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Editor: Yaro Starak. Monday 5 August 2002.
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 Card Review: Careful Study vs Mental Note
Draw two cards, then discard two cards from your hand.
"Books are like crops-they must be thinned for best yield."
Expansion: Odyssey
Put the top two cards of your library into your graveyard. Draw a card.
"Some minds are more open than others."
Expansion: Judgment
I'm sure the other guys have listed the essential features of the two cards
so I won't bore you all with it again.
Now it seems that Careful Study is being used frequently whereas Mental
Note is just not being used. The reason for this is that in the ever
present battle of beatdown and control, Careful Study provides a balance of
the two things that beatdown needs to beat control - speed and card
advantage - whereas Mental Note offers card advantage and the ability to
counter things during their turn if needs be. What's more it won't even
always give the card advantage.
So, Careful Study in any deck that uses Basking Rootwalla and random
flashback things, but Mental Note in any control deck that wants things in
its graveyard, for whatever purpose. Ancestral Tribute perhaps? Some
bizarre combo deck that needs things in graveyard, perhaps? Who knows.
But for example, if one was making an OBC control deck, well, firstly good
luck to you but secondly Mental Note would almost definitely be superior to
Peek if you're the 4 cantrip in a control deck kind of person.
The question as to whether you use Careful Study AND Mental Note in G/U
decks arises. The problem with using all of them is that, quite often, the
other guy will just draw more business than you. I experienced this first
hand in a Quiet Speculation mirror match. When I was drawing Mental Notes
he was drawing Grizzly Fates. It ended up coming down to facts like he had
4 Grizzly Fates whereas I only had 3 to accommodate the cantrips. So just
be aware that using Mental Note may tip some very attrition-y match ups
against you.
To sum up, I'd steer clear of Mental Note in beatdown decks for now, or
maybe you can use two of them if you want extra threshold enablers for a
Draino-ish deck.
Okay, play nicely kids
Jason Street
Careful Study is actually a cheaper, better version of Forget from Homelands
(UU, target player discards 2 cards from their hand and then draws as many
cards as they discarded). Mental Note is like casting Ice Age's Ray of
Erasure on yourself (U, put the top card of target players library into
their graveyard, draw a card at the beginning of the next turn's upkeep).
Careful Study is by far the easier card to apply, letting you cast it early,
draw two card and then dump the chaff from your hand. It might not be so
great later in the game, since drawing it when your hand is empty is not
letting you keep anything. Careful Study however will be useful even if you
are not playing a deck that relies on Madness or Threshold.
Mental Note is a card for people who just want to get a bunch of cards in
the graveyard quickly. I think it is ideally suited to a deck going for
Threshold, probably more so than Careful Study because it does let you draw
a card right away, so it's not a dead weight in the late game and it costs
you less in terms of cards in hand - Threshold players need spells in hand
as well as cards in their graveyard.
Let's have a look at the numbers, first based on playing first and getting
an Island and the relevant spell in your starting hand.
Careful Study: 7 cards in hand, play an island (6 cards), cast Careful Study
(5 cards), draw two cards (7 cards), discard two cards (5 cards). End
result: 3 cards in your graveyard, 5 cards in hand.
Mental Note: 7 cards in hand, play an island (6 cards), cast Mental Note (5
cards), put the top two cards of your library in your graveyard, draw a card
(6 cards). End result: 3 cards in your graveyard, 6 cards in hand.
I did a summary of playing the respective cards in the late game, but it
really didn't say much, though Mental Note is more effective when you have
nothing else in hand due to the drawn card (If the two in the graveyard are
Flashback cards and you can cast them it's positively amazing). I think the
choice of card depends on which mechanic you want to work with and the other
cards you want to use. The hand editing effect of Careful Study makes it
particularly appealing to me, because I could put it in a number of decks
that don't rely on the new mechanics. I think Careful Study is the all around
better card purely because of this. If I was playing a deck laden with
Threshold and Flashback I might consider Mental Note, but Careful Study can
go in anything.
Jason
The battle of the cheap cantrips is on. In the red
corner we have Careful Study and in the blue corner
Mental Note.....
I decided to give a general overview of these cards
rather than talk about their specific uses for
Limited/Constructed. Both of these cards let the
player dig through their library and pitch cards into
the graveyard for the measly cost of one blue mana.
Mental Note has the benefit of drawing an extra card
whereas Careful Study lets you choose which cards to
discard.
Careful Study has more strategic potential as you
control the discard and can take full advantage of
madness/flashback cards such as Rootwalla, Roar of the
Wurm, etc. On the other hand Mental Note is an instant
which fills the graveyard with random cards, making it
less useful. Compare both of these to Brainstorm and
you can see how the cantrips have been dumbed down
over the years (Impulse - RIP).
The instant and cantrip effect of Mental Note does not
make up for it's randomness making Careful Study the
winner.
Until next time,
Dan
Mental Note and Careful Study. Both are used for
threshold and both pretty much do the same thing with
sleight differences.
Mental Note is a great card for threshold. Not only
does it put 3 cards into your graveyard at instant
speed but it also doesn't net you any card loss as you
get to draw an additional card to replace it. The
problem is that you don't get to decide which cards go
into your graveyard. Now in constructed if you packed
your deck full of Roar of the Wurms and wonders and
Grizzly fate it would be no problem. However you want
to utilise the early threshold bonus you get by using
cards like werebear, nimble mongoose and Mystic
Enforcer meaning if you "note them away" you have lost
one of the reasons your playing the card. One way
around this is the expensive Genesis. He can be noted
or discarded randomly from your hand to bring back any
unfortunate notes but like I said, it's expensive and
you've still got to draw it.
Careful study is an interesting Card because you get
to choose which cards go into your graveyard when you
discard them. The downside is it's a sorcery and it
nets you card disadvantage (like my magic jargon)
because it doesn't replace itself. Now this is no
problem if your NSW state champion Tim He and you can
successfully have two Basking Rootwallas in your hand
at the start of the game or a couple of Roar of the
Wurms everytime you cast it, but hey, we're not all
Tim He. so what do you do. Like mental note you can
sure up your odds by packing your deck with Roars,
Rootwallas, Grizzly fates and maybe even Arrogant
wurms for the fourth turn (third turn with werebear
(thinking possibly)) wurm, but that doesn't leave you
with much room for the threshold creatures you wanted
careful study for in the first place. So which one is
better.
If your going straight madness then Careful study has
to be the go. There's no point Mental noting away
your Basking Rootwallas and Arrogant Wurms even if it
is not a disadvantage to use. If your going
flashback/threshold then I suggest using both. What
better way to consistantly get threshold then 8 one CC
spells that say put 3 cards in you graveyard. Using
quiet specualtion lets you cast a first turn mental
note, second turn werebear and then casting Quiet spec
on the third turn to swing for 4 with the bear on that
turn.
Now I have only looked at the U/G set up as you can
probably tell it is the most likely deck to use these
threshold enablers (I'm full of jargon today - (and
other stuff)), but also because no other colour
combination has the resources to fully take up the use
of threshold better than Green. White would be next
but it's creatures are too small and the careful study
doesn't do much because there are no good constructed
madness spells (although they're not that small with
divine sacrement...). U/R I suppose is good in
theory, threshold for the barbarian rings, lightning
surges (maybe) and madness for the fiery tempers and
violent eruptions, but no creatures for threshold.
Sure there is Fledgling dragon, but nothing to go with
it. I saw a u/r sorcery deck that quiet speculated
and careful studied sorceries into the graveyard to
swing with big magnivore but its was too slow and in
the end the creatures were just too small (compared to
flying roar tokens and elephant guided Brushhoppers.)
Point is U/R was too slow. U/B I can't see either
mental note or careful study being used for good
effect. Mental note could get cards in the graveyard
for tog.... but i can't think of anything else and
careful study doesn't really have any madness of
flashback for that matter for it to be of use.
Threshold for u/b... well if it can't get threshold
using the multitude of other better cards and you NEED
threshold then the deck needs more work.
OVERALL because you can select which cards go into
your graveyard I'd say careful study is better, but if
you truly want threshold consistently use both and
quiet speculation.
Price: What are you looking here for, they're common.
Foiled: 50c - $1
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Danesh Jogia
Dan Turner
Scott Smith