Realms Uncharted

[o uncola o]

I don't know if it is "broken"... but it has a very powerful and versatile effect.  Depending on the lands that are printed in future sets, it has the possibility of becoming broken at some point.  Also, I agree that is will see play in legacy in 43 land and possibly a few others.

[desolutionist]

I could see these card as a 1-of in Oath.

Tolarian Academy
Forbidden Orchard
Strip Mine
Wasteland

That seems like a strong turn 2 play.  And don't forget about Tolarian Winds.

[Darkenslight]

I think you#re missing the potential; remember that if you only search for two lands, both go to the graveyard.

Think about that for a minute.  Two lands Entombed.  For  .

This.  Will.  Be.  AWESOME.

[Troy_Costisick]

I could see these card as a 1-of in Oath.

Tolarian Academy
Forbidden Orchard
Strip Mine
Wasteland

That forces some pretty nasty choices, doesn't it?  Academy and Waste, I suppose?  Yikes.

[meadbert]

I could see these card as a 1-of in Oath.

Tolarian Academy
Forbidden Orchard
Strip Mine
Wasteland

That seems like a strong turn 2 play.  And don't forget about Tolarian Winds.

But is that better than Intuition for Loam, Orchard Strip?
Intuition can also get Orchard, Orchard, Orchard and Oath, Oath, Oath. 
Intuition pitches to Force.

[Wise]

if you feel like it you could even get


Tolarian Academy
Forbidden Orchard
Strip Mine

I agree with Meat, I dont see this being any stronger then Intuition, unless some deck finds away to abuse lands in and out of your grave

[Klep]

I agree with Meat, I dont see this being any stronger then Intuition, unless some deck finds away to abuse lands in and out of your grave

The problem is that Intuition is still better in those decks because you want to play Life From the Loam in them anyway.

[o uncola o]

I don't think that this has a place in vintage right now... but it my in the future be very strong.  Only time will tell.

[madmanmike25]

I think you#re missing the potential; remember that if you only search for two lands, both go to the graveyard.

Is that how it works?  The card says you have to search for four lands, not "up to four" lands.  From the wording it doesn't seem like you have the option to only search for two lands.

[smasher]

It's worded the same as gifts ungiven. I would assume the reason it works for either card is the fact you have to find 4 cards with different names.

[Killane]

you can always fail to find

[Evenpence]

you can always fail to find

^ Yep.  Magic (as far as I know) doesn't work on an honor system, so if you cast the spell and there were only 2 or 3 lands left in your library, you would fail to find more than that, so that's all you could offer to your opponent.

Your opponent doesn't get the ability to look at your library here, so he has no idea whether you're telling the truth or a lie, and Magic would be a lot worse if every time someone failed to find a judge would have to come over and authenticate the claim.

[Yare]

701.14b If a player is searching a hidden zone for cards with a stated quality, such as a card with a certain card type or color, that player isn’t required to find some or all of those cards even if they’re present in that zone.
Example: Splinter says “Exile target artifact. Search its controller’s graveyard, hand, and library for all cards with the same name as that artifact and exile them. That player then shuffles his or her library.” A player casts Splinter targeting Howling Mine (an artifact). Howling Mine’s controller has another Howling Mine in her graveyard and two more in her library. Splinter’s controller must find the Howling Mine in the graveyard, but may choose to find zero, one, or two of the Howling Mines in the library.

701.14c If a player is searching a hidden zone simply for a quantity of cards, such as “a card” or “three cards,” that player must find that many cards (or as many as possible, if the zone doesn’t contain enough cards).

So, for this new card, you can find 0 to 4. For a card like Demonic Tutor, however, if there's at least one card in your library, you have to find a card.

[madmanmike25]

Cool, thanks for the info.  I've never had anyone gifts me for less than 4 cards so I assumed 4 was the required number. 

Still, this card may see play in a turboland deck alongside Crop Rotation.  I'm sure Meadbert can make that happen

[meadbert]

Cool, thanks for the info.  I've never had anyone gifts me for less than 4 cards so I assumed 4 was the required number. 

This used to be a common play for Slaver.  Basically they would gifts for their two Mindslavers/Robots and a third card.  Then you would have to put at least one Mindslaver/Robot in their yard.
If they had 2xWelder out they could even Gifts as a double Entomb getting just Pentavus and Mindslaver.

A high profile use of this play occurred at GenCon in 2005, although I forget who made it and the exact cirumstances.

What never sat right with me was the allowing someone to fail to find in this case when any deck with that many Pentavuses and Mindslavers would have been illegal.  Island, Pentavus, Mindslaver would be fine since in theory they might have 40 Islands left.

[gkraigher]

i know this card is going into the lands deck in legacy.  i don't know how good it is going to be in vintage.  but all and all this is a very promising card for the eternal formats.

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

i know this card is going into the lands deck in legacy.  i don't know how good it is going to be in vintage.  but all and all this is a very promising card for the eternal formats.

It’s definitely not going it X land or any deck that can justify even splashing blue for reasons previously mentioned. Let’s just throw this bad boy in the crap rare pile and be done with it.

[Delha]

Agreed w/ all those saying this is inferior to Intuition. At the end of the day, this is functionally similar in a couple situations, and worse in nearly all others.

At the end of the day, I think the big problem is that lands generally do nothing in your grave. If RoE includes a bunch of ways to cheat lands from your grave into play, then this may find a use. Even then however (as stated by others before me), Intuition grabs you the lands AND your recursive spell in one shot.

I don't forsee a lot of utility here, Eternal or otherwise. It might be better in Standard, except for the card pool being so small. I expect people will have trouble finding enough functionally identical lands to build the Catch-22 piles Gifts is known for.

[gkraigher]

so let me get this straight you don't think that karakas, maze of ith/tabernacle, petrified field, wasteland is a good set of cards to get in legacy/vintage?

and if you happen to be playing with life from the loam its just irrelevant

[hvndr3d y34r h3x]

so let me get this straight you don't think that karakas, maze of ith/tabernacle, petrified field, wasteland is a good set of cards to get in legacy/vintage?

and if you happen to be playing with life from the loam its just irrelevant

First off, I think life from the loam is better than petrified field by miles. The rest of those cards can be retrieved with intuition.

Think about this: Intuition for utility land X + utility land Y+ life from the loam.
This allows you to get any 2 utility lands in your deck without any other pieces needed (like bad cards like petrified field). This also allows you to get your lands back if then get wasted.This also frees you from the tempo loss tied to petrified field. You can also retrieve more than one wasteland
Intuition is just more versatile and resilient than realms uncharted because life from the loam was printed. If I deck is playing this instead of intuition and could justify splashing blue, the deck is worse than it could be.

[Tha Gunslinga]

so let me get this straight you don't think that karakas, maze of ith/tabernacle, petrified field, wasteland is a good set of cards to get in legacy/vintage?

Give you Karakas and Maze, kill you with infinite turns and animated artifacts.

Give you Wasteland/Karakas, Oath up Terastodon, blow up both.

Give you Karakas/Wasteland, Tinker out DSC off 2 Islands and a Mox.

I don't see those particular cards as consistent threats, no.

[Cyberpunker]

so let me get this straight you don't think that karakas, maze of ith/tabernacle, petrified field, wasteland is a good set of cards to get in legacy/vintage?

Give you Karakas and Maze, kill you with infinite turns and animated artifacts.

Give you Wasteland/Karakas, Oath up Terastodon, blow up both.

Give you Karakas/Wasteland, Tinker out DSC off 2 Islands and a Mox.

I don't see those particular cards as consistent threats, no.

Very situational though. Still, I do not think this card is the best answer to Oath.

[vassago]

For some reason, I see this thing only seeing play in EDH

[DubDub]

For some reason, I see this thing only seeing play in EDH

Yes, where it will be very very good!

[Tha Gunslinga]

This is totally playable in Type 1, you just have to build the deck around it.  The 4 cards I would probably go for are Wasteland, Strip Mine, Petrified Field, and something else, not sure yet.  Base the deck around Crucible and make it mono-green Stax or something.  The card fetches 4 lands, and is card advantage, unlike Intuition; I'm sure something useful can be done with it.

[vassago]

This is totally playable in Type 1, you just have to build the deck around it.  The 4 cards I would probably go for are Wasteland, Strip Mine, Petrified Field, and something else, not sure yet.  Base the deck around Crucible and make it mono-green Stax or something.  The card fetches 4 lands, and is card advantage, unlike Intuition; I'm sure something useful can be done with it.

P.Field, Wasteland, Stripmine and Bazaar seems pretty sick.

[Delha]

so let me get this straight you don't think that karakas, maze of ith/tabernacle, petrified field, wasteland is a good set of cards to get in legacy/vintage?

and if you happen to be playing with life from the loam its just irrelevant

Look at it this way: Wouldn't it be better to just grab 3 of whatever helps you the most? I suspect this is the point TheGunslinga was getting at. For any pile you make, your opponent will give you the cards that least affect his plans. Gifts was able to build piles like Wish/Walk/Will/Recoup, where no matter what you chose, they would take two extra turns and resolve a fat Will. Being limited to lands makes this very hard to break in a comparable manner.

This is totally playable in Type 1, you just have to build the deck around it...

When I first started typing, I agreed with this. As I wrote though, I couldn't help thinking that even in this hypothetical deck I'd still want Intuition instead. If you don't have Crucible, having extra tutors for it seems key. After you've got Crucible up, does it really matter if you grab Field/Waste/Strip/Bazaar instead of Strip/Bazaar/Mountain Goat? Since the whole point of the deck is playing lands from either zone, I'd think the more relevant limitation is Fastbond.

[Tha Gunslinga]

The thing about this is that Intuition puts ONE card in hand.  This puts TWO.  That's called card advantage, and makes this potentially useful.  It also is green, meaning you can build a mono-green deck and not worry about fetches and duals, and unlike Loam you don't have to take the time to dredge, and it's not totally dead vs graveyard hate.  Loam is also a sorcery, so it's easier for them to counter.

[meadbert]

The thing about this is that Intuition puts ONE card in hand.  This puts TWO.  That's called card advantage, and makes this potentially useful.  It also is green, meaning you can build a mono-green deck and not worry about fetches and duals, and unlike Loam you don't have to take the time to dredge, and it's not totally dead vs graveyard hate.  Loam is also a sorcery, so it's easier for them to counter.

So the card advantage I get.  I suppose this could be played with Compulsive Research to generate card advantage.

Regarding Fetches in a Mono Green deck.  Presumably this deck would run Life from the Loam in which case you would want at least some Fetches.  If you are not running Root Maze then you presumably want many fetches.

I do not see how being Green is an advantage over being blue in type 1.  Being able to fit into a Mono Green list is nice, but not pitching to Force and not being able to go into any list without green is pretty bad.  Certainly there may be an opportunity in some Mono Green list to use this, but would that be better than Oath using Intuition?

Intuition is not totally dead versus graveyard hate as you can Intuition for 3 Oath or 3 Orchard or 3 Force or 3 Restricted spells.

Loam is easier to counter than what?  If you are comparing it what you would fetch with Realms Uncharted then you are saying that Loam is easier to counter than a land which is certainly true, but hardly makes that land better or Realms Uncharted better than Intuition.

This card is not type 1 material given the current card pool, but that does not mean it will not be good in the future.  If Wizards prints a Land that can act as Force of Will or a Bojuka Bog that can be played from your hand then this card starts to be very interesting.  The trouble with tutoring for 4 lands (or even 2) right now is that by definition you can only play 1 a turn.  Gifts for 4 Moxen (or more likely 3 moxen + Mana Crypt) was good because you could drop both right away.

Compulsive Research is interesting since you could play one land and discard the other to Compulsive Research.  WIth Bazaar out Realms Uncharted is decent since you can discard both lands, but then Intuition for 3xSquee or Loam + Squee + Strip is pretty hot with Bazaar out.
Other than a few examples (which are all slow for type 1) I see no way of bring your weapons to bare fast enough.

If Wizards prints the Land Force of Will and the Bojuka Bog that can be played from hand then all bets are off and this card is great since you can bring your weapons to bare right away.

Getting back to Mono Green.  If Wizards prints some insane Green cards (eg:  Choke replacing Island with Non Forest) then there could be a reason to run non-Elves Mono Green.  In that case this card could be interesting.

So the card has potential to be useful eventually, but given the current card pool I just do not see a home.

[vassago]

This thread is thought provoking to say the least.  

After reading this thread, I am not sold on either side of the playability debate. This card is busted, this i see as a truth. However, it is obviously restricted in its uses, but that doesn't mean it is unplayable. The comparison/contrast to intuition is the part I keep getting hung up on, as it seems like most people are saying "this instead of that" when thinking about the two cards. I would love to see both in a list, but I do not know if it is worth the time or the effort to try and make it work.

Here is what I am thinking in terms of cards:

2 realms 2 intuition 1 gifts 1 demonic 1 vampiric 1 yawgmoths will 1 regrowth 4 force of will 1 ancestral 1 timewalk 1 key 1 timevault 1 bazaar 1 petrified field 1 stripmine 1 wasteland(maybe more) 1 tolarian academy 1 crucible? 1 life from the loam?

These are the things I would want to auto include when I think about this kind of list.  I could be thinking about it wrong, but however, just with the limited amount of cards listed, realms seems pretty good either way.