Wild Defiance MTG Card
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 3 |
| Rarity | Rare |
| Type | Enchantment |
| Released | 2012-05-04 |
| Set symbol | |
| Set name | Avacyn Restored |
| Set code | AVR |
| Number | 203 |
| Frame | 2003 |
| Layout | Normal |
| Border | Black |
| Illustred by | Slawomir Maniak |
Key Takeaways
- Increases potency of creatures significantly with each spell cast targeting them.
- Improves deck efficiency by turning single spells into powerful buffs.
- Can be challenged by non-targeted removals or enchantment disruption.
Text of card
Whenever a creature you control becomes the target of an instant or sorcery spell, that creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
"When civilization reaches out its greedy hand, take it off at the wrist." —Garruk Wildspeaker
Card Pros
Card Advantage: By empowering creatures in response to spells, Wild Defiance can potentially create card advantage. Instead of playing multiple buffs, a single spell can be sufficient, preserving cards in hand for other strategic plays.
Resource Acceleration: Although Wild Defiance itself doesn’t produce additional mana or tokens, it’s an engine that accelerates the potency of your creatures. This translates to a more efficient use of your resources, as even low-cost spells can lead to significant power and toughness increases.
Instant Speed: One significant advantage is its synergy with instant spells. Casting an instant targeting a creature you control not only disrupts an opponent’s turn but can also unexpectedly bolster your creature’s strength, often leading to advantageous trades or game-changing combat results.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Wild Defiance doesn’t directly cause discarding, but in a hand size pressured game, managing resources to accommodate its specific cost can mimic a discard-like effect as you may need to forego playing other cards.
Specific Mana Cost: Requiring one green and two generic mana means that Wild Defiance can be challenging to cast on curve in multicolored or mana-hungry decks, potentially causing delays in your game plan.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: While the pump effect can be significant, with a mana value of three, there can be instances where Wild Defiance feels too costly compared to other options that may provide more immediate board impact or versatility.
Reasons to Include in Your Collection
Versatility: Wild Defiance offers a flexible enhancement to creature-focused decks. It can turn any small buff into a significant power boost, benefiting casual play through to more strategic deck builds.
Combo Potential: This enchantment thrives in synergy-heavy decks; it shines when paired with spells that target multiple creatures, or with those that trigger upon casting a spell, accelerating the growth of your creatures exponentially.
Meta-Relevance: Given a meta that rewards proactive creature play, Wild Defiance can make your creatures more resilient against damage-based removal, while substantially increasing their threat level on each spell cast.
How to beat Wild Defiance
Wild Defiance is an intriguing enchantment in Magic: The Gathering that can significantly bolster the potency of creatures when they become targets of spells. This card can single-handedly turn the tides of a match, offering a substantial power and toughness boost to creatures each time they are targeted. To effectively counter the benefits Wild Defiance provides, understanding the mechanics around it is key.
One of the foremost strategies against Wild Defiance involves avoiding the targeting of opponent’s creatures with beneficial spells. Direct removal spells that don’t target, such as board wipes like Supreme Verdict or wrath effects, bypass Wild Defiance’s trigger altogether. Furthermore, utilizing effects that force the opponent to sacrifice creatures can be particularly effective, as seen with spells like Diabolic Edict. This strategy ensures that the power of the opponent’s creatures is not inadvertently increased while still managing to mitigate their board presence. Lastly, enchantment removal such as Disenchant becomes crucial, allowing you to directly answer Wild Defiance and resume normal play without the fear of overpowered creatures.
Implementing these tactics can nullify the advantage that Wild Defiance brings to the battlefield. With the right cards and strategy, overcoming this powerful enchantment becomes a manageable and even trivial task, restoring parity to the game.
Cards like Wild Defiance
Wild Defiance sits in a niche spot in Magic: The Gathering, bolstering the effectiveness of creature-targeting spells. Comparable to cards like Blossoming Defense, which provides a swift boost and hexproof, Wild Defiance offers a consistent, albeit different, approach by automatically granting a larger buff any time a creature you control becomes the target of a spell you cast. Unlike the instant gratification from a single use spell, this enchantment has the potential to generate value over several turns.
Analogous to Hardened Scales, another MTG favorite, which adds additional +1/+1 counters when they would be placed on a creature you control, Wild Defiance also amplifies the power of your creatures but in a more spell-centric manner. While Hardened Scales is passive and synergizes well with counter strategies, Wild Defiance triggers actively with your spell casting, making it a formidable piece in spell-heavy decks. Rancor, famed for its ability to grant trample and a power boost with recurrence, plays a similar role by augmenting creatures but doesn’t offer the same explosive potential for each targeted instance.
In essence, while several cards share the theme of empowering your creatures, Wild Defiance’s unique capability to repeatedly and significantly increase their power makes it an intriguing asset for players who focus on spell-based creature strategies in Magic: The Gathering.
Cards similar to Wild Defiance by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Wild Defiance MTG card by a specific set like Avacyn Restored, 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 Wild Defiance 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 Wild Defiance has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Commander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Penny | Legal |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Wild Defiance card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2012-05-01 | If an instant or sorcery spell targets the same creature you control more than once, Wild Defiance will trigger only once. |
| 2012-05-01 | Wild Defiance’s ability will resolve before that instant or sorcery spell. |
