RCotD #35

Random Card of the Day #35:

Iron Star - 1

Artifact

Whenever a player casts a red spell, you may pay {1}. If you do, you gain 1 life.

Initial thoughts:

This is what I call a "trap" card. This along with the cycle of uncommons of M11/M12 such as Dragon's Claw/Kraken's Eye. Experienced players know that this is a bad card, at best this card might give you 6-7 life, and it's a mana sink of 8-9 mana.

This was the cycle before Dragon's Claw though. I remember when I was teaching my friends how to play they were actually in love with this card. The idea was they could last longer in a duel than usual. "Winning the sprint but losing the marathon." A true quote from one of my friends.

Now actually of the entire cycle, I don't like any of them except one--Dragon's Claw. The idea is that it is a terrific sideboard against monored. A popular deck type is Red Deck Wins, because basically all red cards are designed with the same deck theory in mind: swing with everything at their life points and blow up anything that gets in the way. It has been around since the start of magic and will probably always be--as will Green Ramp Beatstick. Simple yet surprisingly effective decks.

How to fix this card:

This card on the other hand is part of the not-so-great cycle of cards. If it had a cantrip on it, whether it enters the battlefield or an addition {3} to draw a card if that color spell is cast, it might be amazing.

Fixed Cycle Artifacts - {2}
Artifact
Whenever a player casts a {color} spell, you may pay {2}. If you do, draw a card.

There's your cycle. Would probably have to be bumped to rare, though. But without that, it's just a card that doesn't advance the game, stops you from winning, doesn't stop your opponent, doesn't get the card beneath it, etc.

1/5, even the red one is terrible. Would rather play Dragon's Claw. Even sideboarding against the colors isn't effective. I have played a monored mirror match but my friend maindecked Dragon's Claw. That wasn't very fun. If it was in his starting hand he won the game because of how many red spells were being cast. All the bolts hit for 2, Lightning Elementals would swing for 3 and then die the next turn. But that's the nature of red cards--a quick win and it will burn out, so stabalize ASAP or lose. Paying a mana to gain a life is not very effective mana use either.





On another note, something has changed about blogger and now I have to type everything out in html. I'm not sure what happened, but it is very, very annoying to a href every time I try to reference a card. Hopefully you guys know what Lightning Bolt/Doom Blade/Dismember/Cancel is by now. God knows how many times I have tagged that card. They are just so main stream, and are basically universal responses to every card out there.