Viscera Seer – Magic 2011
Date Reviewed: April 21, 2022
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.13
Casual: 3.75
Limited: 2.50
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander [EDH]: 3.50
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
This is easily one of the most deceptively powerful cards ever made. It gives you such a small effect that it’s easy to overlook on a first reading, but little advantages add up to big things – and, even more important, it lets you sacrifice a creature for zero mana. Not only can you get a free scry effect any time anything of yours is about to die, it’s a starting point for a frightening number of combos, synergies, and interactions all up and down Magic’s history, and I can’t help but feel like everyone on all sides of Magic underestimated it when it first came out in M11 (note it hasn’t been in a core set – and thus Standard – since).
Constructed: 4/5
Casual: 4/5
Limited: 3/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Commander [EDH]: 3/5
Viscera Seer looks innocuous, but it’s anything but. The main point of the card is that it’s a repeatable, zero-mana sacrifice outlet for one mana, and the upside (scry 1), while generally negligible, is actually pretty nice. The main “loop” of the card is to use Murderous Redcap or Kitchen Finks, in conjunction with a way to ensure they lose their -1/-1 counter off of persist (like Solemnity or Vizier of Remedies), looping their effects indefinitely until your opponent is dead or your life total is too high to interact with (along with ensuring your next draw will end the game then and there). It’s suboptimal on its own, but cards are never purely in a vacuum, and as far as sacrifice outlets go, Viscera Seer may well be the best of the lot because of only costing one mana to come out.
Constructed: 4.25 (it has a narrow home, but it’s nearly indispensable to that deck)
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 2 (Viscera Seer’s not been in Limited with all the friends it needs to shine)
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4
Great combo card with Murderous Redcap or Kitchen Finks and getting to scry to get the cards that you want. It doesn’t seem like a great card at a glance but this card is involved in some pretty devastating combos! I highly recommend giving them a Google to see all of the ones, it would be too long for me to list.
Outside of constructed combo decks, it’s not the best card in limited because you do not have the combo engine to really utilize it’s ability. It’s still a good card that could help you top deck in a pinch but it’s not the best grab until much later in the booster pack.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 3
Limited: 2
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 4
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