Thirst for Discovery – Crimson Vow
Date Reviewed: January 26, 2022
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.25
Casual: 3.17
Limited: 4.00
Multiplayer: 3.08
Commander [EDH]: 2.92
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Thirst for Discovery, for when you neither desire knowledge nor meaning, combines all sorts of nice effects into an above-rate shell. Digging deeper at instant speed is always nice, and you come out with a +1 if you have a land to discard. Even if not, remember that graveyard set-up often has room for subtle (and less subtle) power baked into it, and Innistrad‘s sets have long been a welcoming place for cards to have a second life. Unlike its forebears, most decks can have lands to spare in a late-game scenario, though the question always is how many you have to spare. This is definitely a workhorse card; it’ll rarely be the star of a deck, but when it’s working, you’ll more than notice.
Constructed: 3.75
Casual: 3.5
Limited: 4 (good for digging just that little bit deeper)
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander [EDH]: 3.75 (getting deeper is always nice, and most decks should have the lands to spare; being able to discard freely is also sometimes a lot more powerful than it looks at first)
As James rightly points out, Thirst for Discovery is part of a sort of super-mega-cycle that started all the way back in Mirrodin. I can’t help but wonder if we’ll ever get one that wants you to fuel it with a planeswalker. That one obviously wouldn’t be as good as Thirst for Discovery outside of War of the Spark, because this card is good almost anywhere. It’s easy to become jaded by formats like Modern and its fetchland-fuelled manabases as far as the eye can see, and to forget that basic lands are the default in many other formats. There, just as for its ancestors, good card advantage for three mana is a good deal. Don’t forget that there are times you will either not mind, or actively want to discard two cards; and perhaps more obscurely, don’t forget that if you do choose to discard two, they can be of any type, including basic lands (if you don’t need it any more but also want to discard something else, or if you have two basic lands you don’t need). It’s really saying “discard either exactly one basic land, or two cards of any type”.
Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Commander [EDH]: 3/5
Solid, standard, and expected card draw for blue that’ll be a staple in standard control decks. Discarding a land isn’t so bad late game when you’re mana flooded and need a win condition to end the game in your favor. Nothing screams out about this card but it’s a good and necessary card for the control strategies.
Constructed: 3/5
Casual: 3/5
Limited: 4/5
Multiplayer: 3/5
Commander [EDH]: 2/5 (there are better card draw cards in commander and if you’re playing a lands deck chances are you’re not running blue)
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