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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day
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Etched Oracle - {4}
Artifact Creature
Sunburst (This comes into play with a +1/+1
counter on it for each color of mana used to pay
its cost.) 1, remove four +1/+1 counters from
Etched Oracle: Target player draws three cards.
0/0
121/165
Uncommon |
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Etched
Oracle
Fifth Dawn Uncommon
Reviewed May 6, 2004
Constructed: 2.25
Casual: 3.3
Limited: 2.2
Ratings are
based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ...
average.
5 is the highest rating
Click here to see all
our
Card of the Day Reviews
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Chris
Gerhardt
*
game store owner in CA,
ShuffleAndCut |
Interesting.
Card draw is always great, BUT... the only way
your going to be doing that with this card is if
you 4 different colors of mana available when you
cast it. And even then, all you get is a 4/4
that you can sac for 3 cards. Chances are,
though, you aren't going to have 4 colors to cast
it, so you end up holding it too long hoping to
draw more colors, or you are going to have an
inferior creature on the board.
Wizards is
obviously trying to balance out the first 2 sets
of Mirrodin block's heavy artifacts. They
seem to be pushing toward multicolor synergy.
Unfortunately, cards like this aren't going to cut
it. They just don't give us enough incentive
to go out on that small of a limb. The 5
color limb is fraught with danger, as it is way
too easy to get color screwed. While they are
coming out with some card to help balance it (see
Joiner Adept), I'm not sure they can do
enough. Hopefully they will prove me
wrong...I can see the Domain strategy as being a
lot of fun.
In casual, some
players might take on the challenge of a 5 color
deck as a whim. I can see this snaking it's way
into some fun domain decks.
Crystal Quarry has suddenly seen a huge surge
in demand after the Sunburst mechanic was
announced.
In
limited, unless you also pick up a lot of mana
smoothing, don't bother with this.
Constructed:
1.5
Casual: 3
Limited: 1.5
Combos
Well With:
Crystal
Quarry -
Odyssey - $3.99
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Judge
Bill
*Level 2
MTG Judge
*game store employee
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Etched Oracle
The standard for
blue card draw has been four mana for 2 cards as
a sorcery effect. (See Concentrate.) If you are
playing 4 colors, you now have access to the
same type of card draw, without having to worry
about playing heavy blue. Although, I'd have to
question why you'd want to sac this to draw the
three cards unless it was being destroyed. a 4/4
body for 4 mana is nothing to sneeze at.
Casual players will
play this card as they like to play a lot of
colors, and a 4/4 body for them is great. The
card draw is just gravy. (And don't get me
started on using Coretapper and Power Conduit
with this...)
In limited, I
wouldn't play this unless I was playing 3
colors, as a 3/3 for 4 is about average, and a
2/2 for 4 is pretty poor.
Constructed: 2.5
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 2
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Ray
"Monk"
Powers
* Level 3 DCI Judge
*DCI Tournament Organizer
*Game Store Owner (Gamer's Edge) |
Etched Oracle
Like this card doesn’t
go in every Modular deck anyone has every built.
Seriously, I like this card, it’s not great, but
it’s very fun. I really think it should have been
only three counters removed to draw a card.
Compare it to Concentrate if you want to analyze
the card drawing. In its current form, Concentrate
would have to have a casting cost of UBRG to do
the same as Etched Oracle. Would you play
Concentrate if that were its cost?
Constructed:
2
Casual:
4
Limited:
2
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Jonathan
Pechon
2 Grand
Prix Top 8's
Multiple Pro Tour
appearances |
Etched Oracle
This seems…interesting. I keep wavering back and
forth between saying that this is just too
difficult to be good, and feeling like it’s got a
whole lot of potential. For now, I’m going to say
that swinging four colors outside of Affinity
really isn’t something to realistically expect,
making this card not so good. However, I’d also
recommend keeping an eye on it…
…as I *definitely* see this making an impact in
formats like Prismatic and Five-Color. I’m really
hoping to be able to add a few of these to my Pris
deck online, though it really doesn’t fit in
unless the format has at least 250 cards. I also
see this as a feasible card in Mental Magic…while
four is another popular cost for artifacts, the
ability to net so many cards for the cost is very,
very nice.
While I don’t really think this sounds so good for
draft, I believe this is a very solid card for
sealed deck, simply because of the frequency that
you can end up playing at least three colors in
sealed. As long as you can come pretty close to
guaranteeing that he’s going to be at least a Hill
Giant, you’re doing okay. Remember, he also works
extremely well with Arcbound creatures.
Constructed: 2.0
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 3.0
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Jason
Matthews
* Level 1 DCI
Judge
*game store employee
* gaming for over 15 years |
Etched Oracle This
card has casual play written all over it. Sunburst
is a mechanic that is supposed to reward you for
playing multiple colors and most of the time it
wont. With Etched oracle you are going to be
rewarded if you can get it up to four counters so
that you have the ability to draw three cards. Now
the draw cards is nice but you have to have four
different colors of mana when you cast it to get
the counters or cast another spell that gives it
counters. Maybe you could play dragon blood or
some arc bound creatures and you could abuse it
but I don’t really see it happening. I would love
to be proved wrong on this guy but I just don’t
see it happening.
Constructed 2
Casual 2
Limited 1.5 |
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DeQuan
Watson
* game store owner (The Game Closet - Waco,TX)
* pro tour player
* Scrye writer since 2002 |
This guy is
overbalanced, but I can understand why.
Unfortunately, unless you are able to put four
colors into it, it's not that great.
I think some casual
guys might be able to abuse this though when you
put it in a deck that has a lot of ways to move
counters around to it has arcbound creatures.
We shall see though.
Overall, I don't
like it, but I do think it is going to have some
fun and interesting uses.
Constructed: 2
Casual: 3
Limited: 2
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Jeff Zandi
5 Time Pro Tour
Veteran
Level 2 Judge |
Etched Oracle
Not a very good card unless you are playing a deck
with access to four or,
God forbid, all five colors of mana, Etched Oracle
is just plain old
UNPLAYABLE in a tight two color deck. It doesn't
look like I'm going to be a
big fan of the new play mechanic of Sunburst. I
think I would rather a
Starburst. Okay, now if you DO have access to as
few as three colors, you
get a 3/3 for four mana that you can sacrifice to
draw THREE cards. Blocking
and killing an attacking three toughness creature
and then drawing three
cards sounds really good. Having to have three or
more different colors of
mana is the hard part.
CONSTRUCTED: 2.5
CASUAL: 3.0
LIMITED: 3.5
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Andy
Van Zandt |
Etched Oracle
You -must- pay all 4 of his sunburst (have him be
a 4/4) for this guy to be
worthwhile... otherwise he's a sub-par hill giant
or worse. But with all 4,
he becomes worthwhile cost-wise and more
importantly, card advantage wise.
All that said, I don't see him being good
enough in constructed, at
all... unless you've got some cheap
counter-creation engine, like forgotten
ancient, and even then, that's a janky combo,
casual players only.
constructed 2
casual 3.5
limited 3
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Chase
Secret Squirrel
on the
Pojo.com
Message
Boards |
Etched OracleHmm…
colorless creatures that can use their counters
to draw cards.. Block, sac, pay 1, draw 3 cards.
This mechanic could prove to be quite annoying
similar to Penavus, however, it depends how many
of these cards there are. It’s 5 mana for 3
cards plus a blocker (after damage on stack).
I’m not too sure how this’ll do in constructed.
In limited, it’s either going to be really
good, or really bad. I can’t make that decision
right now, so I think it’ll be average. It’s a
blocker + 3 cards, but you need to leave the
mana open, and people will expect you to do that
trick with it. I’ll be interested to see how
this turns out.
Constructed: 3
Casual: 3
Limited: 3
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Jason
Chapman |
I think the Sunburst
Mechanic will prove to be a big let down and
people won't bother playing with the cards much
after the set rotates out (unless the cards are
REALLY amazing). The Etched Oracle seems
interesting but I think it is more likely that you
will see this in Arcbound decks rather than in
decks that try and load up 4 colors of mana. That
would be the best way to break this card.
Constructed - With
Arcbound and other counter transfering abilities
this card could be a central part of many
interesting decks - 3.0
Casual - Sunburst
screams casual to me and the slower environment
might make the Etched Oracle more playable - 3.5
Limited - On one
hand you will probably have at least two colors on
the other hand you don't want 4. I think he will
at best be an expensive Bear without tricks - 1.5
PEZ - 4 mana is on
the edge for most decks in this format and the
ability isn't easy to meet with basic lands alone
- 1.0
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