When Ice Age came out, R&D thought cantrips were a good idea, but that immediate card-draw might be too powerful. Pretty much all the Ice Age cantrips replace themselves by causing you to draw during your next upkeep.
jfre81
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Good call longwinded, this was from when cantrip abilities were first getting common. Perhaps because of creating a card-draw spell as powerful as Ancestral Recall, instant card draw wasn't so common for those first couple years after the first sets. Perhaps their concerns weren't unfounded - Necropotence not only made you wait until the end of turn to get your cards but it technically wasn't even card draw, but putting cards into the exile or "removed from the game" zone as it were, then putting them into your hand from there.
Compare with the more modern Prophetic Prism which is not only reusable but gives you a card upon it hitting the field. In its day, though, Barbed Sextant was a viable option for splashing a color into a deck without losing card advantage, if not breaking even until the next upkeep.
Majinkajisan
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
When they named this card, were they randomly matching adjectives with nouns? @longwinded: Don't forget, you draw a card during the next turn's upkeep. I could be anyone's upkeep.
Comments (7)
Compare with the more modern Prophetic Prism which is not only reusable but gives you a card upon it hitting the field. In its day, though, Barbed Sextant was a viable option for splashing a color into a deck without losing card advantage, if not breaking even until the next upkeep.
@longwinded:
Don't forget, you draw a card during the next turn's upkeep. I could be anyone's upkeep.
No need to cry!