Psychic Allergy MTG Card

Mana cost
Converted mana cost	5
Rarity	Rare
Type	Enchantment
Released	1994-08-01
Set symbol
Set name	The Dark
Set code	DRK
Number	34
Frame	1993
Layout	Normal
Border	Black
Illustred by	Mark Tedin

Key Takeaways

Psychic Allergy offers significant disruption, compelling opponents to balance card retention against life preservation.
Its effect continues during opponents’ turns, creating ongoing strategic implications despite its sorcery speed.
While pricey and color-specific, Psychic Allergy’s unique game mechanic can be a game-changer against mono-colored decks.

Text of card

Choose a color when casting Psychic Allergy. During opponent's upkeep, Psychic Allergy does 1 damage to opponent for each card of this color that he or she controls. Sacrifice two islands during your upkeep or Psychic Allergy is destroyed.

Card Pros

Card Advantage: Psychic Allergy enables players to significantly disrupt opponents by forcing them to choose between keeping key cards or maintaining their life total, potentially leading to a substantial advantage.

Resource Acceleration: While not directly contributing to mana acceleration, the card can indirectly hasten your game plan by slowing down opponents, giving you more room to execute your strategy.

Instant Speed: Although Psychic Allergy is a sorcery and doesn’t have instant speed, its effects persist through the opponent’s turn, requiring immediate answers and making it a threat that can influence an opponent’s plays in real-time.

Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Players need to pitch a card from their hand, which can be taxing when hand size is already reduced or the game’s progression makes every card critical.

Specific Mana Cost: Psychic Allergy demands two blue mana alongside the generic cost, placing a strain for inclusion in multi-colored decks that may struggle with mana consistency.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: With a cost of five mana, including two blue, it competes with other impactful cards in that slot. Whether the cost aligns with the card’s impact in your strategy is a weighty consideration.

Reasons to Include in Your Collection

Versatility: Psychic Allergy adds a unique dimension to your deck-building arsenal. Providing a deterrent against mono-colored deck strategies, it can be a surprise factor against an unprepared opponent. Its ability to force sacrifices during the upkeep adds a strategic layer to games.

Combo Potential: This card can work well within combo-centric decks, especially when paired with cards that capitalize on opponents losing life or discarding cards. This can rapidly escalate the advantage in your favor each upkeep.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where mono-colored decks prevail, Psychic Allergy can serve as a powerful sideboard option. Its potential to disrupt an opponent’s board and hand stability makes it relevant in specific metagames.

How to beat Psychic Allergy

Psychic Allergy is one of those unique cards in Magic: The Gathering that can turn the tides of a game if not dealt with promptly. To overcome this, consider incorporating cards that can remove enchantments from the battlefield into your deck. Naturalize or Disenchant are excellent examples, as they can directly target and destroy Psychic Allergy efficiently. It’s also wise to manage your hand size, keeping it lean to minimize the damage if Psychic Allergy is activated. Another strategy involves using counterspells like Negate or Cancel to prevent Psychic Allergy from hitting the field in the first place.

Keeping mana untapped and holding onto these answers when you suspect your opponent has Psychic Allergy ready to play is crucial for keeping your field and life total safe. Additionally, if you’re playing a color that struggles with enchantment removal, focus on presenting a faster, more aggressive game plan to end the match before Psychic Allergy’s impact becomes insurmountable. Lastly, playing around Psychic Allergy’s upkeep cost, by ensuring the chosen color of card is minimal in your deck, can limit its effectiveness against you.

Cards like Psychic Allergy

In the realm of Magic: The Gathering, Psychic Allergy stands out as an intriguing enchantment card harkening back to its inclusion in the Dark expansion. When considering its function and impact, it’s not easy to find a direct comparison, but some elements echo in other cards like Smoke. Just like Psychic Allergy, Smoke limits players’ abilities, but through restricting untapped creatures instead of imposing card sacrifice under the threat of damage.

Nearby on the spectrum we meet cards like Painful Quandary, which also puts opponents in a tough spot by enforcing a choice between life loss or further card sacrifice. It differs, however, because it’s more of a continuous tax on spells rather than a trigger from drawing cards. Then there’s Propaganda which doesn’t focus on the sacrifice aspect, but similarly influences opponents’ strategies by demanding payment for attacking you.

While these cards influence opponent playstyles, Psychic Allergy’s blend of punitive damage and forced sacrifice during the upkeep phase makes it a unique player on the board, reflecting the vintage flavor of MTG where enchantments were both high-risk and high-reward strategic pieces. It occupies a distinctive niche in the landscape of cards that control and dictate the pace and choices of your opponents.

Cards similar to Psychic Allergy by color, type and mana cost

Heightened Awareness - MTG Card versions

Reflections of Littjara - MTG Card versions

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Psychic Allergy MTG card by a specific set like The Dark, 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 Psychic Allergy and other MTG cards: