Single Card Discussion: Extraplanar Lens

[MuzzonoAmi]

Extraplanar Lens
3
Artifact

Imprint - When ~this~ comes into play, you may remove a land you control from the game. The removed land is imprinted on this artifact.

Whenever a land that shares a name with the imprinted card is tapped for mana, add to the mana pool of that land's controller one mana of any color that land produced.

This card has been legal for 6 months, and its still not being used. Look at what Wake did in type 2, then look at this card. Clearly, we as deckbuilders are not doing our jobs. I know the skeptics will point out that Wake easily facilitated the use of multiple colors, but its no totally unfeasible to splash a second color in a Lens- powered deck. With our cardpool, this card could do crazy stuff. So lets take a lesson from 2003 and break this card.

First, some (control) cards that have synergy with the Lens:

Decree of Justice
Balance
Draw-X Spells
Wishes
Mirari (has its time come as well?)
Panoptic Mirror
Gorilla Shaman
Tax/Rack
Pox
Dust Bowl
Land Equlibrium
Limited Resources
Winter/Static Orb
Trinisphere
Nether Void
Sphere of Resistance
Spellweaver Helix(enables the imprinting of higher-CC spells, also another card that should've been broken already)
Tangle Wire
Decree of Silence(this actually becomes affordable)


Also, don't forget that the card actually gives any deck running it well a better shot against prison, since it swings the symmetry of their lock parts out of the intended alingment.

I'm posting this here as opposed to open Type 1 because I want to keep the level of discussion as high as possible, since we all agree that extra mana is a very potent thing in control decks, but are having trouble with this one card and I want this to stay as focused as possible.

[Dr. Sylvan]

The reason I think this card is unbreakable is a pair of factors: casting cost and the constraints on land name.

There are about one bazillion mana accelerants in the history of Magic, and most of the ones that cost >0 suck horribly, as does pretty much everything with cc >1. At three mana, this hardly even accelerates you. Against prison decks, getting to three mana is half the battle, and once you're there, you can simply break the lock once and fight your way through with counters or further disruption. Basically, there are better ways to spend three mana fighting a prison lock. This not only costs three without destroying anything, it also sets you back a land (even if hypothetically increasing your net mana).

There is also the land name factor. Only a deck using basic lands could benefit from this nontrivially, because in most game situations, you won't have more than two of any given nonbasic in play (and you're removing one!). IIRC, Razor tried this in Parfait, but I don't remember what he found; clearly it hasn't found its way into the Parfait builds circulating around this place. Since nearly every deck is structurally, inseparably dependent on nonbasic land, this card is impossible to take advantage of.

The best use I'm imagining right now is in a monoblue deck on its way to some kind of decisive Capsize lock. However, I don't think allocating card slots to this is the best way to enhance that type of deck, based on the last time I tried monoblue a month or so ago.

[jpmeyer]

It got tried in Standard but the problem, which is exacerbated in Type 1 through duals, is that it's a symmetrical card with a big effect that your opponent gets the first crack at using.

[Dr. Sylvan]

It got tried in Standard but the problem, which is exacerbated in Type 1 through duals, is that it's a symmetrical card with a big effect that your opponent gets the first crack at using.

I don't know how this is exacerbated through duals. The card amplifies based on card name, not basic land type. Though in control mirrors this might still be relevant.

Oh, and [card]Mana Flare[/card] is potentially better against prison for the use you're advocating, Shannon, since they don't benefit from extra mana and you don't lose a land.

[rvs]

To add to what Dr. Sylvan already said (and which I pretty much agree with), there's only a ton of artifact hate present in any serious metagame nowadays, so there's no real incentive to try and break this regardless, since you imprint, your opponent gets a crack, and then kills it.

Also, spellweaver helix is totally broken with Crush of Wurms and Cabal Therapy

[Razor]

There is also the land name factor. Only a deck using basic lands could benefit from this nontrivially, because in most game situations, you won't have more than two of any given nonbasic in play (and you're removing one!). IIRC, Razor tried this in Parfait, but I don't remember what he found; clearly it hasn't found its way into the Parfait builds circulating around this place.

K-Run brought this card to my attention as soon as the spoiler was leaked.  He was onto Snow-Covered Plains from the outset:

Snow-Covered Plains
Color= Land  Type= Basic Land - Plains  Cost= None IA(L1)  
Text (IA+errata): Snow-Covered. [Oracle 2003/07/01]

Note - Because it has land type Plains, this card works as if it also has the text ": Add to your mana pool." [D'Angelo 2000/11/06]

Abusing Snow-Covered lands with Extraplanar Lens is much the same as mixing them with regular lands to break them with Tainted Pact; namely, it creates one-sided (or more) advantage.

I figured that it would be easily broken in Parfait because it reliably drops a land every turn and can abuse the extra mana easily with cards like: Sacred Mesa.  The synergy Lens has with Argivian Find and Land Tax are noteworthy.

Sadly, I've done no testing with my draft decklist and have nothing concrete to say one way or another.

[Grand Inquisitor]

He was onto Snow-Covered Plains from the outset

Am I missing something?  Who plays regular plains?

[Dr. Sylvan]

Am I missing something?  Who plays regular plains?

:'-(

[Triple_S]

In the MBC deck I took to t4 at VA States I believe I played a single Lens to Tutor for fuel large end game entwined Promises and Consume Spirits.  The draw back of possible card disadvantage, its possible use by the opponent before I use it, and lack of versatility was a huge draw back for me and I think it would be exacerbated in Vintage.

[The Atog Lord]

Let us suppose that there were some deck which ran enough lands with the same name to justify the Lens. Now, as has been mentioned before, there is no small amount of artifact removal in the format. Even a Stifle renders the Lens useless.

Beyond those concerns, there is another flaw in building a deck around the Lens. Either you include in the deck cards which take advantage of the Lens, or you do not. If you do not include such cards, then Lens is not worth playing anyways.

So, to take advantage of the Lens, a deck must run cards which take advantage of the Lens -- that is, expensive or mana-intensive spells. However, there will be those games in which the Lens is not drawn, or is removed before it can be used. In those games, the spells added to the deck to take advantage of the Lens will be sub-par and perhaps even useless because of a lack of mana. Therefore, a deck seeking to take advantage of Lens will be subject to considerable inconsistency.

[MuzzonoAmi]

I see all your points, and have for some time. I guess no one can think of cards that might make it work. I'll test it a bit before rejecting it, but I don't think that it'll work out. Oh well.

[Matt]

I wouldn't discount the possibility that Lens might work with some obscure card. Still, the obvious uses for it aren't any great shakes, for reasons already described.

[MuzzonoAmi]

My initial inclination was to use it and Snow-Covered Swamps (stealing ideas from K-Run) in a TriniVoid deck and make it more controlling. It seems like it should be solid, but I'll get back to you with the specifics.