Strip Bare MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	1
Rarity	Common
Type	Instant
Released	2008-05-02
Set symbol
Set name	Shadowmoor
Set code	SHM
Number	24
Frame	2003
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Ralph Horsley

Key Takeaways

Strip Bare offers card advantage by dismantling enemy investments with instant-speed flexibility.
Its specific mana cost and discard requirement may limit deck integration and hand size.
Versatile and meta-relevant, it strips all abilities and counters, crucial for various strategies.

Text of card

Destroy all Auras and Equipment attached to target creature.

"All glamers lifted, all lies revealed, all flesh exposed." —Awylla, elvish safewright

Card Pros

Card Advantage: With Strip Bare, players can remove all counters and Auras from a target creature, undermining opponent strategies and potentially swinging the board in their favor. This can lead to a significant shift in card advantage, especially when targeting creatures heavily invested in by the opponent.

Resource Acceleration: While not directly impacting mana resources, Strip Bare can accelerate your game plan by efficiently dealing with threats or key pieces of your opponent’s strategy without expending multiple cards. This allows you to maintain momentum and further develop your board.

Instant Speed: The ability to play Strip Bare at instant speed gives players the flexibility to disrupt opponents during their turn. This can be especially potent during critical phases like upkeep or combat when removing counters or Auras could drastically alter the outcome of an exchange.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Necessitates the discarding of a card, shrinking your hand and potentially depleting valuable resources required for later turns.

Specific Mana Cost: Strip Bare requires both white mana and generic mana, restricting its inclusion to decks that can accommodate such specific color requirements.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: For its removal abilities, the card’s mana cost might be viewed as steep compared to other removal options, which could offer similar or broader effects for a lower investment.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Strip Bare offers the ability to remove not only an opponent’s creature enchantments but any other types of nonland permanents they might control. This wide-reaching removal makes it a flexible option across various decks and situations.

Combo Potential: In decks that thrive on dismantling the opponent’s setup and using their resources against them, Strip Bare works to clear the way. It can be a cog in a machine that turns your opponent’s strengths into weaknesses.

Meta-Relevance: The card comes in particularly handy when the meta is saturated with decks that rely heavily on enchantments or equipment to win. Being able to strip these enhancements at a critical moment can shift the game in your favor almost instantly.

How to Beat

Strip Bare is a powerful tool in Magic: The Gathering for disrupting an opponent’s strategy. It effectively removes all counters and enchantments from a single target creature, rendering your opponent’s bolstered threats back to their basic state. To counteract Strip Bare, smart deck building and strategic play are key. Employing creatures with hexproof or shroud can shield your critical assets from becoming targets in the first place. Moreover, utilizing instants that can reactively provide hexproof or regenerate a creature can mitigate the impact of removal spells, including Strip Bare.

Deck resilience is also vital against such removal tactics. Incorporating redundancy in your creature lineup ensures that losing one creature won’t cripple your board presence. Diversify your threats, so that if one is stripped of its powers, others can continue the assault. Lastly, consider spells that can swiftly rebuild your creature’s strengths, such as enchantments or counters, post-Strip Bare. In the dynamic battlefield of MTG, balancing offensive capabilities with defensive contingencies can turn the tide – even when facing the challenge of your creatures being stripped bare.

Understanding the nuances of when and how to play around removal spells such as Strip Bare could be the difference between victory and defeat. With strategic foresight and deck flexibility, you can overcome the setback and maintain your path to triumph.

Cards like Strip Bare

Strip Bare stands out in the vast array of targeted removal cards available in MTG. Its straightforward effect peels away all abilities and counters from a single target, akin to cards like Erase which exile target enchantment. Yet, Strip Bare offers a broader application, also stripping permanents of any counters, not just enchantments. This simple yet flexible utility makes it a potent response to a variety of different threats on the board.

Comparable in function is Natural State, which allows players to swiftly deal with artifacts or enchantments at a low cost. However, Strip Bare’s unique ability to remove all types of counters elevates its versatility over Natural State’s more focused purpose. On the other end of the spectrum, we find Demystify, another one-mana spell that exclusively targets enchantments, similar to Erase, functioning as a more specific tool in a player’s arsenal, as opposed to Strip Bare’s wider reach.

By examining these comparable options, Strip Bare earns recognition for its adaptability in gameplay. It finds its niche not only in its capability to nullify various threats but also in its potential to surprise opponents who might not anticipate a complete removal of all abilities and counters from a permanent.

Cards similar to Strip Bare by color, type and mana cost

Swords to Plowshares - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Strip Bare MTG card by a specific set like Shadowmoor, 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 Strip Bare and other MTG cards: