Pointed Discussion

Ewwwwwww very long text.

I would love to make a deck with nothing but cards that have horrifically long, convoluted text...this, Ambiguity, some other third card that I can't think of right now...

this card confuses me...5/5!lol

I knew a player who had a deck where every card had about this much text. He claimed he wanted people to scoop rather than try and reach each card. Most of the time he lost.

Unlike a lot of walls of text, the idea behind this is very simple: it lets you make a down payment on a card, and pay the rest of the mana cost some later turn. It's too bad nobody actually looked at the final result and said, "You know, this just isn't worth it."

so what is should say... "T:pay the casting cost for a nonland card in your hand and exile it. Play this ability only if there are no cards exiled by _this_. T: Play a card exiled by _this_."
that could be fun... if it wasn't slow and fragial, but defanatly could brake a storm deck.

If I'm getting it right, you can basically pay for a card in two parts with this. Pay some amount of mana to put a charge counter on the Ice Cauldron, then remove that charge counter to get the mana back for the purposes of casting that card.

So, pay half the mana for the card, then use Energy Chamber and an untapper to pay for the card in its entirety. Or something along those lines. Along with the other comboable shenanigans of having exiled cards instead of cards in your hand, this is pretty powerful.

6th turn Polar Kraken for the epic win!

Enables you to get out high-cost spells sooner by spreading the mana cost over 2 turns, gives you a use for any unused mana at the end of your opponent's turn, enables you to make the X in X spells very large, protects important cards from discard, combos with Lion's Eye Diamond, works well with Hellbent, works well with counterspells.

I had to read the comments to figure out what it was actually good for. It didn't occur to me that the way it's worded you could Exile without paying its full mana cost. It's as tricky to use as it is to figure out what it -does-, I bet, but still a pretty interesting card. And some day the english language may evolve to the point that its effect can be spoken in only one or two lines! Tanaka gets five hundred points for including the term 'down payment' in his attempt. Something about that in the context of spellcasting just tickles me.

Very good card. It lets you tap it and pay the mana cost of a spell to play that spell. Very good you see. :P

I would love for them to reprint this with altered art where the Witch is staring into the cauldron with a vague confused look.

Definitely interesting, albeit very convoluted. It is certainly not without uses, as this and consistent land drops could be a sixth turn Darksteel Colossus or some such. Not mind-blowing, but certainly not awful. And a fatty Comet Storm that used all of your mana from your opponent's EOT, and all of the mana on your turn would be pretty helpful :P
It also has the strange Muse Vesselesque hand protection sort of use, as well...not quite so compelling, but not useless, either.

I got this card in one of my very first booster packs, and it sat in my trade binder ever since. Only now do I realize it's potential. You could haveEmrakul, the Aeons Torn out on turn six! Or even better: It That Betrays by turn 5.

It shouldn't take eleven lines of text to say "Use this to store mana for later."

Text is almost as confusing as Cyclopean Tomb.

Translation: "Make a mana down payment for a card. It need not be the full mana cost."

Seems like one of the most efficient mana batteries there is: You get 1 back for every 1 you put in and you're able to charge it with several mana at once. Rarely (never?) does a card allow both. I'm surprised this isn't rated a lot higher. Play a nice big spell earlier than normal or drop your combo all at once.

Mana battery and Gustha's Scepter rolled into one. Unfortunately, the high mana cost makes it much more unplayable than Gustha's Scepter.

One of the most underrated cards from Ice Age. This card does two great things that really help. One it lets you escape disastrous discard effects like duress by exiling the very card they would have caused you to discard without losing the ability to play the card. The fact you can play the exiled card long after Ice Calderon leaves play makes this really great. Also, if you have ways to untap artifacts and add charge counters, the first activated ability attaches the amount of mana spent on the card itself, not the specific counter it's added, so if it somehow gained a 2nd charge counter after adding lets say RRGG with it's first ability, you could tap it for RRGG, untap the artifact and tap it again to add another RRGG, allowing you to cast some real monsters that you exiled.

But in my opinion, it's real power is it's ultimate ability to exile cards for casting later, where almost no one can touch them. There are literally dozens of ways of getting cards out of your hand, there is exactly ONE way (other then losing the game) to cause you to lose the exiled card; pretty easy math to me.

Great EDH card at the very least.

I don't feel like reading all of that.

We need a textless promo of this.

Ice Cauldron
Artifact
,: Exile a nonland card from you hand. Add the mana from to you mana pool, and it doesn't empty when steps and phases end. Use this mana only to cast the card exiled this way. Ice Cauldron remains tapped for as long as a card is exiled this way.



Closest I could get

One comment compared this to Gustha's Scepter. I feel obligated to point out that a Shattered Scepter means a major card loss for you whereas a Shattered Ice Cauldron will never result in a loss of cards. Once a card is exiled with the cauldron's first ability, there is an ability with an indefinite duration that reads "You may play that spell card as though it were in your hand" linked to the exiled card, not Ice Cauldron. Ice Cauldron's only purpose after you exile the spell is to give you mana (if you stored any).

This means you can do things with Ice Cauldron that you never could with Gustha's Scepter. Let's say you want to kill someone (or several people) with Worldfire. You can amass cards in exile with Ice Cauldron, and Worldfire can't touch them. (For each card you want to amass, you should use the first ablity with X = 0, then the next turn, tap Ice Cauldron using its second ability removing the counter and adding 0 mana, but don't cast the spell. The end result is an exiled card you can cast later, and this process is repeatable, so feel free to amass like crazy!)

The turn before you intend to cast Worldfire, your best choice is to exile a card (such as Mogg Fanatic) and put enough mana into X that you can cast that exiled card next turn. When the Worldfire turn comes around, tap Ice Cauldron for mana, but don't cast the exiled spell yet. Use your lands and/or artifacts to cast Worldfire. After Worldfire exiles the world and everyone's life total is 1, use the Ice Cauldron mana you already put in your mana pool to cast the thing you exiled. Have fun. The game is yours. You can use The Cheese Stands Alone or Barren Glory and beat everyone. Personally, I like Mogg Fanatic, because with life totals of 1, he's all you need. And Storm Crow fans, here's how you can win with your favorite Alliances card! :-)

Essentially it's "Exile target spell you control for later use." That's what this card does (and it can spread the cost over two turns). Do it with something like Wrath of God in multiplayer and enjoy the stalled game you just created.

If it gave the exiled spell flash, this would be super-playable.

I'm going to make a proxy that just has "tl;dr" in the text box. (but not really, okay, wotc?)

This card will always have a place in my heart because the effect is so peculiar and not explored much: the ability to protect a card in your hand from almost anything and still be able to play it easily. The mana downpayment mechanic is what made the card so obnoxiously verbose, but if it were trimmed to "T: Exile a card in your hand face up. You may play that card as though it were in your hand." I think people would have been much more interested in it.

Ice Cauldron can do some pretty wonky stuff when you start messing with its charge counters. Let's take a look at its normal operation:

Step 0 - Play Ice Cauldron
Step 1 - Tap Ice Cauldron and pay X mana (X can be zero) to activate its first ability. Can only be used if Ice Cauldron has no charge counters on it.
a. Exile a card from your hand
b. Put a charge counter on Ice Cauldron
c. Note any many payed towards the activation cost.
Step 2 - Tap Ice Cauldron and remove a charge counter to activate its second ability.
a. Add X back to your mana pool.

Note that Ice Cauldron retains its notes on the mana last paid to activate its first ability, even if you have already used its second ability. Normally, this is irrelevant, as its two abilities are mutually exclusive, due to the charge counter requirements on both abilities, so in order to access the second ability you must first override the noted stored mana with another use of the first ability.

However, should you start adding or removing charge counters from Ice Cauldron, such as Energy Chamber, Coretapper, or Power Conduit, Ice Cauldron starts misbehaving.

For example, if you exile a card with ice cauldron, then remove Ice Cauldron's charge counter with Power Conduit, you can keep exiling cards with Ice Cauldron, and cast them from exile whenever you want (obeying normal timing restrictions of course). The special part of the exile zone dedicated to Ice Cauldron is arguably the safest place to keep your cards... only Riftsweeper and Pull from Eternity can access them there.

On the other hand, should you start adding charge counters with Coretapper, you can repeatedly use the same mana you paid for the first ability, though only the most recent mana counts and you can only use it on the most recent card at any given time, so order matters here. This could be useful if you exiled multiple cards, as outlined above. for instance, you could exile an Exsanguinate for 0 mana. Then next turn, you could remove the charge counter, exile a Profane Command with extra mana from some Dark Rituals (let's say 10 mana), then add a charge counter and use the same 10 mana for your Exsanguinate (assuming you either waited a turn or Twiddled your Ice Cauldron).

There's also some weird interactions between Ice Cauldron and cards that mess with your check your mana pool, such as Omnath. For example, you could tap Ice Cauldron to exile a Squall Line, paying 3 green mana in the process. Next turn, you can add a charge counter to Ice Cauldron, float 3 green mana with the Cauldron, and give Omnath +3/+3. This mana continues to stick around, though it can only be used toward casting Squall Line. You can continue doing this every turn, causing Ice Cauldron to become a Gilded Lotus that can only be used to cast Squall Line and pump Omnath. Should you ever take the lead in life totals, or should Omnath every be targeted with removal, or should your opponents threaten to beat you, you can spend all of your mana at instant speed for a lethal Squall Line.

As a Johnny at heart, I encourage everyone to think of bizarre uses for Ice Cauldron instead of just complaining about the size of the card's text.