Courser of Kruphix

[Protoaddict]

Maybe I'm being a dreamer, but it does combo with Fastbond fairly well. You can play out your lands for free from your deck with this in play and when the top card is not a land you can crack a fetch or top or ponder or brainstorm etc to fish for more of them. Since it replaces the life you spend it would be pretty easy to cycle into a crucible of worlds and then infinite strip mine.

Normally a 3 mana creature like this wouldn't interest me but it does seem like this one plays well with what virtually every green card short of Oath wants to do, and its 4 toughness means it can eat a bolt and provide a ground game.

Not even sure there is a shell for something like this. Vintage does not really have the equivalent of a 47lands.dec outside of standstill, and standstill probably would not care for this card.

Is there potential here or am I just scrounging for something playable from this set.

[KrauserKrauser]

Well, since it is an enchantment, you could always try it in an Enchantress / Lands shell.  It would probably be worth a try in Legacy as well, though it's less sexy without Fastbond.

With Exploration and all of the Wild Growths this would be a reliable turn 2 play, or turn 3 if you want an Enchantress effect before hand.  It's immune to bolt, which means alot in Vintage.

I would think that anything that wants to use lands in the Graveyard is going to have to consider Deathrite Shaman, though that is less of a factor in Vintage than Legacy.  Maybe Ground Seal to add some extra protection.

In the end it might be too cute, but it might be something worth a second look.

[MaximumCDawg]

The interaction with Fastbond is fine, but how often has the life loss from Fastbond really been a big deal?  I guess you can combine these two cards with Storm Cauldron for infinite mana, but that sounds like an EDH combo more than anything else.

[evouga]

I think the right way to evaluate this card is as a green mini-Dark Confidant.

He effectively draws you an extra card during your main phase whenever the top card of your library is a land. This is "naturally" about 20% of the time; more often if you have ready access to shenanigans like Top.

He also costs one extra mana, but has a bigger butt. I don't know if I'm too excited about him, but he's not terrible, which is more than can be said about most Born of the Gods cards...

[Protoaddict]

I would think you would want to use him in a deck that plays more lands than normal, which is a given. Some BUG style list with Tutors, cantrips, and ways to stack the top would be a good start. You can easily play a few infinite life combos in the list with crucible and Zuran orb or 2 of these in play, Manlands, Counters, and artifact removal. The deck is green creature heavy enough it could even run Gleeful Sabotage.

Not sure if it would work or not off hand but i like a deck that can play out a library full of lands turn 2 and then destroy all yours and your artifacts and have dudes on the board.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Am I misreading it, or does this guy have "fastbond from your library" already?  It says "You may play the top card of your library if it's a land."  So if I keep flipping lands, every time it says "You may play the top card of your library if it's a land." Right?

[KrauserKrauser]

I believe you are still held to the restriction of "You can only play one land card per turn".

Futuresight says you can play cards from the top of your library, but you still have to pay costs and have the one land per turn restriction.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Same wording as Oracle of Mul Daya, so no.

[MaximumCDawg]

I think the right way to evaluate this card is as a green mini-Dark Confidant.

Eh?  Isn't this card inferior to Fa'adiyah Seer for that purpose?
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=122374

Come to think of it, isn't this dork inferior to Seer in all relevant respects?  In both cases, you get to use the effect during your main phase only, so whether you know whats on top of your library or not, you only get it if it's a land.  Same effect with both cards.  Minus a small life gain I guess.

[evouga]

The Courser is better at getting you to your business spells.

Seer has no effect on the probability of you drawing a spell during your draw phase: the odds are the same, whether you use the Seer's ability or you don't.

With Courser, you will draw a spell during your draw phase more often (you only draw a land when your library contains two lands in a row).

Seer also has a bigger butt, can attack without hindering its ability, and has the marginal life-gain ability. Whether that is worth an extra G is up for debate.

[MaximumCDawg]

I don't follow.  Say your library has two lands in a row as your main. Phase starts.  Whichever dork you have, you can get one land on top into play.  Then you draw the second land during your next draw step.

Say you have one land on top, then a biz spell.  Same thing: you get the land into play and your next draw step gives you biz.

[Protoaddict]

Courser is really only great with fastbond because you can keep going.

If you have a fastbond in play you can keep playing lands off the top until you hit the spell. So if you have 3 lands on the top, you would play the first. Once the first is down you reveal the second, then because of fastbond play that, then repeat.

It also works with fetches. Play all the lands till you hit a spell. If you like the spell you can brainstorm or crack a fetch or something to get it and then hopefully put down more lands on the top of your deck. Or you can just use it if you see a spell you don't want to shuffle and try to get something better.

The only downside to this card, provided it's mana cost does not make it unplayable, is that you are making the top of your deck public information. But if you are playing out every land in your deck on turn 2 it may not make a difference.

I could see this being a cool engine to help you power out land mana until you hit Emrakul and hard cast him. You could Gush whenever you hit a spell to try and keep the engine going with all the cantrips we have available.

Maybe there is a gush bond shell that would already love this guy? It would provide a backup ground plan and take most of the stress off your life total in a creature heavy meta.

[evouga]

Hmm I had convinced myself about how it worked but now I'm not so confident. If I have some time later I'll do an experiment on a long random string of 'S'pells and 'L'and.

[psly4mne]

I don't follow.  Say your library has two lands in a row as your main. Phase starts.  Whichever dork you have, you can get one land on top into play.  Then you draw the second land during your next draw step.

Say you have one land on top, then a biz spell.  Same thing: you get the land into play and your next draw step gives you biz.

You stopped too soon - if you have a business spell followed by a land on top of your deck, Courser will let you draw the spell on your next draw step, while Seer will mill the spell and you will draw the land next turn.

It would certainly be fun to play this guy in a GushBond engine, but a 1GG spell that sometimes does nothing doesn't impress me too much.

[Bill Copes]

This has to be tested with the gushbond engine.  With a fastbond and this in play, you would hit every cantrip.  The deck would throw itself up all over the table.

[wiley]

This would be a good replacement to zuran orb in turboland.  While you don't have the infinite life, infinite lands drops pretty much always wins you the game in that deck anyway.  Time to find meadbert's old gush turboland threads again.

I just wish it had 3 power so it could kill a lodestone, but it is very aggressively costed as is so I am ok with it.

[MaximumCDawg]

The problem with using this guy as an engine is that Fastbond is still restricted.  Isn't the difficulty in finding and protecting your single Fastbond already the bottleneck in decks like Gush and Turboland?

[Protoaddict]

Yes to some extent, but at the same time this guy is a 2/4 that let's you dig through your deck much faster while storing cards in your hand, so alone he will net you CA that works well with your cantrips. He can also attack, so it's not like he is ever a dead draw.

Also saying that having 1 fastbond is a weakness to the strategy is like saying having 1 Yawgs will makes it unreliable as a wincon. Just sayin.

Library of Alexandria is amazing with him
Brainstorm is amazing with him
Ponder, Preordain, Gitiaxian probe are all really good with him
Fetches are maybe not amazing but really good with him
Serras sanctum may be a thing with all the enchants you will be running

So even outside of being able to assemble Gushbond with this, I think this card probably provides enough utility in card advantage, lifegain, and being a creature that he may be worth a slot or 2.

[Craft]

I like this guy with Top, Sylvan Library, or Mirri's Guile.

[Greg]

I think this is an interesting card. After reading some of the ideas that were posted above, I'm even more intrigued.

I think the casting is what makes it tough for Courser of Kruphix to be "Vintage playable." It kind of falls into the category of "Vintage cute" or something. At , I think it could've made an appearance in some Gush-based decks. I think 2/4 is a decent body, but overall I feel like this guy, as is, comes up just a tad short of having a role in the format.

[StanleyAugust]

I hope I'm getting trolled but if not: Even if the casting cost were this wouldn't see play in Gush based decks.

[MaximumCDawg]

Yea.  psly4mne pointed out that this card is marginally better than Fa'adiyah Seer for drawing cards insofar as it will not make you discard business spells.  But I can't see how "marginally better than Fa'adiyah Seer" makes it Vintage playable.

Love to be proved wrong though!

[Protoaddict]

I really think calling it Marginally better than Fa'afiya seer is a gross underestimation of what this card does. One creates a spew your deck onto the table combo, one does not. Big difference.

I honestly think even a single copy you can tutor for in the list may proved to be a big deal. Maybe gushbond isn't the best list right now in general but it has been top tier in the past and easily I think could be again, and if anything this could only help it become better.

[Grand Inquisitor]

Even if the casting cost were this wouldn't see play in Gush based decks.

Right and there's not even any synergy with Gush decks, since they always have additional lands (in hand) to play.

I could see this fitting into a legacy/modern version of the green stax builds that would T1- elf, T2- big lock piece.  You could play lots of wastes, etc and have this guy hold the ground while gaining advantage.