Drag Down MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 2 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost3
RarityCommon
TypeInstant
Abilities Domain

Key Takeaways

  1. Drag Down scales with basic land types, fitting into multicolor or domain strategies with ease.
  2. Instant speed allows strategic flexibility, disrupting opponents’ plans at critical moments.
  3. Though impactful, specific mana costs and discard requirements may limit its utility.

Text of card

Domain Target creature gets -1/-1 until end of turn for each basic land type among lands you control.

The barbarians of Jund believe the bottomless tar pits extend forever into other, darker worlds.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Drag Down effectively neutralizes a potential threat on the battlefield, preventing your opponent from gaining or maintaining card advantage. This helps to maintain balance in the number of resources each player has available.

Resource Acceleration: While Drag Down doesn’t directly offer traditional mana ramp or acceleration, the removal of a key creature can indirectly accelerate your game plan by reducing the opposition’s board presence and allowing you to more safely develop your resources.

Instant Speed: The ability to play Drag Down at instant speed gives you flexibility, letting you adapt to your opponent’s actions on their turn. This surprise factor can be a crucial advantage, potentially disrupting your opponent’s strategy at a pivotal moment in the game.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Drag Down requires the player to sacrifice a creature to fully utilize its benefits. In the heat of the game, parting with a valuable creature on your battlefield could hinder your overall strategy, particularly if your deck thrives on maintaining a strong creature presence.

Specific Mana Cost: Binding players to specific mana combinations can be inconvenient, as Drag Down demands both black and colorless mana. For those running multicolor decks that aren’t heavily invested in black mana sources, casting Drag Down efficiently can become a challenging task, potentially leading to unwanted delays or a dead card in hand.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Drag Down’s mana cost might be seen as steep for its effect in the current metagame. Cards with lower mana requirements may offer similar or even more potent board control options, thus potentially relegating Drag Down to a less favorable position when it comes to deck building choices.


Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Drag Down is a common selection for decks that need targeted removal, it adapts to a variety of game situations. Its ability to scale with the number of basic land types among lands you control makes it useful in multicolor or domain decks. This flexibility sees it slot into a diverse range of strategic plans.

Combo Potential: By increasing the power of its effect based on land diversity, it pairs adeptly with land-based strategies. This can include deck designs that manipulate land types either on the battlefield or in the graveyard, enhancing the spell’s potential impact. In synergy with effects that care about -1/-1 counters, Drag Down can be a component in several combos.

Meta-Relevance: Given its scalability, Drag Down can assume a pivotal role in a meta dominated by creatures. It serves as an efficient solution against creature-heavy decks, adjusting to the power level of the threats it faces. This keeps it relevant in varying meta climates, potentially offering an edge in creature-centric matchups.


How to beat

The card Drag Down brings a unique dynamic to creature control in MTG, offering an efficient removal solution that scales with the number of basic land types among the lands you control. Unlike other removal spells that have fixed parameters, the multifaceted nature of Drag Down means its potency can vary greatly depending on your board state. To effectively counter Drag Down, it’s crucial to maintain a diverse land base that limits the spell’s reach. Playing around this card involves careful management of your creature’s toughness, avoiding the threshold where Drag Down can be lethal. If you’re expecting it in your opponent’s deck, prioritize creatures with higher toughness or those with indestructible or hexproof to sidestep this removal tool.

Moreover, consider adding counterspells or hand disruption tactics to your strategy in order to preemptively deal with Drag Down before it can influence the battlefield. By being proactive in your defense and thoughtful in creature selection, you can diminish the threat that Drag Down poses and maintain the upper hand in creature-heavy matchups, ensuring your key pieces remain active and your strategies go uninterrupted.


Cards like Drag Down

Drag Down is an intriguing spell within the realm of removal cards in Magic: The Gathering. It finds counterparts in cards like Disfigure and Grasp of Darkness, both offering the ability to reduce a creature’s power and toughness, thereby eliminating potential threats on the board. Disfigure, allowing for a two-point reduction for a single black mana, provides a cost-effective, albeit less potent, alternative to Drag Down. In contrast, Grasp of Darkness doubles that impact by offering a four-point reduction, but at the cost of an additional black mana and specific deck requirements.

Looking at other similarities, we respect Dead Weight for its enduring effect, reducing a creature’s power and toughness by two while remaining on the battlefield to influence the game’s course. It is remarkably similar in its target effect but operates differently when considering its permanent status versus the one-shot nature of Drag Down. Furthermore, Drag Down’s strength lies in its potential scaling effect thanks to domain—the number of basic land types among lands you control—making it a dynamic option in multicolored decks.

Summing up, Drag Down shines in its contextual adaptability, capable of handling various threats efficiently, a trait that places it within the upper tier of removal cards in the game. Players valuing flexibility may find Drag Down to be a strategic inclusion in their deck construction.

Disfigure - MTG Card versions
Grasp of Darkness - MTG Card versions
Dead Weight - MTG Card versions
Disfigure - Zendikar (ZEN)
Grasp of Darkness - Scars of Mirrodin (SOM)
Dead Weight - Innistrad (ISD)

Cards similar to Drag Down by color, type and mana cost

Spoils of Evil - MTG Card versions
Dark Banishing - MTG Card versions
Carrion - MTG Card versions
Sick and Tired - MTG Card versions
Corpse Dance - MTG Card versions
Bone Harvest - MTG Card versions
Slay - MTG Card versions
Afflict - MTG Card versions
Dismember - MTG Card versions
Body Count - MTG Card versions
Reaping the Graves - MTG Card versions
Execute - MTG Card versions
Kill! Destroy! - MTG Card versions
Sudden Death - MTG Card versions
Footbottom Feast - MTG Card versions
Fevered Strength - MTG Card versions
Hideous End - MTG Card versions
Corpse Lunge - MTG Card versions
Necrobite - MTG Card versions
Murder - MTG Card versions
Spoils of Evil - Ice Age (ICE)
Dark Banishing - Duel Decks Anthology: Divine vs. Demonic (DVD)
Carrion - Mirage (MIR)
Sick and Tired - Urza's Legacy (ULG)
Corpse Dance - World Championship Decks 1999 (WC99)
Bone Harvest - Beatdown Box Set (BTD)
Slay - Ninth Edition (9ED)
Afflict - Odyssey (ODY)
Dismember - Modern Event Deck 2014 (MD1)
Body Count - Magic Online Promos (PRM)
Reaping the Graves - Magic Online Theme Decks (TD0)
Execute - Ninth Edition (9ED)
Kill! Destroy! - Unhinged (UNH)
Sudden Death - Time Spiral (TSP)
Footbottom Feast - Commander 2011 (CMD)
Fevered Strength - Masters Edition III (ME3)
Hideous End - The List (PLST)
Corpse Lunge - Innistrad (ISD)
Necrobite - Avacyn Restored (AVR)
Murder - Murders at Karlov Manor (MKM)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Drag Down MTG card by a specific set like Conflux and Modern Masters, 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 Drag Down and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Drag Down Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2009-02-06 and 2013-06-07. Illustrated by Trevor Claxton.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12009-02-06ConfluxCON 422003normalblackTrevor Claxton
22013-06-07Modern MastersMMA 802003normalblackTrevor Claxton

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Drag Down has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
PaupercommanderLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
PauperLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
PennyLegal

Rules and information

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

DateText
2009-02-01 A number of nonbasic lands have basic land types. Domain abilities don’t count the number of lands you control — they count the number of basic land types among lands you control, even if that means checking the same land twice. For example, if you control a Tundra, an Overgrown Tomb, and a Madblind Mountain, you’ll have a Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest among the lands you control. Your domain abilities will be maxed out.
2009-02-01 How many lands you control of a particular basic land type is irrelevant to a domain ability, as long as that number is greater than zero. As far as domain is concerned, ten Forests is the same as one Forest.
2009-02-01 To determine the number of basic land types among lands you control, look at the lands you have on the battlefield and ask yourself whether the subtypes Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain, and Forest appear within that group. The number of times you say yes (topping out at five) tells you how powerful your domain abilities will be.

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