Modern Players Forgot About Arcum's Astrolabe - The Most Broken Snow Card!? | MTG Discussion

[@ilostthecat6973]

I will give astrolabe credit for one thing, it made legacy super cheap for a little bit. Most decks were playing fetches, a bunch of snow basics, and 1-3 duals depending on the deck, which drastically brought down the price of most decks.

[@pikachuhoodie]

@@ilostthecat6973 this is actually THE reason it should've never been banned. I have no issues affording Legacy cards but it was nice knowing that I could play Doomsday with only 1 Underground Sea rather than needing 4 (Casual $2800 playset)

[@Alecations]

@@pikachuhoodie Too much of legacy bans and communities are complaining about changes that actually offer counterplay to staples.

[@falkranduhm10]

Prophetic prism for {S} rather than {2}. And that little difference turned an unplayable into utterly broken.

[@NemisCassander]

Fascinating, isn't it? :)

[@GH-un9uz]

3:00 Mystic sanctuary was still legal so you could cast cryptic, countering a spell and bouncing your sanctuary to reset cryptic to loop it over and over. Cryptic was just *barely* good enough in 2020 but mystic sanctuary is why it was in that specific list

[@GrimoireMogri]

Astrolabe’s biggest problem was definitely not being stapled to a specific land when filtering. We have had plenty of one mana auras that do almost exactly what it does with the exception that they’re stapled to one land. But it turns out being an artifact and snow permanent matters a lot for tiny synergies. One would think that people would experiment with Mana Cylix upon seeing these results but nope going down a card for this filtering power isn’t worth it in fair control.

[@Snarwin]

There's also Prophetic Prism, which is the same effect for 2 generic mana. Like a lot of broken cards from that era (Oko, Once Upon a Time, Uro), it really is just a case of giving too much value for too little cost.

[@aquacode2]

​@Snarwin being one mana was huge, yes. But even the interaction of counting as a snow permanent for cards like ice fang coatl and winter's rest pushed it even further

[@NemisCassander]

I wonder if it would be any different if the activated ability also required snow mana instead of just any mana.

[@hunterlee4412]

During drafts and pre-release of MH1 my draft partner and friend initially was very critical of my choices when building out astrolabe into my draft pile and snagging everyone I could get. Yet when I turned around and played dead of winter, wrenn and six, and astral drift with a deck of cyclers and some talisman's he wondered how I thought the mana base was possible. If I remember correctly my win condition was sling gang lieutenant. Once I realized I could pick whatever rares and jam them in with enough astrolabes I was off to the races.

[@robertomacetti7069]

-cantrip -snow synergy and there are some really strong cards that care about that -mana fix need to go on? cause i can -affinity for example (after watching edit) -i'm going to splash red for blood moon was a sentence, true

[@williamdrum9899]

Also it's one mana to cast

[@ecpracticesquad4674]

Normally I’d argue as a contrarian, but astrolabe is insane value. It was not only a draw engine, when done right, but also complete invalidated shock lands and normal greedy mana base hate. It made building multicolor deck trivial.

[@dagreen92]

Wow when the contrarian concedes you know it's real

[@HeabSaysNo]

Lmao oh no, I can't possibly run artifact hate! No one runs pithing needle! No one runs collector ouphe! Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[@Entropic_Alloy]

I have a bunch of nice full art basics and being stuck playing snow basics was the REAL sin of that card.

[@WilhelmScreamer]

@@Entropic_Alloy was not a fan of the mh1 full art snow lands?

[@juicebox8566]

Honestly, I think the litmus test for Modern banned cards should simply be: In a world of all cards unbanned, would this card be pervasive enough to broadly be an auto include as a 4x? If not, then it should be able to find organic regulation and remain off the list.

[@dashkatae]

There are a few cards that would pass that test and still be busted. Jegantha, Lurrus, Mycosynth Lattice, and Yorion primarily, but some cards you probably don't need a full playset nor want one in your deck, like Uro.

[@juicebox8566]

@ I think that the greater point is that the format is a bit hamstrung by this notion of power and constant banning rather than organic growth and regulation. It makes things like MH sets even more problematic because there are even more bans between those sets - of cards that would likely see more regulation is the format was opened up more in terms of the BL. I am a boomer though. There was a time where things had to work themselves out in a largely unregulated pool of cards and they didn’t happen overnight. In many ways, this is the Modern that people walked into and seemingly miss. With constant set releases and constant bans between them, there is nothing organic about the format - and it ultimately will continue to functionally rotate until left to actually grow organically.

[@aidanking3320]

The problem with asrtolabe is that it just makes every deck 4 colors with perfect fixing, it's not broken it's just unhealthy for the format

[@WhipLash42o]

Right? This is the actual argument for keeping it banned. It just turns decks into homogenous 4c piles.

[@adamgalloy9371]

It's a card that single-handedly makes the game not function as intended (the intention being that playing additional colors comes with inherent deck-building costs) and that gives the decks that run it a ginormous advantage over decks that don't (leading to this dysfunctional play becoming the norm). IDK, to me that seems like the definition of "broken".

[@benyseus6325]

Mystic sanctuary shouldn’t have been banned. The interaction with Cryptic command was a sad joke that wouldn’t hold up today

[@LibertyMonk]

It's really not about that though, the cryptic command interaction is cute, but you don't need to recur the sanctuary to break it. Just one time putting a spell back on top is enough to make it a powerful land. Having 4 copies of it as lands is broken.

[@kylechmielewski9972]

Sanctuary is extremely broken. At the low low cost of having a island that sometimes enters tapped, Sanctuary turns all of your fetches into the best instant or sorcery in your gym. The cryptic loop is just gravy

[@KeithCameRunning]

Any time I think it's safe to unbanned AA, I remind myself that Jesus was born this day for sinners like me with absolutely stupid thoughts like "unban AA"

[@littlesid2499]

I miss my 4 colour snowko with DRS Astro Oko and value 🤣😂

[@Azeria]

I guess my question is if this had the “when this artifact enters, choose a colour” clause would it still be banned?

[@naiustheyetti]

yes because it still fixes mana and draws a card.

[@HeabSaysNo]

​@@naiustheyettithat's dumb af. There are so many other cards that do that for 1-2 mana.

[@naiustheyetti]

@@HeabSaysNo 2 mana is unplayable in modern/legacy for this effect and the only 1 mana one i can think of is abundant growth and that is stuck in green for forest.

[@jonaswilliams9755]

Wrenn and Six, Astrolabe, and Uro were definitely played in the same deck. Wrenn and Six and Astrolabe were printed in the same set, so if there's a deck that played Uro and Astrolabe then there was definitely a deck that played them and Wrenn and Six.

[@MrMartinSchou]

Could you fix Arcum's Astrolabe to make it less broken? What if it required snow mana to activate? Or would that not be enough to offset the upside?

[@j-rey-]

@@MrMartinSchou Maybe you have to choose a snow land you control, and you can only filter snow mana for colors that that snow land can produce.

[@MrMartinSchou]

@@j-rey- That seems FAR too limited. But I like the general idea. What if it could create mana of any colour your snow basic lands can produce? Might not need to be activated with snow mana then, because it's already limited. So you play it with a snow mountain on turn one, turn two you play a snow forest, play a Sol Ring, and you can now play something that costs 1RG, 1RR or 1GG. But it's not perfect mana fixing as Arcum's Astrolabe.

[@sufferlogan]

name a snow card ok, DARK DEPTHS

[@stackzgaminglucky7927]

I'm just glad that astro is not banned in EDH. I plan to run it in my duel Phelia deck. Gonna whoop some ass soon

[@chesstitan70]

Also, i definitely got hosed by a 4color snow control with bloodmoon and jtms ulted 4times for my match loss

[@Kahadi]

As soon as I saw what it does, I could see it was good... But I still don't see how it's better than functionally identical cards like Prophetic Prism. I've always played more casually, so my experiences are based on my decks and my friends, but the simple part is that Prophetic Prism does the exact same thing. Draw a card when it enters, and filter mana once per turn (on its own, of course). The only difference is a Snow mana instead of 2 generic to bring it in, but that doesn't feel like enough difference to warrant Astrolabe being banned while Prism isn't. And its even more confusing when nobody is talking about that comparison. Everything I've seen or heard discussed about it doesn't even mention the mana value, just what it does.

[@davispo7550]

The gap between 1 and 2 mana is massive. Most snow pile decks had no other T1 plays, so they'd keep 2 lands of any kind in the opener and go Astrolabe T1. It doesn't matter what lands the player had, if Astrolabe was on the board then the player effectively had perfect mana for no opportunity cost (no T1 plays anyway, redraw off ETB), and it basically cost no extra life like fetches/shocks did

[@j-rey-]

As other person said, the difference between 1 and 2 mana is massive in legacy. It is a turn 1 play that is a one mana cantrip that allows you to fix mana, helps snow synergies, and helps artifact synergies. It is also a permanent, so you can bounce it and replay it for a 1 mana storm count spell and as another 1 mana cantrip, unlike other non-permanent cantrips. If it were 2 mana, bouncing it and replaying it would be significantly worse. That is way too much value for 1 mana, and below value for a card that is 2 mana. There are so many better cards to play for 2 mana in legacy.

[@pikachuhoodie]

I think Astrolabe will be fine in a world where: A) mana can already be made perfect without it B) Yorion, Oko, Field of the Dead, Uro, and Mystic Sanctuary are banned

[@dashkatae]

You can tell how busted the card was when you compare it to Mana Cylix and Prophetic Prism. Mana Cylix costs the same as Astrolabe but doesn't draw a card, Prophetic Prism does exactly what Astrolabe does but costs two. Neither card sees play.

[@matthewgagnon9426]

As they say, two is a lot more than one.

[@dashkatae]

@ yep, exactly.

[@stephenhousman6975]

Dark Depths is the most common snow card.

[@daemonxblaze]

Arcums weather vane in my opinion is better

[@luhcsgrimm8857]

I think rn, at this point.. astrolabe could be reasonably Unbanned

[@ridendonald]

Abominable Treefolk 😎

[@ruelzsantanaAoE]

Unban Uro. We need color pie diversity in Modern.

[@girugamesh9001]

before they unbanned opal I think it was a pretty safe unban. it's most powerful synergy points were opal, oko and yorion and all 3 of those were banned.

[@rdonagerilefio3616]

Mox Opal>>>>>>>>Arcum’s Astrolabe. It could be unbanned tomorrow and it wouldn’t see any play at all, even controls have better cards now. Opal is much more dangerous and, apparently, it hasn’t changed much the format

[@gnezlukc]

That’s cuz a playset of opals is literally the price of some whole decks

[@oOOoOphidian]

Now imagine them together again

[@HeabSaysNo]

​@@gnezlukcprice is irrelevant when you're talking about a cards strength.

[@LooseGooseGamer]

atrolab is miles ahead of opal. you must not have played then to have this opinion

[@gnezlukc]

@@rdonagerilefio3616 astrolabe has negative deck building cost because it replaces itself. Opal has the same cost as any other fast mana. It’s card disadvantage for tempo advantage, not to mention it’s legendary. Also the artifact strats you can play it in are usually colorless

[@chesstitan70]

If we are talking about snow permanents that are banned in modern..... can we unban dark depths????? Plz

[@Roll-Penut]

"Modern ayers forgot about astrolabe" literally the thumbnail shows someone who wasn't even playing then