So play with something like Selective Memory - there are a lot of cards that just toss tons of cards you own into exile.

The "from anywhere" clause doesn't seem like a good idea...

Would that combo ever be relevant outside of maybe edh?

This + something with Delve, delving 3 creatures = VALUE

I'll admit delve is somewhat concerning.

Edit: Gotta delve out Temporal Trespass.

Heh. Technically, Arc-Slogger is still in Modern. But, yeah, most of the cards this is broken with hail from an older age of Magic. Crumbling Sanctuary, Browse, and Necropotence all would have loved this card.

Selective Memory was just a random example. I just don't think this is such a "good idea". You don't think something like Manipulate Fate would not ever be reprinted?

How about a card such as:

> "name"
> creature
> Exile the top six cards of your library: You gain 2 life.
> 2/2

Something along those lines can't seem entirely implausible, right? What I'm trying to convey here is that even if this "cultivator" wouldn't currently be broken in modern or what have you, it would still restrict the design space of future cards heavily. This is especially notable considering how "unexplored" and limited the exile themed cards have remained so far.

I've actually grown partial to getting value from the library.

However, I could switch the card so the player would search and add a land to their land instead of a basic on the battlefield tapped.

Oh, also Ghostway. That card could get rather silly with this.

But really, I don't think the problem is too indomitable. Tahazzar's Manipulate Fate example just sounds beneficial for this card, not broken. A two card combo that cost , that removes three creatures from your library and Rampant Growths three times? Seems fair.

The real problem with this card are when effects allow you to dump massive piles out of your library, like in Tahazzar's second example. That is problematic. But it doesn't exist in recent years. And I doubt it will exist because of the feedback Wizards got off of Arc-Slogger. People absolutely hated it. It was a terrifically strong card, but it ranked somewhere near the very bottom among player surveys.

Players just do not like to rip large sections of their libraries apart as a resource to see what cards they cannot play, while revealing their deck's strategy to their opponents. Tahazzar is right: This is a large untapped vein, with lots of potential. But I doubt Wizards will dig into that vein any time soon. And even when they do, they'll probably give the mechanic to very weak cards, like they occasionally do to flipping a coin.

(All this said, I do have to admit, though, that the card is still pretty risky.)

To hand would fix 100% of potential issues with the card. But would also make it a lot less exciting. Normally; it's a somewhat difficult trigger with a somewhat nice payoff. But the abuse potential is icky.

So why the change to any land? Assembling Urza-tron / Locuses certainly becomes a lot easier. Manipulate Fate is rather mediocre admittedly (I don't care to shuffle through all the exiling cards) but with this it would still be Sylvan Scrying x 3 + "draw a card". I don't know about you, but dropping this at end step for and then proceeding to draw a card and get all the urza (locust) pieces for on your turn sounds pretty bonkers to me.

Does the card have any (sensible) flavor or it is purely mechanical? If it's purely mechanical, what purpose does it serve here? Does it support a theme in the set? Otherwise a 1/2 Flash for isn't a particularly exciting rare.

@jmgariepy:

It looks like that many of those issues with ripping your library could potentially be fixed if the cards were exiled face down.. (?)

Because only searching basics to hand on an ability that only occurs under a specific circumstance sounds unplayable.

The card's creation was likely mechanical, a design to work with artifacts that had fetish, as well as the other cards that exiled in this block.