U
Sorcery
Scry 3
//////
4G
Sorcery
Aftermath
Look at the top card of your library. If it's a creature card, you may reveal it and put onto the battlefield. Otherwise, put that card into your hand.
Simic is often considered a shallow guild. The front half is a decent "cantrip" and the green half will eventually make up for any card disadvantage and can "Oath" a creature into play if properly set up.
Simic may be more shallow than others, but I think this misses by a bit. The first half kinda sucks a decent amount, and the second half is too high-costed to really work in conjunction outside of late game scenarios. It has a high ceiling, but an embarrassingly low floor. Pass.
I would be much more excited if this was an instant. As is, I think this is worse than Summoning Trap.
It is SO MUCH WORSE than summoning trap. SO MUCH. 2 color, sorcery speed, only TOP CARD if you don't case both halves in the same turn is not made up for by the incidental GY value.
Index is a beans awful card, and index with a five mana conditional upside isn't that much better. I love janky soft-casts, but this is too janky even for me. The comparison to Summoning Trap is pretty damning.
All kidding aside, I think you are underselling it a bit. No I don't think Summoning Trap is Cube Worthy and Index is awful, but combined they seem interesting to me. You really have to hit a creature as a 5 mana draw one is bad. But as long as the creatuer is 3 mana or more you are doing well. The Scry 3 is really nice for setting up that creature or can jsut be used on turn 1 to get you rolling. I think this could be deceptively good in a G/U ramp deck that features cards like natural order, show and tell, sylvan library and mana dorks. Those decks don't mind card disadvantage as they make up for it in top end. Those decks also need all the smoothing and cheat effects they can get. Now I doubt I will run this but there are cube decks where this is good.
Now I doubt I will run this but there are cube decks where this is good.
I feel like that could be said about a lot of cards, though. Yeah, this could be OK in my eureka/show and tell deck, but when it's not? It's horrendous as a 5 mana draw-1 is not something you can do in cube and win.
My main issue is that you really need the deck manipulation part of this card to happen close to the cheating part, or you need to rely on the other deck manipulators. Are these uncommon? No, there are a number of them, but I don't like having to need those so I can cube with a guild card with a floor as horribly low as Live has. You really put a lot of pressure both on your hand and deck to produce the right results for the second half to be 'win the game' vs 'lose the game'.
I've played a lot with Summoning Trap: it's a pretty solid card in my cube, but the thing that makes it work is the fact that it hits seven full cards, very rarely whiffing. This costs the same (if you cast both halves) and does a pale imitation at sorcery speed. The only advantage is the ability to spread out the effects, or discard it for value. I'd sacrifice both to get a creature more reliably.
I think people are underestimating this card quite a bit from the evaluations.
Scry 3 is exactly the kind of effect big ramp combo decks want early to set up/find their broken peices.
In a channel/eldrazi deck, how badly do you want to find that channel?
It's not exactly card disadvantage because the graveyard side can still be used later in the game to at LEAST draw a card.
Combined with other library manipulation effects , which UG doesn't lack (blue cantrips, oracle, sylvan library, courser of kruphix, new nissa, top/scroll rack), you can save the ability in the graveyard till you know you have a fatty on top of your deck to put into play. Getting both value and great early game card selection.
If you top deck it, you can cast the first half, if there are no creatures, save the second half until later... or use it still effectively to draw a card.
I'm tempted to test, though I don't think it's anything special.. Just think it's far from unplayable.. nor should it be primarily evaluated for it's "combined" mode.
Yea, I don't feel like this card is absolutely terrible. My thoughts mostly echo what LucidVision said. It should also be noted that if you compare it to Summoning Trap or See the Unwritten it does look poor when you compare 6cc to 6cc. However, this card isn't only that, and in fact you can both set up your plays early for the early cost of U and have a giant monster into play a turn earlier than either of those 6cc cards with the back half costing only 4G. Now granted, your deck has to support this type of play pattern with cards mentioned in LucidVision's post, but the fact remains that it does "allow" you to cheat something into play earlier. This card simply might not have the support needed to function in cube, but I am excited to find out.
I do really like two things about this card: the scry 3 essentially works like cycling, where you can just slip in the effect when you have a stray mana, and not feel too bad if you never crack the back half. As has been stated, there are plenty of other ways to control your topdeck anyway.
The other thing that I like is that even though Believe is quite likely to whiff, the card has whiff insurance in its 6cc form, where you can simply not use the back half if you whiff the scry, and use the five mana for something else, keeping Believe.
I'm still not completely convinced, but I'm warming to it. This is the kind of card that I want to like, and Simic slots aren't all that hard for me to find, so I may try it after all. There's definitely a kind of deck that wants this card, but there need to be several decks that want it.
I do really like two things about this card: the scry 3 essentially works like cycling, where you can just slip in the effect when you have a stray mana, and not feel too bad if you never crack the back half.
Uh, spending a card to scry 3 makes me feel pretty bad.
In a larger cube, I'd be in the market for U Scry 3 to make combo decks more consistent. It digs as deep as Serum Visions, but I'd play Serum Visions outside of combo where this I probably wouldn't.
Also, there's plenty of other cards that can set up the Aftermath: Any other 1-cmc / Scry 2 card, JTMS, Scroll Rack, etc.
I do really like two things about this card: the scry 3 essentially works like cycling, where you can just slip in the effect when you have a stray mana, and not feel too bad if you never crack the back half.
Uh, spending a card to scry 3 makes me feel pretty bad.
I do really like two things about this card: the scry 3 essentially works like cycling, where you can just slip in the effect when you have a stray mana, and not feel too bad if you never crack the back half.
Uh, spending a card to scry 3 makes me feel pretty bad.
Not anywhere as bad as looking at your hand of multiple high CMC cards when you lack the lands to cast them...
How good would changing one of those cards to a U: Scy3 feel?
Compared to summoning trap type cards, You are sacrificing power for a LOT of consistency...
In a larger cube, I'd be in the market for U Scry 3 to make combo decks more consistent. It digs as deep as Serum Visions, but I'd play Serum Visions outside of combo where this I probably wouldn't.
Also, there's plenty of other cards that can set up the Aftermath: Any other 1-cmc / Scry 2 card, JTMS, Scroll Rack, etc.
In you're in the market for that effect, there's the strictly better version (of U scry 3) from time spiral, Mystic Speculation that has buyback. If you're looking for that effect, go there first.
Not anywhere as bad as looking at your hand of multiple high CMC cards when you lack the lands to cast them...
How good would changing one of those cards to a U: Scy3 feel?
Compared to summoning trap type cards, You are sacrificing power for a LOT of consistency...
If you continuously see hands of high CMC cards and no lands, the solution isn't to add middling filtering cards, it's to draft and build better lol. If I kept seeing hands like that, I'd feel like I drafted a bad deck. Here's a list of 1cmc cards I'd run over a theoretical U scry 3 spell
Ancenstral Visions
Ancestral Recall
Brainstorm
Careful Study
Git Probe
Mystic Speculation
Ponder
Portent
Preordain
Opt
Serum Visions
Slight of Hand
Most of those are not remotely close for cube, and all are better than a spell that just scrys three. What this tells me is that the green half of this card has to be pretty good to make it playable. The comparisons with cards like summoning trap were not to say those cards were great, but to say that, since those cards don't really see much play, this card would need to be a LOT better than them because it's a guild card.
Also, I don't see how you can say this is a more consistent version of those cards. Yes, you get to scry so you know if you're gonna whiff, but than you are just shooting blind, and only seeing 3 versus 7 cards is a HUGE difference. And if you have library manipulation, in which case it works with all of the other spells like summoning trap anyway, so it doesn't make this card more consistent in those situations as well.
What of those is weaker than this? I think I can comfortably say literally none. Sure, there's some situations this card would be nice to have. That's true of a ton of magic cards. If I'm facing down a clique, I might really wish I had flare in my hand instead of earthquake. That doesn't mean flare is a better card. Cube is the best of the best of magic cards. Lots of cards that are fine, or even good, in other situations, that won't make it in cube. If you're designing a cube with considerations other than power level, then of course you can put in whatever you want. But on power level, this card will not make it in almost any cube.
I think we can all agree that this isn't good enough for an extremely tight environment. Still, I've been turned to this card's favor.
My personal soapbox is that the funnest cube and the most powerful cube are not even close to the same thing, and I'll gladly choose fun over power every time. That usually makes me the voice of the weaker environment in these forums, and as such, I've been convinced of this card's worthiness for a test. It has a lot of the hallmarks of a fun and versatile card.
@asmallcat, you're definitely right that this doesn't even come close to competing for the top slots, but it does have a home in some cubes. Your sig contains a cube that is an ideal environment for it, after all.
My personal soapbox is that the funnest cube and the most powerful cube are not even close to the same thing, and I'll gladly choose fun over power every time. That usually makes me the voice of the weaker environment in these forums, and as such, I've been convinced of this card's worthiness for a test. It has a lot of the hallmarks of a fun and versatile card.
Honestly, I don't think this card gets there on "fun" level, either, because it's so unreliable at what it does. Do your players enjoy spending 6 mana and a card to whiff? Because that's going to happen a lot with this card, Scry 3 just doesn't go very deep.
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Honestly, I don't think this card gets there on "fun" level, either, because it's so unreliable at what it does. Do your players enjoy spending 6 mana and a card to whiff? Because that's going to happen a lot with this card, Scry 3 just doesn't go very deep.
If you look at my posts on this thread, I've gone through some different opinions on this card, and the whiffs have certainly occurred to me. I'm also not willing to call this a true inclusion, but it seems interesting enough to test, and aye, it seems fun. On turn three or four, it's pretty reasonable to play Reason, and see if you can set up a big play. Even if you can't, you get Believe in your bin, and you have an incentive to control the top of your deck. If worst comes to worst, you can pay five to draw a card, and occasionally, you'll get a memorable free creature.
This has a lot of different lines of play, and I'm still pretty big on the 6cc version with whiff insurance. Remember, it only costs one to whiff. Once again, this is no slam dunk add, and it's not an add at all for very many people, but the further I get, the more I Believe.
onment in these forums, and as such, I've been convinced of this card's worthiness for a test. It has a lot of the hallmarks of a fun and versatile card.
@asmallcat, you're definitely right that this doesn't even come close to competing for the top slots, but it does have a home in some cubes. Your sig contains a cube that is an ideal environment for it, after all.
Yes, this might make it in the MC cube. I tend to avoid framing cards that I am thinking about in that cube in anything but very clear terms, because what the cube wants is so far removed from what a normal cube wants, that it's not particularly helpful for people looking for power-level discussion on a card.
If you want to think this card is fun or a good fit for your cube, then by all means, go for it. One of the best things about cubes is they can be whatever the creator and group want them to be. I just think this is a bad version of an effect we've seen many times before is all. Some cards, for whatever reason, get me heated =P
In a larger cube, I'd be in the market for U Scry 3 to make combo decks more consistent. It digs as deep as Serum Visions, but I'd play Serum Visions outside of combo where this I probably wouldn't.
Also, there's plenty of other cards that can set up the Aftermath: Any other 1-cmc / Scry 2 card, JTMS, Scroll Rack, etc.
In you're in the market for that effect, there's the strictly better version (of U scry 3) from time spiral, Mystic Speculation that has buyback. If you're looking for that effect, go there first.
Not anywhere as bad as looking at your hand of multiple high CMC cards when you lack the lands to cast them...
How good would changing one of those cards to a U: Scy3 feel?
Compared to summoning trap type cards, You are sacrificing power for a LOT of consistency...
If you continuously see hands of high CMC cards and no lands, the solution isn't to add middling filtering cards, it's to draft and build better lol. If I kept seeing hands like that, I'd feel like I drafted a bad deck. Here's a list of 1cmc cards I'd run over a theoretical U scry 3 spell
Ancenstral Visions
Ancestral Recall
Brainstorm
Careful Study
Git Probe
Mystic Speculation
Ponder
Portent
Preordain
Opt
Serum Visions
Slight of Hand
Most of those are not remotely close for cube, and all are better than a spell that just scrys three. What this tells me is that the green half of this card has to be pretty good to make it playable. The comparisons with cards like summoning trap were not to say those cards were great, but to say that, since those cards don't really see much play, this card would need to be a LOT better than them because it's a guild card.
Also, I don't see how you can say this is a more consistent version of those cards. Yes, you get to scry so you know if you're gonna whiff, but than you are just shooting blind, and only seeing 3 versus 7 cards is a HUGE difference. And if you have library manipulation, in which case it works with all of the other spells like summoning trap anyway, so it doesn't make this card more consistent in those situations as well.
What of those is weaker than this? I think I can comfortably say literally none. Sure, there's some situations this card would be nice to have. That's true of a ton of magic cards. If I'm facing down a clique, I might really wish I had flare in my hand instead of earthquake. That doesn't mean flare is a better card. Cube is the best of the best of magic cards. Lots of cards that are fine, or even good, in other situations, that won't make it in cube. If you're designing a cube with considerations other than power level, then of course you can put in whatever you want. But on power level, this card will not make it in almost any cube.
Honestly outside of edric and lumbering falls (which I don't count), most of those cards are weak. Simic is the worst guild by a hefty margin in cube. Most of those cards shouldn't see play if they were mono colored.
Reason//Believe is much more consistent than see the unwritten, summoning trap etc, because the card does very relevant things at every stage of the game. Whereas the other ones are unusable until you get 6 mana.
Scry 3 is worse than all of the cantrips you mentioned, but that's not what this card is at all. you scry3 AND draw a card. The card you draw is the believe side of the card. Believe is definitely weaker than an average card in your deck, but works quite well with scry 3. The green side doesn't have to be "pretty good" to be playable at all. In can be well below cube standards.
Preordain is a staple at scry 2 draw a card.. So to be as good as pre-ordain, the green side can be worse than the average card in your deck (taking into account synergy with scry) enough to make up the difference between scry 3 and scry 2. Preordain is a top 200 card in the cube... it doesn't have to be as good as pre-ordain to deserve a slot in the weakest guild.
Believe by itself is clearly way below cube par, but in a deck with library manipulation effects (which simic is well suited for), it starts getting more and more competitive. In a deck with brainstorm, JTMS, oracle of muldaya, sylvan library and some huge fatties. I'd be tempted just to play believe by itself (I still wouldn't but it would be close).
Reason//Believe is only more consistent than the others for being relevant earlier in the game but if you do use the first half way earlier than the second half you are probably going to whiff most of the time while the others are actually going to hit since they dig deeper than 1 card. If this card looked at even 3 cards I would consider the argument that its decent but unless you reason and believe on the same turn you are almost never going to hit that creature. I could see even whiffing on the scry 3. Believe just seems like a dead card nearly all of the time.
That's why library manipulation plays a big roll in the value of the card.
I don't think I would play it without any library manipulation in the deck (except maybe a eureka deck with 6+ fatties).
UG is the best colour combination for library manipulation.
4G draw a card is also a non-neglible fail safe than , 4G whiff...
Fwiw it may seem like I'm in love with the card but I'm not.
U
Sorcery
Scry 3
//////
4G
Sorcery
Aftermath
Look at the top card of your library. If it's a creature card, you may reveal it and put onto the battlefield. Otherwise, put that card into your hand.
Simic is often considered a shallow guild. The front half is a decent "cantrip" and the green half will eventually make up for any card disadvantage and can "Oath" a creature into play if properly set up.
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It is SO MUCH WORSE than summoning trap. SO MUCH. 2 color, sorcery speed, only TOP CARD if you don't case both halves in the same turn is not made up for by the incidental GY value.
This is the easiest of passes.
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All kidding aside, I think you are underselling it a bit. No I don't think Summoning Trap is Cube Worthy and Index is awful, but combined they seem interesting to me. You really have to hit a creature as a 5 mana draw one is bad. But as long as the creatuer is 3 mana or more you are doing well. The Scry 3 is really nice for setting up that creature or can jsut be used on turn 1 to get you rolling. I think this could be deceptively good in a G/U ramp deck that features cards like natural order, show and tell, sylvan library and mana dorks. Those decks don't mind card disadvantage as they make up for it in top end. Those decks also need all the smoothing and cheat effects they can get. Now I doubt I will run this but there are cube decks where this is good.
I feel like that could be said about a lot of cards, though. Yeah, this could be OK in my eureka/show and tell deck, but when it's not? It's horrendous as a 5 mana draw-1 is not something you can do in cube and win.
My main issue is that you really need the deck manipulation part of this card to happen close to the cheating part, or you need to rely on the other deck manipulators. Are these uncommon? No, there are a number of them, but I don't like having to need those so I can cube with a guild card with a floor as horribly low as Live has. You really put a lot of pressure both on your hand and deck to produce the right results for the second half to be 'win the game' vs 'lose the game'.
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Scry 3 is exactly the kind of effect big ramp combo decks want early to set up/find their broken peices.
In a channel/eldrazi deck, how badly do you want to find that channel?
It's not exactly card disadvantage because the graveyard side can still be used later in the game to at LEAST draw a card.
Combined with other library manipulation effects , which UG doesn't lack (blue cantrips, oracle, sylvan library, courser of kruphix, new nissa, top/scroll rack), you can save the ability in the graveyard till you know you have a fatty on top of your deck to put into play. Getting both value and great early game card selection.
If you top deck it, you can cast the first half, if there are no creatures, save the second half until later... or use it still effectively to draw a card.
I'm tempted to test, though I don't think it's anything special.. Just think it's far from unplayable.. nor should it be primarily evaluated for it's "combined" mode.
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The other thing that I like is that even though Believe is quite likely to whiff, the card has whiff insurance in its 6cc form, where you can simply not use the back half if you whiff the scry, and use the five mana for something else, keeping Believe.
I'm still not completely convinced, but I'm warming to it. This is the kind of card that I want to like, and Simic slots aren't all that hard for me to find, so I may try it after all. There's definitely a kind of deck that wants this card, but there need to be several decks that want it.
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Uh, spending a card to scry 3 makes me feel pretty bad.
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Also, there's plenty of other cards that can set up the Aftermath: Any other 1-cmc / Scry 2 card, JTMS, Scroll Rack, etc.
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Not anywhere as bad as looking at your hand of multiple high CMC cards when you lack the lands to cast them...
How good would changing one of those cards to a U: Scy3 feel?
Compared to summoning trap type cards, You are sacrificing power for a LOT of consistency...
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In you're in the market for that effect, there's the strictly better version (of U scry 3) from time spiral, Mystic Speculation that has buyback. If you're looking for that effect, go there first.
If you continuously see hands of high CMC cards and no lands, the solution isn't to add middling filtering cards, it's to draft and build better lol. If I kept seeing hands like that, I'd feel like I drafted a bad deck. Here's a list of 1cmc cards I'd run over a theoretical U scry 3 spell
Ancenstral Visions
Ancestral Recall
Brainstorm
Careful Study
Git Probe
Mystic Speculation
Ponder
Portent
Preordain
Opt
Serum Visions
Slight of Hand
Most of those are not remotely close for cube, and all are better than a spell that just scrys three. What this tells me is that the green half of this card has to be pretty good to make it playable. The comparisons with cards like summoning trap were not to say those cards were great, but to say that, since those cards don't really see much play, this card would need to be a LOT better than them because it's a guild card.
Also, I don't see how you can say this is a more consistent version of those cards. Yes, you get to scry so you know if you're gonna whiff, but than you are just shooting blind, and only seeing 3 versus 7 cards is a HUGE difference. And if you have library manipulation, in which case it works with all of the other spells like summoning trap anyway, so it doesn't make this card more consistent in those situations as well.
Here's the top 10 simic cards
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest - 9.8
2 Lumbering Falls - 7.35
3 Trygon Predator - 7.15
4 Mystic Snake - 6.55
5 Kiora, Master of the Depths - 4.85
6 Shardless Agent - 4.35
7 Simic Signet - 3.7
8 Kiora, the Crashing Wave - 3.4
9 Sagu Mauler - 2.75
10 Simic Sky Swallower - 1.65
What of those is weaker than this? I think I can comfortably say literally none. Sure, there's some situations this card would be nice to have. That's true of a ton of magic cards. If I'm facing down a clique, I might really wish I had flare in my hand instead of earthquake. That doesn't mean flare is a better card. Cube is the best of the best of magic cards. Lots of cards that are fine, or even good, in other situations, that won't make it in cube. If you're designing a cube with considerations other than power level, then of course you can put in whatever you want. But on power level, this card will not make it in almost any cube.
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My personal soapbox is that the funnest cube and the most powerful cube are not even close to the same thing, and I'll gladly choose fun over power every time. That usually makes me the voice of the weaker environment in these forums, and as such, I've been convinced of this card's worthiness for a test. It has a lot of the hallmarks of a fun and versatile card.
@asmallcat, you're definitely right that this doesn't even come close to competing for the top slots, but it does have a home in some cubes. Your sig contains a cube that is an ideal environment for it, after all.
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Honestly, I don't think this card gets there on "fun" level, either, because it's so unreliable at what it does. Do your players enjoy spending 6 mana and a card to whiff? Because that's going to happen a lot with this card, Scry 3 just doesn't go very deep.
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If you look at my posts on this thread, I've gone through some different opinions on this card, and the whiffs have certainly occurred to me. I'm also not willing to call this a true inclusion, but it seems interesting enough to test, and aye, it seems fun. On turn three or four, it's pretty reasonable to play Reason, and see if you can set up a big play. Even if you can't, you get Believe in your bin, and you have an incentive to control the top of your deck. If worst comes to worst, you can pay five to draw a card, and occasionally, you'll get a memorable free creature.
This has a lot of different lines of play, and I'm still pretty big on the 6cc version with whiff insurance. Remember, it only costs one to whiff. Once again, this is no slam dunk add, and it's not an add at all for very many people, but the further I get, the more I Believe.
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Yes, this might make it in the MC cube. I tend to avoid framing cards that I am thinking about in that cube in anything but very clear terms, because what the cube wants is so far removed from what a normal cube wants, that it's not particularly helpful for people looking for power-level discussion on a card.
If you want to think this card is fun or a good fit for your cube, then by all means, go for it. One of the best things about cubes is they can be whatever the creator and group want them to be. I just think this is a bad version of an effect we've seen many times before is all. Some cards, for whatever reason, get me heated =P
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Honestly outside of edric and lumbering falls (which I don't count), most of those cards are weak. Simic is the worst guild by a hefty margin in cube. Most of those cards shouldn't see play if they were mono colored.
Reason//Believe is much more consistent than see the unwritten, summoning trap etc, because the card does very relevant things at every stage of the game. Whereas the other ones are unusable until you get 6 mana.
Scry 3 is worse than all of the cantrips you mentioned, but that's not what this card is at all. you scry3 AND draw a card. The card you draw is the believe side of the card. Believe is definitely weaker than an average card in your deck, but works quite well with scry 3. The green side doesn't have to be "pretty good" to be playable at all. In can be well below cube standards.
Preordain is a staple at scry 2 draw a card.. So to be as good as pre-ordain, the green side can be worse than the average card in your deck (taking into account synergy with scry) enough to make up the difference between scry 3 and scry 2. Preordain is a top 200 card in the cube... it doesn't have to be as good as pre-ordain to deserve a slot in the weakest guild.
Believe by itself is clearly way below cube par, but in a deck with library manipulation effects (which simic is well suited for), it starts getting more and more competitive. In a deck with brainstorm, JTMS, oracle of muldaya, sylvan library and some huge fatties. I'd be tempted just to play believe by itself (I still wouldn't but it would be close).
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I don't think I would play it without any library manipulation in the deck (except maybe a eureka deck with 6+ fatties).
UG is the best colour combination for library manipulation.
4G draw a card is also a non-neglible fail safe than , 4G whiff...
Fwiw it may seem like I'm in love with the card but I'm not.
Last Updated 02/07/24
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I wouldn't even play it at 720, I'd rather play Snakeform over this.
If both halves were instant, the card would be FAR more interesting, but sorcery speed just makes is so drab.
I have no reason // believe this card is cube-worthy.
Draft my cube!
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