Monastery Flock MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Monastery Flock’s morph ability gives you an element of surprise and can lead to advantageous trades on the battlefield, essentially providing card advantage as your opponent may waste removal on a lesser threat.

Resource Acceleration: Although not directly providing mana, its low cost and morph ability can serve as a protective measure, allowing for a more efficient allocation of resources in the early to mid-game phases.

Instant Speed: While Monastery Flock itself is not an instant, its morph feature can be turned face up at instant speed, offering the flexibility to use your mana to react to your opponent’s moves and potentially saving crucial turns by blocking flying creatures when needed.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Monastery Flock requires you to discard a card if you want to unlock its morph ability. This can be seen as a significant downside when your hand is already depleted or if you’re forced to toss a crucial piece of your strategy prematurely.

Specific Mana Cost: The casting cost of Monastery Flock is exclusively blue mana, which might not be easily deployable in multicolored decks that don’t prioritize blue mana sources. This limits the card’s flexibility and can hinder your mana curve if the color isn’t a primary aspect of your deck composition.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: For its base stats of 0/5, Monastery Flock’s mana cost may seem disproportionate compared to other creatures in the format. When faced against aggressive decks, its utility may not justify the cost when quicker, more impactful plays are necessary for maintaining a competitive stance.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Monastery Flock’s morph ability allows it to adapt to various game situations. It can be a surprise blocker, morphed when you need to protect yourself, or turned face up for a decent fly blocker against aerial threats.

Combo Potential: This card works well with strategies that pivot around morph and unmorph mechanics. Its synergies with cards that trigger when creatures are turned face up can be a game-changer, offering not just defense but also combo opportunities.

Meta-Relevance: In a meta where flying creatures are dominant, Monastery Flock can be a valuable sideboard card. Its capacity to transform into a 0/5 flyer gives any deck a defensive edge against popular flying threats.

How to beat

Monastery Flock presents a unique challenge on the battlefield as a card in Magic: The Gathering. This creature stands out with its morph ability, allowing it to be played face down as a 2/2 creature for three generic mana, then turned face up any time for its morph cost—whiffing targeted spells and confounding your opponent’s strategy. Additionally, as a strong blocker with a defense of five, it can effectively wall off many threats.

To overcome Monastery Flock, players should consider shifting to removal spells that don’t require targeting a single creature, such as board wipes or spells that deal damage to all creatures. Alternatively, employing flyers or creatures with trample can surpass Monastery Flock’s formidable defense. Engaging combat tricks that boost your creature’s power or using spells that can bypass creature combat entirely, like direct damage spells to the opponent, can also serve as a workaround. In conclusion, while Monastery Flock can be a surprising obstacle for MTG players, various strategies exist to navigate around its defenses and secure victory on the battlefield.