Consulate Surveillance MTG Card

Enhances defenses with energy counters, creating a resilient barrier against opponent attacks. Demands energy allocation, possibly exhausting resources if not managed adeptly within a deck. Complements energy-themed decks, creating synergy and potential for powerful combos.

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	4
Rarity	Uncommon
Type	Enchantment
Released	2016-09-30
Set symbol
Set name	Kaladesh
Set code	KLD
Number	10
Frame	2015
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Daniel Ljunggren

Text of card

When Consulate Surveillance enters the battlefield, you get (four energy counters). Pay : Prevent all damage that would be dealt to you this turn by a source of your choice.

Cards like Consulate Surveillance

Consulate Surveillance is a unique defensive enchantment in the MTG universe. It shares similarities with cards like Propaganda or Ghostly Prison, which also tax opponents for attacking, creating a fortress-like state. However, Consulate Surveillance edges out with its energy-focused mechanic, allowing you to pay energy instead of mana to prevent damage. This creates a flexible shield that can be adjusted as the game evolves.

Compared to cards like Sphere of Safety, which increases its defense based on the number of enchantments you control, Consulate Surveillance offers a more straightforward and consistent protection. Moreover, the ability to choose what damage to prevent gives players targeted control over the game’s outcome, unlike the blanket approach of the aforementioned parallels.

In the realm of protective spells, Consulate Surveillance stands out for its energy-centric ecosystem, offering MTG strategists a versatile tool to adapt to various threats. When pitted against others in its category, it shines with a blend of autonomy and resourceful damage mitigation.

Cards similar to Consulate Surveillance by color, type and mana cost

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Card Pros

Card Advantage: Consulate Surveillance rewards players with enhanced defense mechanisms. As you activate its energy counters, you create a buffer against incoming threats, ensuring that you maintain a solid defensive stance without sacrificing card resources.

Resource Acceleration: With this enchantment on the field, the need to hold mana back for potential threats is reduced. This can accelerate your resource allocation, allowing you to commit more confidently to casting more significant and impactful spells sooner.

Instant Speed: Although not an instant itself, Consulate Surveillance interacts favorably with instant-speed interactions. It lets you strategically choose when to prevent damage, effectively blunting your opponent’s surprise assaults and protecting key permanents when it matters most.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Consulate Surveillance demands resource allocation for its energy counters. Each counter requires the player to discard, which can deplete a hand quickly, especially in decks that aren’t built to capitalize on discarding.

Specific Mana Cost: The casting cost for Consulate Surveillance includes two white mana. This means that it fits best in white or two-color decks, potentially limiting its inclusion in more diverse or color-intensive builds.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Costing four mana to put into play, Consulate Surveillance may come out too slow against more aggressive decks that seek to win before its defensive utility becomes relevant. Other cards may offer more immediate board impact or protection at a lower cost.

Reasons to Include Consulate Surveillance in Your Collection

Versatility: Consulate Surveillance offers flexibility in deck building, fitting well into control strategies that focus on delaying the game and protecting life totals. Its ability to prevent damage using energy counters makes it a strong addition to decks exploiting the energy mechanic.

Combo Potential: This card pairs well with other energy-generating cards, creating opportunities for synergy within the deck. It can potentially be part of infinite combos in an energy-focused deck, making it an intriguing choice for players looking to explore novel strategies.

Meta-Relevance: In metas where aggressive strategies prevail, Consulate Surveillance can serve as a valuable tool to thwart opponents’ plans and provide the breathing room necessary for a deck to execute its long-term winning strategy.

How to beat

Consulate Surveillance presents a unique defensive challenge in MTG, providing an energy reserve that can negate damage from multiple sources. Unlike other protective spells that offer one-time use, such as Deflecting Palm, Consulate Surveillance’s recurring shield can notably strengthen a player’s defense over several turns. The key to overcoming this card lies in its energy dependency; depleting the opponent’s energy reserve can render Consulate Surveillance ineffective.

Using energy denial tactics, such as employing cards like Live Fast or Die Young, can accelerate energy consumption, or even better, prevent it from accumulating in the first place. Another effective strategy against Consulate Surveillance is to deploy an overwhelming number of threats, thereby exhausting the energy reserve. Directly attacking the player’s energy sources with artifact destruction, such as through shrewd use of Naturalize, is also a reliable method to undermine this defense.

Tactical deployment of instants and sorceries that bypass Consulate Surveillance’s protection can prove advantageous. By forcing the opponent to use their energy to prevent damage, cards that potentiate through repeated instances of damage, like Thermo-Alchemist, can pressure the energy stockpile to a breaking point. Ultimately, understanding and strategically targeting the energy mechanics that power Consulate Surveillance is crucial for a successful encounter.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Consulate Surveillance MTG card by a specific set like Kaladesh, 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 Consulate Surveillance and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Consulate Surveillance has restrictions

Format	Legality
Commander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Duel	Legal
Pioneer	Legal

Rules and information

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

Date	Text
2016-09-20	Consulate Surveillance's second ability doesn't target anything. You choose a source of damage as it resolves.
2016-09-20	If multiple prevention and/or replacement effects are trying to apply to the same damage, the player who would be dealt damage chooses the order in which to apply them.
2016-09-20	If the chosen source would deal damage to you and one or more other players or permanents, only the damage that would be dealt to you is prevented.
2017-02-09	Energy counters are a kind of counter that a player may have. They're not associated with specific permanents. (Other kinds of counters that players may have include poison and experience.)
2017-02-09	Energy counters aren't mana. They don't go away as steps, phases, and turns end, and effects that add mana “of any type” to your mana pool can't give you energy counters.
2017-02-09	If an effect says you get one or more , you get that many energy counters. To pay one or more , you lose that many energy counters. Any effects that interact with counters a player gets, has, or loses can interact with energy counters.
2017-02-09	Keep careful track of how many energy counters each player has. You may do so by keeping a running count on paper, by using a die, or by any other clear and mutually agreeable method.
2017-02-09	You can't pay more energy counters than you have.
2017-02-09	is the energy symbol. It represents one energy counter.