Anyone who's seen a picture of Phil Foglio would agree that this is the closest he's come to drawing a self-portrait on a Magic card (I make this comment in loving jest; Phil is the man).
Mode
★★★☆☆ (3.5/5.0)(4 votes)
You won't find many red cards of that type, although Orcs apparently like to deal with the library. The random removal is of course also very red flavor. And dealing with eight cards for just one mana is simply astonishing in general :D
Teotanek
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(2 votes)
I like this card, foglio borthers are so funny, he has naked lunch in his bookshelf !! ahahah it's awkward that burroughs managed to appear in magic, like Einstein and Urza's pope miter!
Omenchild
★☆☆☆☆ (1.5/5.0)(6 votes)
@Mode This card sucks so bad, what the hell do you mean "astonishing." You can only hit yourself! Just use scry jesus haha. I like Goblin Lore MUCH better.
Blackworm_Bloodworm
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(2 votes)
There's no way this is an orc. Looks and acts like a gremlin.
DacenOctavio
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(3 votes)
What the hell is this? Seriously, what the hell!? This card just seems to scream "Well, my deck sucks, so I'm just going to increase the likelihood I'll draw Mountain over any other crappy card in my deck."
EXILE 4 AT RANDOM!? Unless there is a card that gains ability by being exiled, I don't see how one would be able to use this. Random discard abilities can be used with madness, flashback, or unearth . . but randomly exiling cards from your deck may remove critical cards.
Is it a great card? Not really. But it has its niche and isn't terrible.
"randomly exiling cards from your deck may remove critical cards."
So run more copies of those cards if they're so critical. If your deck is so fragile that removing four random cards ruins your combo/engine, then it's not built very well, since something like Sadistic Sacrament would gut it.
"so I'm just going to increase the likelihood I'll draw Mountain over any other crappy card in my deck."
This statement is nonsense. Your likelihood of drawing lands is unaffected by this card. I'd explain more, but you seem to be trying to put this in an aggro deck, so I won't even bother.
scumbling1
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(2 votes)
I own many of copies of this card, yet it wasn't until it came up on Gatherer that I realized that Naked Lunch is propped up in the background. That book is probably better off eaten by an orc, rather than being read. Although, it might be something a person who eats library paste (or otherwise ingests glue) would enjoy.
Alsebra
★★★★☆ (4.2/5.0)(2 votes)
@Teotanek - Unless there's a hidden Foglio I don't know about that does art, Phil and Kaja aren't brothers...they're husband and wife.
sonorhC
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(2 votes)
Exiling four at random has almost no net effect on you. In any given game, there are always a bunch of cards in your library that you'll never get to use. The four randomly-chosen cards will be among them, that's all. Yeah, you might end up exiling really good cards, but then again, those really good cards might have been on the bottom of your library, too.
The purpose of this card is to put the others on top of your library in any order. Put the most useful on top, and draw them. Once you've drawn the useful cards, use this guy again, and get more useful cards. This can, in fact, be a way to (almost) guarantee that you don't get any more mountains, after you have all you need.
pedrodyl
★★★☆☆ (3.0/5.0)(1 vote)
NOM!
TheOgrz
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(1 vote)
Most of you are missing something very important, you get to put the remaining four back IN ANY ORDER. This card might as well read "tap pay a red, look at the top four cards of your library and put them back in any order". Deck sorting is something red rarely gets to do and this little orc does it early game. Just think of it as a repeatable red sage owl and you're set.
Kryptnyt
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
@scumbling1 To be fair, it's not exactly a book, so much as attempted art... You know how impressionist art is really, really bad, yet it still gets hung up in museums? Well, Naked Lunch is like that. Its a pile of crap, but it makes some people feel something. "Whoa, man, that's like, deep, man." So, probably not paste-eaters as much as eaters of the tainted brownie.
Totema
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(1 vote)
Naked Lunch? He'd better take off his clothes when he eats that.
I am thoroughly disgusted with myself having written that. But the puns... they do not make themselves...
twiddleman12
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Type your comment here.
bohplayer
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The random exiling on this card is NOT irrelevant, because you can use the card repeatedly in consecutive turns or even have more than one in play at the same time.
So if you use your first librarian and the 4 cards you get are garbage no matter the order in which you arrange them, just use your second one and there's a good chance that some of those bad cards will be exiled.
Same thing applies if you have only 1 librarian in play, when you decide whether to use him or not the next turn you' ll know the top 3 cards of your deck already, and how much you want them exiled.
If 2 of the 4 cards you got were good, put them on top and don't use his ability for the next 2 turns.
Simply keep putting the good cards on top and the bad cards on bottom, and it's easy to see that the bad cards have a higher chance of getting exiled.
OrphanerDualscar
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
This week on "Cards I Can't Believe Aren't Un-cards"
Khazuki
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Yeah, pretty sure this should be rated higher. The thing is, get milled does nothing until it kills you, which this can do if you get carried away and the game goes long, but exiling anonymous cards does nothing, so all this really does is let you rearrange your draws for R. It's pretty good.
Aquillion
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
The exiling effect is actually an advantage (as long as you don't overuse it and deck yourself), since you can put the most useful of the next four cards on top, then use him after you draw them and have a decent chance of exiling stuff you don't need (if you don't exile it, put it on the bottom again and keep using it until you do.) Unlike, say, Mirri's Guile or Sensei's Divining Top, which forces you to draw the bad cards eventually, this card combines stacking to get good cards with a way to remove bad or unwanted ones entirely.
That said, I'd still rather use Sensei's Divining Top compared to this. It's cheaper, it's harder to destroy, and its ability to flip with your top card is far more valuable.
kronos1225
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
ahh an other funny card from unhi...wait ,is it real..i mean no un-sets ?
LordRandomness
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
This has the additional very nice quality that if the four cards you see are all *** another ability use will probably show you some new ones. This is in contrast to Sensei's Divining Top, where seeing three bad cards is, well, a lot worse. Additionally, if you chuck a single Mirror of Fate in you can potentially swing things in your favour with some nice exile zone tutoring later in the game.
Comments (24)
The random removal is of course also very red flavor.
And dealing with eight cards for just one mana is simply astonishing in general :D
This card sucks so bad, what the hell do you mean "astonishing." You can only hit yourself! Just use scry jesus haha. I like Goblin Lore MUCH better.
Looks and acts like a gremlin.
I'd rather play Mons's Goblin Raiders. Raging Goblin would be cool too. But I guess Goblin Guide would just be ok.
Unless there is a card that gains ability by being exiled, I don't see how one would be able to use this.
Random discard abilities can be used with madness, flashback, or unearth . . but randomly exiling cards from your deck may remove critical cards.
Is it a great card? Not really. But it has its niche and isn't terrible.
"randomly exiling cards from your deck may remove critical cards."
So run more copies of those cards if they're so critical. If your deck is so fragile that removing four random cards ruins your combo/engine, then it's not built very well, since something like Sadistic Sacrament would gut it.
"so I'm just going to increase the likelihood I'll draw Mountain over any other crappy card in my deck."
This statement is nonsense. Your likelihood of drawing lands is unaffected by this card. I'd explain more, but you seem to be trying to put this in an aggro deck, so I won't even bother.
The purpose of this card is to put the others on top of your library in any order. Put the most useful on top, and draw them. Once you've drawn the useful cards, use this guy again, and get more useful cards. This can, in fact, be a way to (almost) guarantee that you don't get any more mountains, after you have all you need.
To be fair, it's not exactly a book, so much as attempted art... You know how impressionist art is really, really bad, yet it still gets hung up in museums? Well, Naked Lunch is like that. Its a pile of crap, but it makes some people feel something. "Whoa, man, that's like, deep, man."
So, probably not paste-eaters as much as eaters of the tainted brownie.
I am thoroughly disgusted with myself having written that. But the puns... they do not make themselves...
So if you use your first librarian and the 4 cards you get are garbage no matter the order in which you arrange them, just use your second one and there's a good chance that some of those bad cards will be exiled.
Same thing applies if you have only 1 librarian in play, when you decide whether to use him or not the next turn you' ll know the top 3 cards of your deck already, and how much you want them exiled.
If 2 of the 4 cards you got were good, put them on top and don't use his ability for the next 2 turns.
Simply keep putting the good cards on top and the bad cards on bottom, and it's easy to see that the bad cards have a higher chance of getting exiled.
That said, I'd still rather use Sensei's Divining Top compared to this. It's cheaper, it's harder to destroy, and its ability to flip with your top card is far more valuable.