It's always funny when you run across a card
that produces mana better than lands do. Sure,
in this case you have a 50% chance of three
damage each turn, but imagine getting this out
on turn one: by the time the damage matters, how
far ahead are you likely to be? In the sorts of
formats where it was originally legal, you also
had things like Transmute Artifact and Atog to
get rid of it when you no longer needed it.
Nowadays there are even more options (like
yesterday's card of the day!), but it's a decent
or better card even without that.
Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 2/5 (NB: it has only been in draftable
sets on Magic Online!)
Multiplayer: 3/5
EDH/Commander: 3/5
Michael "Maikeruu" Pierno
Today's card of the day is Mana Crypt which is
a zero mana artifact that taps for two colorless
mana and during your upkeep it can deal three
damage to you based on a coin flip. This
is only legal in a few formats, but works well
with Tinker to provide additional mana then be
sacrificed before the following upkeep.
Even without that it provided acceleration that
can be more valuable than the chance of some
life point loss. Overall a very strong
card when used aggressively for an early win or
sacrifice bait which leaves it a bit more
specialized than other zero mana acceleration
artifacts.
And another nearly drawback free card to round
out the week. Of course it's banned in almost
every format short of vintage and (surprisingly)
EDH. I'm just going to stick to EDH for this
review. a 0-drop mana ramp card is huge.
potentially losing 3 life a turn isn't a deal
breaker either. it helps tremendously in
non-green decks for ramp, part of the reason
it's going for almost 200 bucks for one copy.
