[SCD] Treasure Hunt

[GreenHornet]

Treasure Hunt - :1::u:
Sorcery
Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a nonland card, then put all cards revealed this way into your hand.

There's already been some discussion on the playability of this card in deck like 42 land as a mulch replacement. Additionally, it seems especially good after a brainstorm, or drawing lands out of the way while using top.
However, this card screams to be broken. Perhaps paired with Seismic Assault or Conflagrate. I'm not so great on the math, but the deck would have to be super land heavy. About 48-52 lands or so, unless it ran manipulate fate or a similar card to weed out any tutors and/or mana accel.
Any thoughts on the idea?

[FoolofaTook]

I don't understand why the deck would have to be that heavy in land to make Treasure Hunt acceptable. The fact that it replaces itself makes it effectively a 2cc cantrip in the worst case, although obviously it could be a lot more than that. It should be a viable option in normal 38-43 lands builds.

[dorsch]

I dont think it will be played because of it's synergy with Top or Brainstorm, because Predict exists for a long time and does not see play either. Maybe Lands.dec will use it, but why this over Intuition?

[Aggro_zombies]

I dont think it will be played because of it's synergy with Top or Brainstorm, because Predict exists for a long time and does not see play either. Maybe Lands.dec will use it, but why this over Intuition?
QFT. There's nothing in an existing Lands build that you would want to replace with this. There's a possibility that someone could use it to enable a Seismic Swans-style deck, but that seems worse than simply using the Chain-Swans combo to draw lots of lands since Swans doubles as a win condition.

[rufus]

You could try to work it with Scroll Rack or Scorched Earth/Devestating Dreams for some bizzarre 3-color agro loam, or something, but it looks very much like it will be a niche card at best. It's not a terrible card, but other cards are frequently going to be better.

[TheCramp]

I dont think it will be played because of it's synergy with Top or Brainstorm, because Predict exists for a long time and does not see play either. Maybe Lands.dec will use it, but why this over Intuition?

Not quite. Treasure hunt is better with brainstorm than predict is in some cases. If you stack land/land you draw three at least. Predict doesn't do this in any senario. Predict dosn't always draw busness. Treasure hunt does. I don't think we can write it off because predict dosn't see play anymore.

[Doks]

As a control player I'd love to make this card viable in any way, but I doubt it will replace the other CC2 draw we already have (AK, Impulse).
The thing is that it is not consistently a draw 2 for 1U. Admitted, the first AK you play isn't either, but Ak is an Instant, synergizes with FoF (when put into GY) and becomes stronger the more copies you find and cast.

Generally, a Sorcery that reads "Draw two cards." for 1U would not be uber, but quite good. But if it does not always draw 2 cards or at max one business spell, it becomes much weaker.
In addition, Treasure Hunt shows the opp what you get and will only give you one business spell.

In the right deck (lands.dec) it will have strong impact, but in any other sort of deck it will not be stronger than already existing cards, even when you prepare TH with BS / SDT.

[Malchar]

Deck consists of:
Treasure Hunt
Manabond
A ton of land (manlands, tabernacle, maze of ith, glacial chasm)

Play Treasure Hunt, draw a ton of land until you get to Manabond.
Play Manabond.
At end of turn, put all the land from your hand into play.
Next turn, activate all your manlands with your surplus of available mana and attack.

You can also throw in useful things like Life from the Loam (works fine with Manabond) and tutors to help find the Treasure Hunt. Burning Wish seems like a good choice.

[Aggro_zombies]

But then your Treasure Hunts are worse. Also, not hitting Mana Bond would be pretty bad for that deck when it drew 5+ lands.

[Forbiddian]

@ Malchar: That's basically what 43 lands is, except less focused on casting one spell. With 35-45 lands, you get a good blend of not scooping to countermagic and still being able to combo out effectively. You get most of the manlands and utility lands that you'd want to have. The extra lands going to 52 land would just hurt the deck.

Basically, imagine running a deck that only has 8 land. You'd have to mulligan a LOT, even if you just need one to play effectively. Now flip that. You now need a spell to do anything, and you only run 8 spells. If your deck is just 4 mana bond and 4 treasure hunt, half the games you won't even draw a spell. And even when you do, Force of Will will set you back major. Not to mention with just lands, you're going to lose every game to any faster combo.

43 land basically flips the deck design pattern. Instead of 43 spells and 17 land, you're running 17 spells and 43 land. I think as is, that's a little bit low and you want more gas, less oxidizing agent, and the ideal blend is more like 37-40 lands, 20-23 spells.

Either way, just from results, decks running fewer than 43 land (although the deck is still usually called 43 land) are doing much better. 38 and 39 land builds have been winning, but 43 land builds have been losing. Treasure Hunt demands that you play 45+ lands, which goes well against the optimization that other players have discovered, especially when Treasure Hunt isn't that great of a card and is off-color anyway.

[Malchar]

I'm not really advocating a deck that uses more than 50 land. I merely wanted to point out the crucial elements of the "combo". Treasure Hunt obviously would do the most to help "43 land deck".

[Mark Sun]

Hmm. So, SCG is buying Scroll Rack at $10 and most online stores are dry of them. Maybe this has something to do with Treasure Hunt? :confused:

[Shugyosha]

Not quite. Treasure hunt is better with brainstorm than predict is in some cases. If you stack land/land you draw three at least. Predict doesn't do this in any senario. Predict dosn't always draw busness. Treasure hunt does. I don't think we can write it off because predict dosn't see play anymore.

If you have two lands to put back with Brainstorm you probably don't need them anyways so milling one land and draw another + another card all at instant speed is better and Predict also draws two with Brainstorm when you have no lands. I would always play Predict or Accumulated Knowledge in a Deck with up to 22 lands before playing Treasure Hunt.