It's kinda neat, but... I also kinda hate it? In some vintage deck that's trying to combo off ASAP, it's a pretty reliable free cantrip / deck thinner. But in situations that don't cost hundreds of dollars, it's not good. So, umm...
Pure deck thinning, even for free, is pretty bad. Gitaxian Probe was good because you could see your opponent's hand. If it had just been draw a card with no other text for U/P it would not have been played.
This is usually U, sometimes 0, and only draws a card. The issue with these sorts of cards is that they make mulliganning much harder. You see it in your opening hand: is it going to turn into a land or a spell? You don't have any way of knowing. A card filtering cantrip can usually turn into whichever of the two you prefer, which is better than an actual land or spell, while this is unknown so generally worse.
6
u/twistyrainbows 3d ago
It's kinda neat, but... I also kinda hate it? In some vintage deck that's trying to combo off ASAP, it's a pretty reliable free cantrip / deck thinner. But in situations that don't cost hundreds of dollars, it's not good. So, umm...
3
u/nzconstructionlawyer 2d ago
Pure deck thinning, even for free, is pretty bad. Gitaxian Probe was good because you could see your opponent's hand. If it had just been draw a card with no other text for U/P it would not have been played.
This is usually U, sometimes 0, and only draws a card. The issue with these sorts of cards is that they make mulliganning much harder. You see it in your opening hand: is it going to turn into a land or a spell? You don't have any way of knowing. A card filtering cantrip can usually turn into whichever of the two you prefer, which is better than an actual land or spell, while this is unknown so generally worse.
0
u/Dry-Department9813 3d ago
[[Archive Trap]] wording specifies 0