Clarion Ultimatum MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	7
Rarity	Rare
Type	Sorcery
Released	2008-10-03
Set symbol
Set name	Shards of Alara
Set code	ALA
Number	163
Frame	2003
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Michael Komarck

Key Takeaways

Clarion Ultimatum promises impressive card advantage by selecting five impactful permanents from your library.
This card’s mana cost is restrictive, requiring a dedicated deckbuilding strategy to fully utilize its power.
Integrating Clarion Ultimatum into your collection can enhance your late-game presence, making it a formidable asset.

Text of card

Choose five permanents you control. For each of those permanents, you may search your library for a card with the same name as that permanent. Put those cards into play tapped, then shuffle your library.

Be worthy of a single blessing, and many more will follow.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Clarion Ultimatum stands out as an exceptional card, proficient at generating significant card advantage. Upon resolution, this powerful spell enables you to choose five cards from among two or more colors, potentially turning the tide of the game by flooding your side of the board with impactful permanents.

Resource Acceleration: Although not directly providing mana, the Ultimatum can be a game-changer in terms of resource acceleration. Successfully casting this card often means pulling crucial lands and mana-producing permanents onto the battlefield, setting the stage for explosive plays and overwhelming your opponent with resources.

Instant Speed: While Clarion Ultimatum is a sorcery, knowing how to pair it with cards that provide instant-speed interaction can amplify its potential. Setting up your board with flash enablers or using it in response to an opponent’s end step, right before your turn, can catch opponents off guard, making it an underrated aspect for deck synergy and planning.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Clarion Ultimatum can provide a significant advantage by allowing you to choose five permanents and put them onto the battlefield, it has no such discard requirement. However, this highlights the need to have other cards available to ensure that you can actually benefit from its effects, which can be an indirect disadvantage in resource management.

Specific Mana Cost: This card’s mana cost isn’t just high; it’s also weighted heavily towards two colors with three green mana and two white mana required. This specificity can restrict its integration into many decks, often confining it to dedicated green-white or three-color decks that can reliably produce the needed mana.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Seven mana to cast is steep, even by powerful sorcery standards. In many situations, such a high cost can slow down your game, especially when facing decks designed to win more quickly. While the potential payoff is great, the mana investment is considerable and can represent a significant risk if the Ultimatum is countered or if you don’t have the right permanents to capitalize on its effect.

Reasons to Include Clarion Ultimatum in Your Collection

Versatility: Clarion Ultimatum has a place in decks that utilize the five colors it demands, shining in Commander format where mana fixing is more accessible. Its ability to select and summon a multitude of permanents from your library grants a high level of flexibility to tailor to the game’s flow.

Combo Potential: This card excels at setting up board states that can quickly lead to victory. Whether you’re fetching a combination of lands, creatures with synergistic abilities, or powerful enchantments, Clarion Ultimatum allows for the orchestration of powerful plays that can turn the tide of a game.

Meta-Relevance: In a meta that favors long games and substantial value plays, Clarion Ultimatum stands out. This card can help compete against other high-impact spells in late-game scenarios, ensuring that your board presence becomes overwhelmingly advantageous.

How to beat

Clarion Ultimatum is a powerful spell in MTG that can turn the tide of the game by allowing a player to choose five permanents they own from outside the game and put them directly onto the battlefield. Overpowering this card hinges on strategy and understanding its mechanics. One effective approach is to utilize counter spells to disrupt this ultimatum before it takes effect. Denying your opponent the chance to cast it can stave off potentially game-ending moves.

Additionally, if Clarion Ultimatum is on the stack, having instant-speed removal or sacrifice effects to target your own key permanents can minimize the impact if you anticipate that an opponent could potentially take control of them. Cards like Scavenging Ooze excel at managing graveyards, making it harder for opponents to retrieve valuable cards to play with the Ultimatum. Discard tactics forcing opponents to drop this card before they amass enough mana can also prove effective. Prevention is key; keep pressure on your opponent and manage their resources wisely to prevent this card from declaring the final word in the match.

Ultimately, addressing Clarion Ultimatum effectively requires foresight and timely responses. By prioritizing strategic control of the game’s pacing and your opponent’s resources, you can better position yourself to undermine the potential of their Clarion Ultimatum and secure victory.

Cards like Clarion Ultimatum

Clarion Ultimatum is a distinct card in the landscape of multi-colored spells in Magic: The Gathering. It’s often compared to other powerful ultimatums, such as Violent Ultimatum. While Clarion Ultimatum focuses on permanents, allowing a player to choose five and potentially put them onto the battlefield, Violent Ultimatum goes on a different route by destroying three target permanents, providing immediate board control.

Then we have Titanic Ultimatum, which instead of manipulating the board directly, gives creatures you control a substantial boost in power, toughness, and combat abilities for a game-ending swing. These cards both showcase the versatility and power of ultimatums but serve very different strategic purposes. In comparison to these, Clarion Ultimatum can set up a powerful board state, pivotal for a late-game advantage.

Inspecting the ultimatum family reveals the strategic depth each card brings to the table. While some are shaped for aggression, others, like Clarion Ultimatum, cater to a more gradual and potentially overwhelming approach, making it a card to be reckoned with when sculpting a monumental board presence.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Clarion Ultimatum MTG card by a specific set like Shards of Alara, 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 Clarion Ultimatum and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Clarion Ultimatum has restrictions

Format	Legality
Commander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Duel	Legal
Predh	Legal
Penny	Legal

Rules and information

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

Date	Text
2008-10-01	If you choose a permanent whose name has been changed by an effect (for example, a Clone that’s copying another creature), you’ll search for a card with the new name, not one with the original name. Note that changing a land’s subtype doesn’t change its name.
2008-10-01	If you choose a permanent with no name, such as a face-down creature, no card in your library can be found with that name.
2008-10-01	If you find a card that isn’t a permanent card while searching (for example, you chose an Illusion token and find the split card Illusion/Reality), that card remains in your library.
2008-10-01	The cards all enter the battlefield at the same time. If one of the cards that’s entering the battlefield is an Aura, it must enter the battlefield attached to a permanent already on the battlefield. It can’t enter the battlefield attached to another permanent entering the battlefield via Clarion Ultimatum. If an Aura can’t enter the battlefield this way, it remains in your library.
2008-10-01	The five permanents you choose must all be different. However, some of them may have the same name as one another. For example, you may choose two Empyrial Archangels and three Plains. If you do, you search your library for up to two more Empyrial Archangels and up to three more Plains and put them onto the battlefield tapped.
2008-10-01	This spell has no targets. You don’t choose five permanents you control until Clarion Ultimatum resolves. If you control fewer than five permanents at that time, choose each permanent you do control.
2008-10-01	You make just one search. (This could matter for cards like Aven Mindcensor, for example.)