Forced Retreat MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Forced Retreat lets you temporarily get rid of an opponent’s creature and puts you in a favorable position. When you play it, the ability to send a target creature back to its owner’s hand means you are effectively dealing with threats without losing any cards yourself.

Resource Acceleration: While it doesn’t directly produce additional resources, the Forced Retreat card enables you to delay your opponent’s strategy. By setting back their board presence, it gives you time to develop your own resources and can indirectly accelerate your game plan.

Instant Speed: One of the key advantages of Forced Retreat is its instant speed capability, allowing for strategic flexibility. You can wait until the last possible moment before your opponent’s creature would impact the board, potentially nullifying a heavy attack or negating a pivotal combo piece at a critical juncture.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Players need to discard a card to utilize Forced Retreat’s effect. This stipulation can present a challenge when a player’s hand is running low, turning a potential game-changer into a potential liability.

Specific Mana Cost: Requiring both blue and white mana, Forced Retreat demands a multicolored mana base, which can complicate its inclusion in monocolored or color-restricted decks, potentially reducing its versatility in a player’s strategy.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost that might be considered steep for its effect, Forced Retreat faces stiff competition from other cards that can provide similar or better benefits for a lower mana investment. Players often seek efficiency in their card choices, and Forced Retreat might not always make the cut.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Forced Retreat slots into a wide array of control decks that prioritize tempo and board management. Its capability to send a creature back to its owner’s library ensures adaptability against various threats, making it a handy tool in many game situations.

Combo Potential: This card works well with strategies that capitalize on manipulating the opponent’s deck composition or that benefit from knowledge of the opponent’s top card. By knowing what the opponent will draw, you can plan your moves with enhanced precision.

Meta-Relevance: In an environment dense with creature-based strategies, Forced Retreat can be especially impactful. It disrupts synergistic creature combos and time-sensitive aggro decks, ensuring that you can maintain control and tempo across multiple turns.

How to Beat

Forced Retreat is a compelling control card in MTG that can shift the dynamics on the battlefield. Understanding its potential to set an opponent’s creature back to their hand provides players with a strategic tool to disrupt an adversary’s plan. To overcome this card, having a robust game plan that anticipates and adjusts to such setback tactics is crucial.

Protecting your own creatures from Forced Retreat can involve having low-cost creatures to recast after a bounce, or utilizing cards with enter the battlefield effects that provide value even when returned to your hand. Additionally, spells that grant hexproof or countermagic can thwart Forced Retreat’s effect, safeguarding your crucial creatures from being bounced. Finally, a well-timed aggressive strategy can pressure opponents into using their mana inefficiently, potentially leaving them without the resources to cast Forced Retreat effectively. Recognizing these strategies will equip any player to stay one step ahead, ensuring Forced Retreat doesn’t hamper their march to victory.