Good old Cabal Coffers with new card design - delicious. And with old flavor text and artwork which refer to Mirari, Vorthos players should also still like this print.
akirhol
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
This plus Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth... tons of mana relatively quick. I usually end up tutoring the Urborg, but 4x Cabal usually guarantees getting one in the first few turns if not on the initial draw.
Wow. There are quite a few people who don't understand how excellent this card is. Darksteel Colossus is $3, Lightning Bolt is about $1.25, Cabal Coffers is $5, so that would be a fair trade. But, foil Darksteel Colossus is $10. Of course, at the time of Arachibutyrophobia's posting, all of these may have had vastly different prices. (And Phobia, you shouldn't take advantage of the ignorance of others.) But, SocialExperiment, my point is that just because something is an uncommon doesn't mean its worth less than the dreaded Colossus. In fact, the effect rarity has on the cost of a card is usually less than the effect popularity has on the cost of a card. There are a million and one different 50c rares, and yet there are commons worth over a dollar. And also, from what I can tell, age can sometime raise the price drastically (at a certain threshold.)
Paleopaladin
★★★☆☆ (3.5/5.0)(3 votes)
Between this and the two Dark Rituals I have to say that I came away VERY pleased with the Zombie Empire planechase set.
Drop this as your 4th turn in a pure black deck and watch your mana ramp go UP. Then combine it with Exsanguinate
SocialExperiment
★★★☆☆ (3.8/5.0)(2 votes)
@ Youlose20life
Green got Gaea's Cradle, which is quite possibly even more insane than this card is.
Also, my old post was madness and ignorance about how pricing on old cards works.
snapbee
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
This might be a bit slow for most Legacy mono-black builds these days, but I think it'll rise again.
Gabriel422
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(1 vote)
Yup. Broken.
And no comparing with cards from Urza's block... even Psychatog or Jitte might not have seen major play were they born during Urza's.
sniper_ix
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
My friend keeps killing me by using black direct damage spells and this card. I hate it so much. It outramps my primeval titan.
Superllama12
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(5 votes)
Wait wait wait...an UNCOMMON??? What the hell were they thinking?
Ideatog
★★★☆☆ (3.8/5.0)(2 votes)
@DavidLopes
Cabal Coffers is better because it doesn't require a way to put creatures in your graveyard. Coffers runs off of the lands you would be playing anyway, so you don't have to waste the extra cards. You can also use it in a reanimator deck without losing mana production like Crypt of Agadeem will. Oh, and Bojuka Bog.
TheHandyman
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
SO busted
poprockmonster
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Does anyone else see the giant sitting mouse? To the left of the figure in the doorway, his ear is at the top center of the art and his eye is right above the guy in the doorway. I can't not see it when I look at this card.
wowsers
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
This would work very well with underground sea and watery grave.
Arachnos
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
UNLIMITED POWEEEEEEEEEER!
DarthParallax
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Age raising the price of cards is where -TRUE- rarity comes. the set symbol color doesn't actually indicate that much rarity, AT FIRST, because millions of cards are printed...but the ones that don't get lost or destroyed or forgotten over time eventually get rarer to find, as the only people who still can get them are the people that grabbed them while the getting was good for whatever reason- either they saw a lot of potential for the item to really be a Collector's Item (like maybe an unopened box of Commander's Arsenal or a foil Oversized Avacyn), or they saw a lot of potential for skyrocketing gameplay value (a Jace, the Mind Sculptor in any condition, for example).
Also, because it's kind to autocard, Gaea's Cradle was mentioned and should be looked up by people who see the name. :)
SAUS3
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
@Superllama12 Would you rather have even more lands at the rare slot? This one maybe could have been rare, but still. I'm glad it was just an uncommon.
As for the card. Holy crap. That's all there is to say.
1. Extraplanar Lens is an easily destroyed artifact, and when destroyed effectively gives your opponent a 2 for 1. Cabal Coffers is a land, which is in most meta less vulnerable to removal.
2. Moreover, Cabal Coffers combines extremely well with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. That's not the case with Extraplanar Lens.
3. Multiple of Extraplanar Lens are also less good than multiple of Cabal Coffers, even without Urborg. The total mana from Extraplanar Lens is (number lenses+1)*number swamps - number lenses*(number lenses+1), while for Coffers it is (number coffers+1) - number coffers*2 .
4. Finally, Extraplanar Lens costs 3 mana. It means you likely won't be able to use it on the turn you play it, and it may even get removed before you can take advantage of it once. On the other hand, Cabal Coffers can be used immediately.
The only good things about Extraplanar Lens is that it is an artifact and can therefore be played together with a swamp on the same turn. Given optimal conditions for the Lens (no duplicate, no Urborg, etc), it will gives you 2 more mana than Coffers for the following turns until you played all the swamps in your hand.
@poprockmonster Try looking at a scaled up version of the art. It's not a sitting mouse on the wall, it's a human with the hand in front of him, held slightly above his head, which would be placed (presumably) in between his arms or against them. ...Quite eerie when you look closer.
JunkHarvester
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Disgustingly good.
Somewhat balanced too, it's not gaining you mana until you hit four swamps and you do NOT want mutiples in your opening hand.
I said somewhat.
Chanksta
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Used these with Shades in a Mono Black in Torment block. Oh my goodness, devastating.
Comments (31)
And with old flavor text and artwork which refer to Mirari, Vorthos players should also still like this print.
On ebay this card is worth a good amount, so it would be more cost effective to trade for it.
UPDATE: I lucked out and traded a Skeletal Vampire and Shriveling Rot for this.
Darksteel Colossus is $3, Lightning Bolt is about $1.25, Cabal Coffers is $5, so that would be a fair trade. But, foil Darksteel Colossus is $10.
Of course, at the time of Arachibutyrophobia's posting, all of these may have had vastly different prices. (And Phobia, you shouldn't take advantage of the ignorance of others.)
But, SocialExperiment, my point is that just because something is an uncommon doesn't mean its worth less than the dreaded Colossus. In fact, the effect rarity has on the cost of a card is usually less than the effect popularity has on the cost of a card. There are a million and one different 50c rares, and yet there are commons worth over a dollar. And also, from what I can tell, age can sometime raise the price drastically (at a certain threshold.)
You're welcome.
Green got Gaea's Cradle, which is quite possibly even more insane than this card is.
Also, my old post was madness and ignorance about how pricing on old cards works.
And no comparing with cards from Urza's block... even Psychatog or Jitte might not have seen major play were they born during Urza's.
Cabal Coffers is better because it doesn't require a way to put creatures in your graveyard. Coffers runs off of the lands you would be playing anyway, so you don't have to waste the extra cards. You can also use it in a reanimator deck without losing mana production like Crypt of Agadeem will. Oh, and Bojuka Bog.
Also, because it's kind to autocard, Gaea's Cradle was mentioned and should be looked up by people who see the name. :)
Would you rather have even more lands at the rare slot? This one maybe could have been rare, but still. I'm glad it was just an uncommon.
As for the card. Holy crap. That's all there is to say.
1. Extraplanar Lens is an easily destroyed artifact, and when destroyed effectively gives your opponent a 2 for 1. Cabal Coffers is a land, which is in most meta less vulnerable to removal.
2. Moreover, Cabal Coffers combines extremely well with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. That's not the case with Extraplanar Lens.
3. Multiple of Extraplanar Lens are also less good than multiple of Cabal Coffers, even without Urborg. The total mana from Extraplanar Lens is (number lenses+1)*number swamps - number lenses*(number lenses+1), while for Coffers it is (number coffers+1) - number coffers*2 .
4. Finally, Extraplanar Lens costs 3 mana. It means you likely won't be able to use it on the turn you play it, and it may even get removed before you can take advantage of it once. On the other hand, Cabal Coffers can be used immediately.
The only good things about Extraplanar Lens is that it is an artifact and can therefore be played together with a swamp on the same turn. Given optimal conditions for the Lens (no duplicate, no Urborg, etc), it will gives you 2 more mana than Coffers for the following turns until you played all the swamps in your hand.
Try looking at a scaled up version of the art. It's not a sitting mouse on the wall, it's a human with the hand in front of him, held slightly above his head, which would be placed (presumably) in between his arms or against them. ...Quite eerie when you look closer.
Somewhat balanced too, it's not gaining you mana until you hit four swamps and you do NOT want mutiples in your opening hand.
I said somewhat.