This card is a new version of an older card, Pithing Needle, and makes a design improvement - The Needle was only a 1-cost, generic mana card, but didn't allow you to view the opponent's hand before choosing your target. That little boon is nice, considering that you won't need as clear an idea of what you're targeting before playing it - But, as we'll see, the bonus, in a fundamental sense, isn't all that necessary to its usefulness. It would only make sense to use this card in your deck, necessarily giving up important space in your design, if you were fairly certain that you were going to be dealing with potent activated abilities. Therefore, it makes for a perfect side-board option. Ideally, you would switch it in for the second round of a Traditional Format match, to target some particular roadblock to your success. The card also is also (potentially) more advantageous than most players will realize, given that you might easily predict what your opponent is playing with - Hence, the disadvantage of copying a popular deck from the internet. If you play long enough in the current, Standard "meta-game", you'll start to memorize the variety of popular archetypes in play - Then you can assess whether or not you'll be dealing with strong activated abilities, and whether Sorcerous Spyglass deserves to take up slots on your side-board. Using this card will either be crippling to your competition, or very negligible, depending on how a particular game plays out, being as it is usually meant to target something very specific. Notice that artifacts don't often get targeted, and that many players rely on some combination of effects to achieve their desired results - In THAT case, with a little luck, rounds 2 and 3 of your best of 3 match might be a nice, cool breeze... |
