As this is my debut article as Eye of the Vortex's new Collectible Card Editor, I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself to the EOV community. If you're interested in learning more about me, take a look at my bio; and now here's some top quality Magic: the Gathering content.

As the new Editor for EOV's Magic content, I am currently working get some articles flowing to rev up towards spoiler season for the upcoming Dark Ascension set. While this is in progress, I was debating what to write about in the meantime, when it occurred that there is already a card spoiled. While a couple of sites have provided coverage of this early gem back when it was spoiled, the Standard metagame has taken leaps and bounds since then, and I felt that it was important to take a fresh look at it. This will also be good to keep in mind when you see future spoiled cards from Dark Ascension, and in considering what cards to trade for or buy before the set comes out.

Careful Study. I have very fond memories of this card. It was a fantastic Threshold or Madness enabler, gave great card selection, and was a must in Reanimator and Dredge decks from many formats. While Careful Study saw Standard play, it certainly wasn't a staple of it's color, and there were a few reasons why:

A. It was Blue, the color which has plenty of these kinds of effects and usually wins by hammering out Card Advantage, not needing much filtering.

B. It netted -1 cards, where other cantrips like Peek, Mental Note, and Sleight of Hand (all from Odyssey Block or it's accompanying Core Set) gave equal cards for the same cost, some even at instant speed.

and,

C. It was a very poor topdeck when your hand was empty.

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This all brings me to Faithless Looting.

Not only is this card not Blue, it has the increased advantage of Flashback. From a color pie perspective, Careful Study makes perfect sense in Red; inherent Card Disadvantage for incremental gain, tweak on Wheel of Fortune mechanic, and it just feels Red to “loot,” as the term has been labeled. Oddly enough, Faithless Looting itself seems more like a Blue card, maybe with a Black or Red Flashback cost, since long term productivity isn't really in Red's wheelhouse. But Red mages rejoice! We now have something better than Blue all these years after Red Elemental Blast (which ironically is only good because it targets Blue spells).

So what makes this card so much better than it's predecessor? When Careful Study was printed, Threshold, Madness and Flashback were all very strong abilities that could benefit from such an effect. So what about now? Well, we have Flashback, but so far we are missing the cards that are cheaper from the 'yard than from your hand. Could there be some of those in the Dark Ascension? Time will tell...

What makes me far more excited about this card than the rest of the cards from Innistrad block is M12, and the Red cards Faithless Looting boosts. Grim Lavamancer has been fairly lackluster since the Fetchlands rotated, and Chandra's Phoenix has been seeing heavy play in almost every Red Deck Wins list lately. Not only does Faithless Looting bump up it's fellow tournament staples, but it has natural synergy with Red aggro itself. While Red decks are powerful in Standard, often they lose to themselves; any time you draw four lands in a row, you almost universally lose with RDW. One Faithless Looting could turn those lands into four burn spells. The true beauty is that you can use an early Looting to smooth out your draw, and should you draw a second, or even third, you can simply pitch them to the Flashback of the first one, and then use them out of the 'yard to filter your draws even further. It's really a one card engine.

I am sure everyone already thought of Lavamancer and his ilk when the card was spoiled, but are there any other archetypes that want to Loot Faithlessly? Grixis decks have been using Desperate Ravings as a card draw spell. While Ravings is an instant, the power of 1cc spells when curving out or holding up counterspell mana can be game changing. It's difficult to say whether the ultimate selection of Looting can make up for the overall Card Advantage gap between the two spells (Ravings gives +1 with the same digging quality), but not having to discard randomly could make the potential too powerful to ignore.

Another archetype that I have seen that could use more looting is Splinterfright/Boneyard Wurm decks. While Blue made an ideal second color because of the huge amount of self-milling available, Red would give the deck removal, reach, and more worthwhile creatures, as well as being an easier color to support for a base Green deck. Is it viable in new Standard? Hard to say, but it certainly feels like it is heading in a better direction, especially with added support from Dark Ascension.

This card will definitely make a splash somewhere, and will likely spawn archetypes by itself. Combined with Desperate Ravings, Forbidden Alchemy and Jace Memory Adept, a U/R deck can potentially burn through half it's library by turn 5. What can be done with a 'yard that big and that much filtering remains to be seen, but we have a few ideas in store.

I will leave you all with a RDW list as I see it optimized with Faithless Looting:

It's fairly straightforward. I removed the clunky Volt Charges, trimmed the land, and traded out the underwhelming Goblin Fireslinger from the normal list. While I normally don't like the Green splash for Ancient Grudge, the ability to discard them and use the Flashback is too cool to ignore. Since Koth isn't in the main deck I like Copperline more than Crag, but felt the need for five Green lands since we are mostly hoping to cast Grudge from the 'yard. Spikeshot Elder is a must in the current metagame since Moorland Haunt is everywhere, and it's one of the few ways to lose an otherwise easy matchup.

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