Pointed Discussion

Adding two mana to your manapool is a nice boost for blue, even if it's colorless mana.

another reason Artifact decks should be played with a bit of blue

Not that bad. Kinda like a slightly cheaper creature version of cards like Sisay's Ring or Ur-Golem's Eye, except coloured and somewhat more vulnerable.

Acceleration for blue!

I'd say, best in a Wizard Tribal deck that heavily uses the Morph mechanic.

I'd post some comment about blue being broken back in the day but this card alone already gives you an idea of the power and versatility blue once had.
And Remember this is just the apprentice wizard.

Never really liked this card. If you're playing a blue artifact deck, shouldn't you just use artifacts to generate mana? Sadly, even characters on Magic cards aren't safe from the crippling effects of Alzheimer's.

Wizards must have thought it was a good idea at the time. Get it? Cuz there's a wizard in the artwork and it looks like he has a good idea? Bah forget it.. One of a handful of decentish cards from The Dark.

Whoa, this went from Rare to Common when it was included in 4E...

Ramps into a Turn 4 Frost Titan in monoblue. Not too shabby.

it has applications if you can get it OUT.

but it's very much non-aggressive. Your deck needs to be strong at Control, and that's why you are not seeing 'ZOMGSH, MISHRA'S WORKSHOP ON A STICK' comments.

Mishra's Workshop is awesome in Fast Decks, this sucks in them. It requires double commitment to Blue to cast and continuous Blue input to work.

If this card were really good at what it wanted to do, without being broken, it MIGHT have a chance in Merfolk to ramp out slightly dumb things. But it's not quite even that good enough. We don't see it in Merfolk, the BEST place for a mildly Aggro Blue card to shine. It would not even be that difficult to consistently cast this for just 2 mana in Merfolk. Aether Vial just outstrips this by miles though.

I would put it in a Wizard Tribal deck where the most powerful cards are no better than a C+, but not a Morph Deck because Morph wants to cast a Morph Creature on Turn 3, not play this. If you don't have a blocker on T3 at least, your deck is just going to get clobbered by Creatures. If I gave myself such limitations, I wouldn't feel bad about not using better mana resource cards. :)

This will never ramp out to Arcanis the Omnipotent except in EDH though, because only in EDH are they both playable. IE in any other place where you might see Arcanis, Apprentice Wizard will just plain get cut for something better.

Like Sol Ring. It is a sad fact, but true, because I actually do like this card. :)

If this cost {U}{U} to start out with and was a 1/2, it would be able to play the role it wants to play very well!

I guess you're never too old to start learning some wizardry.