It does what you need it to.
Posted By:
A3Kitsune
(4/7/2012 1:41:16 AM)
Like the bauble, colorless early ways to get guaranteed mana to cast Koth and other 4+ drops is welcomed in mono red.
Posted By:
lorendorky
(4/8/2012 7:31:45 PM)
@DarthParallax's comment: This may not (always) perform as true 'ramp', though it can easily help to maintain a x1 land drop per turn - which is very helpful - and it siphons those land drops from the library at an increased rate (i.e. faster than one draw per draw phase).
This seems pretty powerful - probably competes with Darksteel Ingot (and even Gilded Lotus) among artifacts that support multi-colored efforts - which can be more helpful or simply better in many decks than Green's abilities to provide similar assistance (because, for one thing, not all multi-colored decks are able or wanting to include Green).
However, in decks that do contain Green - and even in mono-Green decks - the Sphere has great synergy with the solid and playable Explore.
Posted By:
humor_love
(4/20/2012 9:17:25 AM)
I had not quite realized how good this was until I saw that it got so many reprints--
In the context of looking at many modern and post-modern sets now (Post Modern = after Lorwyn?), I've decided that this is actually one of the most important mana stones you can own- it gets you two different basic lands for a colorless payment. That's a bit of ramp *and* and bit of rainbow-fying, which is better than 'ritual mana' (producing more mana of the same color it costs to play) and maybe even better than 'rainbow mana' (only one land even though it taps for whatever you need)
In Gold decks, I don't think there's very much that does both ramp and colorizes. A-.
Posted By:
DarthParallax
(4/16/2012 10:30:01 AM)
Making another Duel Deck with red? Armillary Sphere, autoinclude. IT'S THE PERFECT RED CARD
Posted By:
RedAtrocitus
(4/1/2013 10:35:13 AM)
In green you'll usually want Yavimaya Elder first, but this is really good in colors that can't reliably get lands and tend to run less lands main due to mid-range aggro;
I.E. {R} and {B}
Reliably hitting your drops in MBC or RDW is important while not dedicating tons of slots to lands. You can run 18 or so lands with this, and while 3 of these makes it *seem* you're running 21, you're reliably hitting drops as if you had something closer to 24; which is huge. Why is this? Because this requires 2 mana to hit 4 mana on T4; which is tough below 24-25 lands; except that you're running way less than that.
White gets by with Tithe or Land Tax and green has various aggro creatures or cards that grab lands. Blue has card draw/filtering meaning that it can get by with less. Red and Black have few filter cards and few draw cards that are as reliable for hitting mana drops. You'd rather filter something else anyway; especially in... (see all)
Posted By:
blurrymadness
(6/3/2013 4:12:08 PM)
Purple... Secretly the most powerful color
Posted By:
itsandycapp
(8/12/2013 4:48:51 PM)
I've found this to be a pretty solid EDH card, it can really power up the land count.
Posted By:
Pontiac
(11/8/2013 4:56:42 PM)