Desperate Ravings MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Desperate Ravings gives your deck an edge by enabling you to draw two cards. This aspect can help replenish your hand, providing you with more options and responses to your opponent’s moves.

Resource Acceleration: While Desperate Ravings doesn’t produce mana or tokens, the random discard could synergize with graveyard strategies, effectively turning a potential setback into an unexpected boon.

Instant Speed: The ability to cast Desperate Ravings at instant speed offers you flexibility, allowing you to make strategic decisions on the fly and respond to the ever-changing battlefield conditions without losing a beat.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: One of the key drawbacks of Desperate Ravings is that it forces the player to discard a card at random. This element of chance can sometimes result in the loss of crucial elements in your strategy, especially if important combo pieces or answers are discarded unintendedly.

Specific Mana Cost: Desperate Ravings has a casting cost that specifically requires red mana. This can be restrictive since decks not running red or those that have a mana base heavily skewed towards other colors might find it hard to accommodate or cast it on time.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a converted mana cost of two, including one red, for its initial casting and three including one red for its flashback cost, Desperate Ravings can be quite costly for the uncertainty it brings. There are alternatives in the pool of MTG cards that may provide more consistent card advantage or effects without the accompanying risk of an important discard.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Desperate Ravings is a resilient addition to any deck that values card draw. Its flash-back feature offers a unique opportunity to utilize it from the graveyard, ensuring your hand stays replenished in different phases of the game.

Combo Potential: This card synergizes well with strategies revolving around discarding and drawing. It can set up graveyard plays or trigger draw-dependent effects, making it an excellent choice for decks looking to harness such dynamics.

Meta-Relevance: In a game where information and options can make the difference, Desperate Ravings holds its ground. Particularly effective against control decks, it helps dig deeper into your deck to find answers or threats while keeping up the pressure on your opponent.

How to beat Desperate Ravings

Desperate Ravings is a unique spell in Magic: The Gathering, more unpredictable than many card draw spells due to its random discard. Unlike more controlled draw mechanisms, Desperate Ravings introduces an element of chance that can either benefit or disrupt your strategy. Players often compare it to Think Twice, which provides a safer way to draw cards without the risk of discarding a valuable card. However, Desperate Ravings offers the potential for a greater reward with its flashback ability, allowing you to cast it again from the graveyard.

Counterspells are the most direct method to prevent the spell from resolving altogether—Nullify and Mana Leak are classics in this regard. When playing against Desperate Ravings, it’s also wise to save your discard effects for when your opponent triggers its flashback, timing your cards like Duress to disrupt their carefully laid plans. Surgical Extraction can also be used post-flashback to remove all copies from the game entirely.

While Desperate Ravings presents an exciting dynamic to the game, by understanding the card and preparing your deck with strategic counters, you can effectively negate its advantages and maintain control of the match.

BurnMana Recommendations

Exploring the strategic depth of Magic the Gathering can be as exhilarating as it is challenging, and cards like Desperate Ravings embody the essence of this complexity. With its dual nature of offering card acceleration at the risk of unpredictable discards, it’s crucial for enthusiasts to consider the role this card plays in their overall strategy. If your deck thrives on graveyard interactions or if you enjoy the thrill of chance, Desperate Ravings may be a card to consider. Visit BurnMana for a deeper dive into how this card can potentially fit in your arsenal and elevate your gameplay in the vast MTG realm.