Like Dreamstone Hedron, this is mana
acceleration that is itself as expensive as most
things you'd want to accelerate to. It'll get
you nine mana on turn six. That's good in
Casual, and other slower formats where you
haven't necessarily lost the game already by
then. The fact that it's colorless and can
produce mana of any color is very nice too.
Nicol Bolas would like it!
Really, mana rocks like these are only as useful
as the stuff they're casting. If Return to
Ravnica gives us plenty of solid stuff with
tricky mana costs (at the same time as it pushes
a good deal of artifact destruction out of
Standard) and doesnt also release a glut of
solid mana fixers/accelerators, then people may
use this to cast it all. Until then, I don't see
it catching on.
A lot of things change, but one thing that
probably never will is the mechanical
representation of cards with the word "lotus" in
their name. I wonder if there's a disadvantage
to that; maintaining tradition is good, but
lotuses represent more than one thing in
mythology. We last reviewed Gilded Lotus in
2003, which is not to say that it hasn't been a
factor in the intervening years: the
only-one-color restriction is surprisingly easy
to work around, and taking its caster from five
mana to nine gets scarier every time you think
about it - for reference, nine is exactly what
an entwined Tooth and Nail costs, and there are
exactly three black mana in Cruel Ultimatum's
mana cost. Really, this is a card you'll never
be sad to own, because it only gets better as
more Magic sets, with more things to cast, are
released.
Today's card of the day is Gilded Lotus which
is a five mana artifact that taps for three mana
of any one color. This is a solid
acceleration tool, particularly in an artifact
driven design, and will definitely see play now
that it has returned to the Standard and
Extended formats.
Multiplayer decks in particular will likely see
this appear in many decks as the slower format
and frequency of high casting cost or X effects
increase the potential advantage to be gained.
For Limited this is an excellent first pick in a
pack of Booster as it can accelerate into bombs
or effect costs and can fit in any deck with a
typical to format mana curve. Few decks in
Sealed won't benefit in some way from using this
as it can correct color shortages in addition to
acceleration and has nearly no drawback. Gilded
Lotus effectively costs two mana to play one
card that on later turns works as three land
drops which gains an effective card advantage.
Welcome to the Pojo.com card of the day. We are
looking at Guilded Lotus today. Guilded Lotus is
a rare artifact that costs five generic mana.
Guilded Lotus taps to give you three mana of any
one color to you mana pool.
Guilded Lotus is a great rare, but
honestly, once you have five mana, unless you
are preparing to drop something like Nicol
Bolas, you should have already had the mana you
should need. Many decks these days operate with
low based casting costs. It means that the speed
of the deck is stable, and you win with what you
have instead of relying on overpriced cards to
do so.
Some people still prefer big boom cards though,
and the Guilded Lotus certainly helps the go
off. It is some fast mana acceleration, granting
you a free three for five, and then eight or
nine on the following turn. And when combined
with another card reprinted in M13, Clock of
Omens, it could be even more mana.
A very good card, but it comes down to how
and why you are using it.
