Praetor's Grip

[Mr. Type 4]

I dont think this will be very good.  The only real advantage over Grim Tutor is that you take one of their cards away, but I agree with Jimmy that in many ways this could be a disadvantage because of graveyard recursion.  I'd be really excited if it were 2 mana but at 3 it has a lot of competition. 

For the most part when I do a tutor, I like to know I'm going to be able to find the thing I want.  If I go digging through your deck for Yawg Will and it's in your hand I'm going to wish I was just looking through my own damn deck. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

If I go digging through your deck for Yawg Will and it's in your hand I'm going to wish I was just looking through my own damn deck.

Grab Duress/Drain/FoW or just win.  You now know your opponent's hand and still have the opportunity to grab the most relevant spell in his library.

[Worldslayer]

Blue mirrors:  Pretty sure this one's been covered as busted. If can halt VaultKey if they're halfway there or less, complete your own, or just remove their ability to do dumb things. As a 2-of, has the capability of simply removing their ability to win if for whatever reason you can't leverage it into your own victory. Gripping Vault and Blightsteel in most blue mirrors, for example, leaves them with at most a Tendrils, and usually only Planeswalker ultimates.

Workshop - against MUD, the multimana lands seem fine. Against Red workshop lists, grabbing a Welder (if you have the ability to cast it) can be a gigantic tactic, as anyone who's ever used Welder against a shop deck can attest to.

Fish - Sure, grabbing a Goyf to wall is fine. Nature's Claiming their Revoker (Naming Vault) or Null Rod is also good. StPing their Teeg or Selkie...a lot of fish's answers to broken things work perfectly fine against their not so broken things.

Tendrils - Maybe the second Tendrils isn't training wheels anymore? Probably better to just take one of their busted engine cards and bury them in CA with it.

Ichorid - ....bazaar? Got me here.


Certainly not the be all end all, and nowhere near as revolutionary as, say, Lodestone Golem, but a very fine versatile roleplayer given the correct manabase. As the first 23 cards of NPH were spoiled, this is actually the one that immediately caught my attention specifically for vintage play. Given that the secondary condition of making Grip good is the ability to cast said Gripped cards, DeMars 4c VaultKey lists seem like a good home for the card given the deck's penchant for good, versatile tools and ability to produce mana of any color.

[nineisnoone]

This card is good.  I think people are going to sleeping on it.

1) You can look through your opponent's deck.  That's good and while it's not worth it as a paid-for effect, as an incidental effect it is huge.  Game 1, what the hell is you deck?  Game 2, what the hell did you sideboard against me?  Knowledge isn't power, it's just a power multiplier which leads to...

2) It's defensive or offensive.  So basically, you know what's in their hand.  Being able to pull a card of your choosing for either purpose is pretty big. 

3) There are always good targets.  There is nothing wrong with Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Demonic Tutor, etc. etc. etc.  Okay, Dredge, but yeah we can't really hold it against the card for being ineffectual there and you could do worse than Bazaar.


The fundamental difference between Grim Tutor and this card is that Grim Tutor forces you to play blind and aggressively.  You have to be pushing for a win and you have to committal.  It's just too expensive/slow to use otherwise. 

But this card gives you that flexibility.  Sure it costs 3 mana to play, but rather than being a closed card this is a very open card.  You play it and it creates options and opportunities, while still having more boring but safe options. 

Personally, I think this is a huge card for Ritual combo decks (3-4x) and a worthwhile card (0-2) in control decks that can support the double black.

[MaximumCDawg]

I'll chime in with another "this card is busted good."  Other than against MUD and Ichorid, you gain basically complete knowledge of all of your opponent's hidden zone, and either expiate them, grab a win condition for yourself, or grab an answer for one of their threats.  It's expensive at 3, but that's fine for ritual decks or as a one-of mid game.  And the best part?  I don't think this card is anywhere near as good in Legacy or Standard, so I bet it will slink around around 5 buxx tops.  Good times, good times.

[Oath of Happy]

How did they not make this a Mythic?

[Purple Hat]

 

Personally, I think this is a huge card for Ritual combo decks (3-4x) and a worthwhile card (0-2) in control decks that can support the double black.

I think its better than people are giving it credit for and would play it in ritual decks, but as a 3-4 of?  I doubt it.  I don't think it's a card that I really want to cast at least once in every game, but more a card that I would rarely be unhappy to cast.

[nineisnoone]

 

Personally, I think this is a huge card for Ritual combo decks (3-4x) and a worthwhile card (0-2) in control decks that can support the double black.

I think its better than people are giving it credit for and would play it in ritual decks, but as a 3-4 of?  I doubt it.  I don't think it's a card that I really want to cast at least once in every game, but more a card that I would rarely be unhappy to cast.

Well, I suck at building ritual decks so I can't say for sure, but I would imagine combo decks would want more for the more linear-combo uses for the cards but not be unhappy with multiples due to its utility.

[bun]

I wonder if you can grab academy/shop with this.  I suppose the wording isn't official.  I'm curious though.

This thing still isn't terrible against mud and ichorid though.  You just have to be prepared to make this a defensive card, depending on their deck.  Steal a leyline and hardcast it against ichorid, or grab a lodestone golem or something and cast it off drain mana or academy; heck, you can probably find a fatestitcher or voltaic key.

I don't think it will spawn a deck where it is an auto four of, but I can see maindecking this.  Just realize that it is a new breed of tutor, in the same way that the wishes required a new train of thought when they came into play.

[That0neguy]

I think it needed to cost less to be playable.

In combo - I feel like you really need to play it the turn before you go off - otherwise it is just a risky version of grim tutor.  If you plan on winning the next turn - it doesn't matter if your opponent is denied the use of his Will - you winning the game will deny him the use of his Will while its still in his deck.  If your going for ancestral - thats 4 mana for 3 cards - and Concentrate isn't played.  Black Lotus doesn't generate mana since your paying 3 to get 3 - and you won't be able to replay it off will.  If you are trying to play it defensively - why not just play duress and deal with a card that is much more threatening.

3 Mana to steal your opponents academy doesn't seem that great against shop - since you need to play 3-5 mana to play it in the first place, for it to likely eat a wasteland.

Stealing time vault in the mirror seems like the most interesting thing to do - and is that really worth 1-2 slots over something that will work all the time?

[mort-]

So I tested this in a UGRB VaultKey deck at the Bazaar of Moxen 5, going 6:2:1, winning against Welder/Entomb/VaultKey, Dragonbreath Oath, 2x Turbotezz, BR Hate and WB Hate, losing against TPS (yeah, 2 times first turn Necro with Backup is that good ) and UWGR Fish, drawing against Redstaxx, having a Blighsteel on the table, him not having anything left and seven poisoncounters - but oh well, we were in the fifth extraturn already :/
I have to say, this card is just nuts. It won me the game every single time I played it (even taking Demonic Tutor out of BR Hate in g1).
Yes, you have to board it out against Ichorid or Staxx, but it's almost a second Demonic against every blue deck out there and definitly worth 3 mana.

[GrandpaBelcher]

How many copies did you play? And what did you leave it in or board it out against?

[mort-]

How many copies did you play? And what did you leave it in or board it out against?

Just one. I boarded it out against Red Staxx, RB Hate, WB Hate and 4c Fish. It was a gamewinner against each other blue deck so I left it in.
Short story of which plays I made:

Against URB Weldercontrol with Vault and Entomb I saw that he had Vault in hand (Key in play) so I took a Drain and countered his Vault. In the third game I took his Vault and went infinite with it.
Against Turbotezz first game I took his Tezzeret, searched for my Vault. He had to play the Tezz in his hand so that he would not lose on my next turn. I was also able to see that he had at least 1 Drain in hand (none left in the deck, so I was guessing he had 2), so I grudged his two Synods a few turns later. He was then only able to play one Drain for my Vault, which I could Redblast, I did not have a second counter.
Again, in the third game we were both in topdeck mode after a counterwar, so I took his top and the filter ability also won me the game (this was maybe not the optimal play, but it was the best thing I saw in this moment).
Against the TPS player, I had double Confidant, so I took his Tendrils. Sadly, he had Tinker, Time Walk AND Will to still kill me with Blightsteel.

[MaximumCDawg]

Thanks for the report, Mort.  As soon as my playset comes, I will definetly be using this in weekly Vintage too.  I suspect that this is just the bee's knees in ritual decks.  In Dark Times, it does half of the work of sadistic sacrament (hit library), duress effects (determine whether its safe to combo) or search effects (granted, you're unlikely to find your combo pieces in their deck, but you are likely to find a yawgwill or hate you can use.)  In Tendrils, it's demonic tutor (for lotus, tendrils, or yagwill probably) or it's a mana-friendly 2 pump to storm (grab a lotus / mox).

In a blue shell, yea probably play just one or two.  But, I'm probably going to try a whole playset in Dark Times and see how that works.