[Single Card Discussion]Azorius AEthermage

[BruiZar]

this is the first card i deem testworthy of vintage.

the biggest drawback is it being a 1/1 critter thus dying to darkblast or lavadarts, however this wizard turns gush into a major threat and allows daze to win the counter war for you since you get an automatic extra draw. it can even do lots of cool tricks with karakas and ninja of the deep hours.

feel free to post your thoughts about this little bastard.

should a fish build sport black white and blue or just blue and white. black gives you tutors, confidants, duress' and err cavern harpy [yes, cavern harpy ;p...]

[49 Cents]

For the people (like me) who have no idea what this card does:

Azorius AEthermage 
Creature - Human Wizard   
Whenever a permanent is returned to your hand, you may pay . If you do, draw a card.
1/1

[Harlequin]

Now THAT is a considerably card for fish.  Esp a fish deck running 4 ninja of deep hours.  But.... I wish he was 1 mana.  Or the ability was simply triggered with commitment.  But what would you cut??

[benthetenor]

That's an awful lot of mana to sink into a card that doesn't even disrupt your opponent and doesn't do anything on it's own AND is a 1/1. The Gush trick is kinda neat, but if you cast a Gush you shouldn't just be throwing your mana away.

[warble]

It's too mana intensive.  It's 2 mana for a 1/1 beater and it's not a meddling mage and it requires two colors.  Fish can possibly put him down on what, turn 4?  You overestimate how important it is to draw cards with fish late.  If you lost the early battles your fish deck died...end of story.  This does nothing to address that issue so for fish it really is a pile of $%$#&.  Seriously, if you run ninja you want support in 1/1 unblockables or other junk for 1 drops not 2 drops, once the game escalates to 2-drops for fish it's sadness and depression all around.

automatic extra draw

If this statement were true, you'd be right.  It's not, it costs mana for the draw, so the little guy sucks.  Fish has no mana, we all know that.  It's built to work around having no mana.  Automatic extra draw is dark confidant.  At least he beats for 2 and doesn't cost mana.  There's really no competition between him and this piece of type 2 junk, broken in vintage is going around something.  This goes around nothing.

[Harlequin]

You could probably build some sort of UBER CRAZY Bounce-a-tog type deck.  It would likely have to be 5 color though. well at least 3.  But you could definatly draw some insane card advantage ... probably better than that of even the Intuition AK engin.

Can I give a shout-out to [card]Ghost Town[/card]
Uncounterable conversion of your landdrop into an extra draw for turn on opponents EOT?? Not that bad.

[card]Trade Routes[/card]??

You probably wouldn't even really need Cunning wish to swing a lethal tog.  because you just return cards to draw cards.  then go 3 damage for 2 cards ... thats not too bad.  Also roll in life from the loam and fastbond!! this could be viable.  But probably more viable in Legacy or Extended.

[klu]

It has the cost of a meddling mage for a 1/1.
In addition : you have to PAY mana when you want to bounce something YOU own. well, it seems to be a pretty bad card for the type 1. UW for nothin..
for 2 mana, you have some huge spells to cast : demonic, walk, merchant scroll, null rod, sphere of resistance, mana drain, dark confidant.. and you are arguing on a 1/1 that does nothing..
sry, but this card is simply bad.. stop dreaming.

[Implacable]

Two mana for a 1/1?  In an aggro deck?  Just say no.

[Whatever Works]

How is the card to color intensive??? If its like all the other guildmages its casting cost wouldnt be UW it would be U/W U/W... So it could be played in a fish deck (or some version of a combo deck that wouldnt require both colors.

Again, the card is interesting. But it still looks like a tease card that could be good, but probably just wont cut it.

[Harlequin]

As a Prelim.  Just a shoot in the dark something like:


1   LOA
1   Tolarian
4   Gemstone Mine
2   Ghost Town
2   Tendo Icebridge
2   Tropical
1   Tundra
1   Underground
3   Fetch U

5   Mox
1   Sol Ring
1   Lotus
1   Mana Crypt
1   Petal

4   Force
4   Drain

4   Azura Aethermage
3   Psychatog
1   Tinker
1   Darksteel colosus

1   Yawgs will
1   Ancestral
1   Timewalk
1   Frantic
1   Gush
1   Crop Rotate
1   FoF
1   Mystical
1   Vamp

3   Trade Routes
1   Fastbond
1   Azusa
3   Life from the loam

Perhaps?

[TimeWizzle]

I don't think this card is playable in any competitive deck, but it could be pretty fun in some kind of cloudstone curio/kobold deck maybe?  Or maybe an aluren deck?  Not good in any case, the draw should be free.

[Nastaboi]

How is the card to color intensive??? If its like all the other guildmages its casting cost wouldnt be UW it would be U/W U/W... So it could be played in a fish deck (or some version of a combo deck that wouldnt require both colors.

AEthermage and Guildmage are different animals and discussed on separate threads.

[Vegeta2711]

It's terrible. You should be able to tell that the second you realize you need to go out of your way to incorprate him.

[BruiZar]

I think this is a card that needs further testing before anyone can say it either rocks or sucks. Confidant gives you a garantueed draw and hits for 2, azorius hits for 1 and possibly gives you an extra draw if you pay for it. Obviously that is worse, but the combo potential and counter war should be much easier to win.

Mikakori (or whats its name?), Ghost Town and Undiscovered Paradise all give good tricks. It puts loa to shame and last thing I heard, LoA is a restricted card for a reason. Even karakas can get down to some serious business.

As for this kind of fish build, i was thinking of a more controllish version instead of an aggro version. With meddling mage, a staple of counters, and good, effective ways to draw into those counters, you should have plenty of ways to finish of combo decks that rely on 1 shot spells like yawgmoth's will.

if this card is too slow, i dont know. It can be cast first turn with a mox but only activated the next turn. I still believe there is a good way to abuse this little card but I doubt it will find its place in vintage anytime soon. Just like confidant this little sucker needs time to find his place in a deck so that he can excell.

Lets not mock this card before the rest of dissension is announced, it seems that 'free' draw is what azorius is all about so who knows what else might get released for synergy's sake

[GrandpaBelcher]

It seems like playing this card would require too much messing around with the rest of the deck to be effective.  I mean, ninjutsu and Ghost Town are good tricks, but beyond chaining Ninjas of the Deep Hours together and paying extra mana to draw with the Aethermage, it won't be a reliable source of draw or attacking.  And since it won't further your game much or hinder theirs, it just becomes an overcosted 1/1 that makes you want to set your own game back a step.  UW Fish either really has to change or this card won't get used in it.

However, this card could get used in another deck that sets itself up for a longer game than fish usually wants to play.  It might be fish-like, though I think it will be more controlling, and it will be built specifically to give the Aethermage far more utility.  Who knows, maybe this is the card that breaks Words of Wind in half.

And of course, this is all said without knowing what else will show up in Dissension.

[benthetenor]

Let's put this in obvious terms. Fish in all of it's variety is good because it makes the most use of any deck in the format of small tempo gains. Adding a card that sucks your tempo away rather than adds to it is counter-productive in a Fish deck. If you try the strategy, then you won't be able to generate enough tempo and you will find your small crappy creatures being answered by much better spells, all because you tried to squeeze in a bit more card advantage. In fish, card advantage is all but irrelevant. It plays a tempo game because if it didn't, all the card quantity in the world wouldn't make up for the serious lack of card quality.

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

Honestly I think this card shouldn't be looked at as a fish card but merely (as Harlequin stated) as a card which could be used in some GroAtog deck playing with gush, trade routes (where drain mana could come in handily with routes and aethermage) and perhaps daze (or not. Don't know)
As for fish, there are better ways to draw cards. even standstill would be better.

[Harlequin]

As it turns out I think this guy costs {W}  makeing him infinantly less playable.  I goldfished the deck list above.  Even when this guy only cost two I found it lacking.  Sure It was really fun to bouce and replay my Tolarian cad ... but it seemed to offer no more stabily or speed than just running standard tog. 

I will say this though, I was impressed by the amount of control the deck had .... when I accedently was running the deck with 64 cards and 8 force of wills.

[PETER FLUGZEUG]

OK, with the additional 1 it costs, it's probaably dead.

[BruiZar]

what can i say, 2 is a company, 3 mana a crowd.

Declared -> DEAD

[Glix]

As said, this card is useless.

If its ability was free, there might have been a combo out their somewhere.  It would at least be good.  However, it is too slow, costly, and weak.

Nice try, though.