[SCD] Phyrexian Portal

Phyrexian Portal {3}
Artifact
{3}: If your library has ten or more cards in it, target opponent looks at the top ten cards of your library and separates them into two face-down piles. Exile one of those piles. Search the other pile for a card, put it into your hand, then shuffle the rest of that pile into your library.

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MUD decks have been playing Kuldotha Forgemaster with a suite of silver bullets like Spine Of Ish Sah, Blightsteel Colossus, and Sundering Titan - this strategy makes Phyrexian Portal unplayable since you would be exiling your Forgemaster bullets.

Traxos was just recently printed, and seems like a good replacement for Forgemaster, along with Wurmcoil Engine, Steel Hellkite, Lodestone Golem, we're approaching a new MUD archetype. In this more straightforward aggro shell, could Phyrexian Portal find a home?

The best way for your opponent to split the cards is 50/50, each pile's quality relatively even. The player who controls Phyrexian Portal is ultimately the one choosing the pile, so you have a 50/50 chance of getting the best of the 10 cards. I think the card selection power is kind of insane. The biggest drawback is paying 3 mana to activate. However with Cloudposts mana in the deck maybe this isn't so terrible in the later game.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Troll_ov_Grimness

Phyrexian Portal {3}
Artifact
{3}: If your library has ten or more cards in it, target opponent looks at the top ten cards of your library and separates them into two face-down piles. Exile one of those piles. Search the other pile for a card, put it into your hand, then shuffle the rest of that pile into your library.

~

MUD decks have been playing Kuldotha Forgemaster with a suite of silver bullets like Spine Of Ish Sah, Blightsteel Colossus, and Sundering Titan - this strategy makes Phyrexian Portal unplayable since you would be exiling your Forgemaster bullets.

Traxos was just recently printed, and seems like a good replacement for Forgemaster, along with Wurmcoil Engine, Steel Hellkite, Lodestone Golem, we're approaching a new MUD archetype. In this more straightforward aggro shell, could Phyrexian Portal find a home?

The best way for your opponent to split the cards is 50/50, each pile's quality relatively even. The player who controls Phyrexian Portal is ultimately the one choosing the pile, so you have a 50/50 chance of getting the best of the 10 cards. I think the card selection power is kind of insane. The biggest drawback is paying 3 mana to activate. However with Cloudposts mana in the deck maybe this isn't so terrible in the later game.

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I'm not sure why an aggro mud shell would want this? Why not play something aggressive like Karn?

Draw a card from a selection of 5 might be better than reveal 2 and draw it next turn, if it's something you actually want

Second drawback is quite limited activation, no more then 6-7 times which exiles 35 cards remember that your CQ drop every activation, so even after 3 times your CQ drops down by 15 best cards from top. I don't think it will be better then staff of domination or any 4 Mana 'arena effect'

Nevermind, was reading it wrong.

The effect is decent but at 6 mana it's hard to work into any strategy.