Deathless Ancient MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	6
Rarity	Uncommon
Type	Creature — Vampire Knight
Abilities	Flying
Released	2017-09-29
Set symbol
Set name	Ixalan
Set code	XLN
Power	4
Toughness	4
Number	100
Frame	2015
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Nils Hamm

Key Takeaways

Deathless Ancient offers repeatable advantages through graveyard recursion, boosting both offense and defense.
Ramps resources rapidly by untapping lands, enabling more spell plays or stronger defenses each turn.
Its synergy with instant-speed decks creates constant threats, pressuring opponents even during their turns.

Text of card

Flying Tap three untapped Vampires you control: Return Deathless Ancient from your graveyard to your hand.

"Ancient one, we have reached the promised shore. The Immortal Sun is near. Drink and awake."

Card Pros

Card Advantage: The Deathless Ancient card offers a strategic upper hand through its ability to return to your hand from the graveyard. This allows players to continually leverage the card for defense or attacks, ensuring that they maximize their options each turn and maintain pressure on their opponents.

Resource Acceleration: With its ability to untap up to three lands when it attacks, Deathless Ancient can be pivotal for ramping up your resources. It efficiently fuels your mana pool, potentially allowing you to cast additional spells in the same turn or prepare defenses for whatever your opponent might throw your way next.

Instant Speed: Though Deathless Ancient itself is not an instant, its synergy within decks that operate at instant speed is undeniable. It can be resurrected from the graveyard during your opponent’s turn, keeping your mana open for instant-speed responses and maintaining an ever-present threat that your opponents must consider at all times.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Playing Deathless Ancient often involves a strategic drawback as you are required to tap three untapped Vampires you control, presenting a potential loss of board control and tempo that could leave you vulnerable to your opponent’s next move.

Specific Mana Cost: This card demands a particular combination of mana to cast—four black mana symbols in its cost signify a steep requirement, potentially restricting the card’s integration into multicolored decks or those strategies not heavily invested in black mana resources.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost of six mana, Deathless Ancient sits at a higher echelon on the mana curve. Within this cost range, players could access other high-impact alternatives that might provide immediate board influence or carry lower activation requisites, thereby inferring a more efficient use of resources.

Reasons to Include Deathless Ancient in Your Collection

Versatility: Deathless Ancient can be slotted into a variety of decks, particularly those harnessing vampire or graveyard synergies. It serves as both a resilient threat and a means of recovering creatures from your graveyard, providing dual utility on the battlefield.

Combo Potential: Known for its ability to recur itself from the graveyard, it complements engines that capitalize on creatures entering or leaving play. Furthermore, the tapping ability synergizes with cards that reward you for tapping vampires or creatures you control.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where games go longer and attrition is key, having a creature like Deathless Ancient that can continuously come back can be a game-changer, giving you an edge over decks that struggle to deal with recurring threats.

How to beat

The Deathless Ancient card presents a unique challenge on the battlefield, commanding the skies with its flying ability and enabling a resilience that can frustrate opponents in Magic: The Gathering. To maneuver around this vampiric force, understanding its strengths and weaknesses is key. While it can easily return to a player’s hand from the graveyard, ensuring a constant threat, effective strategies such as exile removal spells can be the perfect counter, as these will prevent it from returning to the fray.

Another approach is to limit card availability in the opponent’s hand, as the Ancient’s ability requires cards to be returned as a cost. Hand disruption plays, like Thoughtseize or Inquisition of Kozilek, can keep the Ancient at bay. Engaging in combat with creatures that offer death touch or sufficient power and toughness to endure the Ancient’s assault ensures it stays in the graveyard. Remember, maintaining control over the board state and being one step ahead of your opponent’s plays remains a fundamental tactic to outlast the Deathless Ancient, keeping it from dominating the game.

Ultimately, the key to victory against a Deathless Ancient is to undercut its recurring nature and maintain pressure, rendering it just another card in the graveyard.

Cards like Deathless Ancient

When discussing the uniqueness of Deathless Ancient in MTG, it’s interesting to note its kinship with other vampire-themed cards. Direct parallels can be drawn to Sengir Vampire, a card renowned for its ability to thrive from the destruction of other creatures. Both creatures exhibit a presence that can quickly snowball if left unchecked. However, Deathless Ancient carries the distinctive ability to return to a player’s hand from the graveyard by tapping three untapped Vampires you control, which provides resilience and a slight edge in vampire tribal decks over the Sengir Vampire.

Another comparable card is Bloodline Keeper, which not only empowers other vampires but also generates vampire tokens to uphold board presence. Though Bloodline Keeper doesn’t have the self-recovering mechanism of Deathless Ancient, it excels in its capability to transform into a flying behemoth and upgrade its generated tokens. This makes it a formidable card in any vampire-centric deck, yet the two serve different roles within such a strategy. While Deathless Ancient ensures longevity, Bloodline Keeper focuses on amassing a larger force.

Scrutinizing these similarities among vampire cards, it becomes apparent that although they share thematic lines, cards like Deathless Ancient provide a unique tactical advantage with their tenacity and in giving a vampire deck a sturdy anchor and consistent threat that can be difficult for opponents to permanently deal with.

Cards similar to Deathless Ancient by color, type and mana cost

Commander Greven il-Vec - MTG Card versions

Chittering Harvester - MTG Card versions

Crossway Troublemakers - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Deathless Ancient MTG card by a specific set like Ixalan, 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 Deathless Ancient and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Deathless Ancient has restrictions

Format	Legality
Historicbrawl	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Paupercommander	Restricted
Oathbreaker	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Commander	Legal
Modern	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Duel	Legal
Explorer	Legal
Penny	Legal
Timeless	Legal

Rules and information

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

Date	Text
2017-09-29	Deathless Ancient’s last ability can be activated only while it’s in your graveyard.
2017-09-29	Once you announce that you’re activating Deathless Ancient’s last ability, no player may take other actions until the ability’s been paid for. Notably, players can’t try to stop the ability by tapping or removing Vampires you control.
2017-09-29	To activate the last ability, you may tap any untapped Vampires you control, including ones you haven’t controlled continuously since the beginning of your most recent turn. (Note that tapping the creature doesn’t use -he tap symbol].)