[Single Card Discussion] Keldon Megaliths

[yespuhyren]

Future Sight possible spoiler card:

Keldon Megaliths   
Land 
Keldon Megaliths comes into play tapped.
: Add to your mana pool
Hellbent -  ,  : Keldon Megaliths deals 1 damage to target creature or player. Play this ability only if you have no cards in hand.
 
 #170/180

Although there is the massive downside of this card coming into play, it seems like if the testing supports my first guesses, that this card will be incredible in Ubastax.  Almost since the inception of what we now call Ubastax, there have been 4 Barbarian Rings maindeck.  This was to kill the following:

Goblin Welder
Dark Confidant
Kataki, War's Wage
Ashen Ghoul/Ichorid/Nether Shadown

And a host of other creatures.  Hell, this is why Ubastax would often play Granite Shard in the SB and occasionally maindeck.  Now, with the ability to put it into a land, the single greatest downfall of Granite Shard, the fact that it couldn't be used with Null Rod, has now been overcome.  With a slightly steeper activation cost of  and the need for Hellbent to actually make it work, the questioni would have to be would this be able to fit into Ubastax as a 1-3 of.

Personally, I am currently leaning towards yes.  With or without smokestack or thresshold, Ubastax can often easily get rid of its entire hand.  Between Bazaars and Uba Masks making sure you keep an increasingly lower hand size, this can be a deadly weapon to take care of all of those threats, often faster than Barbarian Ring can get online.  This also doesn't require a crucible to continually destroy creatures. 

While I wouldn't replace Barbarian Rings with Keldon Megaliths, a 3/2 combination of Rings/Megaliths might be something for me to think about, especially with the Megaliths producing  mana regardless.

[madmanmike25]

I wouldn't cut even a single Barbarian Ring for this.  Maybe one mountain.  If this card is going to replace a mana source, then I could see it as a singleton.  I would hate to have 2 of these in my hand as my way of producing red mana.

They just HAD to make it come into play tapped didn't they?

[Harlequin]

I could definatly see this card in the lastest builds of my Jaws deck.  I have recently replaced 4 mountains for 4 rings, and as I said in my report ... they are often not realavent. 

I think this card might be slightly better than barb ring in Jaws because I don't run very many ways at all to gain threshold.  It's often well into the late game before I have thresh... and by then, I likely have a bloodmoon out.  Hellbent is much easier to achieve early, because the deck's curve is fairly low - and

The CIPT thing isn't so bad because I run 4 maindeck Orb of Dreams.  (and I get particularly excited when something comes into play double-tapped ^_^). 

The 1R is a bit more expensive than ring, but I often keep 1R up for heratic.  This would be a great way to make good on that 1R a turn.  "you could play an artifact - and ill smash it... play a creature and I'll ping it ... or take 1 to the face"

[freakish777]

I agree there's no way this should replace a single BRing, but obv it looks better than Granite shards.  I assume there's a very small chance you'll ever not empty your hand, but I could see there being some issues against certain aggro decks where between the CIPT and the hellbent requirement you just don't take out their X/1 the turn you want to.

[runeblayde]

This may have some potential in a Turboland build that splashes red for ring already.  However, except for turboland, 43land or the like, I can't see any place where hitting threshold is worse than paying more, citp and reaching hellbent.  Especially since hellbent by its very nature means a total commitment to everything already on the field, no holding back an answer to any number of problems in the late game.  For that very reason, I have tended to steer away from the hellbent mechanic.

[meadbert]

Keep in mind that the cost to use this is really RR1 since you must tap this land, another red source and a colorless source.

[Akuma]

The whole comes into play tapped rapes this cards playability. You can't afford to wait for an effect like that or to tap the land for mana in Vintage. This also eats up a land drop, whereas something like Granite Shard does not. On top of that, it is conditional to boot, no thanks. If Barbarian Ring came into play tapped I would not use it in Uba Stax either...