Few images are as evocative of magic as a wizard or fortune teller gazing into a crystal ball. It seems like every magician from the Wicked Witch to Harry Potter has spent time staring into a cloudy ball of quartz, divining the future, but it isn't the only method: Bones, tea leaves, pools of water, and magic mirrors all work just as well.

Looking into the future using any of these tools is called scrying, and Magic: The Gathering replicates the act of looking ahead using a keyword action of the same name. That keyword, Scry, has become a Magic staple since it was introduced in 2004's Fifth Dawn.

While there aren't many cards that have a payoff for Scrying, it's a pretty useful ability on its own, allowing you to peek at your next couple of cards and decide if they'll be helpful, or if you'd rather take your chances with something else. In case you couldn't predict it from the description, today's Mechanics Overview is all about Scry!

What is Scry?

Scry is a keyword action that allows you to look at the top card or cards in your library and then either put them back in the same place or put them on the bottom of your library. So if you're short on lands and your Scry effect reveals a ten-mana Apex Devastator, you can put that on the bottom of the library and maybe you'll get a land on your next draw. On the other hand, if the card you look at is a Birds of Paradise you can put it back on top of your library and have access to it the next time you draw.

Any time you see Scry printed as a keyword on a card, it will be followed either by a number (Scry 1) or by an X (Scry X), followed by rules text that defines the value of X. That number (or value of X) tells you how many cards to look at (not reveal!) from the top of your library.

Once you've looked at the top cards of your library, you have a decision to make: Do you keep them on top, or put them on the bottom of your library? If you look at more than one card, you can split them, putting any that you want on the bottom of the library and returning the rest to the top. And wherever you put them, you get to choose the order that you place them in.

Rules text on Magic cards is written with the intention that you perform each action on the card in the written sequence. For many cards with Scry, like Opt, this means that you'll Scry before drawing a card. A few, however, will tell you to draw a card before you Scry. Serum Visions is a prime example.

That sequencing requirement also means that if you're unable to resolve an effect printed before Scry, the spell or effect will fizzle and you won't get to Scry. For example, casting Fated Infatuation only for an opponent to Murder your last creature will not only prevent you from getting your Copy, it will also stop you from Scrying.

Cards That Interact With Scry

Only a handful of cards interact with Scry directly, and most of those are from The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, where the Blue/Green draft archetype was "Scry matters."

Elminster is the only Planeswalker and the only White card that interacts with Scry. He has a triggered ability that reduces the generic mana cost of your next Instant or Sorcery spell by the number of cards you looked at while Scrying, and has a +2 Loyalty ability that allows you to draw two cards and Scry 2.

In Red, a Creature and an Enchantment from Theros and Journey into Nyx, respectively, are able to interact with Scry. Flamespeaker Adept gains First Strike and +2/+0 until the end of turn whenever you Scry, while Knowledge and Power allows you to pay two generic Mana to deal two damage to any target whenever you Scry.

It doesn't matter how many cards you look at while Scrying, so both of these effects can be useful if you can chain together multiple Scry effects. Unfortunately, Red has the fewest such effects, making these unattractive cards.

While "Scry matters" was kind of a big deal in The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth, there's one Blue card from a later set with a powerful Scry interaction. Matoya, Archon Elder, from Final Fantasy, allows you to draw a card whenever you Scry or Surveil. This is a powerful effect with the myriad of cards that have Scry printed as a secondary effect, allowing you to draw cards as a bonus to all kinds of effects.

If you want a commander who cares about Scrying, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better option than Galadriel of Lothlórien. In addition to allowing you to Scry 3 whenever the Ring tempts you, she also allows you to reveal the top card of your library after scrying and put it into play if it's a land.

Galadriel interacts favorably with other Tales of Middle-earth cards, both because that's the only place you'll find effects that cause the Ring to tempt you and because there are other Elves with similar Scry payoffs, like Arwen Undómiel.

Scrycast

Scrycast is an ability introduced in the Mystery Booster's 2019 Playtest cards, which allows you to cast a spell that you look at while Scrying for the alternative cost printed after the keyword. It functions a lot like Madness, which allows you to cast spells as you discard them.

Scrycast only appears on one card, Biting Remark, a 3/3 Elemental Creature with Flying. This spell usually casts three generic and one Blue mana to cast, but if you see it while Scrying you can cast it for free.

Not all playtest effects make it to legal cards, but sometimes they do. Since Scrycast is similar enough to Madness and Miracle, and since Scry is an everGreen effect, it's possible to see it on cards in non-rotating formats in the future.

The Future of Scry

Scry is a popular add-on mechanic that we're likely to see time and time again on future cards, adding a little extra value to cards that would otherwise be relegated to limited formats.

In a draft environment, it would be interesting to see a Blue/red Scry spellslinger archetype, and the framework is already in place with Knowledge and Power, which is an easy reprint into any set that takes place in the Magic universe.

Scrycast is unlikely to make it into a Standard-legal set, but it would be a fun effect to build a Commander precon around. The Duskmourn Miracle Worker precon already shows us what that could look like, by allowing you to manipulate the top of your deck in order to cast cards with their alternate Miracle cost, and Scrycast isn't a huge leap, mechanically.