I mean, how would you even classify that? It was either that or Weird, and Weirds are Izzet creations made of combined energy types.
As for the card itself, pretty funny and cool to brew it with. Could it see play in Storm? Idunno, seems kinda vulnerable tbh, but it doesn't sounds terrible. No idea if there's any deck that would want this in Standard though.
Sure, surveil is a good evergreen-like mechanic, but could you imagine if Izzet's mechanic had been scry? For now, there is no intra-Dimir payoff. It's weird that the biggest gainer so far is playing Golgari cards that care about bodies the GY or Izzet cards with jump-start.
This. The whole point of Guilds is that it allows you to draft a focused, linear strategy in your Guild's colors if you so desire. This isn't Alara where you draft as much color fixing as possible and do Five Color Goodstuffs during half your drafts. This is Ravnica, the City of Guilds. And right now one of the Guilds seem to be a cute support color combination for when you want to draft a real Guild.
7 Dimir cards spoiled, and every single one of them has been a disappointment design-wise. Wizards really has no idea how to do interesting UB cards huh.
Either way, Dimir Informant seems solid. For 1 more, you get your Omenspeaker with 1 extra toughness and a slightly stronger ability. As for the other guy, Hired Blade was kinda bad in M19 and Surveil 1 doesn't seems like a huge game-changer.
Great card, awful design. I mean, I already expected the Theros School of Card Design with Surveil Commons/Uncommons, but a Mythic that does absolutely nothing to showcase the mechanic? Bleh.
Either way, art + type line is cool, and it's obviously a powerful card... just not a very exciting one.
Pyromancer's Staff2
Artifact - Equipment
Whenever equipped creature deals damage for the first time each turn, you may have it deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
Equip 3
Sariela, Twilight's Eraser1WWB
Legendary Creature - Angel
Flying
All other white creatures get +1/+1.
All other black creatures get -1/-1. W: Target creature becomes the color of your choice until end of turn. 2WB: Exile target creature if there are exactly four other creatures on the battlefield that share a color with it.
3/2
Next: Make a Commander that, like The Grand Calcutron or Hangman, has an effect loosely inspired on another game.
Bonus points if it's a card that is doable in black border.
This card is clearly aimed at limited play and I wouldn't really bother thinking too much on it. They put it at rare because having this at uncommon or common would be pretty annoying during the draft. It doesn't do anything on it's own and requires building around to make it work, plus most limited decks like to focus on creatures. Charge counters, brick counters, ooze counters, etc, are all the same thing skinned in different ways and serve to make games more interesting for players. Still, I feel this is a strictly worse design than pyramid of the pantheon or Sunset Pyramid. I'd have preferred this kind of card coming into play with charge counters already on it. Maybe they have cards that add charge counters to things in Izzit and this is one of the payoffs?
I hope you're right, but still, Limited has historically never been a good format to stack your deck full of Instants or Sorceries. I see this card as a Jump-Start build-around-me Enchantment, as it's the only reliable way to get enough Instant/Sorceries in your Limited deck for it to work. However, cards that fill this card's niche (Burning Vengeance, Goblinslide, Faith of the Devoted) have historically been Uncommons, so you could draft it somewhat reliably or possibly get 2-ofs out of your build-around-me Enchantment.
Here's hoping that they actually manage to create a Limited environment where playing a very high Instant/Sorcery count is viable, but we all know Wizards too well.
You don't exhaust the resources, though. You would cast the spells anyway, this just gives some (admittedly small) bonus on top of it. Saying that you exhaust your resources to fuel this is like saying that you exhaust your resources to boost a creature with Prowess. The real question is whether it's worth the two mana and one card early on, the activation cost likely won't matter because you get to use it pretty late anyway.
First off, this is not a "bonus on top of it". You used a card - itself - to get an effect, and my calculations are just to get a Lava Axe effect out of it. The first activation is void because you're offsetting the cost of playing something that did nothing, while you could have used any other card that did something. Therefore, this card only gives your spells a "bonus" from the 2nd activation onwards.
Second, I never said the cards magically go "blank" once you use Firemind's Research. I'm pointing out the fact that the total requirement of spells + lands to activate the 2nd effect is too high, is moot until you get through the 5-spell threshold AND will most likely leave you with no cards in your hand if you do go through it (which could mean that you'll just want to go with the 1st ability anyway). If you casted every spell but couldn't get to 5, congratulations, the 2nd effect is a blank and now you're playing Trail of Evidence in your Constructed deck.
The cards that broke the game are cards like Ancestral Vision and Glimmer of Genius. Yes, they functionally complete the task they were assigned, but there is no sense of play to them. Just look at it from this perspective: Do you really go "Oh, I'm totally building around Glimmer of Genius", or is it more "Well, I'm playing the long game with this deck and I need some card draw... ah, here we go, problem solved"? I'd argue that from a perspective of enjoyment, having to manipulate a card to put counters on it, then treating it like a power source, is far more in the spirit of playing the game than a card like Glimmer of Genius. Even Azcanta is technically a build around me card, just it errs a bit close to the whole strait card advantage line.
...what are you even talking about? Seriously, I don't even know what are you talking about. Literally the only valid comparison you're making here is Azcanta, which requires less investment, has a small effect even if you don't go through its threshold and has significantly more powerful card selection once you get to reap the benefits. Otherwise, you're literally comparing "3U: Scry 2, then draw 2" to "1UUR: Draw 1".
These "engine cards" are all about efficiency, not flashiness. Firemind's Research is simply not efficient.
The tl;dr is: Unless you're running something stupid like Cantrip.dek,
Yeah cantrip.deck is so stupid not like its one of the archtypes that constantly needs to get hit with the ban hammer in eternal formats or something.
Good cards + Bad cards achieving something doesn't means the bad card is good. Plus, these decks don't need to use Gitaxian Probe five times to get some result out of it.
An interesting comparison is Trail of Evidence. This is cheaper but more color-intensive to cast, and the cost to draw a card is the same (but more color-intensive), but needs two spells to cast instead of one. OTOH, it's more resilient to artifact removal (not that many people used artifact removal on Clues).
Given all of this, I am surprised that it's 2 counters per card... I don't recall Trail really taking off much.
I think it's the second ability that actually counts, the draw is maybe useful in an emergency or with some draw synergy. Just set this up, continue with your plan as usual, eventually get a cheap lava axe, rinse and repeat. That doesn't sound that bad, especially when a lot of spells in the set can be cast twice.
That said, reducing the cmc and/or activation cost wouldn't hurt...
The 2nd ability is awful because, even in a Constructed environment using Jump-start cards, you'll still need a minimum of 5 cards and at least 2 lands, plus casting this before anything else. That means that the bare minimum requirement is 8 cards for a single effect. And Jump-Start doesn't fixes the card requirement as it requires a discard, it just makes it easier to get the Instant/Sorcery. It wouldn't be as bad if this card wasn't a do-nothing. Getting a Lava Axe only once is useless because you still used a card for it, so you'll need at least 2 activations of anything to be worth.
The tl;dr is: Unless you're running something stupid like Cantrip.dek, you'll exhaust every single one of your resources before getting a single Lava Axe. And don't even get me started on Limited.
This seems pretty awful. A 4 mana investment to draw a single card is already bad enough, but the need to cast 2 instants and sorceries on top of that just kills it. The 2nd effect isn't much better either, giving you a below average effect for FIVE spells cast.
If this card had no mana costs for activation, it would be a fun build-around-me combo card. As-is, this card seems to be one of those cards botched by R&D at the last second due to being too scared of Combo decks ruining Standard.
The World's Wonder
Legendary Artifact
The World's Wonder costs X less to cast, where X is the total combined converted mana cost of all artifacts you control.
At the beginning of your upkeep, scry 2, then you may draw two cards.
Spells you cast cost 2 less to cast.
Creatures you control get +2/+2. T: Add two mana of any one color.
Were they really so proud of the Theros School of Card Design of "pick apre-existing cardand stickScry 1to it" that they had to do it again? Ugh, things are already not looking very bright for House Dimir.
As for the card itself, pretty funny and cool to brew it with. Could it see play in Storm? Idunno, seems kinda vulnerable tbh, but it doesn't sounds terrible. No idea if there's any deck that would want this in Standard though.
Either way, Dimir Informant seems solid. For 1 more, you get your Omenspeaker with 1 extra toughness and a slightly stronger ability. As for the other guy, Hired Blade was kinda bad in M19 and Surveil 1 doesn't seems like a huge game-changer.
Either way, obvious money card is obvious. Modern playability is a given, and maybe it could hit older formats as well.
Either way, art + type line is cool, and it's obviously a powerful card... just not a very exciting one.
Artifact - Equipment
Whenever equipped creature deals damage for the first time each turn, you may have it deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
Equip 3
Next: Shauku, Endbringer
Legendary Creature - Angel
Flying
All other white creatures get +1/+1.
All other black creatures get -1/-1.
W: Target creature becomes the color of your choice until end of turn.
2WB: Exile target creature if there are exactly four other creatures on the battlefield that share a color with it.
3/2
Next: Make a Commander that, like The Grand Calcutron or Hangman, has an effect loosely inspired on another game.
Bonus points if it's a card that is doable in black border.
I hope you're right, but still, Limited has historically never been a good format to stack your deck full of Instants or Sorceries. I see this card as a Jump-Start build-around-me Enchantment, as it's the only reliable way to get enough Instant/Sorceries in your Limited deck for it to work. However, cards that fill this card's niche (Burning Vengeance, Goblinslide, Faith of the Devoted) have historically been Uncommons, so you could draft it somewhat reliably or possibly get 2-ofs out of your build-around-me Enchantment.
Here's hoping that they actually manage to create a Limited environment where playing a very high Instant/Sorcery count is viable, but we all know Wizards too well.
First off, this is not a "bonus on top of it". You used a card - itself - to get an effect, and my calculations are just to get a Lava Axe effect out of it. The first activation is void because you're offsetting the cost of playing something that did nothing, while you could have used any other card that did something. Therefore, this card only gives your spells a "bonus" from the 2nd activation onwards.
Second, I never said the cards magically go "blank" once you use Firemind's Research. I'm pointing out the fact that the total requirement of spells + lands to activate the 2nd effect is too high, is moot until you get through the 5-spell threshold AND will most likely leave you with no cards in your hand if you do go through it (which could mean that you'll just want to go with the 1st ability anyway). If you casted every spell but couldn't get to 5, congratulations, the 2nd effect is a blank and now you're playing Trail of Evidence in your Constructed deck.
...what are you even talking about? Seriously, I don't even know what are you talking about. Literally the only valid comparison you're making here is Azcanta, which requires less investment, has a small effect even if you don't go through its threshold and has significantly more powerful card selection once you get to reap the benefits. Otherwise, you're literally comparing "3U: Scry 2, then draw 2" to "1UUR: Draw 1".
These "engine cards" are all about efficiency, not flashiness. Firemind's Research is simply not efficient.
Good cards + Bad cards achieving something doesn't means the bad card is good. Plus, these decks don't need to use Gitaxian Probe five times to get some result out of it.
The 2nd ability is awful because, even in a Constructed environment using Jump-start cards, you'll still need a minimum of 5 cards and at least 2 lands, plus casting this before anything else. That means that the bare minimum requirement is 8 cards for a single effect. And Jump-Start doesn't fixes the card requirement as it requires a discard, it just makes it easier to get the Instant/Sorcery. It wouldn't be as bad if this card wasn't a do-nothing. Getting a Lava Axe only once is useless because you still used a card for it, so you'll need at least 2 activations of anything to be worth.
The tl;dr is: Unless you're running something stupid like Cantrip.dek, you'll exhaust every single one of your resources before getting a single Lava Axe. And don't even get me started on Limited.
If this card had no mana costs for activation, it would be a fun build-around-me combo card. As-is, this card seems to be one of those cards botched by R&D at the last second due to being too scared of Combo decks ruining Standard.
Legendary Artifact
The World's Wonder costs X less to cast, where X is the total combined converted mana cost of all artifacts you control.
At the beginning of your upkeep, scry 2, then you may draw two cards.
Spells you cast cost 2 less to cast.
Creatures you control get +2/+2.
T: Add two mana of any one color.
Next: Yomiji, Who Bars the Way