Braidwood Sextant MTG Card
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 1 |
| Rarity | Uncommon |
| Type | Artifact |
| Released | 1999-06-07 |
| Set symbol | |
| Set name | Urza's Destiny |
| Set code | UDS |
| Number | 127 |
| Frame | 1997 |
| Layout | Normal |
| Border | Black |
| Illustred by | Don Hazeltine |
Key Takeaways
- Braidwood Sextant enables card digging and mana consistency, crucial for maintaining an edge in gameplay.
- The Sextant’s demand for discard and specific mana can limit its utility depending on the deck strategy.
- It offers versatility and combo potential, particularly in longer games requiring consistent land drops.
Text of card
, oc T, Sacrifice Braidwood Sextant: Search your library for a basic land card, reveal that card, and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Engage in strategic deck manipulation with Braidwood Sextant, as it enables a steady flow of card digging. This can be instrumental in finding key components to secure victory, granting a subtle yet significant edge over opponents by refining card quality over mere quantity.
Resource Acceleration: The Sextant’s ability isn’t just about medium-term planning; it’s a resource accelerator. Each activation brings you closer to land drops, ensuring the much-needed mana is at your disposal to deploy threats or answers with efficient timing, bolstering your strategy’s progression.
Instant Speed: Flexibility is paramount, and Braidwood Sextant operates under the auspices of instant speed. React to dynamic in-game situations by activating the Sextant at the most opportune moment—whether that’s during your last opponent’s turn or in response to an interaction—crafting the conditions favorable to your tactical forethought.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Utilizing the Braidwood Sextant demands a card to be discarded in addition to its other costs. This may not be ideal for players who are trying to maintain card advantage or who have a scant selection in hand.
Specific Mana Cost: The Sextant’s activation requirement of a single green mana can be restrictive. Players with multicolor decks or those not centered around green may find it challenging to consistently generate the necessary mana.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: With an initial cost and an activation fee that also expends a card, the Braidwood Sextant’s total investment to draw a land can be steep compared to other options. Cards with lower overhead or more versatile effects could provide better value and efficiency for deck building strategies.
Reasons to Include Braidwood Sextant in Your Collection
Versatility: Braidwood Sextant offers flexibility as a low-cost artifact that can be integrated into various decks. Its ability to potentially smooth out your mana draws is beneficial in formats where mana consistency is key.
Combo Potential: This card can support artifact-centric strategies or serve as a piece in a combo that requires recurring artifact triggers, making it a potential sleeper hit in the right deck.
Meta-Relevance: In a game state where games tend to stretch longer and the need for consistent land drops is imperative, Braidwood Sextant can help maintain the land plays turn after turn, ensuring you never miss a crucial land drop in your game plan.
How to beat
Braidwood Sextant offers a unique utility in MTG, allowing for deck thinning and ensuring land drops. Like any tool designed for consistency, it can be a subtle but important gear in an opponent’s strategy. To effectively neutralize its impact on the game, consider strategies that limit your opponent’s access to artifacts or card draw.
Artifact removal spells like Shatter or Nature’s Claim can directly address the presence of Braidwood Sextant on the field. In addition to direct removal, implementing strategies that disrupt your opponent’s hand, like Thoughtseize or Mind Rot, can pre-emptively remove the sextant before it sees play. Lastly, some players incorporate Stony Silence, which outright disables activated abilities of artifacts, rendering the sextant inert.
Focusing on these strategies can provide a significant advantage. By prioritizing the control of your opponent’s resources and the flow of their game, you can diminish the Braidwood Sextant’s potential and keep the upper hand, maintaining strategic dominance on the battlefield.
Cards like Braidwood Sextant
Braidwood Sextant offers unique flexibility in the realm of artifact-based mana-fixing within Magic: The Gathering. It bears resemblance to other artifacts like Prophetic Prism, which also allows for mana filtering but includes an immediate card draw upon entering the battlefield. While the Sextant requires the use of an additional two mana and a land sacrifice to draw a card, Prophetic Prism’s effect is instantaneous and doesn’t demand such a trade-off.
Additionally, we find Armillary Sphere which shares the concept of land fetching, although it does not filter mana. The Sphere, for four mana, lets you search your library for up to two basic land cards, revealing them and adding them to your hand without any sacrifice, offering a more direct route to land acquisition.
Examining these cards side by side, Braidwood Sextant’s indirect card draw presents a slower but repeatable utility across several turns, possibly providing more strategic depth to games. In choosing between such cards, players will weigh their mana curves, deck strategies, and immediate versus long-term needs to determine the best fit for their deck composition.
Cards similar to Braidwood Sextant by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Braidwood Sextant MTG card by a specific set like Urza's Destiny, 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 Braidwood Sextant and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See MTG Products
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Braidwood Sextant has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Commander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Premodern | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Predh | Legal |
| Penny | Legal |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Braidwood Sextant card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2004-10-04 | Because the “search” requires you to find a card with certain characteristics, you don’t have to find the card if you don’t want to. |
