Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

[Worldslayer]

The first spoiled Planeswalker from Avacyn Restored:



Obvious impressions:

This is at home in a slower, control-heavy deck. The abilities obviously lean towards this, but the primary reasoning is that for Tamiyo to be a consideration at the 5cc blue planeswalker slot Tezzeret first must not be. That her +1 synergizes well with mana denial (wasteland, null rod) while vault/key and Tamiyo have virtually no interaction puts her more firmly in Landstill's camp than standard Big Blue's. A five mana investment for a card that doesn't "just win" can only ever find a home in a deck that already has no access to such an effect and is fine with it, which makes me positive any competitive play Tamiyo sees will be within a landstill shell.

Her ultimate, while certainly a grind to activate, has the possibilities of being the runner up for "ultimates that actually end games" to the Mind Sculptor's, as opposed to the "virtual" wins otherwise available. In a landstill shell, her ultimate is effectively Crucible of Worlds and Counterspells, letting you rebuy as many wastelands and counterspells as you can drop or pay for in a given turn. The more interesting actions are the following:

Her ultimate combined with any mana source which can pay for itself (black lotus, lotus petal, lion's eye diamond, any ritual, etc...) can produce infinite storm and any source which nets mana also produces infinite of such. Combined with a draw spell of any sort, this allows you to draw your entire library with access to infinite mana. This is a game over scenario in almost all cases. Even without a mana source, the ability to turn ancestral recall or the like into a fireball variant draw spell at will seems exceptionally strong. Gifts ungiven also becomes a four mana tutor for four spells, meaning any of the above mana generators and a tendrils of agony left in your deck are instantly lethal. Intuition and any spell in that family function similarly.

She protects herself while growing, much in the same vein as the original Elspeth. While obviously less good at smashing faces in than the white queen, this is not irrelevant. The only three other walkers which ever see play in vintage (jace, tezz 1.0, lilliana) are either incapable or protecting themselves at all (tezzeret) or do so for limited amounts of time unaided (jace, lilliana). While a single tarmogoyf is menacing to The Mindsculptor and friends if you're not drawing gas in your draw step, Tamiyo locks up the green monster easily (as well as blightsteel, robots, trygon predators, etc...) and advances her loyalty while doing so.

While I doubt Tamiyo is going to herald a new wave of blue decks as Jace and Tezzeret did before her, she is a solid role player and with a controlling presence on the battlefield. Any deck looking for such a thing (landstill, still looking at you here) may do well to try her.



Your thoughts/impressions? Is her combination of abilities relevant, or outmoded by similarly functioning walkers or spells elsewhere? As blue mirrors inch more towards battles on the board rather than those on the stack, is she a step in the right direction to accommodate such a shift, or are Jace and occasionally Tezzeret all any blue deck wants in the planeswalker department?

[Oath of Happy]

If you ultimate this card and have any sort of cantrip to play like a preordain you can just till you hit time walk for infinite turns, or Lotus to get infinite mana which will lead to infinite turns and infinite draw.  That would be really cool but it will definitely never see play in vintage.

[The Atog Lord]

I don't imagine this will see play when Jace is available. Jace is at least as good in terms of his abilities, and costing one less mana makes a huge difference. For five mana, Tezzeret has a much more powerful set of Vintage-friendly abilities.

[brokenbacon]

That ultimate is absolutely obscene. EDH will LOVE this thing, but I think it may be wishful thinking in Vintage. Landstill, maybe, but don't get me wrong - I really REALLY wanna make a deck for it just because of that ultimate.

[Bill Copes]

I do not see any immediate vintage applications with this card.  It does not do enough to justify the cost. 3 to Twiddle or at best +2 or 3 cards.  The emblem is pretty funny with free spells, or Dark Ritual, but what or why would you be achieving with this mechanism that late in a game?

[evouga]

If I untap with Tezzeret, I win the game. I don't see why I would want to play this instead.

[AmbivalentDuck]

If I untap with Tezzeret, I win the game. I don't see why I would want to play this instead.

Johnny loves this with Doubling Season.

That emblem is insane and it's impossible to consider losing to anything but Leyline of the Void once you have it.  I'll happily put this in my Riku EDH deck.

That said...Why are we discussing this in a Vintage forum?  3UU and you don't win the game on the spot or the turn after.  Done.

[MaximumCDawg]

I don't see this doing anything in Vintage.  The only time you get to ultimate off a planeswalker is when you've got things totally under control anyway, and no one is stopping you for multiple turns.  Win-More.  So her awesome ultimate really doesn't mean much.  Her first two abilities - icy manipulator and theft of dreams - are just inferior to Jace's - unsummon and brainstorm - and they fill much the same role at less cost.  I don't think she's playable at all.

That said...Why are we discussing this in a Vintage forum?  3UU and you don't win the game on the spot or the turn after.  Done.

To be fair, most people said something similar about Jace.  I think everyone's gunshy.

[Worldslayer]

To address a couple of points:

"Why wouldn't I just play tezzeret I win the game if he stays"

I addressed this in the original post, specifically stating that "for Tamiyo to be a consideration at the 5cc blue planeswalker slot Tezzeret first must not be". I then go on to even explain exactly what kind of deck would eschew tezzeret for something like tamiyo with, "a five mana investment into a card that doesn't 'just win' can only ever find a home within a deck that already has no access to such an effect and is fine with it", followed by a suggestion/observation of exactly what cards would lean towards such a strategy ("...that her +1 synergizes well with mana denial (wasteland, nullrod)...") and even go so far as suggesting a macro archetype for her particular skillset to find use in ("...puts her more firmly in landstill's camp than big blue's...", and "...which makes me positive any competitive play Tamiyo sees will be within a landstill shell"). So if your question is, "why wouldn't I just play tezzeret this thing is awful", I would probably ask why you're planning on running tezzeret in landstill, which is traditionally a null rod based "fair deck". So there's that.

The second point, "you're spending five mana and don't immediately win the game what is this standard", is something of a rehash of the above, but also something of a heavily skewed flaw in vintage thinking that probably doesn't do our PR any good either. Does a card have to be powerful or specialized for vintage consideration? Sure. Would you like every card you play to be game over? Sure, mostly in big blue but sure. But if a card is a necessary or useful effect that helps you win a game in the current metagame is a viable option to consider, if nothing else. Are you going to replace jace with her anytime soon? No. In almost any modern blue deck of any of the three macroarchetypes of blue (big blue, midrange blue, landstill, or in normal people speak combo aggro and control with "blue" as a given) Jace gets the nod over tamiyo every time. But a permanent that solves your tarmogoyf or trygon problem while growing, and allowing your jace to grow/brainstorm, has merit. The ability to preempt tinkerbot has merit (or vaultkey if they're dumb and run the key out there on a turn before vault's in play). Acting as additional wastelands in matchups where mana matters has merit. Locking a Library (and to a lesser extent an Orchard) has merit. To dismiss a card that costs 5 and doesn't immediately or almost immediately kill them is a fine way of thinking: when confined to Big Blue.

Most recent comparison: at the last grudge match I was running a junk colored Dark Depths/rock list packed with two lillianas (a card that monoblack dark times players seem to have taken to). Her abilities are symmetrical ravens crime and cruel edict, effects on par with or worse than tamiyos (her -2 is probably better overall than tamiyo's +1, but the fact that it shrinks her and isn't targetted makes it closer than it would be otherwise. Tamiyo's -2, in my opinion, is probably better than Lilly's +1), and you know what? She was AMAZING. The field is a far cry from the monospells vs. Monospells blue matchups of yesteryear, and if you're not looking at the board you're opening yourself to unecessary worlds of hurt. Sadly, Lilliana was the only good card in my list, but she was good for roughly the same reasons Tamiyo is:

An answer to tinker-robot
An answer to resolved tarmogoyf or trygon predator
A way to reduce the total mana count of the opponent (even if it is by one permanent)
An ultimate that heavily skews the game in your favor, if there's indeed still a game afterwards.

Is tamiyo's 2cc increase over lilly a negative? Of course. Her color, however is a positive, as is her ability to consistently perform relevant actions to defend your jace or life total, rather than performing it every third turn or so. She's never going to be a flagship card, but she's good at what she does: controlling the army of your opponent. A couple of years ago that was irrelevant - but these days, it probably isn't.




Lastly, Bill. The ultimate's achievement in most games would be cementing your counter wall as unbreakable. The freebie mana source is an instantly lethal storm count with any tutors, draw, or kill cards to go along with the mana source, but tamiyo's home is most likely not in a deck with access to such. On the plus side, nearly unlimited mana drains (nearly due to instants still having a chance of resolving) is probably an equally good way to close out games, albeit slower.

[MaximumCDawg]

Sadly, Lilliana was the only good card in my list, but she was good for roughly the same reasons Tamiyo is:

An answer to tinker-robot
An answer to resolved tarmogoyf or trygon predator
A way to reduce the total mana count of the opponent (even if it is by one permanent)
An ultimate that heavily skews the game in your favor, if there's indeed still a game afterwards.

Is tamiyo's 2cc increase over lilly a negative? Of course. Her color, however is a positive, as is her ability to consistently perform relevant actions to defend your jace or life total, rather than performing it every third turn or so. She's never going to be a flagship card, but she's good at what she does: controlling the army of your opponent. A couple of years ago that was irrelevant - but these days, it probably isn't.

If I'm looking for a tap effect, why not spend 1 less mana and just use Icy Manipulator? 

[Bill Copes]

You make a lot of well-written points, but I think your view of the cost/effect ratio is disputable.

An answer to tinker-robot
An answer to resolved tarmogoyf or trygon predator
A way to reduce the total mana count of the opponent (even if it is by one permanent)

You could achieve the same with Vedalken Certarch for 1/5 the cost.  I appreciate your appraisal of the ultimate, though.

(Pardon my brevity, I'm at work.)

[Worldslayer]

For reasons that will follow even though they're eerily similar to "saying what the card does":

Advantages over icy manipulator:

Icy manipulator's targets untap during their untap step. If you're trying to cut off their offensive avenues, I'd rather them have zero access to the mana sources or what have you on their turn than limited access.

Icy manipulator is an artifact, for which hate and removal exists in abundance in vintage currently. Creatures also exist in abundance as "removal" for walkers, so there is that. Tamiyo can help solve creatures, however, while icy manipulator will very rarely help solve artifact destruction.

Icy manipulator cannot pitch to force of will, misdirection, or commandeer.

Icy manipulator never does anything BUT manipulate icily. Icy manipulator will NEVER draw you cards. Icy manipulator will NEVER grant you access to a game ending effect on par with a onesided rules change.


Ajani vengeant suffers similarly from not being blue (force of will, misdirection, commandeer relevance).

Ajani vengeant IS better at killing creatures, but infinitely worse at locking them down. If the bad guy drops blightsteel into play, and you had a choice between resolving tamiyo or ajani, which would you prefer?

Ajani is also worse at locking lands. It's splitting hairs, almost, but I'd rather tap down a workshop on my terms than wait for them to use it more.

Tamiyos ultimate, for what it's worth, is probably more likely to end a game of vintage than ajanis.

Random aside: just noticed Tamiyo can turn off a trinisphere. Corner case, but interesting.


Bill: no offense taken. I'm typing from my phone at the same, currently. The cost is probably the only reason tamiyo wont see much play, as her spread of abilities and ease of use (I.e. even vedalken certarch has specific requirements. Outside of 5 mana, tamiyo has none) are actually fairly potent at controlling a board state and all tacked onto one card.

[vaughnbros]

I don't think her cost is the only thing that limits her playability in vintage.  Much more of a problem to me is her lack of versatility.

Planes walker that actually see play in vintage right now as far as I know are:

Tezzeret the seeker is capable of searching for any artifact in your deck giving him as much versatility as your list dicatates.

Tezzeret agent of bolas can both draw your artifacts and animate them into creatures.

Jace can bounce a creature, brainstorm, and fateseal.

Liliana can make both players discard and edict.

The difference between these 4 and Tamiyo is that Tamiyo doesn't really have a second ability in vintage.  Drawing cards equal to a player's tapped creatures is what 2 at most? if even any.  Combine that with a while better another circumstantial ability.  A resolved and unanswered planes walker in vintage should have a dramatic impact without using its ultimate I don't see that with this card.