The reason for the significant difference between the wording on the 2 printings of this card relate to a change in the rules for Magic that removed the 'artifacts are "TURNED OFF" when tapped' rule.
Kryptnyt
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
draws inspiration from Winter Orb, but it doesn't act as an Anti-Wrath in your monogreen stompy deck since your creatures will find it hard to untap...
nunyaJs
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
This is one of the first rares i HAD to have 4 of. It formed the backbone of my first control type deck.
with only 2 ickies and 4 mind games to back it up, STILL won up to 3/5 games... until everyone realized that games were taking what felt like DAYS to complete, and just refused to play me.*sigh* I dont think MTG is ever gonna be that fun for me again.
Krysto
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I've personally had a lot of success (mostly casual) with this in a mono-white/low cost deck (I'd call it white weenies, but that doesn't do it much justice since it revolves more around keeping everything else small as well) and for decks that require very little mana to run, this can actually outstrip the traditional winter orb if used properly (namely on a turn after an opponent has tapped out for greatest effect).
The end result is now your opponent has to CHOOSE between untapping creatures and lands, and often is very wary to do much of anything, or even be forced to bide their time until their next major move (which you will be prepared for). The flavor text is right on the money here, this card slows the game down quite a bit, and that usually tends to be an advantage if used properly. Good synergy with cards like Loxodon Gatekeeper, Mobilization, other creatures with vigilance, etc. If it gets too annoying for you, you can usually count on your opponent to eventually attempt to trash it, or have a back door sacrifice effect to remove/tap it before your next upkeep.
On a similar note - Cards like Lodestone Myr make this positively demonic.
TheMurderousKitten
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Love this card in my Jhoira of the Ghitu EDH deck. She only needs to activate her ability anyway and this card can slow my opponents down to a crawl, just like the flavor text says. That means all the nastiness I have suspended has plenty of time to come into play before my opponents can do much of anything to set up defenses. This is just a fantastic stalling card. And it works even better if you happen to have a few mana sources that produce more than one mana apiece on the board. Suspending three game winning creatures each turn is always better than just one.
Comments (5)
with only 2 ickies and 4 mind games to back it up, STILL won up to 3/5 games... until everyone realized that games were taking what felt like DAYS to complete, and just refused to play me.*sigh* I dont think MTG is ever gonna be that fun for me again.
The end result is now your opponent has to CHOOSE between untapping creatures and lands, and often is very wary to do much of anything, or even be forced to bide their time until their next major move (which you will be prepared for).
The flavor text is right on the money here, this card slows the game down quite a bit, and that usually tends to be an advantage if used properly.
Good synergy with cards like Loxodon Gatekeeper, Mobilization, other creatures with vigilance, etc.
If it gets too annoying for you, you can usually count on your opponent to eventually attempt to trash it, or have a back door sacrifice effect to remove/tap it before your next upkeep.
On a similar note - Cards like Lodestone Myr make this positively demonic.