Intuition
Master the art of Intuition in Replenish. Discover common pile patterns, engine setups, and complex situational plays to maximize your card selection.
Core Principles & Heuristics
Intuition takes real skill, and it'll take a while to learn every line it opens up, since it does so many jobs over the course of a game. The core tradeoff is now versus later: when you tutor for a non-combo piece (like removal or a sideboard card), you're pulling three copies out of your deck to guarantee one in hand right now. Keep this in mind when building your deck, too—anything you want to fetch with Intuition reliably needs at least 3 copies in your 75.
How Piles Work
Your opponent picks which card goes to your hand—the other two hit the graveyard. Build every pile around this rule:
| Copies | Guarantees | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
| 3 | One in hand | When you need a specific answer right now. |
| 2 | One in the graveyard | When you're setting up a Replenish. |
Against permanent graveyard hate like Tormod's Crypt, Phyrexian Furnace, or Planar Void, don't build combo-dumping piles blind. Intuition becomes a removal tutor—grab three Seal of Cleansing or Disenchant to clear their hate before reassembling the combo.
Crypt bait with Replenish: When they leave a Crypt on the table, you can run the same refill trick described for Attunement in our Playing Through Hate guide—build a graveyard tempting enough that they crack Crypt in response to your Replenish, let Crypt resolve and empty your yard, then with Replenish still on the stack cast Intuition to put fresh combo pieces back in the graveyard before Replenish resolves. That line costs seven mana (Replenish plus Intuition). With Attunement already in play and combo pieces in hand, the same play costs only four mana for Replenish—you discard from hand instead of tutoring. Without spare pieces in hand, you can still Intuition a two-card combo pile and hope your opponent sends the right card to the graveyard; that gamble is sometimes correct.
In long games against control, don't over-tutor. Intuition pulls three cards at a time, and with Attunement and Frantic Search looting on top, you can burn through win conditions or risk decking out if your first reanimation attempts get countered. Know when to stop thinning and start conserving.
Common Tactical Piles
The standard piles and when to reach for each one. = to hand = to graveyard
| Pile | When to Use | Standard Configurations | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dumping Combo Pieces | You're holding Replenish plus a discard outlet. Need enchantments in the graveyard. | Opal + Decree + Wave Opal + Opal + Wave Wave ×3 | Graveyard |
| Split Piles | Late game. Three different cards that all advance your plan—every choice the opponent makes is wrong. | Replenish + Attunement + Wave | Hand |
| Targeted Removal | A creature clock or a lock piece is about to kill you. Grab whichever answer the board needs. | Swords ×3 Seal ×3 | Hand |
| Land Drops | Mana-light hand that's otherwise great, or late-game deck thinning against control. | Tomb ×3 Skycloud ×3 Plains ×3 | Hand |
| Discard Engine | Hand is clogged with enchantments and Replenish but no way to discard them. | Frantic Search ×3 Attunement ×3 | Hand |
| Sideboard Tech | Games 2–3. Shut off counters, disable utility lands, or stop their combo. | Meddling Mage ×3 Abeyance ×3 Tsabo's Web ×3 | Hand |