fatties like Iona or Jin-Gitaxias, which you would probably get the mana for at some point anyway. Seems fun to me, there are a slew of fun counterspells in standard now.
Also, Quicksilver Amulet was never broken in the past for two reasons: One, as mentioned, it was in Urza block. People were a little too busy smashing face with a certain blue land and winning on turn 1 with Memory Jars, to focus on a card that could cheat in your stupid Crash of Rhinos. Two...actually, that was two. The best creatures to cheap into play were stupid cards like Crash of Rhinos, or MAYBE something as comboliscious as Palinchron. Why would you cheat something Morphling into play? Or Phyrexian Negator? You have to remember that Urza's block was still the stage of Magic where the spells were INFINITELY better than any creature you could play. The same cannot be said today, as there are 10+ creatures I would like to cheat into play with this broken, broken card.
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Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
I can't believe Massacre Wurm hasn't been discussed more in this thread... I'll go for some of that action!
It makes some sense to do it during combat, but it makes no sense to drop Massacre Wurm off of the Amulet any other time. You could just wait one turn and play him normally and not set yourself back a turn playing the Amulet.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
It will have 0 effect on the Standard competitive meta before rotation.
Check out http://www.mtgbrodeals.com/author/john-murphy/ for my EDH articles!
because we haven't already discussed quite a few decks that it would help? do you not read?
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Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn