Considering that not everyone can shell out upwards of $200 for playsets of Vindicate and Gaea's Cradle, I think this card is all right.
Anyone can concoct a situation in which a card's weaknesses are blatantly exploited, and setting up a comparison between a common land and a rare, legendary one from a set filled with notoriously powerful cards doesn't make for much of a contest. Yes. The $40 Cradle is generally superior to 0.30$ Rushwood Grove.
A better argument against this card being all that useful is the fact that Rain of Tears was in the same set.
In my opinion, this kind of card is at its best in EDH, where land destruction isn't too common and what there is of it will probably be aimed at other, more powerful lands.
Posted By:
TDL
(10/30/2011 5:14:40 PM)
Ah, Rushwood Grove is so threatening that you'd burn up a Vindicate do get rid of it? Instead of using it on a powerful creature coming your way like a Giant Growthed Serendib Efreet, a nasty enchantment like Karma eating you up, or an artifact that threatens to turn the tables in your opponent's favor, like a Winter Orb? Well then, any land good enough to warrant using an all-purpose burn spell against it, qualifies as a worthy land in my book - even though you'd wait until they add another counter to their land first.
Posted By:
DrJack
(9/13/2012 8:57:39 AM)
The problem I have with the Mercadian storage lands is they enter tapped (same issue with the Fallen Empires ones too). This means, at best, it takes X+2 turns to get X mana out of one of these things, compared to a Forest which gives you X mana in X turns (albeit not all at once). In my experience, even in slow formats like Commander or Limited, it's very rare that you'd want a big influx of mana late in the game, especially since you typically have quite a few regular lands by that point. The fact that the Time Spiral storage lands A) don't enter tapped B) produce two colors C) can tap for colorless is proof enough to my mind that the designers recognize these old storage lands were nearly useless. It would help in a deck whose major win condition was an X-spell, but beyond that you're almost always better off with a Forest.
Posted By:
UnknownRat
(12/7/2012 11:32:01 AM)
I absolutely love the flavor and art of everything about Mercadian Masques.
Posted By:
Nagoragama
(2/17/2013 7:33:37 PM)
Nice card. Let's you save mana to play high costs when they come to your hand.
Posted By:
SwordSkill
(9/21/2009 3:25:32 PM)
Little slow for me and I'd vindicate any i saw across from me, not before letting them add another counter of course. Then again thats my play style. I'd use Gaea's Cradle insted.
Posted By:
XTwistedsoulX
(5/22/2010 6:00:53 PM)
Nagoragama, you're all right by me.
Posted By:
Kirbster
(8/6/2013 6:18:51 PM)
Let's not compare this to Gaea's Cradle, a card often considered overpowered, but how about Fungal Reaches or Saltcrusted Steppe, both of which provide colorless mana without using up charges? They also fix your mana.
Posted By:
Kryptnyt
(10/13/2013 2:31:47 AM)