According to Science, if you continuously cut a
object in half, you will never completely
eliminate the object. This is also true in
Magic. Play a Traumatize, suddenly your opponent
has only half their remaining library to draw
from. A second Traumatize does not get rid of
the other half of their deck, only half of the
remaining library. Also, your opponent is
probably winning. How do I know that? Because
you have just spent two of your turns playing
Traumatize instead of cards that actually help
you win! Traumatize is particularly bad in
current Standard play where Necromancers await
around every corner to return giant creatures
like Akroma from the graveyard you just help
fill with Traumatize. And that’s the good news,
I think Traumatize is even less useful in
limited.
Ironically, this card has traumatized me. A
friend of mine once had a Traumatize/Haunting
Echoes deck that pretty much removed everything
but land from your deck, and then finished you
off secure in the knowledge that you had nothing
left to do against them. Without Haunting
Echoes, this is probably ittle more than a
monoblue Glimpse the Unthinkable; solid in a
mill deck, but useless anywhere else. In
limited, there isn't much recursion, decks are
smaller, and people are more reliant on drawing
their couple of bombs, so this might be
absolutely backreaking once in a draft, but it's
not reliable enough to maindeck.
Constructed- 1.5
Casual- 4
Limited- 2.4
KC MetroGnome
Traumatize
Is there anyone who hasn't tried to combo this
with Haunting Echoes? This card has potential
written all over it, but in the end it's a
little unwieldy for what it does. It shines in
casual, where there's nothing quite as funny as
knocking half your friend's deck into the
graveyard. If it cost one or two less I could
see it showing up in some kind of Threshold/Ichorid/Dredge/Reanimation
type strategies. As it is, it just doesn't fit
the curve right.
