I pulled one at the prerelease so I'm really wanting it to be good enough. It just doesn't look like it really does anything. All I see is a fancy Dig Through Time that's a lot harder to pull off. I hope to be proven wrong. But whatever, it's not as though we're lacking for options in the Azorius department.
This is light years ahead of those other guildmages. Makes me feel there is no rhyme or reason to the guildmage's activation costs. It's as if they just drew them out of a hat.
I drafted Quilled Wolf early and often to much success. I intend to do the same with Sauroform Hybrid. Cards like this are a lot better than they initially appear.
It's an interesting card for sure. However, if I'm playing BR aggro, I don't want to spend my third turn playing a 3 mana enchantment that does nothing when it hits the board. I can see it finding a home in EDH though.
Aristocrats thrives on free sac outlets. Dark-Dweller Oracle already seems better for standard. But aristocrats will not be a deck unless there are free sac outlets.
This does a good Insurrection imitation in EDH. If you can generate a boatload of mana the text basically reads: You win.
At the same CMC you only get 2 creatures.
With a non-infinite boatload of mana that's a lot of math for lethal to do if you can't cover everything... and as far as I'm concerned with my meta I'm definitely not spending all that time only to be greeted with Swan Song.
Then we get to the real kicker - it doesn't grant haste, so it's really poor imitation of insurrection to begin with. Sure, the theft is "permanent"... but never trust one turn cycle to pass without the whole table scrambling for wipes after someone has essentially took everyone else's board. Then there's the fun fact that this by itself also gets walled by shroud/hexproof...
Even with infinite mana it's dependent on board-state... dead card in hand if someone just wiped the board.
It's only timmy in cost, but so situational on effect and a poor imitation of a card that's not even really played that much nowadays. The meta must be really casual (emphasis on really) for this to even successfully pull off.
Well EDH metas tend to be pretty casual. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort to get to 20+ mana if you're playing green and/or Sol Ring type cards. Infinite mana is pretty easy to set up as well. Cards like these are meant to be late-game haymakers that end the game/defeat an opponent on the spot. You're right that it's dependent on the board state, but not any more so than Insurrection.
The top half of the card made me feel like I was in one of those Christmas Mercedes commercials with the car and big red bow. The bottom half made me realize that it's indeed socks and underwear.
Step 2: Add Teysa Karlov to said Aristocrats deck
Step 3: Profit.
You're welcome