Barricade Breaker MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 2 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost7
RarityUncommon
TypeArtifact Creature — Juggernaut
Abilities Improvise
Power 7
Toughness 5

Key Takeaways

  1. Barricade Breaker excels in card advantage, demanding multiple resources from opponents to be dealt with.
  2. Its Improvise ability offers resource acceleration, allowing for a faster deployment of this substantial threat.
  3. The card’s specific mana cost and high total mana requirement can be challenging obstacles to overcome.

Text of card

Improvise (Your artifacts can help cast this spell. Each artifact you tap after you're done activating mana abilities pays for .) Barricade Breaker attacks each combat if able.

"The Consulate sought to crush us. Let's give them a taste of their own medicine." —Venkat Dasai, renegade commander


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Barricade Breaker offers a significant presence on the battlefield, demanding multiple resources from opponents to handle. Its abilities can effectively become an advantage as opposing players may have to spend more than one card to deal with it, indirectly benefiting your hand and board state.

Resource Acceleration: As an artifact creature with improvise, Barricade Breaker allows you to tap unused artifacts to help cast it sooner. This can accelerate your game plan by deploying a substantial threat early on, optimizing your resource usage.

Instant Speed: While this card itself does not operate at instant speed, its synergy with instant speed artifacts can be noteworthy. Artifacts played on opponents’ turns can immediately contribute to casting Barricade Breaker, allowing for unexpected swings in board presence and tempo.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: One obstacle players face with the Barricade Breaker is its discard requirement to activate its Improvise ability. This can put you at a disadvantage, especially if your hand is already running low on playable cards.

Specific Mana Cost: Barricade Breaker’s specific mana cost, which requires three colorless mana, can pose a deck-building challenge. While this might sync well with artifact themed decks, it may not integrate smoothly into decks that rely heavily on colored mana resources.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: Even with the Improvise mechanic reducing its effective cost, the seven total mana needed to cast Barricade Breaker is still significant. In a fast-paced game, this can detract from its playability as players may opt for lower-cost creatures that provide a quicker impact on the board state.


Reasons to Include Barricade Breaker in Your Collection

Versatility: Barricade Breaker can seamlessly adapt to a variety of deck archetypes that prioritize aggressive strategies. Its formidable size makes it a robust threat in artifact-centric and beatdown decks.

Combo Potential: As an artifact creature with Improvise, it can be utilized in decks that capitalize on artifact synergies, potentially reducing its casting cost and enabling early game high-impact plays.

Meta-Relevance: In an environment where artifact strategies are prominent, Barricade Breaker serves as both an enabler and beneficiary of such decks, making it a relevant addition to collections aimed at staying competitive.


How to beat

Barricade Breaker is an imposing artifact creature within Magic: The Gathering, known for its ability to crush defenses with its immense power. However, its Achilles’ heel is its “must attack each turn if able” feature, which can be exploited. To effectively counter this mechanized menace, players should consider using control spells that can either pacify or remove it before it starts decimating life totals. Cards such as Path to Exile or Murderous Rider offer clean solutions to remove the Barricade Breaker from the battlefield entirely.

Players might also employ chump blockers to soak up the damage, using creatures with abilities like Afterlife to leave behind spirits after their noble sacrifice. This turns the Breaker’s forced aggression into an advantage for you. Alternatively, enchantments that continually generate tokens can be a strategic way to build a line of defense that will outlast the Breaker’s sieges. Incorporating instants that can tap or detain it create temporary reprieves as well. In sum, Barricade Breaker’s power is a double-edged sword, and with the right strategy, savvy players can turn its compulsory combat drive into a tactical deficit.


Cards like Barricade Breaker

When sizing up Barricade Breaker’s unique attributes among artifact creatures in Magic: The Gathering, one can’t help but draw parallels to other formidable machines. For instance, the Breaker shares its imposing presence with Metalwork Colossus, another juggernaut in the realm of artifact creatures. The Colossus boasts a potentially lower casting cost contingent upon the number of artifacts you control, while Barricade Breaker offers consistent pressure due to its Improvise ability, allowing you to tap unused artifacts to help cast it sooner.

Analogous to the Breaker is Phyrexian Juggernaut. This massive construct intimidates with Infect, making it a lethal force to reckon with. Yet, it lacks the cost reduction mechanic that comes with Barricade Breaker, whose asset is in bringing immense power to the battlefield efficiently by utilizing every aspect of your board position. Another peer in this category is Plague Myr, a smaller creature but one that also channels the power of Infect and doubles as a mana source.

Evaluating each artifact creature’s impact on the game canvass, Barricade Breaker establishes its niche by perfectly balancing raw strength and tactical adaptability, making it a strategic choice for players looking to add relentless aggression to their arsenal.

Metalwork Colossus - MTG Card versions
Phyrexian Juggernaut - MTG Card versions
Plague Myr - MTG Card versions
Metalwork Colossus - Kaladesh Promos (PKLD)
Phyrexian Juggernaut - Mirrodin Besieged (MBS)
Plague Myr - Wizards Play Network 2011 (PWP11)

Cards similar to Barricade Breaker by color, type and mana cost

Mishra's War Machine - MTG Card versions
Bronze Horse - MTG Card versions
Diabolic Machine - MTG Card versions
Mirror Mirror - MTG Card versions
Flowstone Thopter - MTG Card versions
Phyrexian Colossus - MTG Card versions
Lotus Guardian - MTG Card versions
Wondrous Crucible - MTG Card versions
Myr Enforcer - MTG Card versions
Chromatic Orrery - MTG Card versions
Clockwork Dragon - MTG Card versions
Pentavus - MTG Card versions
Darksteel Gargoyle - MTG Card versions
Death-Mask Duplicant - MTG Card versions
Arcbound Lancer - MTG Card versions
Tangle Golem - MTG Card versions
Solarion - MTG Card versions
Lunar Avenger - MTG Card versions
Triskelavus - MTG Card versions
Platinum Angel - MTG Card versions
Mishra's War Machine - Fourth Edition (4ED)
Bronze Horse - Legends (LEG)
Diabolic Machine - Renaissance (REN)
Mirror Mirror - Unglued (UGL)
Flowstone Thopter - Nemesis (NEM)
Phyrexian Colossus - The List (PLST)
Lotus Guardian - Invasion (INV)
Wondrous Crucible - The Brothers' War Commander (BRC)
Myr Enforcer - Jumpstart: Historic Horizons (J21)
Chromatic Orrery - The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander (LCC)
Clockwork Dragon - The List (PLST)
Pentavus - The List (PLST)
Darksteel Gargoyle - Duel Decks: Mirrodin Pure vs. New Phyrexia (TD2)
Death-Mask Duplicant - Darksteel (DST)
Arcbound Lancer - Darksteel (DST)
Tangle Golem - Darksteel (DST)
Solarion - Fifth Dawn (5DN)
Lunar Avenger - Fifth Dawn (5DN)
Triskelavus - Time Spiral (TSP)
Platinum Angel - The Brothers' War Retro Artifacts (BRR)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Barricade Breaker MTG card by a specific set like Aether Revolt and Kaladesh Remastered, 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 Barricade Breaker and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Barricade Breaker Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2017-01-20 and 2020-11-12. Illustrated by Karl Kopinski.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12017-01-20Aether RevoltAER 1442015normalblackKarl Kopinski
22020-11-12Kaladesh RemasteredKLR 2222015normalblackKarl Kopinski

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Barricade Breaker has restrictions

FormatLegality
HistoricbrawlLegal
HistoricLegal
LegacyLegal
PaupercommanderRestricted
OathbreakerLegal
GladiatorLegal
PioneerLegal
CommanderLegal
ModernLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
ExplorerLegal
TimelessLegal

Rules and information

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

DateText
2017-02-09 Because improvise isn’t an alternative cost, it can be used in conjunction with alternative costs.
2017-02-09 Equipment attached to a creature doesn’t become tapped when that creature becomes tapped, and tapping that Equipment doesn’t cause the creature to become tapped.
2017-02-09 If an artifact you control has a mana ability with in the cost, activating that ability while casting a spell with improvise will result in the artifact being tapped when you pay the spell’s costs. You won’t be able to tap it again for improvise. Similarly, if you sacrifice an artifact to activate a mana ability while casting a spell with improvise, that artifact won’t be on the battlefield when you pay the spell’s costs, so you won’t be able to tap it for improvise.
2017-02-09 If, during your declare attackers step, Barricade Breaker is tapped or is affected by a spell or ability that says it can’t attack, then it doesn’t attack. If there’s a cost associated with having it attack, you aren’t forced to pay that cost, so it doesn’t have to attack in that case either.
2017-02-09 Improvise can’t be used to pay for anything other than the cost of casting the spell. For example, it can’t be used during the resolution of an ability that says “Counter target spell unless its controller pays .”
2017-02-09 Improvise can’t pay for , , , , , or mana symbols in a spell’s total cost.
2017-02-09 Improvise doesn’t change a spell’s mana cost or mana value.
2017-02-09 Tapping an artifact won’t cause its abilities to stop applying unless those abilities say so.
2017-02-09 When calculating a spell’s total cost, include any alternative costs, additional costs, or anything else that increases or reduces the cost to cast the spell. Improvise applies after the total cost is calculated.

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