Pointed Discussion

Hahaha, blast. Because it does damage. Its kind of like an uncommon Prophetic Bolt.

finally i have use my Omniscience and Enter the Infinite

Why yes, yes I would like to do 16 damage (or if we're in silver-bordered land 1,000,000 damage)to your face (and draw 3 cards while I'm at it).

Great digger and finisher.

This actually has a chance of being played in standard.

Ral Zarek wants you to pitch your reanimator target. Shame that it couldn't have costed a wee bit less though.

Terese Nielson has drawn Niv-Mizzet and Ral Zarek on the same card. My life is now complete.

I've been dreaming of a reprint of Prophetic Bolt for some time, especially when I noticed how similar Ral looks to the guy on the old art of that spell.

If Prophetic Bolt is playable in EDH, then this should see play as well. It's 1 extra mana for one extra card and the chance to deal more than four damage.

And considering this is in-color with Omniscience, Enter the Infinite, Firemind's Insight, etc., you have a lot of cards you can toss to make this a finisher.

Well, we have here a weaker prophetic bnolt, I guess.
Costs more mana, sorcery speed instead of instant, you draw more cards but they will be random instead of the best of four, and the burn part is somewhat unreliable. Unless I already have an expensive card on hand, that I consider to discard to kill a creature (or players, or planeswalker), I might just draw three low casting cost ones (or lands) and thus not deal enough damage. Not to mention that, by the time I can spend six mana for such a spell, what I'd most likely discard would be lands. Which would be the worst thing to discard in this case.
It's not a horrible card, but I don't like the design of it, that makes me discard expensive cards and keep cheap ones on hand in the late game, where I'd normally want it the other way round.

Oh dear, they really shouldn't have printed "or target player", should they have?

Old Niv looks quite ridiculous back there.

The other thing that holds me back from saying that this card's quite good is the fact that you have to choose first before you do the discarding/damaging. Sure it's good when you have some cards in your hand already, but if you don't have anything, that makes it more unpredictable (somewhat unreliable).
The cost is still quite high though.
3.5/5

Draw Spelltwine, Discard Worldfire.

these are NOT two of the effects you want in one card by paying a lot of mana. and that's lame to waste the AWESOME work of Terese Nielsen.

This is actually really good, believe it or not.

Drawing two cards = Divination = 3 CMC.

Not to mention you get to sift a little.

Now, let's assume you discard a card with CMC 4. Ral Zarek, Restoration Angel, whatever.

Dealing 4 damage to any target without drawback = Flame Javelin = 3 CMC (more or less).

Already, it's decent. Two spells tied together, with a little extra sifting.

But all you have to do is discard something big to make it incredible. Even 1 more damage makes it great. When you consider the possibility of discarding any of the huge-CMC cards that have been printed in the last year alone such as Worldspine Wurm, Omniscience, Worldfire, Enter the Infinite, this card can sometimes instantly win you the game. Even something as low as 6 damage (possibly discarding Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius or Melek, Izzet Paragon) is right on curve for 6 CMC burn spells. Considering it also gives you a Divination, this card is really good.

You could also use it with a flashback deck - yeah, I'll go ahead and discard Past In Flames for 4 damage.

I have a soft spot for Izzet and cool spells. This can actually do a lot of damage. Don't need to clear the board? drop that Blasphemous Act FTW!

"Ral Zarek's brainstorms bring actual thunder and lightning."

"Draw three cards..."

Ohhhh, you funny, Wizards.

This card actually reminds me of spellbound dragon in regards to discarding cards to boost damage potential based on CMC.

Honestly, if you run this properly, it will be a game ending spell. Which, at 6 CMC, is what it should be.

Everyone who keeps talking about it not going off, target it directly at the opponent when you're topdecking. Two cards up in that stage of the game is often all you'll need, and the extra burn doesn't hurt.

I'm gonna say this right now, this will be a wonderful edition and maybe even bring back UR Tron. Discarding Eldrazi or extra Karn Liberated or even Wurmcoil Engine...This will be nuts

Too bad you can't choose your target after drawing and discarding.
Oh well, i guess there has to be some Izzet vibe to it.

Very interesting design. At the time you cast this you'll have plenty of mana each turn, so will you throw away your expensive card to nuke something or deal damage or will you throw away something small so you can cast the big spell later on?

Lovely design and a strong card. Drawing cards and impacting the board with just one card is usually crazy powerful.

"Ral Zarek's brainstorms bring actual thunder and lightning."

In other words, Ral Zarek is the Chuck Norris of Ravnica.

I feel like I'll be saying this about every Izzet card, but...

"But, think of Goblin Electromancer!"

Seriously, I don't understand why people are complaining about the cmc. Why would you play an Izzet spell deck WITHOUT the Electromancer?

Its defitally not bad, just requires a certain deck type. Namely with some reanimation. Or just with Blasphemous Act

Awesome in EDH. I run this in a Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind deck, which has a good number of high-CMC cards (about 17 cards that have CMC 6-11). You just need to drop a card with 6 or more damage to break even with this guy, because seriously---6 mana for 6 damage and 3 cards is already pretty good. The deck has 39 instants and sorceries; in such a deck, discarding Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre to get back your entire graveyard (including the Blast of Genius) is a valid play.

Only Niv-Mizzet is ballsy enough to photobomb a planeswalker in the upper left corner like that. Next time we revisit Ravnica he'll do it on Ral's planeswalker card.

Wizards was way too safe with this card (as they were with most cards in dragon's maze).

For starters, drawing three cards then discarding a card is worth 3U (sift). The idea was that 1R added damage, but the problem is that in order to do the damage, you need to discard a card with the appropriate mana cost. Killing a 5 toughness creature, for example, means you lost a 5 (or higher) mana card, which in most cases is probably the best card in your hand.

Sometimes you whiff entirely, because you have to choose the target before you even draw. For example, say you need to kill a 5 mana creature and your hand is empty. You topdeck this and play it, but you don't draw a 5 mana card, so you just spent 1R more for sift.

In other words, sift lets you discard your weakest card while blast of genius either makes you discard one of your best cards, or is a sift that costs 1R more.

Basically, this card could have easily cost 1 less mana. It is not really significantly better (if even at all) than Urban evolution which is divination (2U) + explore (1G). Yes, you can live in magical christmasland where you get to discard your worldspine wurm or some other massive mana cost card, but for starters this will literally only happen in EDH. And again, by the time you reach 6 mana to cast this, the last thing you want to be doing is discarding high mana cards becuase you are better off casting those things.

At 5 mana this card could've been playable in standard much like urban evolution.

Too expensive at face value, but I've got four Goblin Electromancers in the deck with this. Theoretically this can cost just two mana for some serious card advantage and a burn. It's a solid deal even at four, since I'm more likely to have two Electromancers out than all four at the same time.

I can then discard another Blast of Genius to deal six damage, no matter what I'm actually playing to cast it.

Let's see, draw 3... Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, Draco, and Gleemax.

I accidentally the game.

This card has amazing synergy with Omniscience, Vengeful Rebirth and Chandra Ablaze.