So I feel it's worth noting (as far as Modern goes), that while this isn't able to stop Grapeshot from storm, it does shut down their Gifts Ungiven until it's off the battlefield
Am I the only one who finds it odd that this card doesn't instruct the player to search for "up to" that many basic lands? As far as I could tell with a quick Gatherer search, this is the only card in the history of Magic that instructs a player to search a hidden zone for an exact number of a certain type of card, where the number can be other than one, without saying you may search for up to that many cards.
So unless I horrendously misread the end of the Aether Revolt storyline, Tezzeret did NOT succeed in obtaining the Planar Bridge for Bolas, right? I mean, a pretty big part of that story was the Bridge getting blown up by the Gatewatch. Makes me wonder if that was what Tezzeret was trying to tell him before Bolas told him to shut up and get Ral Zarek.
I could see this as being a 1-of in a U/B/X torrential gearhulk deck in standard. If you can cast this on your opponents end step while they're empty-handed, you get to flash in the gearhulk during their next draw step and not only take their best threat, but also their draw for the turn. Obviously, that's the best case, but even casting it early, so it's in your graveyard and then flashing it back to deny a draw step isn't too bad.
Also of note with Samut is that if your opponent puts down the shields ever, a flashed in Samut followed by Verdurous Gearhulk is 18 damage off of what was an empty board.
If anything, I think Felidar Guardian could be an additional combo piece to a Sun Titan/Saheeli deck. Sun Titan goes infinite with 2 Saheelis between the battlefield and graveyard, and Felidar Guardian goes infinite with one in play.
Trying to slot this into the already successful U/W Panharmonicon shell also seems intriguing. A turn 4 Panharmonicon does enable you go off in one turn as early as turn 5, since the cat will be able to untap 2 of your lands. Also just some nice value with Saheeli and the kitty in a deck full of Reflector Mage, Cloudblazer, possibly Drowner of Hope, and whatnot.
So I've been doing some testing with the modules, and I've come to the conclusion that Whirler Virtuoso is one of the best things you can be doing with the modules. For one thing, it lets you occasionally steal games by going infinite, but even without going infinite, you can just go so wide and pump your team so much that you end up winning the game in one attack with a 20/22 Glint-Nest Crane.
How's your list looking? Are you in any other colors besides UR? Also have you found any issues with the deck being too slow or durdly in a vehicle Aggro-heavy meta?
Theres about 2-4 flex spots beyond this core of cards, and then 22-24 lands.
This has actually been doing much better in testing than I thought it would. Last FNM I played with it, I beat G/W midrange, G/B delirium aggro, U/R Fevered Visions, and Temur Emerge. Lost only to R/W vehicles when I couldnt find any removal spells at all gameso 2 and 3.
So I've been doing some testing with the modules, and I've come to the conclusion that Whirler Virtuoso is one of the best things you can be doing with the modules. For one thing, it lets you occasionally steal games by going infinite, but even without going infinite, you can just go so wide and pump your team so much that you end up winning the game in one attack with a 20/22 Glint-Nest Crane.
Remains to be seen but I'm leaning towards the Cruiser.
Depending on how many energy based cards you have, I could see the case for running the hydra instead of the the cruiser, or maybe a split. The 3 energy can be used to pump the cub, pump the brawler, and/or keep the hellion around for another turn, all of which seem good.
I think if you reword that ability it reads better:
Put a +1/+1 counter on Gor: Gor's owner gains control of a permanent you control and you gain control of Gor. Any player may activate this ability.
The problem with that wording AFAIK, is that the owner could activate this ability an infinite number of times whenever they felt like it.
Perhaps a tweak along the lines of:
Put a +1/+1 counter on NAME: Until NAME leaves play, NAME's controller gains control of X permanents you control, where X equals the number of +1/+1 counters on NAME, and you gain control of NAME. Any player may activate this ability, but only once per turn.
This fixes the infinite loop part. The other possibility I can think of is giving it haste and having it untap every turn, and having the bid trigger every upkeep where the last person who gets a chance to bid is the active player.
Now I have to figure out what gets cut from my modern Ponza deck for 2 or so of her. She solves so many problems that deck can have. She provides card draw, ramp, creature removal all in one card slot. Just amazing.
I can't imagine very many decks playing this that aren't also playing Liliana, which pushes this up to killing anything with 4 toughness. I've always found incidental lifegain on cards like this to be a nice thing as well.
Currently, I'm running:
4x Aether Theorist
4x Aethertorch Renegade
4x Whirler Virtuoso
4x Glint-Nest Crane
4x Decoction Module
2x Fabrication Module
2x Aetherworks Marvel
1x Panharmonicon
1x Saheeli Rai
4x Harnessed Lightning
4x Aether Meltdown
Theres about 2-4 flex spots beyond this core of cards, and then 22-24 lands.
This has actually been doing much better in testing than I thought it would. Last FNM I played with it, I beat G/W midrange, G/B delirium aggro, U/R Fevered Visions, and Temur Emerge. Lost only to R/W vehicles when I couldnt find any removal spells at all gameso 2 and 3.
Depending on how many energy based cards you have, I could see the case for running the hydra instead of the the cruiser, or maybe a split. The 3 energy can be used to pump the cub, pump the brawler, and/or keep the hellion around for another turn, all of which seem good.
The problem with that wording AFAIK, is that the owner could activate this ability an infinite number of times whenever they felt like it.
Perhaps a tweak along the lines of:
Put a +1/+1 counter on NAME: Until NAME leaves play, NAME's controller gains control of X permanents you control, where X equals the number of +1/+1 counters on NAME, and you gain control of NAME. Any player may activate this ability, but only once per turn.
This fixes the infinite loop part. The other possibility I can think of is giving it haste and having it untap every turn, and having the bid trigger every upkeep where the last person who gets a chance to bid is the active player.
Just my two cents