This card doesn't just change the gamestate when
it resolves. It changes how you play your entire
game as long as you know you've got it in your
deck. At ten mana, there's really only two ways
you're going to live long enough to cast this:
dedicated mana ramp or iron-fisted control. But
once you get Omniscience out, ramp spells are
officially worthless and all those control cards
run counter (pun intended) to Omniscience's
demand for you to drop your hand immediately.
Pre- and post-Omniscience are really two
different games, and you practically have to
build your deck two different ways to take
advantage of both of them. Build a deck that
lives to hit ten mana, and you'll find that
Omniscience is like the car every dog wants to
chase-- what do you do when you catch it? Build
a deck full of the juiciest stuff you ever
wanted to play free of charge, and you'll never
live to do it.
I do believe there's a balance here, but it's a
delicate one. Getting Omniscience out and making
the best of it won't be easy, but that's as it
should be for such a powerful effect.
The number ten card of the year is Omniscience
which is a ten mana Blue that allows you to play
nonland cards from your hand without paying
their mana costs. This is a powerful
effect on a very expensive card and outside of a
few ways to get it into play earlier it is not
fast enough to be worth using. In addition
a build using this will likely need enhanced
draw power or a combo to really take advantage
of it which makes the design congested and easy
to disrupt. Overall this is not something
that will see much play outside of Commander,
where it can be devastating, and possibly a few
Casual decks.
For Limited the cost is high and the effect not
really useful by the time you can actually cast
it as anything drawn should be playable before
this and in only a small number of situations
will that much mana be needed for anything other
than the drawn card. Aside from Rare
drafting this can easily be passed in Booster
and sidedecked in Sealed as nearly any creature,
removal, or acceleration will have more of an
impact on a game by being available earlier or
as a topdeck.
Welcome to the Card of the Day section here at Pojo.com! We
are beginning our look at the Top 10 cards of
2012 this week! We begin at number 10 (who would
have guessed?) Omniscience from M13. Omniscience
is a mythic rare blue enchantment that costs
seven generic mana and three blue mana.
Omniscience says that you may cast non-land
cards from your hand without paying their mana
costs.
I really didn't expect to see this card make our
top list myself honestly, but could it be any
wonder? Not having to pay for whatever you want
to cast. I know that a lot of decks combo this
with Tamiyo Moon Sage's emblem to just have a
field day.
The hardest part of course is getting it out. Mana ramping
is not all that hard these days, and this card
can find a home virtually anywhere. Gilded Lotus
is perhaps the fastest way to ramp up mana if
not going for some form of green base.
Once out though, this card is a definitely game changer.
Although I still feel strongly that it needs to
much support to be completely effective.
