MTG Salvation

Maybe I'm hyper focusing on the opening hand value of this card, but at first glance this card seems like a crazy good cantrip to me?

Digging 5 is no joke. Even without the free clause I’d be seriously considering this card. Will test.

Yeah, this card looks great. Smoothing draws for free, yes please.

There is already a thread for this card.

Quote from BlackWaltz3 »

There is already a thread for this card.

woops! my bad. I replied to an early post right after you posted that thread, didn't realize the thread went under it so I missed it.

If a moderator can merge the threads?

Free spell?! Sure, I'll give this a whirl. This card is super pushed.

Right....I seem to recall a few people talking about ELD being a strong thematic set and that this was to veil a drop in the standard power level...I think we already have like 10 cubeable cards (listed below) for powerful small/medium cubes and it is Monday. Not that lots of cubeable cards necessarily means powerful standard, but I would think so....

Once Upon a Time
The Royal Scions
Questing Beast
Embercleave
Murderous Rider
Oko, Thief of Crowns
Rankle, Master of Pranks
Garruk, Cursed Hunstman
Gilded Goose
Embereth Shieldbreaker

I'm up to 14 personally Overall the power level of this set seems very pushed, especially in the creature department.

I've been searching for the great green Brainstorm for a long time now. This is closer than anything I've seen yet. It's great on turn 1, and not terrible on later turns. Not great, but not terrible.

On turn 1, this digs pretty far for the correct land or the mana-dork you need to have a sweet opening. You can actually keep a 1-land hand with this if you're a gambler.

Pretty happy about this! Turn one Once Upon, then drop a mana dork seems strong. Later 2 to cast dig 5 is not bad too.

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

I've been searching for the great green Brainstorm for a long time now. This is closer than anything I've seen yet. It's great on turn 1, and not terrible on later turns. Not great, but not terrible.

On turn 1, this digs pretty far for the correct land or the mana-dork you need to have a sweet opening. You can actually keep a 1-land hand with this if you're a gambler.

People said Oath of Nissa was that card, and it failed for me. I generally like instants a lot better than enchantments and I love free spells but it is likely too low impact for me.

I'm less excited for this card than most are. It's good, but there's so many decks that need to grab something besides creatures and lands. I was higher on Oath of Nissa than anybody, but as green's role evolved beyond just creature-based midrange decks, whiffing on grabbing critical cards became too much of a problem for it. I expect this to have similar issues. Great in some decks, unplayable in others. A 5-card Impulse is a bad card if it can't grab your best/most important cards. Had that issue with Oath, and expect to have the same problem here.

However, in a creature-heavy green midrange deck, this is a great card to have in your opening hand.

Best cube card I've seen so far from the set, can't wait to try this out. Looks super strong in any green deck really.

Quote from dschumm »

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

I've been searching for the great green Brainstorm for a long time now. This is closer than anything I've seen yet. It's great on turn 1, and not terrible on later turns. Not great, but not terrible.

On turn 1, this digs pretty far for the correct land or the mana-dork you need to have a sweet opening. You can actually keep a 1-land hand with this if you're a gambler.

People said Oath of Nissa was that card, and it failed for me. I generally like instants a lot better than enchantments and I love free spells but it is likely too low impact for me.

The biggest drawback with oath from my experience was having to pay mana for it instead of developing your own mana. One of the strengths of green decks are leveraging the tempo gained from their mana ramp. The opportunity cost of not developing your board was higher than I was expecting in green decks.

This card suffers none of those issues, and if anything helps you FIND a ramp piece/payoff to ensure that you can leverage that tempo. Being a key land or mana elf in the opening hand for zero mana is unprecedented.

Not saying you are wrong, and it may end up being true.. But I wouldn't let Oath of Nissa sour you too much on not testing it. Free vs 1 mana may end up being a huge difference in creature heavy green decks.

I'll note that I have no intention of cutting Oath of Nissa. This goes along its side, not in its place. I'm still not sure this is the great green Brainstorm, but I'll absolutely try it as long as I can get my hands on a copy.

This is definitely an unprecedented card in blue or any other color. I think it's easy to get sucked into the turn 1 wonderland. Most of the time, this will still cost 1G, and that mode is only okay. Nevertheless I have high hopes for the card.

https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/once-upon-a-time-manabases-lived-happily-ever-after/

Think this is a very good article on the card with an analysis that is mostly independent of the format that it's in.
Worth checking out if you happen to be on the fence about the card.

I'm slightly less interested in the card after crunching my own hypergeometric calculation numbers. I still think it has the potential to be good in decks that can afford to run it, but I'm not sure it's as good in cube as some folks seem to think it will be. Based on the calculations, it looks like it'll be more consistently an Anticipate than an Impulse (particularly when it's cast). That being said, a free Anticipate is still fantastic, so depending on how often you get to cast this for 0 mana, it can be very good. I'm going to test it, though I'm quite skeptical. It will run into issues with decks that can't afford to play it and decks that are too inconsistent with it. It may pan out to be another card that's significantly better in constructed than in our format.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

I'm slightly less interested in the card after crunching my own hypergeometric calculation numbers. I still think it has the potential to be good in decks that can afford to run it, but I'm not sure it's as good in cube as some folks seem to think it will be. Based on the calculations, it looks like it'll be more consistently an Anticipate than an Impulse (particularly when it's cast). That being said, a free Anticipate is still fantastic, so depending on how often you get to cast this for 0 mana, it can be very good. I'm going to test it, though I'm quite skeptical. It will run into issues with decks that can't afford to play it and decks that are too inconsistent with it. It may pan out to be another card that's significantly better in constructed than in our format.

Even when it's an anticipate and not an impulse, that's still quite good.

If you on average draw 8-10 cards a game (I think this number is too generous for a green deck in a high powered cube), the expected value cost of the card is effectively 1 mana.
I won't go into depth, but when you consider fringe factors like how mulligans are effected by the card, it reduces it's average cost.

Anticipate for 1 mana is note-ably better than preordain/ponder. Generally non-creature spells are better than creature spells in cube, but there are many green decks where that gap is pretty small. And there are many more green decks where this card is closer to an impulse than it is to something worse than an anticipate... so I think it's fair to say that it's average performance is higher than anticipate.

It may not be good in an oath deck, but how many cheaper green cards are?

Well, it's more than just Oath decks that struggle with effects like this. There are a ton of decks (that play green) that are centered around critical non-creature cards. But there are just as many decks that are focussed around creatures, or they're just generic goodstuff decks with enough targets to make this effective. So I'm willing to give it a shot. There will be times where it'll function as a green Anticipate, but there's also timew where it'll be a 0-mana Impulse. Card has a super high ceiling.

I'm cautiously optimistic.

Quote from wtwlf123 »

Well, it's more than just Oath decks that struggle with effects like this. There are a ton of decks (that play green) that are centered around critical non-creature cards. But there are just as many decks that are focussed around creatures, or they're just generic goodstuff decks with enough targets to make this effective. So I'm willing to give it a shot. There will be times where it'll function as a green Anticipate, but there's also timew where it'll be a 0-mana Impulse. Card has a super high ceiling.

I'm cautiously optimistic.

Yeah, it is hard to estimate the value of not being able to dig for a channel , natural order, recall, mind twist, black lotus type card.
Your deck will probably only include a few of those extremely high powered targets, but they are so much better than your average creature/land that it's hard to know the effect on the math when comparing card selection cards that CAN get those targets.

The highest power target I can think of with once upon a time is probably strip mine or library of alexandria. Consistently getting library on turn 1 is gross, as is setting up early strip mine recursion.
I'd probably SPLASH this card with just a few green sources in a deck that has library in it.

I'm probably going to see how this fares in retail booster drafts and constructed before I fully make up my mind. My initial impression is that it's pretty good though. Definitely a testable one for me.

Quote from LucidVision »

I'd probably SPLASH this card with just a few green sources in a deck that has library in it.

This is a great point. Once Upon A Time is castable without green sources in your opening hand. You can even run it without green sources if you really want a particular turn 1-2 play.

Sphinx of Foresight taught me to be cautious with opening hand triggers. I hope it will be good, creature based decks can definitely use a boost.

Remember, this isn't an opening hand trigger, this is a "first spell you cast in the game" trigger. Which means that on the draw (or without a 1-drop, or with an ETB tapped land on T1 or whatever) you can still cast this for free. That will give you an extra card or two on average and make it quite a bit more consistent than the "opening hand" trigger cards. It's already come up a couple times in testing, so don't forget to factor that in. It adds noticeable consistency to the effect.