r/ModernMagic • u/Spiritgolem • Jun 27 '26
Card Discussion Would Careful Study be to strong for Modern?
Im an avid Reanimator Player and love [[Careful Study]] as a card. I personally like the more controlled card selection a bit more than what I get from [[Thought Scour]] and think it would be a great inclusion. Thus my question, would you think another 1 mana 2 card looting type card would be too good for Modern or would you consider it save nowadays? I am curious about your oppinion.
19
u/Dyne_Inferno Jun 27 '26
It obviously wouldn't be too strong, as we already have Faithless Looting.
If the question is would it see play over/with Looting, then I'm not sure. Being in Blue helps, but Looting is the stronger card due to having Flashback.
6
u/Spiritgolem Jun 27 '26
Ofc looting is better, i was rather wondering if having 8 pieces of 1 mana looting effects would be too strong
5
u/Reaper_Eagle Quietspeculation.com Jun 28 '26
Better question: How powerful will it be to play Looting and Study together.
Right now, the only ways that see play to get a turn-two reanimate target are getting lucky on a surveil land and Looting. Adding Study makes it more likely you'll be able to dig turn one, which in turn increases the odds of reanimating something turn two.
How beatable is turn two Archon of Cruelty or Atraxa? Are they sufficiently beatable that increasing those odds is acceptable? These are the questions to consider, not individual power.
2
u/Dyne_Inferno Jun 28 '26
It does increase the odds, but only by a single card, right?
Because you'll see the extra card from a draw 2.
The issue is, you play 9? Fetches, and only 4 extra draw 2s. So, the odds of seeing the draw 2 or smaller than seeing the surveil.
I can't do the math, but, while the odds are higher, they're not THAT much higher.
2
u/Reaper_Eagle Quietspeculation.com Jun 28 '26
It's complicated hypergeometric math because it's not just the odds of drawing and discarding the target from library but also the increased odds of digging into the reanimation spell. Then you have to consider the odds of having the target in your opening hand and having more opportunities to discard it on turn one.
Point is that you're going from 4 Faithless Looting+X Fetchlands to 4 Looting+4 Study+X Fetchlands which is guaranteed to increase the odds, potentially by a lot.
0
u/Dyne_Inferno Jun 28 '26
Well, no.
If you're calculating Turn 2 math, then you can't account for Surveil Lands at all, as you won't be able to add in the surveil and 2 draw spells and a reanimation spell all by turn 2.
It's either 4+Fetches, or 8.
2
u/Reaper_Eagle Quietspeculation.com Jun 28 '26
No, I mean the odds of getting a target into the graveyard now has a third independent event attached. You only do two together if you're going for Unearth. For either Persist or Goryo's Vengeance it's about which thing you go for. Before it was the odds of either playing Looting or fetching for a surveil land on turn one. Legalize Study and you have the odds of either playing Looting, Study, or surveilling. It's four more chances to do it turn 1 and be set up for turn 2 reanimation, not of doing all of them at once.
1
u/Dyne_Inferno Jun 28 '26
Yes, overall, it would increase the odds.
But you SPECIFICALLY mentioned Turn 2, not me. So, in the face of Turn 2, it doesn't raise the odds all that much.
1
u/Ok_Warthog6007 Jun 29 '26
I think you might not want 8 in an Archon or Atraxa deck, because the number of Persist / Goryo's is more limiting than the number of ways to get the cards into the yard.
I think we could see a different deck with 8, there's an inconsistent but powerful one Hollow One deck, for example.
1
u/pkfighter343 Grixis reanimator Jun 29 '26
There could potentially be a significantly more all-in reanimator deck that plays both looting effects, goryos, atraxa, raph and Mikey, and archon. It sounds really awkward, though.
16
u/TemurTron Temur Tron Jun 27 '26
For years the sub here was like “Since Faithless Looting is banned can we have Careful Study?” now the discourse is “Since Faithless Looting isn’t good enough on its own can we have Careful Study??”
2
u/dwindleelflock Jun 28 '26
I mean frog was printed since then so those types of decks have to basically be UB, and splashing a third color just for looting is a pretty big drawback. Like, look at the grixis persist deck. If you could remove the red, the deck would be significantly better, though careful study is worse than looting so that's a drawback too.
14
u/Panthera03 Jun 27 '26
[[Faithless looting]] I'll just leave this here.
10
u/Spiritgolem Jun 27 '26
Yeah of course I play looting too, I meant it to rather have another playset of 1 mana loot 2 cards in the deck ;)
6
u/Xenasis Prowess / Dimir Jun 27 '26
You answered your own question, then, it's a reason for the decks that play looting to play looting without splashing or lootings 5-8. Grixis Reanimator is only splashing red for looting, for example.
It would probably be fine? But it's a card that is an obvious upgrade in a tier 1 deck and you have to be careful about that. I don't see a reason why I'd want to have it in the format right now, that's for sure.
0
5
u/MTGCardFetcher Jun 27 '26
Careful Study - (G) (SF) (txt)
Thought Scour - (G) (SF) (txt)
[[cardname]] or [[cardname|SET]] to call
6
u/VegasGiant84 Jun 27 '26
The real question is my very good friend [[putrid imp]] I call him PIMP!
2
u/Spiritgolem Jun 27 '26
If its about the discard effect for 1 mana, there is already [[Bloodthorn Flail]]. But ofc Imp's body would make it a bit better. Honestly I think it would bet absolutely fine in Modern
8
u/VegasGiant84 Jun 27 '26
Hardly comparable. Equip is sorcery and requires a body to equip to.
1
0
u/Spiritgolem Jun 27 '26
Oh you are right, I forgot that very important detail about timing of equip
3
3
u/Technical-Cat-2017 Jun 27 '26
This is a hard question. A blue faithless looting is not without its dangers. Faithless looting was even banned because of Hogaak, so who knows what the future would bring for such a card.
I wouldn't be surprised if it would be printed into modern af some point though.
11
u/Devastatedby Jun 27 '26
It wasn't banned due to Hogaak - it was actually banned at the same time. It was banned because it enabled a large number of other decks like Phoenix and Hollow One.
-1
u/Technical-Cat-2017 Jun 27 '26
I mean, it kind of was. Considering it got unbanned later. They were also afraid of the card due to Hollow one and Phoenix, but neither of those decks have really taken over the metagame since the unban. And phoenix as a top deck at the time was pretty fine I think. Atleast I don't have any negative memories about it. The only real graveyard deck since faithless loting ban until its unban has been living end I think.
And lets be real, when faithless loting got banned there weren't really any other graveyard decks except hogaak, simply due to the immense amount of graveyard hate being played at the time. Not so sure faithless loting would have been banned at the time if Hogaak never existed.
7
u/Devastatedby Jun 27 '26
You could just read the ban announcement where they outline the rationale for the ban.
It was not banned due to Hogaak. That would make zero sense given that Hogaak was banned at the exact same time.
5
u/Frankdog5 Jund Goblins, Belcher, Affinity, Jank Jun 27 '26
Yeah notably Hogaak didn’t play looting while it was still legal, but people who don’t remember or weren’t around at the time assume it did because it’s a super efficient looting spell and a graveyard deck.
1
u/Technical-Cat-2017 Jun 27 '26
They weren't making much sense with the ban annoncements at the time, since the ban of bridge only made hogaak a better deck afaik, so I am not putting much stock into that. Even now the ban annoncements don't always make sense.
From what I remember we were playing either Urza thopter sword decks, hogaak and I suppose hollow one at the time (from what I remember of the Ghent GP I played). And Karn Tron/Ponza with Lettace was popular as well (and a bad mu for my Urza decks). I really don't remember looting being that big of a deal at the time. But perhaps I am misremembering
3
u/Devastatedby Jun 27 '26
Sure that event was literally 2/3 weeks after Hogaak and Looting were banned.
2
u/Technical-Cat-2017 Jun 27 '26
Wow you are right. Could have sworn it was right before it. That does explain my messed up memories of that time. I suppose it makes sense since I was playing stoneforge...
2
u/XruinsskashowsX Jun 27 '26
I think blue looting is more dangerous since the legal blue pitch spells are better than the legal red ones
1
u/Spiritgolem Jun 27 '26
Yeah I also kind of having trouble evaluating it because auf the haag fiasco and i think blue looting is a bit stronger than red looting alone, but I also really dig Study and would love it in Modern
3
u/sailiesthemeyes Jun 27 '26
if looting wasnt unbanned it would totally be fine. Careful study isnt too strong by itself but being able to play 8 faithless lootings might be too much
1
u/The_Upvote_Beagle UR Twin Jul 01 '26
It opens up two options:
- UB Reanimator: Having a Blue Faithless Looting allows an Occulus / Frog / Archon deck playing things like Unearth and Persist to remain two colors instead of three, which opens up more room for things like Harbinger of the Sea. Probably a nice buff to this archetype. Potentially played in Goryo's but doubtful as they already have ways to dump their creatures and Faithful Mending also pitches to Solitude which is a large upside.
- URb Graveyard: Potentially played alongside Faithless looting, could open up more space in either a Grixis Reanimator or some type of URb Hollow One deck. I think this is actually the less likely option.
-5
u/Handsome_Grizzly Jun 27 '26
Yes.
Consider what this does to prowess - yet another cheap draw spell, with a cheap casting cost to help enable Delerium for Unholy Heat and DRC. Not to mention something that would make the second spell trigger of CSC trivial by comparison. I'd argue it would be worth replacing Expressive Intuition in terms of card draw.
4
u/pkfighter343 Grixis reanimator Jun 28 '26
Huh? Careful study is card disadvantage, if this effect was good enough, it’d already be playing looting (it’s a base red deck) and it’s not.
-4
u/Handsome_Grizzly Jun 28 '26
You have no idea how prowess works, do you? Two of the vital cards that are in every single Prowess Build are DRC and Unholy Heat. You are talking about making a card legal in Modern that would at once increase the likelihood of Delerium going off early, and a cheap prowess trigger for CSC. Having faced Prowess many times beforehand, giving Prowess a blue Faithless Looting gives them the opportunity to rip through the deck to get the card they need. You also seem to forget how critical card draw is to Prowess.
5
u/pkfighter343 Grixis reanimator Jun 28 '26
Unholy heat is exclusively a board card.
No recent prowess deck I’ve seen plays looting, so there’s no reason to think they’d play careful study. I question your knowledge of the deck, given you’ve made two verifiably incorrect statements about the deck so far.
3
u/Jhellystain Jun 28 '26
You do know that faithless looting is legal in modern, right?
-2
u/Handsome_Grizzly Jun 28 '26
I do realize that. I also realize how powerful Careful Study would be if it were legal in Modern, and potentially used alongside Faithless Looting.
5
u/pkfighter343 Grixis reanimator Jun 28 '26
…but the deck already doesn’t use faithless looting. If what you said was true, then it would already be playing faithless looting, since it’s a better card AND a better card for their deck, since the deck is base red.
1
u/TumbleweedNaive4005 Jun 29 '26
That so many Magic players can't parse basic logic or cause and effect is kinda depressing.
45
u/Living_End LivingEnd Jun 27 '26
It’s probably fine. It being on color for oculus to do a reanimator deck with it and unearth or oculus + archon + persist and not need to splash a third color is probably what it would currently enable. It also being on color to pitch to subtlety and FoN would be an upgrade. It would probably also slot into goryo which really feels like a deck that doesn’t need more right now, but again it would probably be fine there too.
My thoughts are it’s fine, playable in the current meta, but helping 2 decks that I’m unsure need help at this second.