Driven // Despair MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 3 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost4
RarityRare
TypeSorcery
Abilities Aftermath

Key Takeaways

  1. Driven // Despair provides card draw and opponent discard from combat damage, enhancing hand control.
  2. Aftermath allows Despair’s instant surprise play from the graveyard, adding to its versatility.
  3. Demands specific mana and discards for fusion, which could hinder its inclusion in some decks.

Text of card

Aftermath Until end of turn, creatures you control gain menace and "Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card."


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Driven // Despair grants the potential to draw numerous cards. As your creatures deal combat damage, each one triggers a draw, effectively refilling your hand and providing a significant advantage.

Resource Acceleration: While not directly providing mana or tokens, the card accelerates your resources by overwhelming opponents with card draw and mandatory discard, tipping the scales of resource availability in your favor.

Instant Speed: Despair can be cast from your graveyard using its aftermath ability. This surprise element can catch an opponent off-guard at a pivotal moment, turning the tide of a match with a sudden swing in board presence and hand control.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Driven // Despair demands you to discard cards to enable its second half, which could leave you at a resource disadvantage during crucial moments of gameplay.

Specific Mana Cost: This split card requires both green and black mana, potentially complicating its inclusion in multicolored decks where mana flexibility is key.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a combined mana cost for its fused ability, Driven // Despair is considered mana-intensive, which may be inefficient in fast-paced matches where lower cost options can be more beneficial.


Reasons to Include Driven // Despair in Your Collection

Versatility: Driven // Despair offers two different modes that can be utilized in various deck types, ranging from aggressive strategies that focus on creature combat to decks that benefit from discarding and drawing cards. Its flexibility allows it to adapt to multiple game states, making it a valuable card to have on hand.

Combo Potential: As a card with two distinct halves, it can be woven into combos that capitalise on dealing combat damage, like enhancing creatures with evasion, or exploiting discard effects to disrupt your opponent’s hand. The synergies are only limited by a player’s creativity in deck building.

Meta-Relevance: Whether playing at a local game night or a competitive event, understanding your environment is key. Driven // Despair shines in a meta filled with creature-based decks and matches where hand disruption can turn the tide, strongly influencing the course of play.


How to beat

The dual card Driven // Despair brings a unique duality to the gameplay of MTG. Among its key strengths are the significant card draw mechanics and the potential to swing games in your favor during combat phases with game-altering abilities. Looking into the card’s specifics, Driven allows creatures to draw a card upon dealing combat damage to a player, whereas Despair forces opponents to discard a card whenever they’re dealt combat damage.

To counter such a card, disruption in the form of counterspells, removal, or discard effects prior to the casting allows you to maintain control of the board and prevent your opponent from gaining the upper hand. Moreover, preventing creatures from connecting with combat damage is vital. Creature removal, board wipes, or simply bolstering your defense with stronger creatures all serve to stymy the onslaught and neutralize the advantages presented by Driven // Despair. Therefore, maintaining readiness in your card selections and strategic plays will place you in a strong position to avoid succumbing to its effects.

Ultimately, while the duality of Driven // Despair can indeed be daunting, a well-prepared defense and preemptive strategy can effectively nullify its potential impact on the game, ensuring that you stay ahead in the contest of wits and strategy that is MTG.


BurnMana Recommendations

Navigating the fine balance of offense and defense in MTG can be like a finely tuned dance, much like the dual nature of Driven // Despair. With its ability to both fill your hand and deplete your adversary’s, mastering this card could give you a powerful edge. Understanding when to charge forward or pull back is key in any match. Driven // Despair artfully combines these aspects, rewarding strategic combat and player disruption. If you’re intrigued by this dance of advantage, dive deeper with us into tactics and strategies that can optimize your gameplay and turn your deck into a formidable archive of power.


Cards like Driven // Despair

Driven // Despair is a unique dual-sided card that offers MTG strategists a blend of aggressive and resource-denying tactics. It can be equated with other aftermath cards such as Refuse // Cooperate, which gives players both an immediate effect and a later game play option. Driven grants creatures trample and card draw upon doing combat damage, while Despair forces opponents to discard, slicing through their strategies.

Furthermore, we can compare Driven // Despair to other sorcery speed multifaceted cards like Breaking // Entering. Though the latter card gravitates towards different strategies involving graveyard play, Driven // Despair is typically employed in aggressive decks focused on quickly overwhelming opponents and decimating their hand. Beck // Call is another aftermath card that triggers upon creatures entering the battlefield, but lacks the immediate board impact and disruption capabilities provided by Driven // Despair.

In sum, while there are several aftermath and dual-purpose spells within the world of MTG, Driven // Despair stands out for its aptitude in simultaneously amplifying attack power and undermining the opponent’s hand, offering an aggressive edge that is distinctly its own.

Refuse // Cooperate - MTG Card versions
Breaking // Entering - MTG Card versions
Beck // Call - MTG Card versions
Refuse // Cooperate - Hour of Devastation (HOU)
Breaking // Entering - Dragon's Maze Promos (PDGM)
Beck // Call - Dragon's Maze (DGM)

Cards similar to Driven // Despair by color, type and mana cost

Blex, Vexing Pest // Search for Blex - MTG Card versions
Culling Ritual - MTG Card versions
Vigor Mortis - MTG Card versions
Rolling Spoil - MTG Card versions
Drain the Well - MTG Card versions
Jarad's Orders - MTG Card versions
Hazardous Conditions - MTG Card versions
Undercity Uprising - MTG Card versions
Rise of the Witch-king - MTG Card versions
Blex, Vexing Pest // Search for Blex - Strixhaven: School of Mages Promos (PSTX)
Culling Ritual - Commander Masters (CMM)
Vigor Mortis - GRN Guild Kit (GK1)
Rolling Spoil - Ravnica: City of Guilds (RAV)
Drain the Well - Eventide (EVE)
Jarad's Orders - Return to Ravnica (RTR)
Hazardous Conditions - Kaladesh Remastered (KLR)
Undercity Uprising - Guilds of Ravnica (GRN)
Rise of the Witch-king - The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth (LTR)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Driven // Despair MTG card by a specific set like Hour of Devastation and Hour of Devastation Promos, 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 Driven // Despair and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Driven // Despair Magic the Gathering card was released in 3 different sets between 2017-07-14 and 2020-08-13. Illustrated by Winona Nelson.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12017-07-14Hour of DevastationHOU 1572015aftermathblackWinona Nelson
22017-07-15Hour of Devastation PromosPHOU 157s2015aftermathblackWinona Nelson
32020-08-13Amonkhet RemasteredAKR 2332015aftermathblackWinona Nelson

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Driven // Despair has restrictions

FormatLegality
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
PennyLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Driven // Despair card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.

DateText
2017-04-18 A spell with aftermath cast from a graveyard will always be exiled afterward, whether it resolves, it’s countered, or it leaves the stack in some other way.
2017-04-18 All split cards have two card faces on a single card, and you put a split card onto the stack with only the half you’re casting. The characteristics of the half of the card you didn’t cast are ignored while the spell is on the stack. For example, if an effect prevents you from casting green spells, you can cast Destined of Destined // Lead, but not Lead.
2017-04-18 Each split card has two names. If an effect instructs you to choose a card name, you may choose one, but not both.
2017-04-18 Each split card is a single card. For example, if you discard one, you’ve discarded one card, not two. If an effect counts the number of instant and sorcery cards in your graveyard, Destined // Lead counts once, not twice.
2017-04-18 If another effect allows you to cast a split card with aftermath from a graveyard, you may cast either half. If you cast the half that has aftermath, you’ll exile the card if it would leave the stack.
2017-04-18 If another effect allows you to cast a split card with aftermath from any zone other than a graveyard, you can’t cast the half with aftermath.
2017-04-18 If you cast the first half of a split card with aftermath during your turn, you’ll have priority immediately after it resolves. You can cast the half with aftermath from your graveyard before any player can take any other action if it’s legal for you to do so.
2017-04-18 Split cards with aftermath have a new frame treatment—the half you can cast from your hand is oriented the same as other cards you’d cast from your hand, while the half you can cast from your graveyard is a traditional split card half. This frame treatment is for your convenience and has no rules significance.
2017-04-18 While not on the stack, the characteristics of a split card are the combination of its two halves. For example, Destined // Lead is a green and black card, it is both an instant card and a sorcery card, and its converted mana cost is 6. This means that if an effect allows you to cast a card with converted mana cost 2 from your hand, you can’t cast Destined. This is a change from the previous rules for split cards.
2017-07-14 Driven and Despair each affect only creatures you control at the time it resolves. Creatures you begin to control later in the turn won’t gain the keyword ability or the triggered ability.
2017-07-14 If you resolve multiples of Driven or of Despair in one turn, your creatures have that many instances of the appropriate triggered ability. Each instance triggers separately.
2017-07-14 Multiple instances of trample or menace are redundant.
2017-07-14 Once you’ve started to cast a spell with aftermath from your graveyard, the card is immediately moved to the stack. Opponents can’t try to stop the ability by exiling the card with an effect such as that of Crook of Condemnation.

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