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Pojo's Magic The Gathering
Card of the Day
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Image from Wizards.com |
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Aether
Vial
Darksteel Uncommon
Reviewed November 8, 2004
Constructed: 3.9
Casual: 4
Limited: 3.2
Ratings are
based on a 1 to 5 scale
1 being the worst. 3 ...
average.
5 is the highest rating
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our
Card of the Day Reviews
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Scott
Gerhardt
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Aether Vial |
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Chris
Gerhardt
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game store owner in CA,
ShuffleAndCut |
So Aether Vial has
found it's place in Extended formats, making
appearances at Pro Tour Columbus. Apparently
with good reason. In a deck built properly,
you can abuse Vial's ability and get out some odd
creatures at opportune times. In limited,
it's awesome. It gives you the opportunity
to get more creatures out faster. If I had
it available to me, I would probably add in a lot
of card draw so I could get more creatures into my
hand, and so, into play. Very very nice.
In casual, this puppy
could really be fun. Throw it in your dragon
deck (say you wanted to play ALL the Invasion
Legendary Dragons, like
Darigaaz, even though they are all different
colors... this could get them into play double
time. Or play it with a bunch of draw, like
Counsel of the Soratami, etc., and a bunch of,
say, good 4 drops. You can get them into
play double time. Fun fun, or I'm sure you can
come up with some devious plan to abuse this card.
=)
Constructed:
4
Casual: 5
Limited: 4.5
Current Price:
Aether Vial -
Darksteel - $2.94
Combos
Well With:
Darigaaz
the Igniter -
Invasion - $4.34
Crosis the
Purger -
Invasion - $4.42
Dromar the
Banisher -
Invasion - $4.43
Treva the
Renewer -
Invasion - $4.62
Rith the
Awakener -
Invasion - $4.87
Counsel of
the Soratami -
Champions of Kamigawa -
$0.22
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Judge Bill
*Level 2
MTG Judge
*game store employee
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Well, it's finally
time to get out of Kamigawa for a while. I'm
sick of just Kamigawa cards. I've picked the
next 2 weeks' cards from the
top 8 decks of
PT Columbus (with the exception of Friday of
next week, which is an interesting card in a
deck that didn't make top 8).
First, we start out
with the winning deck, affinity. This happens to
a key card in the deck, as being able to sneak
in a Disciple (or Meddling Mage, as Pierre
Canali did) without having to pay the mana cost
is big. This is also an artifact, so it helps
your affinity count as well as being sacable to
Ravager when the time comes. If you're playing
affinity, you should definitely play this card.
In limited, this
helps you cheat on your mana. If you haven't
drawn enough mana of a certain color to cast a
card in your hand, this will let you do it. You
could even use this to get out creatures with no
mana of that color (although I wouldn't
recommend that).
In casual, this
would also seem like a good card - it would be
able to throw off combat math.
Constructed: 5
Casual: 4
Limited: 4.5
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Jeff Zandi
5
Time Pro Tour
Veteran
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Aether Vial
My first impression was that this card featured
too narrow an ability to
include three or four in a constructed deck. I was
wrong. This card has
become a powerful part of the very dominate
Affinity deck for close to six
months now. Why is Aether Vial so good? It's great
to be able to put
creatures into play at instant speed by doing
nothing more than tapping an
Aether Vial, but the real reason Aether Vial is a
winner is because it is,
essentially, an all-purpose mana accelerator for a
cost of onely one mana.
(All-purpose as long as your deck contains
creatures!) An Aether Vial with
three counters on it is basically a Mana Vault
whose mana must be used to
cast a single creature. Of course, Aether Vial is
subtle in that it puts
creatures into play seemingly without using mana.
Aether VIal is good enough
for limited play if you have lots of creatures of
similar mana costs.
CONSTRUCTED: 3.5
CASUAL: 3.5
LIMITED: 3.0 |
Ray "Monk"
Powers
* Level 3 DCI Judge
*DCI Tournament Organizer |
Aether Vial
This is one of those cards that is talked about so
much in Affinity that I almost feel silly talking
about it. Play it in Affinity, nuff said. In
Limited, it’s a card slot you will waste on
another creature you could have. In casual, it’s
actually a pretty fun card to build a deck around.
I strongly suggest it for the fun value.
Constructed: 3
Casual: 4
Limited: 1
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Paul
Hagan |
Aether Vial --
No complaints at all about this card. It's cheap,
it's efficiant, and it allows you to trick
creatures into play. As long as you are playing a
deck that can take advantage of this card, such as
Affinity or maybe White Weenie, then it should
probably be in the deck.
In limited, Aether Vial is a bit less effective,
but I might consider putting it in my deck if I
had a fair number of cards that cost the same
amount. Otherwise, if you are all over the place
on the mana curve, you might pass on this one.
Constructed Rating: 4.0
Casual Rating: 3.5
Limited Rating: 3.0 |
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