Zero Cost Cards

This particular card? Hm.. well.. It's ok. There are however some places it can shine - An EDH deck based around lifegain springs to mind - especially if you have anything with wording similar to "whenever you gain life xxxxxx".

So yeah, it's an ok card and there are places I would be inclined to use it. The 0 mana cost makes it quite attractive as you can drop and activate it for 2 mana - which if you have 'trigger creatures' such as the angel that puts a +1/+1 counter on everything when you gain life actually becomes relevant.

It's not exciting but it's not useless.

As for 0 cost cards in general? Some of them can be pretty strong. Affinity is enabled by 0 cost cards and they are always useful to be able to do something and have mana left over in the early turns.

I think it might be worth looking at some specific cards as there seem to be 4 different types of 0 cost cards.

Firstly there are artifacts which have a casting cost of zero. These seem to range in power and ability and the most famous examples fit into the traditional affinity deck.

Then there are phyrexian cards that can be cast for zero mana - Gitaxian Probe and Mutagenic Strength are the two big examples here - they are paid for by substituting life for the phyrexian mana symbols in their casting cost. Infect makes a lot of use of this as it is desperate to pump an attacking creature early on when it's unblocked for the quick win.

There are also cards that delay the casting cost of the card - but at a massive hike in price. I need to find the example I'm thinking of but there is a counterspell that is usually 2-3 mana but can be cast free on the proviso that the next turn you must immediately pay about 5 mana or lose the game.

Lastly (as far as I know) there are cards that substitute or delay the casting cost for another action - such as revealing a certain color card from your hand.

So as far as I'm aware - and I'm happy to be corrected - there are technically 4 ways of 'casting' a card for no mana (I am aware that there are many other ways of placing a card from your hand onto the battlefield or casting a card from the top of your library / opponents library for free but those are usually the direct effects of another card on the game state and not the actions of the card actually being 'cast') so it would perhaps be good to explore some of the different ways in which they work and how much use each type could be.

What do you think?

Indeed. I personally love Ornithoper but I'm aware it's a bit like Marmite - you love it or you hate it.

For me it's a 0/2 blocker that can come out even if you are on the draw and is usually going to be bigger than the normal 1/1 that gets cast on turn 1. Later in the game - IF you have the right deck - you can give it equipment or bestow onto it to make a 4/4 flyer on turn 5 (hello Boon Satyr once again). On the topic of bestow as a flyer it also makes a good target for Spiteful returned. Ok it only becomes a 1/3 flyer but it triggers for an extra 2 each time it attacks (and that's life loss, not damage so is harder to prevent)

It enables metalcraft quickly and - in the worst case - can be dropped out as a flying chump blocker mid to late game. All you really need is a deck that would let you recur it to block their biggest threat every turn. Now if only there were ways of getting artifaacts from the graveyard back into your hand.

Why Hello Glissa....

The Mox Opal - staple in all Affinity decks in modern (or at least all that can afford a playset). Again - it's a great card. A free mana accelerator for COLORED mana no less. Ok so it requires metalcraft but if you are playing affinity then you should be able to achieve that in your opening hand.

Cards like this are the reason that Affinity usually wins game one.

(...and cards like stoney silence are the reason that it doesn't do so well post sideboard)

Not exactly. Ultimately you are still limited by hand size - 7 cards at the start of the game and drawing a card on every turn (not including the very first player's first turn).

So yes, having cards that can be played very early or without sufficient mana available is potentially very strong but it leads to you emptying your hand quite quickly and from that point you are reliant on your single cards per turn from your library - and there are more than enough ways to make someone discard their drawn card or to simply render it irrelevant - even assuming that it was something useful in the first place.

So whilst 0 cost cards can be used to accelerate your game early on (Affinity) or to give you a surprise counterspell or unexpected additional creature later on they actually reduce your long term capability to respond and so tend to be placed into specific deck archetypes built around getting the best out of them - and that is fine but it does mean that if your opponent is aware of the types of deck commonly played in whichever format you are using they will quickly work out what you are playing, your strategy and the 'likely' cards you have in your deck.

An example of this is Affinity - probably the most famous 0 cost card deck - which aims to basically empty your hand onto the battlefield within 1-2 turns and then start building up those creatures to attack for lethal before your opponent gets a chance to defend. It's a good strategy but if the initial rush is countered then it runs out of steam very quickly - and as it's composed entirely of artifacts / artifact creatures it is very vulnerable to 'hate' cards for both types - Stony Silence, Vandalblast etc all upset this deck somewhat. So it really has to be able to 'click' and get a perfect start in order to win game 2/3 otherwise it will just get nerfed.

So yeah, whilst 0 cost cards are powerful they also have a tendency to push you into using them in specific ways that can be predicted, which kind of evens things up a bit. This is not to say that they are a bad thing - I think they are very good indeed, it's just about knowing why you are playing a specific card and what you intend to do with it and "Because it's free" isn't a good answer.

Pffft - I suspect that I ramble on quite a bit. You have a way of putting things a little more succinctly than I do.

I think we are the opposite in terms of talking and typing.

Ironic isn't it?

Strangely enough no - although it would work fine in such a deck. The 'usual' zero cost cards in Affinity tend to be Ornithopters, Memnites and Mox Opals.

The reason being that the gameplan is to spam the field with as many creatures as possible early on (the rest of the creatures in the deck - in fact the rest of the cards in the deck - all cost either 1 or 2 mana with the only 'normal' exception being Etched Champion who costs 3...) and then quickly buff them (Steel Overseer) or give them a temporary boost when attacking (Signal pest) to quickly overwhelm defences - this deck doesn't really care about defending at all so vigilance is less relevant, as is the +0/+3 as nothing should be blocking.

If you've got the the point where you are blocking with an affinity deck then something has gone very wrong with your gameplan.

The culmination of the gamplan is to sacrifice a load of artifacts to build up Archbound Ravager if it's unblocked (essentially sac-ing any blocked creatures to ensure their damage gets through) OR should your ravager die to move the modular counters onto a metalcraft enabled Etched Champion and just swing away with it. There are variations to this but essentially it's 'buff & swing' every turn one way or another.

So whilst this card is well at home in a metalcraft deck the classic 'affinity' aggro deck wouldn't normally use it. Having said that it IS a good card and I rather enjoyed sticking it on a little 1/1 white bird at the pre-release where it became an excellent blocker and a constant hit for 1 each turn.

There are other ways - 'Affinity' is actually a poor name for the aggro version as the true 'affinity for artifacts' spells are mostly blue and have their casting cost reduced based on the number of artifacts you have out. A genuine 'true affinity' deck has a higher mana curve than the 'aggro' versions.

Mostly in Modern it is played as aggro or artifacts are included as specialist roles in other decks (Relic of Progenitus as graveyard hate in sideboards etc). This is because the 'speed' of modern means that unless your deck comes out fast OR has massive power in the mid to late game then it simply gets run over a lot of the time. This may in fact change now Birthing Pod has been banned as the practice of accelerating a creature through the pod each turn until you had something truly scary by mid-game is no longer an option. There will still be pressures from 'Splinter Twin' based combo decks as well as the new and evolving Jeskai Ascendency combo decks that simply need enough time to assemble their respective combos and kill you - so if your deck doesn't include a lot of disruption or come out of the gates running then it's not viable at the top tiers.

There will always be rogue decks however.

I prefer "Chaos Confetti"

...and like a font I just keep pouring it out - whether you want it or not

Ah - the real black lotus this time... the most famous 0 cost card ever and possibly the only one that I'm quite confident to say I'll never manage to play with.

Yeah... and you thought Sol Ring was unfair when someone uses it against you on turn 1...

Absolutely right. Just imagine the following type of combo.

Turn 1 - swamp & Black Lotus. Tap Lotus for 3 black, tap swamp for Dark ritual into 3 black - cast any one of the following 3 cards and watch your opponent cringe.


Remember you are turn 1 - on the play - so this is the first creature on the board and will be attacking turn 2. Pretty much any of these could shut out the game for your opponent before it starts - especially Necropolis Regent who is basically a 3 turn clock on her own.

(and that isn't even the broken combo's you can do with it...)

I agree completely - it's pretty meh.

It's one of those cards that might do well in a deck where 'being equipped' matters - such as a Khemba Khar Regent deck where she gives tokens based on how many equipments are on her.

Otherwise though.. well it's taking up a slot something good could use. I'd rather pay 1 mana and have Basilisk Collar over paying 0 for this.