Can you map out for us the kind of start that would be problematic? Because if your worry is Urza tapping artifacts to activate his ability, I feel like you are just going to get a lot of 2-3 mana artifacts when you activate him.
That is why Rofellos is better. You don't need to put a ton of enablers in the deck. Just lands and spells. Urza is going to have a lot of duds if you just plan to play a million artifacts.
It is like Maelstrom Wanderer. If you always hit your great 7 drops, the card would be unfair. But you have the same odds of hitting Cultivate as you do Blatant Thievery.
There are only 2 artifact lands he can pay. There are only so many 1-3 mana artifacts you want to play that are not ramp.
The only problem Urza will have is the Orbs... and I just think people will tire of that the same way they tired of Derevi.
I don't think there is any particular start from Urza that is the de facto "problematic" one. Just like I don't think there's a certain sequence of cards that makes Tolarian Academy problematic. As has already been touched upon in this thread, the primary problem is how well these cards (Urza and Academy) synergize with what is already the strongest subset of cards in EDH: the artifacts. If you're playing Urza you're obviously playing the big three (Ring, Vault, and Crypt) because of course you are, he encourages you to play artifacts. Then once you're playing so many artifacts, might as well throw in Sai, so playing artifacts gets you more artifacts. Add a few ways to keep the value train going (Paradox Engine, Riddlesmith, Vedalken Archmage) and you've created a fast and resilient engine that snowballs out of control faster than I think a lot of groups will be comfortable with. And that's all without mentioning the cards that Urza in particular works well with, like the Orbs (of both the Static and Winter variety) or Howling Mine because of his ability to make them one-sided.
The comparison between Urza and Rofellos wasn't so much to say "hey look, Urza is better!" as much as it was to point out that Urza is uniquely stronger in that he is both ramp and a ramp payoff at the same time, and that he easily slides into what is already one of the stronger deck archetypes in the format (artifacts.dec). My guess is that Urza is too strong and they only reason he'll stay unbanned is because he'll see less play than he otherwise would due to social stigma.
True, but casting a random card from your library for 5 mana is not banworthy, nor is it even particularly strong.
The card as a whole is obviously strong, but that line of play isn't.
Except that's more or less Urza's fail state. Rofellos's best starts will be better than Urza's best but Rofellos's worst starts will be significantly worse than Urza's worst. That fact that Urza always has a decent fallback option if there's nothing better in hand to ramp out makes him particularly dangerous, seeing as how that overcomes one of ramp's traditional weaknesses: drawing either all ramp and no payoffs or all payoffs and no ramp. Urza pretty neatly bypasses that by being his own ramp and his own (admittedly moderate) payoff.
To me, what differentiates this from Rofellos is Rofellos can let you cast a 6 mana spell on turn 3 if all you did was play lands and your general. Every game, turn 3 6-drop.
Urza will have fast starts, but not nearly the consistency of Rofellos.
Rofellos also requires you to actually have a 6-drop. Urza doesn't; 4 lands and your general lets you start freerolling the top of your deck with no other cards required.
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The comparison between Urza and Rofellos wasn't so much to say "hey look, Urza is better!" as much as it was to point out that Urza is uniquely stronger in that he is both ramp and a ramp payoff at the same time, and that he easily slides into what is already one of the stronger deck archetypes in the format (artifacts.dec). My guess is that Urza is too strong and they only reason he'll stay unbanned is because he'll see less play than he otherwise would due to social stigma.