Scattered Thoughts

In Commander, Scattered Thoughts fills a niche role in decks that need quality over quantity — four mana is steep for card selection, but keeping two from four is meaningfully better than a simple scry. In Pauper, where the competition is Preordain and Thought Scour, Scattered Thoughts is too slow and too expensive to see serious play. Legacy and Vintage don't want it at all — those formats have access to free or near-free filtering that makes a four-mana sorcery obsolete. Pioneer is legal but unplayed for the same reason: Pieces of the Puzzle and Consider do more for less. The card's real home is Commander, specifically in spellslinger or graveyard-matters builds where loading up the yard while keeping gas in hand is a two-for-one in its own right.