Blind Obedience

[gkraigher]

I wish it were attached to a creature, but its not.  Its a very grindy card, that helps white creature decks deal with some issues.

voltaic key now comes into play tapped, so does mana vault.  
griselbrand cannot block the turn it hits the board, so you can get one more full swing in.
ichorids cannot attack, nor can hasted bloodghasts

It also slows down a lot of decks.  Artifacts coming into play tapped is similar to a sphere effect in that it ties up mana for a turn.  Creatures coming into play tapped allows you to stay on the offense.  Extort is also a very good mana dump ability to have.  

All that being said, I still have doubts its good enough for vintage. 

[serracollector]

I noticed this card too.  If it said lands it would be an auto include in white trash I think.  White trash is getting alot in terms of this, stony silence, rest in peice, thalia, and such.  Also white trash usually does have extra mana each turn to use, so casting w/e, and using the exort ability is quite nice.  Slows down MUD a bit, making their critter comes into play tapped so we get a swing, and also makes things like Lightning Greaves null in Kuldotha/Metalworker MUD builds, but may not be good enough with stony silence already around.

[Shax]

    even trinisphere comes into play tapped
    so it's effect doesn't work the first turn they play it
    game=blown

[Protoaddict]

It is hard to figure out what would get cut for this card in mono white but it seems like it has tons of potential.

Like most of the white hate bear cards, it messes over pieces to a great many strategies but not quite all of them for any given deck, but it is also a source of damage and therefore a wincon. I think the key to those decks in the future will be to diversify hate so that you have some coverage for every common scenario main deck, then sideboard in to win.

So with that being said, this does attack dredge on some new vectors, but with grafdiggers and rest in piece we don't really need that.
It slows down shops or anything that relies on artifact mana too heavily, but we already have kataki and stony and null rod.
It stops tezz from getting vault key online, but we have arbiter to stop searching and tons of artifact removal.

It should also be noted that it's damn strong when combined with a sphere like Thalia. No longer can your opponent chain moxes to pay for moxes, now they have to wait a full turn to just to pay for it. A starting hand with this, Thalia, lotus, and a plains or cavern of souls may be the ideal opening hand for mono white.

I will certainly try this out. I'm thinking 1 in the main since it wont ever be a fully dead card and 2 in the board. In games where it comes up and it works on a hate level that's great, games where it is not its still probably a few points of chip damage and an edge over other aggro style lists with it's life gain.

[serracollector]

Maybe its time for someone to just make a deck full of white enchantments and opalescence...

[StanleyAugust]

Honestly, this card sucks and is never gonna see play. If you have access to green, Root Maze is like a hundred times better, yet still not good enough. If you don't have access to green it means you're playing White Trash in which case you can just play Stony Silence because the creature part doesn't really matter in a metagame where White Trash can shine.

[xouman]

It combines nicely with gorilla shaman (moxes won't ever give mana). Royal assassin would have liked this card eons ago.

Overall seems a very fringe card, but played with confidant let's you stay high on life while drawing and playing lots of cards.

[brokenbacon]

Maybe its time for someone to just make a deck full of white enchantments and opalescence...

CHUSSSSSSSS

[gkraigher]

The comparison to root maze is a good one.  The problem with root maze is how bad it is on the draw.  It no longer is able to slow your opponent down, and it really just hurts you.  

I think this card is a 1 of in a white hate bears deck.  Its effect is good, but not amazing, against a variety of decks.  But you never want to draw more than 1 of these in a game.  

That opalescence idea might fly in legacy.  At least one day, if they do keep printing cheap utility white enchantments at this rate. 

[MaximumCDawg]

This is a terrible card (in Vintage).  Root Maze was already a niche card, and this thing is worse than Root Maze in two critical ways: (1) It cannot come down before Moxen unless you're accelerating it out with your own artifact mana; and (2) this thing doesn't stop lands, so it can't act as a soft lock and it cannot punish fetchlands.  The Extort ability is not itself worth a card, and I doubt it's even worth the 1 mana investment.

[Daenyth]

If this were on a 2/x it might see play, but as is, I don't see how any deck wants to cut effective cards for this.

[zimagic]

Would this not be a decent addition to Salvagers? It's a win condition with either LED or Black Lotus.

[Wagner]

Would this not be a decent addition to Salvagers? It's a win condition with either LED or Black Lotus.

A lot of things are a win condition with Salvager and Lotus, I think most Bomberman players would just rather have another blue or black spellbomb instead of this, you can at least fetch it with Trinket and it can be useful on its own.

[Vennie]

Would this not be a decent addition to Salvagers? It's a win condition with either LED or Black Lotus.

That's the same like saying "hey look i got infinate mana.... Now how am i going to kill you with it...."

[Saya]

btw can it be a measure for salvager infinite combo?

[gkraigher]

It does combo out with Salvagers and lotus.  It is not searchable with gifts ungiven, but it is an alternate win con.  Which is always a good thing.  I could see this being a 1 of in a salvagers deck.  Again, the card does relevant things, especially if it comes down on turn 1. 

[StanleyAugust]

Why on earth would Bomberman play a card that makes the opponent's lands enter the battlefield tapped?

[Wagner]

Why on earth would Bomberman play a card that makes the opponent's lands enter the battlefield tapped?

It wouldn't, and this card doesn't even do this, it only affects Artifacts and creatures. Pure rubbish.

[TheWhiteDragon]

I don't see this card as total garbage.  What i see it as is a g/w or w-trash answer to storm and a hinderance to shops.  Hard to build storm when your moxen can't add storm AND mana on the same turn.  Try plopping that turn 1 lodestone when your moxen enter tapped.  Then when you DO cast him, it's tapped, so the white deck gets yet another blockerless combat.  SB card at best maybe.

[StanleyAugust]

Why on earth would Bomberman play a card that makes the opponent's lands enter the battlefield tapped?

It wouldn't, and this card doesn't even do this, it only affects Artifacts and creatures. Pure rubbish.

lol yes, I even remembered the card wrong. Way worse then.

[brianpk80]

I think it's a solid card.  It's probably the most intriguing thing I saw in the set.  I've used Root Mazes in several decks over the years and I'm trying to envision a context where it hinders creatures rather than lands and (most importantly) is asymmetrical.  The Extort bonus isn't game swinging but in designing decks running Dark Confidant, the random game losses yearn for something maindeck to offset the life loss, like Batterskull or Umezawa's Jitte. 

This card is pretty diverse and seems to affect the game in a way that enables winning small.  It's not glamorous, but it's effective. 

[tito del monte]

This card is pretty diverse and seems to affect the game in a way that enables winning small.  It's not glamorous, but it's effective. 

Yup - I don't think it has a place in Bomberman, but I'm going to give it a try in a White Trash build with Stoneforge Mystic, in the place of Stony Silence. Might be a bad idea but worth a test. Having played in the pre-release yesterday, Extort (obviously in a wholly different format) turned out to be a much better mechanic than I'd thought.

[StanleyAugust]

I don't see this card as total garbage.  What i see it as is a g/w or w-trash answer to storm and a hinderance to shops.  Hard to build storm when your moxen can't add storm AND mana on the same turn.  Try plopping that turn 1 lodestone when your moxen enter tapped.  Then when you DO cast him, it's tapped, so the white deck gets yet another blockerless combat.  SB card at best maybe.

If I'm lucky enough to win the die roll against workshop and I'm lucky enough to have access to 1W turn 1, I can think of quite a few cards I'd rather have than this.

[MaximumCDawg]

This card is pretty diverse and seems to affect the game in a way that enables winning small.  It's not glamorous, but it's effective. 

Effective at doing what, Bri?  This card seems primarily positioned to win creature mirrors by preventing enemy creatures from blocking when they hit.  Let's consider what it does in various matchups:

1. Storm. This prevents them from dumping their artifact mana while they try to go off.  But, Stony Silence and Thalia accomplish the same thing for the same price more effectively, and splash against other decks to boot. 

2. Oath.  This slows down Golden Gun Oath one turn.  Other Oath variants don't care if Grislebrand or Runescar or Tyrant come into play tapped.  But, Disenchant, Seal of Cleansing, and Tariff are stronger Oath hate for the same price, and splash against other decks to boot.

3. Shops.  Shops does not care if your two-drop makes its artifact mana come into play tapped.  Largely because you will be buried under sphere effects before you get a chance to cast this two-drop. Even when you resolve it, it does not slow shops down a whole lot because it's the sphere effects that really punish you.  And heck, its not like you'll have mana for extort under a sphere.  If you're really keen on turning off artifact mana, just use Stony Silence.

An example: I was playing a W/B hatebera deck at Black Gold a few weeks back, designed specifically to smack around Carl's workshop deck.  It performed as advertised.  However, had I drawn this silly thing instead of any of my Relic Warders or Revokers, I would have died.  I could not afford to drop a do-nothing card.
 
4. Big Blue.  I don't even know what this card is supposed to do here.  I wouldn't bring in Root Maze, I don't see my self bringing this in.

5. Fish.  I suppose stopping Fish creatures from blocking the turn they enter the battlefield is sort of relevant if you're running a fast aggro deck on your own.  I guess there is nothing that costs exactly 1W that accomplishes this.

6. Dredge.  Well, not every card can be dredge hate.

I keep coming to the conclusion that this card basically does a niche job worse than its competition in exchange for the Extort ability.  I just don't see Extort as very relevant.  Bleeding your opponent is relevant, don't get me wrong, but how often do you have the luxury of making all your W/B spells cost one more on-color mana?  If Extort was free, I might be impressed.  But since it isnt, I won't run this card except in an Enduring Renewal - Priest of Gix - Heartless Summoning combo deck. 

[Protoaddict]

This card is pretty diverse and seems to affect the game in a way that enables winning small.  It's not glamorous, but it's effective. 

Effective at doing what, Bri?  This card seems primarily positioned to win creature mirrors by preventing enemy creatures from blocking when they hit.  Let's consider what it does in various matchups:

1. Storm. This prevents them from dumping their artifact mana while they try to go off.  But, Stony Silence and Thalia accomplish the same thing for the same price more effectively, and splash against other decks to boot. 

2. Oath.  This slows down Golden Gun Oath one turn.  Other Oath variants don't care if Grislebrand or Runescar or Tyrant come into play tapped.  But, Disenchant, Seal of Cleansing, and Tariff are stronger Oath hate for the same price, and splash against other decks to boot.

3. Shops.  Shops does not care if your two-drop makes its artifact mana come into play tapped.  Largely because you will be buried under sphere effects before you get a chance to cast this two-drop. Even when you resolve it, it does not slow shops down a whole lot because it's the sphere effects that really punish you.  And heck, its not like you'll have mana for extort under a sphere.  If you're really keen on turning off artifact mana, just use Stony Silence.

An example: I was playing a W/B hatebera deck at Black Gold a few weeks back, designed specifically to smack around Carl's workshop deck.  It performed as advertised.  However, had I drawn this silly thing instead of any of my Relic Warders or Revokers, I would have died.  I could not afford to drop a do-nothing card.
 
4. Big Blue.  I don't even know what this card is supposed to do here.  I wouldn't bring in Root Maze, I don't see my self bringing this in.

5. Fish.  I suppose stopping Fish creatures from blocking the turn they enter the battlefield is sort of relevant if you're running a fast aggro deck on your own.  I guess there is nothing that costs exactly 1W that accomplishes this.

6. Dredge.  Well, not every card can be dredge hate.

I keep coming to the conclusion that this card basically does a niche job worse than its competition in exchange for the Extort ability.  I just don't see Extort as very relevant.  Bleeding your opponent is relevant, don't get me wrong, but how often do you have the luxury of making all your W/B spells cost one more on-color mana?  If Extort was free, I might be impressed.  But since it isnt, I won't run this card except in an Enduring Renewal - Priest of Gix - Heartless Summoning combo deck. 

It feels somewhat myopic to judge this card by what deck is does not shut down, as opposed to what match ups is playable against.

Once again, the strength of this card lies in all the decks it can hit.

So if your playing hatebears or white trash, unknown meta, and you want to diversify your threats, this seems solid.

Theory craft with me

Like lets say you maindeck 4 pieces of anti storm tech that is dead to shops and dredge (True believe for instance)
And lets say you maindeck 4 pieces of anti dredge tech that is dead to storm and shops (such as rest in peace)
and just for kicks you maindeck 4 pieces of anti shops that is dead to dredge and storm (lets call kitaki)

Now you have 2 slots left you just have to fill. You don't know the meta. You don't know what you will have to deal with. your not particularly weak against anything else. What card do you play here. Well the obvious choice of course would be the one that is decent against all the above. Yea it may not be a blow out against any of the above lists but it often will buy you a turn or 2 to get to the card that is a blowout. The fact that sometimes it can just get you there with an extra point or 2 is just gravy

[MaximumCDawg]

Yeah, thats all fair, but what about Stony Silence?  If I really want to shut down artifacts, I'm using that.  How is this card broader in its application than Stony Silence?  Creature mirror?

[gkraigher]

This card is pretty diverse and seems to affect the game in a way that enables winning small.  It's not glamorous, but it's effective. 

6. Dredge.  Well, not every card can be dredge hate.

Actually, it is dredge hate.  It stops ichorid from attacking. 

If you are playing bomberman, you can't play stony silence. 

[Protoaddict]

Yeah, thats all fair, but what about Stony Silence?  If I really want to shut down artifacts, I'm using that.  How is this card broader in its application than Stony Silence?  Creature mirror?

well why not?

Lodestone, Goyf, ooze come into play tapped, gives you one more swing, and then you can play defense and play the drain game with it.
Helps you win the mirror.
Stops FKZ wins in dredge (sometimes)
Stops storm pretty well
Stops Slash Panther haste

It really seems like its made for Bomberman as well. its both hate, a wincon, and diversity (cant be countered by mental misstep for what its worth.)

[brianpk80]

Effective at doing what, Bri?  This card seems primarily positioned to win creature mirrors by preventing enemy creatures from blocking when they hit.  Let's consider what it does in various matchups:

Effective at providing a general purpose alternative to Root Maze and at providing scenarios where a game win turns on getting two creatures through for the last 4 points of damage because an opponent's Snapcaster came into play tapped.   It has four relevant effects with no drawback at an attractive CMC.  Hence, it pack a lot of win-small permutations, like Fire/Ice: compact and boring, but effective.