Cruel Entertainment MTG Card

Enables major strategic moves by controlling an opponent’s turn, leading to potential card advantage. Demands high mana cost with specific color requirements, which could limit its playability. Presence in your collection allows for versatile and unexpected plays in multiplayer games.

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	7
Rarity	Rare
Type	Sorcery
Released	2016-11-11
Set symbol
Set name	Commander 2016
Set code	C16
Number	11
Frame	2015
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	David Palumbo

Text of card

Choose target player and another target player. The first player controls the second player during the second player's next turn, and the second player controls the first player during the first player's next turn.

Cards like Cruel Entertainment

Cruel Entertainment takes players on a unique journey through the complex strategic landscape of Magic: The Gathering. This seven-mana sorcery lets a player take control of another player’s turn while that player controls yet another player’s turn, creating a chaotic and fun twist. Its dynamics are not commonly found on other cards, setting it apart from the staple effects seen across most MTG cards.

When it comes to peer effects, Worst Fears stands out with its similar ability to hijack a player’s turn, but without the reciprocal control twist. Mindslaver, an iconic artifact, also enables turn control, yet it requires a substantial mana investment and sacrifices itself. These comparisons reveal how Cruel Entertainment adds a deeply interactive layer compared to these other cards, emphasizing psychological play and surprise.

Assessing Cruel Entertainment alongside its contemporaries, while considering mana cost and game impact, it clearly garners attention in the realm of control and manipulation cards in Magic: The Gathering. Its unique multiplayer control scheme ensures that every game featuring this card is an unpredictable and memorable event.

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Card Pros

Card Advantage: Cruel Entertainment is a potent tool that manipulates both your and an opponent’s subsequent turns. This can lead to significant card advantage as you gain insights into their strategy while planning your own moves with enhanced information.

Resource Acceleration: Whilst this card does not directly accelerate resources, the strategic advantage gained can be a catalyst for subsequent plays that put you ahead. Gaining control of an opponent’s turn can disrupt their resource management and advance your board state.

Instant Speed: Although Cruel Entertainment is a sorcery, its impact at altering the course of the game is immediate. The ability to orchestrate an opponent’s turn can lead to instant responses to their threats or mismanage their resources, akin to the benefits of instant speed actions.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: In the gameplay of Magic the Gathering, the card, Cruel Entertainment, does not force a discard, but it does have a player control aspect that requires strategic forethought, akin to the consideration needed when discarding cards. Misstep in choices can be as detrimental as losing valuable resources.

Specific Mana Cost: Cruel Entertainment features a robust mana cost that includes both black and red, demanding precise mana base within decks. This specific requirement confines the card’s inclusion to decks that can produce or efficiently adapt to these mana colors.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Demanding seven mana, Cruel Entertainment comes with a heavy price. There are scenarios in the fast-paced Modern or Standard formats where such a cost is prohibitive, especially considering that other spells at lower mana levels can disrupt opponents effectively, sometimes even swaying the game before Cruel Entertainment can be cast.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Cruel Entertainment offers a unique flexibility for a variety of Commander deck strategies. By forcing a political play or disrupting an opponent’s game plan, it can adapt to be both defensive and offensive depending on the situation at hand.

Combo Potential: This card shines in combinations that involve controlling opponents’ turns or decisions. It can be paired with other cards that manipulate or benefit from opponents making moves against their own interest, effectively multiplying the impact of those strategies.

Meta-Relevance: In a meta where long games and complex board states are common, Cruel Entertainment can become a game-changer. It directly interferes with an opponent’s carefully laid plans, and in multiplayer settings, it’s even more disruptive, striking a powerful psychological blow to your opponents’ strategies.

How to beat

Cruel Entertainment is one of those unique Magic: The Gathering cards that can turn the tides of a game by hijacking opponents’ turns. This seven-mana sorcery from the Commander set allows you to manipulate two opponents into a bizarre dance, making them play each other’s turns. To outmaneuver this card, proactive countermeasures are paramount. Denying the caster the mana to play it by using land destruction or mana-dampening effects can nip the problem in the bud.

Of course, control players might rely on counterspells to prevent Cruel Entertainment from ever resolving. But there’s more than just saying “no.” You can also use cards like Gaea’s Blessing or Elixir of Immortality to shuffle your graveyard back into your library, ensuring you have a healthy mix of cards and less of a chance of being forced to play damaging spells against yourself. Moreover, having instant-speed removal or hand disruption can be crucial; it enables you to remove threatening targets or disrupt your adversary, making their control over your deck less impactful.

In essence, beating Cruel Entertainment requires a fine balance of foresight, timing, and a robust defensive strategy, ensuring that when this card hits the table, its effect is more entertaining than cruel for you.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Cruel Entertainment MTG card by a specific set like Commander 2016, 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 Cruel Entertainment and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Cruel Entertainment has restrictions

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

Rules and information

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

Date	Text
2016-11-08	Controlling a player doesn’t allow the controlling player to look at the controlled player’s sideboard. If an effect instructs that player to choose a card from outside the game, the controlling player can’t have that player choose a card.
2016-11-08	Cruel Entertainment’s controller may be one of its targets, even if it’s less entertaining this way.
2016-11-08	If a player who would be controlled skips their next turn, the other player will control the next turn the affected player actually takes.
2016-11-08	If one player loses the game before controlling the other player, the other player takes their turn normally.
2016-11-08	Multiple player-controlling effects that affect the same player overwrite each other. The last one to be created is the one that works.
2016-11-08	The controlling player also can’t make any choices or decisions for the player being controlled that would be called for by the tournament rules (such as whether to take an intentional draw or whether to call a judge).
2016-11-08	The controlling player can use only the resources of the player being controlled (cards, mana, and so on) to pay costs for that player; the controlling player can’t use their own resources to pay costs for the player being controlled. Similarly, the controlling player can’t spend the resources of the player being controlled on any of the controlling player’s own costs.
2016-11-08	The controlling player can’t make any illegal decisions or illegal choices—that player can’t do anything that the player being controlled couldn’t do. The controlling player can’t make choices or decisions for that player that aren’t called for by the game rules or by any cards, permanents, spells, abilities, and so on. If an effect causes another player to make decisions that the player being controlled would normally make (as Master Warcraft does), that effect takes precedence. In other words, if the player being controlled wouldn’t make a decision, the controlling player can’t make that decision on their behalf.
2016-11-08	The controlling player can’t make the player being controlled concede. A player may choose to concede at any time, even while under another player’s control.
2016-11-08	The controlling player only controls the player. The controlling player doesn’t control any of that player’s permanents, spells, or abilities.
2016-11-08	The player being controlled is still the active player during their turn.
2016-11-08	While controlling another player, the controlling player also continues to make their own choices and decisions.
2016-11-08	While controlling another player, the controlling player can see all cards in the game that the player being controlled can see. This includes cards in that player’s hand, face-down cards that player controls, and any cards in that player’s library that they may look at.
2016-11-08	While controlling another player, the controlling player makes all choices and decisions that the player being controlled is allowed to make or is told to make during that turn. This includes choices about what spells to cast or what abilities to activate, as well as any decisions called for by a triggered ability or anything else.