Ringskipper MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	2
Rarity	Common
Type	Creature — Faerie Wizard
Abilities	Clash,Flying
Released	2007-10-12
Set symbol
Set name	Lorwyn
Set code	LRW
Power	1
Toughness	1
Number	81
Frame	2003
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Heather Hudson

Key Takeaways

Unearth ability at instant speed for strategic card advantage and avoiding removal.
Discard required for looting; precise mana cost limits deck flexibility.
Gains value in graveyard-synergistic decks and persistent meta-gameplay.

Text of card

Flying When Ringskipper is put into a graveyard from play, clash with an opponent. If you win, return Ringskipper to its owner's hand. (Each clashing player reveals the top card of his or her library, then puts that card on the top or bottom. A player wins if his or her card had a higher converted mana cost.)

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Ringskipper shines in the department of card advantage thanks to its unearth capability. It offers an opportunity to reuse its looting effect for an additional card selection process, thereby potentially increasing your hand quality over the course of the game.

Resource Acceleration: Although not directly providing mana, Ringskipper’s utility comes from its ability to smooth out draws. By discarding a land card you don’t need and potentially finding something more impactful, this subtly accelerates your resource development by fostering better draws.

Instant Speed: This faerie wizard has another trick up its sleeve with its ability to be unearthed at instant speed. This feature allows for strategic timing, such as activating it at the end of your opponent’s turn to avoid sorcery-speed removal, and ensuring its looting effect is maximized under the most opportune conditions.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Players opting to utilize Ringskipper’s ability must part with a card from their hand. This can pose a strategic setback, especially when hand size is crucial and the game’s dynamics require maintaining a range of options.

Specific Mana Cost: This creature demands a precise blend of mana, requiring both blue and generic sources to summon. This specificity can hinder deck flexibility, confining Ringskipper to decks heavily skewed towards blue mana pools and potentially making it a nonviable choice for many multicolored strategies.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a casting cost that might seem steep relative to its moderate impact on gameplay, Ringskipper’s mana investment draws critical scrutiny. In the vast landscape of MTG, where cards vie for deck slots based on efficiency and synergy, allocating resources to this card over others offering similar or greater effects at a lower cost can be a hard sell for competitive play.

Reasons to Include Ringskipper in Your Collection

Versatility: Ringskipper offers dual benefits with its ability to fit into various deck types. It can serve as an early blocker or a means to ensure your key creatures are available when needed due to its “When Ringskipper dies” effect, which can shuffle a creature back into your library.

Combo Potential: This faerie wizard synergizes with decks focused on graveyard mechanics. Pair Ringskipper with cards that manipulate self-mill or sacrifice for strategic advantage, harnessing both its dying-trigger and morph abilities to set the stage for powerful plays.

Meta-Relevance: In a meta that rewards strategies around graveyard interactions or where return-to-hand abilities hold sway, Ringskipper shines. Its seamless integration into such dynamics can tip the scales in games, becoming a critical piece of the puzzle for well-crafted decks.

How to beat

Ringskipper is an intriguing creature card that can impact the flow of a Magic: The Gathering game in subtle but meaningful ways. With its ability to return to the owner’s library after dying, it can become persistently bothersome for an opponent. However, there are strategies to counteract this bothersome loops.

An effective tactic is to rely on exile effects to prevent Ringskipper from returning to the library. By using spells like Path to Exile or instant-speed removal such as Swords to Plowshares, you can ensure that Ringskipper leaves the battlefield permanently. Alternatively, employing graveyard disruption, with cards like Scavenging Ooze, which can remove it from the graveyard before its triggered ability resolves, or Rest in Peace to shut down graveyard strategies entirely, can also be incredibly efficient.

Ultimately, the key to defeating Ringskipper lies in preparing for the long game and disrupting its ability to loop. With careful planning and the right removal tools, you can mitigate the impact of these persistent creatures and maintain the upper hand in your Magic: The Gathering matchups.

Cards like Ringskipper

Ringskipper emerges as an intriguing creature in the MTG universe, sharing characteristics with other faerie creatures such as Faerie Seer. Like Ringskipper, Faerie Seer offers utility with its ability to manipulate the top cards of your library. Ringskipper’s unique aspect is its unearthly ability to shuffle itself back into the library and potentially return, connecting players once more with its utility after a demise on the battlefield.

Comparatively, a card such as Mnemonic Wall has a similar ‘return from the graveyard’ aspect, allowing the retrieval of an instant or sorcery card. Although the Wall lacks the utility to control the top of the library, its synergies with various spell-focused strategies cannot be ignored. It reflects the strategic diversity MTG offers within even tightly related cards. Additionally, Cadaver Imp is another card that gives opportunity for recycling value from the graveyard, albeit with the flexibililty to retrieve any creature card, contrasting with Ringskipper’s self-referential return mechanic.

Each card possesses its own merits and situational advantages within the complex tapestry of MTG gameplay. Ringskipper, with its library manipulation and recurrence, holds a distinctive place in the pantheon of utility creatures.

Cards similar to Ringskipper by color, type and mana cost

Soratami Cloudskater - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Ringskipper MTG card by a specific set like Lorwyn, 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 Ringskipper and other MTG cards:

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Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Ringskipper has restrictions

Format	Legality
Commander	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Paupercommander	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pauper	Legal
Vintage	Legal
Duel	Legal
Predh	Legal
Penny	Legal

Rules and information

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