Scour the Desert MTG Card

Scour the Desert - Modern Horizons 2 (MH2)

Modern Horizons 2 (MH2)
2021-06-18 - Number 28

Scour the Desert - Jumpstart: Historic Horizons (J21)

Jumpstart: Historic Horizons (J21)
2021-08-26 - Number 122

Card sets	Released in 2 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost	5
Rarity	Uncommon
Type	Sorcery

Key Takeaways

Offers deck optimization through selective card draw and instant-speed flexibility during an opponent’s turn.
Demands color commitment and careful hand management due to discard and mana requirements.
Enhances creature-based strategies and has significant potential in specific metagame scenarios.

Text of card

Exile target creature card from your graveyard. Create X 1/1 white Bird creature tokens with flying, where X is the exiled card's toughness.

Even in the most barren wastelands, every death feeds more life.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Scour the Desert offers a strategic advantage by giving players the ability to sift through their deck, thus optimizing their next draws and maintaining the upper hand over opponents.

Resource Acceleration: When successfully triggering its effect, this card propels your game forward by creating Sand tokens, which can be leveraged as a resource power play to cast formidable creatures and spells sooner than usual.

Instant Speed: The instantaneous nature of Scour the Desert provides flexibility in gameplay, allowing strategic players to react to unfolding actions during the opponent’s turn and potentially disrupting their strategy unexpectedly.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: In order to cast Scour the Desert, players must discard a card. This can be particularly taxing on a player’s hand, especially in scenarios where card advantage is already compromised.

Specific Mana Cost: Scour the Desert’s mana cost includes white, demanding a commitment to that color in your deck build. This can be restrictive and may not align seamlessly with multicolored deck strategies that have a leaner white mana base.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With its mana value sitting higher on the scale, Scour the Desert could be considered inefficient compared to other spells at that cost. Players might find alternative spells that provide similar or greater value for the same or less mana investment.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Scour the Desert offers flexibility in deck building, providing a way to harness the power of your creature cards, even from the graveyard. This can seamlessly integrate into aggressive and control strategies alike, where every creature counts.

Combo Potential: This card shines when paired with decks that focus on creature presence. It works exceptionally well in creating large amounts of creature tokens to either overwhelm the opponent or utilize them for synergistic effects within the deck setup.

Meta-Relevance: In a game state that favors creature-heavy play or graveyard strategies, Scour the Desert can become a key player. By transforming your creature’s strength into a sudden swarm of birds, it offers a tactical edge against various prevalent deck archetypes.

How to Beat Scour the Desert

Scour the Desert presents itself as a formidable enchantment within the vast array of Magic: The Gathering strategies. Its mechanic rewards players for controlling creatures with flying by transforming surplus white mana into card advantage, hence reinforcing the player’s board position and options for the next turn. To outmaneuver it, opponents must pivot towards interactive gameplay—employing removal spells or abilities targeting enchantments such as Naturalize or Disenchant are straightforward and efficient ways to dismantle its presence.

Similarly, focusing on strategies that limit the number of flying creatures an opponent can maintain becomes crucial. Cards like Plague Engineer or Crippling Fear can suppress the opponent’s flying creatures, therefore reducing the effectiveness of Scour the Desert. Negating the ability to garner extra draws slows down the enchantment’s momentum, inching the advantage back to your side of the field.

Ultimately, circumventing the power of Scour the Desert boils down to preemptive control and denying your opponent the aerial superiority they need. By doing so, you effectively ground their strategy, leveraging the game in your favor and keeping their deserts unsullied by the promise of hidden treasures.

Cards like Scour the Desert

Scour the Desert stands out in the realm of creature creation spells within Magic: The Gathering. When we look for parallels, it draws a likeness to cards like Sandsteppe Outcast. Although Sandsteppe Outcast also creates a 1/1 white flying Spirit token, it does so immediately but only once. Scour the Desert, in contrast, can repeatedly generate tokens based on the number of attacking creatures you control, potentially flooding the battlefield with flying threats.

Another comparative spell is Launch the Fleet, which shares the token creation theme but with a different twist. Launch the Fleet creates 1/1 white Soldier tokens, but it only triggers when creatures are declared as attackers, limiting its potential compared to the scalable power of Scour the Desert. Lastly, we can’t overlook Spectral Procession, a spell that simply creates three 1/1 white flying Spirits for a flexible cost, offering a one-time notable increase in board presence sans the conditions tied to Scour the Desert.

Exploring these parallels highlights Scour the Desert’s unique capacity to exploit a wide attacking strategy, making it a card that can repeatedly alter the state of the game, especially in decks that capitalize on numerous combatants.

Cards similar to Scour the Desert by color, type and mana cost

Lonesome Unicorn // Rider in Need - MTG Card versions

Righteous Confluence - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Scour the Desert MTG card by a specific set like Modern Horizons 2 and Jumpstart: Historic Horizons, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.

For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.

Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.

Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the Scour the Desert and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Scour the Desert Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2021-06-18 and 2021-08-26. Illustrated by Tyler Walpole.

#	Released	Name	Code	Symbol	Number	Frame	Layout	Border	Artist
1	2021-06-18	Modern Horizons 2	MH2		28	2015	Normal	Black	Tyler Walpole
2	2021-08-26	Jumpstart: Historic Horizons	J21		122	2015	Normal	Black	Tyler Walpole

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Scour the Desert has restrictions

Format	Legality
Historicbrawl	Legal
Commander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Duel	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Timeless	Legal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Scour the Desert card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.