Siphon Insight
scryfall.com
{U}{B} • Instant • Look at the top two cards of target opponent's library. Exile one of them face down and put the other on the bottom of that library. You may look at and play the exiled card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast that spell. Flashback {1}{U}{B} • Innistrad: Midnight Hunt (MID) #241 • Illustrated by Livia Prima • Magic: The Gathering, MTG

[[Siphon Insight]]

It’s +1 card advantage for five mana by the time you’re done. You get a small amount of choice in what cards you take, but that benefit is counteracted somewhat by the risk that the cards on offer may not be synergistic with your own plan. As a mill effect it’s not very good, not that any of the decks I see playing it are trying to mill their opponents. The cards you siphon don’t count against your hand size, but that’s rarely relevant.

Wouldn’t [[Quick Study]] or [[Tainted Indulgence]] just be better?

I have a casual deck with [[Nashi, Moon Sage’s Scion]] so I absolutely understand the fun of beating someone with their own cards. That’s well and good for unranked games, but I’m seeing Siphon Insight in competitive decks in the ranked queue, where I assume most cards have to meet a higher bar than just “it’s fun”.

When someone plays SI against me I usually feel relieved. Better that than something impactful. I never bother to counter it (not that I’d typically counter small amounts of card-drawing anyway).

But am I missing something? Are you playing Siphon Insight in any of your decks, and if so, are you satisfied with it? What alternatives is it competing with and why is it better than them?

  • MikeA
    2•10 months ago

    I have thought about this in the back of my mind for a while, ever since seeing the card. I personally don’t think I would ever play it, even in standard, but here is one possible idea outside of what you mentioned:

    • Decks that run 0 threats can use this to take a threat from the opponent to win with

    I think it needed to look at the top 3 cards to be somewhat close in utility to [[Expressive Iteration]]. I think it has a really high chance to hit cards that are either lands or useless to the opponent’s game plan. For instance, I play a Dredge style deck in Historic and Siphoning my [[Narcomoeba]] or [[Stitcher’s Supplier]] is worthless to them, and actually is like I Time Walked the opponent.

    The fact that it’s an instant is the only reason it’s playable at all, but even then I think it’s unplayable in any format because of how low the utility is. As you said, you’re spending 5 mana to go up 1 card, but you can’t guarantee you will get anything usable and you still have to cast the cards you exile.

    Often what I see happening is the Siphon player takes a up-rate creature and then casts it on their following turn. But now they’re tapped out and the aggro player can use one of their dead removal spells on it and swing in. The Siphon player now has a 3 mana Siphon and they’re behind further on board.

    All in all I think it’s a hard avoid in every deck, and I agree I usually feel relieved whenever I see someone casting it too. I think Mystmin tried making it work in his Lurrus Dimir Control deck but that was very brief and I have not seen him play it ever since.

    • @EvuOPEnglish
      2•10 months ago

      Decks that run 0 threats can use this to take a threat from the opponent to win with

      I do appreciate the cheekiness of a deck that doesn’t run any of its own threats. :)

      For the record I’m not criticizing WotC for printing Siphon; it’s fun and unique and most importantly not absurdly overpowered, which is just about everything I look for in a Magic card. It’s the people playing Siphon in competitive decks who I’m wondering about.