Hm...2-mana, 3-toughness non-legendary with flying and vigilance, that gets beefier as you draw. Good deal! Its ability to beef itself isn't that great, but you pair it up with the right things and you can pack a wallop for cheap.
Actually, the more I look at this card, the more I'd rather have Ledger Shredder. It isn't long before Ledger Shredder ties this duelist power-wise post-Brainstorm (often 1-2 turns after you play the Shredder). Both of them have the exact same mana cost. Both of them likely loot around as often. Ledger Shredder's buff boost is permanent.
I mean, you have to blow through two spells in a turn and discard another spell vs getting to loot whenever you play a bounce. Plus I wouldn't discount the vigilance. I think it's two different kinds of decks that would want this, like I really wouldn't want to discard my bounces just for +1/+1, but I also wouldn't want to be playing all counterspells if I were trying to do crimes.
In all honesty this is a Red/Blue card masquerading as monoblue.
I think this is gonna be the set I get back into playing again. The art is fantastic and the setting feels fresh for mtg in a way that the cowboy frontier set somehow doesn't.
But like realistically I wouldn't worry about it too much, its a weird creature strategy in blue that relies on topdecking and leaves them more or less wide open.
It doesn't really rely on top-decking if you get a 3/2 with ward that's unblockable for 3 mana no matter what. It can become even better with top-decking.
Even murdering the creature isn't that bad since it still burns them a card and it's gonna cost them 5 mana to get another 3/2 ward 2 on the table.
I'm going to disagree here, too, because this seems shortsighted both in terms of mana and card investment.
On the card advantage side you playing Murder to remove the cloaked cards means you are down a card, but the card they played from hand is still on the battlefield and can generate more card advantage by bouncing and re-playing it. If you both are in top-deck mode and your opponent is spending their mana re-casting this and you draw a perfect string of 1-for-1 removal like Murder, your opponent fills up their hand tun after turn, which doesn't seem like "burning a card".
On the mana side, you seem to put a lot of stake on the fact that bouncing and re-casting the card costs five mana... but that's exactly what you pay for Murder against a creature with ward . Once again, if both players are developed equally and you tap out for Murder, they can tap out and get a new 3/2 unblockable and are, as mentioned above, up a card.
The value goes way up with a good setup, but even if you couldn't turn cloaked cards face-up this would already be a card I'd be happy is rare, because it can take over games.
A vanilla 3/2 with unblockable isn't gonna take over games, even if you can get another one at sorcery speed and get to attack in two turns.
I feel like we go through this every other set with some splashy blue card that makes drakes or something. It's just not going to work as well as you think it might, especially if you go all in on a blue creature strategy around putting one of these out there and leaving yourself otherwise wide open.
What card am I wanting to have when my opponent plays this on turn 3 in limited? Seems very difficult to interact with favorably without countering, in which case you passed your turn 2 or 3, which is usually bad already.
I mean in limited I hope you're playing a naturalize or two.
But like realistically I wouldn't worry about it too much, its a weird creature strategy in blue that relies on topdecking and leaves them more or less wide open. Even murdering the creature isn't that bad since it still burns them a card and it's gonna cost them 5 mana to get another 3/2 ward 2 on the table.
Specifically I'm talking about limited. If you can put together a constructed deck with a lot of scry or something and consistently hit your big fatties with this, the value goes way up.
roots seems like there could be a standard deck around it. Not with collect evidence for sure, but maybe Agatha's Soul Cauldron or something like that?
Sucks that there's no benefit to having multiples but otherwise pretty neato.
I assume they're gonna use the leyline of the guildpact to resurrect the Poster Boy for Magic.
why? isn't niv mizzet the pact leader and hes 220 on the crunch of this set.
because he sells good plus he's being hinted at in card art stuff and this seems like the kind of like loosely related thing that could be used to justify a True Resurrection spell with his corpse being, uh, wherever it is. If there were any justice in this world they'd resurrect vraska too but no she's gonna stay in that fridge.
I feel like we're watching the aftermath of Delve's balance problems play out here. all these Graveyard as a resource type cards have had problems so now we're here with the weakest GY matters mechanic yet.
eta: oh I was looking at the blurry one. Just opponent. Whatevs.
I mean, you have to blow through two spells in a turn and discard another spell vs getting to loot whenever you play a bounce. Plus I wouldn't discount the vigilance. I think it's two different kinds of decks that would want this, like I really wouldn't want to discard my bounces just for +1/+1, but I also wouldn't want to be playing all counterspells if I were trying to do crimes.
In all honesty this is a Red/Blue card masquerading as monoblue.
A vanilla 3/2 with unblockable isn't gonna take over games, even if you can get another one at sorcery speed and get to attack in two turns.
I feel like we go through this every other set with some splashy blue card that makes drakes or something. It's just not going to work as well as you think it might, especially if you go all in on a blue creature strategy around putting one of these out there and leaving yourself otherwise wide open.
I mean in limited I hope you're playing a naturalize or two.
For this set it's
Gearbane Orangutan
Make Your Move
Pick Your Poison
And then in blue it's gonna be reasonable doubt and black, eh, cerebral confiscation
But like realistically I wouldn't worry about it too much, its a weird creature strategy in blue that relies on topdecking and leaves them more or less wide open. Even murdering the creature isn't that bad since it still burns them a card and it's gonna cost them 5 mana to get another 3/2 ward 2 on the table.
Specifically I'm talking about limited. If you can put together a constructed deck with a lot of scry or something and consistently hit your big fatties with this, the value goes way up.
because he sells good plus he's being hinted at in card art stuff and this seems like the kind of like loosely related thing that could be used to justify a True Resurrection spell with his corpse being, uh, wherever it is. If there were any justice in this world they'd resurrect vraska too but no she's gonna stay in that fridge.
I've seen the thread and decided to pretend it doesn't exist.
Can't wait to see the new nephilim, chums.
I assume they're gonna use the leyline of the guildpact to resurrect the Poster Boy for Magic.