Beacon of Unrest MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 11 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost5
RarityRare
TypeSorcery

Key Takeaways

  1. Beacon of Unrest offers major card advantage by reanimating creature or artifact cards and may be reused.
  2. Instant speed casting lets players surprise opponents with strategic creature or artifact returns during their turn.
  3. Despite its high mana cost, the card’s versatility makes it valuable for various deck builds and strategies.

Text of card

Put target artifact or creature card from a graveyard into play under your control. Shuffle Beacon of Unrest into its owner's library.

A vertical scream pierces the night air and echoes doom through the clouds.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Beacon of Unrest is an exceptional example of how to turn the tide of a game by providing substantial card advantage. This spell not only brings back a creature or artifact from any graveyard directly onto the battlefield under your control, but thanks to its shuffle back clause, it can potentially be used multiple times over the course of a match. This capability to recycle key resources grants you repeated value and can exhaust opponents’ answers.

Resource Acceleration: While Beacon of Unrest itself doesn’t directly generate mana, the artifact or creature it reanimates can be pivotal for resource acceleration. By strategically targeting mana-producing artifacts or creatures, you can effectively ramp up your available resources, giving you a commanding lead in resource availability for subsequent turns.

Instant Speed: Perhaps one of the most compelling features of Beacon of Unrest is its ability to be cast at instant speed, offering a tactical advantage that can catch opponents off guard. This versatility means you can respond to threats on the fly or end-of-turn reanimate a game-changing creature or artifact, setting up a surprise reversal or a powerful play for your next turn.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Beacon of Unrest doesn’t force you to discard cards to activate its ability, players must be mindful of the cards in their graveyard to optimize its effect. Without a strategic discard plan, you might find your graveyard lacking valuable targets when you need them.

Specific Mana Cost: Beacon of Unrest requires a precise combination of black and generic mana to play. This mana specificity means that decks without a strong black mana base can struggle to cast it on curve, thereby affecting its overall flexibility in multi-colored decks.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a total cost of five mana—two of which must be black—Beacon of Unrest can be considered quite expensive. As a late-game play, it may not always align with a deck’s tempo, especially when compared to other reanimation spells that come with a lower mana investment.


Reasons to Include Beacon of Unrest in Your Collection

Versatility: Beacon of Unrest operates beyond the constraints of a single archetype, offering a dynamic play across various deck builds. Its unique ability to bring back creatures or artifacts from any graveyard to the battlefield can shift the tide in games, adapting to diverse game states and strategies.

Combo Potential: When it comes to synergies, this card shines by interacting seamlessly with strategies that capitalize on graveyard manipulation. Whether it’s returning a key combo piece to play or creating unexpected interactions with newly resurrected artifacts, Beacon of Unrest can be a linchpin in sophisticated and surprising combos.

Meta-Relevance: As gameplay evolves and graveyard-centric tactics become prevalent, Beacon of Unrest maintains a significant position. Its relevance is underscored in settings where reanimation can disrupt opponent strategies or where the recycling of powerful artifacts can grant a second life to critical components of your game plan.


How to beat

Beacon of Unrest is a versatile reanimation spell in MTG, capable of bringing back any artifact or creature from the graveyard into the battlefield under your control. What makes this card particularly challenging is its ability to target graveyards – both yours and your opponent’s – and the fact that it’s shuffled back into the library afterwards, potentially to be used again.

To counteract Beacon of Unrest effectively, graveyard hate cards are essential. Relic of Progenitus is a great example; it can exile all cards from a player’s graveyard, thwarting Beacon’s target options. Tormod’s Crypt is another option as it serves a similar purpose without any mana investment. Implementing cards like Scavenging Ooze can also help you to maintain graveyard control by selectively exiling key artifacts or creatures. Paying close attention to graveyard management can disrupt an opponent’s strategy and leave Beacon of Unrest without a valid target, making it a less formidable threat.

In essence, countering Beacon of Unrest requires a strategic approach that involves maintaining control over graveyard assets. It’s not only about preventing one spell but also about weakening an opponent’s broader graveyard-centric tactics, ensuring they don’t gain the upper hand with unforeseen resurrections.


BurnMana Recommendations

With Beacon of Unrest’s card advantage, resource acceleration, and instant speed shenanigans, your MTG gameplay could shift significantly. Our exploration of this multifaceted spell reveals a must-have for any graveyard-utilizing deck. Delve deeper into your strategic reserve and consider how Beacon of Unrest could revive not just your creatures and artifacts but your entire game plan. Don’t let the nuances of redemption spells slip through the cracks. Elevate your deck’s capabilities and your understanding of the game—let BurnMana guide your journey to MTG excellence. For more insights and powerful add-ons to your collection, come learn with us.


Cards like Beacon of Unrest

Beacon of Unrest is a powerful reanimation spell in Magic: The Gathering, offering a pivotal role in bringing creatures or artifacts back from the graveyard. Its most direct comparison is with cards like Animate Dead and Reanimate which share the reanimation theme. Animate Dead is less versatile, given it only targets creatures, and it comes with a downside of reducing the resurrected creature’s power.

Meanwhile, Zombify serves as another peer, providing a simple creature-only revival without Beacon of Unrest’s added flexibility to target artifacts. Despite its lower mana cost, Zombify lacks the recursion potential of Beacon of Unrest, which shuffles back into the library if it resolves. Finally, Trash for Treasure is an artifact-centric alternative, requisitioning an artifact from the graveyard at the sacrifice of another. However, its requirement for an additional sacrifice and its limitation to artifacts mark the distinct advantages of Beacon of Unrest’s broader scope and self-recycling nature.

Assessing these alternatives alongside Beacon of Unrest underscores the unique edge it provides in versatility and recurring value, making it a standout choice for players seeking to leverage their graveyard assets in Magic: The Gathering.

Animate Dead - MTG Card versions
Reanimate - MTG Card versions
Zombify - MTG Card versions
Trash for Treasure - MTG Card versions
Animate Dead - Limited Edition Alpha (LEA)
Reanimate - Tempest (TMP)
Zombify - Odyssey (ODY)
Trash for Treasure - Mirrodin (MRD)

Cards similar to Beacon of Unrest by color, type and mana cost

Reign of Terror - MTG Card versions
Soul Shred - MTG Card versions
Living Death - MTG Card versions
Final Punishment - MTG Card versions
Soul Feast - MTG Card versions
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Diabolic Revelation - MTG Card versions
Crux of Fate - MTG Card versions
Fugue - MTG Card versions
Dark Petition - MTG Card versions
Reign of Terror - Mirage (MIR)
Soul Shred - Portal (POR)
Living Death - Vintage Masters (VMA)
Final Punishment - Scourge (SCG)
Soul Feast - Ninth Edition (9ED)
Patriarch's Bidding - Modern Horizons 2 Promos (PMH2)
Aether Snap - Commander 2014 (C14)
Dance of Shadows - Champions of Kamigawa (CHK)
Sever Soul - Hachette UK (PHUK)
Head Games - Tenth Edition (10E)
Promise of Power - Commander 2014 (C14)
Rise from the Grave - Zendikar Rising Commander (ZNC)
Incremental Blight - Archenemy (ARC)
Dakmor Plague - Masters Edition IV (ME4)
Spread the Sickness - Mirrodin Besieged (MBS)
Monomania - Magic 2012 (M12)
Diabolic Revelation - Magic 2013 (M13)
Crux of Fate - Commander 2017 (C17)
Fugue - Tempest Remastered (TPR)
Dark Petition - Magic Origins Promos (PORI)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Beacon of Unrest MTG card by a specific set like Magic Online Promos and Fifth Dawn, 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 Beacon of Unrest and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Beacon of Unrest Magic the Gathering card was released in 10 different sets between 2004-06-04 and 2022-10-07. Illustrated by 3 different artists.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12002-06-24Magic Online PromosPRM 625192015normalblackJoseph Meehan
22004-06-04Fifth Dawn5DN 412003normalblackAlan Pollack
32007-07-13Tenth Edition10E 1292003normalblackAlan Pollack
42009-09-04PlanechaseHOP 182003normalblackAlan Pollack
52010-06-18ArchenemyARC 102003normalblackAlan Pollack
62016-11-11Commander 2016C16 1072015normalblackJoseph Meehan
72019-08-23Commander 2019C19 1052015normalblackJoseph Meehan
82020-08-07Double Masters2XM 772015normalblackJoseph Meehan
92020-09-26The ListPLST 2XM-772015normalblackJoseph Meehan
102022-10-07Warhammer 40,000 Commander40K 194★2015normalblackRafater
112022-10-07Warhammer 40,000 Commander40K 1942015normalblackRafater

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Beacon of Unrest has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
PennyLegal

Rules and information

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

DateText
2020-08-07 If the target card is an illegal target by the time Beacon of Unrest tries to resolve, the spell won't resolve. You won't shuffle it into your library.
2020-08-07 In a multiplayer game, if a player leaves the game, all cards that player owns leave as well. If you leave the game, the permanent you control from Beacon of Unrest is exiled.

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