Ark of Blight MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	2
Rarity	Uncommon
Type	Artifact
Released	2003-05-26
Set symbol
Set name	Scourge
Set code	SCG
Number	140
Frame	1997
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	David Martin

Key Takeaways

Ark of Blight allows for advantage through library exile, impacting opponents’ resources significantly.
Instant-speed activation grants Ark of Blight strategic flexibility, crucial for disrupting opponents.
Mana base disruption makes Ark of Blight a solid choice against land-reliant decks and strategies.

Text of card

, , Sacrifice Ark of Blight: Destroy target land.

When opened, it erases entire landscapes from minds and maps.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: The Ark of Blight grants the ability to exile a player’s library one card at a time, potentially removing vital resources from their game and thereby creating significant card advantage over time.

Resource Acceleration: While not a direct source of mana, Ark of Blight can disrupt opponents’ resource acceleration by targeting their lands or mana-generating artifacts for exile, thereby slowing down their game plan and giving you the upper hand.

Instant Speed: Ark of Blight can be activated at instant speed, offering flexibility and strategic depth. This allows players to react to threats or actions from the opponent during their turn, maximizing its disruptive potential.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Ark of Blight demands the player to discard a card as part of its activation. This condition can be particularly taxing during the late game or in situations where maintaining hand advantage is critical.

Specific Mana Cost: The card comes with a black mana cost requirement, which restricts its integration strictly to black-inclusive decks or those with a sufficient mana base to support its color demands.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a significant investment of three generic and one black mana to activate, Ark of Blight’s cost is notable when compared to other options that may provide a stronger immediate impact or long-term value to a player’s strategy at a similar or lower mana investment.

Reasons to Include Ark of Blight in Your Collection

Versatility: Ark of Blight offers flexibility for deck builders, fitting seamlessly into strategies that aim to control the board or utilize artifacts for various effects.

Combo Potential: This card synergizes well with strategies that profit from sacrificing permanents, potentially unlocking powerful combinations with other cards that respond to such events.

Meta-Relevance: Given its potential to disrupt opponents’ mana bases and strategies reliant on specific lands, Ark of Blight can be a relevant sideboard card in a meta with land-centric decks.

How to beat

Ark of Blight is a unique artifact in the world of Magic: The Gathering, offering a strategic advantage with its ability to exile target land. This can disrupt opponents who rely heavily on specific land types or combinations for their strategy. To effectively counter this card, consider employing quick and efficient land retrieval methods. Cards like Life from the Loam or Crucible of Worlds allow you to bring lands back from the graveyard to your hand or battlefield directly, mitigating the impact of Ark of Blight’s exile effect.

Alternatively, utilizing instant-speed spell counters such as Negate or Mana Drain can prevent Ark of Blight from ever hitting the board. If Ark of Blight has already been activated, instant spells like Krosan Grip offer Split Second, which stops any further spells or abilities from interfering, ensuring you can destroy the artifact before it causes too much disruption. It’s also beneficial to diversify your land base to minimize the impact should one of your lands be exiled, maintaining a balance between basic and nonbasic lands to keep your mana pool flexible.

Understanding the role of Ark of Blight in MTG can help you prepare your deck to resist it. By utilizing counterspells, land recovery, and artifact destruction, you’ll stand a better chance of keeping control of your lands and your game plan intact.

Cards like Ark of Blight

Examining the Ark of Blight within the pantheon of MTG artifacts, one can see how its ability to exile cards from graveyards for mana investment shapes its strategic utility. Its closest relatives in function include the likes of Tormod’s Crypt and Relic of Progenitus. Tormod’s Crypt offers a zero-cost option for graveyard removal but without the mana production perk. On the flip side, Relic of Progenitus presents a more flexible approach, allowing both targeted and wholesale graveyard exile, yet the Ark of Blight’s mana generation gives it an edge in mana-strapped situations.

Considering Nihil Spellbomb as another counterpart, the Spellbomb adds card draw upon graveyard exile, an aspect absent in Ark of Blight’s design. Additionally, Scrabbling Claws features selective graveyard interaction with an incidental card draw attached to its final ability, presenting a trade-off between targeted control and the broader impact of Ark of Blight’s removal.

In essence, when evaluating Ark of Blight against its contemporaries, we find that its blend of graveyard disruption paired with mana ramp potential positions it interestingly among MTG artifacts. It’s this duality within its utility that underscores its value on the battlefield.

Cards similar to Ark of Blight by color, type and mana cost

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Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Ark of Blight MTG card by a specific set like Scourge, 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 Ark of Blight and other MTG cards: