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Vampiric Tutor - Instant

Visions · 1997

Market Prices

$75median

Priced for the Visions printing — select another in “Printings & Editions” below to re-price.

Indicative cached prices, not a live quote.

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Legality

PremodernBANNED
Foil printingAVAILABLE
Full Scryfall Data
Visions{B}

Vampiric Tutor

Instant

Search your library for a card, then shuffle and put that card on top. You lose 2 life.

Printings & Editions

Premodern-legal editions of Vampiric Tutor — old-border printings plus any period-appropriate foil promos (Arena/Judge, through Scourge). Hover to preview an edition on the card; click to select it.

Old-border editions + pre-Scourge promo foils (Arena/Judge). Modern-frame reprints (8th Edition onward) exist but are not period-appropriate printings.

Why It's Banned

For a single black mana at instant speed, Vampiric Tutor finds any card in your deck and sets it atop your library, paying only 2 life. In a format built on creature combat and reactive interaction, that kind of frictionless consistency lets combo and toolbox decks assemble their best answer or kill piece every game, collapsing deck variance and homogenizing what would otherwise be a diverse metagame. The 2-life cost is a rounding error next to the power of turning every draw step into "draw exactly what you need."

Printed in Visions (1997) and reprinted in Sixth Edition (1999), both within Premodern's 4th-Edition-through-Scourge window, it was a staple of high-level black decks throughout the era. When Martin Berlin launched Premodern in 2017, Vampiric Tutor was banned on the format's founding list alongside other premier tutors such as Mystical Tutor to curb combo consistency and preserve metagame diversity.

Banned because perfect, instant-speed, one-mana selection is simply too consistent for a format meant to reward interaction and variance over tutoring into the same broken lines every game.

Full ban-list deep dive

Trivia & Lore

  • Vampiric Tutor debuted in Visions (released February 3, 1997) as a rare illustrated by Gary Leach.
  • It was restricted in Vintage (then Type 1) on October 1, 1999, in a sweeping DCI announcement that also restricted Yawgmoth's Will, Mana Crypt, Mana Vault, Tinker, Doomsday, Mystical Tutor, and Enlightened Tutor, among others.
  • On the original Visions printing the life payment was templated as an old-style additional cost ('Pay 2 life'), but the wording was rewritten so the life loss is part of the spell's effect, which is why today's Oracle text reads 'Search your library for a card, then shuffle and put that card on top. You lose 2 life.'
  • Vampiric Tutor was reprinted in Classic Sixth Edition (1999) as card #161, its first appearance in a core set.
  • A gold-bordered, non-tournament-legal Vampiric Tutor (a 6th Edition-style reprint) appears in the 1999 World Championship Decks as part of Jakub Slemr's deck.
  • Vampiric Tutor is the black 'tutor onto top of library' instant that complements Mirage's one-mana tutor cycle (Enlightened, Mystical, Worldly Tutor); unlike those type-restricted Mirage tutors, Vampiric finds ANY card.
  • In Vintage it is a core engine piece of the Doomsday combo deck, long associated with players like Stephen Menendian and Team Meandeck.

Critical Rulings

"The "shuffle and put the card on top" is a single action. If an effect causes the top card of the library to be face up, the second card down is not revealed."

— 2016-06-08

Price History

91d · USD
$76▲ 14.1%

Tracks this card’s preferred printing: the old-border edition shown by default (block-expansion printings first, e.g. Urza’s, Tempest, Mirage). It doesn’t re-price when you select a different edition above. Per-edition history is planned.

$76$71$66
03/1804/1705/1806/18

Decks playing Vampiric Tutor (5)

Vampiric Tutor is banned in sanctioned Premodern — these are Unchained and historic (legal-when-played) appearances.