[Card Discussion] Trade Secrets w/ Quicken

[goobafish]

Hey,
This card has recently come to my attention when I was looking at the discussion thread for the card Quicken.

Trade Secrets
ONS
1UU
Sorcery
Target opponent draws two cards, then you may draw up to four cards. That opponent may repeat this process as many times as he or she chooses.

My original thought is that this card is almost an auto win for combo, even during your own turn. Then I quickly realized the potention of the opponent drawing into all the hate to stop you from going off this turn. With Quicken from Guildpact however, this card can be played at the end of the opponent's turn causing them to discard down to 7 if they decide to continue drawing. If not, they are drawing 2 and you are drawing 4, which can be seen right away as an amazing tradeoff.
Let's discuss the potential of this card with or without Quicken from Guildpact.

[PacmanXSA]

This costs UU2 to play.  You need two cards.  You draw randomly.

Gifts costs U3 to play.  You need one card.  You win.

Why would any smart player allow you to double up on card advantage?

Pac

[goobafish]

Gifts costs U3 to play.  You need one card.  You win.

You do not "win" with gifts. You get cards that "may" allow you to win, but you only get 2, without the card advantage your as you say "win" might get countered. Where as with Trade Secrets you are gaining card advantage. Your argument may aswell say "Why play ancestral recall and draw 3 when you can play Vampiric Tutor and "win"?

However you make somewhat of a good point, gifts is obviously a good card, but in a deck that dosent revolve around gifts is this card good?

[Klep]

You do not "win" with gifts. You get cards that "may" allow you to win, but you only get 2, without the card advantage your as you say "win" might get countered.

Actually, and I'm going to paraphrase Brass Man here, but when you cast Gifts, you get 4 cards you want and they go exactly where you want them to.  If you cannot win after casting a Gifts, then you did it wrong.  The reason your argument comparing this situation to Ancestral vs. VT is bad is because VT does not put any card where you want it to be, because you want it to be somewhere accessible, not on the top of your library.  VT creates a very strong potential that you will get the card you want, but it will still only get you one card, and it does not get you that card immediately the way Gifts does.

How many slots do you plan to use on this?  If your plan is to EOT cast Quicken and then Trade Routes, you need both of those cards and 1UUU, which is not easy to come by.  If you want to count on having both of a card at the same time early in the game AND count on having triple blue available, that seriously constricts the others colors you can be playing, and also requires you to run a large number of both Quicken and Trade Routes.  You will likely end up needing both as a 4-of to have any hope of reliably getting this off.  This is all even besides the question of whether it's even worth doing, because while yes, you would get a lot of cards, your opponent is also sculpting a very nice hand you will have to fight through.

To sum up, you're wrong about Gifts, and this idea is far too clunky to actually be of any use in practice.  Remember the danger of doing cool things.

[Rafka]

Remember that Uba Mask is around and that "drawing cards" and "putting cards in hand" and two totally different things.
Gifts is great and one-sided while Trace Secrets is not.

[Dirty_Harry]

So your willing to pay UUU1 to draw 5 cards and give your opp 2.
And in so doing have to make a mana base completely dependent on U,
I'm really not trying to rip u on this I really want to see someone do something really cool with quicken but this just isn't it.
If your looking for a real card advantage just run Intuition/AK.
And I really hate to agreed with Pacman(easily the bigest scrub ever) but Gifts for win with the easy to cast U3(especially with drain mana) or 8 slots in my deck(that could be used for much better cards) a mana cost = to UUU1 and all I get is 5 cards(not to mention having to get this combo in your hand to actually make viable) and giving my opponent 2.
And a very simple rule about vintage that I love to hear, anything that cost u 4 in vintage and doesn't win u the game really just isn't worth playing.