I'd love to make a "The goggles! They do
nothing!" joke, but I think the card already did
it for me. Actually, that's not entirely true -
there are very few red instants or sorceries
where it really hurts to have an extra copy, and
plenty where it outright wins the game to do so.
While the goggles' own mana cost makes them less
the sort of acceleration that midrange and
control decks tend to look at, and more into
theme deck territory, when everything comes
together the results will be absolutely
spectacular.
Today's card of the day is Pyromancer's Goggles
which is a five mana Legendary artifact that
taps for a Red and can copy Red instant or
sorcery spells that use that mana. This is
an endgame play for Red burn decks that should
set up a win on the following turn in most
situations as with six additional mana it will
deal twelve damage from a Crater's Claws not
counting Ferocious and sixteen with it. This
will change how Red burn is looked at after the
opening turns and is a huge potential upgrade to
the design.
In Limited this is potentially a five mana tap
for one Red mana artifact that very often will
have no other impact on a game. It is a
very risky first pick in Booster and could be an
instant sidedeck choice in Sealed if the pool
offers little to benefit from the effect.
Risk aside this can be extremely powerful with
the right cards and very difficult to pass in
Booster, so it absolutely can win games with a
good card to copy.
A red mana rock that copies red instants and
sorceries? That's interesting. It won't light
standard on fire (ba-dum-tss) but it's a nice
addition to casual and EDH. It's a high cost
artifact that gets better every time you play a
burn spell or a spell that steals creatures or
whatnot. I like it.
