Ice Floe MTG Card
1995-06-03 - Number 355
1997-03-24 - Number 420
2008-09-22 - Number 232
| Card sets | Released in 3 setsSee all |
| Rarity | Uncommon |
| Type | Land |
Key Takeaways
- Ice Floe enhances board control by freezing creatures, effectively disrupting opponent’s attack strategies.
- Its ability to activate at instant speed offers flexibility and surprise tactics during gameplay.
- While it influences the board, it comes with potential drawbacks for mana flexibility and deck design.
Text of card
You may choose not to untap Ice Floe during your untap phase. oc T: Tap target creature without flying that is attacking you. As long as Ice Floe remains tapped, that creature does not untap during its controller's untap phase.
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Ice Floe doesn’t provide classic card advantage through drawing, but it offers strategic board control. By selectively freezing opponent’s creatures, it can prevent attacks and effectively remove a threat without expending additional cards from hand.
Resource Acceleration: While Ice Floe itself does not directly accelerate resources, it aids in resource management. It allows players to keep their creatures untapped for defense or other abilities, thereby optimizing the use of available resources each turn.
Instant Speed: Ice Floe operates at a pseudo-instant speed level. Its ability can be activated any time you could cast an instant, enabling surprise interactions during your opponent’s combat phase and disrupting their strategy without warning. This versatility in timing is key for maintaining the upper hand during matches.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Although Ice Floe doesn’t ask players to discard cards, its requirement of continually tapping a creature can act as a repeated indirect cost, potentially stifling your own board development as creatures remain immobilized.
Specific Mana Cost: Ice Floe’s inclusion in a deck design requires access to blue mana exclusively. This can be a drawback in multicolored decks where the blue mana source might be scarce or needed for more pressing spells and abilities.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a zero mana cost for its activation, Ice Floe might seem economical. However, the land does not generate mana itself, which in comparison to other land cards can be seen as a cost of occupying a land slot without contributing to your mana pool.
Reasons to Include Ice Floe in Your Collection
Versatility: Ice Floe may not be the flashiest card on the block, but its ability to continually tap down creatures with no untap phase in sight makes it a flexible control tool in decks looking to lock down the board.
Combo Potential: Not only does Ice Floe help control your opponent’s creatures, but it also synergizes with cards that benefit from tapping abilities. This generates potential combos and interactions that savvy players can exploit.
Meta-Relevance: In environments where combat-centric creatures dominate, Ice Floe offers a unique form of disruption. This can be particularly potent against decks reliant on key attackers, keeping the most threatening ones permanently on ice.
How to Beat Ice Floe
Ice Floe is a unique land card that carries the potential to disrupt creature-based strategies within the game. Unlike other land cards, it doesn’t provide mana; instead, it focuses on controlling the battlefield. To effectively neutralize this card, players should consider employing strategies that don’t rely heavily on outright attacks from creatures.
One approach is to utilize cards with the “unblockable” or “can’t be blocked” abilities, rendering the freezing effect of Ice Floe irrelevant. Alternatively, using flying creatures can bypass Ice Floe’s influence since it can only tap creatures without flying or islandwalk. Additionally, direct damage spells or abilities that target the opponent or their planeswalkers can circumvent the need to attack with creatures altogether.
It is also worth considering enchantment and artifact removal spells to neutralize Ice Floe. Artifacts like Ratchet Bomb, or enchantments like Detention Sphere, can handle such non-mana producing lands effectively. Therefore, while Ice Floe may pose a cold challenge on the battlefield, with the right strategy and card choices, melting its icy grip on the game is entirely within reach.
Cards like Ice Floe
Ice Floe is a unique land card in Magic: The Gathering, providing players with an ability to tap target creatures without untapping them during their controllers’ untap steps. This control over opponents’ creatures finds parallels in cards like Frost Titan, which also taps a creature and prevents it from untapping on the subsequent turn. The major difference lies in the fact that while Frost Titan is a creature itself, Ice Floe serves as a non-depleting land.
Maze of Ith is another card with a somewhat similar functionality. It allows players to untap target attacking creature and prevent its damage, comparable to Ice Floe’s freezing ability but specific to combat situations. However, Ice Floe has the advantage of affecting creatures regardless of their combat status, providing more versatile control options.
Comparatively, when judging the utility and game impact of land cards with icy effects in Magic: The Gathering, Ice Floe offers a distinctive approach to creature control that sets it apart from other similar effects. Its ongoing suppression without a mana cost makes it a valuable inclusion for control strategies looking to keep problematic creatures at bay indefinitely.
Cards similar to Ice Floe by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Ice Floe MTG card by a specific set like Ice Age and Fifth Edition, 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 Ice Floe and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- 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
Printings
The Ice Floe Magic the Gathering card was released in 3 different sets between 1995-06-03 and 2008-09-22. Illustrated by 2 different artists.
| # | Released | Name | Code | Symbol | Number | Frame | Layout | Border | Artist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1995-06-03 | Ice Age | ICE | 355 | 1993 | Normal | Black | Jeff A. Menges | |
| 2 | 1997-03-24 | Fifth Edition | 5ED | 420 | 1997 | Normal | White | John Avon | |
| 3 | 2008-09-22 | Masters Edition II | ME2 | 232 | 1997 | Normal | Black | Jeff A. Menges |
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Ice Floe has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Commander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Premodern | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Predh | Legal |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Ice Floe card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2008-10-01 | Ice Floe doesn’t track the creature’s controller. If the affected creature changes controllers, Ice Floe will prevent it from being untapped during its new controller’s untap step. |
| 2008-10-01 | If Ice Floe untaps or leaves the battlefield, its effect will end. This has no immediate visible affect on the creature. (It doesn’t untap immediately, for example.) The creature will just untap as normal during its controller’s next untap step. |
| 2008-10-01 | If the ability resolves, then the creature gains flying later, Ice Floe’s effect will not end. (The ability checks whether the creature has flying only at the time you activate it and the time it resolves.) |
| 2008-10-01 | If the affected creature is untapped by some other spell or ability, Ice Floe’s effect will not end. If you keep Ice Floe tapped, and that creature becomes tapped again, Ice Floe will continue to prevent it from being untapped during its controller’s untap step. |
| 2008-10-01 | The targeted creature is not removed from combat. Its attack will continue as normal. |
| 2008-10-01 | You may target a tapped creature with Ice Floe’s activated ability. |
