that is a utterly stupid comment. This card was around before BSZ ever was. Don't compare older cards to newer ones. Thats not to say that it isn't better, but just not to compare those. Besides, this card is a sorcery, and BSZ shuffles back, so its not strictly better.
Eved
★★★☆☆ (3.8/5.0)(13 votes)
Note that with the erreta you can let your teammates draw cards. I love when cards are changed so that they can be played differently then when they were originally printed. And by like, I mean it's stupid. Stop changing what cards do. It is annoying. Once I know what my card does I should always know what it does. Not have what it does change on some random thursday afternoon making it more useful for my 2HG than the cards I was using the day before.
@EpitomeOfEvilness We have to compare old cards with new cards, not because they are old and new, but because they are the cards that have similar effects. You are right though in that neither this or Blue Sun's Zenith is strictly better than the other.
@Saxophonist Don't be a jerk.
@Aradimar Look at the earlier printings, there are plenty of comments for you to read.
blurrymadness
★★★☆☆ (3.8/5.0)(6 votes)
@EoE It also makes sense that it's impossible to not compare old to new. The cards will naturally ALWAYS be older or newer than one another, lest in the same block. We could make the same argument about the actual literal age of the cards as well, but that actually would be useless.
BSZ is an instant, which is a huge deal IMO. Sad part is it's hard to really utilize any of these. Prosperity is a card that can enable your win cons with it's whole 1-2 extra cards, and if you have a card/libraries matter deck, it doesn't matter if you've drawn the opponent cards.
@Eved I sort of agree, but at the same time there wasn't teams at the time (I think?) The game was a 1-on-1 game. Making cards like this, the Rack, Vice etc.. make sense in other environments is better than us being left with less useful cards I think.
Frankly, people will complain no matter what they do. As a 40k player I'm happy Wizards is always errataing, answering questions reliably, building strong rulesets etc instead of leaving so much to the players that situations in a game (far longer than a magic game mind you) where you wish the developers gave more of a damn. It's unfair to paint them in such a damning light but at the same time be happy Wizards is so careful about making magic good.
WannabeJedi1337
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(5 votes)
what? no mind=blown comments?
Voltin
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
Used to play with 2x Braingeyser in my Red/Blue burn/counter deck. Now that I have Niv-Mizzet in it I may have to throw one of these back in it. Have miled opponets to death with it in the past while having manaflare out.
Dragon_Nut
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(2 votes)
They didn't reprint it because instead, Mind Spring. Because apparently 'target player' is too much to ask for.
hahahahahaha
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I play with three Braingeyser's in my white blue deck. I like to wait a while till I can draw at least 4 cards with it so that I get more cards then if I played an ancestral recall. Gives an awesome card drawing advantage.
Scormio
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I like the original card text better than the revised. "Force opponent to" do something has a cooler feel to it then "Target player"
Trygon_Predator
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
DRAW THOSE CARDS! DRAW THEM NOW! This plus any infinite mana combo equals a dead opponent.
Lord_Seth_02
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
@ Dragon_Nut
They didn't reprint it because instead, Mind Spring. Because apparently 'target player' is too much to ask for.
No, they didn't reprint it because it's on the Reserved List and thus CAN'T be reprinted. Mind Spring (a similar but slightly different card) was a way to get around that in the same way that Reverberate got around Fork being on the Reserved List.
Considering this card was once considered so broken it was banned and restricted, it's interesting to look back at it in today's world and see just how "meh" it seems now. Pretty much any deck that might consider running this would rather play Stroke of Genius or Blue Sun's Zenith because you can fetch them out with Cunning Wish or Merchant Scroll, which isn't possible with this due to it being a sorcery.
Jerec_Onyx
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I consider this to be the blue fireball, mostly in flavor but also in function. It's a mana-dump sorcery that defines the color, takes plenty of mana to make it useful, and has many applications.
bolttotheface
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
As far as I'm concerned, this card is awesome compared to 99% of the stuff that gets printed today in terms of design in general.
1) Its a sorcery, with an X. While that makes it a bit weaker than new cards (in that respect), it means that you've got to think more when playing it. As opposed to activating it in the end phase, just burning up any more mana you've got left over.
2) Its more powerful in other respects. 1 less mana cost = 1 more draw, if you use it right.
3) Its a *** braingeyser. It turns your brain. Into a geyser. Nothing much more to say.
So yea, its on the reserved list, so it can't come back. But its still epic, and epic cards on the reserved list are just as cool as epic cards in standard, IMO ^.^
shotoku64
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
3 mana: Worse than divination (1 less card and double blue) 4 mana: Worse than inspiration (not instant and double blue) 5 mana: Same as Jace's ingenuity 6+ mana: EDH shenanigans
That's all assuming you target yourself, if you end up with a ton of mana this can mill a LOT. I've watched some legacy games at my local game store end with this card.
BongRipper420
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I think the main reason that Mind Spring was printed instead of this card being reprinted, is that this card can easily double as a win con in combo/infinite mana decks. And R&D doesn't want too many of those kinds of decks floating around Modern, understandably.
Why they don't reprint this? As long they can print cards like Blue Sun's Zenith, I thin that Braingeyser is perfectly resonable...
A classic! 4.5/5
Edit: @ bolttotheface: can't agree more...
@everybody complaining the "errata": It's not quite an errata. Or better, the "errata" was made at the Revised, the last real set in which this card was reprinted. Nowadays, Wizards doesn't makes errata like this anymore, but a lot of time ago they did. Nowadays, if they want to reprint an old card, they always keeps the last print wording.
Callahan09
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Couple of options to get infinite mana that I've used before:
Build up as much mana as you need to cast Braingeyser on your opponent and mill them out.
I've won many, many games this way :) The best was in a 60-life, 300-card game that I won on like turn 5 or 6 I think it was. Playing in Magic Online, it took me about 20 minutes to perform enough clicks to get the combo off. I was surprised the guy waited around for it, haha.
The_Murderauder
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
@Eved: functional errata is an important part of the game. Wizards tries hard to make as few functional changes as possible, but sometimes it's necessary. A good example is Void Maw. As worded when it was original printed, it didn't work as it was intended by the designers (read: at all). Would you prefer they left the card un-errata'd and nonfunctional forever? I dunno about you, but I'd rather play a game that functions as close as possible to how it was intended by the designers.
I'm willing to bet that this was intended to target any of the players in the game, it's just that Garfield didn't really imagine a game ever having more than 2 players.
Of course, sometimes they just start changing things randomly, like with Kormus Bell. What the ***, Wizards?
Lord_of_phyrexia
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
grixis deck with this, spellbook, smelt, liliana's caress, and a donate. The combo is donate the spellbook to your opponent, play liliana's caress, wait untill you get a ton of mana, then play this making your opponent draw a bunch of cards without milling him and smelt the spellbook. He discards all the cards and liliana's caress makes him lose tons of life, effectively killing him. so, what do you think?
Budden
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
A plus for the mill decks with infinite mana. I still want to make someone draw their entire library while tapped out from another spell ^_^ Boo for the soft reprint however!
Comments (21)
That is all.
@EpitomeOfEvilness
We have to compare old cards with new cards, not because they are old and new, but because they are the cards that have similar effects. You are right though in that neither this or Blue Sun's Zenith is strictly better than the other.
@Saxophonist
Don't be a jerk.
@Aradimar
Look at the earlier printings, there are plenty of comments for you to read.
It also makes sense that it's impossible to not compare old to new. The cards will naturally ALWAYS be older or newer than one another, lest in the same block. We could make the same argument about the actual literal age of the cards as well, but that actually would be useless.
BSZ is an instant, which is a huge deal IMO. Sad part is it's hard to really utilize any of these. Prosperity is a card that can enable your win cons with it's whole 1-2 extra cards, and if you have a card/libraries matter deck, it doesn't matter if you've drawn the opponent cards.
@Eved
I sort of agree, but at the same time there wasn't teams at the time (I think?) The game was a 1-on-1 game. Making cards like this, the Rack, Vice etc.. make sense in other environments is better than us being left with less useful cards I think.
Frankly, people will complain no matter what they do. As a 40k player I'm happy Wizards is always errataing, answering questions reliably, building strong rulesets etc instead of leaving so much to the players that situations in a game (far longer than a magic game mind you) where you wish the developers gave more of a damn. It's unfair to paint them in such a damning light but at the same time be happy Wizards is so careful about making magic good.
mind=blown comments?
This plus any infinite mana combo equals a dead opponent.
They didn't reprint it because instead, Mind Spring. Because apparently 'target player' is too much to ask for.
No, they didn't reprint it because it's on the Reserved List and thus CAN'T be reprinted. Mind Spring (a similar but slightly different card) was a way to get around that in the same way that Reverberate got around Fork being on the Reserved List.
Considering this card was once considered so broken it was banned and restricted, it's interesting to look back at it in today's world and see just how "meh" it seems now. Pretty much any deck that might consider running this would rather play Stroke of Genius or Blue Sun's Zenith because you can fetch them out with Cunning Wish or Merchant Scroll, which isn't possible with this due to it being a sorcery.
1) Its a sorcery, with an X. While that makes it a bit weaker than new cards (in that respect), it means that you've got to think more when playing it. As opposed to activating it in the end phase, just burning up any more mana you've got left over.
2) Its more powerful in other respects. 1 less mana cost = 1 more draw, if you use it right.
3) Its a *** braingeyser. It turns your brain. Into a geyser. Nothing much more to say.
So yea, its on the reserved list, so it can't come back. But its still epic, and epic cards on the reserved list are just as cool as epic cards in standard, IMO ^.^
4 mana: Worse than inspiration (not instant and double blue)
5 mana: Same as Jace's ingenuity
6+ mana: EDH shenanigans
That's all assuming you target yourself, if you end up with a ton of mana this can mill a LOT. I've watched some legacy games at my local game store end with this card.
Of course, then they went and printed Blue Sun's Zenith.
A classic!
4.5/5
Edit:
@ bolttotheface:
can't agree more...
@everybody complaining the "errata": It's not quite an errata. Or better, the "errata" was made at the Revised, the last real set in which this card was reprinted. Nowadays, Wizards doesn't makes errata like this anymore, but a lot of time ago they did. Nowadays, if they want to reprint an old card, they always keeps the last print wording.
Training Grounds + March of the Machines or Karn, Silver Golem to create an infinite mana loop with Basalt Monolith (I've also used the more convoluted Voltaic Construct + Sol Ring or Mana Vault instead of Basalt Monolith).
Or
Faerie Conclave + Freed from the Real + Caged Sun
Build up as much mana as you need to cast Braingeyser on your opponent and mill them out.
I've won many, many games this way :) The best was in a 60-life, 300-card game that I won on like turn 5 or 6 I think it was. Playing in Magic Online, it took me about 20 minutes to perform enough clicks to get the combo off. I was surprised the guy waited around for it, haha.
I'm willing to bet that this was intended to target any of the players in the game, it's just that Garfield didn't really imagine a game ever having more than 2 players.
Of course, sometimes they just start changing things randomly, like with Kormus Bell. What the ***, Wizards?