Pointed Discussion

Why.

Why.

A reprint from a set just a few months old that's bad AND the rarity level is raised??

Total suckage.

Uhhhhh

Why is this rated 1.6?

Hey, it's...uh...that card! You know, that one that just came out, like, five months ago...yeah, that one...

We JUST saw this. Why is it that the awesome reprints are contaminated with bad ones from less than a year ago?

2/1 for 2 is playable. Conditional artifact hate is nothing to sneeze at. Uncommon?

He is an uncommon because all the artifacts for the set are uncommons. As a common there would be too many of him and artifacts would be nill. And he is mostly better than the piker anyway.

2 for a vanilla 2/1 is not a good deal, Goblin Piker sucks even in goblin decks.

@TimmyForever

That is how a lot of people feel about you.

This is a solid card, and reprinting it helps reinforce something that people have been arguing for years but Magic simply had not caught up with.

Red artifact removal needed to be cheaper.

Shatter was a spell that was thought to be good enough, and hearth kami was supposed to keep us happy. Ingot chewer proved that to break an artifact at sorcery speed wasn't overpowered (even with a potential creature stapled on for a higher cost), and after waiting for quite some time we finally have Smelt, a single mana at instant speed to destroy an artifact.

While I think it would still be fair without the mana cost to activate its ability, Magic is a game of gradual change. Testing how far this card goes before making Red artifact removal any stronger is a prudent move, and while Smelt makes me rather happy, this card at least says that magic is still moving in the right direction.

From Mark Rosewater: "There are fewer artifacts in a core set than most expert expansion sets (including Dark Ascension, where Torch Fiend was first printed) and they tend to appear at slightly higher rarities. As such, we shifted up the rarity of some of our artifact destruction.

Also, cards that sit on the board that can sacrifice themselves for spell effects add some board complexity and we try to be extra vigilant about New World Order in core sets."

This card kept popping up every time I open a Booster pack (because it was common). Hopefully it will turn out less often now.

Ok, I get the anger over it being reprinted when its only a few months old, and yeah the uncommon inrease is really stupid. But WAS a really good card for draft, now not so much. But its still got room in a casual deck that needs artifact destruction. Only {R} to take out an artifact, and a goblin piker is a good deal at COMMON. Still not bad though, 4/5 for the card, but I rate it 3/5 for the stupidity of reprinting it already and increasing the rarity.

This at common would have made the uncommon artifacts in the set much less attractive, so a reprinting to change its rarity was necessary. Please stop giving your terrible opinions about how this was 'wrong' or 'bad.'

I am glad this is reprinted. A solid body with a solid ability. Can't go wrong with this.

No reason to make such a controversial creature type... No reason to even go there at all. I have a hard enough time to explain to my church why I play a game called "Magic"... now its got creatures called devils....

@TheWrathofShane

Uhhhhhh....your church was, at least on some level, ok with MtG while it was rife with DEMONS...yet they freak out when the creature type 'Devil' appears on a card?

I don't get it.

Regardless, I like this creature. Artifact removal, while with a cost and not triggered, on a 2cmc 2/1 is playable. Not what I'd call 'maindeckable' but certainly sideboard-worthy.

this is a decent card and i have ran it before maindeck in some rdw decks but common in dark ascension and uncommon in m13? WHY? it could be a uncommon card but there are so many dark ascension reprints in m13!

I feel that this is solid, cheap artifact destruction on a decently-powered card for its mana cost. Try running it in a Blood Artist deck. Swing for 2, sac for (R) to melt an artifact, opponent loses 1 life, you gain 1. Not a bad little burst of fun.

@Lotsofpoopy

no one even noticed you making a serious and constructive comment.

@TheWrathofShane

Ever consider that your church is the problem?