Thirst for Knowledge (Original Sketch)

Thirst for Knowledge is a three-mana blue instant from Mirrodin (2003), that draws three cards – but you must discard two cards unless you discard an artifact from your hand. It’s a powerful draw engine and card filtering tool, that has a great synergy with artifacts. At the 2004 World Championships, Manuel Bevand reached the Standard Top-8 with an artifact-based combo deck “Myr Incubator Combo” playing Thirst for Knowledge, that used Krark-Clan Ironworks to quickly get a Myr Incubator into play – which then created thirty or more 1/1 creatures, sometimes as early as the third turn. Gabriel Nassif also T-8’ed with his UW Cloudpost / Control deck featuring Thirst for Knowledge as card draw. In the Modern format, Thirst for Knowledge is the most associated with Blue Tron (Mono-U Tron) decks, which run many artifacts like Expedition Map, Talisman of Dominance, The One Ring, Wurmcoil Engine, Oblivion Stone and Mindslaver – allowing you to frequently discard an expendable artifact to keep Thirst card-positive. This card being instant speed fits the slow, reactive plan of the deck. This is the deck that Thirst for Knowledge has been best known for in Modern. In Legacy, historically speaking – Thirst for Knowledge was played in many different decks like Faerie Stompy, Tezzeret / “Thopter” Control, UR Painter, UG Eldrazi-Post. Although, this card hasn’t seen any play in recent years. Nowadays, the only place where Thirst for Knowledge is still actively played, is in cEDH / Commander. Its best home is in Artifact-centric commanders, because these decks can always discard an artifact for value and often want too as well – like Urza, Lord High Artificer, Emry, Lurker of the Loch. Thirst also shines in Reanimator / Graveyard decks, that want to put specific cards in the graveyard like Muldrotha, the Gravetide and Superior Spider-Man. Artifact-control decks like Vivi Ornitier also play this card. Thirst for Knowledge is not on the Reserved List.