The Surveil part is funny because you seem to be forgetting that if you don't build around it it's still almost the same as Scry.
It's a strictly worse version of Scry, unless you build around it. And Scry is generally pretty much free, tacked onto other effects. I doubt Surveil will be treated the same way.
How is it strictly worse? Here is a way surveil will be better without exploiting graveyard interactions - purely based on the effect the card is removed from the library: If you scry multiple times and have put multiple cards (e. g. excessive lands) on the bottom of your library, then using a tutor (e. g. fetchland) will shuffle your library and undo the filtering - the "inaccessible bottom of the library" is shuffled back into your potential draws. But if the dead draws go to the graveyard, then shuffling will not potentially put them on top of your library again.
I also deny you that scry is "pretty much free" - it appears on cards that cost more because of the added effect. The only cards where it appears to be "free" is when they use an added "scry 1" to make a previously overcost card closer to cost effective e. g. Cancel becoming Dissolve. But that ignores that Cancel is already a downgrade from several other spells, so it's a "one free, if you buy three for the price of two" deal. I. e. if you call that "free", then you are lying to yourself.
And guess what? By now Sinister Sabotage shows that surveil 1 can occasionally be cost at the same level as scry 1 since it's a perfect analogue to Dissolve.
Your card is strictly better than Preordain in a couple of ways, so... yeah.
Scry would almost always be better than Surveil unless you're running a "graveyard matters" deck. Scry works in pretty much any deck since there are almost no situations where it's not useful.
Is there a common situation surveil is not useful to any deck? I mean, where scry is better? The common situation for both is: "I want to control my next up to N draws. I want to remove dead draws: Move them to a place where I won't draw them from. For larger N I want to rearrange the order of draws I get in my upcoming turns to better fit my game plan."
How are scry and surveil not equal in that situation? Or what other situations do you consider? The risk of milling yourself?
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
How many decks gains advantage from the bottom of the library? Unless, very rare corner cases viable really only in EDH (Grenzo, Dungeon Warden), we are pretty close to hit 0%.
How many decks gaina advantage from having cards in graveyard? Ahahah. Too many believe me. In all formats.
We can maybe say it's not very creative, but for sure we can't say it's a bad mechanic.
Yeah, getting that opportunity to dump stuff into the graveyard combos well of of a ton of cards.
I just want to say this. People do not need to be experts in something to have an opinion. Yes you can respond to said opinions, but 'You're not in game design, so your opinion is less valid' Is not a reasonable response. Just because you do it for a living doesn't mean you can't royally mess it up. R&D has made plenty of bad mechanics from broken, to just plain bad. None of us here has seen the full set nor have we played with the mechanics, so I hope people keep an open mind until then. But you are certainly entitled to your first impression, keeping in mind that it's just a first impression.
How is it strictly worse? Here is a way surveil will be better without exploiting graveyard interactions - purely based on the effect the card is removed from the library: If you scry multiple times and have put multiple cards (e. g. excessive lands) on the bottom of your library, then using a tutor (e. g. fetchland) will shuffle your library and undo the filtering - the "inaccessible bottom of the library" is shuffled back into your potential draws. But if the dead draws go to the graveyard, then shuffling will not potentially put them on top of your library again.
I also deny you that scry is "pretty much free" - it appears on cards that cost more because of the added effect. The only cards where it appears to be "free" is when they use an added "scry 1" to make a previously overcost card closer to cost effective e. g. Cancel becoming Dissolve. But that ignores that Cancel is already a downgrade from several other spells, so it's a "one free, if you buy three for the price of two" deal. I. e. if you call that "free", then you are lying to yourself.
And guess what? By now Sinister Sabotage shows that surveil 1 can occasionally be cost at the same level as scry 1 since it's a perfect analogue to Dissolve.
Is there a common situation surveil is not useful to any deck? I mean, where scry is better? The common situation for both is: "I want to control my next up to N draws. I want to remove dead draws: Move them to a place where I won't draw them from. For larger N I want to rearrange the order of draws I get in my upcoming turns to better fit my game plan."
How are scry and surveil not equal in that situation? Or what other situations do you consider? The risk of milling yourself?
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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Yeah, getting that opportunity to dump stuff into the graveyard combos well of of a ton of cards.
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Isn´t it 2 weeks of spoilers, starting next week?
I'm waiting Wizards. Blow my socks off with this discard synergy I wanna see it.