Steel Seraph MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 4 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost6
RarityRare
TypeArtifact Creature — Angel
Abilities Flying,Prototype, Vigilance
Power 5
Toughness 4

Key Takeaways

  1. Steel Seraph enables card advantage, resource acceleration, and instant speed interaction in gameplay.
  2. Playing the card demands strategic hand management due to its unique discard and mana requirements.
  3. Inclusion in your collection offers versatility across decks, boosting creatures and enabling combos.

Text of card

Prototype — 3/3 (You may cast this spell with different mana cost, color, and size. It keeps its abilities and types.) Flying At the beginning of combat on your turn, target creature you control gains your choice of flying, vigilance, or lifelink until end of turn.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: The Steel Seraph card grants players a significant boost in card advantage. Assemble, its keyword ability, not only contributes to playing a powerful artifact creature but also potentially equips other creatures or interacts with various abilities to manipulate the game state. This multiplicity of options can lead to a diversified strategy and a more robust hand.

Resource Acceleration: Steel Seraph offers resource acceleration by potentially untapping not only mana sources but also other artifacts that could be used in a combo or simply to expedite the deployment of heavy hitters. Its versatile applications can offer a surge in tempo and put you ahead of your opponent’s game plan.

Instant Speed: While not an instant itself, Steel Seraph allows for instant-speed interactions through its modular nature and potential synergies with other cards that operate at instant speed. This flexibility is critical when planning the most impactful play, allowing you to adjust to the evolving battlefield and the opponent’s tactics at a moment’s notice.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Choosing to play with the Steel Seraph card means accepting its unique play constraints. One such constraint is its discard requirement. Activating its potent ability necessitates the discarding of another card, which can become a setback, especially in games where your hand is already dwindling and every card counts.

Specific Mana Cost: The Steel Seraph’s activation is not just about any mana—it asks for a precise blend. This specificity in its mana cost can often make it a poor fit for multicolored or more flexible decks, narrowing down its versatility and perhaps benching it in favor of more adaptable options within your arsenal.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: A significant consideration for players is the Steel Seraph’s mana valuation versus its impact on the game. With a cost leaning on the higher side, strategists must weigh its potential benefits against other available options, gauging if the investment lines up with their deck’s tempo and overall game plan.


Reasons to Include Steel Seraph in Your Collection

Versatility: Steel Seraph is a multi-faceted card that can seamlessly integrate into various decks, particularly those that value vigilant creatures or artifact synergies.

Combo Potential: With its modular nature, Steel Seraph can energize an array of combos, including those that hinge on +1/+1 counters or artifact recursion.

Meta-Relevance: In a game environment where creature-based strategies dominate, Steel Seraph’s ability to buff and protect your other creatures makes it a significant player on the battlefield.


How to Beat

The Steel Seraph, a formidable artifact creature in MTG, poses an interesting challenge on the battleground. Coming with a powerful enter-the-battlefield ability that grants it protection from a color of your choice until end of turn, it can be a real nuisance for your opponent. This protection, combined with its lifelink ability, makes it tricky to remove using targeted removal spells. To effectively combat this metallic menace, considering colorless spells or board wipes that don’t target, such as Wrath of God or All Is Dust, can be pivotal in bypassing its protections.

Additionally, utilizing sacrifice effects can circumvent the Steel Seraph’s defenses since they do not target and therefore are not hindered by protection mechanics. Cards like Diabolic Edict or Liliana of the Veil can force your opponent to sacrifice the Steel Seraph, regardless of the protection it may have. It is also worth noting that keeping a strong pace and pressure can prevent your opponent from leveraging the Seraph’s full potential, minimizing its impact on the game. Winning against Steel Seraph often requires foresight and keeping removal options open that aren’t stymied by its protective abilities.


BurnMana Recommendations

With the Steel Seraph card in your deck, you unlock a realm of strategic depth in your MTG gameplay. By leveraging its card advantage and resource acceleration, you can gain a critical edge that can sway the tide of the match in your favor. Recognize the need to balance its high mana cost and specific requirements with the rest of your deck for optimum play. Interested in further refining your deck-building skills and integrating Steel Seraph seamlessly into your line-up? We’ve got the insights and tips to take your card tactics to new heights. Dive deeper into MTG strategy with us and embody the spirit of a true strategic mastermind on the battlefield.


Cards like Steel Seraph

Steel Seraph has carved its niche in the vast panorama of cards within Magic: The Gathering. Reflecting on its similarities with others, we find Grafted Exoskeleton as a compatriot in equipping creatures with a powerful tool. Both artifacts buff up your creatures, but Steel Seraph paves the way with its flexibility in granting vigilance in addition to a power boost. The Exoskeleton, on the flip side, focuses on a singular, deadly trait: infect.

Diving deeper, Argentum Armor shares the stage with our featured card, representing the high-end spectrum of equipment. While Steel Seraph brings a creature to the forefront of a commander’s strategy boasting a consistent power enhancement, Argentum Armor demolishes opponent’s permanents with destructive force. Yet, it is the ease of casting and equipping that gives Steel Seraph an edge with its more manageable cost.

A thorough analysis positions Steel Seraph distinctively in Magic: The Gathering’s arsenal, thanks to its blend of immediate on-board impact and synergistic potential with various deck strategies. Its ability to equip at instant speed makes it a versatile tool in many game scenarios.

Grafted Exoskeleton - MTG Card versions
Argentum Armor - MTG Card versions
Grafted Exoskeleton - MTG Card versions
Argentum Armor - MTG Card versions

Cards similar to Steel Seraph by color, type and mana cost

Do-It-Yourself Seraph - MTG Card versions
The Circle of Loyalty - MTG Card versions
The Prydwen, Steel Flagship - MTG Card versions
Do-It-Yourself Seraph - MTG Card versions
The Circle of Loyalty - MTG Card versions
The Prydwen, Steel Flagship - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Steel Seraph MTG card by a specific set like Magic Online Promos and The Brothers' War, 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 Steel Seraph and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Steel Seraph Magic the Gathering card was released in 3 different sets between 2022-11-18 and 2022-11-18. Illustrated by Denys Tsiperko.

#ReleasedNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12002-06-24Magic Online PromosPRM 1056202015PrototypeBlackDenys Tsiperko
22022-11-18The Brothers' WarBRO 382015PrototypeBlackDenys Tsiperko
32022-11-18The Brothers' War Art SeriesABRO 62015Art seriesBorderlessDenys Tsiperko
42022-11-18The Brothers' WarBRO 3112015PrototypeBlackDenys Tsiperko

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Steel Seraph has restrictions

FormatLegality
StandardLegal
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
AlchemyLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
FutureLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
BrawlLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

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

Date Text
2022-10-14 A prototype card is a colorless card in every zone except the stack or the battlefield, as well as while on the stack or the battlefield if not cast as a prototyped spell. Ignore its alternative characteristics in those cases. For example, while it's in your graveyard, Blitz Automaton is a colorless creature card with mana value 7. It can't be the target of Recommission, a spell that targets an artifact or creature card with mana value 3 or less in your graveyard.
2022-10-14 Casting a prototyped spell isn't the same as casting it for an alternative cost, and an alternative cost may be applied to a spell cast this way. For example, if an effect allows you to cast an artifact card without paying its mana cost, you could either cast Blitz Automaton normally, or as a prototyped spell.
2022-10-14 If an effect copies a prototyped spell, that copy (as well as the token it becomes on the battlefield) will have the same characteristics as the prototyped spell. Similarly, if an effect creates a token that's a copy of a prototyped permanent or causes another permanent to become a copy of it, the copy would have the same characteristics as the prototyped permanent.
2022-10-14 Regardless of how it was cast, a prototype card always has the same name, abilities, types, and so on. Only the mana cost, mana value, color, power, and toughness change depending on whether the card was cast as a prototyped spell.
2022-10-14 The prototype ability functions in any zone that the spell could be cast from. For example, if an effect allows you to cast artifact spells from your graveyard, you could cast a prototyped Blitz Automaton from your graveyard.
2022-10-14 When cast as a prototyped spell, that spell has the mana cost, power, and toughness characteristics shown in its colored, secondary text box rather than the normal values of those characteristics. Its color and mana value are determined by that mana cost. The permanent that spell becomes as it resolves has the same characteristics. If the spell leaves the stack in any other way, or the permanent it becomes leaves the battlefield, it immediately resumes using its normal characteristics.
2022-10-14 When casting a prototyped spell, use only its prototype characteristics to determine whether it's legal to cast it. For example, if Blitz Automaton is exiled with the last ability of Chandra, Dressed to Kill, you would be able to cast it for (because it's a red spell), even though you wouldn't be able to cast it as a colorless spell for its normal cost.
2022-10-14 You choose the target creature as you put Steel Seraph's triggered ability on the stack. You choose which ability that creature gains as the ability resolves.
Vigilance card art

Guide to Vigilance card ability

In the strategic universe of Magic: The Gathering (MTG), the vigilance ability stands out as a powerful tool for players. This potent keyword allows creatures to attack without tapping, keeping them ready and alert to defend against incoming threats. It represents a perfect balance between aggression and defense, offering a dynamic approach to gameplay. Lets dive deeper into how vigilance shapes the battlefield.