Celestial Dawn MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 5 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost3
RarityRare
TypeEnchantment

Key Takeaways

  1. Bypass mana restrictions and enable potent draws with Celestial Dawn’s transformative land ability.
  2. Facilitate consistent white spell casting and combos in mono-white or white-heavy decks.
  3. Counter its impact with versatile mana sources or targeted enchantment removal.

Text of card

All nonland cards you own that are not in play are white. All nonland permanents you control are white. All lands you control are plains. All colored mana symbols in all costs on all of these cards and permanents are o W.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Celestial Dawn transforms all your lands into Plains, allowing you to effectively bypass mana color restrictions. This can be a form of card advantage as it can turn otherwise uncastable cards in your hand into potential game-changers, making every draw more valuable.

Resource Acceleration: With Celestial Dawn, your mana base allows for smoother play and resource acceleration as all lands produce white mana. This can lead to quicker deployment of white spells and a more consistent performance, especially if your deck has a heavy white mana curve.

Instant Speed: While Celestial Dawn itself does not operate at instant speed, its ability to turn all your mana white enables you to react with instant speed spells more reliably. This ensures that you are never off-color for those critical game moments, giving you a tactical edge when timing is everything.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: While Celestial Dawn doesn’t require discarding directly as a cost, its transformative effect on your mana base can mean potentially discarding cards that are no longer castable due to the sudden shift in available mana colors.

Specific Mana Cost: Celestial Dawn asks for a precise combination of two white mana and one colorless, which can make it a tough draw for multicolored or colorless decks, restricting its inclusion to mainly white-based deck builds.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: At a three-mana total cost, Celestial Dawn competes with other impactful three-drops. While its effect can be potent in the right deck, players may find more immediate or versatile uses for their mana at this critical stage in the game.


Reasons to Include Celestial Dawn in Your Collection

Versatility: Celestial Dawn transforms your lands into Plains, allowing for consistent white mana generation. This opens up your deck to play white spells without worrying about color fix and enhances strategies that benefit from land-type synergies.

Combo Potential: By switching all mana to white, Celestial Dawn sets the stage for powerful combos especially in decks that leverage color-dependant cards or abilities. It can be a central piece in a combo, enabling the casting of spells with tough mana requirements.

Meta-Relevance: When the meta is inundated with restrictive color strategies, Celestial Dawn outshines by bypassing mana-color restrictions. Its unique ability to standardize mana production can give players an edge against decks that might exploit color weaknesses.


How to beat

Celestial Dawn is a unique enchantment in the world of Magic: The Gathering that can be both a boon and a stumbling block. This card transforms all mana you produce into white mana, which could complicate your strategy if your deck relies on multiple colors. To effectively counter this card, having versatile mana sources is crucial. Cards like Chromatic Lantern offer a solution by granting your lands the ability to produce any color of mana, mitigating the impact of Celestial Dawn’s restriction.

Furthermore, enchantment removal spells are highly effective against Celestial Dawn. Spells such as Naturalize or Disenchant can remove it from the battlefield, allowing your mana base to return to its original state. Keeping a keen eye on your opponent’s moves and strategically playing enchantment removal can catch your adversary off guard, swiftly shifting the balance of the game back in your favor.

In essence, while Celestial Dawn has the potential to alter the dynamics of a game significantly, it is by no means invincible. By planning ahead and incorporating cards in your deck that address its mana-conversion ability, you can ensure that your strategies remain unhampered.


Cards like Celestial Dawn

Celestial Dawn stands out in Magic: The Gathering as a white enchantment with the unique ability to turn all mana symbols in the mana costs of your spells and permanents into white mana symbols. This transformational effect brings to mind Mycosynth Lattice, which also changes the nature of your mana resources. While Mycosynth Lattice turns all mana into any color, thus universalizing mana usage, Celestial Dawn restricts it but in a way that heavily favors monocolor white decks.

Another card that echoes a similar color manipulation theme is Chromatic Lantern. This artifact not only allows your lands to produce mana of any color but also comes with the utility of being a mana source itself. Chromatic Lantern offers flexibility, contrasting with Celestial Dawn’s more niche application. This makes Chromatic Lantern a popular choice in multicolored decks, compared to the selective advantage Celestial Dawn provides to white-centric strategies.

In the realm of mana-conversion, Celestial Dawn might not provide the broad utility of other cards, but it operates in a sphere where white mana is King, opening the door to numerous synergies within mono-white or white-heavy decks in Magic: The Gathering. Thus, while it may not be the most versatile, its targeted benefit can be incredibly potent under the right circumstances.

Mycosynth Lattice - MTG Card versions
Chromatic Lantern - MTG Card versions
Mycosynth Lattice - Darksteel (DST)
Chromatic Lantern - Return to Ravnica (RTR)

Cards similar to Celestial Dawn by color, type and mana cost

Damping Field - MTG Card versions
Farmstead - MTG Card versions
Cooperation - MTG Card versions
Noble Steeds - MTG Card versions
Aura of Silence - MTG Card versions
Empyrial Armor - MTG Card versions
Cessation - MTG Card versions
Arrest - MTG Card versions
Glorious Anthem - MTG Card versions
Samite Sanctuary - MTG Card versions
Pariah - MTG Card versions
Tattoo Ward - MTG Card versions
Sparring Regimen - MTG Card versions
Shielded by Faith - MTG Card versions
The Restoration of Eiganjo // Architect of Restoration - MTG Card versions
Oblivion Ring - MTG Card versions
Cage of Hands - MTG Card versions
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant // Rune-Tail's Essence - MTG Card versions
Guardian's Magemark - MTG Card versions
Mobilization - MTG Card versions
Damping Field - Antiquities (ATQ)
Farmstead - Summer Magic / Edgar (SUM)
Cooperation - Ice Age (ICE)
Noble Steeds - Alliances (ALL)
Aura of Silence - Commander 2015 (C15)
Empyrial Armor - Weatherlight (WTH)
Cessation - Urza's Legacy (ULG)
Arrest - Mystery Booster (MB1)
Glorious Anthem - Junior Super Series (PSUS)
Samite Sanctuary - Prophecy (PCY)
Pariah - Seventh Edition (7ED)
Tattoo Ward - Odyssey (ODY)
Sparring Regimen - Strixhaven: School of Mages Promos (PSTX)
Shielded by Faith - Signature Spellbook: Gideon (SS2)
The Restoration of Eiganjo // Architect of Restoration - Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty (NEO)
Oblivion Ring - Magic Online Theme Decks (TD0)
Cage of Hands - Commander Legends (CMR)
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant // Rune-Tail's Essence - The List (PLST)
Guardian's Magemark - Salvat 2005 (PSAL)
Mobilization - Tenth Edition (10E)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Celestial Dawn MTG card by a specific set like Mirage and Classic Sixth Edition, 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 Celestial Dawn and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Celestial Dawn Magic the Gathering card was released in 5 different sets between 1996-10-08 and 2020-03-08. Illustrated by Liz Danforth.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
11996-10-08MirageMIR 61997normalblackLiz Danforth
21999-04-21Classic Sixth Edition6ED 71997normalwhiteLiz Danforth
32006-10-06Time Spiral TimeshiftedTSB 31997normalblackLiz Danforth
42020-03-08Mystery Booster Retail Edition FoilsFMB1 21997normalblackLiz Danforth
52020-09-26The ListPLST TSB-31997normalblackLiz Danforth

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Celestial Dawn has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
PremodernLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
PennyLegal

Rules and information

The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Celestial Dawn 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 Celestial Dawn does not change the type of lands which are not on the battlefield. Lands not on the battlefield are what they say they are.
2004-10-04 Celestial Dawn no longer changes mana symbols on cards.
2004-10-04 If you pay white mana to activate an ability that can only be activated by spending another color of mana, then any limitations on activating the ability (such as the number of times it can be activated each turn) still apply as if you spent the proper color.
2004-10-04 The effect to turn all your non-land cards (including artifacts) white is the effect of a static ability. Thus, a color change on a permanent prior to Celestial Dawn entering the battlefield will be overridden by Celestial Dawn’s effect.
2004-10-04 Will not add or remove Snow Supertype from a land.
2004-10-04 You may use a different color mana than the color required for spells and abilities that require a specific color. If you do, and the spell or ability checks the actual color of the mana, it can tell the difference.
2006-09-25 If a permanent enters the battlefield while Celestial Dawn is on the battlefield, and then Celestial Dawn leaves the battlefield, the permanent’s color will revert to the colors in its mana cost.
2006-09-25 If you have nonwhite mana in your mana pool when Celestial Dawn enters the battlefield, it remains there but you can spend it only on the colorless part of costs.
2006-09-25 If you use a text-changing effect such as Mind Bend on Celestial Dawn to change the word “Plains” to a different land type, your lands are all of that new land type, and they will produce mana of the appropriate color for that type.
2006-09-25 Land cards you own that aren’t on the battlefield aren’t changed to Plains.
2006-09-25 Mana produced by spells you control and nonland permanents you control isn’t affected by Celestial Dawn. Llanowar Elves will produce , for example. However, any colored mana may be spent only on the colorless part of costs.
2017-09-29 If a nonbasic land has an ability that causes it to enter the battlefield tapped, it will lose that ability before it applies. The same is also true of any other abilities that modify how a land enters the battlefield or apply “as” a land enters the battlefield, such as the first ability of Cavern of Souls. This is a change from previous rulings.

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