This card is powerful in low deck size formats like limited, and quite useful in mill decks that run Leyline of the Void. However, outside of that, we have cards like Vengevine running around in Standard and Extended, and we have tons of creatures with Unearth or some other kind of recursion in Extended now. While I agree that 1/12 of your opponent's library for 1/7 of your hand isn't too bad, you just might end up helping your opponent more than hurting them.
Mill isn't so much functional these days as it is annoying. My aggro deck is just as functional with whatever I was able to play even after staring down the barrel of 2 Thrummingbirds, 4 Tome Scours, Traumatize, and a Grindclock with 5 charge counters on it.
Posted By:
DacenOctavio
(2/3/2011 12:57:28 PM)
Surgical Extraction.
Posted By:
Hayw00d0909
(5/26/2011 2:28:11 PM)
This is a decent card with a few different uses. As for the debate about milling as a way to win goes: I think it's a very valid way to win in a different way in a casual format. I play an all-out mill deck sometimes (blue/black) based around traumatize/haunting echoes/mind funeral/tome scour/vision charm/memory sluice/hedron crabs/hymn to tourach, with a few blue counterspells and black removal cards and it wins a lot of the time. It has a bit of trouble against certain deck types, but against a lot of others, it is almost untouchable.
Can you win easier using more traditional decks? Maybe. But it's certainly more enjoyable to win with a mill deck over winning with "yet another goblin burn deck" or a lot of other deck types that everyone has seen played a million times.
Posted By:
Quentil
(10/3/2011 7:26:11 PM)
I think people are trying to get pretty "know-it-all" about milling strategies. Right, we get it, milling is a game of chance and so unless you commit to finishing them with it, it's useless. Wrong. Scion of Darkness, anyone? Magic is an incredibly diverse game with a million different ways to win, battle, press advantage and take advantage. Try not assuming that because you don't have the imagination to make a card work means it's useless in ANY game format. All it will take is one champ to decide they can use tome scour effectively and you'll all be lining up to give it a 5.
Posted By:
JamosDeYamos
(2/23/2012 10:19:47 PM)
I tell my opponent that their genius just got fu*cked when i use this.
Posted By:
Demonic_Angel13
(7/10/2010 10:32:45 PM)
This is a common? For U? Um...
Posted By:
PhyrexianLobbiest
(7/8/2010 7:10:45 PM)
I was wondering why this was rated 3/5 at some point. "Insanity!" I thought! It's the Llanowar Elves of Milling! This is an insult to all millers in the game! (Hedron Crab really takes that medal, but we'll never see the crab again, while Scouring through Tomes will appear in at least another few sets)
Posted By:
Ferlord
(4/9/2012 8:15:02 PM)
Combine with something like Lost Hours, and this could be interesting...
Posted By:
Vayan
(10/2/2010 11:10:46 AM)
This has won me games in Limited, it's always a good insurance policy to have as a one drop, you never know. Especially useful against Timmies in Limited: I remember milling my opponent's Grave Titan for instance.
Posted By:
Carnophage_4ever
(10/28/2010 11:46:40 AM)
It's like blue's Shock. It needs to mill 8 or 9 to be proportional in power to Lightning Bolt. Maybe 8 so it's not too close to Glimpse the Unthinkable. Yeah... that would be a nice new 1-cost mill spell!
It's nice that such a simple card has so many applications...And is so damn fun to use for some reason!
Posted By:
Blackworm_Bloodworm
(11/4/2010 6:55:41 PM)