Pointed Discussion

Wow that is a gigantic wall of text. Useful against card-drawing decks.

It's like the auto disruptor against a combo deck.

Combo versus reanimator?

Could be useful. Works for you and against them...until they YawgWin you. :

Ok...sometimes the Oracle guys need to step back and realize that their updates make much LESS sense than the actual card text. Even on the old-school cards.

underworld dreams, megrim.

so basically you discard your hand and lose your library. that a pretty powerful card for cmc2. great errata guys...

look at the rulings, when you draw a card via a spell, ability or effect you must discard a card before drawing a card. If you have no cards in hand, you put the top card of your library into your graveyard...

This card is a nice utility enchantment to play against many decks, with a cost that allows it to be playable...

Has anyone seen how much this thing is worth lately?? Gettin up there with Alpha and Beta. This set was of course a classic set. I had a few cards from this set back about 10 years ago. They're looooong gone now.. Brother traded them to a neighbor for a skateboard, and according to my brother that punk kid "threw them up in the air and ripped them up just for the heck of it". Oh man does it boil my blood thinking about it!

I love when you have to read the card itself to figure out what it does because the oracle text is so needlessly complicated and confusing that it's not even worth reading.

People here don't understand replacement effects nor no how to read offical rulings


Here's what happens when Chains of Mephistopheles replaces a player's draw: -- If that player has at least one card in his or her hand, he or she discards a card and then draws a card. -- If that player's hand is empty, he or she puts the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard. The player doesn't draw a card at all.

Against Brainstorm the effect is discard 3 cards instead of drawing them. Once your opponent has no cards left, they are locked out of drawing any extras anymore. because, it says INSTEAD. If a player has no cards in hand, and then they brainstorm, they get no cards. 0. Then.. yeah they mill top 3 cards. Lets say they Brainstorm with 5 other cards in hand, you discard 3 of them, leaving them with 2 cards, which they then place on top of their library. then they draw 3 cards, giving them 1 extra card. If they brainstorm with 4 other cards in their hand, they would discard 3 of them, put 0 on top of their library, then draw 3 cards. but basically this removes the point of brainstorming to begin with. When your opponent actually realizes what this demonic thing has just done to their hand they will probably refrain from dumping their hand again. Trick is this will probably discard any counterspells that they have, and then you can launch some more discard spells. it sounds weak but it helps you discard their hand without them disrupting you much more easily, and then when they don't have enough cards to draw any from the replacement effect you have stopped them until they destroy chains. so they will have to topdeck for an answer to it. against astral slide this is really funny because they will discard the card, discard another card, then draw 1 card. so it thwarts them too. also, against storm again this completely disrupts storm decks. if you can sneak this into play (it has a low mana cost, so with 1 mana discard spells that 'peek' such as Duress very easy to do), you will probably be winning games against the decks that this will wreck havoc on. if you play this with dark confidant you will be revealing cards and then putting them into your hand so chains wont affect the card advantage that confidant brings you. its sad so many ppl knock mono black decks because black was fortunate to get enough disruption like this to be really good in a meta.

The art on old cards like this is so epic.

It looks like a lot of text (and it is) but there must be room for another 3 lines that they didn't use. Reserved for flavour text I suppouse.

What am I missing here?
According to me this card says:
Whenever a player draws a card, except fort the one during his draw step, that player discards his hand and puts the top card of his library into his or her library.

But, when reading all the comments, apparently the card drawn via Chains of Mephistopheles itself doesn't count as additional card draw? Why not?

...the f*ck does it do? I would ban this from my playgroup if anyone gave a sh*t about Legends.

@Lord_Sauron: Yes, the Oracle wording should be recursive, but the rulings say it isn't. WotC messed things up once again.

@Hovercraft: You treat each draw separately. So if you cast a Brainstorm with at least one card in hand the following happens:

1. You discard and draw.
2. You discard and draw.
3. You discard and draw.
4. You put two cards on top of your library. If you don't have but one card in hand you put it on top of the library

If you don't have any cards in hand:

1. You mill one card.
2. You mill one card.
3. You mill one card.
4. You try to put two cards on the top of your library but fail.

Lesson to be learned:

If Chains of Mephistopheles is out don't try to draw more cards than the one you get every turn. Good card 4.5/5.

Sure, the Oracle text is probably harder to read, but it actually WORKS under the current rules.

Gotta love goofily complex old cards, and you're pleasantly surprised when they have actual use.

EDIT: @Tavaritz: It's a replacement effect, and replacement effects can only apply once. It's already replaced the event "draw" with the event "discard and draw", so it doesn't apply to the resulting draw.

Brain = EXPLODED.

Necropotence lets you "draw" cards to get around this, while likely locking down the opponent from getting extra cards. Of course, if you have necro out, you probably don't need this...oh well.

Reminds me of Animate Artifact with its counter-intuitive Oracle text.

how about geth's grimoire and prosperity. A little too much to calculate. All I know is that it goes very well with Laboratory maniac

I just put one of these in my Mimerplasm Dredge EDH deck. Best discard outlet ever for the deck, and completely hoses anyone playing green/blue at the tables. My friends all now hate my deck more than when i was just using tooth and nail to get triskelion and mikeaus.

also played againsts a Nath EDH deck that had one of these...now i sympathis for my friends

I love this card. It fits so well in almost all my black or black/red johnny decks... I just wish I could afford it. I wish it wasn't impossible to afford a play set...

10/5

Want this card, need this card...