Confounding Riddle
Mana Cost:
Type: Instant
Oracle Text:
Choose one —
• Look at the top four cards of your library. Put one of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
• Counter target spell unless its controller pays {4}.
Power/Toughness: -/-
Rarity: uncommon
Prints: View all prints (1) →
Expansion: The Lost Caverns of Ixalan
Price ( USD): $0.26
USD: $0.26 · EUR: €0.20
Public Decks Using This Card
No public decks are currently using this card.
Character Background
Confounding Riddle is a versatile little instant that embodies blue’s split between digging for answers and denying them: for {2}{U} you can either surveil the top four, taking one and pitching three to the graveyard, or levy a {4} tax to effectively counter a spell. That duality makes it best-suited to control and value-oriented shells that want flexibility—early you often take the dig to find interaction or fuel delve/recursion, late you switch to the tax to shut down decisive threats. Specific synergies include Gurmag Angler and other delve payoffs (the discard mode supplies cheap threats) and Snapcaster Mage or flashback cards that reuse instants milled this way. Deckbuilding tip: slot Confounding Riddle in 24–26 land blue control lists with 6–10 graveyard payoffs and some card selection (scry, cantrips) so the dig mode consistently finds live cards while still preserving the tax mode as a tempo-tipping surprise.
Generated using gpt-5-mini · Updated at 2026-05-16 16:20:46 UTC