To understand this card's niche, it helps to understand card advantage. Just one extra draw per turn can quickly overwhelm the opposition. Whispers of the Muse, often two more mana and colored, was the core some tournament decks. This is a good article:
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/rb63
Posted By:
talcumpowder0046
(11/2/2013 2:00:49 PM)
This card hasn't aged very well but was instrumental in shaping Magic strategy (and interestingly enough did contribute to other TCGs, among them Yugioh where CA is pretty much the only win condition) This was a cornerstone of "The Deck", an early (one of the earliest, in fact) deck in the competitive magic scene. The Deck sought to win by slowing down the opponent and simultaneously gaining card advantage however possible. To that end, this and Disrupting Scepter were the two favored repeatable card advantage engines that, while on the high end of mana-intensive spells, were repeatable and, therefore, became more valuable as the game progressed. Keep in mind that despite the presence of many infamous vintage-only cards, the game was not actually that quick at the time, and combo wasn't going to be a thing seriously until Prosbloom, so this was a viable strategy. Compare this to Phyrexian Arena,Underworld Connections or au... (see all)
Posted By:
Drewskithelegend
(5/23/2014 2:03:24 PM)