Pointed Discussion

The buyback on this card is absolutely worthless. It's basically 6WWW to get a saproling every turn.

I remembered this a costing 1ww with a buyback of 4W and thought it was half playable. Now that I reread it, this is total junk!

its alright side-boarded against decks that run single large creatures, as it should only be used if your opponent only has 1 creature or like 2 of equal strength. the buyback's worthless but it's nice in those situations to have a mind control that can't be naturalized.

should've been uncommon though

Good in long multilayer games, someone (or you) sweeps the board and someone else plays a dragon. On your turn, MINE.

Wratch of God and next turn take their Darksteel Colossus

So... Why is this rare again? I would barely think it could be printed as a common...

Yeah.... janky.

Can take creatures with troll-shroud, if it's the only creature your opponent controls.

It's rare because it's a recurring control magic effect in a color that doesn't have such things that isn't tied to a easily destroyed enchantment.

Based on the effect, I imagine this was designed with Preacher in mind.

This doesn't circumvent troll-shroud. If your opponent has a Slippery Boggle and you cast this, picking them as the opponent, this is not a spell the controller of Slippery boggle controls, and as such, can't target the Boggle.
Long story short, this card does very little that, say, Blatant Thievery cannot, and is about as limited as it appears.

My monowhite Goldencub showcasing deck loves this... by the time I had 9 mana in play I totally needed to start stealing creatures.

I really don't think it's THAT bad. It's just not geared towards 1v1 play. Are there any other sorceries in the game that have the potential to take 1 creature every turn from your opponent? While there may not always be situations when this is playable, I would put this into an EDH deck in a heartbeat.

"Janky" is the right word.
First, you select an opponent, without targeting him, so Spirit of the Hearth won't protect them.
Second, the opponent picks a creature, that is legal for you to target. Not only does shroud protect it, hexproof also stops them from picking their own creature!

So you can use things like Veil of Secrecy to limit their options.
Flickering Ward is more efficient and reusable than the veil though. You can put it on their worst creature and leave it there to force the better picks turn after turn. If they try to run their brand new pro-white creature through you, just return the ward to your hand and smash it with your own creatures (shouldn't be hard since you picked the worst, and if their worst creature is awesome, then Evangelize is that much better). In that case, next turn you put it on the new worst creature and start the cycle again.

If you paid the full for it, your opponent may expend a spell to kill their own creature and to thus counter this, just like with capsize, and you will maintain card advantage.

This is the kind of card that says to your opponent: "HAHAHA! Can you believe the combo I beat you with?! Hang your head in shame forever!"
You know, if you actually can pull off a victory with it somehow.

@Doom_Pie : You opponent can't do that. You have priority, start to cast the spell. You select an opponent, they select the target. Then you continue to cast the spell. (Calculate the cost, tap mana sources, may costs, etc.) Eventually the spell is cast.Then you have priority, and can pass it to your opponent.

Your opponent never has priority any time between you declaring that you are casting this spell and your opponent choosing the target.

Edit: @moriar

Thanks for the correction. I really should've read the rulings on display for this card. Well, I guess you learn something new everyday. Knowing what I know now makes what I said below kinda embarrassing, but I'll leave it there for others to learn from my mistakes.

Original:

Player 1: "Ha! You've carelessly left nothing but Blightsteel Colossus for creatures on the board! Evangelize! Get owned!"

Player 2: "I'll flash in Zealous Guardian. There ya go, you can have that one" ^_^

Player 1: "FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU---"

Player 2: "I'm swinging. You block with your 1/1?" lol trollface

I feel this card is good enough to play in EDH
slow card advantage is usually fine in EDH

This could be very nice in a format like EDH, where there are frequent board wipes that leave behind only a few indestructible/whatever creatures. Also nice that it can get around both an opponent with shroud and a creature with hexproof (there are conflicting opinions about that in other comments, but read the rulings).

In other slow formats, I'd probably pass on it more often than not. It's still useable though, provided you support it with a varied suite of removal to make sure you won't be getting a 1/1 token or something similarly underwhelming.

Each Time Spiral card was an homage to at least one previously printed card.

This card is referencing Preacher with Evangelize literally and figuratively representing the idea of religion leading away a member of your opponent's flock.

It would be really good if it didn't have the "opponent's choice" clause. As is, it's pretty meh... I'm sure some deck could find use for it though