Pointed Discussion

This card has value written all over it. Almost always a 2 for 1, can quite often be a 3 for 1.

Riku thinks 1UURR deals 4 damage divided as you choose and draw two cards.

I used to think '1R for incinerate, U for cantrip'

Now I think '1U for instant draw, R for shock'

oh wait...it says divided as I choose...ok um...new theory:

this card is undercosted. somewhere, somehow, this..
is not right math.

awesome! :D

Burn with a cantrip at instant speed and a reasonable cost.
There's pretty much no way you can go wrong with this card.
If you've got the colors, chances are this card will do you plenty of good.

The artists sound like an Izzet leader. Boros and Szikszai.

Has anyone noticed that virtually every Commander reprint is rated about one star lower than the other printings? Maybe it's the expansion symbol, I did prefer the pretty little Guildpact pattern

@ClockwordSwordfish: 1: You're thinking of Tibor and Lumia. 2: It would be funny for an Izzet to have the name Boros.

This card is anything but undercosted. Cantripping (drawing one card to replace itself) is worth about half of a blue mana (from tournament staples like Brainstorm, Ponder, and Preordain to jank like Leap), not 1U. 2 damage split as you choose is about R, because you can do 3 damage for R. It's not a horrible card or anything, but it's not very impressive either.

@ Superllama - I was just noticing that as well. I think someone went through and rated all the EDHcards lower for some reason. Path to Exile and a few other classic great spells are also suddenly low.

@Henrietta - actually, if you look over Magic's history and compare a card that cantrips to the same spell WITHOUT the cantrip, they've fairly clearly decided that stapling a cantrip onto a card is worth about 2 mana. This is often just 2 colorless, but sometimes it's some combination of colored mana. Using Brainstorm and Ponder as your rubric for what a card draw is worth isn't a good comparison because those spells are designed for the narrow (but good!) application of manipulating the top of the library - it's not the same as a cantrip.

Still, this is pretty well costed. Forked Bolt cost R to do exactly this damage-wise; A number of cards cost just a single blue for some marginal effect and a card draw (or just the card draw, if you're Reach Through Mists). So + + one extra colorless to cover splitting the damage and stapling them together and you've got a well-costed card. Great spell.

No no no... It's Fire//Ice with the tap removed from /Ice

No matter how you slice it, this is a good, fair card. Instant draw with some damage, twin removal with a draw, painful cycling if you topdeck, this thing has it all and is just ASKING for something to copy it. The new Nivix Guildmage might be happy to oblige, if you've got the mana.

I have never been big fan of this in EDH unless you copy it. For me it always seems to be too little damage to get rid of bigger threats. Yes drawing cards is nice but creatures like
Uyo, Silent Prophet or Nivix Guildmage is best for copying this in EDH compare to Riku of Two Reflections.

The Ultimate UR Instant...a cantrip at worst; a 3 for 1 at best

Would you pay extra to give your forked bolt a cantrip and instant speed? Seems like a deal to me.