Liability MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	3
Rarity	Rare
Type	Enchantment
Released	1999-10-04
Set symbol
Set name	Mercadian Masques
Set code	MMQ
Number	144
Frame	1997
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Christopher Moeller

Key Takeaways

Liability’s enchantment reduces opponent resources, translating to your card advantage over the match progression.
Strategically casting Liability demands precise black mana and creates a persistent threat throughout the game phases.
Its unique graveyard interaction makes it valuable for decks focused on disruptiveness and maintaining meta relevance.

Text of card

Whenever a card is put into a player's graveyard from play, that player loses 1 life.

Gerrard realized that the helpless woman they'd rescued from Rath was nothing of the sort.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Liability provides a continual mechanism to diminish your opponent’s resources, effectively translating into card advantage over time as they lose access to their spells and permanents due to their own discarded cards.

Resource Acceleration: While Liability doesn’t directly accelerate your own resources, it indirectly aids in your resource management. As your opponent loses cards, you preserve your hand strength and board presence, allowing you to outpace them in terms of available resources.

Instant Speed: As a powerful enchantment, Liability operates at the speed of the game and its effects persist across turns. Although not cast at instant speed itself, the card influences interactions during each instant speed phase of the game, creating a persistent threat that must be answered by your opponent.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Liability necessitates discarding a card to activate its ability. This action can deplete your hand, putting you at a strategic disadvantage, particularly when your card selection is crucial for maintaining game momentum.

Specific Mana Cost: Casting Liability requires a precise mana combination that includes black mana. This requirement may restrict the card’s inclusion only to certain types of decks, potentially limiting its versatility across various deck-building strategies.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a significant cost to get Liability on the field, players often debate its efficiency. Other cards in the card pool may offer similar or better abilities with a lower mana investment, making it a less optimal choice in a tightly-curated deck.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Liability offers a unique dynamic to any deck with its enchantment feature that punishes players for interacting with the graveyard. This can seamlessly integrate into strategy builds focused on disruption or graveyard control.

Combo Potential: This card can effectively amplify the power of graveyard-hate strategies or synergize with cards that incentivize both you and your opponent to continuously use the graveyard as a resource, functioning as a deterrent or even a win condition.

Meta-Relevance: In formats where graveyard-based strategies are prevalent, incorporating Liability into your collection could provide a significant edge. It acts as a counterbalance to popular tactics, ensuring your deck remains competitive in various meta environments.

How to Beat

Liability is a unique enchantment in MTG that can turn the tide of a game, especially in matchups where life totals are a constant battleground. Its ability to inflict damage equivalent to the mana cost of cards as they head to the graveyard makes it a double-edged sword. Having this card in play requires careful consideration and strategic finesse to overcome.

To navigate around Liability, consider using low-cost spells, as they mitigate the amount of damage taken when they are put into a graveyard. In addition, employing graveyard shuffling effects or utilizations of exile can circumvent Liability’s trigger altogether. Employing cards that offer you life gain can also help offset the damage incurred from Liability, ensuring your life total remains healthy as the game progresses. Another effective tactic is to take advantage of instant-speed removals and counterspells to eliminate Liability before it can affect the board significantly, thus maintaining control over the pace and risks during gameplay.

In essence, to triumph over Liability, adapting your strategy to minimize its impact is crucial. Whether through careful spell selection, incorporating life gain abilities, or employing disruption tactics, ensuring you maintain control over the battlefield will help negate the enchantment’s potential drawbacks.

Cards like Liability

Liability is an intriguing piece in the intricate puzzle of enchantments in Magic: The Gathering. It bears some resemblance to similar enchantments like Tainted Aether, where the focus is also on penalizing players for summoning creatures. Liability, however, adds a twist with its loss of life condition whenever a nontoken creature hits the graveyard. Tainted Aether requires a sacrifice instead, having no impact on life total but controlling the battlefield differently.

In comparison, Grave Pact also influences the board by forcing opponents to sacrifice creatures whenever one of your own dies. Liability stands out by affecting all players and not just the opponents, making it a double-edged sword in strategies that involve numerous creature deaths. Painful Quandary is another comparable card, imposing either a loss of life or a discard when a player casts a spell, offering a broader form of disruption.

In the world of MTG enchantments that focus on continuous effects for creature control, Liability presents a unique proposition that punishes creature-heavy strategies across the board, affecting life totals directly and potentially turning the tide in games that rely heavily on creature presence.

Cards similar to Liability by color, type and mana cost

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Liability MTG card by a specific set like Mercadian Masques, 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 Liability and other MTG cards: