As soon as you have 5 creatures, the spell becomes free to cast and allows you to loop infinitely, netting you infinite Saprolings. And if any of your original 5 creatures have no-mana tap abilities, they'll go infinite too. Cathartic Adept, Blightspeaker, Mana dorks, whatever you want.
Only decks that can generate lots of mana fast, such as Tron, Cloudpost, Elves, etc, can make efficient use of this. It's not the cmc that's an issue, it's the ability cost.
Otherwise traditional ramp / cheat things into play tricks are better.
I like that I can use it to get/play walkers; that's great flavor. I hate that it taps; for 8 mana per card, I think tapping is unnecessary. Infinite-mana decks have better cards to use to win with.
Once you've hit 5 creatures (cards or tokens) you can cast it for free, then enjoy recasting every time. Since you can tap the new tokens, if one of your 5 original creatures is a mana dork, you'll also get infinite mana.
As long as you have a 0-sum spell-loop, there's lots of no-mana tappers you could use as your creature base that'll auto-win; such as Screeching Sliver, or Blightspeaker, etc.
I'm confused. If Standard attendance is falling largely due to card prices, how will fledgling standard players who are having a hard time getting meta-decks together be able to go undefeated against players who have the full meta-deck, just to win a promo pack? This sounds more like a reward for meta-deck players, as they'll probably win and get the ~$50 promo pack (singles resell value).
Burrenton Forge-Tender can also remove the damage, and is an early-game card, albeit a one-function card.
Looking over the suggestions, I think it may be too hard to make Madcap Experiment into an instant-kill card. But it is easy to get value out of it by running select artifacts, such as Magister Sphinx.
tldr: If collectors/investors ever start treating inventions as separate cards from the originals, worthy of buying even if you have the original, I don't see this having any real effect on the market.
I don't think it's intended to directly lower the price of these masterpiece cards in other printings. It's supposed to lower the singles prices for all Kaladesh cards; since a LOT more packs will be opened trying to get these masterpieces. And it'll make financial sense to open more packs because of the margin for masterpieces.
Although this still all has yet to be seen.
Really really surprised by some of the inclusions, such as Lotus Petal. They've set the bar high for masterpieces...
> Bolas just wants power; which Kaladesh has a lot of (Aether) — He's probably interested in all the Aether-as-fuel technology.
> Phyrexians want planeswalking; which Kaladesh now has — I'm sure Tezzeret has inadvertently brought some oil with him to Kaladesh, a thread to be picked up later.
I expect that Tezzeret is being pulled in three directions; Bolas's demands, Phyrexian's demands, and his own agenda to free himself from them. I'm hoping that the FTV Tinker art will still happen. So yeah, Tezzeret as a Judge, is on the look-out for tech that could help him solve his own problems.
Also, for what it's worth, I think Kaladesh could reasonably fight Phyrexia.
Tezzeret can't have brought oil to Kaladesh by accident on account of having a spark. If he has brought it there, he has done so deliberately. (Karn was a corner case as his heart was phyrexian originally part of a Phyrexian Newt, specifically Xantcha and thus produced glistening oil. This is also why the corruption hit him like a ton of metaphorical bricks when he lost his spark to close the Tolarian rift, and why the corruption left him when his heart was replaced and he got Venser's spark.)
Yeah, planeswalkers are immune to the oil's affect; and Karn probably contained it well inside his body. But I expect that a vial or canister could have the oil in it and travel with a walker that way. I don't recall any clarification on how easy or hard it is to bring phyresis with you.
> Bolas just wants power; which Kaladesh has a lot of (Aether) — He's probably interested in all the Aether-as-fuel technology.
> Phyrexians want planeswalking; which Kaladesh now has — I'm sure Tezzeret has inadvertently brought some oil with him to Kaladesh, a thread to be picked up later.
I expect that Tezzeret is being pulled in three directions; Bolas's demands, Phyrexian's demands, and his own agenda to free himself from them. I'm hoping that the FTV Tinker art will still happen. So yeah, Tezzeret as a Judge, is on the look-out for tech that could help him solve his own problems.
Also, for what it's worth, I think Kaladesh could reasonably fight Phyrexia.
I thought the modules sucked until i realized there is no 'nontoken' clause on the Decoction Module; that change alone makes it amazing. If you have all three and cast a creature that's 0 cmc; you can loop and get a +1/+1 counter, 1 energy, and a 1/1 Servo for each mana you can generate. All we need is a way to turn E into mana at a 1:1 ratio or better.
There's definitely be some kind of Ornithopter/Memnite/Endless One deck with these Modules; I'm already brewing.
I'm a little disappointed in how vehicles work; it reads very clunky. However, we'll have to wait to play it. I worry that they did it this way just to distance it from equipments.
The Vehicle frame is the LAZIEST design ever; honestly it's terrible, conveys nothing.
I imagine Bolas could only rule if any former Egyptian gods were 'dealt' with, possibly back when he was an oldwalker. However, if they are 'trapped', then that repeats the Helvault/Eldrazi plot, if they are mortals that ascend, that repeats Xenagos plot. So here's hoping for some original creative writing.
I do expect Egyptian Gods of some kind, and I expect that they will be very different from the Theros Gods. Since we still have Norse world to do, and they have well known gods too, it may be one has wedge gods and the other has shard gods, or 4 color.
I'm surprised they announced this now, it will seriously conflict with Kaladesh interest.
As mentioned on page 1, Renegade Rallier + Saffi Eriksdotter + Blasting Station = infinite damage.
I really should have trample or something tbh.
I posted this in the main thread too: Sprout Swarm + Paradox Engine + 5 creatures.
As soon as you have 5 creatures, the spell becomes free to cast and allows you to loop infinitely, netting you infinite Saprolings. And if any of your original 5 creatures have no-mana tap abilities, they'll go infinite too. Cathartic Adept, Blightspeaker, Mana dorks, whatever you want.
The main problem though is redundancy, since Paradox Engine / Sprout Swarm are unique. Intruder Alarm can fill in as PE for SS, but that's it.
[Idea 2]
Diregraf Colossus + Gravecrawler + sac = infinite zombies
[Idea 3]
Cloudstone Curio + Burning-Tree Emissary x2 + tap-effect creatures.
//
The trouble is setting up casting loops, there's various ways to do that, it just depends on how fragile they are.
Additionally, since PE costs 5, it's hard to cast it and start any loops during the same turn.
Otherwise traditional ramp / cheat things into play tricks are better.
I like that I can use it to get/play walkers; that's great flavor. I hate that it taps; for 8 mana per card, I think tapping is unnecessary. Infinite-mana decks have better cards to use to win with.
Once you've hit 5 creatures (cards or tokens) you can cast it for free, then enjoy recasting every time. Since you can tap the new tokens, if one of your 5 original creatures is a mana dork, you'll also get infinite mana.
As long as you have a 0-sum spell-loop, there's lots of no-mana tappers you could use as your creature base that'll auto-win; such as Screeching Sliver, or Blightspeaker, etc.
Burrenton Forge-Tender can also remove the damage, and is an early-game card, albeit a one-function card.
Looking over the suggestions, I think it may be too hard to make Madcap Experiment into an instant-kill card. But it is easy to get value out of it by running select artifacts, such as Magister Sphinx.
Does anyone know how Madcap Experiment interacts with effects such as Eternity Vessel, or Lich's Mirror?
I don't think it's intended to directly lower the price of these masterpiece cards in other printings. It's supposed to lower the singles prices for all Kaladesh cards; since a LOT more packs will be opened trying to get these masterpieces. And it'll make financial sense to open more packs because of the margin for masterpieces.
Although this still all has yet to be seen.
Really really surprised by some of the inclusions, such as Lotus Petal. They've set the bar high for masterpieces...
Yeah, planeswalkers are immune to the oil's affect; and Karn probably contained it well inside his body. But I expect that a vial or canister could have the oil in it and travel with a walker that way. I don't recall any clarification on how easy or hard it is to bring phyresis with you.
> Phyrexians want planeswalking; which Kaladesh now has — I'm sure Tezzeret has inadvertently brought some oil with him to Kaladesh, a thread to be picked up later.
I expect that Tezzeret is being pulled in three directions; Bolas's demands, Phyrexian's demands, and his own agenda to free himself from them. I'm hoping that the FTV Tinker art will still happen. So yeah, Tezzeret as a Judge, is on the look-out for tech that could help him solve his own problems.
Also, for what it's worth, I think Kaladesh could reasonably fight Phyrexia.
There's definitely be some kind of Ornithopter/Memnite/Endless One deck with these Modules; I'm already brewing.
The Vehicle frame is the LAZIEST design ever; honestly it's terrible, conveys nothing.
I do expect Egyptian Gods of some kind, and I expect that they will be very different from the Theros Gods. Since we still have Norse world to do, and they have well known gods too, it may be one has wedge gods and the other has shard gods, or 4 color.
I'm surprised they announced this now, it will seriously conflict with Kaladesh interest.