Can you only remove one charge counter at the beginning of your upkeep? Or could you remove 5 at once and gain 5 life?
If you can only remove 1 a turn, it's a colourless Ajani's Mantra - which isn't a bad thing.
Kryptnyt
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(7 votes)
@Tom; 1 per upkeep. Not just your upkeep though. It includes opponent's upkeeps, so its inclusion in Archenemy was sound.
count_dorku
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(7 votes)
So it's like Living Artifact. Only it's an artifact. And it costs more. And you can use it more often.
To make it slightly more impressive, use more than one. I take one damage from ? Very well. Next upkeep, I gain two life by removing a counter from each.
Aen3ma
★★★★☆ (4.1/5.0)(6 votes)
extremely underappreciated card, extremely useful in casual for stalling, more than one is just fun. A great reason for your opponent to not attack you, and awesome with eternity vessel.
tantallum99
★★★★☆ (4.9/5.0)(4 votes)
really shines in multiplayer
ImpliedQuotient
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(3 votes)
Takes away most of the disadvantage to pain lands...not an amazing feature, but interesting.
As others have said, great in multiplayer.
NoobOfLore
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(11 votes)
"If you're going to kill me, you might want to do it quickly."
Osuasheuatl
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(3 votes)
I LOVE this card in casual games, especially multiplayer ones. Everyone is annoyed when it hits the table; I try to fit at least one into a deck if I can.
KnightLord77
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(5 votes)
The fact that it says "...at the beginning of each upkeep," not your upkeep, is what truly makes this card useful, especially in multiplayer games. Gaining life is never bad (well, almost never), so although it wouldn't hurt to have it in a deck, I probably wouldn't put this in a deck of mine unless I used that deck solely for multiplayer games.
scumbling1
★★★☆☆ (3.3/5.0)(3 votes)
Sun Droplet: the card that looks good until someone actually tries to kill you. Even with multiple opponents' upkeeps to benefit from, the life you gain back doesn't rise in proportion to the offensive power of an additional multiplayer deck. You might circle the drain an extra turn or two, but you'd be better of with playing good cards in your deck.
Lyoncet
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(2 votes)
@Kryptnyt "1 per upkeep. Not just your upkeep though. It includes opponent's upkeeps, so its inclusion in Archenemy was sound."
I thought so too. Then I looked up the rules, and found that the Heroes in Archenemy all share one turn. That means 1 upkeep phase, 1 untap phase, etc., so this card doesn't give you more benefit in that setting (same is true in Two-Headed Ogre according to errata). Still works in normal multiplayer though. It's a shame, too. This card, which isn't that great on its own, really could have used that extra niche benefit.
AssKickingBoots
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(4 votes)
It would be kind of funny to play this in a troll themed deck. Not good, just funny.
Still, unless you're playing a big multiplayer against morons that attack every opportunity, especially with small creatures (a tactic I call Llanowaring you to death), then there isn't much advantage to this card. Any well constructed creature heavy deck will crush you too quickly for it to matter, this doesn't do anything against life loss, is worthless against Infect (I'd assume you'd still get the counters on Sun Droplet, but also the poison counters), so much other than a really bad burn deck I don't what this beats.
Somebody mentioned the old Painlands like Brushland as a use for them, but there are far better ways to use them, like with Tamanoa (though that's 3 different specific mana). Sure, with multiple copies of Sun Droplet you could potentially gain life for each use of painlands, but Tamanoa DOES gain you life with multiple copies.
The best use if to generate charge counters for you to Power Conduit or Dismantle onto other artifacts. The fact that it helps you stall at the same time makes it great for a charge counter based combo deck.
Zacklar
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
so, this basically turns you into a sponge, any damage you take that damage you get back as life over time sounds nice to be at each upkeep and not only yours
democidist
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Under-appriciated card. Yeah it has its downsides of not being able to stop everything, but honestly it would be broken if it did. Do you really want an artifact card that can essentially stop all damage to you, no I don't think so because your opponent could do the same thing. It's only a 2-drop, cut it some slack.
D34D2R1T35
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
PURE GOLD IN COMMANDER where longevity is the name of the game.
TheWrathofShane
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Back in the day, this thing won so many games for my cousin!!! Grrr
GrimjawxRULES
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Having four of these in a life gain deck never hurts. Get it? ;D
UncreativeNameMaker
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
When I first saw this, I thought it was a slightly weaker version of Ajani's Mantra in colorless. Then I realized it was every upkeep, not just yours. That makes a big difference. Even in a one-on-one game this is probably a little better most of the time.
This is the third time I've commented: -The first time I thought it was terrible due to explosive effects of some decks (combos mostly) and the 'uselessness" of lifegain -The second time I saw it as a johnny only piece
This time? I see that 1-2 life per turn can stave off control decks for a very long time, hold off burn decks as they run out of cards, and in multiplayer? Forget about it, without artifact hate they actually have to kill other players first so they aren't wasting resources into (quite literally) nothing. It turns you into an anti-target; meaning it works well with Propaganda and other anti-target cards.
Comments (24)
If you can only remove 1 a turn, it's a colourless Ajani's Mantra - which isn't a bad thing.
Not just your upkeep though. It includes opponent's upkeeps, so its inclusion in Archenemy was sound.
To make it slightly more impressive, use more than one. I take one damage from ? Very well. Next upkeep, I gain two life by removing a counter from each.
As others have said, great in multiplayer.
"1 per upkeep.
Not just your upkeep though. It includes opponent's upkeeps, so its inclusion in Archenemy was sound."
I thought so too. Then I looked up the rules, and found that the Heroes in Archenemy all share one turn. That means 1 upkeep phase, 1 untap phase, etc., so this card doesn't give you more benefit in that setting (same is true in Two-Headed Ogre according to errata). Still works in normal multiplayer though. It's a shame, too. This card, which isn't that great on its own, really could have used that extra niche benefit.
Still, unless you're playing a big multiplayer against morons that attack every opportunity, especially with small creatures (a tactic I call Llanowaring you to death), then there isn't much advantage to this card. Any well constructed creature heavy deck will crush you too quickly for it to matter, this doesn't do anything against life loss, is worthless against Infect (I'd assume you'd still get the counters on Sun Droplet, but also the poison counters), so much other than a really bad burn deck I don't what this beats.
Somebody mentioned the old Painlands like Brushland as a use for them, but there are far better ways to use them, like with Tamanoa (though that's 3 different specific mana). Sure, with multiple copies of Sun Droplet you could potentially gain life for each use of painlands, but Tamanoa DOES gain you life with multiple copies.
sounds nice to be at each upkeep and not only yours
-The first time I thought it was terrible due to explosive effects of some decks (combos mostly) and the 'uselessness" of lifegain
-The second time I saw it as a johnny only piece
This time? I see that 1-2 life per turn can stave off control decks for a very long time, hold off burn decks as they run out of cards, and in multiplayer? Forget about it, without artifact hate they actually have to kill other players first so they aren't wasting resources into (quite literally) nothing. It turns you into an anti-target; meaning it works well with Propaganda and other anti-target cards.