Skip to content
Moxonomy

Polygraph Orb

Artifact4 generic manaBlack mana

The entry effect reads like a compressed Read the Bones: dig four, keep two, bin the rest, pay two life. Where that spell scaled its selection with a scry-then-draw split, this one hardwires the graveyard as the destination for the two cards you leave behind, and that hardwiring is the whole point. The two cards seeded into your yard are the fuel line for the activated ability. Collect evidence 3 converts that self-mill into a repeatable Edict-and-drain hybrid: each opponent loses three life, pitches a card, or feeds a creature to the graveyard, and they choose which. What binds the two effects together is that the drain eats your own graveyard to fire, so the enter-the-battlefield dig is doing double duty, banking resources and stocking ammunition at once. You accumulate a battery while entering and spend it on demand. Nothing restricts the ability to your own turn, so the tap-and-exile cost can be paid at instant speed, letting you press an Edict into a declared attack or hold the drain up as a response rather than committing on your main phase. Still, each activation costs three worth of exiled evidence plus the two generic and the tap, so the payoff is measured in incremental attrition rather than a single explosive turn. This is black treating the graveyard as a battery rather than a recursion zone, where filling it is a means to an end.

Polygraph Orb (mkm)
MKM · #99uncommon
Pricing
Normal: $0.06
Foil: $0.09
Oracle Text

Rules text

When this artifact enters, look at the top four cards of your library. Put two of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard. You lose 2 life. 2 generic mana, Tap, Collect evidence 3: Each opponent loses 3 life unless they discard a card or sacrifice a creature. (To collect evidence 3, exile cards with total mana value 3 or greater from your graveyard.)
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
Legal
Pioneer
Legal
Modern
Legal
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
N/A
Brawl
Legal
Historic
Legal
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
Legal
Standard Brawl
Legal
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
N/A
PreDH
N/A
Pauper Commander
N/A
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
Legal
Penny Dreadful
Legal
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
Legal
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
Legal
TLR
N/A
Quick navigation
move selectesc close