Stormcage Containment Facility MTG Card

Exiles key opponent cards, swinging the game’s momentum in your favor with enhanced board control. Allows for future resource allocation by neutralizing threats without ongoing mana investments. Instant speed threat influences opponents’ gameplay, adding strategic depth to matches.

Stormcage Containment Facility - Doctor Who

Rarity	Common
Type	Plane — Unknown Planet
Abilities	Detain
Released	2023-10-13
Set symbol
Set name	Doctor Who
Set code	WHO
Number	600
Frame	2015
Layout	Planar
Border	Black
Illustred by	Calder Moore

Text of card

Each creature card in your graveyard has escape. The escape cost is equal to the card's mana cost plus exile three other cards from your graveyard. (You may cast cards from your graveyard for their escape cost.) Whenever chaos ensues, detain target creature an opponent controls. (Until your next turn, that creature can't attack or block and its activated abilities can't be activated.)

Cards like Stormcage Containment Facility

The Stormcage Containment Facility card stands out in Magic: The Gathering as a unique tool for control-oriented decks. It shares a few similarities with cards like Ghostly Prison or Propaganda, which also create barriers for opponents looking to attack. These predecessors require your opponents to pay additional mana to commit to each attack, thereby impeding swarm strategies.

Where the Stormcage Containment Facility differs is its focused utility. Unlike Ghostly Prison and Propaganda that affect all creatures, it specifically targets a single creature that has been declared as an attacker. It then ensures that this creature won’t be able to untap as long as you control the Facility. This pinpoint approach bypasses the need for your opponents to expend extra mana for each creature and instead shackles just one of their potential attackers indefinitely.

While these cards serve a similar defensive function, the Stormcage Containment Facility introduces a more permanent solution to a recurring threat. This nuanced choice offers players a strategic edge, particularly when facing decks that rely on singular, powerful creatures to dominate the battlefield.

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Card Pros

Card Advantage: The Stormcage Containment Facility offers a unique twist on card advantage. Upon entering the battlefield, it doesn’t merely draw cards but rather exiles a target nonland permanent an opponent controls until the Facility leaves the battlefield. This effect can essentially remove an opponent’s key card from the game, providing a significant swing in card utility and board presence.

Resource Acceleration: Although Stormcage Containment Facility doesn’t directly generate mana or produce treasure tokens, it serves as resource acceleration by saving mana in the long term. It handles big threats without the need to spend additional cards or mana in future turns. This can accelerate your game plan by allowing you to invest resources elsewhere while your opponent’s threat is neutralized.

Instant Speed: Stormcage Containment Facility aligns with the instant speed characteristic through its capability to act as a removal tool at a critical moment. Although the card itself may not be an instant, the threat of activation can be as impactful as an instant-speed response, forcing opponents to play around the potential of their key asset being exiled at an inconvenient time.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Playing the Stormcage Containment Facility requires you to have an additional nonland card in hand to discard, potentially setting you back by depleting your hand, which can be particularly detrimental when trying to maintain card advantage against your opponent.

Specific Mana Cost: This card demands an exact mana alignment to cast, which can be constraining for decks that run multiple colors. Given its white-blue mana requirement, it might not fit smoothly into all deck strategies, potentially limiting its versatility across various gameplays.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost that is on the heftier side for its lockdown ability, players might find that the investment doesn’t always align with the tempo of the game. As Resource management is key in MTG, balancing the four mana cost against other options within the same cost bracket that may provide a more significant board presence or immediate impact is crucial.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Stormcage Containment Facility has the unique ability to neutralize an opponent’s key creature or planeswalker, making it a flexible inclusion in control or midrange decks looking to handle a variety of threats.

Combo Potential: This artifact can also work within decks that capitalize on tapping and untapping permanents for value, or ones that benefit from having a high density of non-creature spells.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where single powerful creatures or planeswalkers dominate, the Stormcage Containment Facility can be instrumental, providing an enduring answer to recurring threats.

How to beat

In a game of MTG, facing Stormcage Containment Facility can be an uphill task, especially when it holds one of your key creatures captive with its lockdown effect. This artifact’s synergy with other detain mechanisms makes it formidable. However, cracking its defenses isn’t insurmountable. One effective strategy is to employ artifact removal spells such as Abrade or Nature’s Claim, which can release your creature at an efficient mana cost. Furthermore, leveraging counterspells like Negate when Stormcage Containment Facility is cast can ensure it never touches the battlefield, preserving your board state and momentum.

Deck versatility is also crucial; incorporating a balanced mix of removal, counterspells, and direct damage spells provides the adaptability needed to dismantle the Facility’s constriction. As a player, anticipating the potential need for such answers in your deck can be the difference between being locked out of the game and maintaining control over an opponent’s imprisoning strategies. Always be prepared for the unexpected and never let your guard down, because in MTG, the tide of battle can turn with a single card.

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Stormcage Containment Facility MTG card by a specific set like Doctor Who, 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 Stormcage Containment Facility and other MTG cards:

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Rules and information

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

Date	Text
2023-10-13	Activated abilities include a colon and are written in the form " -ost: -ffect]." No one can activate any activated abilities, including mana abilities, of a detained permanent.
2023-10-13	After an escaped spell resolves, it returns to its owner's graveyard if it's not a permanent spell. If it is a permanent spell, it enters the battlefield and will return to its owner's graveyard if it dies later. Perhaps it will escape again.
2023-10-13	Escape's permission doesn't change when you may cast the spell from your graveyard.
2023-10-13	If a card has multiple abilities giving you permission to cast it, such as two escape abilities or an escape ability and a flashback ability, you choose which one to apply. The others have no effect.
2023-10-13	If a card has no mana cost, its escape cost is an unpayable cost, so you can't cast it for that cost.
2023-10-13	If a card with escape is put into your graveyard during your turn, you'll be able to cast it right away if it's legal to do so, before an opponent can take any actions.
2023-10-13	If a creature is already attacking or blocking when it's detained, it won't be removed from combat. It will continue to attack or block.
2023-10-13	If a permanent's activated ability is on the stack when that permanent is detained, the ability will be unaffected.
2023-10-13	If a spell you're casting with escape has an additional cost of discarding cards or sacrificing permanents, you may exile cards discarded or sacrificed this way to pay that part of its escape cost.
2023-10-13	If you cast a spell with its escape permission, you can't choose to apply any other alternative costs or to cast it without paying its mana cost. If it has any additional costs, you must pay those.
2023-10-13	If you're casting a modal double-faced card with escape, you choose how you wish to cast it, then pay the appropriate cost (for the face you're casting) plus exiling three other cards. You may cast only creature spells this way.
2023-10-13	Once you begin casting a spell with escape, it immediately moves to the stack. Players can't take any other actions until you're done casting the spell.
2023-10-13	The static abilities of a detained permanent still apply. The triggered abilities of a detained permanent can still trigger.
2023-10-13	To determine the total cost of a spell, start with the mana cost or alternative cost you're paying (such as an escape cost), add any cost increases, then apply any cost reductions. The mana value of the spell remains unchanged, no matter what the total cost to cast it was and no matter whether an alternative cost was paid.
2023-10-13	When a player leaves a multiplayer game, any continuous effects with durations that last until that player's next turn or until a specific point in that turn will last until that turn would have begun. They neither expire immediately nor last indefinitely.