Pointed Discussion

Still don't know which card I prefer, this or Ponder.
I do wish the effects were the other way around; I'd like to scry first please ;)

If the effects were reversed (scry first, then draw), I think this card would be better than Ponder.

Well the fact that Ponder is restricted and this is a 5 cent common should easily put both in their places.

best draw-card ever
they should remake this

wait, can't you stack the effects on a card in any order you want since it doesn't say "then"?

actions must be performed in the order that they are written. so no, you can't choose which to do first.

Serum Visions as it is (with drawing first then Scry) leaves you with more information (because when you are scrying, you already have the extra card in your hand). Mind you, this is not effective with jank, 75-card semi-highlander decks, but more suited for more consistent 60-card decks. With such a deck, it is uncommon to not want at least one of the top two cards of you library. (Not to suggest that 60-card, consistent decks are better than any other deck building methods)

If the deck you are thinking about is more than, say, 65 cards, has lots of singletons, never plays the same game twice, is your first/only deck in Magic, etc. then you don't need one mana card filtering because your deck doesn't "curve out" (Turn 1- one mana spell; Turn 2- two mana spell; so on). For a deck like that, you can afford more expensive (yet more powerful) card filtering such as Foresee or plain card draw.

It only Scrys for 2. Not enough for scrying first to be worth it. This would need Scry: 3 for the scry to be worth putting first.

Edit: New 2011 card Preordain is this with the scry first, befor the draw.

sounds like a drug trip. just sayin. btw preordain is better

For some reason when I looked at the name of card, at first I thought it said "S c r o t u m Vision" lol

Preordain is clearly a better card.

Serum Visions clearly works out the abs daily

1-drop draw spells are good. I wish the first mode of Visions of Beyond was this.

Scrying after a draw instead of before can work out to be better in some cases with abilities likeCoiling Oracle.
Turn 1: Serum, draw, scry 2 and put a land back as 2nd from top.
Turn 2: draw. Now we know the next card is a land, so we now play coiling oracle.
For this to work with Preordain, you need to have enough mana to play both preordain and oracle on the same turn.

It puzzles me that a playset of these is $3.50 more than a playset of Preordain since Preordain is pretty much the better card.

There are a number of subtle use differences between this and Preordain. Serum visions can be more effective if you already know what you're going to draw, as it reaches a little bit farther if you see things you like. Preordain is better for a first look, as you can send the two cards to the bottom and then draw blindly.

Both are very, very good one mana filters, and either should work fine for any deck that could use them. Arguments are moot.

People think preordain is the better card mostly because when this was out there wasn't a preordain that did it the other way (scry 2 then draw). When preordain came out, people jumped on the chance to do things differently. They figure that they'll be able to look at the cards they're going to draw, and possibly draw an unknown card if they don't need those two. That's great, because that's what Preordain is supposed to do: if you know what you want to draw, you don't need to scry it.

Serum Visions works great when you know the card you need is on top and you want to sort out the next two in line. Otherwise, casting preordain against a draw you already know you're going to keep cuts into your scry options: you're always going to keep at least one of the scrys, effectively making it draw 1 scry 1. Thus, the draw 1 scry 2 of Serum Visions is clearly better in that situation.

Serum Visions is actually better than Preordain if your deck does a lot of top-card fixing. Say you've played Long-Term Plans and you know the card is on top. You can play either this (draw the planned card, scry 2) or Preordain (scry 2, leave planned card on top because you wanted it, draw planned card). The former option gives you more scrying power. The same thing will happen in any situation where you know the top card and want it to stay there.

With Preordain banned in Modern, I guess I'm stuck with Serum visions, which isn't that bad of a trade off actually...

This card is worse than Preordain, I am not sure why so many people are arguing the opposite here. Yeah, if you know what your top card is and want it there than this is better, but most of the time, that is not the case. Even in decks that manipulate the library a lot, that is usually not the case. So yes, this can be more useful in some situations, but preordain is much more useful in many situations and only moderately less effective when Serum visions is better.

That's why Preordain is banned in modern and this isn't (@Warioman: That's why this costs more). In formats where preordain is legal, people play it over this. Not to say Serum visions is bad, it gets played constantly in top tier decks in modern, it just is not as good as preordain. You may even be able to construct a deck where Serum visions is better, though I cannot think of one, but just because a card can be better in some situations does not make it the better card.

@DacenOctavio: Visions of beyond is a pretty solid spell in the right deck already, keep in mind its an instant. Adding the scry to it would not only make the text of the card a mess, it would make the card absurdly good, strictly better than this already very good card, and becoming a copy of arguably the best instant in the game when its mode switches.

There is a reason why Preordain is considered powerful enough to merit a ban in Modern and this one's not, and I can tell you that it were not solely the sympathy points Visions earned for featuring a Neurok-girl.

It should really go without saying that getting to pick what it is that you're drawing is a huge advantage; while Visions is not strictly worse than Preordain, all summed up it remains mostly inferior nonetheless, save the the very very narrow niche of already having certainty that there's the card you want on top of yor deck. Which is something you generally won't have, much less turn-one, the most prominent time to drop a peek n' draw sorcery.

What I think we can all agree on though is that Visions easily is the card for that slot in Modern, though. Really, next to any deck - serious and non-serious alike - will try to run as many copies of this as colors and budget allow.

Talking about budget, I'd really like to see this reprinted; these 6$ commons aren't benefitting anyone.