So... remember that, in the days of yore, damage, abilities and all that went into a single stack? They reworked it, combat damage is simultaneous now, split into two steps (first strike damage step for creatures with first strike or double strike, and normal damage step for any other combat damage), and while it's being done on each step it isn't observed if a creature should die or not.
Meanwhile, spells and abilities make use of something called The Stack, a last in first out pile-in system. Not that much different from before except interrupts and mana sources have been assimilated into instants and there are some actions (activating a mana ability, turning up a morph) that don't use it, which shouldn't affect any normal game as-is, but it has interactioms with priority
Wow that is a lot to digest. I don’t think someone like me can ever play magic again without playing a format that doesn’t include later card. There’s just too much to catch up on it makes casual dabbling impossible.
nah it's easy, kids can do it.
The Stack is basically how magic used to work, minus weird exceptions. Any new exceptions are so rare you won't notice.
Someone casts lightning bolt on your grizzly bears, you giant growth to survive, they cast terror to to kill it once and for all.
All that still works exactly as it did many years ago.
Sorry, I didn’t mean the rules per se. I get that. I meant the scores of new abilities/effects/combos and thousands of new cards that would be impossible to learn for playing causally for fun once in a blue moon.
Same! Except I also ran meekstone, swords to plowshares, spirit links and won with 4x millstone....
It was a total grind but I loved that deck. Balance (x1, restricted) and armageddon may also have been in it.
Oh I played that variant! At least it helps that the opponent played a game versus being stuck in ice and stasis lol. At least some participation before they see their drop wiped off the board or something.
I had a winter orb/stasis deck that dominated local tournaments. Most of it was unlimited and earlier. I bought it from a kid for $90. It would’ve been in the tens of thousands today had it not been stolen.
I didn’t have a lot of friends in college lol
Blue is still my color. Hate the fact that in modern it’s lacking in spell counters now. I used to run spell blast, power sink and mana leak and force of will. I am so used to playing at least 16 counter spells and 8 wipes (wrath of god, disenchants and swords to plowshares). Control deck philosophy is different now after 30 years.
Arena kinda simplified playing too. Hard to believe we’ve come this far from back then.
My favorite is also blue. I have mono blue decks going from control starring [[Back to Basics]] and other popular lock cards ranging to blue retap nonsense with [[Golem Artisan]], [[Nyx Lotus]], [[Filigree Sages]] and other endless mana enablers.
Already seen this one since I'm subscribed but great stuff man. I was very surprised by how many different factors that I wouldn't have thought of played into this card's success.
29th best uncommon in limited is better than it sounds because it's a colorless card. Any colorless card with an above-average winrate is great. If you take it early it keeps you wide open, if you see it late it slots right into whatever you're playing. And most DOM stans will maintain that it's better than the data says. It was good in DMR too. Great limited card even in 2024.
> And most DOM stans will maintain that it's better than the data says.
Can confirm, the winrate is awesome. I had a draft with two Icy Manipulators; easiest 7-X of my life.
According to Scryfall, every booster pack printing, including Limited Edition, has been uncommon
An oversized league prize printing and a 2005 FNM award are the only ones listed as rare
In Ice Age it wasn’t rare but it was one of the most expensive cards in the set early on. It eventually normalized but in the early months it was close to ten dollars.
If "back in the day" was between Revised and Ice Age, that's not surprising. Most of the cards that weren't reprinted in Revised were in demand. And although it was uncommon, only ~60,000 were printed in Unlimited. For comparison, there were about three times the number of Mishra's Factory in print at that time. Its median value in Scrye in early 1995 was $20, which was only $5 less than Ancestral Recall.
In my playgroup of about a dozen kids at that time, only one of us had an Icy. It wasn't until Ice Age that it became more plentiful.
If you're someone who hasn't watched video and want a summary, I still highly recommend watching the video. Nizzahon has a ton of great MTG listicles and history videos and it's great content.
A short summary would be:
Icy Manipulator saw play competitively early on when the game rules made it an overall more powerful card than it used to be. It would be used in control decks to turn certain artifacts on and off (as it used to be that getting an artifact tapped canceled its effect) and that blocking creatures dealt no damage to attacking creatures if they became tapped, making it essentially a combat trick at that point. As game rules changed, the manipulator fell out of favor competitively
Learnt how good this card was in a DMR draft, I had never seen the card before but drafted 2. It completely shut down a few games, and when I had both out, the game was over. Fun card.
I am old enough to remember when my OG Icy Manipulator was worth a lot of $, and then basically went to nothing once reprinted. I was pretty angry at the time, but I can only laugh now that it was ever that expensive of a card. Times change.
It is still a good card! Especially in Commander. Subtly, it's a very powerful artifact. Many times I've seen a single Icy Manipulator stall a winning player's victory chances long enough to allow either a complete turnaround, or a opportunity of equalization.
The fact that it can hit lands fucks a lot of non-basic activated abilities up. It even fucks up mana abilities. ("Beautiful Gaia's Cradle! Now, tap it on your upkeep. And rest assured, it is going to stay that way.") I've even seen it trip up multicolored decks, and not only on the earlier turns. You can use it to make Howling Mines work only for you. You can even build around the ability itself. A player can do all kinds of sneaky shit with Icy. It's an often dismissed old-school card which is almost never situationally useless.
\*was\*? It's still good. It's just outclassed these days. But it can absolutely still win games. Just like Serra Angel can. I know it's forever ago, but I ran 4 in my mono white control deck during rav-tsp standard, and people really had no clue how to play around it. I can't tall you how many control mirrors were: EOT i tap your island, during my turn I tap your other island, and then cast a spell. And mono red was always playing pro-white blood knight and it held his head down til i wrathed just great. It forces players to play into your wraths as well because in order for them to get damage through, they have to play more creatures than you have icies, and then you maximize value from them.
and let's be clear, standard control players are running \[\[braided net\]\] right now. i could see icy in standard being decent.
One of my favorite cards of all time. Such iconic art. I remember not being able to secure one from unlimited and getting so excited to see it reprinted in Ice Age. At the time I was upset they didn’t use the original art but now I respect that they didn’t.
> no artifact gets shut down now when it gets tapped
Sir, you should fact check this....
Every day people die against Storm on MTGO because their [[Trinisphere]] gets tapped. (If somebody is interested in digging into this topic: There are 27 artifacts in MTG that dont work when tapped. - I give you one for free: [[Storage Matrix]])
What they mean is that *all* artifacts with continuous effects are not shut off when tapped, which was the case.
"Continuous Artifact" no longer exists on the type line, but they are functionally represented with the "As long as _ is untapped" templating, which recreates the on/off dynamic the designers intended.
I complelety forgot about the whole "tapping constant artifacts to shut off effects" shit tbh
Sorry. Did that rule change? I haven’t been keeping up until recently.
Yes. Artifact with continuous effects no longer lose them when tapped (unless the oracle text specifies so)
But they did Oracle text winter orb back to where tapping it shuts it off. But there was a whole there that it didn't. Ah, memories.
Dang. I am that outdated lol
Hoo boi wait until I tell you of the stack
Nah I am familiar about that (since I play arena). Just completely did not know about the artifact effects.
It’s been 25 years for me. Do tell.
So... remember that, in the days of yore, damage, abilities and all that went into a single stack? They reworked it, combat damage is simultaneous now, split into two steps (first strike damage step for creatures with first strike or double strike, and normal damage step for any other combat damage), and while it's being done on each step it isn't observed if a creature should die or not. Meanwhile, spells and abilities make use of something called The Stack, a last in first out pile-in system. Not that much different from before except interrupts and mana sources have been assimilated into instants and there are some actions (activating a mana ability, turning up a morph) that don't use it, which shouldn't affect any normal game as-is, but it has interactioms with priority
Wow that is a lot to digest. I don’t think someone like me can ever play magic again without playing a format that doesn’t include later card. There’s just too much to catch up on it makes casual dabbling impossible.
nah it's easy, kids can do it. The Stack is basically how magic used to work, minus weird exceptions. Any new exceptions are so rare you won't notice. Someone casts lightning bolt on your grizzly bears, you giant growth to survive, they cast terror to to kill it once and for all. All that still works exactly as it did many years ago.
Sorry, I didn’t mean the rules per se. I get that. I meant the scores of new abilities/effects/combos and thousands of new cards that would be impossible to learn for playing causally for fun once in a blue moon.
Honestly, I came back after almost 20 years and it only took about two weeks to have it all down again. It's not as bad as it seems.
Yeah they had to change the oracle text on old cards that relied on the mechanic of tapping turning it off.
This and winter orb was my deck back in the day. Plus stasis and kismet. And lots of counter spells. Yeah, no one liked me.
Same! Except I also ran meekstone, swords to plowshares, spirit links and won with 4x millstone.... It was a total grind but I loved that deck. Balance (x1, restricted) and armageddon may also have been in it.
Oh I played that variant! At least it helps that the opponent played a game versus being stuck in ice and stasis lol. At least some participation before they see their drop wiped off the board or something.
I also added Prodigal Sorcerer and Norit as well.
I had a winter orb/stasis deck that dominated local tournaments. Most of it was unlimited and earlier. I bought it from a kid for $90. It would’ve been in the tens of thousands today had it not been stolen.
You really put the blue in Blue_Spider.
I didn’t have a lot of friends in college lol Blue is still my color. Hate the fact that in modern it’s lacking in spell counters now. I used to run spell blast, power sink and mana leak and force of will. I am so used to playing at least 16 counter spells and 8 wipes (wrath of god, disenchants and swords to plowshares). Control deck philosophy is different now after 30 years. Arena kinda simplified playing too. Hard to believe we’ve come this far from back then.
My favorite is also blue. I have mono blue decks going from control starring [[Back to Basics]] and other popular lock cards ranging to blue retap nonsense with [[Golem Artisan]], [[Nyx Lotus]], [[Filigree Sages]] and other endless mana enablers.
##### ###### #### [Back to Basics](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/6/0600d6c2-0f72-4e79-a55d-1f06dffa48c2.jpg?1654805483) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Back%20to%20Basics) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/uma/46/back-to-basics?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0600d6c2-0f72-4e79-a55d-1f06dffa48c2?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Golem Artisan](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/4/441a3345-2507-46ed-bdb3-c5c45d17da51.jpg?1608911433) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Golem%20Artisan) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmr/311/golem-artisan?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/441a3345-2507-46ed-bdb3-c5c45d17da51?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Nyx Lotus](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/b/5bd6353f-d119-40e6-895c-030a11a7a2fe.jpg?1594077250) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Nyx%20Lotus) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/thb/235/nyx-lotus?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5bd6353f-d119-40e6-895c-030a11a7a2fe?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Filigree Sages](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/8/08790aaf-0142-4b20-89cf-cdaffeea4582.jpg?1562700900) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Filigree%20Sages) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ala/44/filigree-sages?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/08790aaf-0142-4b20-89cf-cdaffeea4582?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l4b51tb) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
"I didn't have a lot of friends in college lol." Stasis/Winter Orb explains that.
Come on. We play to win right? Lol
Already seen this one since I'm subscribed but great stuff man. I was very surprised by how many different factors that I wouldn't have thought of played into this card's success.
29th best uncommon in limited is better than it sounds because it's a colorless card. Any colorless card with an above-average winrate is great. If you take it early it keeps you wide open, if you see it late it slots right into whatever you're playing. And most DOM stans will maintain that it's better than the data says. It was good in DMR too. Great limited card even in 2024.
> And most DOM stans will maintain that it's better than the data says. Can confirm, the winrate is awesome. I had a draft with two Icy Manipulators; easiest 7-X of my life.
Wasn’t it rare in the reprint? It was initially uncommon ?
According to Scryfall, every booster pack printing, including Limited Edition, has been uncommon An oversized league prize printing and a 2005 FNM award are the only ones listed as rare
I swear I couldn’t find one back in the day. Or it’s being hoarded away from players like me lol.
In Ice Age it wasn’t rare but it was one of the most expensive cards in the set early on. It eventually normalized but in the early months it was close to ten dollars.
If "back in the day" was between Revised and Ice Age, that's not surprising. Most of the cards that weren't reprinted in Revised were in demand. And although it was uncommon, only ~60,000 were printed in Unlimited. For comparison, there were about three times the number of Mishra's Factory in print at that time. Its median value in Scrye in early 1995 was $20, which was only $5 less than Ancestral Recall. In my playgroup of about a dozen kids at that time, only one of us had an Icy. It wasn't until Ice Age that it became more plentiful.
Out of curiosity, was this inspired by False Swipe Gaming's Pokemon videos?
I believe OP confirmed this in their first/second post.
No way it wasn't
The hail change in gen 9 was a huge buff
If you're someone who hasn't watched video and want a summary, I still highly recommend watching the video. Nizzahon has a ton of great MTG listicles and history videos and it's great content. A short summary would be: Icy Manipulator saw play competitively early on when the game rules made it an overall more powerful card than it used to be. It would be used in control decks to turn certain artifacts on and off (as it used to be that getting an artifact tapped canceled its effect) and that blocking creatures dealt no damage to attacking creatures if they became tapped, making it essentially a combat trick at that point. As game rules changed, the manipulator fell out of favor competitively
Well, I didn’t understand early mtg artifact rules nearly as well as I thought I did. Fantastic video, I look forward to more.
This sub needs more Nizzahon! Great stuff, love your channel.
If the answer isn’t “god tier” I don’t want to watch 😝
Nizzahon's analysis of MTG history is top-tier; it's going to be detailed and nuanced.
Learnt how good this card was in a DMR draft, I had never seen the card before but drafted 2. It completely shut down a few games, and when I had both out, the game was over. Fun card.
In a couple of years, we will see videos like how good was Jace mind sculptor ? then how good was Ragavan, the year after.
Icy Manipulator was such a bomb 1st pick in Dominaria draft.
It’s still very strong in OldSchool, and pretty pricy since only ABU/CE versions are allowed in that format (no reprints with original art/border).
This is still my favorite card. I own every single version. It was such a staple in my early decks.
I am old enough to remember when my OG Icy Manipulator was worth a lot of $, and then basically went to nothing once reprinted. I was pretty angry at the time, but I can only laugh now that it was ever that expensive of a card. Times change.
It's insanely good in any Limited environment that isn't Cube
It is still a good card! Especially in Commander. Subtly, it's a very powerful artifact. Many times I've seen a single Icy Manipulator stall a winning player's victory chances long enough to allow either a complete turnaround, or a opportunity of equalization. The fact that it can hit lands fucks a lot of non-basic activated abilities up. It even fucks up mana abilities. ("Beautiful Gaia's Cradle! Now, tap it on your upkeep. And rest assured, it is going to stay that way.") I've even seen it trip up multicolored decks, and not only on the earlier turns. You can use it to make Howling Mines work only for you. You can even build around the ability itself. A player can do all kinds of sneaky shit with Icy. It's an often dismissed old-school card which is almost never situationally useless.
\*was\*? It's still good. It's just outclassed these days. But it can absolutely still win games. Just like Serra Angel can. I know it's forever ago, but I ran 4 in my mono white control deck during rav-tsp standard, and people really had no clue how to play around it. I can't tall you how many control mirrors were: EOT i tap your island, during my turn I tap your other island, and then cast a spell. And mono red was always playing pro-white blood knight and it held his head down til i wrathed just great. It forces players to play into your wraths as well because in order for them to get damage through, they have to play more creatures than you have icies, and then you maximize value from them. and let's be clear, standard control players are running \[\[braided net\]\] right now. i could see icy in standard being decent.
[braided net](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/6/8/68a6ede0-6d57-4e29-9e3b-3569ab7f0bcd.jpg?1699120209)/[Braided Quipu](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/6/8/68a6ede0-6d57-4e29-9e3b-3569ab7f0bcd.jpg?1699120209) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Braided%20Net%20//%20Braided%20Quipu) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/lci/47/braided-net-braided-quipu?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/68a6ede0-6d57-4e29-9e3b-3569ab7f0bcd?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Just play white border only commander if you want to find out just how good it was.
One of my favorite cards of all time. Such iconic art. I remember not being able to secure one from unlimited and getting so excited to see it reprinted in Ice Age. At the time I was upset they didn’t use the original art but now I respect that they didn’t.
> no artifact gets shut down now when it gets tapped Sir, you should fact check this.... Every day people die against Storm on MTGO because their [[Trinisphere]] gets tapped. (If somebody is interested in digging into this topic: There are 27 artifacts in MTG that dont work when tapped. - I give you one for free: [[Storage Matrix]])
What they mean is that *all* artifacts with continuous effects are not shut off when tapped, which was the case. "Continuous Artifact" no longer exists on the type line, but they are functionally represented with the "As long as _ is untapped" templating, which recreates the on/off dynamic the designers intended.
[Trinisphere](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/3/1/316caa4e-a53a-460b-978c-5f0fba7bc549.jpg?1599710205) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Trinisphere) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/2xm/303/trinisphere?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/316caa4e-a53a-460b-978c-5f0fba7bc549?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I can't wait for your analysis on [[Shimmering Grotto]]
[Shimmering Grotto](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/0/e03f2594-c6e8-4758-86b4-885d1dba3a91.jpg?1562855108) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shimmering%20Grotto) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ima/248/shimmering-grotto?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e03f2594-c6e8-4758-86b4-885d1dba3a91?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Let's ask Rudy