It's that time of year again, spoilers are rolling, everyone's looking for cool new edh staples... oh hey what's this?

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Bolas's Citadel - 3BBB
Legendary Artifact

You may look at the top card of your library at any time.

You may play the top card of your library. If you cast a spell this way, pay life equal to it's converted mana cost rather than pay it's mana cost

Tap, Sac 10 Nonland Permanents: each opponent loses 10 life.

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... OH DEAR GOD KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!

Or something to that effect. Yeah, do I really need to explain how broken Yawg's Bargain But You Cast Spells With It is?

Not that I expect me posting this to do anything because I'm self aware enough to realize i'm basically shouting the sky is falling but I really don't want to play against nothing but black decks for the next year while you try to figure out what to do with it so consider this fair warning.

I don't want to jump on the sky is falling bandwagon just yet, but save me a seat for later. Any deck that thinks Ad Nauseam is a good idea will love this thing

This isn't a Yawgmoth's Bargain. It's not even close to being as broken. Hit two lands during your little escapade, and it stops. It's also not 1 life per card.

You do realise this card casts the cards right? With YawgBarg you only pay a life to draw them with this one you just win...

Yeah. I'm sure this card will do something in modern possibly, but not any more dangerous than other commander cards.

It has you cast spells, but it doesn't give you additional land plays. If you hit a swamp, you play it as normal, and that's your land play for the turn. Then you hit a black creature and can cast that for life. Then you hit a second swamp and you're done — you can't cast lands and you can't play this land too.

In all likelihood a deck playing Bolas's Citadel is going to feature some topdeck manipulation though, e.g. self-milling or scrying. This means it will be very at home with Aminatou, the Fateshifter: she can unblock her library with her +1.

Or just play fetches. Or any spell that shuffles, like ramp. Or just play Vampiric Tutor and friends. Or Oracle of Mul Daya. Or do all of these things, that wouldn't make your deck worse.

It does go insane with Sensei's Divining Top. just get a life gain like Aether Reservoir or Golem's Heart

Bolas' Citadel + Top + Aether Reservoir sounds like a fun combo. Once.


.. Then that deck gets targetted straight out of the gate any time that player plays that deck.

I prefer the "Oh, you want to play that? Don't bother sitting down" approach.

I'm not convinced this is more broken than bargain, but being more broken than bargain is a pretty high bar to clear, and even if it's not more broken than bargain, it's still pretty damn breakable. For now I'm going to hope this ends up like Paradox Engine and simply doesn't appear too much at my tables.

I feel like this thread got off on the wrong foot.

No, it's not more broken than bargain, and now that it's been framed that way, it's going to be harder to have a reasonable conversation about it.

To me, Citadel looks like an upgraded, permanent Ad Nauseum (which I feel like is a card that dances unhappily on the edge of acceptable behavior). I'm also citing it as continued evidence that there's still a contingent at Wizards that doesn't really get what fun feels like in Commander. I don't look forward to it being in the format.

Normally I’d agree, although part of me is thinking that this was a deliberate printing of an unfun card, because Bolas.

Perhaps... what's worse - deliberate fun ruining or accidental fun ruining?

I'm actually not brewing Citadel for commander.

I'm brewing it in Modern.

Some type of Mardu Shell using Faithless Looting, Trash for Treasure, Tainted Sigils and a storm pay off. So maybe they didn't build this for commander. But for casual and quirky decks.

lol, Black Future Sight isn't even remotely close to anything resembling busted- even with Tops, even with all of the combo potential. It's a 7/10 on the Clock of Omens scale, tops. But it's new, it's shiny- and we're trying to imagine it's worst-case application. There are combos with it, Ad Nauseum isn't even particularly strong in EDH- but on the whole it's a mana intensive advantage engine.

It's at it's strongest as a pure utility- and any combo deck built around it will be part of something that is on the whole- not very threatening at an average EDH table. I've been tinkering on a Dark Prophecy-centered deck for the last few months. Future Sight in Black isn't going to really change anything about how that plays.

I like that there are new shiny toys- but I haven't seen a spoiler season in quite a while that had me worried about encountering a new kind of power. I wonder how people reacted to Null Profusion now.