Crab MTG Card

Type	Token Creature — Crab
Released	2021-06-18
Set symbol
Set name	Modern Horizons 2
Set code	MH2
Power	0
Toughness	3
Number	2
Frame	2015
Layout	Token
Border	Black
Illustred by	Yeong-Hao Han

Key Takeaways

Crab cards offer abilities for card advantage, land synergy, and surprise plays with instant speed abilities.
Some crabs demand specific mana bases and have high mana costs, posing challenges for deck diversity.
Crabs’ versatility and meta relevance make them valuable for collection, with various synergistic potentials.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Many Crab cards in the game often come with abilities that allow you to draw extra cards, or mill cards from your opponent’s library, ensuring that you continuously have options at hand while potentially disrupting your opponent’s strategy.

Resource Acceleration: Crabs may not be the most notorious for ramping up your mana, but certain iterations can synergize with land-based mechanics, contributing to resource acceleration by untapping your lands or helping you play additional lands during your turns.

Instant Speed: While not all Crab creatures have flash, the ones that do can be game-changers, allowing you to deploy a blocker or an effect unexpectedly during your opponent’s turn, maintaining the element of surprise and flexibility in your strategies.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: When playing a Crab card, there may be instances where a discard step is mandatory, thus potentially stripping away a valuable card from your hand. This can be particularly detrimental in game moments where maintaining a robust card advantage is crucial.

Specific Mana Cost: Many Crab cards in MTG come with specific blue mana requirements. For players not running a deck with sufficient blue mana sources, including these Crabs can become challenging, limiting their versatility across various deck builds.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Despite their unique abilities, some Crab cards are weighed down by high mana costs when compared to alternative creatures with similar or superior strengths. This can lead to slower gameplay, which may not align with more aggressive or tempo-driven strategies.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Crab MTG cards often surprise players with their flexibility in different deck builds. They can provide early defense, which is crucial in formats that favor tempo play.

Combo Potential: Many crab cards work well within synergistic strategies, potentially enabling powerful interactions such as milling opponents or bolstering your own defenses with crab’s often high toughness.

Meta-Relevance: Depending on the playing environment, crabs can be particularly effective. In a meta heavy with aggressive creatures, a well-timed crab can be the perfect foil, slowing opponents and securing your board presence.

How to beat

Evaluating strategies against the niche of Crab cards in MTG reveals a straightforward approach for players. Crabs often present as resilient creatures with high toughness, making them formidable blockers. To overcome these shelled barricades, incorporating cards that ignore toughness or change combat dynamics is key. For instance, utilizing flyers or creatures with unblockable abilities enables you to bypass these defenses completely.

Board wipes are another potent tool against Crab cards. By clearing the field of creatures, you negate the advantage gained from their defensive stances. Furthermore, spells that target and remove specific creature types can dismantle a Crab-focused defense. Negating the ability advantage of Crab cards through enchantments or equipment that minimize their effectiveness is another angle to consider.

In essence, by diversifying your strategies to handle multiple scenarios, you will be prepared to dismantle a Crab card defense. Cards that offer flexibility or impose conditions Crabs cannot withstand are essential to curate in your deck. This ensures you’re not left floundering against their shell-shocked tactics.

Cards like Crab

When it comes to crustacean-inspired cards in Magic: The Gathering, the Crab creature type offers a surprising amount of utility and quirky mechanics. Within this category, Hedron Crab stands out due to its landfall ability, triggering milling for three cards whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, a strategic advantage for players aiming to deplete their opponent’s deck.

Focusing on defense, Fortress Crab presents itself as a formidable blocker with its high toughness. Although it lacks the milling prowess of Hedron Crab, its sheer size serves as a strong deterrent against ground assaults. Meanwhile, Horseshoe Crab offers a completely different angle of utility. It doesn’t carry the mill or defensive capabilities, but with the ability to untap for a single blue mana, it becomes a versatile tool for synergizing with tap-activated abilities.

Assessing the scope of Crab cards, each one caters to distinct strategic elements in MTG. From the deck-diminishing effect of Hedron Crab to the solid bulwark of Fortress Crab and the adaptable Horseshoe Crab, they each hold their tide in the vast ocean of MTG strategies, proving that these shelled denizens are more than just a pinch in the game.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Crab MTG card by a specific set like Modern Horizons 2, 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 Crab and other MTG cards: