The Spoiler of Unluckyman

While we’re on the subject of cards in the future, I’ve also been thinking about Tsuyoshi Fujita’s card, Unluckyman’s Paradise:

Unluckyman’s Paradise
Land
If Unluckyman’s Paradise is in your opening hand and you’re not playing first, you may begin the game with it in play. If you do, Unluckyman’s Paradise comes into play with a luck counter on it.
T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Play this ability only if Unluckyman’s Paradise has a luck counter on it.

This card was so popular after the 2005 invitational that Wizards knew they just had to print it. It wasn’t too spectacular except in multiples, and the thing it did best was allowing you some countermagic before your first turn. Essentially, it was a “fixed” Force of Will.

The current version reads something like this, according to an Ask Wizards from four months ago:

Unluckyman’s Paradise
Legendary Land
If Unluckyman’s Paradise is in your opening hand and you’re not playing first, you may begin the game with Unluckyman’s Paradise in play with a luck counter on it. If you do, remove a card in your hand from the game.
T: Add 1 mana to your mana pool. If Unluckyman’s Paradise has a luck counter on it, add one mana of any color to your mana pool instead.

First off, I’m pretty sure everyone will play four of these. Why wouldn’t you? Just increase the number of total lands in the deck so you can deal with more colorless mana and the fact that the legendary rule will come into play all the time.

(Unless you’re beating the strategy, willing to take your opponent’s permanent acceleration at the cost of a card, and not playing any at all.)

The problem is that the strategy for Unluckyman’s Paradise is to let your opponent get one into play before first turn, enter your first main phase and drop your own. This completely screws with the nature of the first two turns.

First, based on the chance that you could get your Paradise into play first, people will chose to draw.

Second, running into the problem described above on the draw essentially means that your first draw is negated but both of you are at the same number of cards (7 – 1 = 6 and 7 – 2 + 1 = 6), so you’re really playing first, albeit with one fewer card. It’s a gamble that should pay off in about a quarter of your starts. Another quarter will see you start a mana up and a card down on your first turn (i.e. you get the Paradise and your opponent doesn’t), and half sees you draw first with no other special effects (i.e. you didn’t get Paradise in your hand).

Third, what happens if you or your opponent doesn’t get this card in hand? It’s bedlam. This is why the risks of running fewer than four is so great. Starting up a mana but down a card is a lot easier to recover from for any deck. Aggro can power out a fatter creature earlier; Control can play better draw spells sooner.

Essentially, for the years this card is available in Standard play, it will completely change the strategy that surrounds the opening turns.

Vintage may never be the same, although not every deck will be able to utilize it as well as every other. Stax could do the most with multiple copies since colorless mana wouldn't hurt as much, but control and combo would do best with one early copy that gives double-blue for Mana Drain sooner.

Worse, Unluckyman's Paradise is one of those cards that will get better if it gets restricted, and there's less chance of your opponent meeting yours with his own early on.

Actually, Unluckyman’s Paradise will mess around with a lot of things in a lot of formats. As it was first presented, the card was clearly broken and bound for restriction. As it is now, I’m just afraid of what it will do because the game will be totally different as long as it’s around.

Of course, this card will come out in Time Spiral in a few more months. Things might be very different by then. Dissension will have appeared and had its effects on the game, then we’ll get to see Coldsnap which I predict will be either very, very awesome or very, very lame, depending on how well Snow-Covered Lands are integrated and how good the pitch-spells are.

Anyway, what I may or may not be trying to get at is that you need to look at cards in the environment where they’ll be played.

This seems obvious, I know, but sometimes there’s just no telling how a card will be before you see what comes out with it. In most environments, for example, the Hellbent mechanic would be terrible, but with enough cards that reward having an empty hand with positive results, Hellbent suddenly becomes playable. In other formats like Legacy and Vintage, where the cardpool is even larger, Hellbent could be insane.

Wild Mongrel as a Hellbent and Threshold source? With Basking Rootwalla as a feeder and One With Nothing as the ultimate powerup? That could be really good.

I keep looking at some of the Azorius cards and having this problem.

Azorius Aethermage
UW
Creature – Human Wizard
Whenever a permanent is returned to your hand, you may pay 1. If you do, draw a card.
1/1

This card looks pretty bad right now, by itself. It’s a 1/1 for 2, which is inefficient at best, and it has an ability that looks shaky and difficult to use. How often do things get returned to your hand? And why would you want to have that happen anyway?

But what if there’s a card like Words of Wind that completely negates the drawback by letting you pay two to have your cards-in-hand increase by two while your and your opponent’s permanents in play decrease by one each? Is that worth it? I have no idea, but I’m saying we don’t yet know the whole picture.

Goblin Welder was significantly weaker when it was available in Standard, but it didn’t take long before people realized that if you combined its effect with one artifact that cost very little (like a mox) with an artifact that cost significantly more (like, say, Memory Jar), things got a lot more interesting.

Tinker wasn’t ridiculous when about the best thing it could fetch was Memory Jar, but when Mirrodin block went into Vintage, Tinker got out of hand. Thank you very much Darksteel Colossus.

Of course, Azorius Aethermage is pure speculation based on the Orb of Insight, so it might not exist, and maybe all of my examples really mean next to nothing.

Spoilers and preview cards, though, are a double edged sword all around. One hand has them building interest in the newest set and speculation around all the new decks and technology that will come out of it. The other hand says they mean nothing because until you actually see the set and put it together with other cards, you might never see the true worth of any cards. One card that looks great by itself may not have enough support to build a viable deck. Another card that looks like the absolute jankiest jank that ever janked a janker could turn out to be the missing piece of a tier 1 powerhouse.

All in all, it’s still just a matter of wait-and-see.

So, we'll wait and see.