Moonlight Bargain MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 2 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost5
RarityRare
TypeInstant

Key Takeaways

  1. Provides control over hand quality by selecting cards from the top five revealed.
  2. Accelerates strategy with cost-effective, instant-speed card access.
  3. Demands careful life and graveyard management, balancing risk and reward.

Text of card

Look at the top five cards of your library. For each card, put that card into your graveyard unless you pay 2 life. Then put the rest into your hand.

At every fifth full moon, the Moon Market convenes to peddle Ravnica's most forbidden wares.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Moonlight Bargain presents players with a powerful option to control their deck’s flow and sustain card advantage. It enables a look at the top five cards of your library, granting the possibility to add any of them to your hand. This selective process ensures that you’re not merely drawing cards but actively improving the quality of cards in hand.

Resource Acceleration: Although Moonlight Bargain doesn’t directly generate mana or treasure tokens, it accelerates your resources by offering direct access to key cards that can change the tide of the game. By paying life, you expedite your strategy without the need for additional mana expenditure, enabling a more efficient use of your resources on subsequent turns.

Instant Speed: The instant speed nature of Moonlight Bargain is a strategic advantage, affording players the flexibility to wait until the most opportune moment during the end phase of an opponent’s turn to utilize their mana reserves. This strategic depth allows players to keep options open and respond to opponents’ moves while still setting up for a stronger position on their own turn.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Engaging in the nocturnal exchange that Moonlight Bargain offers, you’ll encounter the predicament of deciding which drawn treasures to keep and which to relegate to the abyss of your graveyard. This selective discard can be inconvenient if each card in hand is crucial to your gameplay strategy.

Specific Mana Cost: Moonlight Bargain’s casting components demand a precise blend of magical energy; black specifically. This requirement might restrict its integration into the manifold assortments of multicolored decks, potentially inhibiting its universal application across a range of strategies.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Investing five mana to initiate the choice-driven draw mechanic of Moonlight Bargain can be a steep price. Savvy spellcasters note that the gaming landscape is rife with alternative options for card advantage that command lower mana investments, potentially accelerating one’s game plan more effectively.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Moonlight Bargain offers a unique blend of card selection and life management that can be a boon for any black-inclusive deck. It allows you to dig deep into your deck and choose the exact tools you need for any given situation.

Combo Potential: This card shines in combos, especially in decks that revolve around life totals or graveyard strategies. It can help set up or recover vital pieces, turning the tide of a game by leveraging the cards and life points as resources.

Meta-Relevance: In the ever-evolving MTG landscape, Moonlight Bargain remains relevant as it can disrupt opposing plays by providing unexpected answers. Especially in formats where longer, more strategic games are common, its potential to provide card advantage can be a game-changer.


How to beat

Moonlight Bargain stands as a potent card in Magic: The Gathering, delivering a unique twist to card advantage. Players can look at the top five cards of their deck and for each card, decide whether to pay 2 life to put it into their hand or discard it. This presents a significant tactical advantage, offering the ability to filter through cards and tailor one’s hand to the game’s current state. However, each advantage in MTG comes with a counter-strategy.

Targeted discard effects, such as Thoughtseize or Duress, disrupt the advantageous selection Moonlight Bargain could offer by plucking key cards out of an opponent’s hand before they can be used. Counterspells like Negate or Dovin’s Veto effectively negate Moonlight Bargain’s impact on the game by preventing its resolution altogether, preserving the balance. Furthermore, graveyard-focused decks can also turn the discarded cards into a resource, thus dulling the card’s disadvantageous effect of having to discard cards in the first place.

While Moonlight Bargain appears as a solid choice for card filtration, understanding and deploying these strategies can ensure that its potential doesn’t eclipse your path to victory in a game of Magic: The Gathering.


BurnMana Recommendations

Unlocking the full potential of Moonlight Bargain in MTG is like a dance in the moon’s shadow – strategic and subtly powerful. This card offers a tailor-made experience for deck filtration and allows for pivotal decisions to shape your victory. The key to leveraging Moonlight Bargain lies in its ability to balance card advantage with life management. Whether you’re fine-tuning a black-inclusive deck or seeking to strengthen your late-game through resource acceleration, letting Moonlight Bargain guide your maneuvers can be game-changing. We welcome you to further explore the strategic depths of this card and many more within the rich universe of MTG, where each play can lead to undiscovered triumphs. Embark on this journey with us and refine your deck to make Moonlight Bargain a cornerstone of your arsenal.


Cards like Moonlight Bargain

Moonlight Bargain holds a unique spot in the pantheon of instant-speed draw spells in Magic: The Gathering. The card is akin to Fact or Fiction, which also allows players to reveal cards and choose from among them. Yet Moonlight Bargain presents the choice with a cost. Instead of simply dividing the cards into two piles, players can pay life to keep the ones they want. This can be a double-edged sword; it offers flexibility at the expense of precious life points.

Comparatively, there’s Painful Truths, which also provides a draw mechanism but with a straight life payment for three cards. It’s simpler, more straightforward, and has a fixed cost. Contrastingly, Sign in Blood allows a two-card draw at the cost of two life regardless of the card quality, while Greed offers a repeatable single-card draw but at a much slower pace and higher overall life cost if used multiple times.

Considering the details, Moonlight Bargain navigates a middle path, providing card selection and instant speed, which can keep a player’s options open and influence the board state at critical moments. It embodies the delicate balance between cost, timing, and card advantage that MTG strategy thrives on.

Fact or Fiction - MTG Card versions
Painful Truths - MTG Card versions
Sign in Blood - MTG Card versions
Greed - MTG Card versions
Fact or Fiction - Invasion (INV)
Painful Truths - Battle for Zendikar Promos (PBFZ)
Sign in Blood - Magic 2010 (M10)
Greed - Legends (LEG)

Cards similar to Moonlight Bargain by color, type and mana cost

Broken Visage - MTG Card versions
Contagion - MTG Card versions
Necrologia - MTG Card versions
Hatred - MTG Card versions
Dark Triumph - MTG Card versions
Annihilate - MTG Card versions
Waste Away - MTG Card versions
Consume the Meek - MTG Card versions
Stinging Study - MTG Card versions
Szat's Will - MTG Card versions
Cruel Revival - MTG Card versions
Call for Blood - MTG Card versions
Death of a Thousand Stings - MTG Card versions
Traitor's Clutch - MTG Card versions
Treacherous Urge - MTG Card versions
Ad Nauseam - MTG Card versions
Lash of the Whip - MTG Card versions
Rescue from the Underworld - MTG Card versions
Flesh to Dust - MTG Card versions
Unmake the Graves - MTG Card versions
Broken Visage - Masters Edition II (ME2)
Contagion - Masters Edition (ME1)
Necrologia - Tempest Remastered (TPR)
Hatred - World Championship Decks 1999 (WC99)
Dark Triumph - Nemesis (NEM)
Annihilate - The List (PLST)
Waste Away - Torment (TOR)
Consume the Meek - Duel Decks: Zendikar vs. Eldrazi (DDP)
Stinging Study - Commander 2021 (C21)
Szat's Will - Commander Legends (CMR)
Cruel Revival - Starter Commander Decks (SCD)
Call for Blood - Salvat 2005 (PSAL)
Death of a Thousand Stings - Saviors of Kamigawa (SOK)
Traitor's Clutch - Time Spiral (TSP)
Treacherous Urge - Planar Chaos (PLC)
Ad Nauseam - Double Masters (2XM)
Lash of the Whip - Theros (THS)
Rescue from the Underworld - The List (PLST)
Flesh to Dust - The List (PLST)
Unmake the Graves - Magic 2015 (M15)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Moonlight Bargain MTG card by a specific set like Ravnica: City of Guilds and Commander 2018, 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 Moonlight Bargain and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Moonlight Bargain Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2005-10-07 and 2018-08-09. Illustrated by Nick Percival.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12005-10-07Ravnica: City of GuildsRAV 952003normalblackNick Percival
22018-08-09Commander 2018C18 1142015normalblackNick Percival

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Moonlight Bargain has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
PennyLegal

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