Knight of Obligation MTG Card
Key Takeaways
- Extort ability provides gradual advantages, slowly tipping the scales in your favor with every spell cast.
- The dual nature of extort synergizes with instant spells, offering both offensive and defensive strategies.
- Knight of Obligation’s demands in deck building can limit versatility but pay off in specific strategies.
Guide to Vigilance card ability
In the strategic universe of Magic: The Gathering (MTG), the vigilance ability stands out as a powerful tool for players. This potent keyword allows creatures to attack without tapping, keeping them ready and alert to defend against incoming threats. It represents a perfect balance between aggression and defense, offering a dynamic approach to gameplay. Lets dive deeper into how vigilance shapes the battlefield.
Text of card
Vigilance Extort (Whenever you cast a spell, you may pay {WB}. If you do, each opponent loses 1 life and you gain that much life.)
He can calculate interest to six decimal places even in the midst of a deadly duel.
Card Pros
Card Advantage: Knight of Obligation provides a sustainable benefit through its extort ability, which has the potential to trickle an advantage across multiple turns. Every spell cast can become a source of slight gain, gradually edging you ahead of the opponent.
Resource Acceleration: While not directly impacting mana resources, the extort mechanic indirectly functions as a resource accelerator. Each successful extortion beefs up your life total, which can be pivotal in setting up defenses and making the most of your assets.
Instant Speed: Although Knight of Obligation doesn’t operate at instant speed itself, its ability synergetic with other instant speed spells in your deck. It encourages a strategy where holding up mana for both instants and extort can maximize your turns, giving you the dual benefit of reactive plays along with gradual life and board advantage.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: Knight of Obligation can be a true asset on the battlefield, but it comes with the burden of potentially sacrificing valuable cards. This card has you delve into your hand and remove a piece of your arsenal, proving costly when your cache of spells runs low.
Specific Mana Cost: Locked into a strict mana alignment, this stalwart knight demands a precise combination of mana types. This can often pigeonhole your strategy, needing both white and another specific mana source to call this card into action, limiting its versatility across various deck builds.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: Having to invest a sizeable chunk of your mana pool to summon the Knight of Obligation can be quite the drawback. With a mana cost that may seem steep to some strategists, especially when you could deploy multiple lower-cost creatures or a game-changing spell for the same investment, it’s essential to weigh the knight’s battlefield impact against other potential plays.
Reasons to Include Knight of Obligation in Your Collection
Versatility: Knight of Obligation lends itself well to a variety of White or Orzhov decks. Its unique blend of vigilance and extort allows it to simultaneously serve as an attacker or defender while siphoning life from opponents, making it a solid pick for any collection looking to bolster their creature base.
Combo Potential: The extort ability of Knight of Obligation is a natural combo facilitator. It enables interaction with life-gain strategies and can synergize with cards that capitalize on incremental life changes or opponent life loss, thus offering multiple ways to enhance your deck’s performance.
Meta-Relevance: With a strategic combination of defense and life-draining capabilities, Knight of Obligation remains a relevant choice. In a meta where stabilizing board presence while maintaining life totals is crucial, having a resilient creature that contributes to both can be extremely advantageous.
How to Beat Knight of Obligation
The Knight of Obligation boasts a robust presence in Magic: The Gathering with its vigilant nature and the extort ability, allowing for strategic life point swings in your favor. To effectively counter this card, players might consider ramping up removal spells in their deck. Instant-speed options like Murder or Path to Exile can handle the knight before its extort ability becomes a recurring problem. For those in control setups, countermagic such as Negate provides a preemptive approach, stopping the Knight of Obligation from entering the battlefield altogether.
Adjusting your strategy can also prove beneficial. Implementing creatures with reach or flying can block and eliminate the knight without engaging in direct combat. Alternatively, employing life-gain tactics can offset the extort-triggered life loss, maintaining your points despite your opponent’s best efforts. It’s about finding the right balance in your deck to ensure you’re always one step ahead of the Knight of Obligation, and keeping your gameplay steady against such midrange threats.
While the Knight of Obligation can be a formidable foe, understanding its strengths and weaknesses will guide MTG players in devising effective measures to overcome it on the playing field.
Cards like Knight of Obligation
The Knight of Obligation holds its ground in the realm of creatures boasting vigilance and extort abilities in Magic: The Gathering. It shares features with creatures like Syndic of Tithes, which also has extort, granting the player an avenue to drain opponents while gaining life. However, the Syndic lacks the formidable defense and vigilance trait offered by the Knight of Obligation, making the Knight a more resilient option for defending against attacks.
When it comes to durability and staying power, Basilica Guards is another card that comes to mind. Like our Knight, it provides a consistent presence on the board with its vigilance, yet it’s not as mighty in terms of power or toughness. Thrull Parasite, with extort as well, enters the fray offering a lower cost alternative but significantly less battlefield impact compared to the Knight’s robust presence and combat-readiness.
In sum, Knight of Obligation is a strategic choice for players who seek a balance between offensive capability and defensive endurance. Its synthesis of extort and vigilance in a well-rounded package allows it to serve multiple roles on the battlefield, a crux for any MTG player looking to fortify their board state while chipping away at their opponent’s life total.
Cards similar to Knight of Obligation by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Knight of Obligation MTG card by a specific set like Gatecrash, 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 Knight of Obligation 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
Legalities
Magic the Gathering formats where Knight of Obligation has restrictions
| Format | Legality |
|---|---|
| Commander | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Paupercommander | Restricted |
| Modern | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
| Duel | Legal |
| Pioneer | Legal |
| Penny | Legal |
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Knight of Obligation card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2013-04-15 | The amount of life you gain from extort is based on the total amount of life lost, not necessarily the number of opponents you have. For example, if your opponent’s life total can’t change (perhaps because that player controls Platinum Emperion), you won’t gain any life. |
| 2013-04-15 | The extort ability doesn’t target any player. |
| 2013-04-15 | You may pay {W/B} a maximum of one time for each extort triggered ability. You decide whether to pay when the ability resolves. |
