Pointed Discussion

If nothing else you can use this to grab land. Against most decks in standard Sword of Feast and Famine is probably a good choice.

Wow, this seems really cool.
And the fact that your opponent doesn't get to know what's exiled until you play it makes it that much more interesting...

Too bad you would only be able to play colorless cards, though, unless you are against the right deck.
Would be a cool sideboard card.

4.5/5 from me


Edit: LOL Names_Suck! You managed to enter your comment exactly 16 seconds before mine...

Vintage just got a new Ritual. Most high-level vintage decks use Yawgmoth's Will and some tutors, so this is a good way to get that 1 restricted copy from your opponent's library.

In Standard, this will also see play. Just about any blue deck will have Jace, the Mind Sculptor, so expect this to become part of many UB control decks.

Excuse me while I put your most broken card in play under MY control.

Vintage turn 1: Black Lotus -> Praetor's Grasp -> Black Lotus -> Troll Face

Ill Take Your Forest so with my Next Praetors Grasp i can Play That Llanowar Elf i really wanted to get tha 1st Time.

COME GIVE YOUR AUNT A HUG

If you didn't feel like getting to know your local metagame before, you better get to know it now.
Honestly, as many have said before, this is insane in vintage. You can steal their only win condition, allowing you to effectively slow-roll your opponent to death. Or, steal their ancestral/will/artifact acceleration to progress your own win faster.
The degenerate nature of vintage allows this card to both be a disruptor and an enabler. Plus, you can always learn a lot from search other decks.

This card is going to shake up the meta-game. With all the great black cards in this set alone, and the countless great artifact and phyrexian mana spells you can play off this. Get your playset early, trust me. I can't wait to steal Karn and Phyrexian Obliterator!

4/5 because it does something really cool :D

Extra points for being able to make sweet combos off your opponent's library. "Allow me to make better use of that."

Yeah, this is definitely a haymaker in Legacy. It's a really neat card, so I hope it'll see some play in Standard and Extended, too.

Man, I love Black.

In EDH, I'll be abusing this with Sen Triplets.

Hot Yuri action.

Sheoldred, Molesting One.

Sheoldred kinda Phyrexian "lebanese", watch glee, u knew it

Can I just say... LIMITED BOMB! I won quite a few games from just stealing other people's bombs at the pre-release. It's simply brutal when you take one of the only 3 or 4 cards that can win them the game and put it into play on your side.

In constructed, maybe under-rated so far. Considering how many powerful cards are colourless, and once people start using the Phyrexian Mana cards more, this will usually have a decent and devastating target.

oh BTW, I extracted and played the only Karn in the room with this at the pre-release... the look on the guys face was priceless. XD

I have a question for anyone that knows the right ruling on this card... It states " You may look at and PLAY that card for as long as it remains exiled." - It doesn't say you have to CAST... so can you just put it on to the battlefield? I was just wondering on that. And another question, it can be countered when comming from exile correct?

In limited, stealing your opponent's best card is far more crushing than it is in constructed. That is, indeed, why they are called "bombs." I'd at least consider this card as a first pick in any pack, but the BB really hurts it. Most times picking a card that doesn't commit you to a color will be a better pick, but if this goes later than fourth, it should be taken as a clear signal that black is open.

Given Batterskull, Sword of Feast and Famine, Sword of War and Peace, etc it seems like at least a couple of these would be good in any deck playing black and creatures. Add in Tumble Magnet, Ratchet Bomb, Wurmcoil Engine and the various Phyrexian mana cards and it seems worth having another couple in the sideboard.

In EDH, this is a more expensive Top.

Man, that poor lady from Go for the Throat can't catch a break!

At the prerelease, used this to pull out an opponents Life's Finale, then cast it a turn later and buried his Phyrexian Obliterator (and some other creatures) it was mega-awesome.

@ AMB211:
I had to look this up.

Rule 601.1a states, "Some effects still refer to 'playing' a card. 'Playing a card' means playing that card as a land or casting that card as a spell, whichever is appropriate."

So if you were to choose a nonland from your opponent's deck, you would "cast" the spell. The next rule (601.2) states that part of casting a spell is paying its costs. Since Praetor's Grasp does not explicitly say otherwise, you DO have to pay all costs for the card you are casting.

And finally, since you are casting a spell, it can be countered in the normal fashion.

So real quick. In EDH lets say you play Condemn to put a general on the bottom of a deck. Then you Grasp it. Can they put it in the Commander Zone even if they don't know what card you take?

ok... just to be clear.... you have exiled a card..... you want to play it now. Does it go from exile to your side of the field or can you play it multiple times as long as it is exiled?

Going straight into my Grixis deck, which can reliably pull all five colors, and lots of it. How frustrating would it be to see someone play a bomb from your deck when you don't even have the mana to cast it?

@ToSGod Yes, because you should be putting the generals in different sleeves or keeping track of them somehow. The game has to know where the generals are at all times, and there's no way for the game to know without the players also knowing. A player always has the option to exile their general to the General Zone when it goes to the graveyard or RFG zone.

If you don't want to bother with that, I think it would be flavorful to Praetor's Grasp someone's general. There was a long, drawn out discussion about how it interacts with Jester's Scepter too.

EDIT: That was the way people used to do it. With the Commander decks' release, there's a new rule that requires players to reveal a general that becomes exiled face-down somehow.

Should be blue.

Good for EDH steal their big spell and cast it or just exile it so they can't.

Awesome card, love using this on my friends since I don't have any sword of my own. Love stealing theirs

So can you cast the card you chose from your opponent's library and put into exile multiple times? Or only once? When you play the card from exile.. does it still remain in exile and a "copy" of it goes onto the field? Sorry, it can be a bit confusing.

Nowhere on the card does it say 'copy'. When you play the card from exile, you play it. That means it can be countered if it's a spell, and it goes into its owner's graveyard after it resolves, or, if it's a creature spell, is destroyed. Even if it's exiled again by some effect like Swords to Plowshares or Yawgmoth's Will, it will be in your opponent's exiled zone and won't be able to played again.

Also gives you a good chance to view your opponent's library to understand strategies and combos, ergo you know what to stop, why, and how.

It's nice card.
However... it's not as powerful as it seems. I mean, compare it to bribery. You pay 5 to get the best creature from your opponents deck, like a nice titan or emrakul. Want to get a titan with this card? Pay 9 mana, and have the right colors available. Quite unlikely.
Or in other words: this is good to get good nonbasic lands or cheap artifacts. Rarely for more. :|
5/5 for the idea, 1/5 for beeing actually not that good, so 3/5 *** from me.

Edit:
Now it's some weeks later. This card can be bought as a single now for about 60 cents. In other words: I was right, it's crap. I even got one in a draft, and put it in some decks, and it's still crap. As I said before: good idea, crappy card. Maybe a fun card for some people, but the power level is horrible. And it's value is accordingly.

I have someone who plays this to leaf through your deck, see your combo pieces, take a land (or something amazing he can play),
Then Memoricide you the next turn.

Not sure where I could fit this in an actual deck, but Grasping my opponent's Batterskull in the middle of a draft was fun, fun, fun. Of course, he used Divine Offering to blow it up next turn, but still. Fun.

I'm tired of you playing cards that cost so much money! You know what?! LET ME PLAY WITH IT INSTEAD WITH MY DOLLAR RARE!!!

Someone used this on me once in a mono black mirror. I was expecting to get Memoricided with my own copy of the card, until I cracked a fetch to look at what was missing. My opponent apparently misclicked and took Horrifying Revelation instead XD.

This card in EDH is such a bomb. Every time you can steal a killer counterspell or something utterly powerful from your opponents' decks... I play this card every game and almost always pick Cryptic Command. What's that? I don't have any cards in my hand to counter your Exsanguinate? FROM THE DARKNESS.

This damn card... I loaned my buddy a Garruk Primal Hunter and I'm pretty sure some jerk stole it while searching his deck with this. Not bad for three mana.

exile the card face down, if you can pay its casting cost then you could play it. and if you play it, its gonna be there on the battlefield under your control. thats it, theres no more copies you cannot cast it again.

HA! using this with surgical extraction is such fun. you look through their deck using one, and then exile/take over whatever u want from the opponent. The people i play against HATE it, but i love :)

Fantastic looking, fun foil for EDH

I think I like Sadistic Sacrament better, but this is fun too.

two words . rainbow deck!... love this card

Why is it that the first thing I thought when seeing this was "Whee, mono-black land fetching!". There's something wrong with me.

This card is great! At the very least, it's land ramp for black (very uncommon). Plus, your opponent will probably forget that you have one of his/her cards in your hand at all times, making for a great surprise instant.

First things first: If you plan to use it for land fetching, it's completely useless. Why? Because it doesn't let you play the stolen land any faster than normal. Why put this in your deck and spend three mana to get access to a land, when you could have just put a land in your deck instead? If you don't find anything else to take, I guess you'll can take a land as a last resort, but don't consider it a bonus, consider it cutting your losses.

Concidering that there's a lot of phyrexian mana cards and powerful artifacts around, I think the chances for finding something castable is decent. Haven't tried it extensively yet though. I can't shake the feeling that whatever I steal is what I should have put in my deck in the first place instead of this.

Looking through the opponents library can be very useful, but one card and three mana is too expensive unless it's part of a bigger plan.

I don't think this is meant as a competitive card, I think it is made for the casual crowd. I like that. I can imagine this being loads of fun around the kitchen table, especially if you're playing against that one friend who has loads of expensive equipment such as Sword of X and Y, Batterskull, Jitte... Don't complain about his high budget, just steal that shit legally and show him exactly how fun these cards are to face.

Why would any black EDH deck not run this?

Ridiculously powerful card. Let's you trade a sorcery for anything better. Though it's always fun to have my opponent steal my best creature, followed by me bouncing it back to my hand with Into the Roil. It is cards like this though that make Shadow of Doubt one of the most effective counterspells. They outright lose a card, and you gain a card.

This card is too awesome, lets you steal your opponent's best cards in turn 3, best part is they can't look at it, and let's you browse through their deck. Even better if your decks share colors.

Sheoldred: "Mmmmm, maybe there's something good about these Mirrans after all......."

For bonus EDH douchepoints, target their general after you've Banishing Stroked them to the bottom of their library. Then don't play the general.

A bit tricky to get into any multicolor deck due to the double , but absolutely brutal even without that particular perk. Permanently getting rid of a threat before it even has a chance of hitting the battlefield? Dandy.

Most of you do know that you can't use the card you exile with this repeatedly right? Once you play this card from exile it goes into it's owner's graveyard, the exiled card can also be countered when it's played. Really about it's only use is in black decks and taking your opponents best card. Highly unlikely to be used in multi-colored decks or against any deck that isn't black.

One time in a MTGO draft this guy went and Grasped me. He went and conceded on the spot before taking a card, saying that my deck was too good.
I don't know, I would have played it out. After all, there was a Wurmcoil Engine in my deck.

Best moment with this card:

My friend had recently added Tooth and Nail to his EDH deck and was really excited at the possibility of it popping up at some point during the game.

I was playing my Sliver Overlord EDH deck. I draw this, cast it, and extract his Tooth and Nail. Couple turns later, I have enough mana to pay for Tooth and Nail's entwine cost. Out come Sliver Legion and Fury Sliver.

I've never seen someone look so disappointed in my life.

One of the funny things about these kinds of cards, is that you can use it two deduce what is in their hand. Say you know they have four force of will, with one in the grave, and find only two in their library. Well, now you know where the other is!

Good sideboard to stop UB control mirror matches.

At the very least, it's a black Acquire.

@Captain_Sisay_2591
Except it doesn't put it into play for free.

This card is REALLY good in EDH. Almost everyone runs a sol ring or at least some other strong mana rock. You could also grab a sword of fire and ice or jitte.

In EDH, you also play a lot of multiplayer games so there is likely to be someone in at least one of you colours.

5/5 because it is just awesome and not many people think so.

Question: If you want to run this card, why not run Sadistic Sacrament instead?

Answer: Because Sacrament merely answers threats and removes cards from your opponent, whereas this lets you cast them back at your opponent and gives cards to you.

Playing this is as {B}{B} Sacrament instead of a {B}{B}{B} Sacrament was FINE, it was GOOD, and it was enough to get this card 3.75 stars on Gatherer because it could also sometimes pretend it was a kinda-bad version of a Blue card. In non-EDH multiplayer, you can even steal lands and gain colors and use 4 of them and really do some cool things! BUT...it's mostly for EDH. And that puts restrictions on your colors. And that means there's rarely a point to stealing lands. And that, let us be harsh and honest, hurts this card's usefulness a good bit. Still, you know, a good card. But previously, it was kind of part of a category of good cards: "the particularly harsh answers". It was in the same category as all of the other "Most Reliable Ways to Kill a General" card-- plenty of C- uses plus a specific, much needed use.

Stealing Artifacts is where it shines the absolute most, but the biggest problem I have with using that to think extra highly of this card, is that you REALLY need way more than just this card to be ready to deal with Artifacts. Even if this card might be 'all that and a bag of chips' when you take their Sword that gives them protection from you, and use it to get protection from them, the thing is Dangerous Artifacts abound SO MUCH that you had better be able to make a full list of Anti-Artifact Tech without relying on including this card. That goes for any single Anti-Artifact card in any such list. Take each individual card out, one at a time, and see if you can still complete your Artifact Answers list. That's how much you should fear and respect Artifacts.

This card. It just really, really wasn't in the same league as Bribery or Demonic Tutor though, because for anything OTHER than Artifacts, it wasn't reliable enough to advance your game plan much. It was very much a card to hamper your opponent's game plan and do very little else, since even stealing their creature onto your battlefield.....creatures are the most vulnerable card type in EDH BY A LANDSLIDE. You've probably just forced them to kill their own creature, but they'll do it. How do you WIN with this card though?

Bladewing the Risen. B| Oh, yeah. The Scourge of Valkas combo is, to say the least, difficult to make work in EDH.

BUT! DRAGONS! attempting to run any sort of combo that relies on particular cards in your opponents' decks is iffy at best. that was basically the issue with this card before, it being a Tutor, but one that searched 'the wrong library'.

1. Bladewing is a multi-tool, consistent, oft-seen card in the Format. If you were going to cross your fingers hoping your opponent has a card, this isn't a bad card to hope for if they're in the colors.
2. This combo directly wins the game, so it's at least definitely worth it. Unlike making a bunch of tokens that might just get Wrath'd, if you successfully steal the 2nd Bladewing, most of the time you will win.
3. You can always have a back-up plan in your deck, or this can be the back-up plan of your deck. (It takes very few cards: only three. Your Bladewing, Scourge of Valkas, and a card to steal a 2nd Bladewing with. Praetor's Grasp being probably the most favorable option of the bunch. Green decks will definitely want to run Sarkhan, Blue decks Nicol Bolas...and other Blue things.., and Kaalia decks...will find this harder to do than other decks will. Traitorous Blood in a pinch if they've already cast their Bladewing.)

While all the previous things you all said here are true, the plain fact was that Praetor's Grasp previously was not exactly much of a win-con, but was a powerful support card. Having the Mana was often the issue, so it was like a REALLY powerful "Sniper Discard" type of effect, and...uh...there were other, not necessarily 'Better', but definitely 'Other' ways to do this. Grasp just wasn't exactly unique. But it was more about taking something away from the opponent than it was about giving you something you could definitely use that you couldn't just do some other way. This is a combo that most often wants to live in a 3-color deck, to be used against any 3-color or 2 color deck, and is reliable as a direct gamewinner for basically as long as anyone is still using Bladewing the Risen...which should be a while.

With this new Dragon Combo, Praetor's Grasp is now, as I like to think of it, "Jund's BRIBERY", and Sarkhan Vol fans REJOICE! ^_^ I hope it now goes from 3.5/3.75 stars, to a full 4/4.3 stars. I think it's ''gotten there''. :)

Land Grabbing in Black? That said, this is for all of you control players who play singleton for their win condition.

I like to think of this card as a 3-mana demonic tutor (so in between demonic and diabolic tutor) that can be a pretty awful card in 1v1 at times (if your opponent doesn't share colors with you). I'm not gonna spend 4 mana for diabolic tutor to find my sweeper or wincon, and I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars getting the black portal tutors like imperial seal. but I sure wouldn't mind spending 3 mana to rip those cards from an opponent's deck.

Extract for 2 more mana?
Well, in a singleton format like EDH where I need this effect I will gladly take it!

Amazing in EDH, but an absolute must-have for EDH mill decks to get rid of graveyard shuffle cards like Kozilek, butcher of truth. Pretty handy in 5-colour as well, since you can cast everything you exile. Or with Condemn, exile their commander from the library and they'll never get it back. Muahaha… Very versatile.

As soon as you Praetor's Grasp their commander from their library, they get it back, you can not keep it face down or cast it ever.

As long as you are allowed look at the card, if the card is another player's commander, you must look at it immediately, and then return it to the command zone.