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Card Pros

Card Advantage: Shield Mare is a wonderful addition to any deck that benefits from consistently drawing cards. It’s particularly useful for strategies that revolve around lifegain or aura synergies, potentially offering repeated value across several turns without requiring additional card investment.

Resource Acceleration: This versatile card can provide a subtle form of resource acceleration. As it can’t be blocked by red creatures, Shield Mare frequently guarantees lifegain, which in lifegain-themed decks, can often be a pathway to accelerating your game plan or enable other key mechanics within your deck to come online more quickly.

Instant Speed: While Shield Mare itself isn’t played at instant speed, the lifegain it provides can be highly pertinent in response to certain instant-speed interactions. Combined with cards that trigger on life gain at instant speed, Shield Mare can create surprise advantages when your opponents least expect it, turning the tide of a duel in an instant.

Card Cons

Specific Mana Cost: Shield Mare necessitates both white mana and generic, which could restrict deck-building options, especially in multicolored formats where mana flexibility is key.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a mana cost of three, Shield Mare competes with other impactful three-drops in the game, potentially making it less appealing for players seeking more immediate board presence or utility.

Discard Requirement: Although Shield Mare does not directly require a discard, its ability is contingent on it being targeted by an opponent, which might not occur, thereby not always guaranteeing value or protection from discard effects it is meant to counter.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Shield Mare is a card that offers flexibility in deck building. It can find a home in white-based creature decks and has the unique quality of being unable to be blocked by red creatures, making it a solid choice in a meta with red aggression.

Combo Potential: As a creature that gains you life whenever it becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, Shield Mare works well with strategies that capitalize on life gain triggers or cards that benefit from targeting your own creatures.

Meta-Relevance: In an environment where red aggressive strategies are prevalent, Shield Mare serves as a useful sideboard card. The life gain and block evasion can turn the tide of the game against burn decks and other red-focused archetypes.

How to beat

Shield Mare is a unique creature card that presents a challenge on the battlefield due to its abilities that cater to life gain and resilience against a red deck. However, triumphing over Shield Mare is a matter of strategic play and deck building. One effective way to surpass its abilities is to use cards that force the owner to sacrifice creatures, as Shield Mare’s protection is from being targeted, not from sacrifice effects. Moreover, utilizing board wipe spells can clear the field without targeting individual creatures, thereby bypassing its defenses.

It is also advantageous to include creatures or spells in your deck that have deathtouch or can assign damage without targeting. Cards with global debuffs can reduce Shield Mare’s utility by lowering its attributes, making it an easier obstacle to overcome. Another strategy is to focus on life total reduction that doesn’t rely on dealing damage, such as using cards that cause loss of life directly. By combining thoughtful planning and card selection, Shield Mare can be effectively managed and overcome within the complex and competitive landscape of MTG.