Soradyne Laboratories v1.2: Recent Activity
Soradyne Laboratories v1.2: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
Mechanics | Skeleton |
Recent updates to Soradyne Laboratories v1.2: (Generated at 2025-08-18 20:02:50)
Crap. I thought it drew a card when it popped. Yeah, the second cost probably needs to come down.
That will be sick, fast. I don't know if it's overpowered but I'd buy 4 as soon as I could.
Wait, what draw? This reads: 3, put a land on top of your library. Or: Discard this (somehow) and put a land on top of your library. But if you're doing the discard, that's different mana investment-or a time one, if you're doing this on turn 1.
But how is that a good thing?
What am I missing here?
Hmmmmmm, Recycle/Null Profusion on a dude is kinda saucy, but I don't quite feel it best demonstrates "the most brilliant scientist in the land", and the secondary ability just feels tacked on, even if it has a sort of sensible inclusion insofar as it gets the chain moving.
What if you got to play every turn as though it were your turn? Like Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir, but less about control and more about being simply THAT smart:
Aricus Pinn



Creature - Super Genius
At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, you may put a land from your hand onto the battlefield.
You may cast spells any time you could cast an instant.
1/3
The real trick here is that it has the ability to fetch a land for free in some situations. That means it can't be strictly as efficient as other cards when it's played "normally". It may be possible to get the card down to 2-1 costs or 1-2 costs, but I haven't done a ton of comparative analysis to see if that makes it overly strong. My gut says that this is 75% right, which beats other options at 25% right.
Yeah, I think you have to realize that even staggered, this card is something of a limited bomb, as it turns a single piece of removal that your opponent casts into infinite removal for you the rest of the game.
And I don't know that it has to ditch the ability to grab lands, I just thought such a function wasn't quite as resonant in terms of "recombination". Like, "Ah ha! I've done it! I've played a land as though I were playing a land! RECOMBINATION IS IN EFFECT!"
OK, but it's still worse than Wander's Twig in two ways (Costs 2+1 instead of 1+1, puts basic land on top of library instead of into hand) and slightly better in one (it does some extra mana fixing that turn, which is useful if you need a third colour or can't play the land you find immediately).
Can it be made comparable without giving up the basic idea?
That does not suck. I dislike that it means you're generally only getting one spell every two turns, but it's probably more fair that way. It also prevents the ability to play a land out of another player's graveyard, but I suppose that's the trade off.
And an interesting idea for another card...
The "land on top" effect happens just before the card is drawn, so it's actually 4 mana over two turns to draw the land you want and get a colored mana rebate.
To make this work a bit better, and resolve the ambiguity noyahuid pointed out, I suggest switching around some of the costs and functions:
Data Recombinator
: Exile target nonland card in an opponent's graveyard.
,
: You may cast a card with converted mana cost X exiled with Data Recombinator without paying its mana cost.
Artifact
(Note: Templating structure was cribbed from Kaho, Minamo Historian)
Anyway, this would resolve part of Dan's (presumed) issue that you couldn't actually use the current build to cast an off-color spell, while keeping it balanced. And by attaching part of the ability to the cost, you ditch the whole question of "when" a thing can happen, as it happens right then and there.
It could probably be dropped down to
or so if you were feeling like it was too weak.
Nice card. Might need some clarification on expected ambiguity. I know that "exiled with ~ this turn" means that "you can play the exiled card this turn", but some people might interpret it as "you can play a card that was exiled this turn".
I'll take "Worthless Arguments" for $200, Alex.
FACEPALM!!!
BUT SCIENCE AND NATURE DON'T JIVE!
Haven't you guys ever seen Avatar! C'mon!
Right.
Stupid card designers! Make him both!
There's a general design rule in R&D: if the player keeps making an incorrect assumption about a card or is naturally inclined to play it differently than the way we intend, then the player is probably right.
Which means that if Phytomancer is a Druid that works well with the Wizard tribe and looks too much like a wizard (he's a worker, not a fighter), then he's probably actually a wizard who's just fooling himself.
To take away his wizard-untap trigger nerfs what makes him a cool variant on the standard mana elf, so that's off the table. Or at least something I REALLY don't want to do. Based on the assumption that there's something wrong with this card, this means the type is wrong, and that is really the point you're making.
Except that I genuinely think that if this guy plays well with wizard and there's a pretty clear "wizard tribal" theme visible, it will be assumed that he is himself a wizard.
From an historical perspective, yes, it's out of character. Here, I think it's the natural shortest path between two points.
"Most of them are outdated"
Right. With 3 that would never see print even in the Silver Age of Magic, two requiring green to activate and convert, and half producing colorless (one of my recommendations); many with restrictions or expenses that demonstrate that this ability is out of it's jurisdiction (if it even should be there at all.)
In a list of twelve cards. Whereas the druid type is chock full of green mana producers with zero complications. It's not like they've shunned the wizards creature type so how do we justify this departure?
So again: this card should be changed, because all the data says it should.
But still, I think it's less "Wizards don't make colored mana" and more "Green doesn't have Wizards, and non-green creatures are rarely able to produce colored mana".
Here's our list of Mana-Producing Wizards: Show Me!
Most of them are outdated, but they do have a common-thread of conversion, with Deranged Assistant being the most recent card demonstrating this philosphy. If maintaining its identity as a Wizard is vital, then the next logical solution would be to find something for it to convert.
Actually, the issue for me is that pretty near every single creature in green that has produced green mana which isn't a wall has had druid or in much smaller numbers, shaman attached to it with the exception of Elvish Aberration. The only one that wasn't an elf or druid: the aforementioned Magus which tapped for colorless-and only did that because it was modeled on a land.
Wizards don't tap for mana, as far as I can tell. Haven't since Apprentice Wizard-which produced colorless and they don't do it in green.
This set's emphasis on those interactions can't break 20 years of tradition/rules/worldbuilding without a much better reason that; well, we wanted to do tribal wizards in green-a tribe that, as you point out, isn't supported in that color.
I feel that this limitation should be accepted and used to leverage what makes the colors interesting-as well as demonstrating a respect for what has been done. Having this become a druid or tap for colorless instead would fit in with the tendency towards research, and the ability keeps it tied into the set's themes without being explicit, with the bonus of fitting into the larger WotC arc of cards.
One of the binding threads throughout Soradyne has been: we don't just break from what R&D would do without some serious consideration. This card, arcing away from what has been a standard for a long time, at common-which suggests that this is the way we think things should be-has not I submit, had that consideration and should be reformatted as a result.