Last night, I managed to split an 8-4 with a mostly blue deck whose plan A was to cast Living Lore with Clone Legion in the GY, making a 9/9 that then copies whoever's board is bigger. I had 3 of the 2/1 looter, tons of card draw/filtering (the impulse exploit guy, anticipates, enhanced awareness, etc.), and plenty of early game blockers. I splashed green for assault formation (I had 3 of the 0/4 U, bounce a creature guy) and ethereal ambush (not a bad living lore target), and black for silumgar, the drifting death off two duals. The mana was actually pretty good, something like 10-5-4. With all the filtering and good blockers, it was really easy to find one of my powerful combos (either 0/4's and 2/4's + assault formation or clone legion + living lore). I had been drafting serious decks and mostly losing that night, so after passing a clone legion and seeing a living lore, I take it hoping the clone legion wheels, which it did.
The highlight was a game where I was on the back foot, at a low life total and my opponent had two dragons, stampeding elk herd, and a couple morphs on the board against my 1/4 flyer, a looter, and a morph. I had living lore in hand and had looted through most of my deck (had ~10 cards left), but hadn't found clone legion yet. Then on the last turn possible, I find it, and make a 9/9. I chump to stay alive, then smash for 9 and clone his substantial board. He has to pass, but he still looks favored to win at this point because his dragons are 5/5's and mine are 3/3's, and he had the life total advantage. EOT I cast ethereal ambush, finding Silumgar. On my turn I flip silumgar which lets me attack with all 3 dragons, giving -3/-3 to his board and forcing chump blocks :). He conceded before the -3/-3 was even on the stack, but I must say that was the most satisfying outcome I could imagine for the deck.
5/5's for 4 are insane in limited, and this will be that most of the time w/upside in the token-heavy builds. As for constructed, I don't know, I'm not really feeling it. I don't think it's as much of a long shot as some seem to think, i.e. giving it evasion is not the issue. We have plenty of great ways to do that in standard (rancor/ghor-clan rampager/selesnya charm/ajani and many more). It's not the casting cost either. People said craterhoof wouldn't see play (though I said those people were crazy) because it was 8-mana. The main issue is that to get this bird to work, you need to have multiple combo pieces in a single turn.
Craterhoof you setup over multiple turns. First you dump him in the yard, get some tokens out, then you just have cast unburial rites. With this guy, you have to get him out, have him live for a turn, and then when you're ready to kill, you have to have a token spell AND evasion spell ready to go. The best of these is rancor because it gives you trample for 1-mana and is just a good card in general.
Ajani is interesting because he can come out the turn before playing this guy and make him a 3/3 to at least avoid pillar, and then you basically only need to lay down 2 tokens (18 dmg but that will generally be enough in a deck w/mana elves, lingering souls, and gavony township). However Ajani is a narrow card. Usually, you're likely going to have to grow him and give him evasion in the same turn, and you'll only have 5 mana to do it. That's too much setup in a single turn, it makes the combo less resilient and prone to huge blowouts from disruption. If there was a card that, all by itself, made tokens and tapped down your opponent's guys (or gave evasion in some form) he'd have a chance, but none come to mind.
Armadillo Cloak is a lot like Rancor in that people heavily overvalue it. It's not the same card it used to be. Creatures were worse, removal was worse and more expensive so the likelihood of it backfiring was low. Gift of the Orzhova isn't a 1st pick quality card, and this isn't THAT much better, if at all. Having said that, it's still probably the best card in the pack, I am wondering how good the rare could be. 7 mana is a lot. Expensive overrun for UR. Teleportal was damn good.
Removal actually used to be better in general. Creatures were worse, true, but creatures being worse doesn't make auras worse. An armadillo cloaked 3/3 vs. other 3/3's is just as good as an armadillo cloaked 2/2 vs. other 2/2's.
Dragonshift is a lot worse than teleportal. Unblockable is more than just a little better than flying as an evasion ability, there are lots of flying creatures in blue/white, and the rest of the decks are likely going to have some reach guys. It's not a reliable way to kill your opponent the way teleportal was, where you could add up your creature's total power, add the # of creatures you have, and if that # is > your opponent's life total and they're tapped out or on no cards in hand, you win.
Even if they weren't tapped out, good instant-speed removal is hard to come by nowadays, so you'd usually win anyway. The only deck it was really risky against was selesnya since they could always fogulate and you get completely blown out. Then again, that's what dispel is for.
Its overloaded version is just plain worse as an alpha-strike ability, AND it costs 2 more (very color-intensive) mana. Teleportal was splashable, and when you're essentially forced into 3+ colors in this format, color-intensive mana costs are VERY relevant. Its only upside is the instant-speed and that it can be used as a combat trick/removal, but as a combat trick it's overly expensive. 3-mana is a lot for a combat trick that *might* 1-for-1, and 7-mana is a lot to ask for a combat trick that will get you a 2-for-1 on average.
Finally, consider that 4 power is actually less than or equal to a lot of the guys receiving the teleportal +1. Cobblebrute is the prime example here, but gore-house chainwalker and frostburn weirds w/pursuit of flight are other relevant examples. The one deck dragonshift really excels in is the token-heavy izzet deck with electromancers, goblin rallies, and dynacharges. The electromancers help reduce the cost and the card is much better w/goblin rally than teleportal was, which was already insane. The problem is there is only 1 pack of RTR, so you can't rely on getting multiple electromancers and goblin rallies like you could in 3-pack RTR.
tldr; dragonshift is just the wrong pick if you're trying to win the draft. I understand the appeal from a fun/flavor perspective, but if we're supposed to be evaluating these packs as spikes, it's just wrong. Unflinching courage is likely the only correct pick here, w/an honorable mention going to maze glider (who will notably have a similar effect as dragonshift, only permanent and provides a beefy flyer to boot).
I went with Blaze Commando, even if Pontiff is probably a better choice, BC fascinates me and I'd want to try him out asap. Since the tokens are haste, you're all but guaranteed to trigger battalion and you can even play him as a 6-drop with 1-mana burn spells like mugging to ensure you get value out of him. Basically, I'm a sucker for value and build-around cards, and a 5/3 for 5 by itself isn't horrible.
That aside, I'm not sure Pontiff is the windmill slam people are making him out to be. He won't come out till turn 7 or 8 most of the time, and at that point, he's likely the last thing left in your hand, meaning you have to rely on topdecking to trigger the extort. He's a good blocker, and hard to kill, but he doesn't stabilize things if you're up against a wall the way Palisade Giant did. Flyers or just a large army of tokens get past him just fine.
Admittedly, all those criticisms apply to Blaze Commando, he just seems like more fun to play with. It's worth noting that if you can grab a few cipher spells, pontiff gets appreciably more powerful. I think the slower cipher spells like midnight recovery and last thoughts are going to be well-positioned in a slower format.
Midnight recovery especially would have been extremely powerful in some other formats. I mean, 3B to return two creatures to your hand was a bomb in Invasion limited IIRC, and midnight recovery is, on average, slightly better. I especially like the idea of a golgari/dimir/simic deck to completely trump long-games. You get graveyard enablers and ramp from golgari, ways to exploit your mana/resource advantage with Dimir, and Simic's "+1/+1 counters matter" cards synergize really well with Golgari (evolve creatures not so much).
I think to really make this even FNM-viable, you need more synergies. Possibility Storm is a card that begs for synergy, but in practice it's pretty hard to make it work similar to Primal Surge. The problem with Primal Surge was that if you played more than 1, you couldn't guarantee that you wouldn't brick by flipping a Primal Surge before any of your Craterhoofs or other win-cons. However, you also couldn't play tutors for the same reason. This left Rune-Scarred Demon, a 7-drop and basically forever doomed the competitive chances for the card.
Possibility Storm has a similar issue. If you want to use it to cheat on casting spells, then you need expensive cards and cheap cards of the same card type. Someone mentioned nicol bolas and tibalt. The issue here is you can't play 4 nicol bolas because they're be uncastable most of the time. You can't do 1 nicol bolas and 4 tibalts either, because the tibalts would just storm into another tibalt most of the time.
The only solution to this issue (and this is going to apply for every permanent-type) is deck manipulation, but that has to be one *before* casting possibility storm, unless you can keep these all to a single card type (so that no matter what your deck manipulation spell just storms into another). The best possibility is perhaps with using faithless looting/other sorcery dig + instants that put cards from your graveyard on top of your library. I think there was one in M13, but are there any other standard legal ones (that are also instants)?
On another note, I'm inclined to agree about Hidden Strings. It essentially costs 0 mana. Unlike BTE, you get to choose what mana to add based on which lands you untap (and which colors you tap them for). A 2/2 is usually better than ciphering hidden strings, but not always. You can dump your hand even faster than with BTE, and you can even use it to ramp +2 for instants. One poster talked about some U/B concoction, but I also think U/W tempo is a viable choice. You can use it to ramp into restoration angel and huge sphinx's revelations.
Bant hexproof (with some modifications to let you fully benefit from the untap ability) might work too. It already wants to play hard-to-kill, evasive attackers that are perfect targets for the cipher. The only problem is figuring out how to make use of the ramp. Sure, it can help you dump your hand, but I'm not sure Bant Hexproof needed much help with that anyway. I mean, you can use it to play threats while keeping up mana for simic charm or the 2-mana GTC counterspell, but that only protects you from sorcery-speed stuff.
If you want to get really wacky, some other combos:
Not strictly pushed I guess but the effect is ridiculously strong. Never daring to cast anything into UUGG in case you just give away the game is a position I'm not looking forward to.
I'd say it counts as pushed. They haven't printed an unconditional mana drain since... mana drain, and Plasm Capture is a significant upgrade effect-wise. Adding the mana in any combination of colors is ridiculous. In a way, it makes chromatic lantern better. Chromatic Lantern is an insane enabler for 5c, but the issue was you had to draw it or your deck wouldn't work. Plasm Capture adds some redundancy while naturally fitting into a 5c sphinx/ramp deck.
The main reason people are underestimating it is the last "mana drain" was terrible, but people really ought to know better than to compare an unconditional mana drain to one that only works sometimes. The two spells are worlds apart. The only thing keeping Plasm Capture in check is the mana cost, but it's certainly powerful enough to justify only playing lands that tap for U or G. You don't have to devote as many lands to the splashes since it and farseek do a lot to fix your mana. Chromatic Lantern is always an option too if you need additional fixing.
It takes very little effort for Turn//Burn to take out two guys as well.
Yup, people really need to stop comparing the card to murder or other cookie-cutter spot removal. It does something very different than those cards. Murdering a thragtusk feels bad, turning one and blocking it w/your augur will feel very good.
As far as board wipes for Grixis, there is a very, very good one that hasn't been mentioned yet. Cyclonic Rift -> Rakdos's Return. I had a Grixis deck I was very successful with in the 2-mans (pre-GTC standard) that abused the hell out of this combo. You play the snapcaster/augur/forbidden alchemy engine along with electromancer. Then you abuse rewind + electromancer to overload Cyclonic Rift with just 5 lands (only 4 lands if you have two). Forbidden alchemy/think twice kept the juice flowing, and the flashback was very manageable with the electromancers.
I'm still surprised electromancer hasn't seen more play outside of modern, I don't think people realize how powerful he can be in a control shell. He's a relevant 2-drop against aggro and against mid-range, he catapults you ahead by getting you a MASSIVE mana advantage. He often nets you more than 1 mana per turn while +2ing your virtual mana with rewind. Conveniently, 7-mana is also the cost of flashing back forbidden alchemy. So even if you don't have a rift->return, you'll have forbidden alchemy to flashback to dig you into one.
On top of all the above mentioned synergies, he also just makes mizzium mortars more relevant against aggro. Overloading it in time to stabilize is tough for a deck w/o farseek, but electromancer can either make mortars a flame slash or a 5-mana wrath-you. While electromancer apparently does not reduce each half of a split-card when you fuse, he still interacts well with them because the halves all become very aggressively costed spells when you reduce their mana cost by 1 colorless. Instant speed edict for 1B w/no downside, unsummon, shock, etc.
Would this have been too good with a casting cost of just GU?
Not sure about constructed, but it in limited, yes. It would have to be a rare, and then it would be maligned if it never sees constructed play as a "waste of a rare slot." The pump cost really does do a lot to balance the card, but your 2-drop attacking for 4 in the air is a little too aggressive for a healthy limited format. Even if you can't start activating him till turn 5 because you take turns 3 and 4 to develop your board, he's still a 2/2 for 2 that probably got in there and now effectively have stats comparable to many 5-6 drop flyers.
Basically, yes, unless you're cool with a relatively vanilla card taking up a rare slot on the basis of its power level.
How so? Divination has always been barely playable, yes, but if this effect is wanted, then we will just refer to Divination itself. Randomly mill my opponent's cards? In a meta with Lingering Souls, Unburial Rites, and Snapcaster Mage? No, thanks.
It says "target player." A divination that can provide fuel for snappy, mill lingering souls/forbidden alchemy/rites/etc., and randomly "kill" a creature you put on top with azo charm is pretty sweet. If you can support the mana cost, it's pretty much strictly better than divination in nearly every circumstance. The decks it will be better in, it will be A LOT better, since it will effectively be drawing you ~2.5 cards for 3 mana instead of 2.
Catch costs less than Elf so you can then choose to cast Release...
5/1/2009: If you exile a split card with Cascade, check if at least one half of that split card has a converted mana cost that's less than the converted mana cost of the spell with cascade. If so, you can cast either half of that split card.
In your haste to correct someone and display your knowledge, you forgot that bloodbraid elf is banned in modern. That was what the poster you quoted was referring to. In fact, by bringing it up at all, he clearly understood that this could have happened if bloodbraid elf was still legal.
If Augur only looked at the top two cards, would he still be playable?
I'm not saying a whiff is what you want, but I'm saying digging four cards deep is important and just going to be better than three, and the effect is a powerful enough effect for this card to see play. Especially since hitting two cards can be a gigantic upswing in your favor. If the deck is already built for Augur to hit as often as possible, there's no reason not to play some of this card.
I'm going to disagree because the 1/3 body on turn 2 that can later be blinked to rebuy the effect is much, much more important than anything else about the card. The ability to add "draw a card" to your restoration angels and provide a blocker in the early game is hugely important. The two cards provide vastly different functions.
Uncovered clues is a late-game card (since you're not going to tap out for it in a deck playing enough instants/sorceries to make use of it) that can help you dig through your deck for game-changing instants/sorceries like supreme verdict or sphinx's revelation. The upside is the potential for 2 cards (3-4 will be extremely rare) but the sorcery speed is what kills it.
tldr; It's not strictly worse than divination like some are claiming, but I don't think you can ever consider playing this over forbidden alchemy. While it doesn't ever get you more than 1 card (not counting flashback) it ALWAYS gets you 1, you can pick any card type, and it fills your graveyard for value with flashback/pike/etc.
This thread is so annoying. I don't understand how so many people can judge every card based on its standard applications. I mean for god sakes, the cycle of common 6-drops is clearly designed with limited in mind. It's in the "limited information" column. They will do some very interested things in RGD draft games and I'm excited to see how they play out.
You would think people would have learned by now that sets, by necessity, will contain a large variety of cards meant to do different things. Some are for casuals, others purely designed to spice up limited, and fewer still designed with constructed in mind. This is how it has always been, and this is how it ought remain. The comments like "ugh, if they just made it cost ONE less it could have been constructed playable" completely miss the point.
I can't help but wonder if it's the same people that do this every set, never growing out of it, or if it just seems like people on this forum never change because new people come to take their place. I feel like Wizards should have a disclaimer at the top of every spoiler to remind people that they design cards for a variety of audiences, that they won't like every card, and that this is how it should be.
Definitely a nice card in its own right that benefits from Maro's love affair with flicker effects. The problem is that resetting it to make it 4/4 again is not worth a card, or even near it since at that point you're paying for a sorcery-speed +2/+2 pump spell.
That means blinking it is only really good with restoration angel, and then only if you don't have better targets. His creature type is unfortunate in that he won't trigger Champion of the Parish when blinked, and I think boros aggro's best shot for viability is a humans deck so I don't think this will see much play.
The highlight was a game where I was on the back foot, at a low life total and my opponent had two dragons, stampeding elk herd, and a couple morphs on the board against my 1/4 flyer, a looter, and a morph. I had living lore in hand and had looted through most of my deck (had ~10 cards left), but hadn't found clone legion yet. Then on the last turn possible, I find it, and make a 9/9. I chump to stay alive, then smash for 9 and clone his substantial board. He has to pass, but he still looks favored to win at this point because his dragons are 5/5's and mine are 3/3's, and he had the life total advantage. EOT I cast ethereal ambush, finding Silumgar. On my turn I flip silumgar which lets me attack with all 3 dragons, giving -3/-3 to his board and forcing chump blocks :). He conceded before the -3/-3 was even on the stack, but I must say that was the most satisfying outcome I could imagine for the deck.
Craterhoof you setup over multiple turns. First you dump him in the yard, get some tokens out, then you just have cast unburial rites. With this guy, you have to get him out, have him live for a turn, and then when you're ready to kill, you have to have a token spell AND evasion spell ready to go. The best of these is rancor because it gives you trample for 1-mana and is just a good card in general.
Ajani is interesting because he can come out the turn before playing this guy and make him a 3/3 to at least avoid pillar, and then you basically only need to lay down 2 tokens (18 dmg but that will generally be enough in a deck w/mana elves, lingering souls, and gavony township). However Ajani is a narrow card. Usually, you're likely going to have to grow him and give him evasion in the same turn, and you'll only have 5 mana to do it. That's too much setup in a single turn, it makes the combo less resilient and prone to huge blowouts from disruption. If there was a card that, all by itself, made tokens and tapped down your opponent's guys (or gave evasion in some form) he'd have a chance, but none come to mind.
Removal actually used to be better in general. Creatures were worse, true, but creatures being worse doesn't make auras worse. An armadillo cloaked 3/3 vs. other 3/3's is just as good as an armadillo cloaked 2/2 vs. other 2/2's.
Dragonshift is a lot worse than teleportal. Unblockable is more than just a little better than flying as an evasion ability, there are lots of flying creatures in blue/white, and the rest of the decks are likely going to have some reach guys. It's not a reliable way to kill your opponent the way teleportal was, where you could add up your creature's total power, add the # of creatures you have, and if that # is > your opponent's life total and they're tapped out or on no cards in hand, you win.
Even if they weren't tapped out, good instant-speed removal is hard to come by nowadays, so you'd usually win anyway. The only deck it was really risky against was selesnya since they could always fogulate and you get completely blown out. Then again, that's what dispel is for.
Its overloaded version is just plain worse as an alpha-strike ability, AND it costs 2 more (very color-intensive) mana. Teleportal was splashable, and when you're essentially forced into 3+ colors in this format, color-intensive mana costs are VERY relevant. Its only upside is the instant-speed and that it can be used as a combat trick/removal, but as a combat trick it's overly expensive. 3-mana is a lot for a combat trick that *might* 1-for-1, and 7-mana is a lot to ask for a combat trick that will get you a 2-for-1 on average.
Finally, consider that 4 power is actually less than or equal to a lot of the guys receiving the teleportal +1. Cobblebrute is the prime example here, but gore-house chainwalker and frostburn weirds w/pursuit of flight are other relevant examples. The one deck dragonshift really excels in is the token-heavy izzet deck with electromancers, goblin rallies, and dynacharges. The electromancers help reduce the cost and the card is much better w/goblin rally than teleportal was, which was already insane. The problem is there is only 1 pack of RTR, so you can't rely on getting multiple electromancers and goblin rallies like you could in 3-pack RTR.
tldr; dragonshift is just the wrong pick if you're trying to win the draft. I understand the appeal from a fun/flavor perspective, but if we're supposed to be evaluating these packs as spikes, it's just wrong. Unflinching courage is likely the only correct pick here, w/an honorable mention going to maze glider (who will notably have a similar effect as dragonshift, only permanent and provides a beefy flyer to boot).
That aside, I'm not sure Pontiff is the windmill slam people are making him out to be. He won't come out till turn 7 or 8 most of the time, and at that point, he's likely the last thing left in your hand, meaning you have to rely on topdecking to trigger the extort. He's a good blocker, and hard to kill, but he doesn't stabilize things if you're up against a wall the way Palisade Giant did. Flyers or just a large army of tokens get past him just fine.
Admittedly, all those criticisms apply to Blaze Commando, he just seems like more fun to play with. It's worth noting that if you can grab a few cipher spells, pontiff gets appreciably more powerful. I think the slower cipher spells like midnight recovery and last thoughts are going to be well-positioned in a slower format.
Midnight recovery especially would have been extremely powerful in some other formats. I mean, 3B to return two creatures to your hand was a bomb in Invasion limited IIRC, and midnight recovery is, on average, slightly better. I especially like the idea of a golgari/dimir/simic deck to completely trump long-games. You get graveyard enablers and ramp from golgari, ways to exploit your mana/resource advantage with Dimir, and Simic's "+1/+1 counters matter" cards synergize really well with Golgari (evolve creatures not so much).
Possibility Storm has a similar issue. If you want to use it to cheat on casting spells, then you need expensive cards and cheap cards of the same card type. Someone mentioned nicol bolas and tibalt. The issue here is you can't play 4 nicol bolas because they're be uncastable most of the time. You can't do 1 nicol bolas and 4 tibalts either, because the tibalts would just storm into another tibalt most of the time.
The only solution to this issue (and this is going to apply for every permanent-type) is deck manipulation, but that has to be one *before* casting possibility storm, unless you can keep these all to a single card type (so that no matter what your deck manipulation spell just storms into another). The best possibility is perhaps with using faithless looting/other sorcery dig + instants that put cards from your graveyard on top of your library. I think there was one in M13, but are there any other standard legal ones (that are also instants)?
Bant hexproof (with some modifications to let you fully benefit from the untap ability) might work too. It already wants to play hard-to-kill, evasive attackers that are perfect targets for the cipher. The only problem is figuring out how to make use of the ramp. Sure, it can help you dump your hand, but I'm not sure Bant Hexproof needed much help with that anyway. I mean, you can use it to play threats while keeping up mana for simic charm or the 2-mana GTC counterspell, but that only protects you from sorcery-speed stuff.
If you want to get really wacky, some other combos:
Underworld Connections
Gilded Lotus
Elvish Archdruid/Gyre Sage + Flash Creatures
Izzet Staticaster
Conveniently, many of these combos are in the same colors as Ral Zarek. Hrm... I think I know what deck I'm building next ;).
I'd say it counts as pushed. They haven't printed an unconditional mana drain since... mana drain, and Plasm Capture is a significant upgrade effect-wise. Adding the mana in any combination of colors is ridiculous. In a way, it makes chromatic lantern better. Chromatic Lantern is an insane enabler for 5c, but the issue was you had to draw it or your deck wouldn't work. Plasm Capture adds some redundancy while naturally fitting into a 5c sphinx/ramp deck.
The main reason people are underestimating it is the last "mana drain" was terrible, but people really ought to know better than to compare an unconditional mana drain to one that only works sometimes. The two spells are worlds apart. The only thing keeping Plasm Capture in check is the mana cost, but it's certainly powerful enough to justify only playing lands that tap for U or G. You don't have to devote as many lands to the splashes since it and farseek do a lot to fix your mana. Chromatic Lantern is always an option too if you need additional fixing.
Yup, people really need to stop comparing the card to murder or other cookie-cutter spot removal. It does something very different than those cards. Murdering a thragtusk feels bad, turning one and blocking it w/your augur will feel very good.
I'm still surprised electromancer hasn't seen more play outside of modern, I don't think people realize how powerful he can be in a control shell. He's a relevant 2-drop against aggro and against mid-range, he catapults you ahead by getting you a MASSIVE mana advantage. He often nets you more than 1 mana per turn while +2ing your virtual mana with rewind. Conveniently, 7-mana is also the cost of flashing back forbidden alchemy. So even if you don't have a rift->return, you'll have forbidden alchemy to flashback to dig you into one.
On top of all the above mentioned synergies, he also just makes mizzium mortars more relevant against aggro. Overloading it in time to stabilize is tough for a deck w/o farseek, but electromancer can either make mortars a flame slash or a 5-mana wrath-you. While electromancer apparently does not reduce each half of a split-card when you fuse, he still interacts well with them because the halves all become very aggressively costed spells when you reduce their mana cost by 1 colorless. Instant speed edict for 1B w/no downside, unsummon, shock, etc.
Not sure about constructed, but it in limited, yes. It would have to be a rare, and then it would be maligned if it never sees constructed play as a "waste of a rare slot." The pump cost really does do a lot to balance the card, but your 2-drop attacking for 4 in the air is a little too aggressive for a healthy limited format. Even if you can't start activating him till turn 5 because you take turns 3 and 4 to develop your board, he's still a 2/2 for 2 that probably got in there and now effectively have stats comparable to many 5-6 drop flyers.
Basically, yes, unless you're cool with a relatively vanilla card taking up a rare slot on the basis of its power level.
It says "target player." A divination that can provide fuel for snappy, mill lingering souls/forbidden alchemy/rites/etc., and randomly "kill" a creature you put on top with azo charm is pretty sweet. If you can support the mana cost, it's pretty much strictly better than divination in nearly every circumstance. The decks it will be better in, it will be A LOT better, since it will effectively be drawing you ~2.5 cards for 3 mana instead of 2.
In your haste to correct someone and display your knowledge, you forgot that bloodbraid elf is banned in modern. That was what the poster you quoted was referring to. In fact, by bringing it up at all, he clearly understood that this could have happened if bloodbraid elf was still legal.
I'm going to disagree because the 1/3 body on turn 2 that can later be blinked to rebuy the effect is much, much more important than anything else about the card. The ability to add "draw a card" to your restoration angels and provide a blocker in the early game is hugely important. The two cards provide vastly different functions.
Uncovered clues is a late-game card (since you're not going to tap out for it in a deck playing enough instants/sorceries to make use of it) that can help you dig through your deck for game-changing instants/sorceries like supreme verdict or sphinx's revelation. The upside is the potential for 2 cards (3-4 will be extremely rare) but the sorcery speed is what kills it.
tldr; It's not strictly worse than divination like some are claiming, but I don't think you can ever consider playing this over forbidden alchemy. While it doesn't ever get you more than 1 card (not counting flashback) it ALWAYS gets you 1, you can pick any card type, and it fills your graveyard for value with flashback/pike/etc.
You would think people would have learned by now that sets, by necessity, will contain a large variety of cards meant to do different things. Some are for casuals, others purely designed to spice up limited, and fewer still designed with constructed in mind. This is how it has always been, and this is how it ought remain. The comments like "ugh, if they just made it cost ONE less it could have been constructed playable" completely miss the point.
I can't help but wonder if it's the same people that do this every set, never growing out of it, or if it just seems like people on this forum never change because new people come to take their place. I feel like Wizards should have a disclaimer at the top of every spoiler to remind people that they design cards for a variety of audiences, that they won't like every card, and that this is how it should be.
That means blinking it is only really good with restoration angel, and then only if you don't have better targets. His creature type is unfortunate in that he won't trigger Champion of the Parish when blinked, and I think boros aggro's best shot for viability is a humans deck so I don't think this will see much play.