Exclusive Secrets of Strixhaven Preview: Borrowed Knowledge
It's Lorehold day in Secrets of Strixhaven spoiler land, and thanks to Wizards hooking us up, we've got an exclusive preview card to show off for you all. Meet Borrowed Knowledge!
Borrowed Knowledge is an interesting uncommon. For four mana, the sorcery either lets you discard your hand and draw cards equal to the number of cards you discarded or discard your hand and draw cards equal to the number of cards in target opponent's hand.
The first mode isn't super new. Path of the Pyromancer, Change of Fortune, and even Queen Kayla bin-Kroog all have similar effects, and this doesn't include cards like Valakut Awakening, which do something similar but have you put the cards in your hand on the bottom of your library rather than discarding them, or Wheel of Fortune, which hits everyone and will always draw seven cards. Basically, if you just want to loot away your hand, there are plenty of ways to do it.
On the other hand, the second mode on Borrowed Knowledge feels pretty new. Yes, it is somewhat similar to Recurring Insight, but that's the only comparison I could find, and even that isn't especially close since Recurring Insight costs way more mana and doesn't let you discard your hand. In the right situation, especially in Commander where it's not uncommon for one player at the table to draw a ton of cards and perhaps have a Reliquary Tower around to keep them all in hand, being able to discard your hand and draw equal to the number of cards the opponent with the most cards in hand is holding seems pretty powerful.
As far as Standard and other 60-card formats are concerned, let's start with the bad news: Borrowed Knowledge is four mana and sorcery speed, which means odds are against it seeing much play, although it is a card that could have uses in some sort of combo deck. The first thing I thought of when I saw Borrowed Knowledge was using it with Cool but Rude to potentially combo kill your opponent by discarding your entire hand at once. While Borrowed Knowledge might not be the most efficient way to win with Cool but Rude, it is pretty funny. The same applies to other "discard matter" cards like Monument to Endurance. While I'm not expecting this to be a top-tier plan in Standard, it does seem like it could be a fun Against the Odds deck at least.
Other than triggering "discard matters" stuff, I'm not exactly sure what to do with Borrowed Knowledge in 60-card formats. If you are trying to use it to generate card advantage, perhaps being an aggro deck that dumps your hand and then tries to refill by drawing equal to the number of cards in your opponent's hands, this plan seems best against control, but resolving a four-mana sorcery against a control deck isn't easy. Against more aggressive decks, it seems hard to find the time to actually cast Borrowed Knowledge. A lot of Standard decks can kill literally or virtually kill you on turn four, so taking that turn off to try to draw some cards seems risky.
As far as Commander is concerned, finding the time to actually cast Borrowed Knowledge is much less of an issue. The question here is whether it beats out other options and what decks to play it in. As far as the competition, I'm a big fan of Valakut Awakening as a way to filter away my hand, especially since as an MDFC it only takes up a land slot. In a vacuum (i.e., without any specific Borrowed Knowledge synergies), I think I would mostly just stick to stuff like Valakut Awakening in this slot, although I could see someone like Tomer playing this card. If you have players like Phil and I in your playgroup who mostly just try to draw as many cards as possible, Borrowed Knowledge becomes an interesting option to punish the card drawing durdlers. Tomer's already been playing Runeflare Trap as a way to punish our card draw excesses, and while Borrowed Knowledge isn't going to kill anyone, drawing 7+ cards for four mana is still a massive swing. If your playgroup has durdlely players who do nothing and draw a ton of cards, Borrowed Knowledge goes way up in value and might actually be some hot tech.
The biggest challenge I see for Borrowed Knowledge in Commander is color identity. The most obvious synergistic home for the sorcery is a deck that either cares about discarding cards or drawing cards, and while those both exist, Boros isn't an especially popular color combo for the "card draw matters" or "discard matters" theme. The card would be great in Rielle, the Everwise, for example, but color identity rules mean that's not an option.
As far as Boros-based Commanders that I could see wanting Borrowed Knowledge, the easiest home is probably Brallin, Skyshark Rider with Shabraz, the Skyshark, where having another way to discard your entire hand and draw some cards is super powerful since it will grow both of your commanders while also gaining some life and dealing some damage. Other possibilities include Celes, Rune Knight, which can use Borrowed Knowledge as a way to stock the graveyard and refill its hand, and Banon, the Returners' Leader, although I've never actually seen anyone build a deck around Banon.
Of course, it will probably work with some new Secrets of Strixhaven legends as well. As I'm writing this, we haven't seen much of the set yet, but we did get Lorehold, the Historian as a super early spoiler, which also has a looting sub-theme. If Lorehold in Secrets of Strixhaven is mostly about looting, then the value of Borrowed Knowledge goes up, and it's possible it will be a staple with some of the new legends from the set.
Wrap Up
Overall, I think that Borrowed Knowledge is an interesting card. At four mana, I'd be surprised if it was a staple in any format, but I do think it has some weird combo potential in Standard, and while it's probably not strong enough to just throw in any Boros...err...Lorehold Commander deck, if your playgroup is full of Seths and Phils who are durdling around and drawing cards, or if your deck is built around discarding and/or drawing cards for value, I think it can actually be quite powerful!
Anyway, that's all for today! Thanks again to Wizards for hooking us up with the free preview! How good do you think Borrowed Knowledge will be? Can it do anything in 60-card formats? What commander deck does it fit in the best? Let me know in the comments, and like usual, you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive, or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
