Ok, so bear with me on this. Thoughtseize is a super good card that does not see much play anymore, and the primary reason for this is because of Mental Misstep. It is not that people do not want a targeted discard 1, it is just that MM has turned it into a bit of a liability. This card has a lot of benefits over thoughseize which in any other format no one would care about because it costs 2 and 2 is more that 1, but Vintage is a strange animal.

CONS over TS:

• costs double the colored mana of Thoughseize
• can be hit by Pyroblast
• costs 1 more life from Dark Confidant reveal

PROS over TS:

• Not missteppable
• Pitchable to Force
• No life expenditure needed
• Surveil 1 can be really good (I assume). I think it is likely better than Scry 1 for most decks, and while I do not think it quite reaches a cards worth of value, I think the decks that will play this will certainly be running other cards that can capitalize on this like Yawgs will, Snapcaster, Treasure Cruise, etc.

Also cannot be Misdirected and can be fodder for Misdirection. Fueling delve, snappy, and yawg is no small thing either.

Not too favorably impressed with it. 1-1 discard should never cost more than 1 cmc, IMO. Otherwise the tempo loss is too great; wouldn't you rather have Drain? Maybe some combo decks could use this to punch something through, but I doubt it will happen.

I really like this card. Will most likely try two in a deck and go from there.
Edit: only reason I dislike this card is it's worse than thoughtsieze against shops.

I doubt it being blue and having surveil makes it that much better than Distress or even Lay Bare the Heart.

I completely disagree with the premise and I think this card is significantly worse in this metagame than Thoughtseize.

I can't understand how you can reconcile the idea that Misstep is keeping Thoughtseize out of the format, and the clear fact that Lightning Bolt, Preordain, and Pyroblast are more successful right now than Abrade, Strategic Planning, and Burnout.

Surveil is a nice ability, but surely for a 2 mana disruptive spell in blue/black you'd rather have Collective Brutality or Defense Grid or Mana Drain or even Hymn to Tourach or the scalable Mind Twist

@brass-man said in [GOR] Thought Erasure:

Surveil is a nice ability, but surely for a 2 mana disruptive spell in blue/black you'd rather have Collective Brutality or Defense Grid or Mana Drain or even Hymn to Tourach or the scalable Mind Twist

I cited Distress and Lay Bare as superior to this and totally forgot Collective Brutality which is better than all of them.

This isn’t good. When you use it to nab a threat you are further falling victim to the fundamental conceit of 1-1 discard (it violates one of the soft rules of Magic, answers should cost less than threats), and when you use it to proactively disable countermagic/answers you are unlikely to be able to double-spell that turn to take advantage. Especially since you need two on-color mana which is much worse than 1C.

Thoughtseize isn’t played much now because it’s kind of pointless against Shops (two different types of tempo loss in a matchup where you can’t afford it) and so it kind of makes sense to just play the more matchup-specific cards like Pyroblast. Thoughtseize remains a decent card in matchups where tempo loss is maybe less important (like on either side of the Storm-vs-anything matchup) but you still can’t afford this card.

@brass-man said in [GOR] Thought Erasure:

I completely disagree with the premise and I think this card is significantly worse in this metagame than Thoughtseize.

I can't understand how you can reconcile the idea that Misstep is keeping Thoughtseize out of the format, and the clear fact that Lightning Bolt, Preordain, and Pyroblast are more successful right now than Abrade, Strategic Planning, and Burnout.

Because Thoughtseize is a Sorcery. Sinking main phase mana into it and having it Misstepped and the opponent sinking no mana (+1 mana if you count delve) into it is a rough exchange. Preordain is a sorcery as well however almost all the decks that play it are also saddled with 3.8 Missteps to they can have a gentleman's misstep fight. As for Pyroblast, I'd argue that Pyroblast could actually be an effective card for 'less blue' deck if Misstep were restricted. A RGB deck could fight Outcome and the 'more blue decks' effectively using cards like REB/Pyro, unfortunately it (and the DRS those decks would likely play) can't resolve against a wall of Missteps without diluting said 'less blue' deck with a wall of Missteps.

Ritual storm is a deck that wants to play things like Defense Grid, playing cards like Duress or Thoughtseize without Misstep are reasonable in those kind of shells. That being said that archetype appears pretty dead.

edit: and yes this cards isn't nearly good enough, off the top of my head Collective Brutality is superior and I'm the only one I've ever seen play even that card outside of like Dragon.

We found the Anticipate of discard effects.