Kaladesh Spoiler - Inventors' Fair

studderingdave

Saw this pop up on my FB feed:

Inventors' Fair

Legendary Land

At the beginning of your upkeep if you control 3 or more artifacts gain 1 life

Tap to add one colorless

4 Tap, Sacrifice Inventors' Fair. Search your library for an artifact, reveal and put in hand. Activate this ability only if you control 3+ artifacts.

Thoughts? My initial is probably too slow for TKS shops but maybe more useful in more grindy shops builds.

I think the lifegain part of this card is really good. With a few of these out, it would be a lot easier for a Shops deck to play the control role without resorting to only Tabernacle and Ensnaring Bridge.

evouga

It's Legendary, so you won't have more than one out at a time.

True, I still think the lifegain part is good.

Interesting card. It seems very niche, and overall not great. But it is hopefully a sign of things to come, and this set will provide us with some Vintage goodies.

It's very close to being playable, but the 4 mana activation and the fact that it is legendary make it need testing.

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@desolutionist

The lifegain part is very good if you find youself in a stalemate, which Shops decks can often do. The only problem I see with that is, if you are in that gamestate, you sacrifice this card instead of gaining life.

So the lifegain only happens early in the game.

The problem I see with the card is that both of it's abilitys are effectively the same thing: do you want to gain life or tutor because you can't have both, and the abilitys only trigger under a certain circumstance. In Vintage, I don't think that life matters over the course of the game (not to say it can't, but in general Vintage is won by the player with the better board).

ajfirecracker

Colorless land early which taps for (1) - playable in Shops but obviously on the low side

Incidental life gain - playable but probably not enough to bump the card over the top

Search for an artifact - obviously sweet in Shops, but is it better than Buried Ruin? Better enough to make up the mana cost?

I think overall this is better than Buried Ruin and that saw a little play so this should see a little play. IMO pick up 1 for the Vintage binder

Cambriel

I'm trying to think of what's strong enough that you would want to tutor it instead of Tinkering it out. The really busted stuff is better in your deck than in your hand. I'm sure someone will find a use, but other than ensuring you've got a Lotus handy for Yawg Will I'm currently at a loss.

spook

Get crucible, get land back, repeat.

Aelien

This card seems sweet if Shops ever goes back to its slower, more prisony playstyle. If something like Metalworker Shops with a lot of prison and only few big win conditions gets played again, i could definelty see this as a 1 or even 2 of.
The syergy with Cruicible of Worlds to cobble together a tutor engine is very slow, but might be powerful if you manage to stall the game enough.
Obviesly its sad that you cant pay for the effect with workshop mana. Might be a lot of pain involved in this tutor, however if you wait a while it could provide enough life to offset the pain you take from paying for it with sol lands. I like the card a lot! It has potential!

enderfall

What makes this far better than Buried Ruin is that you get to search your library instead of the graveyard. There will always be something good to grab in your Library. it's far less true of your graveyard.

Life gain is deceptively good, especially when it's seemingly tacked on for free.

Montolio

Not a huge fan of this card at first glance.
The built in tinker feature can definitely impact a late game scenario.
However, needing to have 4 mana to activate the ability is no small feat in shops in addition to the cost of sacrificing the land to me seems poor.
For all intensive purposes TKS Shops is currently the only viable form of Shops right now and it is tempo based. This card is to slow and not impactful enough to be slotted in.
If Smoking Nova became revived I could see this card perhaps finding a testing slot as it is insulated by CoW and super long game states where you can find your poison to win the game.
The life gain will have minimal impact imo. Getting to Metalcraft is no big deal so you can gain a life a turn. Meh.
Land slots in all shops builds are super tight. As mentioned above my direct comparison to this card would be Buried Ruin (BR). I think the cheaper cost of activating BR is a nod in it's favor. I have run a singleton BR in most of my smokestack builds and the card will win you most late game scenarios. I always have a target for it, God forbid I have a Bazaar going.
If I am toiling with playing with niche lands I would be as bold to say that I would rather run Homeward Path, Factory, GQ, Seagate Wreckage over Inventors Fair.
I have been wrong before, but I am pretty confident this won't be impactful in Vintage in any capacity.

Protoaddict

I think it is a 1 of in shops for the mirror and move on.

The incidental life gain can break a stalemate in the mirror, and tutoring is tutoring. It is better than Buried ruin in the cases where your opponent has incidental grave hate (dredge maining Leyline) or against Deathrite shaman if you need a body, but it is so incrementally better than than ruin that there is no reason to run more than one copy since it is legendary.

In other lists that play heavy jewelry I don't think it makes the cut, because affinity or tezzerator or whatever is not looking to have the game last long enough for the life to matter.

Khahan

I think people are writing off the life gain too quickly. I don't want to overstate it and make it sound fantastic or wonderful, but it definitely has value. It eases the pain from mana vault, mana crypt and ancient tomb. That is not just incidental damage - some matches it can add up quick. Basically cutting tomb damage in half for shops is pretty nice.

Since its colorless mana I don't really see this getting used in many other decks aside from maybe belcher as a 1-of but even adding in the tutor effect I'm not certain this is the best choice for a deck that wants to win by having no lands in the library.

rikter

I dont know that I would play this in vintage, more likely Id play it in Legacy MUD

This would give a non blue black deck a reliable way to find Time Vault/Key

spook

@desolutionist I could see wanting this in a grindy blue control deck with Crucible, Vault and Key; where this takes the place of Tinker (or compliments it).

@spook

Yeah actually Tinker - Robot is not very good anymore with all the Plows/Dacks running around. This could just take the place of Tinker for setting up Key/Vault. Probably in something like the TKS/Bob deck I topped with last month. BSC was the clunkiest part of the deck but I really wanted Tinker+Key/Vault.

Here's the list for reference:

DESOLUTIONIST (7TH PLACE)
VINTAGE CHALLENGE #9946403 ON 07/30/2016

1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Blightsteel Colossus
3 Dark Confidant
1 Snapcaster Mage
4 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Time Walk
1 Tinker
1 Yawgmoth's Will
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Brainstorm
1 Flusterstorm
4 Force of Will
2 Gifts Ungiven
4 Mana Drain
2 Mental Misstep
1 Spell Snare
1 Steel Sabotage
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Black Lotus
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Sapphire
2 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Academy Ruins
1 Flooded Strand
1 Island
1 Library of Alexandria
4 Polluted Delta
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
2 Underground River
2 Underground Sea

Sideboard (15)
2 Curious Homunculus
3 Hurkyl's Recall
4 Ravenous Trap
2 Recoil
1 Snuff Out
1 Swamp
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Volrath's Stronghold

The Inventors Fair is a colorless source of mana for Thought-Knot Seer and it aids Time Vault/Key. Academy Ruins was great in Gifts piles for getting back the combo, and Inventors Fair could work similarly without needing the pieces in the graveyard.