Surreal Memoir MTG Card

Surreal Memoir - Rise of the Eldrazi (ROE)

Rise of the Eldrazi (ROE)
2010-04-23 - Number 167

Iconic Masters (IMA)
2017-11-17 - Number 148

Commander 2020 (C20)
2020-04-17 - Number 161

Surreal Memoir - Double Masters 2022 (2X2)

Double Masters 2022 (2X2)
2022-07-08 - Number 127

Card sets	Released in 4 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost	4
Rarity	Uncommon
Type	Sorcery
Abilities	Rebound

Key Takeaways

Card advantage through instant recursion keeps your hand loaded and opponents on their toes.
Retrace ability turns spare lands into spells, maximizing late-game resources and flexibility.
Instant speed allows for strategic depth and reactionary gameplay to surprise opponents.

Text of card

Return an instant card at random from your graveyard to your hand. Rebound (If you cast this spell from your hand, exile it as it resolves. At the beginning of your next upkeep, you may cast this card from exile without paying its mana cost.)

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Surreal Memoir bolsters your hand by returning an instant card from your graveyard to your hand. This recycling effect not only replenishes your resources but also keeps the pressure on opponents by reusing powerful effects.

Resource Acceleration: Through its retrace ability, this card ensures that even lands in your hand can become potential tools for a repeat performance, effectively turning what could be a dead draw later in the game into a valuable spell cast.

Instant Speed: The ability to play Surreal Memoir at instant speed offers strategic depth, allowing savvy players to react to an opponent’s moves and create unexpected turns of events during the heat of battle.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Surreal Memoir’s activation hinges on a discard condition, compelling you to forfeit a card in your hand. This can backfire, especially in tense moments of the game where every card counts. Keeping your hand stocked becomes a challenge, and you may find yourself at a strategic disadvantage if careful planning isn’t employed.

Specific Mana Cost: The card’s casting requirements include not just generic but also colored mana, which can be a stumbling block in a multicolored deck’s diversity and fluidity. If you’re running a deck with a tight mana base, fitting Surreal Memoir in could complicate your game plan, potentially delaying your board development or interrupting your curve.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a mana value that might be considered steep for its effect, there’s a possibility that gameplay can lag behind opponents using more cost-effective strategies. When tempo is essential, the resource commitment to play Surreal Memoir could be better allocated, possibly to spells that provide immediate and more impactful results on the battlefield.

Reasons to Include Surreal Memoir in Your Collection

Versatility: Surreal Memoir offers flexible spell recursion, retrieving instant cards from your graveyard. This feature is applicable in a variety of decks that capitalize on casting numerous spells in a game.

Combo Potential: Given its ability to bring instant spells back to your hand, this card holds significant combo potential. It pairs well with strategies that rely on spell synergies and can lead to powerful chains of spellcasting.

Meta-Relevance: In metagames where control decks are common, Surreal Memoir’s recurrence can prove essential. It enables repeated use of control pieces or counter-spells, ensuring sustained influence over the course of a match.

How to beat

Surreal Memoir is an intriguing instant that reintroduces randomness and utility into a player’s strategy within Magic: The Gathering. This card allows players to potentially reclaim instants from the graveyard, giving its user a second chance at utilizing powerful spells. The key to overcoming this card’s advantage lies in the timing and management of graveyard interactions.

To effectively counteract Surreal Memoir, players should aim to use graveyard hate cards such as Relic of Progenitus or Scavenging Ooze to remove key instants before the Memoir can target them. Moreover, controlling the pace of one’s plays by keeping pressure on the Surreal Memoir user can limit their ability to maximize its potential. Since it is an instant, being cautious about the spells you cast when an opponent has enough mana to cast Surreal Memoir can prevent giving them the opportunity to turn the tides during your turn.

Mindful graveyard management and strategic pressure are critical. By understanding these nuances, players can more efficiently navigate against decks utilizing the erratic power of Surreal Memoir, maintaining control of the game’s momentum and their path to victory.

Cards like Surreal Memoir

Surreal Memoir reintroduces the wielder to the potent dynamics of spell recursion within the game of Magic: The Gathering. Delving into the realm of retrieving Instant cards from the graveyard, it mirrors functions akin to those found in Mystic Retrieval. While Mystic Retrieval allows for the direct reclaiming of Instants or Sorceries from the graveyard to hand, Surreal Memoir leverages the element of chance, potentially offering a recurring advantage over repeated use.

The card Recoup is another spell that echoes some of the mechanics of Surreal Memoir, with both providing a route to reaccess powerful spells from beyond the battlefield. However, Recoup distinguishes itself with a flashback ability, ensuring a one-time second use without the element of randomness. Past in Flames takes this idea even further, granting all Instants and Sorceries in the graveyard flashback until the end of the turn, showcasing a different angle of strategic play compared to the selective recall enabled by Surreal Memoir.

Considering these variations, Surreal Memoir finds its niche as a card capable of breathing new life into Instant spells, potentially multiple times, offering MTG players a blend of anticipation and strategic depth with each use.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Surreal Memoir MTG card by a specific set like Rise of the Eldrazi and Iconic Masters, 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 Surreal Memoir and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Surreal Memoir Magic the Gathering card was released in 4 different sets between 2010-04-23 and 2022-07-08. Illustrated by Jaime Jones.

#	Release	Name	Code	Number	Frame	Layout	Border	Artist
1	2010-04-23	Rise of the Eldrazi	ROE	167	2003	normal	black	Jaime Jones
2	2017-11-17	Iconic Masters	IMA	148	2015	normal	black	Jaime Jones
3	2020-04-17	Commander 2020	C20	161	2015	normal	black	Jaime Jones
4	2022-07-08	Double Masters 2022	2X2	127	2015	normal	black	Jaime Jones

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Surreal Memoir has restrictions

Format	Legality
Commander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Duel	Legal
Predh	Legal
Penny	Legal

Rules and information

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

Date	Text
2010-06-15	All players get to see which card you chose at random.
2010-06-15	At the beginning of your upkeep, all delayed triggered abilities created by rebound effects trigger. You may handle them in any order. If you want to cast a card this way, you do so as part of the resolution of its delayed triggered ability. Timing restrictions based on the card’s type (if it’s a sorcery) are ignored. Other restrictions are not (such as the one from Rule of Law).
2010-06-15	If a replacement effect would cause a spell with rebound that you cast from your hand to be put somewhere else instead of your graveyard (such as Leyline of the Void might), you choose whether to apply the rebound effect or the other effect as the spell resolves.
2010-06-15	If a spell with rebound that you cast from your hand doesn’t resolve for any reason (due being countered by a spell like Cancel, or because all of its targets are illegal), rebound has no effect. The spell is simply put into your graveyard. You won’t get to cast it again next turn.
2010-06-15	If you are unable to cast a card from exile this way, or you choose not to, nothing happens when the delayed triggered ability resolves. The card remains exiled for the rest of the game, and you won’t get another chance to cast the card. The same is true if the ability is countered (due to Stifle, perhaps).
2010-06-15	If you cast a card from exile this way, it will go to your graveyard when it resolves, fails to resolve, or is countered. It won’t go back to exile.
2010-06-15	If you cast a spell with rebound from anywhere other than your hand (such as from your graveyard due to Sins of the Past, from your library due to cascade, or from your opponent’s hand due to Sen Triplets), rebound won’t have any effect. If you do cast it from your hand, rebound will work regardless of whether you paid its mana cost (for example, if you cast it from your hand due to Maelstrom Archangel).
2010-06-15	If you cast a spell with rebound from your hand and it resolves, it isn’t put into your graveyard. Rather, it’s exiled directly from the stack. Effects that care about cards being put into your graveyard won’t do anything.
2010-06-15	If you have multiple instant cards in your graveyard with the same name, and one of them is being targeted by another spell on the stack or is enchanted (with Spellweaver Volute, for example), you must differentiate them so you know which one (if any) is chosen at random. In that case, it may be better to use dice or another method that allows you to differentiate between the instant cards to choose one at random.
2010-06-15	If you have only one instant card in your graveyard as Surreal Memoir resolves, that’s the one you’ll return to your hand.
2010-06-15	If you’re playing a format involving cards printed earlier than the _Urza’s Saga_ set, you may not reorder your graveyard. In this case, you need to be more careful when selecting an instant card at random, perhaps by using dice, writing the names of the instant cards on slips of paper and choosing one of them randomly, or carefully noting the existing graveyard order so you can reestablish it after performing the method suggested above, for example.
2010-06-15	If you’re playing a format involving only cards from the _Urza’s Saga_(TM) set and later, you may change the order of your graveyard at any time. That means the easiest way to choose an instant card at random from your graveyard is to take all the instant cards in your graveyard, turn them face down, shuffle them, and pick a card. Then you just put the rest back.
2010-06-15	Rebound will have no effect on copies of spells because you don’t cast them from your hand.
2010-06-15	Surreal Memoir isn’t targeted. You don’t choose an instant card at random from your graveyard until it resolves. Once you randomly select a card, it’s too late for players to respond.