I think the CIPT clause kills it. Would this really have been broken as a mana confluence where you have to choose a single color when you play it? And it's a rare? Sheesh.
Edit Completely misread the card, thought it did the opposite of what it does. This seems completely playable if you're looking for another city of brass variant, although this is way worse than it and mana confluence. If I was still running grand colosseum I would immediately replace it with this. Maybe a replacement for fabled passage?
That's alot of words to parse, got it wrong at least twice.
It seems like it will be good but unexciting. If it could tap for a colourless without paying life it would have been very interesting, but it would have been even wordier.
Won't be in a rush to get one, but will definitely run it if I come across one.
Tapping for only one color and always costing life feels like a really hefty price to pay for a fastland. For me, the card that Thran Portal most readily competes with is Undiscovered Paradise. They're both mana fixing lands with prohibitive drawbacks that more or less limits their use to aggressive decks. Thran Portal having a basic land type is marginally more useful in my cube than Undiscovered Paradise's bounce effect, and it is generally more playable if you're desperate for fixing, so I think the Portal will have a home until we get another Fabled Passage or two.
so close. as mentioned above tapping for colourless would have made this so much more playable. I won't fault anyone for running it but I think the comparison to prismatic vista says it all. ouch!
My thoughts for Thran Portal and Undiscovered Paradise is you should try it if you're playing a combo heavy powered cube, otherwise its not really worth it.
I found it to be a fairly good pick up for decks, such as Red-White aggro to stay open for a potential pack 3 Ancestral Recall or Grixis Reanimator to splash for a pack 3 Channel etc.
Other than that, i think the life loss is VERY problematic.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I'm actively maintaining a comprehensive article to help explain to new cube players how some complex vintage level cards work in a cube environment. Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Yeah I think it was PV or some other pro on Twitter that said it best. Something along the lines of "this card wants to be played early, but also punishes you for doing so."
A very wordy hybrid of Shimmerdrift Vale and City of Brass.
This is not the strongest rainbow-land, and its main appeal may be as a cheap alternative to the real-live Mana Confluence.
Despite all the Shimmerdrift Vale variants we've seen lately, I still haven't seen enough rainbow-lands to be satisfied. More is always welcome.
My 1570 card cube
My 415 Peasant+ Artifact and Enchantment Cube
I think the CIPT clause kills it. Would this really have been broken as a mana confluence where you have to choose a single color when you play it? And it's a rare? Sheesh.Edit Completely misread the card, thought it did the opposite of what it does. This seems completely playable if you're looking for another city of brass variant, although this is way worse than it and mana confluence. If I was still running grand colosseum I would immediately replace it with this. Maybe a replacement for fabled passage?
465 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
It seems like it will be good but unexciting. If it could tap for a colourless without paying life it would have been very interesting, but it would have been even wordier.
Won't be in a rush to get one, but will definitely run it if I come across one.
What we cube with on XMage (Hasn't been updated since before Strixhaven)
540 Version: https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/zza
I found it to be a fairly good pick up for decks, such as Red-White aggro to stay open for a potential pack 3 Ancestral Recall or Grixis Reanimator to splash for a pack 3 Channel etc.
Other than that, i think the life loss is VERY problematic.
Vintage Cube Cards Explained
Here are some other articles I've written about fine tuning your cube:
1. Minimum Archetype Support
2. Improving Green Archetypes
3. Improving White Archetypes
4. Matchup Analysis
5. Cube Combos (Work in Progress)
Draft my Cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/overview/d8i
My High Octane Unpowered Cube on CubeCobra