Like its cousin from Ranica, Compulsive
Research, Perilous Research gives you a chance
to quickly gain card advantage in constructed as
well as limited formats. In limited, I would
have to say that Perilous is not nearly as good
as Compulsive. Compulsive Research is a first
pick in perhaps the most drafted color in
Ravnica block booster drafts. Perilous Research
is not necessarily a high draft pick in Coldsnap
drafts, but if you put one in your deck, you
won't be sorry. It works like this: when you
have a creature about to go to the graveyard
anyway, whether it is from combat damage or from
one of your opponent's creature removal spells,
just play Perilous Research sacrificing the
creature that you would going to lose anyway.
Later in games, Perilous Research works a lot
more like Compulsive Research. With Compulsive
in your deck, you tend to keep a land in your
hand in case you need one to discard after
drawing three cards with Compulsive. You will
tend to put more lands in play than you
necessarily need when you have Perilous Research
in your deck, knowing that you will need a
permanent that you don't mind sacrificing when
you play Perilous Research. Compulsive draws you
one more card than Perilous, there's no getting
around that, but Perilous is an instant where
Compullsive plays at Sorcery speed. In
constructed, the usefulness of Perilous Research
is a little more specialized than Compulsive
Research. As in limited, the best use of
Perilous Research is to draw extra cards when
you have a permanent that is about to go to the
graveyard anyway.
The fact that Compulsive Research is still
around for another year of Standard constructed
play will probably make its "little brother"
Perilous Research less popular, but still a fine
card that will be a better choice in more
aggressive blue decks.
It's instant speed card drawing. You have to
love that. You have to sacrifice a permanent,
but that's a small price to pay. You can
sacrifice a creature that's about to die to
combat damage. You can sacrifice a land that's
already been targeted for destruction. You can
sacrifice a useless land late in the game. You
can expect to see a lot of this card being
played in the coming days.
I'ts good to see a decent instant card draw
spell again-- especially one that won't get out
of hand since it doesn't provide actual card
advantage. You lose the Research and the
sacrificed permanent, but gain two cards to
replace them. I doubt it'll be popular as an EOT
play, but it's excellent in combat or in
response to a Faith's Fetters.
Perilous
Research - This card seems really good. And it
is really good. That's not just an illusion.
Think of it much the same way as Shrapnel Blast.
The Blast is good if you're using it to do 5
damage at the cost of 2 cards. But it's very
very good if you're using it to do 5 damage and
sacrificing something that was going to die
anyway. Think about Perilous Research the same
way. Playing this to burn one of your spare
lands is alright. Playing it to sacrifice a
creature that was going to die to a spell or
combat is a great move. Especially if the
creature has some other kind of effect to
generate when it dies. Another fine thing about
this card is that you can sacrifice any kind of
permanent to it. Including Hatching Plans!
This is one of the very few instant speed draw
cards we have in Standard, and this one is
actually playable. By getting rid of something
on your board you don't need anymore, you get to
draw two cards to replace it. The card you
sacrifice could be a land, something with an
upkeep cost that you can't bother to pay for
anymore, or a card your opponent is trying to
destroy. While this doesn't get you quite as
many cards as something like Tidings or
Compulsive Research, the instant speed gives you
a chance to get cards during the opponent's
turn, in case you need to hold the two mana back
for something like a counter. All-in-all it's a
very playable card.
Constructed: 3 - It's instant-speed draw,
something we don't get much of in T2.
Casual: 3 - No reason not to use it if you want
to.
Limited: 4.5 - Drawing cards wins games.
