Who is playing Tamiyo's Journal
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on April 18, 2016, 2:39 p.m. by capriom85
This this seems like a legit card for EDH/Commander. The clues can be fairly useful on their own, but the sac 3 to get any card you want seems amazing and balanced for the format. You essentially need to wait 3 turns to do it, so it's not quite as good as Demonic Tutor, but it's available in all colors.
I want to try it in my Grand Arbiter Augustine IV prison deck, but what does everyone else think? I noted a decent price take on the foil version, I'm assuming it's for EDH guys. Anyone else running or wanting to run this?
Raging_Squiggle says... #3
I think it would be best in a simic build. That way you can include (in-clue-d?) both Trail of Evidence and Tireless Tracker. Both of which I believe are the best clue token spammers.
April 18, 2016 2:47 p.m.
griffstick says... #4
I love the card. There's a card called Ring of Three Wishes that I like to put in my decks if you compare it to other search cards not in black the Tamiyo's Journal is better then most of them if not all of them.
April 18, 2016 2:51 p.m.
brokendwarf says... #5
If you can fuel the clues, then sure. Otherwise Planar Portal and Ring of Three Wishes are faster options.
April 18, 2016 2:53 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #6
I don't know about it in any blue build Squiggle. Off the top of my head Rhystic Study, Consecrated Sphinx, Arcanis the Omnipotent, and even Enclave Cryptologist are better draw. Tutors are going to vary by color combination, but as I said I feel Ring of Three Wishes is even a better tutor than the journal.
April 18, 2016 2:56 p.m.
If you use it in a build with a lot of instants/sorceries and include Trail of Evidence as well, you can spam clues in a deck helmed with, say, Mizzix of the Izmagnus or Melek, Izzet Paragon. Either can double (or triple under the right circumstances) your clue production, and you will not regret that inclusion. My particular build utilizes the first one, several extra turn spells such as Time Stretch and Time Warp and several other cheap cantrips and spells. Casting Time Stretch for 
...yeah, I have done that. Include Brain in a Jar and you might even get to do it at the end of their turn and watch their jaw drop.
Yeah, I did that.
April 18, 2016 3:08 p.m.
Raging_Squiggle says... #8
A Talrand, Sky Summoner deck could see some use out of Trail of Evidence.
April 18, 2016 3:36 p.m.
PistonGolem says... #9
When I saw it I thought it would become an immediate staple, tutoring every three turns late game, or a source of draw? I will take it...
April 18, 2016 4:02 p.m.
UpperDeckerTaco says... #10
It's a decent card, but I feel T's Diary is just not fast enough for EDH. Paying 5 mana for something that doesn't affect the board at all the turn it's played is a steep price. There are better card draw options in the format for that slot. The "clue" itself is more valuable as a draw option anyway and a faster more reliable option. If the next set continues the clue theme, and adds more ways to continuously get clues, I can see it become more useful in EDH with the addition of those other cards, but Trail of Evidence and Tireless Tracker on their own don't help the Journal all that much to render it "great" in EDH.
I do however love Tireless Tracker in EDH because it gives green exactly what it wants to do. In green you will be hard ramping (Skyshroud Claim, Explosive Vegetation, etc...), so this guy produces a lot of clues early on. And then you can have a huge beater and draw late game because you have all that mana available.
I also like Trail of Evidence in the right deck. I see it more suitable in a U/R build than most others because you'll get the best effect from it. I run 1 in my Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind build because the deck just wants to control the board with spells and draw cards.
April 18, 2016 4:31 p.m.
I'm experimenting with the Journal in my next EDH deck. For being colorless, it's solid card-draw at worst. Loreseeker's Stone and Jayemdae Tome are good examples of colorless card draw, and the journal is certainly on par with them.
That said, it has the same drawback as most colorless card draw; it trickle-charges your hand and EDH plays out in big pulses. Ring of Three Wishes is still a better tutor because it happens at instant speed with very little need for preparation. The Journal requires you to think ahead and save up clues, but it's a quite good multitasker. Add in the flavor, and it fits in a lot of my decks.
April 18, 2016 4:40 p.m.
KillDatBUG says... #13
It's like a worse version of Mind's Eye and Planar Portal mashed together. I don't think this card is very good, unless you're making a lot of Clue tokens... somehow.
April 18, 2016 5:33 p.m.
Don't use this. For the love of God, use any number of existing and affordable draw cards and whatever tutors you can put together.
April 18, 2016 5:38 p.m.
PookandPie says... #15
I'm with TheDevicer on this. Every color has access to better card draw and/or tutoring effects.
Unless your playgroup is extremely slow, waiting around 3 turns for a tutor is terrible and you may as well run Planar Portal or Ring of Three Wishes (which I also feel are just way too slow, but whatever, that's my playgroup). If you're sacrificing the clues and not waiting for the tutor, then you most likely would've preferred that card be Mind's Eye, since you would have drawn twice as many cards for the mana spent.
If you're in , you've got Rhystic Study, Consecrated Sphinx, Fabricate, Transmute Artifact, Mystical Tutor, Personal Tutor, Merchant Scroll, Reshape, various transmute cards like Ethereal Usher, etc., for specific tutors and draw, with plenty more draw spells to choose from (so many I kind of don't want to go into them all).
If in 
, you have Harmonize, Worldly Tutor, Green Sun's Zenith, Chord of Calling, Birthing Pod, Natural Order, Sylvan Tutor, Garruk, Primal Hunter, Sylvan Library, Regal Force, Soul of the Harvest/Primordial Sage, Tooth and Nail, Genesis Wave, Greater Good, Crop Rotation, Traverse the Ulvenwald and lots more for draw and specific tutors.
gets Mentor of the Meek, Open the Armory, Stoneforge Mystic, Enlightened Tutor, Idyllic Tutor, Plea for Guidance, Three Dreams, Stonehewer Giant, Steelshaper's Gift, Land Tax and Scroll Rack, Weathered Wayfarer (get that Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx or Kor Haven, lol), Academy Rector, the white enchantress effects like Kor Spiritdancer or Mesa Enchantress, if you're trying to Voltron, and probably a couple of ones I'm mising, too.
gets Phyrexian Arena, Necropotence, Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Diabolic Intent, Grim Tutor, Imperial Seal, Diabolic Tutor, Diabolic Revelation, Dark Petition, Increasing Ambition, the various transmute cards like Brainspoil, Dark Prophecy, Bloodgift Demon, Rune-Scarred Demon, Ad Nauseam, Doomsday (requires a specific build, but whatever, you win if you make the pile properly), Graveborn Muse or Corpse Augur, Grim Haruspex and Harvester of Souls, and a lot more.
? Gamble, Wheel of Fortune and friends like Reforge the Soul, Wheel of Fate, etc.. Okay, so maybe red is a little anemic when it comes to draw spells (or maybe I'm forgetting a bunch, but whatever), but hey, the ones they have are absolutely amazing. If you're bad and are afraid of throwing away blank cards in your hand, use Library of Leng to get around that.
Multicolor gets interesting/powerful stuff like Prime Speaker Zegana, Drogskol Reaver, Ephara, God of the Polis, Eladamri's Call, Notion Thief, Sire of Stagnation, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, Spiteful Visions, Deathreap Ritual, etc..
Colorless? Memory Jar, Mind's Eye, Ring of Three Wishes, Planar Portal, Skullclamp, Sensei's Divining Top (combine with Rings of Brighthearth for 3: Draw 1 card. You'd think it's worse than Tamiyo's Journal, except you can do this more than once if you wanted to, and if you add Basalt Monolith, which is already a good card, you get to draw your entire library if no one stops you), Howling Mine, Mask of Memory, Font of Mythos, Sword of Fire and Ice, Slate of Ancestry, and probably a couple I'm forgetting here, too.
This isn't even including the sheer number of cantrips most of these colors get. Before I would think of popping Tamiyo's Journal into any deck, I'd need to be a mono red control deck that runs no creatures, and, well, that's a pretty remarkable niche. A strong case could be made for a fair number of the above over Tamiyo's Journal, in most aspects.
April 18, 2016 8:21 p.m.
I think you're misstating things just a bit. I would contest that half of the cards you list are decent tutors outside of specific deck builds.
That said, the journal is way more flexible than that; it's a card which can do both card draw and tutoring. Badly for the cost, yes, but it can do both.
The other thing is that it prints artifact tokens at the rate of one per turn. Shattergang Brothers and Daretti, Scrap Savant would love this, and if you're running a commander with experience counters (or just running any sort of counters) there's this thing called Throne of Geth. Time Sieve would also work well, turning a bunch of clues into extra turns.
I can think of reasons for not running the Journal--the mana cost is one--but it's not like this can't fit in a bunch of EDH decks, either.
April 18, 2016 9:51 p.m.
PookandPie says... #17
Flexibility at the expense of turns and turns worth of speed is bad, which is a case I feel I made well enough in my post. It's worse at card draw than Mind's Eye and it's worth at tutoring than Planar Portal, and most colors get cards that you should, without a doubt, look into first before even attempting such a slow-rolling card as Tamiyo's Journal.
Can it have a use in a variety of niche Commander decks or Daretti, Scrap Savant? Sure it can. It can be useful and to say that it's worthless or something is incorrect (which, I never said that, so whatever). However, will it be better than other cards you're not using because it is using one of the slots in your 99? Opportunity cost: That's the question that I felt I answered (note that the OP is asking for people's opinions, therefore this is my stance on the card. There's no misrepresenting of anything on my part, whether you like my angle on this or not). Also, you can toss out as many examples of, "Cards I think make Journal good" but the case I was making, roundabout, is that Journal isn't good on its own. So... Those few examples don't help much there. Also, 1 artifact token per turn isn't going to help Time Sieve- Sword of the Meek, Thopter Foundry and five mana are. Or Thopter Assembly and 6 mana.
Let me put this another way: You can get an extra turn 1 out of every five turns with just Tamiyo's Journal and Time Sieve (which prevents you from using the Journal's tokens, but after the first Sieve activation, it takes 4 turns worth of tokens instead of 5). Or, you could have Ring of Three Wishes (or any 1-3 mana tutor in black or blue, since Time Sieve requires you be in UB. Actually, Tezzeret the Seeker would be the best here, since he'd grab both Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry without requiring you to have any other artifacts on board), tutor twice in two turns, then cast/tutor out both Thopter Foundry and Sword of the Meek to simply win the game by taking as many turns as you want.
If you're going to respond with, "But you can use other artifacts, you don't just have to use clue tokens with Time Sieve", then I posit why Tamiyo's Journal is even necessary since you obviously have a source for disposable artifacts already. And, since running Time Sieve means you're in two of the best tutoring and card-drawing colors I have to wonder how you would even have room for the Journal as Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Fabricate, Transmute Artifact, Tezzeret the Seeker , Liliana Vess, Necropotence, Muddle the Mixture, Beseech the Queen, etc., would each do a better job of utilizing Time Sieve by finding the best cards for the job (in this case, Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry, or if you can only tutor one card, Thopter Assembly). Rather than using a subpar card to activate Time Sieve sparingly, you could just Go for the Throat (lol) and win, since any of those instead of Journal help you better along that journey and do so faster. I mean, Tezzeret just works better in the scenario mentioned with Time Sieve, and it tutors out cards to abuse Throne of Geth too. If you can run all of the above and still want for more draw/tutoring, then feel free to run Tamiyo's Journal. If you're running Journal over one of the above, however, I have a strong feeling that you'd be doing it wrong.
I never said it can't fit into a bunch of Commander decks- I stated, quite clearly might I add, that there are bunches and bunches of cards that would fit the majority of decks better. Combine the mana cost with the fact that it has to survive a whole round of turns before you even get any benefit at all, and then that benefit costs twice as much as another card (Mind's Eye), or 1/3rd as often as another (Ring of Three Wishes or Planar Portal), then I have to wonder why you're not just running those cards. Hell, I already said that those cards are too slow for my tastes, so I definitely won't be partaking in Tamiyo's Journal.
I apologize for the long post, but I hope I made my position on this more clear for you.
April 18, 2016 10:53 p.m.
PookandPie, I think you have the better handle on this card in EDH. Nice post(s)
Gidgetimer says... #2
Clues are slow and the tutor ability is a worse Ring of Three Wishes. For any commander I run I don't want it. It may work fine in a deck that you are just slowing everything down anyway, but that isn't what I like to do.
April 18, 2016 2:47 p.m.