Ainok Guide MTG Card
| Mana cost | |
| Converted mana cost | 2 |
| Rarity | Common |
| Type | Creature — Dog Scout |
| Released | 2015-01-23 |
| Set symbol | |
| Set name | Fate Reforged |
| Set code | FRF |
| Power | 1 |
| Toughness | 1 |
| Number | 121 |
| Frame | 2015 |
| Layout | Normal |
| Border | Black |
| Illustred by | Lucas Graciano |
Key Takeaways
- Ainok Guide ensures land drops, granting strategic card advantage and adaptability in gameplay.
- The card demands a trade-off upon arrival, which can be a setback in tight situations.
- Its flexibility secures its place in various decks, contributing to meta-relevant strategies.
Text of card
When Ainok Guide enters the battlefield, choose one — • Put a +1/+1 counter on Ainok Guide. • Search your library for a basic land card, reveal it, then shuffle your library and put that card on top of it.
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Ainok Guide offers the versatility of a two-mode choice upon entering the battlefield, which can help you maintain your flow in the game. Selecting to put a basic land card on top of your deck ensures your land drops remain consistent, contributing to a subtle but potentially crucial card advantage.
Resource Acceleration: By ensuring you have a land drop ready for your next turn, Ainok Guide can indirectly contribute to resource acceleration. It’s particularly impactful in limited formats where a smooth mana curve is vital and where resource acceleration can set you ahead of the opposition.
Instant Speed: While Ainok Guide itself is not an instant, the card it helps to acquire (basic land) can be played at any point appropriate to your strategy. This includes fetching a land at the end of your opponent’s turn to maintain the element of surprise and keep mana open for other instant-speed interactions during their turn.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Ainok Guide demands a player to make a choice upon entering the battlefield, one of which involves discarding a card to facilitate its search ability. This requirement can often be a setback, especially in situations where maintaining card advantage is critical to your strategy.
Specific Mana Cost: Sporting a precise mana requirement of one green and one colorless, Ainok Guide may not seamlessly fit into decks that run a multitude of colors. Its specific mana cost can pose a deck-building challenge and hinder its inclusion in more diverse mana bases.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: For a 1/1 creature, investing two mana might be deemed steep by many players, especially when compared against the universe of creatures with similar mana costs but stronger abilities or higher power and toughness. This can place Ainok Guide at a competitive disadvantage when deck efficiency and optimal mana usage are taken into account.
Reasons to Include Ainok Guide in Your Collection
Versatility: Ainok Guide allows for flexibility in gameplay, able to serve both as an early creature on the battlefield or as a means to ensure your next land drop. This adaptability makes it a suitable addition for a variety of deck types that may need a dependable two-drop.
Combo Potential: This card’s ability to manipulate the top of the library makes it particularly useful in decks that capitalize on knowing or arranging the top cards. It can be leveraged in combos that benefit from deck manipulation or in synergies with cards caring about creature types.
Meta-Relevance: In a game where the right mana can make or break your strategy, Ainok Guide holds relevance. Its capacity to secure land drops helps maintain pace against both aggressive and control-oriented decks within various metas.
How to beat
Subtlety and strategic planning are key to overcoming the utility of Ainok Guide in MTG games. This card, often utilized for its flexibility in mana bases, is a creature that when it enters the battlefield allows its owner to choose between putting a +1/+1 counter on it or searching their library for a basic land card, revealing it, then shuffling their library. Players find this particularly handy in land retrieval to avoid being mana starved during crucial turns.
To disrupt this creature effectively, control and removal spells are recommended. Employing instant-speed removals like Fatal Push or Path to Exile can prevent the Ainok Guide from providing its land searching effect if the counter option was not chosen. Counterspells such as Negate or Essence Scatter are also effective in halting the creature before its on-cast ability triggers. Additionally, the game tempo can be maintained by ensuring a robust board presence, which can dissuade the opponent from investing too much in a small creature like Ainok Guide. Deploying larger creatures can overshadow its presence on the battlefield and minimize its relevance as the game progresses.
A thoughtful blend of removal, counters, and pressure can efficiently address the challenge presented by Ainok Guide, ensuring its skills are mitigated or bypassed entirely on your path to victory.
Cards like Ainok Guide
Ainok Guide is a versatile creature from the Khans of Tarkir set in Magic: The Gathering, presenting players with a choice upon its entry to the battlefield. Like Ainok Guide, Elvish Visionary from various MTG sets allows for immediate value through card draw. Although the Visionary does not provide a choice but draws a card unconditionally.
Satyr Wayfinder is another card that compliments Ainok Guide’s utility, with both focusing on manipulating deck contents. Satyr Wayfinder, however, specifically aids in filling the graveyard and fixing lands in hand, unlike Ainok Guide that allows you to choose between a land card reveal or a +1/+1 counter. Wall of Blossoms is equally noteworthy, sharing the same mana cost and providing card draw upon entry, which is a fixed effect compared to the Guide’s optional abilities.
While analyzing these creatures within the MTG ecosystem, Ainok Guide’s flexibility allows players to tailor their strategy dynamically, offering a balanced contribution to creature-based decks that require either land fixing or a subtle power boost on the battlefield.
Cards similar to Ainok Guide by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Ainok Guide MTG card by a specific set like Fate Reforged, 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 Ainok Guide 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 Ainok Guide has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Commander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Paupercommander | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Pauper | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Pioneer | Legal |
| Penny | Legal |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Ainok Guide card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2014-11-24 | If a mode requires a target and there are no legal targets available, you must choose the mode that adds a +1/+1 counter. |
| 2014-11-24 | You choose which mode you’re using as you put the ability on the stack, after the creature has entered the battlefield. Once you’ve chosen a mode, you can’t change that mode even if the creature leaves the battlefield in response to that ability. |
