Everyone has to draw cards in MTG. It’s a nearly unavoidable action that is almost always useful… Unless somehow drawing cards hurts you. How can this be? Well, let’s take a look at a card that’s become somewhat popular recently. The card I’m talking about is Underworld Dreams.

An pretty color intensive card, Underworld Dreams hurts your opponent every time they draw a card. This card can be cast the first turn when used with Dark Ritual. It will slowly ping your opponent for damage.

Before I talk about a few ways to use this card, I’d like to give a small bit of commentary on the print of this card. It was originally printed in Legends (1994) and then lay dormant until 2003 when it was reprinted in Eighth Edition. From then on it has been printed in every edition since. Why do I mention this? Well, it used to be one of those old cards that few people knew about. It was a secret weapon an experienced player could use against one of their friends new to MTG. It was just cool. However, it’s now a fairly common card to come across and has lost a lot of its luster. I love the card, but this issues with the printing caused some players (like my friend Mike1229, who vowed to never use the reprint…though I think he may use some of them now) a little grief.

There aren’t really many black cards that can be used to make someone draw a card (besides Sign In Blood, which works pretty well), so this card has to be used in certain types of decks for maximum efficiency. I use one in a very defensive black deck, so that the small amount of damage accumulates over time. It also works well in decks that use things like Forced Fruition and/or Shocker. Despite the fact that this card can have a deck built around it, it can be very useful in any monoblack deck. Because of the BBB cost I wouldn’t just throw it in a multicolor deck, but in a monoblack deck it should do just fine.

Regardless of how you use it, Underworld Dreams is a piece of MTG history and a strong play early on in the game. Thanks for reading! Feel free to discuss this card or comment on how you’ve used it!