Molten Psyche
A proud new addition to that strange animal, the
red mill deck. Molten Psyche is of marginal use
unless you've got a bad hand, in which case
playing this card is like a mid-game mulligan,
or if your deck has graveyard recursion, at
which point it's basically a discard outlet. The
fact that everybody else gets a new hand is
irrelevant, since the odds of their new hand
being better or worse than their current are
dead even, unless you're trying to mill them.
Unless you have Metalcraft, of course. At that
point, it not only recycles everybody's hand, it
also acts as a Lava Axe against evervbody but
you. Combine with Temple Bell and other such
tricks, and you may have yourself a win
condition. And hey, Temple Bell is an artifact
and thus counts toward metalcraft!
As I've mentioned in this space before, I like
highlander/singleton formats. The last few
blocks have been kind to one of my
favorite archetypes: Underworld Dreams. Shadowmoor gave
it a card with a very similar effect to
the marquee card, and now Scars of Mirrodin
offers one that looks a lot like Winds of Change
(another of my all-time favorite cards) with
benefits. There are enough artifacts in the new
Mirrodin block that you want to play to make the
second clause active a lot of the time, and
there are lots of decks around that won't
appreciate having to shuffle all their Titans
and planeswalkers into their deck. I think this
is going straight into my Underworld Dreams
deck, and I wouldn't be surprised if you
eventually see it in other places too.
Today's card of the day is Molten Psyche which
is a three mana sorcery that has each player
shuffle the cards from their hand into their
library then draws that many cards. This
is a fairly standard ability, but can be
enhanced by Metalcraft to deal damage equal to
the cards drawn that turn which is nice if you
happen to be running some kind of Red artifact
deck. Overall the card has a bit of
potential yet probably won't see much play as
you need your opponent to have cards and really
don't gain much from exchanging cards. If
you plan on having cards you don't need there
may be a design flaw and if your opponent has
cards they can't play you don't want to give
them a different hand. Another more direct
burn option is easier to manage if that is your
goal while just drawing is usually better than
trying to have cards in hand to switch out.
In Limited this is can turn a bad draw into
something better, but again it is fairly weak
and the double Red in the cost doesn't help the
cause earlier on when more cards are likely to
be in your hand. Metalcraft is easier to
obtain in the set and getting several points of
damage is likely though your opponent is just as
likely to benefit from new cards. While it
may depend on your style of play this shouldn't
be a high priority in Booster or Sealed.
