Skycloud Egg MTG Card
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 1 |
| Rarity | Uncommon |
| Type | Artifact |
| Released | 2001-10-01 |
| Set symbol | |
| Set name | Odyssey |
| Set code | ODY |
| Number | 309 |
| Frame | 1997 |
| Layout | Normal |
| Border | Black |
| Illustred by | David Martin |
Key Takeaways
- Skycloud Egg enables card drawing and mana acceleration, crucial for maintaining play momentum.
- Activation requires careful strategic planning, given its discard and specific mana cost conditions.
- Offers deck versatility, making it a powerful ally in artifact or multicolored strategies.
Text of card
, oc T, Sacrifice Skycloud Egg: Add o Wo U to your mana pool. Draw a card.
"Have your dreams of a better society become an obsession?" —Watnik, master glassblower
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Skycloud Egg provides an opportunity to cycle through your deck, potentially drawing into more strategic options, thereby maintaining momentum during play.
Resource Acceleration: Upon activation, Skycloud Egg adds mana of any color to your pool, making it a flexible resource for casting spells and supporting a multicolored deck strategy.
Instant Speed: Although the card itself is not an instant, it can be used at instant speed if it’s part of a chain where the Egg is sacrificed, which can surprise an opponent by creating mana or enabling combos at critical moments.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Skycloud Egg necessitates the player to part with a card upon activation. This stipulation can be a strategic setback, especially when a player’s hand is already dwindling, curtailing their ability to respond to the game’s evolving demands.
Specific Mana Cost: The activation of Skycloud Egg requires a particular blend of mana. This can potentially restrict its integration into a variety of decks, especially those that run on a multicolor scheme where the exact mana combination is harder to come by.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: While Skycloud Egg may provide a certain utility, its mana cost to value ratio is a concern when juxtaposed with other options. Players may find themselves forgoing Skycloud Egg for alternatives that offer similar or more potent effects for a lower mana investment, optimizing their deck’s performance.
Reasons to Include Skycloud Egg in Your Collection
Versatility: Skycloud Egg is a flexible asset in various deck builds. It provides mana fixing for multicolored decks by converting mana to any color when it’s sacrificed, making it ideal for decks with a tight color curve.
Combo Potential: When incorporated into artifact-based strategies or decks utilizing sacrifice mechanics, Skycloud Egg becomes a key piece in executing powerful combos. It’s particularly useful in decks that can repeatedly recycle or rebirth artifacts. Additionally, upon cracking the Egg, it also draws a card, offering a dual boon of resource acceleration and card advantage.
Meta-Relevance: As the competitive scene evolves, maintaining a flexible mana base is crucial. The ability of Skycloud Egg to smooth out mana while also potentially contributing to combo wins makes it a card to consider when facing a diverse range of strategies in the current meta.
How to beat
Skycloud Egg, when it lands on the battlefield, provides a unique role in Magic: The Gathering – ensuring mana diversification and serving as a component of combo strategies. Resembling cards like Prophetic Prism, Skycloud Egg enables color fixing to a certain degree, albeit with an upfront investment for later benefits. Prophetic Prism, on the flip side, grants immediate card draw and doesn’t require a sacrifice to convert mana.
While the mana acceleration capabilities of Skycloud Egg are crucial, disrupting the Egg’s game plan is equally essential. Artifact destruction spells or abilities are effective measures against the Egg. Consider using cards like Abrade or Naturalize to target and eliminate Skycloud Egg before its sacrifice ability can be activated. Another strategy is employing counter spells when the Egg is used as part of a combo to prevent pivotal plays, safeguarding against potential game-changing sequences.
In essence, understanding the timing and synergistic uses of Skycloud Egg can strongly tilt matchups in your favor. Being preemptive and disrupting the Egg with targeted removal or counter strategies before its potential is realized is key to mastering matches where it’s in play.
Cards like Skycloud Egg
Skycloud Egg takes its place among a unique group of mana acceleration artifacts within Magic: The Gathering. It shares some similarities with cards such as Golden Egg and Guild Globe, which are both mana-fixing artifacts that require a small investment to draw a card. Like these artifacts, Skycloud Egg provides versatility in mana colors when sacrificed. Yet, it stands out with its ability to provide a burst of colorless mana.
Comparatively, Prophetic Prism also offers a mana fixing role. It’s a notch above in terms of mana flexibility due to its ability to convert mana of any color without needing to be sacrificed. Although Prophetic Prism doesn’t generate an additional mana like Skycloud Egg does upon its activation, it remains a steady choice for color fixing over time.
In essence, Skycloud Egg is an excellent card for decks looking for quick colorless mana boosts and those needing a one-time mana fix in a specific color. While each card in this classification comes with its strengths and trade-offs, Skycloud Egg distinguishes itself as a reliable tool for specific deck strategies that require an immediate mana influx.
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Skycloud Egg MTG card by a specific set like Odyssey, 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 Skycloud Egg and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See MTG Products
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Skycloud Egg has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Commander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Premodern | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Predh | Legal |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Skycloud Egg card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2008-08-01 | This is a mana ability, which means it can be activated as part of the process of casting a spell or activating another ability. If that happens you get the mana right away, but you don’t get to look at the drawn card until you have finished casting that spell or activating that ability. |
