Would an Artifact Version of Tolarian Academy Be Too Powerful?
General forum
Posted on July 27, 2025, 9:01 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
Recently, WotC finally printed a creature version of Gaea's Cradle in the form of Circle of Dreams Druid, so I naturally am wondering when they shall print an artifact version of Tolarian Academy, since I know that many players would like to see such a card, but I wonder if such a card would be too powerful, since the academy itself is already a very powerful card, so I certainly would like to ask the other users here, about this subject.
What does everyone else say, about this subject? Would an artifact version of Tolarian Academy be too powerful? I certainly am interested to hear your thoughts, on this matter!
Frankly, if it's a hard-to-cast three-drop then it's fine. If it's more mana but enters tapped, then it's probably also fine. If you can tap it immediately, then it needs mana restrictions or a casting cost of seven or more.
July 28, 2025 11:45 a.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #4
legendofa, only creature have that restriction, from what I have seen, since blue is not supposed to have unconditional mana dorks, but artifacts usually do not have that restriction.
Idoneity, why would such a card require such a restriction, when the amount of mana that it can generate is variable, and dependent upon how many other artifacts that its controller also controls, when Circle of Dreams Druid does not have any restrictions, and, on that subject, why does Nyx Lotus enter the battlefield tapped, when the only way to profit from it is to have devotion to a single color of at least five, and why does Empowered Autogenerator enter the battlefield tapped, when there is no way, no even with a Doubling Season, for its controller to profit from it, in a single turn?
July 28, 2025 8:23 p.m.
DemonDragonJ Right now, the only artifact that can reliably dump out blue mana (specifically) is Five Hundred Year Diary, which is restricted by the number of Clues you have. Other "any color" artifacts like Empowered Autogenerator or The Eternity Elevator, for a couple of new examples, are slow to get rolling. So I would say there's pretty much no precedent for an artifact that quickly and reliably produces more than one, maybe two blue mana. My takeaway is that no artifacts have that restriction because no artifacts exist that would have that restriction.
Stepping into your response to Idoneity, green is allowed to be much more flexible in when and how it produces mana than any other color, especially blue. Cards that produce lots of mana of any color, even creating only a single color at a time, have a lot of potential power--a lot of cards with the word Lotus in the name have been banned, restricted, or errata'ed one way or another. So my guess is that the designers decided mass mana production is fair as a late game effect, but want to heavily restrict it for the early and mid game. It's worth noting that every new card (first printed in the last four years) that can produce three or more mana costs 3+ mana to cast, has an additional cost for the mana, or is heavily restricted for what it can be used for.
July 28, 2025 11:38 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #6
legendofa, that makes sense, so do you believe that that means that it is unlikely that WotC shall ever print an artifact version of Tolarian Academy, in that case?
Also, is the Circle of Dreams a location or faction that is unique to the Forgotten Realms? It has been years since I followed the storyline of that setting, so I cannot remember it being mentioned, there.
July 30, 2025 8:46 p.m.
They'll print one sooner or later. I think they're testing boundaries, seeing where the lines between "powerful", "format-defining", and "broken" are. They're still in the safe zone, but pushing forward.
All I know of the Circle of Dreams is that it's a druid subclass in 5th edition D&D. Mechanically, it's pretty defensive/utility focused (healing, stealth, teleport, scry). Flavorfully, it has a close connection to the Feywild. I don't know if there's any deeper lore.
July 30, 2025 9:05 p.m.
DemonDragonJ says... #8
legendofa, in that case, that likely limits how frequently that Circle of Dreams Druid can be reprinted, if its name limits it to the Forgotten Realms, which is very unfortunate, since I imagine that most players would like to see it be reprinted very frequently.
July 30, 2025 9:33 p.m.
i hear the joker (hamill) laughing at how much fun that would be before i even finished the sentence....
amulet of vigor would jump in price
legendofa says... #2
They came up with Storm the Vault Flip and Uthros, Titanic Godcore, so it's probably going to happen sooner or later. I would expect the mana cost to be in the -ish range, parallel to Circle of Dreams Druid. A colorless option would be more in the + range--it shouldn't be too easy to make giant piles of mana off a couple of artifact lands and mana rocks.
Probably also a rider like "This mana can only be spent to cast blue spells or artifact spells." That's where blue ramp is these days.
July 27, 2025 10:31 p.m.