Fastbond MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 12 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost1
RarityRare
TypeEnchantment

Key Takeaways

  1. Fastbond excels in decks focused on land strategies, enhancing mana acceleration and combo potential.
  2. The card’s downside includes life point costs and potential hand depletion, requiring strategic planning.
  3. Despite its power, there are effective strategies to disrupt Fastbond, like targeted removal and counters.

Text of card

You may put as many lands into play as you want each turn. Fastbond does 1 damage to you for every land beyond the first that you play in a single turn.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Fastbond, when played in harmony with additional land-draw spells or effects, lets you churn through your deck at an exceptional pace. This interaction provides you with an abundant flow of resources and propels you towards your key game pieces much quicker than your opponent.

Resource Acceleration: This potent card offers unparalleled resource acceleration. By allowing you to play multiple lands each turn, it effectively ramps up your mana resources, enabling bigger plays much earlier than usual. It paves the way for overwhelming board states that can shift the tide of the match in your favor.

Instant Speed: While Fastbond itself does not operate at instant speed, it synergizes well with effects that put lands onto the battlefield during an opponent’s turn. By doing so, it can significantly elevate your instant-speed land-play capabilities, keeping opponents off-balance and unprepared for the moves you’ll unleash.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Fastbond requires you to jettison valuable cards for each land you play beyond the first. This can quickly deplete your hand, leaving you without important options later in the game.

Specific Mana Cost: Fastbond’s cost is confined to a single green mana. While seemingly easy to fulfill, it can be prohibitive for multicolored decks that struggle with mana consistency.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Despite its singular green mana cost, the price you pay through life points can spiral out of control. Each additional land comes at a sharp cost of one life point, which can prove detrimental, especially if you’re facing an aggressive opponent.


Reasons to Include Fastbond in Your Collection

Versatility: Fastbond is a unique card that offers the ability to play multiple lands on your own turn. This can be incredibly useful in a variety of strategies, allowing for a rapid advancement in board state that can benefit ramp decks, landfall strategies, and any deck aiming to maximize land utility.

Combo Potential: In combination with cards that allow you to draw when you play a land or return lands to your hand, Fastbond can become part of an engine that generates significant advantage. This lends itself to combos that can potentially end the game if constructed with synergy in mind.

Meta-Relevance: While the relevance of Fastbond can vary with different meta-games, its strength in enabling fast mana acceleration ensures it has the potential to be a powerhouse in environments where the format allows its play. Its historical legacy and banning in some formats speak to its power.


How to beat

Fastbond is a classic and powerful Magic: The Gathering card that allows players to drop multiple lands per turn at the cost of 1 life per land after the first. Overcoming a Fastbond strategy involves disrupting the card’s value engine. Tackling this card requires a multi-angle approach that often includes land destruction or counterspells to hinder the player’s land acceleration momentum.

Strategies such as aggressive mulliganing for hand disruption like Thoughtseize or utilizing graveyard hate cards to prevent recursion of lands from the graveyard with Crucible of Worlds are effective. Understanding the synergy of Fastbond with cards like Zuran Orb or Courser of Kruphix reveals opportunities to break the combo, by either removing the card components or denying their key interactions through precise timing and calculated plays. Ankle-biting strategies and maintaining a healthy card advantage can also put pressure on Fastbond reliant strategies, pushing opponents into a reactive position rather than allowing them to execute their plan unimpeded.

Ultimately, mastering your deck’s answers to Fastbond’s rapid land deployment is crucial. It allows you to level the playing field and reclaim control, keeping you in the game against this potent MTG card.


Cards like Fastbond

Fastbond is a unique powerhouse in Magic: The Gathering, renowned for its ability to play multiple land cards in a single turn. This trait echoes the mechanics of Exploration, which also allows additional land plays. Yet, Fastbond stands out with its potential for an unlimited number of land drops, drastically accelerating a player’s mana base development at the cost of life points for each land beyond the first.

Mana Bond presents a close parallel, offering a way to place all land cards from a player’s hand onto the battlefield at the end of their turn. Though this empties your hand quickly, it doesn’t provide the life point trade option, making Fastbond distinctly more aggressive. Azusa, Lost but Seeking pushes forward this theme, allowing for two additional land plays, yet is confined to the creature’s presence on the field, unlike the enduring enchantment of Fastbond.

Accordingly, Fastbond’s unique blend of risk and reward situates it as an incredibly influential and strategic card among those that manipulate land plays, proving to be a critical enabler in decks built around leveraging lands for victory.

Exploration - MTG Card versions
Exploration - Urza's Saga (USG)

Cards similar to Fastbond by color, type and mana cost

Web - MTG Card versions
Instill Energy - MTG Card versions
Living Artifact - MTG Card versions
Wild Growth - MTG Card versions
Cocoon - MTG Card versions
Concordant Crossroads - MTG Card versions
Elven Fortress - MTG Card versions
Earthlore - MTG Card versions
Revelation - MTG Card versions
Carapace - MTG Card versions
Gift of the Woods - MTG Card versions
Mortal Wound - MTG Card versions
Spider Climb - MTG Card versions
Elephant Grass - MTG Card versions
Briar Shield - MTG Card versions
Storm Front - MTG Card versions
Mirri's Guile - MTG Card versions
Root Maze - MTG Card versions
Bequeathal - MTG Card versions
Elven Palisade - MTG Card versions
Web - 30th Anniversary Edition (30A)
Instill Energy - Masters Edition IV (ME4)
Living Artifact - 30th Anniversary Edition (30A)
Wild Growth - Fallout (PIP)
Cocoon - Legends (LEG)
Concordant Crossroads - Double Masters 2022 (2X2)
Elven Fortress - Fallen Empires (FEM)
Earthlore - Ice Age (ICE)
Revelation - Chronicles (CHR)
Carapace - Homelands (HML)
Gift of the Woods - Alliances (ALL)
Mortal Wound - Visions (VIS)
Spider Climb - Visions (VIS)
Elephant Grass - Visions (VIS)
Briar Shield - Weatherlight (WTH)
Storm Front - Tempest (TMP)
Mirri's Guile - Tempest (TMP)
Root Maze - Tenth Edition (10E)
Bequeathal - Exodus (EXO)
Elven Palisade - Exodus (EXO)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Fastbond MTG card by a specific set like Limited Edition Alpha and Limited Edition Beta, 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 Fastbond and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Fastbond Magic the Gathering card was released in 11 different sets between 1993-08-05 and 2022-11-28. Illustrated by 2 different artists.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
11993-08-05Limited Edition AlphaLEA 1921993normalblackMark Poole
21993-10-04Limited Edition BetaLEB 1931993normalblackMark Poole
31993-12-01Unlimited Edition2ED 1931993normalwhiteMark Poole
41993-12-10Collectors' EditionCED 1931993normalblackMark Poole
51993-12-10Intl. Collectors' EditionCEI 1931993normalblackMark Poole
61994-04-01Revised Edition3ED 1941993normalwhiteMark Poole
71994-04-01Foreign Black BorderFBB 1941993normalblackMark Poole
81994-06-21Summer Magic / EdgarSUM 1941993normalwhiteMark Poole
92011-01-10Masters Edition IVME4 1521997normalblackMark Poole
102014-06-16Vintage MastersVMA 2092015normalblackNils Hamm
112022-11-2830th Anniversary Edition30A 1882015normalblackMark Poole
122022-11-2830th Anniversary Edition30A 4851997normalblackMark Poole

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Fastbond has restrictions

FormatLegality
OldschoolLegal
CommanderBanned
LegacyBanned
OathbreakerBanned
VintageLegal
DuelBanned
PredhBanned

Rules and information

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

DateText
2004-10-04 You do not take damage when you “put a land onto the battlefield” through the effect of a spell or ability.
2004-10-04 You take damage when you play a land using the “play a land” action. Such an action can be your regular “play a land”, one enabled by Fastbond, or ones enabled through other effects.

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