A sadly overlooked Looter, one of the better of that type of creature for limited and casual. Hopefully the near-moratorium on Cephalids will be lifted one day so this guy gets another chance to shine.
True_Smog
★★☆☆☆ (2.8/5.0)(2 votes)
Mefolk Looter is better.
A3Kitsune
★★★☆☆ (3.5/5.0)(1 vote)
He's a mill creature that doubles as card drawing. Merfolk Looter is a card drawing creature. Each searves a different purpose.
Add Megrim or Psychic Possession for increased fun. Or both.
(tough the cost of all of these is kinda high...)
Reverie42
★★★★☆ (4.5/5.0)(2 votes)
Even though this guy is double the CMC of Merfolk Looter, the fact that it lets you see two cards a turn is well worth it.
The existence of Jace's Erasure also improves this card significantly (particularly with multiples) since even though you're milling yourself to draw, you can mill your opponent even faster (not even counting that you get to cherry pick the worst 2 cards to discard, they have to throw whatever they get).
For extra fun, combine with Norritt to draw even more cards.
penatbater
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(2 votes)
This works great when you've just casted Quest for Nihil Stone and your opponent has no hands left to discard. :D
masonthekiller
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(2 votes)
Let me remind everyone that drawing then discarding is not mill. Mill goes from the top of your library straight to your graveyard. This effect has way more space to manipulate.
Goes great with spells like Megrim and Underworld Dreams.
blindthrall
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
This is a great response to madness decks, or a nice compliment to discard-if they have no hand and you keep drawing discard, he becomes even more useful. Pity it's not black.
Ratoly
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
As Masonthekiller said, IT'S NOT MILL. If it was mill, Narcomoeba would throw a tantrum, and Gaea's Blessing would laugh at you. It's Looting. Get it straight. Looting = Draw X, then Discard X. Mill = put X from top into Grave. Besides, it's only remotely similar to mill if they have no cards. And if they have no cards, you've either already won, or you've already lost. There is no middle ground here, folks. It's not mill.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor was a powerful card for his ability to "Brainstorm" every turn, but his usefulness doubled with the aid of fetchlands to shuffle away useless cards you just placed on top of your library, otherwise he was basically a fancy Swiss ArmyScroll Rack (still a powerful card). All these cards do is give you new cards, guaranteed, no questions asked. They don't provide card advantage, but they do offer card quality, a subtle yet powerful concept.
Vedalken_Arbiter
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Let's have a functional reprint, wizard. You can call it Merfolk Broker.
But if you're not going to make it targetable then don't bother, that would defeat the purpose.
sweetgab
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
My very first attempt at a combo was this + Confessor. I discarded Obsessive Search and drew an extra card. I discarded Prismatic Strands and wrecked some combat later. It was awesome.
With the same deck, I also learned to always leave two mana for Counterspell, and to appreciate the power of control. (My appreciation for aggro, the deck type I excel most at today, would come a bit later.)
MCcreator
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
You think that you're safe from my Liliana's Caress because you have no cards in hand? Mill just hurt, biatch.
Aremath
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Card selection is great. Most of the time you're either looking for land or not, and the cards that you draw that aren't what you want are basically dead. This means that on average, drawing a card gives you a 'live draw' 50% of the time. Looters basically give you an extra draw at the expense of a card that would have been dead (a land or something uncastable with current mana) anyways.
This isn't entirely accurate since there are occasions where you either have no cards in hand (at which point it does nothing), or need to sacrifice something important to the discard part.
However, casting something every turn (or at least holding something up) is important, and looking at 3 cards per turn means you're pretty much guaranteed to hit something you want to cast.
GGCrono
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
This guy was the star player of my Megrim deck back in the day. I'd give a kidney for a functional reprint.
Comments (16)
(tough the cost of all of these is kinda high...)
The existence of Jace's Erasure also improves this card significantly (particularly with multiples) since even though you're milling yourself to draw, you can mill your opponent even faster (not even counting that you get to cherry pick the worst 2 cards to discard, they have to throw whatever they get).
For extra fun, combine with Norritt to draw even more cards.
Goes great with spells like Megrim and Underworld Dreams.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor was a powerful card for his ability to "Brainstorm" every turn, but his usefulness doubled with the aid of fetchlands to shuffle away useless cards you just placed on top of your library, otherwise he was basically a fancy Swiss Army Scroll Rack (still a powerful card). All these cards do is give you new cards, guaranteed, no questions asked. They don't provide card advantage, but they do offer card quality, a subtle yet powerful concept.
But if you're not going to make it targetable then don't bother, that would defeat the purpose.
With the same deck, I also learned to always leave two mana for Counterspell, and to appreciate the power of control. (My appreciation for aggro, the deck type I excel most at today, would come a bit later.)
This isn't entirely accurate since there are occasions where you either have no cards in hand (at which point it does nothing), or need to sacrifice something important to the discard part.
However, casting something every turn (or at least holding something up) is important, and looking at 3 cards per turn means you're pretty much guaranteed to hit something you want to cast.