Frantic Search

Instant

Draw two cards, then discard two cards. Untap up to three lands.

Combos

• Frantic Search + Mizzix's Mastery + Past in Flames

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper Duel Commander	Legal
Pauper EDH	Legal
Planar Constructed	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Premodern	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Tiny Leaders	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (49)

SufferFromEDHD on Throw It Overboard - Captain Howler

1 month ago

Turbulent Dreams/Devastating Dreams useful effects that now draw cards

Forbid reusable counterspell seems good

Prismari Command one of the best Swiss army knives

Frantic Search/Faithless Looting/Breakthrough/Read the Runes cheap and efficient looting

Cephalid Coliseum land looting

Masticore old school cool now becomes an engine

Anger to compliment the Wonder

All this discard Squee, Goblin Nabob would be valuable

Felipix on Any Ideas in how to …

2 months ago

How could I build a commander deck based on Frantic Search High Tide storm in commander? Any one has any ideas?

(I really wanted this to be mono blue)

Flarhoon13 on Hey Macleod, Get offa my ewe! (Angus Mackenzie)

3 months ago

Angus lost another long game to Kykar, Wind's Fury, who killed us with Underworld Breach (baiting away my Perplexing Chimera with Narset, Enlightened Exile) Frantic Searching 20 times into Isochron Scepter imprinting Dramatic Reversal, with a Sol Ring for an infinite storm count and enough Grapeshots to kill us all. I would have been able to kill Harrison with my Uyo, Silent Prophet, which had 10 counters from Jesse's Orzhov Advokist but Jesse sent a sorcery speed Generous Gift at Uyo. Gluntch, the Bestower giveth, and he taketh away.

I had extended the game with a Cyclonic Rift and a Sublime Exhalation into a Faith's Reward but I died holding an Enchanted Evening I never drew a use for.

multimedia on Brew my deck for me

4 months ago

Consider High Tide for ramp and/or with spells that can untap your Islands Turnabout, Frantic Search, Snap? Just Tide + Turnabout + you control 4 Islands could give you 10 mana turn 4. Mystic Sanctuary is a fantasic land that's an Island. Castle Vantress isn't an Island, but it's a good land for instant repeatable scry.

Consider Thought Vessel and/or Decanter of Endless Water? Mana rocks for ramp that can also potentially give you no max hand size before you control Nezahal. Reliquary Tower is a land for no max hand size.

Consider Forensic Researcher, Kelpie Guide, etc.? They can untap a land or a land that can make more than 1 mana Arid Archway, Guildless Commons even the same turn the land ETB. They can also untap a mana rock or even better a mana rock that can make more than 1 mana Sol Ring, Worn Powerstone, Palladium Myr, Thran Dynamo, Hedron Archive, Gilded Lotus, etc. They can also untap Nezahal to be a blocker.

A spell advantage blue has are instants that let you look at top X cards of your library and put one or more of any of them into our hand (any card(s) into hand is the advantage). Consider Impulse, Memory Deluge, Dig Through Time, Supreme Will, Thassa's Intervention, etc.? When you're casting instants on opponents' turns then Wavebreak Hippocamp is repeatable card draw. Being a 3 drop you can more safely play it and leave up mana for instant opponent interaction.

legendofa on Why is Untapping Lands a …

7 months ago

In blue, the Urza's Block hugely skew land untapping, and that block is widely considered to be an overpowered mistake, especially for blue. Urza's Saga and Urza's Legacy alone have ten cards that allow land-specific untapping, more than half of all the blue cards that allow untapping lands without untapping all permanents. They'll be included for the sake of completion, but I wouldn't take them as any sort of precedent. Pioneer legality is just five cards, with one of them being Standard-legal. Blue is the undisputed king of untapping permanents in general, but doesn't have any special focus on lands.

{U} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "land": Twiddle, Reset, Infuse, Jolt, Twitch, Mind Over Matter, Great Whale, Peregrine Drake, Rewind, Time Spiral, Turnabout, Cloud of Faeries, Frantic Search, Palinchron, Snap, Treachery, Trickster Mage. total 16

{U} Modern Border, "untap" + "land": Oboro Breezecaller. total 1

{U} 2015 Border, "untap" + "land": Pore Over the Pages, Unwind, Finale of Revelation, Kelpie Guide. total 3

{U} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "permanent": Telekinetic Bonds. total 1

{U} Modern Border, "untap" + "permanent": Dream's Grip, Psychic Puppetry, Toils of Night and Day, Tidewater Minion, Rimewind Taskmage, Coral Trickster, Merrow Reejerey, Pestermite, Fatestitcher, Merfolk Skyscout, Reality Spasm, Deceiver Exarch, Captain of the Mists, Ghostly Touch, Hidden Strings, Curse of Inertia, Tidal Force. total 17

{U} 2015 Border, "untap" + "permanent": Teferi, Temporal Archmage, Vizier of Tumbling Sands, Clever Conjurer, Nimbleclaw Adept, Ioreth of the Healing House, Forensic Researcher. total 6

{U} Ye Olde Bordere, "untap" + "Island": none.

{U} Modern Border, "untap" + "Island": none.

{U} 2015 Border, "untap" + "Island": none.

There's 44 mono-blue cards that can untap lands in some capacity, with 20 of them being more specific than untapping permanents in general. If Urza's Block is taken out, then there are 34 blue cards that untap lands, with just nine of them having any sort of restriction.

So in final summary, I see green land untapping increasing in recent years, and blue permanent untapping actually falling off slightly. There were 18 blue untap cards in the 12 years of the modern border, and nine cards so far in the nine years of the 2015 border. Discounting Urza's Block, there are slightly more green cards that can untap lands than blue cards, and many more green cards that untap lands than blue cards printed in the last ten years.

If I missed anything in this breakdown, please let me know. But I think the cards are there to support my initial position. Both green and blue are primary in untapping lands, if lands are counted as permanents, and blue is secondary in untapping lands specifically. Mark Rosewater's answer is is at best incomplete and missing nuance, and at worst totally wrong.

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Keeping the above because it took me a long time write and I don't want to undo the effort.

In response to wallisface, percentage of cards with a given effect doesn't matter to primacy of color.

• Primary – This is the color (or colors) the ability is seen in most. That means it shows up in the highest volume and usually at the lowest rarity that the type of effects get used at. The primary color will almost always get this effect in a set if it's an ability we do every set. It also tends to be the color that most often pushes the power level, if it's an effect we push the power level on. There's a wide range on what primary means, because different types of effects exist at different levels. A card secondary in flying can show up way more than a card primary in taking extra turns, for instance, because we have so many more flying cards than extra-turn cards.

• I want to stress one more time that primary, secondary, and tertiary are relative to how often an effect is used. Things that are secondary in a color, for example, may be far more prevalent in that color than things that are primary if the items in question occur at a higher frequency.

Source: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021

For example, MaRoo has repeatedly stated that red is primary in extra combat cards, with white as a contender for secondary.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mechanical-color-pie-2021

https://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/760377485190938624/can-any-color-aside-from-red-get-extra-combat

There are only 36 cards that grant an additional comabt. If primacy was considered as a proportion of cards that grant additional combats was considered only as a proportion of total cards of that color, I don't think any color would be considered primary.

So while there might be fewer cards that untap lands in green as a proportion of total green cards in recent years, that's not a relevant measure to color primacy. The relevant measure is how often cards that untap lands show up in green compared to other colors, which I think is demonstrated by the above lists that green has more land untap effects than any other color, with blue being nearly equivalent. That, according to MaRo's definition, means that land untapping is primary in green.

Lup3rcal on Undead Monarch

10 months ago

Suggested cuts: Waste Not - enemy discard is a secondary strategy, and viable, but this is a card that is only a payoff for a secondary strategy. I think it may be dead enough that it doesn't warrant a slot.

Logic Knot - would be sweet if it was {U} less. As is, it's a strictly inferior counterspell that uses a valuable resource to be effective

Fervent Denial - 5 mana is a lot to hold up, 7 will almost never happen in a board-presence focused deck.

Dark Deal - wheels are decent here, but this Mind Rots yourself. Have 4 cards, cast this, end up with 2. The other wheels can benefit from enemy high card counts. This does disrupt opponents, but that's gonna draw some ire and you just binned half your resources. If you can withstand the ire you should be winning anyway. Something like Frantic Search would be better IMO.

Zombie Infestation - two cards plus one upfront is a steep price. I don't know that you have enough reanimation to need to dump your hand at instant speed when you already have Varina available.

Dismantling Blow - a glorified Disenchant 90% of the time. A 6 mana spell the rest of the time.

Suggestions not many at this stage. Gleaming Overseer is a consideration if you find yourself heavy into tokens. I'm a big fan of a few cards in your maybe list: Obsessive Search, and Kindred Discovery. Though the latter is slow.

Matzalantli is cute but I'd be wary of labelling it as ramp when assessing your manabase given it needs 7 mana to activate, and won't be online until at LEAST turn 5. It's defs more a Gilded Lotus than Arcane Signet

RiotRunner789 on

11 months ago

Library of Leng essentially gives you unlimited hand size since you never have to discard down to 7 (or whatever your handsize is). You simply don't discard since you don't have a discard phase, it does not technically effect your hand size.

It also works well when some one casts Windfall or even your own effects like cycling or cards like Frantic Search. You may also discard what you don't want to your graveyard but discard what you do want to the top of your library to draw again. It tends to be a strangely useful and underapreciated card.

plakjekaas on Would Seedborn Muse Be Blue …

1 year ago

In pioneer there's a deck making good use of Hidden Strings and Pore Over the Pages to storm off with Lotus Field mana.

The thing they used to do with Turnabout and Frantic Search, or maybe even Time Spiral or Treachery, anything to untap Tolarian Academy for insane amounts of mana.

And Twiddle of course, can't forget that one.

That's in addition to the extra turn argument I tried making in my last post.

Blue untaps a LOT of lands, more with spells than, permanents, although Fatestitcher and Vizier of Tumbling Sands aren't new cards either.