Ox of Agonas MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 7 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost5
RarityMythic
TypeCreature — Ox
Abilities Escape
Power 4
Toughness 2

Key Takeaways

  1. Ox of Agonas offers a significant hand refill, ensuring continuous play options.
  2. Escape mechanic utilization turns the graveyard into a strategic resource.
  3. Instant hand replenishment supports strategies demanding reactive plays.

Text of card

When Ox of Agonas enters the battlefield, discard your hand, then draw three cards. Escape—, Exile eight other cards from your graveyard. (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its escape cost.) Ox of Agonas escapes with a +1/+1 counter on it.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: Diving into the strengths of Ox of Agonas, card advantage is prominent as this robust creature offers a significant refill of your hand when escaping from the graveyard. By discarding your hand and drawing three cards, you maintain the momentum in longer matches, ensuring you never run out of options.

Resource Acceleration: Resource acceleration is subtly intertwined with this powerhouse as it encourages players to strategically use their graveyard. The escape mechanic allows Ox of Agonas to be cast from the graveyard, giving you a way to utilize resources that are often considered inactive, turning what might be a deficit into a dynamic form of accelerating your gameplay.

Instant Speed: While Ox of Agonas itself doesn’t operate at instant speed, its ability to enter the battlefield and instantly impact the game by drawing cards upon entry or escape compensates for this. The card’s innate synergy with instant speed strategies is evident as it fuels your hand, allowing you to better support reactive plays or bluff having interaction on your opponent’s turn with a suddenly replenished hand.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Ox of Agonas necessitates a discard of your entire hand as part of its escape ability, which could backfire if you’re relinquishing valuable cards.

Specific Mana Cost: Requiring both substantial red mana and generic mana to play, Ox of Agonas may not fit seamlessly into multi-color decks where red mana is not readily available.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: As a five mana creature, Ox of Agonas comes with a steep price tag, particularly in aggressive red decks that favor a lower curve to expedite victory.


Reasons to Include Ox of Agonas in Your Collection

Versatility: The Ox of Agonas brings exceptional flexibility to red-based decks. By offering both card draw and escape mechanics, it ensures players have access to resources and graveyard utility in a singular package.

Combo Potential: With its ability to draw cards and potentially discard hand-cards, this ox can seamlessly integrate into strategies that leverage graveyard play or card draw synergies.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where games are drawn out or graveyards are recurrently utilized as an extended hand, Ox of Agonas proves to be a formidable asset, aligning well with the dynamics of current competitive play.


How to beat

Ox of Agonas packs a punch in MTG with its robust reanimation ability and the draw potential it brings to red decks. This formidable creature becomes a key player once it hits the graveyard, offering a fresh hand of cards upon its escape. To outmaneuver opponents harnessing the Ox’s might, foresight, and strategic graveyard management become crucial. Interacting with the graveyard is your best move – effects such as Tormod’s Crypt, or Leyline of the Void hinder the Ox’s escape utility by exiling it directly from the graveyard, blunting the threat before it can manifest.

Countering the Ox’s cast is another strategic layer – cards like Negate or Dovin’s Veto can intercept its entrance onto the battlefield, ensuring your opponent’s resources are spent without benefit. Additionally, controlling the pace of the game is key. Slowing down the flow of cards and resources to your opponent’s side can limit the opportunities to cast or escape the Ox. Utilize removal spells for creatures that filter or draw cards, and strategize your attacks to keep the opponent’s graveyard sparsely populated, inhibiting the full potential of the Ox of Agonas.


BurnMana Recommendations

If you’re intrigued by the potential that Ox of Agonas brings to your MTG strategy, remember that its strengths lie in its dual role of providing card advantage and utilizing the graveyard. As you look to enhance your collection and gameplay, consider how this formidable creature can reignite your red deck’s firepower. It’s essential to balance its high mana cost and hand discard requirement with your overall strategy. For those keen on deepening their understanding and refining their tactics, our platform is a veritable treasure trove of insights. Dive deeper into the strategic folds of MTG, learn how to optimally harness cards like Ox of Agonas, and continuously improve your deck’s resilience. Join us for a comprehensive guide to mastering MTG and ensuring your deck is always battle-ready.


Cards like Ox of Agonas

Ox of Agonas is a powerful staple in red decks within MTG, offering both card advantage and a boost in graveyard utility. It shares a kinship with creatures like Bedlam Reveler, with both cards providing significant card draw upon entering the battlefield. However, the Ox distinguishes itself with Escape, a mechanic that allows for a comeback from the graveyard, whereas Bedlam Reveler lacks such recursion.

Seasoned Pyromancer is another comparable card, which also facilitates card draw and plays into a graveyard strategy with its own discard and draw dynamics. Although it doesn’t have the raw drawing power of the Ox, it compensates with the creation of elemental tokens. A more subtle comparison could be drawn with the Elder Gargaroth. While not directly related in mechanics, the Gargaroth aligns in mana cost and also provides a choice of valuable modes upon attacking or blocking, offering versatility in contrast to the direct card draw of the Ox.

Each of these cards furnishes red and red-adjacent decks with different modes of advantage, yet Ox of Agonas stands out among them for its ability to affect the game state both from the battlefield and beyond it.

Bedlam Reveler - MTG Card versions
Seasoned Pyromancer - MTG Card versions
Elder Gargaroth - MTG Card versions
Bedlam Reveler - Eldritch Moon Promos (PEMN)
Seasoned Pyromancer - Modern Horizons (MH1)
Elder Gargaroth - Core Set 2021 Promos (PM21)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Ox of Agonas MTG card by a specific set like Magic Online Promos and Theros Beyond Death, 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 Ox of Agonas and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Ox of Agonas Magic the Gathering card was released in 5 different sets between 2020-01-24 and 2022-02-18. Illustrated by Lie Setiawan.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12002-06-24Magic Online PromosPRM 799432015normalblackLie Setiawan
22020-01-24Theros Beyond DeathTHB 1472015normalblackLie Setiawan
32020-01-24Theros Beyond Death PromosPTHB 147s2015normalblackLie Setiawan
42020-01-24Theros Beyond Death PromosPTHB 147p2015normalblackLie Setiawan
52020-01-24Theros Beyond DeathTHB 3182015normalblackLie Setiawan
62021-01-25Year of the Ox 2021PL21 22015normalblackLie Setiawan
72022-02-18Neon Dynasty CommanderNEC 1082015normalblackLie Setiawan

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Ox of Agonas has restrictions

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

Rules and information

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

DateText
2020-01-24 After an escaped spell resolves, it returns to its owner's graveyard if it's not a permanent spell. If it is a permanent spell, it enters the battlefield and will return to its owner's graveyard if it dies later. Perhaps it will escape again—good underworld security is so hard to come by these days.
2020-01-24 Escape's permission doesn't change when you may cast the spell from your graveyard.
2020-01-24 If a card has multiple abilities giving you permission to cast it, such as two escape abilities or an escape ability and a flashback ability, you choose which one to apply. The others have no effect.
2020-01-24 If a card with escape is put into your graveyard during your turn, you'll be able to cast it right away if it's legal to do so, before an opponent can take any actions.
2020-01-24 If you cast a spell with its escape permission, you can't choose to apply any other alternative costs or to cast it without paying its mana cost. If it has any additional costs, you must pay those.
2020-01-24 Once you begin casting a spell with escape, it immediately moves to the stack. Players can't take any other actions until you're done casting the spell.
2020-01-24 To determine the total cost of a spell, start with the mana cost or alternative cost you're paying (such as an escape cost), add any cost increases, then apply any cost reductions. The mana value of the spell remains unchanged, no matter what the total cost to cast it was and no matter whether an alternative cost was paid.
2020-01-24 You draw three cards, even if you discard no cards.

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