Very nice red hatebear, pity it doesn't trigger for planeswalkers too but you can't have everything lol.
In standard the biggest effect is on Vehicle activation but Clue tokens, Tower, Marvel, manlands and Evolving Wilds also suffer.
In modern and legacy it's much more powerful, hurts fetchlands a lot (although doing so does boost Death's Shadow) as well as a boatload of other things (like Sensei's Divining Top in legacy).
Alround solid card that is sure to see some play and to maintain/grow value.
If you have an extra use for it like Improvise (plus maybe color fixing) then it might be worth the time, having as much as 8 mana on the 5th turn is potent. Feels a bit excessive though, you have to spend 7 mana over 3-4 turns (4 if you count the 1 you get back each use) and then you get a Guilded Lotus (something that was fairly costed at only 5 mana). Seems like a lot of hoops to jump through and a huge risk of blowout if your opponent spends 1-2 mana to destroy it the turn before it untaps in Lotus mode.
I wouldn't run this over Glimmer (especially not with the Gearhulk synergy) but it's nice to have this as a 1-2 of in a control deck as a late game go over the top draw spell.
This is actually solid, i'm just unhappy because it's not Miscalculation.
As anyone who has actually played with Force Spike or Daze can tell you people end up tapping out a surprising amount of the time particularly early game and making someone pay 1 extra functions like a hard counter enough of the time to be playable (just think of Mardu, GB or CopyCat they want to curve and tap out at many different stages). Being able to cycle away for only U also means that once you get past that stage it will at least still be able to draw you a card.
I played a few games with this in modern and frontier. Frontier it's great and standard it maybe the foil to the god cards that are otherwise indestructible along with gideon, but in modern they got Melira, Sylvok Outcast in green that will make you hate your life if you play this guy.
You must be playing in a very unusual modern group for Melira to be that big an issue. Maybe i've been lucky/unlucky but I don't remember seeing a single copy in the last year playing modern. In fact the only deck i've seen using her even in online lists are the creatures toolbox combo version of Abzan Company and recently it feels like it's almost vanished in favor of Death's Shadow variants. The other green/x decks don't use her main or sideboard and I doubt that's likely to change with her only uses being in combo, against infect and maybe against Soul-scar Mage.
Back in the day Fluctuator was cycling = 0 but since then there have been a lot of cycling cards made with cycling costs that fluctuator doesn't drop to 0, New Perspectives when active drops colored cycling costs and/or very expensive cycling costs to 0, Ones like the Scourge Decree cycle or the Alara Resounding cycle for instance.
In the right deck if you could get this active I could easily see being able to cycle through practically your entire deck on that turn benefitting from all the cycling triggers and stocking up your graveyard with an insane amount of cycling creatures.
Of course at 6cc and requiring a very cycling heavy deck and being able to always keep your hand as full as possible it's probably too expensive and gimmicky to be a real thing but it could make for a fun casual deck.
Not sure that this is pushed enough to be a mythic. Don't get me wrong, the O-ring ability, 5cc to cast and 6cc to embalm is great but the fact that the body is only a 3/4 flyer (not amazing at competing with Avacyn/Heart of Kiran or living through Grasp of Darkness etc.) is disappointing at mythic. At mythic with the power level of midrange creatures recently I feel like it could have easily been a 5/5 flying first striker or the like without being insane, alternately the O-ring ability could have been replaced by an actual removal spell, heck i'd have been happy if it simply had 1 extra toughness.
I don't love the spell or rate it highly as a rare but I do think people are a little too down on it.
People seem to think it's a control card, it's not it's a pure tempo card. Reflector Mage could be both so maybe that's where the confusion comes from.
Control effects create actual advantage or at least parity (1 for 1 or better with 1 being a card in hand or useful permanent in play) Tempo effects on the hand hand create virtual advantage by buying time (1 for 0 + delaying your opponents plan). Reflector Mage and Remand produce virtual advantage but also create actual advantage/parity by coming with a card or a creature attached.
Failure to Comply only creates virtual advantage, you trade 1 card in order to hopefully delay a specific threat from your opponent by 2 turns.
If you are playing WUx aggro that can be huge. Getting ahead on board position and then delaying your opponent's stabilizing 4-5 mana play (planeswalker, Wrath effect, fatty/finisher like Verduous Gearhulk, InfiniCat etc.) for 2 turns can easily be enough to win games.
5 mana for a 3/3 and 2x 2/2 lifelink tokens is a great deal (up there with Verduous Gearhulk although lacking the immediate haste-like impact). Having the +1/+1 and lifelink work for other cat typed creatures is also potentially useful.
The question is whether any white/x deck wants this type of upper midrange value creature over other options like Avacyn and planeswalkers.
If there is the interaction with Eldrazi Displacer is probably worth investigating.
This is the cheap counterspell reprint standard has been missing. Revolutionary Rebuff but without the huge drawback of not hitting artifacts (harsh when vehicles, Tower, Titans etc. are a major part of most standard strategies) and with the huge upside of being able to cycle late game when it's no longer effective.
Counterspell would have been too good (and impacted on modern) and even though I personally think Mana Leak would be fine I can understand why wizards might hesitate to put back in standard. But Miscalculation feels like just the right power level.
It also makes a lot of sense to have a good counterspell in a set where the invocations have such a heavy counterspell focus, where cycling is back and where wizards printed a hoser like Serpopard (despite no current issues with counters in standard).
To sum it up, please be true, i'm going to be very sad if it isn't.
I do like the idea of combining a Monument with Statuary's improvise. The Monuments being legendary and both parts being 3cc artifacts makes me think it's probably too slow and vulnerable for competitive play.
Blue appeals to me most though thanks to both artifacts being tutorable by Trophy Mage. Running blue also gives you access to Padeem who can protect the artifacts and provide a card draw engine (plus having the perfect 3U cost which allows him to be curved out 3rd turn Monument/Statuary, 4th turn Monument/Statuary + improvise out Padeem).
Mouth to Feed. It reminds me of Call of the Herd but trading the 2nd 3/3 token for a conditional card draw seems like a downgrade in most situations.
Relying on having 3 power or better creatures (at least 2 of them to get value for mana) in play really hurts the aftermath side. And a 3/3 for 3 is no where near as good as it was back in the era of Odyssey block.
It feels like it needs a sweetener especially as a rare, a keyword ability on the token and/or some life gain or a pump spell attached to the card draw would have done a lot.
It feels like it joins the (very small) group of straight up constructed playable red dragons alongside Stormbreath, Thunderbreak Regent and Thundermaw Hellkite.
It is not hard to imagine this giving 3 for 1 value by hastily attacking and killing a planeswalker, exerting and killing a creature and then forcing your opponent to use a removal spell to kill it (or suffer it being able to attack and exert again after 1 turns cooldown time).
The layout is jarring (and not in that it's new and different but i'll get used to it fashion that the original split cards, the future shifted cards and the masterpieces/invocations had). I don't know if i'll ever be able to entirely get used to seeing these cards in my hand BUT I do think that they will serve the function of being a special different spell in the graveyard very well.
In standard the biggest effect is on Vehicle activation but Clue tokens, Tower, Marvel, manlands and Evolving Wilds also suffer.
In modern and legacy it's much more powerful, hurts fetchlands a lot (although doing so does boost Death's Shadow) as well as a boatload of other things (like Sensei's Divining Top in legacy).
Alround solid card that is sure to see some play and to maintain/grow value.
As anyone who has actually played with Force Spike or Daze can tell you people end up tapping out a surprising amount of the time particularly early game and making someone pay 1 extra functions like a hard counter enough of the time to be playable (just think of Mardu, GB or CopyCat they want to curve and tap out at many different stages). Being able to cycle away for only U also means that once you get past that stage it will at least still be able to draw you a card.
A pity that neither Naga or Cleric are well supported in green though, Elf Shaman/Wizard would have added a lot of extra synergies.
Not sure that it'll get there in constructed (maybe with Glimpse of Nature) but it's a great card for EDH and the like.
You must be playing in a very unusual modern group for Melira to be that big an issue. Maybe i've been lucky/unlucky but I don't remember seeing a single copy in the last year playing modern. In fact the only deck i've seen using her even in online lists are the creatures toolbox combo version of Abzan Company and recently it feels like it's almost vanished in favor of Death's Shadow variants. The other green/x decks don't use her main or sideboard and I doubt that's likely to change with her only uses being in combo, against infect and maybe against Soul-scar Mage.
In the right deck if you could get this active I could easily see being able to cycle through practically your entire deck on that turn benefitting from all the cycling triggers and stocking up your graveyard with an insane amount of cycling creatures.
Of course at 6cc and requiring a very cycling heavy deck and being able to always keep your hand as full as possible it's probably too expensive and gimmicky to be a real thing but it could make for a fun casual deck.
People seem to think it's a control card, it's not it's a pure tempo card. Reflector Mage could be both so maybe that's where the confusion comes from.
Control effects create actual advantage or at least parity (1 for 1 or better with 1 being a card in hand or useful permanent in play) Tempo effects on the hand hand create virtual advantage by buying time (1 for 0 + delaying your opponents plan). Reflector Mage and Remand produce virtual advantage but also create actual advantage/parity by coming with a card or a creature attached.
Failure to Comply only creates virtual advantage, you trade 1 card in order to hopefully delay a specific threat from your opponent by 2 turns.
If you are playing WUx aggro that can be huge. Getting ahead on board position and then delaying your opponent's stabilizing 4-5 mana play (planeswalker, Wrath effect, fatty/finisher like Verduous Gearhulk, InfiniCat etc.) for 2 turns can easily be enough to win games.
The question is whether any white/x deck wants this type of upper midrange value creature over other options like Avacyn and planeswalkers.
If there is the interaction with Eldrazi Displacer is probably worth investigating.
This is the cheap counterspell reprint standard has been missing. Revolutionary Rebuff but without the huge drawback of not hitting artifacts (harsh when vehicles, Tower, Titans etc. are a major part of most standard strategies) and with the huge upside of being able to cycle late game when it's no longer effective.
Counterspell would have been too good (and impacted on modern) and even though I personally think Mana Leak would be fine I can understand why wizards might hesitate to put back in standard. But Miscalculation feels like just the right power level.
It also makes a lot of sense to have a good counterspell in a set where the invocations have such a heavy counterspell focus, where cycling is back and where wizards printed a hoser like Serpopard (despite no current issues with counters in standard).
To sum it up, please be true, i'm going to be very sad if it isn't.
Blue appeals to me most though thanks to both artifacts being tutorable by Trophy Mage. Running blue also gives you access to Padeem who can protect the artifacts and provide a card draw engine (plus having the perfect 3U cost which allows him to be curved out 3rd turn Monument/Statuary, 4th turn Monument/Statuary + improvise out Padeem).
Relying on having 3 power or better creatures (at least 2 of them to get value for mana) in play really hurts the aftermath side. And a 3/3 for 3 is no where near as good as it was back in the era of Odyssey block.
It feels like it needs a sweetener especially as a rare, a keyword ability on the token and/or some life gain or a pump spell attached to the card draw would have done a lot.
It is not hard to imagine this giving 3 for 1 value by hastily attacking and killing a planeswalker, exerting and killing a creature and then forcing your opponent to use a removal spell to kill it (or suffer it being able to attack and exert again after 1 turns cooldown time).
And that is with any untap or vigilance tricks.