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I'm contemplating this as a cube card. I think it might add an interesting dynamic in a cube draft without the problems usually associated with ante ("ownership" is defined differently in cube since the owner of the cube technically owns all the cards).
Fortunately cards that are banned in every format tend to be cheap, so I'll pick one up for 25 cents next time I'm at my local game shop.
Posted By:
Iktomi
(8/18/2012 5:29:40 AM)
This card is actually incredibly powerful in settings where you can use it. Note that giving it up isn't part of the cost. Therefore, if you return it to your hand with an Obelisk of Undoing or an Time Elemental after activating it but before it resolves, you retain ownership of it, while your opponent still has to give you ownership of one of their cards... and you can play it again, and use it again, etc. Very expensive manawise, but given that this combo permanently steals ownership of your opponent's cards, it's worth getting a lock and putting it out. Or you can just Boomerang or Disenchant it after activating it, which doesn't let you steal unlimited cards, but otherwise has the same effect.
You can make it mildly cheaper with Copy Artifact -- with that and time elemental, you can steal ownership of one permanent a turn for 
. Note that you still need the time elemental -- the Copy Artifact version w... (see all)
Posted By:
Aquillion
(4/4/2013 11:16:00 AM)
Prototype Portal + This = I own your deck.
Posted By:
Lobster-Overlord
(8/6/2011 5:29:42 PM)
I have so many questions about this card...
1. If not playing for Ante, does this let you bypass the 60 card restriction?
2. Does ownership persist after the game, or is it ownership only in game terms?
3. If I gain "ownership" of a permanent, do I also gain control of it?
Posted By:
konokono
(3/9/2012 9:34:12 AM)
@konokono:
1) If you're not playing for ante, this card is out of your format's legality, so you can't use it in your decklist.
2) It's complete ownership for life (or until your opponent gets it back in another match using his new Bronze Tablet...). That's the reason "ante" cards and such are not used anymore.
3) No, ownership and control are not the same thing.
For 2 and 3, notice Bronze Tablet first exiles itself and the targeted permanent before exchanging ownership. Therefore it gives you an exiled card, not a permanent on the battlefield, and that card is now part of your collection, while Tablet is part of your opponent's one.
Posted By:
will_dice
(7/17/2012 10:08:36 AM)
In 1993, what stopped you from buying a box of starter decks was that the cards were hard to find and sold out quickly. There's some Mark Rosewater article where he says there was one booster box allotted for the entire state of Wyoming.
Ante was made to emphasize the modular nature of the game. Imagine a world where Magic didn't become super popular, players only own 100 or so cards, there's no way to know the exact contents of a set or the rarities of the cards, there are no tournaments to speak of, and the cards have no secondary market value. That's what they were expecting when the game was released. In that world it's just a silly card game and part of it would be your cards coming and going through games you played.
The rules may have stated it, but nobody was ever "required" to play for ante. It was something both players agreed on. It was never very common around the kitchen table or at comic shops when I played back then.
Posted By:
GainsBanding
(10/26/2010 3:53:38 PM)
Retarded? I think it's brilliant. I once came up with a combo that makes unlimited token copies of the tablet and allows you to gain ownership of your opponent's whole deck. Well, the permanents at least.
Posted By:
Lege
(3/7/2010 9:22:34 AM)
@SlackWareWolf:
{sarcastictrollrant}
Congratulations!
You are right, and all those people who don't play this game for ante are sissies who just aren't Man enough to play this game the way it was played eighteen years ago. It can't just be that they simply enjoy other methods of play, depending on the situation (possibly including Ante, when consented to by all players), because there is only one right way to play the game, and that's your way. And only wusses would ever mulligan, or let an opponent mulligan, because the only acceptable way to play this game of strategy is to gamble on the games, and then allow chance to skew the results to an irrecoverable degree. Anyone who has any opinion other than this single view is clearly inferior.
While we're at it, lets do away with those silly ban lists, restricted lists, the increased minimum deck size, and most certainly that four-copies-per-card limit. Constructed deck restrictions aren't what Magic is... (see all)
Posted By:
Qoios-Mauryn
(1/10/2012 7:03:44 PM)
Mr. SlackWareWolf,
The "only-4-of-each" rule has been in place since a few months after the game's release. I was there. A "twenty Black Lotus and Twenty Fireball" deck would be illegal in all but the most astronomically casual of games, even in most of 1993.
The ante idea may have been coined out of good intentions and an interesting spin on the game, but Wizards realized soon enough that it wasn't panning out at all how they expected and thankfully cut the idea.
In time for the first Pro Tour, as in the year after Magic's release, there was a restricted/banned list, games were rarely played for ante and you still weren't allowed more than four of any card. As always. So unless you only played Magic for its first few months and gave up, you were clearly playing it incorrectly.
Oh, and stop capitalising words you mean to emphasize. It looks juvenile.
Posted By:
Kirbster
(7/12/2010 7:47:50 PM)
Red and black could always with enchantments; they just had to jump through some hoops to do so.
Posted By:
scumbling1
(6/2/2011 2:58:40 PM)