Unbreakable Bond MTG Card

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Unbreakable Bond not only reanimates a creature from the graveyard but also places a Lifelink counter on it, providing a dual benefit and increasing card functionality on the battlefield.

Resource Acceleration: This potent spell can be a game-changer by bringing back high-cost creatures early in the game, effectively bypassing the traditional mana curve and accelerating your board state development.

Instant Speed: While Unbreakable Bond is a sorcery, its influence on the game can be felt as though it had instant speed due to the immediate impact of resurrecting a powerful creature and potentially altering the course of the game in one turn.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: One of the drawbacks of Unbreakable Bond is the need to discard another card when you cast it. For players controlling a game with a dwindling hand, this additional cost can sometimes be more of a liability than an asset, potentially putting you at a card disadvantage.

Specific Mana Cost: Unbreakable Bond’s casting cost requires one black and four generic mana, which implies a commitment to black mana in your deck’s color scheme. This specific mana requirement can be restrictive for multicolored decks that may not have consistent access to the necessary mana sources.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: A five mana total investment can be quite significant, especially in faster-paced games where efficiency is crucial. Given that there are alternative resurrection spells and creatures available at lower mana costs, the comparably high mana cost of Unbreakable Bond can make it less attractive in certain strategies that value speed or low-cost synergies.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Unbreakable Bond offers flexibility in deck construction, seamlessly integrating into reanimator strategies or decks that capitalize on lifegain synergies.

Combo Potential: This card can revive key creatures while giving them a lifelink ability, which can be harnessed to set up powerful turns and synergize with recurring life-triggered mechanics.

Meta-Relevance: In a format where graveyard play is a factor, Unbreakable Bond provides a strategic edge, allowing players to effectively return high-value targets to the battlefield and impact the game state.

How to beat

Unbreakable Bond is a notable card in Magic: The Gathering due to its dual ability to both return a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield and give it a lifelink counter. This makes it quite resilient against common removal tactics and can swing the momentum of the game in favor of the player using it. To successfully counter this strategy, players need to rely on graveyard disruption spells or effects that exile cards. Ashiok, Dream Render is a strong example, preventing cards from being targeted by Unbreakable Bond through its graveyard exile ability.

Exile effects from cards like Path to Exile or Direct Current can also serve as viable solutions to preemptively remove creatures from the game entirely, thus rendering Unbreakable Bond ineffective. Additionally, counterspells are an important tool in any player’s arsenal, allowing for a direct and proactive approach to stop Unbreakable Bond from resolving in the first place. Ultimately, understanding how to dismantle the combo through strategic planning and a careful selection of cards within your deck becomes imperative when facing an opponent utilizing Unbreakable Bond in their strategy.