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.
Posted By:
A3Kitsune
(7/1/2010 9:28:54 PM)
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.
Posted By:
WarioMan
(6/25/2012 9:30:29 PM)
Well the fact that Ponder is restricted and this is a 5 cent common should easily put both in their places.
Posted By:
AlphaNumerical
(10/25/2009 10:54:51 AM)
wait, can't you stack the effects on a card in any order you want since it doesn't say "then"?
Posted By:
Vedalken_Arbiter
(4/21/2010 8:07:14 PM)
1-drop draw spells are good. I wish the first mode of Visions of Beyond was this.
Posted By:
DacenOctavio
(9/19/2011 12:48:39 PM)
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
Posted By:
alblast
(2/3/2011 8:50:19 AM)
sounds like a drug trip. just sayin. btw preordain is better
Posted By:
Shadoflaam
(12/6/2010 2:36:02 PM)
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.
Posted By:
igniteice
(3/5/2013 10:39:36 PM)
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: Vision... (see all)
Posted By:
Enelysios
(3/14/2014 1:04:50 PM)
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 ab... (see all)
Posted By:
IndubitableSalmon
(5/13/2014 9:45:21 AM)