Remember, this week was Skid Rambo's theme week,
so if you're going to play along at home, make
your guesses now before you scroll down to read
his review-- I'm assuming that's where the
answer will be given.
At first reading, the Astronomer looks amazing
because it'll keep feeding you a steady supply
of enchantments-- some of whom may also be
creatures. In practice, not so much. Since the
Astronomer only shows you three cards, you need
a pretty high concentration of enchantments to
keep the effect from "whiffing". And getting the
effect in the first place requires aiming your
combat tricks, buff Auras, and other targeted
spells at a 1/3 with no combat abilities, when
you'd almost certainly rather aim them at
creatures who are actually good in combat and
can use them efficiently. Unless the third
Theros set shows us a whole host of spells that
you aim at your own creatures for reasons other
than combat, the Astronomer is always going to
be a pretty low-priority target. Maybe there's a
place for this in a "Heroic control" deck that
triggers Heroic with spells like Fate Foretold
and Triton Tactics... and I don't know what
else. I'd rather run Omenspeaker if I need a
cheap blue blocker that helps me draw what I
need, and Battlewise Hoplite if I need a target
for my Auras and tricks.
Considering how many Greek myths end with
their main character being immortalized as a
constellation, you'd think that there would have
been more references to that in the Theros
block. Seriously, this was the closest we could
find. It's also funny to think about Meletis
Astronomer in the context of said Theros block's
gameplay: to get additional Auras, you need to
have an Aura to cast on it in the first place.
Fortunately, the cards with bestow do inflate
your numbers somewhat, and with some careful
deckbuilding you can pull off the trick
surprisingly often. I'm not sure how well the
Astronomer fits into Aura decks in larger card
pools, since there are other things you need to
be enchanting as well (Kor Spiritdancer), and
other cards that have a similar but more
immediate or powerful function (er . . . Kor
Spiritdancer), but it may find a place there
too.
Today's card of the day is Meletis Astronomer
which is a two mana Blue
1/3 with the Heroic ability of having you look
at top three cards of your library, may reveal
an enchantment from them and add it to your
hand, then put the rest on the bottom of your
library in any order.
This is a decent card in an aura deck that uses
a large number of low cost auras to build up a
major threat in short order. Hexproof as an
effect is practically mandatory when running
this as a theme while enchantress based draw
effects would also be beneficial. Similar
to a Wombat deck in design, but faster and less
likely to run out of tempo.
Overall another useful addition to the
increasingly viable aura themes and adds support
to the evasive options in Blue that aren't
always available in the typical White and Green
aura designs.
In Limited there are multiple enchantments,
including creatures, that this can add to your
hand which can of course be played to produce
another trigger. The base creature is
fairly weak, with a decent toughness for the
cost, so the primary benefit is of course the
card advantage. For that it makes a strong
second or third pick in Booster, definitely a
quick on color choice later, and an easy
inclusion for Sealed when running Blue.
Meletis Astronomer is the final piece in a
Standard Aura deck. This guy is just one of the
cards that can keep the Aura engine going. Throw
in some cards like Triton Fortune Hunter,
Auramancer and Righteous Authority to put cards
into your hand. Don’t forget to use the cards
that we reviewed this week! Meletis Astronomer
works perfectly with Bestow creatures and cards
like Triton Tactics. I like to experiment with
cards like Meletis Astronomer and Hero of Iroas
just to see if I can win with them. UW has a fun
new face, in my mind at least. Ascended Lawmage,
Daxos of Meletis and Brimaz King Of Oreskos
would love to be part of the Aura machine. I
can’t forget cards like Gift of Orzhova and Gift
of Immortality. Overall, Meletis Astronomer can
be an Enchantment drawing machine in a
Constructed deck but it is almost useless in a
Limited format.
