Cursed Scroll in Premodern: small-hand math, guaranteed reach, and the Sligh engine

What it does

Cursed Scroll is a one-mana artifact that costs three mana plus tapping to activate: you name a card, reveal your hand, and if your hand contains exactly the named card or zero copies, Cursed Scroll deals two damage to any target. The ability requires you to have a small hand — ideally one or two cards — to reliably hit. In the late game, Cursed Scroll becomes a repeatable two-damage source that produces guaranteed reach against opponents who have stabilized the board. It is the defining “topdeck wins” card in Premodern’s aggressive red strategies.

When it’s played

Cursed Scroll is a fixture in Sligh and burn-adjacent strategies.

• Sligh runs four copies as the primary engine card. The deck is built to empty its hand quickly — cheap creatures and burn spells at one and two mana — so that by turn four or five, Cursed Scroll activates reliably for two damage per turn.
• Goblins runs Cursed Scroll as a lategame mana sink once the main Goblin engine has resolved. After Goblin Warchief has been countered or the Lackey plan has stalled, Cursed Scroll provides a secondary threat that doesn’t require attacking.
• Sligh uses Cursed Scroll alongside Lightning Bolt and Fireblast — it serves as the last point of reach once the direct damage suite is exhausted.
• Deadguy Ale sometimes includes Cursed Scroll in the sideboard as reach against life-gain opponents.

The math / interaction worth knowing

The probability of hitting with Cursed Scroll scales with hand size. If you have zero cards in hand, you hit with 100% certainty — you name anything. With one card in hand, you name that card and reveal it; you hit. With two cards in hand, you hit if you guess correctly (50%), but you only name the card you want to keep — effectively, you must have one “safe” card to name and one “real” card. The break-even point where Cursed Scroll is reliable is two or fewer cards. Sligh decks are built with twenty cards at one mana or less specifically to reach this threshold by turn three or four.

The activation cost is front-loaded at three mana total. Cursed Scroll costs one to play and then {3}{T} to activate (total four mana for the first activation). This means Cursed Scroll is not functional until turn four at earliest — turn one to play it, then turn four to activate it while you’ve spent earlier turns deploying threats. Decks that tap out for creatures and burn through turns two and three are deliberately preparing for the turn four Scroll activation.

Naming the right card matters. If you have two cards in hand — say, Mountain and Lightning Bolt — you name Mountain and reveal your hand showing one Mountain and one Lightning Bolt. You hit only if the Scroll was set up for “zero or exactly one copy of Mountain.” But wait: you also have one Mountain, so you hit if you named Mountain. You would not name Lightning Bolt if you want to keep it for later. The naming choice is a bluff in some game states: naming a card you don’t have when the opponent suspects your hand size can be read as information about what you’re holding.

Decklists worth studying

When deck data populates, look for budget Sligh lists from MTGO Premodern Challenges — Cursed Scroll is the card that distinguishes those lists from Burn. The correct configuration runs four Scrolls as part of a plan to win the attrition game when the opponent stabilizes against the creature plan.

Related cards

• Lightning Bolt — Sligh’s primary removal and damage; Cursed Scroll is the reach card for after Bolts are exhausted.
• Goblin Lackey — In Goblins, Lackey generates early tempo; Cursed Scroll closes the lategame.
• Fireblast — The free finisher that complements Cursed Scroll’s repeated two-damage pings.
• Goblin Piledriver — In Goblins, Piledriver and Scroll represent two different damage vectors.
• Rishadan Port — Often co-played with Cursed Scroll in Goblins for a mana denial plus damage strategy.
• Wasteland — The land destruction component that pairs with Cursed Scroll to lock out multicolor opponents.