Pointed Discussion

X mana, X life AND X cards from the graveyard is a lot. X-card drawing is obviously too powerful not to have drawbacks, but this is very often going to be dead because you simply can't afford one of the costs.

Good card to keep your combo going. A bit costly, but it can pay off in spades.

It works well to refill your hand after cards like mindslicer go off. With a megrim in play, this combo is an absolute bomb.

Probably not too good on its own, but it's great in the madness decks that were everywhere at the time...you had so many cards in your graveyard that the 1st drawback doesn't even register.

Not too bad. Instant speed really shines on this.

Mindspring is better.

I like it cause it's an instant.

4 mana, removing 3 cards and drawing 3 cards isn't to steep, and not too hard to do.

Unlike most card draw spells in black, this is an instant and it costs 2 mana less than stroke of genius. The loss of cards in the yard and life are managable considering that oftentimes this card will draw you into your win condition.

Love it in EDH. Quick and easy way to fill up your hand (and with 40 life, who cares about the life lost?). Just remember, even if it's countered, you still lose the cards from your graveyard.

poor man's one-shot necropotence.

This is a great card in any MBC deck. Instant speed card draw is always good for control decks. And in black you'll ussually have a full graveyard anyway.

It's funny how your perspective on cards changes over time. I started playing in invasion and really started buying cards in odyssey, and I remember seeing this as one of my uncommons and being really peessed. last night I was rummaging through cards, found this, and instantly put it into an EDH (excuse me.... Commander) deck I have. I was amazed that I missed how good this can be back in the day.

I was extremely impressed with it when I used it earlier, and can't wait to see the things it can help do later.

Yes, 4wallz, mind spring is better... Blue is also home to all of the good card draw, a mechanic that is not black's strong suit. It also costs + to use, so you can't really compare it to this card very well now can you? Also, learn how to autocard at least before you go around cluttering the board with foolish comments.

@Bigg_ol_FATTKIDD I was thinking the same thing. i just saw an edh decklist with this in it, and I was like "holy sh**! that's awesome for my geth and kaalia edh decks.

I think that if it weren't for the 'PS you're not allowed to be a graveyard cheating douchebag' rider, this would be the best draw spell in the game. Maybe that's excessive. Ok, so Ancestral Recall and Contract from Below would beat it.

would ANYTHING else?

Its great when you pop this to pull a consume spirit.

Oh, look i drew suffer the past.

5 star. hope they reprint this soon, would be nice in a casual priduct

And now there's sphinx's revelation.

This is a very powerful 1 shot effect for EDH depending on the deck

This can good because:
1) you can leave up your other instants
2) you have the opportunity to play all of the cards you drew.
3) for X cards is nuts even by blue standards.

This can hurt you because:
1)Graveyard Exile can be rough if cast for too much
2)Life loss can be rough if cast for too much

My recommendation is to run this with all the fetch lands in your colors and either run with life gain or just do it until your hand is refilled. A graveyard based deck wouldn't touch this, but if trimming down the size of your graveyard without removing key players isn't going to do much then you should be fine to run this. The deck I run can also just mill itself with little to no cost, which was a factor that pushed me in this direction.

4/5 for the decks that want it