Uncommon. One of the many uncommons in Mirrodin block they desoigned when they were on crack.
This. Skullclamp. Isochron Scepter...
Posted By:
Bursama
(11/21/2010 6:33:45 AM)
Ok, for the last few years I've looked at this card and never understood why it was good. I knew it was good for some reason and refused to look up why since I should learn to know which cards are good on my own. To me it looked like you put a creature into play at around the same time as you would with a standard curve.
Today it finally hit me. There's no clause that keeps it from working only once. For some reason I thought you had to sacrifice the vial (makes sense flavor-wise, you break it open for the power inside) but no. It essentially allows you to play as many creatures as you want around the standard curve while keeping your mana open.
I wonder if R&D made the same mistake and forgot to make it sacrifice itself or remove its charge counters on use
Posted By:
Moxxy
(12/17/2012 6:56:20 AM)
My god, you can tap it first turn to play an Ornithopter for free!
Oh, wait...
___
Actually, thinking about that, you can use it to flash in an Ornithopter or a Memnite as a blocker last second to mess with your opponent if you drop this first turn... That's actually pretty cool that even with 0 charge counters, this can be used for a ridiculous effect like that.
Posted By:
DrCaligari
(9/28/2012 2:48:20 PM)
This is like Elvish Piper on PCP. They might as well have made this thing indestructable.
And to think I got this bad boy fo' free.
Posted By:
Russian.Thunder
(10/13/2011 8:07:20 PM)
Uncommon?! Really?!
Posted By:
Winhert
(3/9/2013 8:51:55 AM)
It really should have been a rare card at the very least. The beauty of this card is that you don't have to put a charge counter on it if you don't want to. If you have a deck that revolves around a lot of creatures with the same mana cost you can just crank them into play like crazy. This card, with Skullclamp and Cranial Plating are 3 of the best (and broken) cards ever printed.
Posted By:
HeraldOfRazia
(3/30/2013 8:45:54 AM)
Hey, look at this, all my guys just became instants. Oh yeah and uncounterable too. Good luck :)
Posted By:
Drecon84
(4/27/2010 12:52:43 AM)
What playtesting team and design team approved this card?
They should be ashamed of themselves. This card breaks almost every convention established in Magic over the years.
Posted By:
reapersaurus
(3/11/2010 12:10:28 PM)
On one hand, it saves you a huge amount of mana and if you're lucky you get twice the amount of creatures out every turn thanks to this artifact. It's also charged up quite fast to the most needed point, for example if your deck has a big amount of three-drops.
Another thing that makes this card that strong is that you don't have any requirements for accordant permanents that could produce the colors of the card you can put into play with the vial.
I'm curious why this card was decided to stay uncommon despite playtesting, it must have been already very noticeable back then.
Posted By:
Mode
(8/4/2009 8:05:49 PM)
DAMN was the Mirrodin block broken. Stuff like this at uncommon? Wow.
Posted By:
Saxophonist
(8/18/2010 4:13:02 PM)