[C19] Empowered Autogenerator (TCGplayer)

[Rumpy5897]

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.a ... e=8-6-2019



renewed sulking about Pengine ban

[ZephyrScarlet]

That flavor text is so meta on so many levels, although it would be way funnier if the card had a Phyrexian cost of some sort.

[CommanderMaster999]

That's a first Besides atraxa with Astral Cornucopia the mana keeps getting bigger when your using it

But urza could use this a lot more than her

[theMarc]

This seems... abuseable.

[Hawk]

Color me unimpressed. If it EtB untapped I'd see it but as printed without heavy support, this is...

Turn 4: Cast this, do nothing (compared to Hedron Archive, Sisay's Ring, Ur-Golem's Eye which are played nowhere but would have hit untapped or Thran Dynamo which is the gold standard).

Turn 5: Generates 1 mana (on the turn that you could be slamming Gilded Lotus or Prismatic Geoscope...)

Turn 6: Generates 2 mana (you could have Dreamstone Hedron, Caged Sun,

Turn 7: Generates 3 mana.

Now of course with proliferate and/or doubling effects this is more powerful, but in such a deck I think I'd prefer Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice which come down sooner to actually help ramp me and are a nice mana sinks if we get to the uber late game. Heck, in the average Atraxa or Roalesk or Vorel deck I might even prefer Pentad Prism, Pyramid of the Pantheon, and Coalition Relic for the same reason.

This also seems bad in Urza and most heavy artifact lists. Sure, it's very powerful to keep untapping this with Manifold Key and Clock of Omens but you'd need a few turn cycles before it was noticeably better than a rock that naturally taps for 3+. And it's super relevant in Urza, Daretti, Karn, Saheeli, etc that you can cast the above two for X=0 to immediately tap them for u or sacrifice them to various effects or count them towards affinity counts, whereas this is always 4. I suspect this card's only home is in budget Teferi, Temporal Archmage builds that need a critical mass of artifacts that can tap for 3+ and can't afford Grim Monolith and Mana Vault, as in such a deck this does seem slightly better than Dreamstone Hedron and Coveted Jewel.

[Rumpy5897]

It's funny how I actually got a little excited about this card for a sec after I saw it. I was able to keep my senses operational when they tempted me with Firemind Vessel. The very vision of this tapping for more than a Gilded Lotus baited the very side of me that unironically ran Azor's Gateway for the flip for a few months. This set is full of gaudy traps that will do my decks no good, but are hella cool

[Jace]

I think the idea is to discount its casting cost with things like Etherium Sculptor and get it out early, then build into more mana. Or proliferate into more mana, or both.

[lyonhaert]

Yeah, definitely needs to be built around a bit, or in a deck that already has support such as one that proliferates (as mentioned already) or untaps everything pretty often.

[Jace]

I mean, Unwinding Clock is a thing.

[Wallycaine]

Color me unimpressed. If it EtB untapped I'd see it but as printed without heavy support, this is...

Turn 4: Cast this, do nothing (compared to Hedron Archive, Sisay's Ring, Ur-Golem's Eye which are played nowhere but would have hit untapped or Thran Dynamo which is the gold standard).

Turn 5: Generates 1 mana (on the turn that you could be slamming Gilded Lotus or Prismatic Geoscope...)

Turn 6: Generates 2 mana (you could have Dreamstone Hedron, Caged Sun,

Turn 7: Generates 3 mana.

Worth noting that all of your turn 5 or later examples involve spending more mana. The ability to invest just 4 mana in this and in a handful of turns be out tapping gilded lotus is valuable, even without synergies. It's definitely slow, though, and is aimed more at a playgroup that regularly goes 15+ turns.

[Hawk]

Color me unimpressed. If it EtB untapped I'd see it but as printed without heavy support, this is...

Turn 4: Cast this, do nothing (compared to Hedron Archive, Sisay's Ring, Ur-Golem's Eye which are played nowhere but would have hit untapped or Thran Dynamo which is the gold standard).

Turn 5: Generates 1 mana (on the turn that you could be slamming Gilded Lotus or Prismatic Geoscope...)

Turn 6: Generates 2 mana (you could have Dreamstone Hedron, Caged Sun,

Turn 7: Generates 3 mana.

Worth noting that all of your turn 5 or later examples involve spending more mana. The ability to invest just 4 mana in this and in a handful of turns be out tapping gilded lotus is valuable, even without synergies. It's definitely slow, though, and is aimed more at a playgroup that regularly goes 15+ turns.

That's fair. It'd be more accurate to say...

Turn 4: 4 mana spent on this. 0 mana gained from this or Firemind Vessel. +2 mana gained from Hedron Archive (assuming you could actually use it)

Turn 5: +1 mana from this (1 total), +2 mana from Vessel (2 total), +2 mana from Archive (4 total), 5 mana spent and +3 mana from Lotus (assuming you were able to use that mana). So at this stage, Archive has already paid for itself, Vessel is halfway there, Lotus is halfway there.

Turn 6: +2 mana from this (3 total), +2 mana from Vessel (4 total), +2 mana from Archive (6 total), +3 mana from Lotus (6 total), 6 mana spent and +3 mana from Dreamstone Hedron (again assuming it was useful). So at this point Vessel has paid for itself, Archive and Lotus are profiting, and Hedron is halfway paid off. This is still mana and tempo-negative.

Turn 7: +3 mana from this (6 total), +2 from Vessel (6 total), +2 from Archive (8 total), +3 from Lotus (9 total), +3 from Hedron (6 total). We've now hit a point of equilibrium where all three of Lotus, Vessel, and Autogenerator have turned a profit. They're all still outvalued by Hedron, but notably Hedron is making colorless which is harder to "chain off" with for the average deck. We're just even with Lotus and Vessel now, but on turn 8 we'll start outvaluing them.

So, after 3 taps this is on par with Lotus and Firemind's Vessel and it starts outpacing them afterwards - which isn't as bad as I made it sound. The trade-off here is, of course, if you draw Lotus on turn 12 it still has value wheras if you draw this turn 12 it is a total disaster - almost worse than hitting a land. I still don't think it's great, but it isn't totally unplayable and at least it is different.

[CubJay]

Honestly thank god Paradox Engine is banned

[Mookie]

Well, this looks entertaining. Likely too slow to run if you don't have some way to enhance it, but options exist to turbocharge it - Voltaic Key, Clock of Omens, Atraxa, Praetors' Voice, etc. If you do get to live the dream and have it tap for 6+ mana, that's a pretty potent payoff.

[hyalopterouslemur]

I think the idea is to discount its casting cost with things like Etherium Sculptor and get it out early, then build into more mana. Or proliferate into more mana, or both.

Doubling Season and Seedborn Muse come to mind as well.

[theMarc]

Now of course with proliferate and/or doubling effects this is more powerful, but in such a deck I think I'd prefer Astral Cornucopia and Everflowing Chalice which come down sooner to actually help ramp me and are a nice mana sinks if we get to the uber late game.

I mean, the obvious route is to run all three.