Homunculus MTG Card
2008-10-03 - Number 2
2011-09-30 - Number 3
2018-12-07 - Number 4
| Card sets | Released in 3 setsSee all |
| Type | Token Artifact Creature — Homunculus |
| Power | 0 |
| Toughness | 1 |
Key Takeaways
- Homunculus cards can provide card advantage and improve deck consistency.
- They demand exact mana base planning due to specific color costs.
- Despite higher costs, Homunculus cards are versatile and strategically deep.
Card Pros
Card Advantage: The Homunculus card often brings utility through abilities that either draw you additional cards or manipulate the deck, contributing to a healthy card advantage. This lays the groundwork for orchestrating key plays and gaining the upper hand over your opponent by having more resources at your disposal.
Resource Acceleration: Homunculus creatures may not be known for brute strength, but they can be instrumental in speeding up your mana resources. Certain Homunculus cards have synergies that untap lands or provide cost reductions for spells, acting as a catalyst for a quicker and more efficient execution of your game plan.
Instant Speed: Abilities that can be activated or spells involving Homunculus at instant speed allow for strategic depth and flexibility in response to opposing threats. This reactive capability enables players to adapt to the constantly shifting battlefield, seamlessly shifting from a defensive stance to making calculated aggressive moves, all while catching the adversary by surprise.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Homunculus cards often come with a price beyond their mana cost, such as a discard requirement to activate abilities or to play the card. This can hinder your hand by forcing you to give up other valuable cards.
Specific Mana Cost: Homunculus creatures typically demand a precise blend of mana colors which might not blend seamlessly into every deck archetype. This demands careful mana base construction to avoid being unable to cast the card when needed.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: When considering their abilities, Homunculus cards can carry a higher mana cost compared to other creatures with similar effects. This can slow down your gameplay, making it more challenging to maintain tempo against opponents with more cost-effective creatures.
Reasons to Include in Your Collection
Versatility: Homunculus cards offer a unique blend of abilities that can be seamlessly integrated into decks emphasizing control and trickery. Their frequently low mana costs make them accessible options for diverse strategic approaches.
Combo Potential: These little creatures often have synergy with spells and effects that favor spell-slinging decks or strategies that revolve around tapping and untapping permanents, enhancing the intricacy of your plays.
Meta-Relevance: In an ever-evolving game environment, Homunculus cards can gain unexpected importance through their ability to counter specific popular strategies, making them smart, reactive additions to your arsenal.
How to beat
The Homunculus creature cards in Magic: The Gathering bring a unique blend of abilities to the battlefield, often characterized by their defensive capabilities and quirky mechanics. In games, these little beings might seem hard to overpower due to their often high toughness or tricky abilities. The key to dismantling a defense built around a Homunculus is understanding their limitations and exploiting their lack of power.
Players looking to tackle these creatures should focus on utilizing removal spells that disregard toughness — direct damage spells aren’t always efficient against them due to their robustness. Instead, consider spells or abilities that can bypass their defenses, such as those causing creatures to be sacrificed or employing -X/-X effects. It’s also effective to outpace Homunculus-focused strategies by applying pressure through aggressive plays or leveraging evasion abilities such as flying or trample to circumvent their ground-based fortifications.
Lastly, remember that while Homunculus cards are durable, they often lack the strength to be proactive threats. Putting pressure on your opponent by building up a diverse board presence and maintaining card advantage can force strains on their strategy, ultimately leading to their downfall.
Cards like Homunculus
The Homunculus tribe in Magic: The Gathering captures the imagination with its small, often blue, creature type. It shares similarities with other creature types well-known in the world of MTG, like Goblins and Elves, in its thematic cohesion and flavorful presence across various sets. When considering a Homunculus card, Fblthp, the Lost comes to mind. This peculiar little creature supports the player’s strategy with its ability to draw a card when it enters the battlefield or becomes the target of a spell.
Joining the family of similarly quirky creatures, we encounter Species Gorger. While not a Homunculus itself, this card echoes the theme of returning a creature to its owner’s hand, promoting a replayable dynamic in a player’s strategy. Its larger body, however, comes at a higher mana cost. Contrasting against these, the Humble Homunculus offers simplicity with hexproof during your turn, protecting it from opposing spells and abilities, albeit with a less significant overall board impact.
Exploring these card traits highlights the unique place of Homunculus cards within MTG – they blend subtle utility with an engaging, thematic playstyle, carving out a distinctive niche for fans of these thoughtfully crafted beings.
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Homunculus MTG card by a specific set like Shards of Alara and Innistrad, 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 Homunculus 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
Printings
The Homunculus Magic the Gathering card was released in 3 different sets between 2008-10-03 and 2018-12-07. Illustrated by 2 different artists.
| # | Released | Name | Code | Symbol | Number | Frame | Layout | Border | Artist |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2008-10-03 | Shards of Alara | ALA | 2 | 2003 | Token | Black | Howard Lyon | |
| 2 | 2011-09-30 | Innistrad | ISD | 3 | 2003 | Token | Black | Johann Bodin | |
| 3 | 2018-12-07 | Ultimate Masters | UMA | 4 | 2015 | Token | Black | Johann Bodin |
