Quote Originally Posted by Eldariel View Post
Honestly, I like the look of that but it feels really inconsistent. You need to have it all in your hand and the card is just plain card disadvantage if you don't. If the deck had more means to generate meaningful card advantage or utilise the graveyard or the discard effects, it would be better, but as it stands, 3 mana is a lot for a one-shot discard effect in a deck using discard and "discard a card" is a lot in a deck that doesn't use the discard or the graveyard. Though if it's the last card in your hand, it's just a 3/4 flyer for 2U and mill 2, which is fair - but you generally want to jam your 2Us on turn 1-2, not turn 4-5.

UG is likely the best home for it, indeed, but how to build the redundancy and reliability into the support frame is a good question. Certainly, you need more discard outlets and if you want to run Forces and Rootwallas, your blue-count and Chalices will conflict with the plan. If you don't run Chalices, the Stompy shell will lose a lot of its value, much of which is in dropping early Chalices, and if you don't run Forces, you lose one of the big advantages of running blue in the first place. Also, these creatures are all ground pounders that can't get past Gurmag, which can be a tad annoying.
I agree with this assessment of Trademage - 1. It's not amazing in a bubble. You want some GY shenanigans to go with it. Crucible seems good, but there've gotta be other things that'll work well (there are no viable blue flashback cards, madness seems hard to cast off Trademage).

2. I don't want to splash another color to get card advantage from the GY. Even the aforementioned Hollow One, which seems really really great with this, fights the slots in the deck that need to be blue for Force of Will. I'm not sure there's too much room for non-blue cards that want to pitch to Trademage. That said, I'm still going to run it. I think it's probably good enough as a card disadvantage looter. Also keep in mind you're losing card advantage to Mox and Force, and if Force is the last card in your hand, it can makes some plays awkward.