Urza's Chalice

Artifact

Whenever a player plays an artifact spell, you may pay {1}. If you do, you gain 1 life.

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Oldschool 93/94	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (2)

FormOverFunction on The Great Planeswalker Debate

1 year ago

(1) Everything Caerwyn said. Very accurate and well-explained. (2) I would like to carry the Luddite torch further by saying “I remember back when the players were the only planeswalkers.” I like to joke that Dreadbore should just insta-kill your opponent. (3) My biggest complaint is more focused on the soft (non-mechanics) end of the spectrum. Rightfully or wrongfully, I see planeswalkers as the beginning of the end of the players-in-the-spotlight era. When I started playing, the players were mighty wizards grabbing unexpecting thrulls out of Breeding Pits and flinging them at each other. One might have gotten their hands on an ancient Pentagram of the Ages somehow. How does it work? No idea! Who made it? No way of knowing! But that wizard has it and will be that much harder to defeat. Maybe the other wizard dug up Urza's Chalice. Who’s was Urza? An ancient dude of great power, from ages ago. Important? Sure, but not as important as how that wizard is about to use it! All that other stuff was forever ago, and your defeat is staring you in the face here and now! You get the picture. Today, with WOTC so heavily invested in these planeswalkers and their stories, we are (as nearly as is possible in a build-your-own-deck game) locked on the railroad tracks of their stories. It’s approaching the point, with the way the cards appear to be created, that you’ll need to read the book to find out how to make the deck. You may be chuckling at that, but I don’t see it being that far off. When WOTC just dumped a bunch of Earth Elementals and Giant Growths in your lap, the game seemed WIDE OPEN. Sure there were stories and books and names like Llanowar and Serra that hinted at enormous story arcs, but you were still just two wizards slugging it out somewhere else. Using the tools you had available. To wrap this up: planeswalkers, in my mind, cemented the railroad tracks in place that dragged -us- planeswalkers off stage. Forced us into the front row seating of a sub-off-Broadway performance that simply cannot live up to what our imaginations had been building for years... about characters that either never meant anything to us before, or are weak shadows of what we had imagined. It’s just super disappointing to pull the D&D/role playing/imagination out of this game, especially when you consider that it was likely an accidental byproduct; a necessity borne of their inability to do more at the time (I think they probably would have started the game this way if they had the resources). It might be difficult for everyone to relate to this, but it’s a little like the Atari game Pitfall for me. The game is repetitive and hollow by today’s standards; the maps are random/inconsistent, and the only skill used is jump. As a younger lad, though, my mind was ROARING while I played it. Imagining swinging from vines over giant scorpions and scooping up piles of treasure was at the front of my mind, leveraged exponentially by the box art (treat yourself to a viewing of all the different pieces of original Atari box art sometime- it’s gorgeous stuff). Now, everything about a video game is there. In front of you. Once you’ve seen it, heard it, and defeated it, you’re done and it is (usually) discarded as flavorless gum. At risk of being overly dramatic; that’s sort of what planeswalkers have done to magic for me. I am not a fan. (TLDR: planeswalkers represent the growing pre-chewed and pre-arranged feeling I get from magic these days and I don’t like them and I’m old and get off my lawn)

LordBalthamos on

7 years ago

I think you're talking about Reliquary Tower, and that would work well with this deck. If you're not interested in either Reliquary Tower or Spellbook, might I suggest Thought Vessel?

Also, since you're running blue I thought that I'd give you an idea for cards that go well with artifacts for this type; Reshape, Acquire, Copy Artifact, Lost in Thought, and Tinker (of course XD).

Besides blue, I would also like to mention these artifacts; Urza's Chalice, Shield Sphere, Proteus Staff, Relic Barrier, Phyrexian Processor (for giggles), and Tsabo's Web.

Note that a good chunk of these cards depend on your opponent so I mention these so you just have an idea about them, you may find them useful or not, sideboard etc.