Briber's Purse MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 2 setsSee all
Mana cost
RarityUncommon
TypeArtifact

Key Takeaways

  1. Briber’s Purse offers indirect card advantage by controlling combat without depleting your hand.
  2. Its instant speed activation disrupts opponents’ strategies, offering strategic gameplay flexibility.
  3. While beneficial, its color-specific mana cost and high investment can hinder certain decks.

Text of card

Briber's Purse enters the battlefield with X gem counters on it. , , Remove a gem counter from Briber's Purse: Target creature can't attack or block this turn.

Victory is certain. The price, negotiable.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: With Briber’s Purse, you have the capacity to control opponents’ creatures without expending cards from your hand. This utility function may not directly draw you additional cards, but by preventing key creatures from attacking or blocking, it essentially grants you an indirect form of card advantage, tilting the board in your favor.

Resource Acceleration: Although Briber’s Purse doesn’t produce mana or treasure tokens, its variable cost allows for flexible play. You establish your resource acceleration by dictating the pace, sinking unused mana into it at the end of turns. This makes optimal use of your resources throughout the game, keeping you agile and responsive.

Instant Speed: The strength of Briber’s Purse isn’t in its activation speed but in its ability to function at instant speed without actually being an instant. You can use it anytime you have priority, which makes for strategic plays that can disrupt your opponents’ combat decisions or end-of-turn strategies.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Briber’s Purse doesn’t directly ask you to discard cards, it requires mana investment that could otherwise be used for card draw or other resources, potentially reducing your hand size indirectly.

Specific Mana Cost: Briber’s Purse demands colorless mana for both its casting and activation. Decks that heavily utilize color-specific mana might find it challenging to allocate resources for it, affecting the deck’s mana curve and overall strategy.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: The initial investment and the ongoing cost to use Briber’s Purse can be burdensome. Considering its effect to unconditionally prevent a single creature from attacking each turn can be significant, but often there may be alternatives that provide greater utility or impact for the same or lower mana investment.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Briber’s Purse can slot into a variety of decks, serving as a flexible tool to manipulate combat. It can be particularly useful in decks that require temporary removal of blockers or attackers without committing to full board control spells.

Combo Potential: Its ability to unload mana and become a mana sink pairs well with strategies that capitalize on artifact synergies or unspent mana. This card has the potential to enable intricate plays, setting up for bigger turns or disrupting opponent’s plans.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where board state and creature interactions are pivotal, Briber’s Purse gains significance. It allows for tactical plays that can tip the scales in your favor, especially in metas where creatures with powerful effects dictate the pace of the game.


How to beat

Briber’s Purse can be an intriguing game piece in Magic: The Gathering, with its unique ability to freeze a player’s creature in its tracks. The card allows players to invest mana and use it to pay off opponents’ creatures from attacking or blocking, which can be strategically crippling if not addressed. Defeating this artifact calls for a smart approach.

To combat Briber’s Purse effectively, consider employing artifact removal spells which are abundant in the game. Naturalize, for example, offers a low-cost way to destroy target artifacts or enchantments, making it an ideal choice to dispatch Briber’s Purse. Alternatively, cards with the ability to deal damage irrespective of the presence of counters, such as Shatterstorm, provide a broader solution, wiping out multiple artifacts with one card and potentially shifting the tide of the match.

It also pays to anticipate the playing of Briber’s Purse and maintain enough creatures or other strategies to avoid being locked down by its ability. Keep in mind that this artifact’s influence is finite; once the mana is spent, its power wanes. By playing around it and prioritizing its removal when it impedes your strategy, Briber’s Purse can be overcome.


Cards like Briber's Purse

Briber’s Purse holds a unique spot in the world of artifacts in Magic: The Gathering. At a glance, it might remind one of Unstable Obelisk, which also serves a utility purpose beyond the typical mana-rock role. Unstable Obelisk, however, offers a mana source and eventual removal utility, which is quite different from Briber’s Purse’s ability to stall adversaries by preventing creatures from attacking.

Examining the utility of artifacts further, we encounter Tumble Magnet, which shares the concept of placing counters to dictate combat scenarios. Tumble Magnet, however, temporarily taps creatures, potentially influencing a broader range of situations. Contrastingly, Briber’s Purse specifically targets the combat phase by halting attacks, a subtlety that can be crucial in combat-centric matches.

Understanding the intricacies of these artifacts highlights Briber’s Purse’s niche potential. It’s not a source of card advantage or resource acceleration, but instead carves out strategic defensive options for players – a tailored choice for games that hinge on the battle phase.

Unstable Obelisk - MTG Card versions
Tumble Magnet - MTG Card versions
Unstable Obelisk - Commander 2014 (C14)
Tumble Magnet - Scars of Mirrodin (SOM)

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Memnite - Duel Decks: Mirrodin Pure vs. New Phyrexia (TD2)
Engineered Explosives - Modern Masters (MMA)
Chimeric Mass - Modern Masters 2015 (MM2)
Chrome Mox - Double Masters (2XM)
Turbo-Thwacking Auto-Hammer - Unstable (UST)
Division Table - Unstable (UST)
Rapid Prototyper - Unstable (UST)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Briber's Purse MTG card by a specific set like Magic Online Promos and Khans of Tarkir, 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 Briber's Purse and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Briber's Purse Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2014-09-26 and 2014-09-26. Illustrated by Steve Argyle.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12002-06-24Magic Online PromosPRM 557812015normalblackSteve Argyle
22014-09-26Khans of TarkirKTK 2172015normalblackSteve Argyle

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Briber's Purse has restrictions

FormatLegality
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
PennyLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

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

DateText
2014-09-20 Activating the ability targeting a creature that’s already attacking or blocking won’t remove it from combat or affect that attack or block.
2014-09-20 If Briber’s Purse has no gem counters on it, it remains on the battlefield, although you can’t activate its last ability.

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