Brine Hag MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	4
Rarity	Uncommon
Type	Creature — Hag
Released	1994-06-01
Set symbol
Set name	Legends
Set code	LEG
Power	2
Toughness	2
Number	49
Frame	1993
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Quinton Hoover

Key Takeaways

Brine Hag affords card advantage by leveraging graveyard interactions to maintain hand options.
It can accelerate strategies that synergize with graveyard mechanics, promoting resource flow.
Instant speed capabilities offer flexibility and strategic reaction during opponents’ turns.

Text of card

On the turn during which Hag is placed in the graveyard, all creatures who dealt damage to Hag that turn become 0/2 creatures. Use counters to mark these creatures.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: The Brine Hag card provides a valuable edge in the battle for card superiority. By manipulating graveyard resources, it can potentially recurs other creatures or extracts additional value from them, keeping your hand filled with options to thwart your opponents’ strategies.

Resource Acceleration: Although not directly producing mana or tokens, the Brine Hag can influence the board’s dynamics. Its interactions with certain deck types can accelerate your strategy by synergizing with graveyard-based mechanics, ensuring a steady flow of resources and allowing for powerful plays.

Instant Speed: Able to act at instant speed, this card offers flexibility in play, allowing you to react promptly to your opponent’s threats or make strategic moves at the end of their turn. This reactive potential ensures that you can maximize the impact of your resources while keeping your adversaries guessing.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: One of the limitations of the Brine Hag is the necessity to discard a card to activate its abilities. Especially in games where your hand size is dwindling, this cost can be a steep price to pay, hampering your strategic options.

Specific Mana Cost: The casting cost of Brine Hag includes two blue mana symbols, which means its inclusion in a deck demands a dedicated blue mana base. This may restrict the card’s versatility, particularly in multicolored decks that might struggle with color fixing.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: When evaluating the mana efficiency of Brine Hag, its mana cost may be considered on the higher side for the benefits it brings to the table. In a game where tempo can often dictate the victor, the mana investment in the Brine Hag may not align well with more aggressive or streamlined strategies.

Reasons to Include Brine Hag in Your Collection

Versatility: Brine Hag is a card that offers substantial flexibility in deck building. Its ability to disrupt graveyard strategies can be vital in multiple formats where such tactics are prevalent.

Combo Potential: This card synergizes well with effects that care about creature deaths or self-mill strategies, making it a key piece in intricate combo setups that aim to leverage the graveyard for advantage.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where reanimator or graveyard-based strategies are common, Brine Hag serves as a tactical counter that can turn the tides of a match by hindering an opponent’s game plan effectively.

How to Beat Brine Hag

Brine Hag may not be the most prominent threat in a game of Magic: The Gathering, but an unprepared player can still find themselves at a disadvantage against its abilities. This creature card has an impact on the battlefield with its interaction with graveyard strategies, particularly in formats where creature recursion is valuable.

One efficient way to maneuver around Brine Hag is employing graveyard hate cards. Cards like Relic of Progenitus or Grafdigger’s Cage can inhibit the abilities of Brine Hag by ensuring that creatures don’t end up in the graveyard to trigger its effect or by preventing creatures from being targeted by spells or abilities from the graveyard. Another strategy is to use instant speed removal which can eliminate Brine Hag before its controller has a chance to capitalize on its abilities.

Timing is also key when playing against Brine Hag. Engage it when its controller is low on resources, such as after a counter-heavy turn or when their mana is tapped out. Doing so reduces the chances they have answers allowing you to clear the way and maintain control of the board state, reducing the effectiveness of any graveyard-based tactics they might have planned.

Cards like Brine Hag

Brine Hag presents an interesting dynamic to creature cards in Magic: The Gathering. It can be compared to fellow blue creature cards that play with the graveyard like Stitched Drake, which also demands a creature card to be exiled from the graveyard to cast it. However, Brine Hag provides additional utility by forcing your opponent to skip their next untap step when it becomes the target of a spell or ability. Stitched Drake doesn’t offer such a disruptive ability, focusing solely on delivering a flying beater to the board.

Another relative is Scrapskin Drake, which shares the blue affiliation and the flying ability but is available to cast without graveyard interactions. Where Brine Hag could intimidate with its potential to hamper opponent strategies, Scrapskin Drake offers consistent aerial aggression without conditional requirements. Spirits of the Lake also align with Brine Hag by featuring an effect triggered upon targeting, granting card draw instead of disrupting untap phases, trading battlefield control for steady card advantage.

Evaluating these blue creatures in MTG, Brine Hag holds a unique position. It leverages both offensive and defensive elements, making it a card that can tactically advantage players by controlling the flow of the game beyond just combat prowess.

Cards similar to Brine Hag by color, type and mana cost

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Cytoplast Manipulator - MTG Card versions

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Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Brine Hag MTG card by a specific set like Legends, 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 Brine Hag and other MTG cards: