Durable Coilbug MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 2 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost2
RarityCommon
TypeCreature — Insect
Power 2
Toughness 2

Key Takeaways

  1. Instant speed recursion of Durable Coilbug offers strategic responses and mana efficiency.
  2. Although versatile, its repeated mana cost may limit deployment of more impactful cards.
  3. Countering it demands exile effects or quicker win conditions to outpace its value.

Text of card

: Return Durable Coilbug from your graveyard to your hand.

"I've seen them survive lava, trampling, and a moloch's digestive system. They just roll out and get on with their lives!" —Gannet, Skysail zoologist


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Durable Coilbug stands out in the long game, helping you maintain a presence on the board. It can be returned from the graveyard to your hand, effectively bypassing card depletion and keeping your resources full.

Resource Acceleration: While Durable Coilbug doesn’t directly accelerate your mana resources, its low cost and recursion ability make it a reliable play, ensuring you’re utilizing your mana efficiently each turn. This can indirectly lead to better resource management overall.

Instant Speed: This creature’s return-to-hand ability can be activated at instant speed, giving you the flexibility to respond to removal or end-of-turn plays. It’s a strategic edge that allows you to make the most of your turns and keep opponents guessing about your next move.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Durable Coilbug’s gameplay doesn’t directly impose a discard requirement, but its presence in a deck could lead to scenarios where a player is forced to opt for discarding due to hand size limitations or game effects that tax resources at a similar rate.

Specific Mana Cost: While the mana cost for Durable Coilbug isn’t color specific, it does demand two mana of any color. This could slightly restrict deck flexibility as this cost must always be available to bring Coilbug into play, or to utilize its recursion ability effectively.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: The mana investment to continually retrieve Durable Coilbug from the graveyard, albeit a strategic advantage in long games, may be considered high. Often, players could allocate such resources to deploy more impactful cards with potentially game-changing effects.


Reasons to Include Durable Coilbug in Your Collection

Versatility: Durable Coilbug offers flexibility in deck construction, shining in environments where you can repeatedly utilize its recursion ability. This resilient creature can be a consistent presence on the battlefield, supporting strategies that thrive on having creatures in play.

Combo Potential: Its ability to return from the graveyard to your hand makes it a resourceful enabler for various combos. It interacts favorably with mechanics like sacrifice or delve, where it can be used as a recurring resource for multiple turns.

Meta-Relevance: Against decks that rely on one-for-one removal, Durable Coilbug proves its worth by persisting through multiple threats. Its place in the metagame is solidified when facing attrition-based strategies, ensuring you always have a creature to play.


How to beat

Durable Coilbug is a creature card that can prove to be a persistent nuisance in MTG due to its ability to return to a player’s hand from the graveyard. This kind of resilience makes it a suitable card for long-term strategies, but it is not unbeatable. The key to tackling a Durable Coilbug lies in nullifying its return ability by exiling it or by employing cards that impose restrictions on creatures returning from the graveyard. Cards like Scavenging Ooze, which can exile creatures from the graveyard, or Grafdigger’s Cage, which prevents creatures in graveyards from being cast, are effective counters.

Another strategy is to outpace the incremental value the Coilbug provides by focusing on more aggressive plays or setting up faster win conditions. This shifts the focus away from dealing with the Coilbug repeatedly and towards pressuring your opponent. Alternatively, leveraging enchantments or artifacts that restrict graveyard interactions can stifle the impact of Durable Coilbug and similar cards, tilting the advantage in your favor. By understanding the mechanics behind the Coilbug and the broader deck strategies it fits into, overcoming this pesky insect becomes a manageable task, allowing you to maintain control of the game.


Cards like Durable Coilbug

Durable Coilbug is an intriguing creature within the MTG realm. It shares common ground with other resilient creatures, especially those with recursion abilities. For instance, Tenacious Dead is another creature that, like Durable Coilbug, can return to the battlefield, albeit at a slightly higher mana cost and with a black mana requirement. Both serve as persistent threats that can be difficult for an opponent to permanently remove.

Moreover, looking at the likes of Gutterbones, we notice a recurrence theme. Gutterbones returns to your hand under certain conditions, much like Durable Coilbug can be returned to the field. While Gutterbones demands a successful attack on the opponent, Durable Coilbug’s return hinges purely on mana, offering more predictable and controllable recursion.

In the realm of undying creatures, the comparison highlights Durable Coilbug’s simplicity and ease of use. While it may lack the immediate impact of some other creatures upon re-entering the battlefield, its straightforward revival mechanism ensures it’s a noteworthy option for decks that capitalize on creature longevity and incremental advantage.

Tenacious Dead - MTG Card versions
Gutterbones - MTG Card versions
Tenacious Dead - Magic 2014 (M14)
Gutterbones - Ravnica Allegiance (RNA)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Durable Coilbug MTG card by a specific set like Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths and Jumpstart 2022, 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 Durable Coilbug and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Durable Coilbug Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2020-04-24 and 2022-12-02. Illustrated by Milivoj Ćeran.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12020-04-24Ikoria: Lair of BehemothsIKO 852015normalblackMilivoj Ćeran
22022-12-02Jumpstart 2022J22 4082015normalblackMilivoj Ćeran

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Durable Coilbug has restrictions

FormatLegality
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
PaupercommanderLegal
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
PauperLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
PennyLegal
TimelessLegal

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