Pointed Discussion

The amount of staple Legacy/Vintage material I'm seeing here in Masters IV is nuts.

Agreed. Also, the range on what is an "acceptable rare" these days is stretched to its limits both ways.

Dang if only they reprinted this......
Evidence that power creep doesn't yet truly exist for non-creature spells.

Creature spells are an entirely different story...

PROTIP: This card is broken.

Wow, do we have a word stronger than broken? This is líke a freakin repeatable black lotus for colourless artifact decks!!!

One of the five pillars of vintage.

Back in the day these went for $20 a piece, they were fun with fatties like Juggernaught, Clockwork Beasts, Treskillian, Tetravus and such. that deck design back in those days was only casual, since almost anything you casted was drained, countered, disenchanted, plowed or shattered all the time.

This card isn't "Broken"... NO card is "broken".... Back in about 1994, I popped open a booster of Antiquities, and got one of these from it. At the time, it was worth around 5 dollars, and I ended up trading this card for a Fungasaur, which, at the time, was worth around 7 dollars. I felt like I was ripping the guy off because the card I got was worth so much more than this thing was....

Of course, now, I think about that trade and wonder WTF I was thinking.... You do have to take into account that in 1994, Magic was NOT the way it is now, and this was not even special then. I mean, in the Artifact decks, it was cool, but back then, there wasn't really a true restricted list, so most of the time, if someone was playing an Artifact deck, or, if they were like me and had an Atog Deck, you'd just use Urza Lands, in multiples of each, ad power out anything you wanted since each one was giving you between two and three mana each anyway, and you'd pop out a 300 point Fireball in like 10 minutes.

Ahhhh good times. And I still stand by the fact that no one card is broken. This thing is great and can power out a lot of crap, but it's ALL situation based. Remember that. Ancestral Recall when the game is just starting can help you win, as can a Black Lotus. But when the game is in a lock or stalemate, a turn 12 Black Lotus is useless, and an Ancestral Recall when you only have 2 cards left in the deck, when your opponent has 20, is also useless. Every card is good depending on the situation, but none are broken. Combos from cards CAN be broken when someone figures them out (Long.dec / Burning Desire for example, was a broken deck, but no one card in it was).

It can't be THAT broken, it's just a land...and it's not even an ARTIFACT land, so it must be bad with affinity! 0.5/5

Okay, sarcasm aside, this thing *** ing BLOWS MY MIND!!! 9872394792374832/5

"And I still stand by the fact that no one card is broken. This thing is great and can power out a lot of crap, but it's ALL situation based."

And when you have a card that creates a situation where it becomes simply a mistake not to play it, narrows down the choice of decks between 'deck X' and 'anti-deck X', and starts driving players away from the game, you have a broken card. This is the colloquial definition of the term, and whether you use it or not, cards like these exist. They are not situational, as they consume the entire metagame; every game comes down to either using it, or fighting against it.


"But when the game is in a lock or stalemate, a turn 12 Black Lotus is useless, and an Ancestral Recall when you only have 2 cards left in the deck, when your opponent has 20, is also useless."

You can find a situation where every card is useless, but that doesn't negate what any card can do when used in the optimal way. Skullclamp isn't any good if you don't have a creature, but this didn't keep it from showing up in every deck in Mirrodin-block Standard before it was banned.

second highest rated land in magic history as of may 2011

The best part about this card is that it isn't legendary, so you could be pimping four of these bad boys at any one time (assuming you were lucky enough to draw them). There are cards to search for lands too, but I can't think of any off the top of my head at the moment. Primeval Titan comes to mind though.

Now, assuming you get all four lands on the table by turn 4-5... wait for it... Blightsteel Collosuss!!!

How is this not at least restricted?! I understand that Wizards wants to please people that are willing to shell out the money for cards like this, but this is nearly on par with Black Lotus in artifact decks. They've restricted Black Lotus regardless of its price, why not restrict this?

wow, really, what were they smoking when they made this card.

Wow that is one of the most broken cards I have ever seen. I'd like one for my EDH deck but I'd bet they cost well over $150.

wishing it wasn't $500 for a playset, otherwise I would be running this in my deck
xD lulz, with so many "anti artifacts" out there of every color, I would think "Artifact spells" would be lower then that
nice though

=editing=
x.x I wish they would re-make this card, I am making an Artifact Replicate deck, so I need that "3 mana that can only be used for artifacts" because pretty much all my cards are turn 3 or 4, so that 2 dead turns that I have to do now, and the only thing to remady that are "Godly cards with a godly price tag" Dx

t1.
mishra's workshop -> trinisphere.
t2
any land. tanglewire or smokestack

Now. Imagine what would happen if you let that into legacy.

its broken, dont even argue it. true, there are circumstanes where it is not the best, or perhaps, not even good. the problem is, there are too many circumstances that are too easily reached for this to be anything other than broken.

fun in vintage, where everything is broken :P

Who authorized this for ME?

It's time to reprint this card.

So will I be laughed at for using a broken card and winning a tournament undefeated with it? Should I take it out of my deck?!? Should it exist in anyones oppinion?!?!? Theses questions spawn in my mind as I tap my Palladium myr, a couple of blinkmoth lands, and win with a 5/5 flying infect... I don't mean that any of these cards are broken, but I really am asking those questions. ..............

Dammit, Mishra, why are you so crazy?

Turn 1: Mishra's Workshop, Torpor Orb, Phyrexian Dreadnought.
Turn 2: Mountain, Assault Strobe.

Well, I guess he was in league with Phyrexians..

A land that lets you tap for not two, but three mana? The only drawback is that it can only be used on artifacts? This card is so far out in left field of the power curve it isn't even funny.

Thank god this card is banned in Legacy. Artifact shenanigans are bad enough as they are. Still a 5/5 though

Just insane with Candelabra of Tawnos.

This is a land card that makes even Tolarian Academy seem plausible and/or slightly out of balance.

This is nuts.

This card is just... Wow.

It was a mistake, and now that mistake can be found online! for the low-low price of 19.99!

Card of the Day, December 21st, 2012'
Oh just tap for 3 mana on the first turn. Should be fine. Give it a restriction for only artifact spells, should be a justifiable drawback.
No not at all, Antiquities designers. Not at all.
I mean when a card is broken in Vintage, you know something's not right.
Aside from the card mechanics, the flavor text is an interesting insight to the The Brother's War novel series, for those of you who have read that. Man, I wish Wizards would start making novels for each block again...
Anywho, this card be coming to MTGO Cube with fancy new art.

So, I'm having trouble figuring out whether this is better or the moxen.

On the upside, moxen give colored mana, and can be used for things other than artifacts. Also they leave the door open for other broken lands to be played that turn, like Tolarian Academy.
On the other hand, this thing puts you two mana above the curve rather than the moxens one, and you don't have to use up another card for your land drop, so in a sense it gives card advantage as well.

Wowowow, hold up. I can play 4 of these? This thing is worth as much as a black lotus for good reason. It may not be worth playing in all vintage decks, but it is easily worth playing in more than 1/4 of vintage decks, and those that do play it need about 4. Its not even legendary, for god's sake.

Hell, a playset of this shit costs nearly as much as a set of power 9.

This was back when artifacts still kinda sucked, so with power creep all of these combos that are being listed are ones where you take a balancing tool and use it in a balanced format.

Honestly I would love to see something like this except with metalcraft.
For example:
Mirran Workshop
Land
Mirran Workshop enters the battlefield tapped.
{T} Add {1} to your mana pool
Metalcraft: If you control three or more artifacts, Mirran Workshop has: {T} Add {3} to your mana pool. This mana may only be used to cast artifact spells.

Sadistic? Want to lose friends? Try Mishra's Workshop for a turn-one Crucible of Worlds, followed by Strip Mine.

Trinisphere.













insane 5/5

This card is ridiculously, stupidly overpowered and single-handedly screws up the entire Classic format online, rendering basically every deck into a variation of Stax.

Even if you sacrificed it for 3 mana it would be overpowered.

Turn 1: Mishra's Workshop, Trinisphere.
Turn 2 doesn't even happen; by then, your opponent has already conceded.