by ElspethFTW, Gaming Successfully Staff
Ixalan is a set full of powerful and interesting Magic the Gathering cards. So it may come as a surprise that the top selling card in Ixalan in the early going was a common! That common is Opt, a reprint from the early Invasion set. It’s a decent little card. For a single mana, it lets you Scry 1, which means you get to look at the top card of your deck and decide whether to keep it there or put it on a bottom. Then you draw a card. Opt is also able to be cast at Instant speed, which makes it a nice flexible card that you can cast at the end of your opponent’s turn if you have mana open to do so.
Opt is strikingly similar to another Blue card called Preordain. That sorcery allows you to Scry 2, which is certainly better as you get to dig two cards deep. However, Preordain typically can’t be cast at instant speed, being a sorcery. So while Preordain is banned in Modern, now having a card that’s functionally similar but also at instant speed means that Opt was certain to see Modern play.
Besides obviously being good in Standard in decks like W/U Control and Grixis Control, Opt was very quickly adopted by Modern Grixis Death’s Shadow decks, which were still looking for a good replacement for the recently banned Gitaxian Probe. Mono-Blue Tron and Grixis Delver have also been finding ways to adopt the instant. While Serum VIsions is a similar card that sees plenty of play in the format already, this is a good complement to that card.
If you happen to come across some old copies of Opt from Invasion, definitely hold onto them, since they are also legal in Modern (and Standard until October 2019). This is a very useful little card that will always find a home in some Modern decks.
Opt is strikingly similar to another Blue card called Preordain. That sorcery allows you to Scry 2, which is certainly better as you get to dig two cards deep. However, Preordain typically can’t be cast at instant speed, being a sorcery. So while Preordain is banned in Modern, now having a card that’s functionally similar but also at instant speed means that Opt was certain to see Modern play.
Besides obviously being good in Standard in decks like W/U Control and Grixis Control, Opt was very quickly adopted by Modern Grixis Death’s Shadow decks, which were still looking for a good replacement for the recently banned Gitaxian Probe. Mono-Blue Tron and Grixis Delver have also been finding ways to adopt the instant. While Serum VIsions is a similar card that sees plenty of play in the format already, this is a good complement to that card.
If you happen to come across some old copies of Opt from Invasion, definitely hold onto them, since they are also legal in Modern (and Standard until October 2019). This is a very useful little card that will always find a home in some Modern decks.
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