A-Cauldron Familiar MTG Card
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 1 |
| Rarity | Uncommon |
| Type | Creature — Cat |
| Released | 2019-10-04 |
| Set symbol | |
| Set name | Throne of Eldraine |
| Set code | ELD |
| Power | 1 |
| Toughness | 1 |
| Number | A-81 |
| Frame | 2015 |
| Layout | Normal |
| Border | Black |
| Illustred by | Milivoj Ćeran |
Key Takeaways
- Grants card advantage through its recursive nature, pairing well with Witch’s Oven for continuous cycling.
- Indirectly accelerates resources by impacting life totals, and operates at instant speed for strategic flexibility.
- The card’s specific mana and discard requirements can restrict deck-building options and elevate cumulative costs.
Text of card
A-Cauldron Familiar can't block. When Cauldron Familiar enters the battlefield, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain 1 life. Sacrifice a Food: Return Cauldron Familiar from your graveyard to the battlefield.
Card Pros
Card Advantage: A Cauldron Familiar enhances card advantage by recurring itself from the graveyard to the battlefield. This ability, when paired with a card like Witch’s Oven, allows for a potentially endless cycle of sacrificing and returning the familiar. This provides a consistent way of generating card advantage without expending additional resources.
Resource Acceleration: While the Cauldron Familiar doesn’t directly generate mana, it does contribute to resource acceleration indirectly. Each time it enters the battlefield, you can potentially gain life while whittling down an opponent’s life total. The life gained can give you more time to draw into the resources you need, while the life loss puts continuous pressure on your opponent.
Instant Speed: Cauldron Familiar’s return capability can be activated at instant speed, allowing for versatile gameplay. You can sacrifice the familiar during your opponent’s end step or in response to removal, ensuring that you retain presence on the board and can utilize your mana efficiently, even during your opponent’s turn.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Cauldron Familiar’s synergy with Witch’s Oven necessitates discarding the creature, reducing your board presence every time you desire to trigger its life-draining ability.
Specific Mana Cost: Despite its low cost, Cauldron Familiar requires black mana, exclusively fitting into mono-black or specific multicolored decks, which can limit its versatility in a varied meta.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: While one black mana might seem inexpensive, when factoring in the necessity to repeatedly summon the familiar from the graveyard to maximize its potential, the cumulative cost can escalate, especially in fast-paced games.
Reasons to Include in Your Collection
Versatility: A-Cauldron Familiar thrives in various deck builds, enhancing strategies from sacrifice synergy to life-drain. Its ability to recur from the graveyard makes it a persistent threat in game play.
Combo Potential: Partnered with Witch’s Oven, this card creates a loop that can chip away at your opponent’s life while bolstering your own, exemplifying its synergy with other cards in the format.
Meta-Relevance: With games often revolving around creature-based strategies, A-Cauldron Familiar offers a low-cost, reliable way to disrupt opponent creatures and maintain board presence, making it a staple in many competitive environments.
How to beat
The Cauldron Familiar card has become a staple in many MTG decks, renowned for its ability to recur from the graveyard. One effective tactic to counteract this feline menace is the use of graveyard hate cards. By incorporating cards like Grafdigger’s Cage or Rest in Peace into your deck, the Familiar’s resurrection ability is halted, severing the synergy it typically enjoys with cards like Witch’s Oven.
Moreover, exiling effects stand as another formidable tool against Cauldron Familiar. Spells like Scavenging Ooze not only remove the creature from the game but also provide a secondary benefit of bolstering your creature on the battlefield. It’s essential to stay one step ahead and anticipate the arrival of Cauldron Familiar, ensuring that your answers are timely, thus keeping the cat firmly out of the game and dismantling key strategies your opponent may rely on.
Ultimately, adapting your strategy to include these countermeasures can significantly dampen the impact of a Cauldron Familiar on your matches. As with all strategies in MTG, foresight and preparation are your greatest assets when facing down recurring threats like this persistent feline.
Cards like A-Cauldron Familiar
A-Cauldron Familiar is a unique piece in MTG’s rich tapestry of creature cards. It sits alongside other one-drop creatures like Gravecrawler, which shares the ability to recur from the graveyard. While Gravecrawler requires another zombie to be in play, A-Cauldron Familiar asks for a Witch’s Oven to maximize its potential. Together, they create a synergetic loop that can frustrate opponents and gain incremental life advantages.
Another analog is Bloodsoaked Champion, which also boasts a return mechanic from the graveyard. Unlike A-Cauldron Familiar, Bloodsoaked Champion requires raid to trigger its comeback, making it dependent on your combat phase. It doesn’t provide life gain but it does offer a recurring board presence. Then there is Scrapheap Scrounger, slightly costlier with more power. This artifact creature can also return from the graveyard, yet it can’t block and requires exile of another creature card from your graveyard as its cost.
In summary, A-Cauldron Familiar holds its own within the group of recursive creatures, especially when combined with synergistic artifacts like Witch’s Oven. Its ability to chip away at an opponent’s life while bolstering your own establishes it as a persistent threat in MTG matchups.
Cards similar to A-Cauldron Familiar by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase A-Cauldron Familiar MTG card by a specific set like Throne of Eldraine, there are several reliable options to consider. One of the primary sources is your local game store, where you can often find booster packs, individual cards, and preconstructed decks from current and some past sets. They often offer the added benefit of a community where you can trade with other players.
For a broader inventory, particularly of older sets, online marketplaces like TCGPlayer, Card Kingdom and Card Market offer extensive selections and allow you to search for cards from specific sets. Larger e-commerce platforms like eBay and Amazon also have listings from various sellers, which can be a good place to look for sealed product and rare finds.
Additionally, Magic’s official site often has a store locator and retailer lists for finding Wizards of the Coast licensed products. Remember to check for authenticity and the condition of the cards when purchasing, especially from individual sellers on larger marketplaces.
Below is a list of some store websites where you can buy the A-Cauldron Familiar and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See MTG Products
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where A-Cauldron Familiar has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Historicbrawl | Legal |
| Historic | Legal |