These aren't the best cards but they're from a different time.
Alara drove itself crazy trying to find and efficient and balanced way of running dual or triple color decks.
These Obelisks are inferior to Darksteel Ingot, but it comes from a completely different set. All Darksteel Cards are indestructible.
These Obelisks are a part of a cycle that's intentionally being underpowered; It's like what Forsythe said; to deal with the inevitable powercreep, they also need to make "worse" cards to balance it out appropriately as better variations of a card phase out of Standard play.
I dunno, /shakey shakey hands.
Posted By:
Deepfried-Owls
(6/29/2011 1:36:37 PM)
making them cost one would be broken as you could play one then tap it to play another one.
Rinse and repeat.
I think three is fair. just because one card was great doesn't make this crap, Well actually it does make them outclassed, but Darksteel ingot is extended so for just a few more weeks these can still be useful in Standard.
3.5/5
Posted By:
Jamesb8
(7/3/2010 8:09:05 PM)
I hate this cycle -_-
I think that since they were so relevant in the book, that these should be a bit better. Perhaps at 2? Or even 1 I think would be alright. Darksteel Ingot taps for ANY color AND is indestructible, and that's for 3.
Posted By:
RafiqTheMiststalker
(5/13/2010 4:04:25 AM)
There is no damn power creep in this game, nothing printed now is coming anywhere close to what was printed at the start of the game. The general power level does rise at times, but only after it has fallen some.
Posted By:
Henrietta
(8/2/2011 4:49:56 PM)
If I were to make an Alara deck, I'd throw one of these Obelisk's in just for lore's sake. Why not?
Posted By:
RowanKeltizar
(6/13/2010 5:17:11 PM)
I like them! In a blue/white/green deck, their colourless mana cost makes them more reliable to use than Birds of Paradise in most situations, and they can benefit from being an artifact and not a creature. Obelisk of Esper is obviously the most useful one because of the synergies, but this isn't so bad either. I can just see the colourless cost as being a big advantage in those situations when you need a card like this the most. The fact that it isn't a creature also means that you can use it on the turn you cast it, so you get some of the mana back, in addition to the fixing it provides.
Posted By:
Stray_Dog
(8/6/2010 9:55:24 PM)
Outclassed by Manalith nowadays and Darksteel Ingot in the past, but lets be fair, the Ingot was insanely powerful and there was no way to make this cheaper without invalidating a massive number of others.
And even if they aren't the most useful, they're still some of the best looking artifacts out there and are a lot of fun to use. And if they're your colors, excellent! You don't need anything else!
Posted By:
DoragonShinzui
(3/22/2012 9:48:07 AM)
If your only running those three colors, this is equal to manalith, baring unique situations where you would need other colors because of something an opponent does.
Also you could run alongside manalith.
Posted By:
TheWrathofShane
(12/9/2012 4:47:50 AM)