Immobilizing Ink MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	2
Rarity	Common
Type	Enchantment — Aura
Abilities	Enchant
Released	2001-10-01
Set symbol
Set name	Odyssey
Set code	ODY
Number	87
Frame	1997
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Darrell Riche

Key Takeaways

Immobilizing Ink offers control by tapping creatures, shifting the board state in your favor.
Instant speed use adds flexibility, but requires discarding a card, which can be costly.
While versatile in control decks, it demands exact mana and compares high in cost.

Text of card

Enchanted creature doesn't untap during its controller's untap step. Enchanted creature has "o1, Discard a card from your hand: Untap this creature."

Card Pros

Card Advantage: One of the benefits of Immobilizing Ink is the potential to disrupt your opponent’s strategy by tapping a crucial creature. This can lead to advantage in board state, as it might prevent them from blocking or using abilities, potentially tipping the scales in your favor.

Resource Acceleration: While Immobilizing Ink itself does not directly result in resource acceleration, the action of removing a blocker or an attacker can indirectly protect your resources. By saving your creatures from potential threats or ensuring your attacks go through, it helps maintain your own board presence.

Instant Speed: The ability to cast Immobilizing Ink at instant speed provides tactical flexibility. This means you can make strategic moves during your opponent’s turn, such as tapping a creature right before it would attack or after they have declared attackers, but before the combat damage step, potentially thwarting their combat plans without forewarning.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Immobilizing Ink necessitates discarding a card to utilize its effect. This requirement can be impractical when your hand is already depleted, or when each card held is crucial to your strategy and you can ill afford to lose any.

Specific Mana Cost: This spell demands a precise combination of mana colors, specifically one blue and one black, to cast. This requirement can be restrictive and may not seamlessly fit into decks that don’t consistently produce both types of mana.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a total cost of three mana, one of which is blue and another is black, Immobilizing Ink might be regarded as having a high cost for the effect it delivers, especially when compared to other cards that can immobilize creatures for a lower mana investment, offering greater flexibility and efficiency in a match.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Immobilizing Ink offers diverse functionality, making it a suitable addition to decks that require control elements. This card can effectively neutralize threats by disabling activated abilities of your opponent’s creatures.

Combo Potential: With the right setup, Immobilizing Ink can unlock synergies with cards that capitalize on tapping or untapping creatures. It becomes a strategic piece in control and combo decks alike, creating unexpected advantages during gameplay.

Meta-Relevance: In an environment dominated by creatures with potent activated abilities, Immobilizing Ink gains importance. It serves as a preemptive answer to many of the creature-based strategies prevalent in the current MTG landscape.

How to beat

Immobilizing Ink is a unique card in Magic: The Gathering that can control the battlefield by locking down an opponent’s creature. When confronting a card like this, it’s essential to rely on a strategy that can outmaneuver such control tactics. Cards with abilities that grant them protection or hexproof are highly valuable in this instance, as they can dodge the disabling effects of Immobilizing Ink.

Enchantment removal spells are another effective counter. Quick and cost-efficient spells like Naturalize allow players to destroy problematic enchantments directly, freeing their creatures to act without hindrance. Additionally, utilizing instant speed spells disrupts the timing of Immobilizing Ink’s control, providing a tactical advantage. Perhaps consider cards with an ‘enters the battlefield’ effect, which operate independently of the afflicted creature, ensuring that you continue to accrue value even when faced with immobilization.

Strategically, incorporating a diverse array of threats into your deck ensures that Immobilizing Ink cannot cripple your entire game plan with a single enchantment. Flexibility in tactics will ensure that Immobilizing Ink does not stall your path to victory in your MTG matches.

Cards like Immobilizing Ink

Immobilizing Ink steps into the scene of Magic: The Gathering as a unique control tool, similar yet distinct from other enchantments. Akin to cards like Claustrophobia, which also restrains a target creature from attacking or blocking, Immobilizing Ink goes beyond by effectively neutralizing activated abilities unless its controller pays an additional cost. This is a finer point of control that differentiates it from the simple ‘lockdown’ seen in Claustrophobia.

In comparison, Ice Cage shares some similarities, imposing limitations on creatures until it is broken by a targeted spell or ability. While this can provide a temporary solution, Immobilizing Ink offers the benefit of staying in play even if the enchanted creature becomes a spell’s target. Another parallel can be drawn with Arrest, which also prevents the creature from attacking, blocking, and using abilities. Despite this, Arrest does not challenge an opponent’s resources like Immobilizing Ink, which can tax an opponent’s mana during critical phases of the game.

Weighing their uses and effectiveness, Immobilizing Ink definitely holds a niche among creature control enchantments in Magic: The Gathering, with its added layer of taxing opponents bringing a strategy twist to the table.

Cards similar to Immobilizing Ink by color, type and mana cost

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Immobilizing Ink MTG card by a specific set like Odyssey, 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 Immobilizing Ink and other MTG cards: