Not that bob is really tearing up the charts anymore, but I find it crazy that people could swear by Bob yet not give this the time of day.

If you know what you are doing this guys is almost always pure upside. If you reveal a non 0 cost card then it is either CA or Free damage, and if you reveal a 0 and they bin it you got something in the yard for free to pay for your delve.

In a R/U control shell this seems viable to me. Maybe along side Jori en, maxing out of topdeck fixers, and playing a bunch of control, maybe more so than usual.

The only way I see this working is if you cheat on costs, which is why omniscience seems like the only deck this makes sense in to me, also because you can chain them In that list. Omniscience into 2 duress effect into another one of these into more duress, eventually into wincon or whatever.

But since Omnitell is really just a niche deck in vintage if at all, Not sure where this would fit. Maybe it would be nice to hit of minds desire or something?

I have no delusions that this is vintage playable because of the CMC on the card, but the effect certainly is when you compare it to similar cards like doomsday.

My question is not will this see play, but rather what would it have to have been costed to be viable? DD sees play at 3 black and half your life, but I think this would be FAR to strong at 3 CMC. 4 perhaps?

Unless I am way off and this slides into some deck using omniscience?

If the first ability was not restricted to basics I think it would like it much more.

With infinite mana it functions like fastbond, zuran orb, crucible in a list like salvagers without needing a restricted piece. The thing that comes to mind to me would be something like this +lotus cobra x2 and Orb, or squandered resources and this and landfall triggers. I think there are ways to make this a piece of a combo somewhere but likely other, better combo pieces need to come out to make it worth it.

Personally I love the thought of a deck that uses 4x courser of kruphix, zuran orbs, lotus cobras and the like being viable in vintage, probably not going to happen though.

As a scaleable FoF it may actually be too good in many formats, because then it is 1 mana cantrip, 2 mana get the best card and put something in the yard for value, etc.

The only place this is going to work is in modern in Pyromancers ascension since it lets you cantrip so very hard.

In a format that has a bunch of one ofs this is far less impressive.

What sucks so badly about this card is that it is in a madness set and does not trigger madness.

Maybe the card is actually about Avacyn going all revenge crazy because the fishermen reeled in the thing in the ice, and the English version is the wrong one huh?

I think you're forgetting a certain something or two

Treasure Cruise
Dig Through Time

Plus lets not act like that shell would not have some number of spell pierce or flusters.

I hope it is a powered down Emrakul if anything, something that is more likely to be hard cast. I'm actually really tired of new, bigger, better creatures that all basically say win the game on that being printed. Every single time they do we get to the point where oath, sneak attack, and show and tell start looking like problems in the formats they are legal. Remember when people were oathing out Rune Scared demons?

I mean how much better can a creature be that emrakul 1 or Grislebrand at this point considering your paying the same amount for each of them which is either 1G or 2U.

That aside I like Nahiri in standard and that is about it, She should have had the "Can start as your commander" clause on her I think, because W/R in modern is specially not playing long games where this would matter, and she is not blue so she really is not relevant in legacy or vintage.

If you remove the counters with Hexmage, can you even flip it if you cast a spell? The ability has a then clause after a mandatory action, so if you do not remove a counter does the then which is conditional based on that trigger?

That being said I think Hex parasite is better because it can murder multiple walkers that are not Dack in a game, and it is "on color".

Also, Hunted Horror and this combo well, but I think that is probably more win more than not.

Black has some really great madness cards and multiple copies of this combo well with Call to the Netherworld so you always have gas.

That being said unless we get some outrageously good madness cards I don't see this happening. Is Circular logic even playable at this point even its idealized shell?

I think this set is well more focused on legacy and commander than it is Vintage to be perfectly honest. it is going to introduce a lot of foils for cards that did not have them prior which commander players will gobble up, and honestly with the exception of a few mythics I highly doubt it is going to fix the availability problem vintage has.

In legacy, honestly the only avails they need worry about are lands that they cannot reprint, which are the duals, Tabernacle, Gaea's Cradle, and City of traitors. They have been instead of trying to print lands that would be suitable replacements for the duals, promote decks that do not need the dual lands and instead want specialty ones, but every time they seem to do this what winds up happening is some other reserve list card comes up.

Eldrazi became a deck people are toying around with in legacy now and it is showing promising results, but then suddenly you realize you need need City of traitors and that card is now over 100 bucks.

I have been saying for some time WOTC needs to come up with some new fetchable dual lands that are not shocks and do not directly compete with traditional ones. I like the Scry idea, But I think what they would actually need to do is make 10 new lands, each legendary in all likelihood, and each with a unique ability that some decks would never use but others could take advantage of. A Savanah that gains each player 2 life when it etb would be terrible for aggro zoo decks but amazing for someone playing control, for instance.

I mean, without killing off the reserve list I do not think there will ever been a fix for the eventual downfall of the formats in paper. It honestly bothers me that you can have a format where you can print things willy nilly online but not actually print them for the player base who has clamored for them for so long. this set may take care of some low hanging fruit but I doubt it will fix the problem even slightly as the other cards not in the set skyrocket in value.

If you want to play this dude and protect him, I think you need to run something that gives him Hexproof, as it is the only viable thing that can deal with abrupt decay. Mizzium Skin is likely the go to choice there, but I don't think that card has even seen the light of day in mentor, where the whole deck is devoted to protecting your creature wincon, and the overload in that deck makes even more sense than it does here.

Still cant believe that this would be the go to deck though, when you have pryomancer and Mentor to choose from already. Where is this card really better than those 2 on a regular enough basis?

Hurkyl's Recall is an instant. This counters sorceries. So the likely situation here is that they recall you and leave you with nothing but land EOT. Then on their turn they yawgs will and you counter. You are assuming your one counterspell is going to stop yawgs when they likely have counters they have not cast under your spheres in hand, maybe duress as well? Not going to happen most of the time. I think you may catch one player off guard because hes not used to having to duress before yawgs against shops, but once you get that guy with that you are never going to get him again.

Its funny how the part of this card I question the most is the ability to counter a sorcery. Most of the time sorceries are not the issue for shops because most of the time your opponent really can't afford to sit around and cantrip while you are casting sphere effects, which at 2 mana typically conflict with this card.

The bigger blowout style sorceries are the ones you want to stop, which spheres work well against already. Then add to it that this card is affected in a symmetrical way by your spheres, in that you cannot cheat mana with shops like you do on your artifacts, and I do not see it playing out well.

Sideboard in very specific situations where you can utilize 2-3 modes of it, but other than that I cant see it happening with the way the game is structured right now.

I have lost matches in Dredge before because of having to natures claim twice in a match and then not having enough damage to win. If Leyline of the Void was not a card I think this would actually wind up being the go to card of choice for that list, but Leyline is a card so its a no go. I am apprehensive about it seeing play in total, but the effect is vintage relevant as is the cost, i just think natures claim will typically be better but there are certainly situations.

So I think natures claim is going to be better in most cases still because of its ability to hit golem and Leyline, but are there decks where removing the lifegain is relevant enough that you are willing to be able to hit fewer targets with this? I cant help but feel like this sits in a strange place between Claim and Abrupt decay where you really want one or the other, not something that is sorta both.

I think you misunderstand my use of an obviously unlikely example as a serious reco as opposed to a method to illustrate why I do not think this new card will be viable.

But for what it's worth and to spell it out, leap plus swiftspear gives you the same thing for the same net card investment and the same CMC as this new card, but with +1 power. I don't see swiftspear in any lists, so why would I presume that giving it leap suddenly puts it over the top. Decks just do not seem to want this type of card.

God I wish it was going to happen, but I just don't think it will.

Swiftspear in vintage is honestly not fast enough since it needs so many other pieces that you likely should have just storm comboed anyway. Making it cost more for slightly more utility does not make it all of a sudden that much better.

All things considered, is this card actually much better than just playing a swiftspear and hitting it with leap on the kill turn. Same mana investment over all and same effective card investment, but leap works better if you have other prowess creatures in play already and can be cycled when dead on your opponents cards.

Colorless mana in the lists that would want him seems like a bit more of a tall order than usual? What do you have that generates it now? Sol ring? How many sources could you squeeze in to make it work?

From: https://twitter.com/mtgjp/status/683845556934950917

Overwhelming Denial 2UU
Instant (R)
Surge UU
Overwhelming Denial can't be countered by spells or abilities.
Counter target spell.

I want to believe this is decent. It is obviously only great if you have surge active, but in the proper lists that can be trivial, and 2 mana counters have been seeing less and less play, but it is an uncounterable counter at 2 mana, which seems like it would be very game winning when relevant.

Mana Drain is fringe right now, and this would fit into a totally different archetype I think, but this can be an absolute answer to protecting your mentors or Salvagers, or very definitive way to push though your game winner? Maybe more sideboard against control matchup where you know you will be trading spells?

If there were a deck that had a real reason it would need both a thirst effect and an enchantment/permanent in play then maybe this could see play, but since serra's sanctum is not blue mana it seems like a stretch.

Based on Nissa's oath being spoiled though, I would not be shocked to see a viable card come out of the cycle. Heck the Nissa one is almost playable since it is not in blue and green does not have effects like that with few exceptions.

I see this as a bit of a mentor trump to be honest. Mentor is better if it is on the table granted, but if you can land this first it becomes much easier for you to play the control role and deal with mentor players with the CA it generates. Keep in mind a deck that will play this is likley to play 2 spells on their turn as well as an opponents.

I think you need to think about her in the context of what deck she could wind up in. I go back to Merfolk once again, a deck that now has plenty of space because of the restrictions of DDT and Cruise. The utility you lose in some matches to play a copy of this over lets say a Phantasmal Image is pretty low, but the upside is potentially very high.

I'm not sure Joel Lim's list is the best place to start since it has been 2+ years now, and maybe Aether Vial has a place again of if you stick with the null rod plan, but I think I could easily imagine a singleton of this in the deck and them perhaps some more aggressive tempo cards?

4 Cursecatcher
4 Lord of Atlantis
4 Master of the pearl Trident
4 Silvergill Adept
3 Merrow Reejerey
1 Jori En, Ruin Diver

4 Null Rod

4 Force of will
4 Mental Misstep
2 Flusterstorm
2 Daze
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Timewalk
1 Treasure Cruise
1 Brainstorm

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Sapphire
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wastelands
1 Stripmine
4 Blue fetches
4 Islands
1 Volcanic Island

Keep in mind in something like Merfolk that she is rarely going to be a 2/3 but more likely out of bolt range with a lord on the table. Being able to draw free cards in a deck like that with an on tribe creature seems well worth meriting a good look at that list again.

I like this guy as a miser copy in decks that are already running these colors like pyromancer. Worst case is that it winds up being force food in most games, but I can easily imagine games where not only does this get in some incidental damage but also draws you a new grip with him. I mean with cards like gush, counters, ancestral, brainstorm, and bolt already in the list it's not as if you have to go out of your way to activate the ability. You dont even have to resolve the spell, just trigger off casting.

I think if you try to build around him like a engine you will fail because she is very vulnerable and a legend, but as an incidental beater with massive upside I can see it working.

A superior interaction in a list that is in almost every other way substandard does not make for a good strategy. I can think of plenty of reanimator targets that work in Living end as well, it does not make living end a playable deck in Vintage.

The goblins have a better interaction than snapcaster in Oath too, but no one is playing snapcaster in oath and for a good reason. Putting it on a 4/4 body for 5 does not do much to change that. There are plenty of merfolk with awesome abilities that see no play in vintage fish deck (when they do crop up) for the same reason, and at least merfolk is a deck that gets some play every so often as a spoiler or pseudo budget strategy.

You could also flash back timewalk with Snapcaster, a card that does see play and is in the same color, or play eternal witness and have more versatility in selection. Or regrowth. This is way overcosted to do just that.