This is a very interesting card. The number of
cards your target discards is fixed at "all but
one". On the one hand, it gets better the more
cards your opponent has, unlike most discard
spells that allow the discarder to choose, and
it feels much like Mind Sludge, in that it can
come out of nowhere and take a huge chunk of
your opponent's hand away. The downside is that
they always have something left. You could
follow it up with a Horrifying Revelation, of
course. Or use it to follow up a Caress of
Phyrexia aimed at an opponent. There's plenty of
fun things you can do with this card that leaves
your opponent with only one fun thing.
I remember when Persecute rotated out of the
core set, with the idea seemingly that it's not
entirely fair to have a single spell make your
opponent discard their entire hand. Now it's not
that long later, and we've got a spell that
makes your opponent discard almost their entire
hand. Rotation is hard to understand sometimes.
Monomania's higher cost will prevent it from
being quite as ubiquitous as Persecute was, and
that same higher cost also means you'll have to
be more careful about casting it into a Mana
Leak or Spell Pierce. However, it shouldn't be
forgotten either - there may be a control deck
at some point that wants to play this, as any
opposing control deck that gets hit by it will
be more or less wrecked.
Today's card of the day is Monomania which is a
five mana Black spell that has target player
select one card in their hand and discard the
rest. Outside of a lucky draw in older
formats where Dark Ritual is legal this just
doesn't enter the game early enough to make an
impact, especially when the opponent can keep
the card they want most. The cost is too
high and the effect isn't enough to use in that
stage of the game when other cards can likely do
the job better both then and work earlier as
well. A Multiplayer match will be more
likely to provide at least one worthwhile
target, but discard often suffers in the format.
Overall a very situational card and not
something that should be played in the maindecks
of mono-Black discard.
In Limited the slower format might benefit this
a little more, but it is a weaker rare that may
not have much if any benefit depending on the
situation. In Sealed it can be played if
you are running Black anyway even though it
doesn't make a strong case for the color if it
causes a discard of just two cards you at least
gain some card advantage. In Booster this
is a rare that can be safely passed over if a
stronger card is available in the pack and is
unlikely to be a threat against your own deck if
you play your hand aggressively.
