Heartmender MTG Card
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 4 |
| Rarity | Rare |
| Type | Creature — Elemental |
| Abilities | Persist |
| Released | 2008-05-02 |
| Set symbol | |
| Set name | Shadowmoor |
| Set code | SHM |
| Power | 2 |
| Toughness | 2 |
| Number | 228 |
| Frame | 2003 |
| Layout | Normal |
| Border | Black |
| Illustred by | Rebecca Guay |
Text of card
At the beginning of your upkeep, remove a -1/-1 counter from each creature you control. Persist (When this creature is put into a graveyard from play, if it had no -1/-1 counters on it, return it to play under its owner's control with a -1/-1 counter on it.)
Cards like Heartmender
Heartmender is a unique creature card in the vast MTG universe, falling within a specific niche of life-total management cards. Think of it in relation to Ageless Entity, a creature that grows stronger as you gain life, illustrating an alternate benefit from life gain. While Heartmender ensures the stability of your creatures by preventing -1/-1 counters, Ageless Entity converts life gain directly into power, shaping two distinct strategies around health.
Similarly, Sun Droplet stands out as another artifact with a life-focused mechanism. It stores up life points as you take damage, slowly trickling them back to your life total, differing from Heartmender’s proactive defense against counters. Then there’s the green creature Spike Feeder, which allows for immediate life gain and counter manipulation, offering flexibility that Heartmender does not provide.
Ultimately, Heartmender offers a less common service in MTG: pre-emptive protection, as opposed to reactive or accumulating benefits. Its comparison with similar cards reveals it to be a valuable piece in decks that strategize around counter prevention and creature longevity, promoting a playstyle that can lead to enduring board presence.
Cards similar to Heartmender by color, type and mana cost
Decks using this card
MTG decks using Heartmender. Dig deeper into the strategy of decks, sideboard cards, list ideas and export to play in ARENA or MOL.
| # | Name | Format | Archetype | Event |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | All Other Decklists | Modern | BLUE - SAT - 3PM - Chicago Modern Cup |
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Heartmender’s proliferate ability not only bolsters your permanents with +1/+1 counters but also maintains your momentum in the long game, ensuring you stay ahead.
Resource Acceleration: By incrementing counters on permanents that generate or interact with resources, Heartmender can act as an engine for resource acceleration. It’s a sustainable way to build your board presence rapidly.
Instant Speed: Although Heartmender operates at sorcery speed, it interacts favorably with cards that offer instant-speed interactions, allowing for surprise enhancements during your upkeep step before your draw, maximizing the potential growth for your permanents.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: One downside to Heartmender is the need to discard other cards to activate its abilities or synergize effectively. If you’re running low on cards, this can hinder your ability to maintain a strong hand size and diminish your strategic options.
Specific Mana Cost: The mana cost of Heartmender is strictly in the green spectrum. This means that incorporating it into a multi-colored deck requires a reliable mana base to consistently fulfill its casting cost, potentially complicating your deck’s mana curve and consistency.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost that may be considered steep relative to its immediate impact on the game, Heartmender might not be as efficient as other creatures or spells at the same cost bracket, especially in formats where speed and immediate board presence are crucial.
Reasons to Include in Your Collection
Versatility: Heartmender slips effortlessly into decks focusing on +1/+1 counters, serving as both a resilient threat and a means to ensure your creatures’ longevity. Its ability to support a wide array of strategies makes it a valuable asset.
Combo Potential: With Heartmender’s consistent counter accumulation, it becomes a linchpin for combos in counter-centric decks, synergizing with proliferate mechanics or being the fuel for sacrifice-based strategies.
Meta-Relevance: Against decks that seek to wear down your resources, Heartmender’s persistent life gain and counter restoration make it relevant in shifting metagames, providing you with a card that adapts to numerous opponent strategies.
How to beat
Heartmender presents a unique challenge on the battlefield, serving as a resilient piece in life-gain strategies within Magic: The Gathering. Notably, its ability to regenerate and incrementally bolster your life total every upkeep can become a persistent nuisance. To effectively counter Heartmender, one must consider removal effects that circumvent its regenerative capacity or strategies that neutralize its life-gain.
For instance, employing exile effects affords a clean solution, ridding the board of Heartmender permanently, thereby making spells like Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares particularly potent against it. Alternatively, utilizing cards that limit the capabilities of activated abilities, such as Suppression Field, can stymie the card’s effectiveness altogether. Additionally, aggressive tactics that outpace the life-gain or strategies wielding cards that benefit from life loss, like Kavu Predator, can overwhelm the incremental advantage Heartmender provides.
Understanding the rhythm of the match and anticipating the late-game implications of Heartmender’s presence are key to overcoming the card. By incorporating targeted removal, ability disruptors, and a sturdy offense, players can dismantle the endurance-based strategies that Heartmender represents so well.
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Heartmender MTG card by a specific set like Shadowmoor, 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 Heartmender and other MTG cards:
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- eBay
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See MTG Products
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Heartmender has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Commander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Predh | Legal |
| Penny | Legal |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Heartmender card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2013-06-07 | If a creature with persist stops being a creature, persist will still work. |
| 2013-06-07 | If a creature with persist that has +1/+1 counters on it receives enough -1/-1 counters to cause it to be destroyed by lethal damage or put into its owner’s graveyard for having 0 or less toughness, persist won’t trigger and the card won’t return to the battlefield. That’s because persist checks the creature’s existence just before it leaves the battlefield, and it still has all those counters on it at that point. |
| 2013-06-07 | If a permanent has multiple instances of persist, they’ll each trigger separately, but the redundant instances will have no effect. If one instance returns the card to the battlefield, the next to resolve will do nothing. |
| 2013-06-07 | If a token with no -1/-1 counters on it has persist, the ability will trigger when the token is put into the graveyard. However, the token will cease to exist and can’t return to the battlefield. |
| 2013-06-07 | If multiple creatures with persist are put into the graveyard at the same time (due to combat damage or a spell that destroys all creatures, for example), the active player (the player whose turn it is) puts all of their persist triggers on the stack in any order, then each other player in turn order does the same. The last trigger put on the stack is the first one that resolves. That means that in a two-player game, the nonactive player’s persist creatures will return to the battlefield first, then the active player’s persist creatures do the same. The creatures return to the battlefield one at a time. |
| 2013-06-07 | The persist ability triggers when the permanent is put into a graveyard. Its last known information (that is, how the creature last existed on the battlefield) is used to determine whether it had a -1/-1 counter on it. |
| 2013-06-07 | When a permanent with persist returns to the battlefield, it’s a new object with no memory of or connection to its previous existence. |