Pointed Discussion

A Divination with a nice little bonus if you're playing mill.

The mill is unimpressive but the card draw is not. Hmm.

I'm pretty sure this card's art is the follow up to Assassin's Strike. That is definitely the exact same Selesnyan.

Classic terrible Magic art. Cool card.

How to design a Dimir card:

1) Take an iconic blue card, in this case, Divination.
2) Add {B} to the mana cost.
3) Add "mill 2."

And you're done! See also: Psychic Strike.

I've always liked cards like this.
This is sort of like blightning in that you get a little extra effect to your mind rot or, in this case, divination at the cost of being somewhat more difficult to cast. The difference is that in this case, the extra effect is actually little... rather than absurd.

I'm digging all these value mill cards which you'd almost be playing already;

Pilfered Plans > Divination
Psychic Strike > Cancel

Throw in some Thought Scour, Dimir Charm, Grisly Spectacle... All of which are the perfect lead-in for Consuming Aberration. Add some other solid creatures (Vampire Nighthawk? Desecration Demon?) and clone effects for making additional aberrations (or nighthawks, etc. in a pinch) and you can make a deck that can seamlessly alternate its win condition from death by mill to death by beatdown!

Pilfered Plans in particular seems like a nice card to curve into Consuming Aberration; draw into the aberration/mana you need to cast it, and get a stack going in your opponents graveyard.

So it's pretty much thought scour with some extra mana cost?

You guys do know that you can still target yourself for the mill, right? So yeah, I see it more like the lovechild of Divination and Mental Note. And it's beautiful.

"So it's pretty much Thought Scour with some extra mana cost?"
@brotenkopf72 Not at all, this one makes you draw TWO cards, thus provides you with card advantage.
It's like a Divination with a built-in mill for 2.

Consult the Necrosages is rated higher. for the "Or" option I guess. Lets be honest, 99% of the time you would either draw 2 or mill 2, and unless your opp has 1 card in his library or you have a wacky combo in place your not going to ever let him draw 2. pilfered plans gives us both without options. I don't think it's anywhere near Thought scour for the same price mill 6 draw 3

Just because no one has explicitly stated it yet, this card works very well with Dredge: it fills your graveyard while allowing for you to Dredge twice (instead of both draws), which will fill your graveyard even more, which in turn will allow for some old-fashioned BUG-graveyard shenanigans.

This card isn't that bad imo. It's nothing special, but it is definitely cool for being just a common. 4/5

Use in B/U Skaab Ruinator decks, non-abusive dredge, could also be used with flashback, or similar.

Between this card and Psychic Strike, UB Mill/Control is finally starting to get some edge over the typical Monoblue builds. Although I can't see it keeping up with the sheer efficiency of a WB Control deck, this certainly gives those decks a reason to look into going Esper.

Having this card, Psychic Strike, and Nephalia Drownyard in a Control build allows you to mill out your opponent without really deviating from the Control strategy you had in the first place. I mean... you were probably going to be using some Cancel or Divination type effects anyways, right?

I love how splashing a second colour can upgrade an already-solid card like this. Certainly not core-set material, but a wonderful way to give a plane like Ravnica some personalized flavour.

I'm feeling like this is a pretty good card. It's a little surprising that it isn't seeing any play in Standard. Divination sees play in Standard, so why not this? I'm thinking this belongs, not necessarily in a Dimir Control deck necessarily, but actually in Esper Control. The reason being that we used to be able to Azorius Charm an attacking creature, and then mill it away if it's too dangerous either that same turn or after untapping. Now, without Nephalia Drownyard, we don't have that option anymore in Standard. I'm thinking that when we hit a creature with an Azorius Charm and really don't want that card drawn next turn, we might be thinking on the untap that it might be a really good opportunity to draw 2 cards... and mill away that threat at the same time!, instead of wasting mana on Nephalia Drownyard merely to mill and nothing more. If there's nothing in particular to mill, then it can always just be cast like a Divination if we simply need to draw a few cards. I can't see any reason to run Divination over this in an Esper deck, but people aren't running Divination in Esper anyways. I don't know why you'd run Divination in Azorius Control but not in Esper Control. Anyways, yeah, pretty solid card, even in Standard in my opinion.

If you weren't already playing with Divination in your millstone deck, which you probably aren't, then you wont want to play with this card either.

That said, i can see this and (and its counterspell twin) fitting into a black (splash of blue) deck focused on graveyard combos, for which you would target/mill yourself.

Example: Rescue from the Underworld, Whip of Erebos, etc.

Good graveyard fueler if you are looking for it. Maybe not the greatest (looking at you, intuition, gifts ungiven, and fact or fiction), but cheap and there's always the chance you ruin someone's day after they play ponder, preordain, or a tutor.

@johnnyinabucket
Consult the necrosages is rated higher because its "discard two" not "mill 2"

If you are playing UB, there's pretty much no reason to play Divination in preference to this. Even if you aren't playing a mill deck (although that's about the only reason to play UB), there's still a minor chance you may force them to lose something valuable.

It's beyond me why people are playing Divination over this in Esper, especially in a format full of scrying.

I feel like this card would actually get played if it was instant.

Heck, even drop the mill and make it instant and control decks would play it.