I REALLY wish I'd known about this when it was legal in extended.
Elysiume
★★★★☆ (4.8/5.0)(3 votes)
Goes incredibly well with card draw. If you play it with some of the stronger black card draw, you can give yourself a perfectly crafted hand.
It combos nicely with Necropotence. Draw like 4 cards, cast this (discarding 5 or so, depending on your hand) then draw 5 more cards. You have the perfect hand.
avais
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.5/5.0)(2 votes)
supertutering...epic...so cheep so bad
Vedalken_Arbiter
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(4 votes)
Get Hellbent instantly and then procede to top deck everything you need as you go.
TopRomen
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(3 votes)
Incredibly powerful in reanimate decks. Discard your fatties, and search your methods for bringing them back from the graaaaaaave!
Perfect for Avacyn Restored's Miracles mechanic - if you top deck a card (and it's the first card you've drawn of that turn), you can use the miracle ability of a card -- may have additional effects or a lower cost. Use Insidious Dreams to topdeck exactly the right cards you need.
Hunter06
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.8/5.0)(2 votes)
This is super... Bad... if your opponet has even the slightest form of milling or shuffling its card disadvantage to you. 2/5 Stars
Haelthor
★★★★★ (5.0/5.0)(1 vote)
The card is amazing. Puts in soo much work in my Damia Commander deck, once I go infinite with Omniscience + Recycle/Null Profusion there is the possibility of decking myself out. But with Insidious Dreams I can my discard my Kozilek and all the other extra cards I've been drawing AND stack my deck to win. Even without Omni-Cycle out I can stack the next 3-5 draws and draw into them with Damia if she's out, otherwise it gives my deck inevitability; my opponents know that if they don't kill me within the next couple turns I will combo out and win. This makes for some very fun end games as multiple people gang up on me just to save their own hides, even if I don't survive till my next turn because of the gang up I still have had my fun by spicing up the game. What truly takes the card over the top, IMO, is the fact that its an instant.
Perfect design: Superbly strong tutor engine. It can't be thrown willy-nilly into any deck, but there are more than enough ways to abuse it to its full potential, particuarly in Black. 4 out of 5 stars.
DonBot1987
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
My name is Haakon and I need to be played in combination with this little gem!
idrinkyourmilkshake
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
GET ALL THE BOOKS!
Cyberium
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Cascade never felt so delicious, now you can pile all of them on top of your library :D
LordRandomness
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
"Ooh, another miracle! It must be my lucky day." For a sample sequence, try: Devastation Tide (or Bonfire of the Damned if preferred and you have the mana and four-colourness) Entreat the Angels Temporal Mastery Some fourth miracle who cares the two turns of angel swings should do it.
On an unrelated note, I reckon a counterspell with miracle {0} could have been interesting. The setup to actually cast it for free would be pretty intensive and most importantly pretty conspicuous ("Hmmm, I think I'll stack the top of my deck with this Alchemist's Apprentice here and then tap out. NOTHING SUSS GOING ON HERE YOU GUYS"), but hey, zero mana counterspell.
Sven_Untgaarde
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Without having to do any insane combo stuff, this + Bitter Ordeal = a countered deck strategy (as long as you only discarded permanents).
If you discard 6 or so cards from your hand, searching their library for 7 different cards to exile can change how a combo deck works. Unfortunately, this isn't playable in Modern (where combo decks work well) and this is a little slow for Legacy.
But if you played this in EDH... Maybe after a Damnation...
DarthParallax
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
If I could Restart MTG, this is easily the card I'd pick to replace Demonic Tutor.
a.) It makes Hellbent decks legitimately good, and pushing Hellbent could be a way to balance a lot of other decks.
b.) Let's be serious folks, Demonic Tutor and Dark Ritual are dumb. They're very powerful Black Cards, BUT they don't even cost resources for you to exploit. Demonic Tutor should discard cards, and Dark Ritual should sacrifice creatures. :)
c.) This card doesn't make any major breakingly powerful lists I know of in Eternal. This seriously suggests that Tutors actually should cost 3 or 4 mana, not 1 or 2, with lovely rules text like this tacked on, and that will probably be more fun, interesting, and lead to longer games which means more time playing Magic which means more fun.
d.) If we lived in a world where this was Restricted in Vintage, I think that would mean that most of the cards in Vintage and Legacy would be a lot more fun. I'm not against Alpha getting Moxen, but I do sometimes imagine "what would it look like if Vintage was more like Legacy? And Legacy was more like Premium Decks? And Duel Decks were more like Modern? And Standard more like Limited?"
The_Murderauder
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
Love this card for its many uses. I mostly use it in reanimator builds.
Not the best use for it, by far, but my favorite one is probably...
This card is the perfect "black" tutor. It throws cards in your graveyard for later use and proceeds to get you what you need in a nice organized row for just one swamp and 3 generic mana.
The art looks pretty animated as well, which makes it feel a lot more like an instant. Is he drawing the books towards him, or throwing them away now that he's learned all he needed?
Biggest Downside: Flavor Text sounds like a cheesy movie quote from the 80's.
And to Hunter 06, if you're worried about the cards you just put on top of your deck being put in your graveyard, you're probably playing black wrong.
strider24seven
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
@Sven_Untgaarde All that casting Bitter Ordeal after Insidious Dreams will accomplish is exiling one card from their library. Reason: you cannot "discard permanents." Cards in hand are not permanents. Let's check out the rules:
110.1. A permanent is a card or token on the battlefield. A permanent remains on the battlefield indefinitely. A card or token becomes a permanent as it enters the battlefield and it stops being a permanent as it’s moved to another zone by an effect or rule.
110.4a The term “permanent card” is used to refer to a card that could be put onto the battlefield. Specifically, it means an artifact, creature, enchantment, land, or planeswalker card.
robertsladelewis
☆☆☆☆☆ (0.0/5.0)
I use this card in my "Doomsday Deck".
Stack Erratic Explosion with a Draco for 16 damage. Fun little deck.
Comments (24)
It combos nicely with Necropotence. Draw like 4 cards, cast this (discarding 5 or so, depending on your hand) then draw 5 more cards. You have the perfect hand.
2/5 Stars
Perfect design: Superbly strong tutor engine. It can't be thrown willy-nilly into any deck, but there are more than enough ways to abuse it to its full potential, particuarly in Black. 4 out of 5 stars.
Devastation Tide (or Bonfire of the Damned if preferred and you have the mana and four-colourness)
Entreat the Angels
Temporal Mastery
Some fourth miracle who cares the two turns of angel swings should do it.
On an unrelated note, I reckon a counterspell with miracle {0} could have been interesting. The setup to actually cast it for free would be pretty intensive and most importantly pretty conspicuous ("Hmmm, I think I'll stack the top of my deck with this Alchemist's Apprentice here and then tap out. NOTHING SUSS GOING ON HERE YOU GUYS"), but hey, zero mana counterspell.
If you discard 6 or so cards from your hand, searching their library for 7 different cards to exile can change how a combo deck works. Unfortunately, this isn't playable in Modern (where combo decks work well) and this is a little slow for Legacy.
But if you played this in EDH... Maybe after a Damnation...
a.) It makes Hellbent decks legitimately good, and pushing Hellbent could be a way to balance a lot of other decks.
b.) Let's be serious folks, Demonic Tutor and Dark Ritual are dumb. They're very powerful Black Cards, BUT they don't even cost resources for you to exploit. Demonic Tutor should discard cards, and Dark Ritual should sacrifice creatures. :)
c.) This card doesn't make any major breakingly powerful lists I know of in Eternal. This seriously suggests that Tutors actually should cost 3 or 4 mana, not 1 or 2, with lovely rules text like this tacked on, and that will probably be more fun, interesting, and lead to longer games which means more time playing Magic which means more fun.
d.) If we lived in a world where this was Restricted in Vintage, I think that would mean that most of the cards in Vintage and Legacy would be a lot more fun. I'm not against Alpha getting Moxen, but I do sometimes imagine "what would it look like if Vintage was more like Legacy? And Legacy was more like Premium Decks? And Duel Decks were more like Modern? And Standard more like Limited?"
Not the best use for it, by far, but my favorite one is probably...
THE SLABS, BABY
The art looks pretty animated as well, which makes it feel a lot more like an instant. Is he drawing the books towards him, or throwing them away now that he's learned all he needed?
Biggest Downside: Flavor Text sounds like a cheesy movie quote from the 80's.
And to Hunter 06, if you're worried about the cards you just put on top of your deck being put in your graveyard, you're probably playing black wrong.
All that casting Bitter Ordeal after Insidious Dreams will accomplish is exiling one card from their library. Reason: you cannot "discard permanents." Cards in hand are not permanents. Let's check out the rules:
110.1. A permanent is a card or token on the battlefield. A permanent remains on the battlefield indefinitely. A card or token becomes a permanent as it enters the battlefield and it stops being a permanent as it’s moved to another zone by an effect or rule.
110.4a The term “permanent card” is used to refer to a card that could be put onto the battlefield. Specifically, it means an artifact, creature, enchantment, land, or planeswalker card.
Stack Erratic Explosion with a Draco for 16 damage. Fun little deck.