Spine of Ish Sah

[Prospero]

Isn't Pithing Needle a better answer?  It's one mana, versatile, and won't sit in your hand until you've assembled Welder/Bazaar or seven available mana.

As far as Energy Flux goes, if you're playing colored Shops, you should be playing at least three Red Elemental Blast in your sideboard.  And if you're playing MUD, dropping a seven mana response to a three mana threat isn't very efficient.

[Meddling Mike]

But when do you expect to be casting this card?  Unlike Sundering Titan, it's not going to be wiping out mana bases in one shot.  It kills one threat at a time, if it can kill that threat.  So, the first real question is, what permanents in particular do you feel the need to hit with this card that aren't better answered with some of the other Shop cards available?

It's true that Sundering Titan is better at dealing with LANDS and Duplicant is better at dealing with Creatures, but I think the point of this card that's being undersold is the sheer utility it provides. It deals with just about everything that does not involve tinker being cast. This includes a number of permanents that  previously could only be answered situationally by smokestack or possibly tangle wire.

What permanents in particular would you like to address that you believe aren't better addressed by a card currently seeing play in MUD/Shop decks?

If the comparison for what it's competing for space for is Duplicant:
Planeswalkers: Jace and Tezzeret
Enchantments: Oath of Druids, Serenity, Energy Flux
Artifacts: Vault/Key, any threatening non-creature artifacts, moxes in the right situation
Lands: Basic lands, or any powerful non-basics that you don't have a wasteland for.

It's sort of a hard argument to make without singling out one card, I think with the exception of the enchantments, and possibly planeswalkers, you could probably name a card that would do the job better or more efficiently, the problem is that none of those cards deal with ALL of them at the same time the way this card does. Again, getting back to my original point, the strength of this card is the incredible utility that I don't feel a workshop card has had prior to this.

[Prospero]

I'll grant you that the card is flexible in that it can deal with various kinds of permanents easily, but, speaking as a Shop player, I've got a few concerns with the card.

When playing against an Oath pilot, the Shop player has a difficult time with the nature of Oath of Druids (enchantments are, obviously, difficult to handle), but also because of the cost of the card.  An Oath pilot is capable of dropping an Oath of Druids, easily, on turn one.  They frequently do.  That being said, given what I have available to me, I don't know that a seven mana effect is the answer to Oath of Druids.  If I were to play in an Oath heavy meta, I'd favor Ratchet Bombs, or some other kind of effect that would neuter what the Oath pilot is trying to do.

Serenity is typically played out of the sideboards of Dredge decks.  A good Shop pilot knows that you keep in all of your Sphere effects, along with your Crucibles and Waste effects in order to hate the Dredge players mana base.  When successful Shop pilots fight Dredge, they don't blow up enemy Bazaars, they blow up enemy lands that make mana.  I'm going to be interested to see what happens with Dredge in the upcoming metagame.  It seemed like many Dredge decks were running their Nature's Claims main in lieu of their Chain of Vapors.  Does the printing of BSC change this?  To get back to the original point, given that Serenity is only going to be on the board for one turn, can this card be called a reliable response to that threat?  Can this card be a reliable response given that the board state it requires (an opponent who has just cast Serenity, while you have seven, or more, mana available)?

Energy Flux is a serious pain for MUD decks, but MUD decks are often able to put the opponent off the Flux plan because of the considerable number of Sphere effects and mana denial that the MUD decks run.  If an Energy Flux is on the board and I'm playing Espresso Stax, I hope that I have an Ancient Tomb or Tolarian Academy.  I probably end up going the aggressive route at that point.  If Flux lands against a Metalworker based Shop deck, they may be in a position to just use their Workers to pay for the real threats that they have, and continue along.  Energy Flux is a threat, and this card may have utility there, but even then, it's probably only going to have utility after your board has been blown up.  

I haven't been Vault/Key'd in a while, and I think that Chalices and Spheres are a better option than something on the top end of my curve fighting something that costs a total of three mana to assemble.

Rishadan Ports, Wastelands, a Strip Mine, and Ghost Quarter's out of the sideboard have been pretty good for me at hating out an opposing mana base.  Plus, do you want to pay seven when you could pay eight and have Sundering Titan?  

I still think that Pithing Needles, Spheres and Chalices are a better way to stop an opposing Jace, given that they're much easier to cast, hit the board very early, and have an immediate impact on the game.

One of the key aspects to playing a Shop deck is gaining all possible utility from all the cards that you run.  If you're playing MUD, you don't have tutors.  You have to take that into consideration when you're building your maindeck and sideboard.  Utility is a great thing, but you have to consider everything that the Shop deck is currently running, and ask if it solves any real problems that the Shop decks currently face.  At seven mana, and without an easy way to abuse it, I don't think this card does.

I think that the coming month is going to be about fighting BSC.  I'm preparing for it, as I'd imagine the rest of Vintage is as well.  I could be wrong (though I doubt it), maybe BSC doesn't see a lot of play.  But if it does, it's one more threat that this card doesn't handle.  

[Meddling Mike]

This discussion is getting kind of circular.

You: But x deals with y better than spine and z deals with the w you mentioned better than spine, etc.
Me: It doesn't deal with them as efficiently, but spine deals with y AND w

At seven mana, and without an easy way to abuse it, I don't think this card does.

What do you consider abusing this card? You can weld it into play if it's timed properly, you can get cute with smokestack and you have Mishra's Workshop to actually cast it, what more do you want?

[Prospero]

This discussion is getting kind of circular.

You: But x deals with y better than spine and z deals with the w you mentioned better than spine, etc.
Me: It doesn't deal with them as efficiently, but spine deals with y AND w

At seven mana, and without an easy way to abuse it, I don't think this card does.

What do you consider abusing this card? You can weld it into play if it's timed properly, you can get cute with smokestack and you have Mishra's Workshop to actually cast it, what more do you want?

I don't think it's really possible to abuse it.  Abuse would be something like Bazaar + Welder + an artifact, with this in hand, on turn one.  Even then, it's slow.

A MUD deck, especially a MUD Prison deck, is likely to run all of the following:

Duplicant
Smokestack
Pithing Needle (SB)
Wasteland
Strip Mine
Rishadan Port
Ghost Quarter (SB)

Along with Spheres, Chalices and Thorns.  Taking all of that into account, all the various effects, and the cost of those effects, I don't think that this card is superior to any of them. 

In order for me to have been excited about this card, it would have needed to cost at least two less mana, and probably three.  And I'd want an easy way to return it to my hand that didn't require a Smokestack.

[Shax]

I think this card is a wash up of being inbetween cards like Duplicant.. and Sundering Titan. The only good thing is that it returns to your hand from the graveyard. So compared to two cards that are creatures, and pretty much do a better job than this. I can safely say that this cards best use is going to be in some Stax Prison list that has lots of ways to be able to destroy the Spine without the use of Smokestacks, since that is the most obvious synergy going for it. Maybe a Red Stax Prison would work just fine.

[nineisnoone]

at 3-4 mana this card would be competely broken.  at 7 mana i'd say it is fair for the effect.  the versatility is huge though.  it's less that it dominates on the board, and more that it dominates in your sideboard by freeing up another 2-3 spots.