Eon Hub and cumulative upkeep

[XellossMetallium]

i just thought i'd throw out something to the mana drain communtiy concerning one of the new 5D cards:

Eon Hub
Casting Cost: 5
Type: Artifact
Text: each player skips thier upkeep step

i remembered afew weeks back someone was talking about mystic remora as a card draw method but it was shot down due to the cumulative upkeep cost. now if you have no upkeep step you have no opportunity to pay the cost thus a low cost draw effect that triggers when ever your opponent does just about anything outside of abilities and creature summoning.

i was wondering if it was possible to make cumulative upkeep cards competitive in current T1.

great CU cards exist such as:
Elephant grass that can effectively counter aggro and is good stopping psycatog.
Mystic remora for card draw all game long. In most T1 tournaments i've attended most of an opponents card draw and board establishment is done in the first few turns in the match so if you put this down first you draw for the moxes they put down and you get some benefit out of thier draw and counter spells.
Mesmeric trance for end of turn hand establishment. you may not gain card adv but you can get the cards you need faster.
Dreams of the Dead if your deck is geared towards creaturesof the black or white variety.
Glacial Chasmfor total damage negation. difficult to get rid of outside of wasrelands and strip mines.

these are just afew bad cards made good in combination with the hub. though i am unsure of how competitive such a deck would be due to the need for having the hub out. though slaver seems to work even though it primarily relies on the mindslaver. perhaps a similar build would help, but then why not just use slaver?  

though i don't have a mockup of a deck yet i plan to work on one and submit it to you guys for judgement.

just something to think about  

[Guardian]

The effect of this card is great, but the problem is that 5 mana is a big investment. The fact that it is an artifact means that it can come early with Workshop but I'd rather cast a threat than making my opponent skipping his upkeep before I do. You can weld it into play too, but the decks packing welders are artifact decks that run, you guessed it workshop.

For the combos you mentionned, these are not combo that make you win the game right away and in my book, when you decide to combo, you aim for the win right NOW. Long had a combo that won the game right now, as soon as it started. Sure, infinite Glacial Chasm is difficult to work around, but the truth is that it can be worked around. Not easily, but definitely feasible.

So Workshop is the only card that allow Eon Hub to come into play early, your opponent might benefit from it first and the combos don't win the game NOW, so, IMO, this card is not for spike. Maybe someone will prove me wrong, but I stand with what I just said until proved otherwise.

[goober]

Solitary Confinement and Bazaar Squee, or some draw engine.

[Matt]

Illusions of Grandeur!

[Razvan]

Illusions of Grandeur!

People play with that still?

Eon Hub requires a deck built around it. Unlike stuff like Crucible which is usable outside a combo-ish idea, Eon Hub is not, which diminishes it's playability.

Bazaar/Squee won't work, since Squee comes back in your upkeep, so the draw engine is sort of dead.

Heck, this card could be sideboard against that!

[goober]

ahahah totally missed that one.  Maybe Isocron Scepter with something imprinted, AK Recall, Brainstorm, F/I.

[Hi-Val]

Throw this mofo into Stax as a 1- or 2-of when you've got Tangle Wire in play (or God forbid, Smokestack) and weld it out EOT to bitchslap your opponent for a hard one in the nuts. It'd work if Stax wasn't overshadowed by Slaver, but maybe reports of Stax's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Glacial Chasm plus this is high tech though.

[cssamerican]

The only two things this card makes me think of are:

1.) Why couldn't it fit in E.B.A. (Eon Blue Apocalypse) then just maybe people could remember the name of that deck since its name would remotely resemble the cards that are in it.

2.) If this does become an effective card in some combo, how I will die laughing when someone gets it into play quickly by tapping out on turn two only to watch their opponent (Some Newbie) PWN them by playing Root Maze-Stasis.

[Razvan]

Throw this mofo into Stax as a 1- or 2-of when you've got Tangle Wire in play (or God forbid, Smokestack) and weld it out EOT to bitchslap your opponent for a hard one in the nuts. It'd work if Stax wasn't overshadowed by Slaver, but maybe reports of Stax's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Smokestack puts counters during the upkeep, does it not? This would eliminate the accumulation of counters.

If you already have 3-4 counters on the Smokestack, and a Welder, then yes, this would be good, albeit clunky.

[Fastbond]

You could run Infernal Darkness as a lock card and 4 glacial chasm to stop aggro.  What about a deck with the colors of black and artifact?  You run search and cards like Trinisphere to slow the opponent down.  If you're playing control or combo you put down infernal darkness to lock them out of the game and then find the kill card, if you're playing aggro you put down glacial chasm ASAP.

[Bobduh]

Wasteland > Glacial Chasm, and basically every deck runs Wastelands, so...

...so yes, Eon Hub does require a deck based around it. And yes, that deck would probably be prison-based. But I doubt it would be better then normal Stax, considering how much time and resources you need to set up anything close to a useful lock with this and smokestack/tanglewire/goblin welder/another goblin welder to weld it back in before they get a totally open turn.

But this is one of the most fun casual cards I've seen in a while, along with Vedalken Orrery.

[defector]

I don't think of this idea as teir one, but I'm gettng a playset of these to go with my Lord of the Pit, Draco, Minion of Leshrac and all the other horrible but big fat and nasty black creatures I've been collection over the year.  Hell, i even have an Ebon Prator to stick in this bad boy of a casual deck.  It's going to suck, but it will be fun to play.
defector

[The Grim Reaper]

Has everyone forgotten our little friend mana drain?
Why it allows us to generate 5 colorless easily in a control deck.
A control deck that might use... Glacial Chasm and the like.

Rejoice!