Pointed Discussion

He's got the skulls to pay the bills. Wait…what?

Serious for a moment…in my experience you always want to sac this guy, unless your opponent has run out of cards. Then you have a neat little chump blocker, and they have no removal.

Go Augur, Go Augur, Go Augur! Flip the switch…brrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Great little guy chock full of card advantage. Slips past a lot of removal thanks to being black and having that regeneration ability, but is also awesome in that he can take out two of your opponent's cards for one of yours.

Grim harvest

Above anything else this is just incredible artwork-wise. Still works great in the graveyard deck I'm building.

I really like skeletons, they often are overlooked because zombies are a better (and cooler) creature type. Augur of Skulls gives us another useful skeleton and a very useful one at that.

Wow, kinda' like a chaeper, pre-cast mind rot. Might get blown out to the moon before he has a chance to... blow himself to the moon... but, unlike mind rot, he can be usefull in late game when opponent is top-decking.
Neat.

Almost strictly better than Drudge Skeletons

Wow. This is quite nice card in discard deck, if used right. And really cool art. Although I don't know what it is.

Good card. Two card discard that only costs 2 mana, plus you can chump block.

4.5/5

It is an aggro-control card.

Fantastic Card.

With all it can do with discard and tribal, it makes the red goblin counter part Emberwilde Augur seem a little blech. But there are plenty of ways to find uses for the latter Augur in Goblin tribal, although there are better cards.

Nice art. Chippy's cards are one fantastic reason why Gatherer's card images should include a zoom feature.

Not sure I like the design. There WILL be players trying to regenerate it after sacrificing it.

Drudge Skeletons + Mind Rot = Pauper staple.

This would wreck with Liliana's Caress on the field.

Hymn to Tourach is one of the best discard cards running around - 2 random cards for 2 mana is absurdly good at destroying an opponent's hand. Augur is obviously weaker, being delayed and not random - but is much, much more balanced than Hymn. You can run Augur without any guilt in a casual setting. 4/5 seems about right.

Solid.

- Turn 1: Quest for the Nihil Stone
- Turn 2: Augur of Skulls
- Turn 3: Mind Rot

I love everything about this card. It is just so elegantly done. As to strategy, you all seem to want to pop him as soon as possible. Why not wait. Hear me out here. If you hang onto the guy and sac him when your opponent has 2/3 cards in their hand you will hit that stuff that they are holding off. Usually that is their late-game bombs, wincons and whatnot, as they will not have mustered the mana to cast them yet. That is certainly a win. There is also the possibility that they will play around you, dropping their cards unprotected and unready, simply to avoid the above scenario. This lets you deal with their threats before they even become a danger. On the flipside the foe may hold cards back in their hand to discard if they know what you are up to. This means less threats on the table to deal with and lets you lock them down and make those wins in their hand so painfully far away. 4/5. +.5 for art and flavor. 4.5/5

Regenerate is not usually found on a creature that can sacrifice itself.
Newer players assume you can regenerate the sacrifice.
I don't think a card like this would be printed today. This saddens me a little I think.

This just might be one of my favorite skeletons ever. While he can be a blocker his real strength lies in his discard ability. All you need is a good form of creature recovery, (not to hard in black), and you are golden.

Since Stupor (played in the same deck) was just a slightly better Mind Rot, this card was a major reason why The Rack decks were so good in Standard during Time Spiral block. Discarding 2 cards for two mana is absurdly powerful. It's like the jump from Cancel to Counterspell. You take an average, a bit underwhelming card and shave off a mana, and BAM, it's broken. A sorcery that discards two cards for BB would have been broken in today's Standard. This thing wasn't quite broken because the opponent can stop it say with a burn spell, but it was often still infuriatingly strong.

Ran next to Undying Evil you can nail them for 4-cards on the same upkeep, causing a very abrupt 2-for-4 on your opponent T3; while leaving 2 mana open for you to make a play.

Not only that, but you could have a 2/2 regenerator sitting there with enough mana to regen instead of going the quad-discard route.