Shivan Reef MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 16 setsSee all
RarityRare
TypeLand

Key Takeaways

  1. Shivan Reef aids in playing multiple spells per turn, indirectly boosting card advantage.
  2. Flexible mana on demand makes it vital for speed-focused and reactive strategies.
  3. It is advantageous despite the life-cost, crucial for certain aggressive and control decks.

Text of card

oc T: Add one colorless mana to your mana pool. oc T: Add o U or o R to your mana pool. Shivan Reef deals 1 damage to you.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Shivan Reef might not draw cards directly, but it provides consistent mana access to cast those crucial spells that will keep your hand full. It supports strategies that hinge on playing multiple spells a turn, indirectly contributing to card advantage.

Resource Acceleration: This land is an asset for any deck that values speed and efficiency. By offering both blue and red mana on demand, it allows for a faster implementation of your game plan, giving an edge in races against other aggressive decks or when trying to outpace control archetypes.

Instant Speed: While the land itself isn’t an instant, it guarantees that you can respond at instant speed by providing the necessary mana without entering the battlefield tapped. This is essential for decks that need to keep mana open for counterspells, instant removal, or end-of-turn effects to maintain tempo and control over the game’s flow.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Shivan Reef provides flexible mana, it doesn’t require a discard, but it does ask for a painful choice — each use potentially costs you life. This can be a critical disadvantage during tight matches where every life point matters.

Specific Mana Cost: Shivan Reef taps for colorless mana with no strings attached, yet to generate blue or red mana, it inflicts damage to you. This specificity may be restrictive for decks not seeking this particular color pair or when trying to manage life totals carefully.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: In a game where efficiency is key, the absence of a mana cost to play Shivan Reef is offset by the life points you may pay over time. When compared to other land options that offer painless mana, the cumulative cost might outweigh the benefits for a cautious or life-total conscious strategy.


Reasons to Include Shivan Reef in Your Collection

Versatility: Shivan Reef is an adaptable land card that can tap for colorless mana or provide either blue or red mana, with a slight downside. This flexibility makes it a strong asset in two-color decks and beyond, as it ensures you’re able to cast your spells efficiently.

Combo Potential: This card is a boon for players looking to execute multicolored combos. The ability to produce both blue and red mana on demand can be crucial in casting game-winning combinations at the perfect moment.

Meta-Relevance: With the ever-changing landscape of competitive play, having a land that can adapt to various mana requirements is critical. Shivan Reef maintains its relevance due to the consistent demand for efficient multicolored mana bases in various formats.


How to beat

Shivan Reef is a standout land card from the world of Magic: The Gathering, presenting a dual mana resource for deck-builders. Like the adaptable lands of its cycle, it offers the ability to tap for colorless mana or choose between two colors at the cost of one life. This versatility in mana generation is a significant advantage, accelerating the pace and expanding the reach of multicolored decks.

Overcoming the benefits of Shivan Reef requires a strategic approach. Targeted land destruction can disrupt a player’s mana base and set back their strategy, particularly if they rely heavily on the dual-color capabilities of Shivan Reef. Cards like Ghost Quarter and Field of Ruin allow a player to remove this threat from the board while advancing their own land count. Alternatively, applying pressure with aggressive creature plays can capitalize on the life point loss incurred by the opponent when utilizing Shivan Reef’s dual mana ability, turning its strength into a potential liability under sustained attack.

Understanding the nuances of your opponent’s mana base and recognizing the right moment to strike can transform cards like Shivan Reef from a resourceful asset into a precarious choice. With the right balance of threat management and resource control, players can find ways to counteract the influence of this powerful land card in their matches.


Cards like Shivan Reef

Shivan Reef has been a staple in decks requiring both blue and red mana in Magic: The Gathering. It mirrors the efficiency of cards like Yavimaya Coast and Battlefield Forge, which provide similar versatility for other color combinations. Shivan Reef, however, has the distinction of serving the traditionally aggressive and spell-focused blue-red archetype, allowing smooth casting of multicolored spells without entering the battlefield tapped.

Adarkar Wastes also belongs to this cycle of pain lands that offer two types of mana at the cost of life, pivotal for certain deck strategies where speed outpaces the need for life conservation. However, Shivan Reef is specifically tailored for the dynamic nature of blue-red decks, granting instant access to both colors, crucial for responding to opponents’ moves on the fly. Cavern of Souls is another land offering mana fixing but it leans towards aiding tribal decks and countering control strategies by making creatures uncounterable, a fundamentally different utility compared to Shivan Reef’s straightforward mana access.

Delineating the advantages of Shivan Reef within the realm of dual lands, its immediate mana availability without a tap-down penalty, is essential for tempo and combo decks, underlining its value in MTG’s manifold card interactions and deck designs.

Yavimaya Coast - MTG Card versions
Battlefield Forge - MTG Card versions
Adarkar Wastes - MTG Card versions
Cavern of Souls - MTG Card versions
Yavimaya Coast - Apocalypse (APC)
Battlefield Forge - Apocalypse (APC)
Adarkar Wastes - Ice Age (ICE)
Cavern of Souls - Avacyn Restored (AVR)

Cards similar to Shivan Reef by color, type and mana cost

Volcanic Island - MTG Card versions
Stormcarved Coast - MTG Card versions
Izzet Boilerworks - MTG Card versions
Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway - MTG Card versions
Training Center - MTG Card versions
Steam Vents - MTG Card versions
Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind - MTG Card versions
Sulfur Falls - MTG Card versions
Desolate Lighthouse - MTG Card versions
Izzet Guildgate - MTG Card versions
Temple of Epiphany - MTG Card versions
Wandering Fumarole - MTG Card versions
Highland Lake - MTG Card versions
Swiftwater Cliffs - MTG Card versions
Spirebluff Canal - MTG Card versions
Cascade Bluffs - MTG Card versions
Surtland Frostpyre - MTG Card versions
Volatile Fjord - MTG Card versions
Frostboil Snarl - MTG Card versions
Prismari Campus - MTG Card versions
Volcanic Island - 30th Anniversary Edition (30A)
Stormcarved Coast - Doctor Who (WHO)
Izzet Boilerworks - The Brothers' War Commander (BRC)
Riverglide Pathway // Lavaglide Pathway - Zendikar Rising (ZNR)
Training Center - Commander Masters (CMM)
Steam Vents - Ravnica Remastered (RVR)
Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind - Duel Decks: Izzet vs. Golgari (DDJ)
Sulfur Falls - Fallout (PIP)
Desolate Lighthouse - Doctor Who (WHO)
Izzet Guildgate - Ravnica Remastered (RVR)
Temple of Epiphany - Fallout (PIP)
Wandering Fumarole - The List (PLST)
Highland Lake - Shadows over Innistrad Remastered (SIR)
Swiftwater Cliffs - March of the Machine (MOM)
Spirebluff Canal - Kaladesh Remastered (KLR)
Cascade Bluffs - Commander Masters (CMM)
Surtland Frostpyre - Kaldheim (KHM)
Volatile Fjord - Kaldheim (KHM)
Frostboil Snarl - The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander (LCC)
Prismari Campus - Strixhaven: School of Mages (STX)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Shivan Reef MTG card by a specific set like Apocalypse and World Championship Decks 2001, 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 Shivan Reef and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Shivan Reef Magic the Gathering card was released in 13 different sets between 2001-06-04 and 2022-09-09. Illustrated by 3 different artists.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12001-06-04ApocalypseAPC 1421997normalblackRob Alexander
22001-08-08World Championship Decks 2001WC01 ar1421997normalgoldRob Alexander
32002-06-24Magic Online PromosPRM 1034842015normalblackDonato Giancola
42002-08-14World Championship Decks 2002WC02 shh1421997normalgoldRob Alexander
52005-07-29Ninth Edition9ED 324★2003normalblackRob Alexander
62005-07-29Ninth Edition9ED 3242003normalwhiteRob Alexander
72007-07-13Tenth Edition10E 3572003normalblackRob Alexander
82014-07-18Magic 2015M15 2462015normalblackRob Alexander
92015-07-17Magic OriginsORI 2512015normalblackRob Alexander
102020-04-17Commander 2020C20 3102015normalblackRob Alexander
112020-09-26The ListPLST C21-3162015normalblackRob Alexander
122021-04-23Commander 2021C21 3162015normalblackRob Alexander
132022-09-09Dominaria United PromosPDMU 255s2015normalblackAndrew Mar
142022-09-09Dominaria United PromosPDMU 255p2015normalblackAndrew Mar
152022-09-09Dominaria UnitedDMU 3802015normalborderlessDonato Giancola
162022-09-09Dominaria UnitedDMU 2552015normalblackAndrew Mar

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Shivan Reef has restrictions

FormatLegality
StandardLegal
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
AlchemyLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
PremodernLegal
FutureLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
PredhLegal
BrawlLegal
PennyLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

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

DateText
2015-06-22 Like most lands, each land in this cycle is colorless. The damage dealt to you is dealt by a colorless source.
2015-06-22 The damage dealt to you is part of the second mana ability. It doesn't use the stack and can't be responded to.

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