I've said it before-- mill as a win condition is
pretty much dead. Everybody's got either Elixir
of Immortality or cards that want them to fill
up their graveyards. Trying to dump their
library into their graveyards is more likely to
help your opponents than hurt them. That said,
you can take advantage of that yourself by
targeting yourself with this card. There is a
reason it targets a "player" and not an
"opponent". To pull that off, you'd need to
really have your deck chock full of Flashback
spells and other cards that cue off your
graveyard. Supposedly the idea had some success
in Limited with decks based off Spider Spawning,
but I've yet to see it work in Constructed.
I used to know someone who played a "Mono
Blue Burn" deck. Blue got a lot more direct
damage in early sets than it does now, so it was
surprisingly easy to build. Nowadays, it seems
blue is getting burn with its own twist: it
directly damages things other than life totals,
which in a sense makes it somewhat harder to
defend against (make of that what you will).
Think of Tome Scour as the blue Lava Spike,
Thought Scour as Magma Jet, and Increasing
Confusion here as Devil's Play. While milling
may still be some way from being accepted as a
competitive strategy, it can more than hold its
own in a variety of other settings, and
Increasing Confusion fits very well in existing
milling strategies and may be getting close to
being powerful enough to get into more
competitive arenas. And you can even target
yourself if you need to (you will someday!).
Welcome back readers todays card of the day is
a powerful mill card that allows a double dose
of milling for X. This could make an interesting
finisher card as even if it is countered you can
then flash it back and double mill them. In
standard mill decks haven’t seen a lot of
success in a while and I don’t think this will
change with the release of Dark Ascension mill
decks just aren’t competitive and outside of
maybe a win condition of a control deck I don’t
see this card seeing much play. In extended and
modern the same concept applies making this card
is not quite powerful enough to make an
impression on such a fast format. In legacy and
vintage this card is absolutely too slow except
maybe outside an infinite mana combo but blue
sun zenith may be a better choice there. In
casual and multiplayer this card will be popular
as mill is popular and the tools are there to
make it work in multiplayer such as Keening
Stone from Zendikar block. In limited mill is
actually a viable strategy and this with enough
mana can kill an opponent in a turn or two
making it an interesting yet viable niche
strategy. Overall a powerful mill card but the
power level of mill may hold it back.
Today's card of the day is Increasing Confusion
which costs X and one Blue to cast or Flashback
to have target player put the top X cards from
the library into the graveyard and if cast from
the graveyard it puts twice as many instead.
This is a nice card for decks that need to fill
the graveyard quickly and works well for support
or a finisher in a deck destruction build.
Overall a solid addition to either strategy and
having the X and Flashback make it flexible for
any stage of the game.
For Limited deck destruction is rarely
viable, but if used twice with a large supply of
mana this can almost win a game with no support.
That alone makes it playable and if anything
that requires cards in the graveyard is in your
pool it does add another possible use should
deck destruction not be on the table. If playing
some Blue or mana acceleration it is probably
worth a slot in Sealed and can be a viable first
pick in Booster, despite being a bit less
impressive than other rares.
Welcome to the final card of the day review of
the week here at Pojo.com! To close this week
out we are looking at Increasing Confusion from
Dark Ascension. Increasing Confusion is a rare
sorcery that costs a blue mana and X. Target
player puts the top X cards of his or her
library into his or her graveyard. If Increasing
Confusion was cast from a graveyard, they put
twice that number into the graveyard. The
flashback cost is one blue and X.
No doubt one of the most ridiculous cards from
the set. Milling ahs always been a popular
strategy, and this only makes it more desirable.
Milling an X value is nice, but when the
potential for twice that value is added in, it
is only that much nicer. There is plenty of mana
acceleration, especially from Dark Ascension
towards the flashback cost.
Not worth wasting time to describe how nice this
card is, and how actually amazing it is.
