Reach Through Mists saw a fair amount of play in
Kamigawa block, and not always just to trigger
Spiritcraft or to Splice something onto.
Spending one mana to draw a card is a fair deal,
even if Blue is used to getting some sort of
filter effect for the price. Ponder, Preordain,
Serum Visions, Brainstorm, even Opt gave the
player some sort of control over what they
drew-- Visions of Beyond gives no such control.
What it does give, is the option to become so
much more powerful. Once somebody's--
anybody's-- graveyard has twenty or more cards,
you get three cards drawn for the price of one!
Personally, unless I was really hard up or
manascrewed, I doubt I would even bother to cast
Visions of Beyond if I couldn't get three cards
out of it, and I would likely be more in favor
of it in mill decks where I wouldn't have to
just wait for graveyards to fill up. Since
Innistrad looks to have a "graveyard matters"
theme, I expect this card to be quite
influential.
I'll admit it: I'm worried about this card,
worried in the "Jace the Mind Sculptor" sense of
the word. Yeah, I know that it requires setup.
Yeah, I know that even the actual Ancestral
Recall doesn't automatically do the equivalent
of Bane's signature move from Batman #497,
because all your other cards could be Hurloon
Minotaurs or something. But I also know that
people play cards like Ponder, Gitaxian Probe,
Terramorphic Expanse, and Mental Note. I know
that casting a Visions of Beyond at below
"threshold" helps set up the later, full-powered
one. I know that more games of Magic have been
lost to "end of turn, draw lots of cards" than
to almost anything other than sentences that
include "Dark Ritual" or "Balance." Maybe I'm
just paranoid. But can you honestly tell me you
can't think of at least one way to turn this
card on and abuse it, in any format that exists?
Welcome back readers today’s card of the
day is the new Ancestral Recall sort of, for
this card to do anything other than draw a
single card there needs to be a graveyard with
over twenty cards in it. Let’s examine
decks that can realistically do this, Dredge,
Pyromancer Ascension and some sort of mill deck,
which by the way is terrible. So for
standard this card is interesting but more of a
nice item, in modern/extended and eternal
formats its simply outclassed by more powerful
draw spells and the niche decks this could fit
in really don’t need it. To be fair the promise
of drawing three cards for a single blue mana is
hard to turn down but I don’t see this making
much of an impact outside of niche play in
constructed. In casual and multiplayer why
that is a horse of a different color, mill decks
while not very good are exceptionally popular in
casual and multiplayer and this card is directly
aimed at those players giving it a fair
share of popularity. In limited its
hard to judge most games you won’t
have half of a deck in a graveyard making
it less useful however it may be useful when
drafting alongside a milling archetype. Overall
a powerful but niche card that may see small
amounts of competitive play but should be a huge
hit in casual and multiplayer.
Today's card of the day is Visions of Beyond
which is a one mana Blue instant that allows you
to draw a card or three if any graveyard has
twenty or more cards in it. With support
this can become an Ancestral Recall, but it
takes a somewhat dedicated build to reach that
level early enough to matter in most games.
It is probably easier to mill your opponent and
there are multiple methods of doing so in
current sets, though Dredge and other builds
could also work with Blue to enjoy the card
advantage this offers. Whether using your
own graveyard or your opponent's this definitely
has the potential to make a splash on the
tournament scene.
In Limited there isn't a strong chance of
forcing the full effect and the library is
smaller to begin with, so drawing three cards is
unlikely. Having this as a rare in Sealed
makes for a weaker pool overall and passing it
in Booster is probably the best choice as the
best it will generally do is minor deck
thinning. Some kind of removal or a
creature is more likely to benefit you in most
situations as it just isn't worth it in the
format.
Today's card of the day is Visions Beyond, it
is either one for one or one for three (wow).
Except the one for three has a catch, a
graveyard has to have at least twenty cards in
it. In standard this card has only found
its home in a mill deck. I honestly feel
like mill decks are now slightly plausible in
standard because of this card. It is
amazing support for the whole deck, how often do
you get a card that lets you draw three after
your deck is already doing its damage? On
top of all of that it is an instant, so you can
hold onto your removal spells or counters and if
nothing happens draw three.
Drawbacks? Hardly any, the only downside to this
card is that it takes a time to get to the
twenty cards. At the same time you ask
yourself, do you really need to draw three in
the first four turns of the game? Probably
not. For multiplayer I guess this card
works because there are more graveyards to
target. Limited, its always better to draw
cards, I doubt you'll ever get to draw three,
but if the game is drawn out that long then that
three could make a difference.
Welcome to another
card of the day review here at Pojo.com. This
time around we are looking at Visions of Beyond
from M12. Visions of Beyond is a one blue mana
rare sorcery that says draw a card, but if a
player’s library has twenty or more cards in it,
draw three cards instead.
This card is a lot of fun for the fact it is a one blue
mana draw card, but even better if you are
running a mill style deck. Then you can get
twenty cards in a players graveyard in no time,
and thus benefit from drawing three cards for
just one. This of course also follows in the
mill theme, since with even just one Jace’s
Erasure, then someone will mill three more
cards. And all of this is if there is just one
Jace’s Erasure. Two or three out could result in
milling nine to twelve cards for only one mana.
And of course let us not forget blue’s other tricks.
Twincasting could draw you nearly a new hand. Or
even splash it with Pyromancer’s Ascension.
These combos could have a fresh hand of more
spells ready to pick apart an already limping
foe.
