So kind of a funny story. I joined a friend to play sealed MHZ with his box today and I cracked 6 packs. Among the cracks I packed there was a foil Nurturing Peatland and a Sword of Sinew and Steel and on the 6th pack I shotcalled an Urza and then I pulled it. Wish we would have videotaped it.
When it costs a "Grant" to obtain the card (I don't run proxies) then I'll stick to theorycrafting. I have done similar theorycrafting with Serra, but I pulled one so I can and will try it myself. Also, its only been a few days since it has been available, so there really isn't a problem with theorycrafting at this point. If, a few months later, others experience continues to support this card then this would obviously carry more weight than what I'm saying now.
Regardless, I know how my cube plays well enough to know how it would likely perform in my cube and similarly constructed cubes.
If I still ran Tezzeret, the Seeker I would make that swap. As I think that iteration of Tezzeret is near worthless.
There is some really high praise for Urza happening here with people placing it over JTMS. Maybe we're still looking at this card with the spoiler-season tinted glasses? I'll admit, I'm still trying to rework my cube to make it more artifact friendly and maybe that is why in my cube's current form I can't see this being an impactful play. I keep thinking about the "average" value of this card with 3 artifacts (and that is being very generous for many cubes) and you're getting 4/7 in power over two bodies. With three artifacts the total p/t you get is obvious solid--but really only defensively speaking as neither a 3/3 or a 1/4 attack well at that point in the game.
There's some mention about how you can tap your new robot for U and be able to counterspell if you just have one other artifact. Are you really getting a lot of ramp out of this when the artifacts are often mana rocks that can produce mana more efficiently to begin with?
The last ability isn't really impactful from feedback I have seen. It's okay as a mana sink, but blue isn't a color that needs to rely on chance in its gameplan.
In sum: I think this card is strong and in powered or artifact intensive cubes it probably merits a slot, but most unpowered cubes I have seen don't have the proper support for this card to get the value needed to make it impactful.
Tinker is pretty easy to support even if your cube isn't artifact heavy. It's a Blue Natural Order. I don't think most unpowered cubes run Tolarian Academy. Anyway, I don't think Urza is better than existing options in unpowered lists that aren't heavily invested into the artifacts archetype. Just my two cents.
I don't have a 4CC cut for this. I'm probably just going to cut Kira, Great Glass-Spinner. I don't think this is an incredible 4 drop for unpowered cubes, but there's no way I can't test this--if only for the Winter Orb synergies!
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Regardless, I know how my cube plays well enough to know how it would likely perform in my cube and similarly constructed cubes.
There is some really high praise for Urza happening here with people placing it over JTMS. Maybe we're still looking at this card with the spoiler-season tinted glasses? I'll admit, I'm still trying to rework my cube to make it more artifact friendly and maybe that is why in my cube's current form I can't see this being an impactful play. I keep thinking about the "average" value of this card with 3 artifacts (and that is being very generous for many cubes) and you're getting 4/7 in power over two bodies. With three artifacts the total p/t you get is obvious solid--but really only defensively speaking as neither a 3/3 or a 1/4 attack well at that point in the game.
There's some mention about how you can tap your new robot for U and be able to counterspell if you just have one other artifact. Are you really getting a lot of ramp out of this when the artifacts are often mana rocks that can produce mana more efficiently to begin with?
The last ability isn't really impactful from feedback I have seen. It's okay as a mana sink, but blue isn't a color that needs to rely on chance in its gameplan.
In sum: I think this card is strong and in powered or artifact intensive cubes it probably merits a slot, but most unpowered cubes I have seen don't have the proper support for this card to get the value needed to make it impactful.