Mortal Combat MTG Card


Card setsReleased in 2 setsSee all
Mana cost
Converted mana cost4
RarityRare
TypeEnchantment

Key Takeaways

  1. Strengthens your hand and deck’s resilience by reusing creatures from your graveyard.
  2. Demands a focus on black mana and mill strategies, which can limit flexibility.
  3. Provides a unique alternative win condition, especially effective in late-game.

Text of card

At the beginning of your upkeep, if twenty or more creature cards are in your graveyard, you win the game.

The crowd roared, the fighters bled, and the dead piled high in the pits. Only the Cabal could win.


Card Pros

Card Advantage: The Mortal Combat card has the capability to fetch creatures from your graveyard, providing a significant boost in the resource count. This mechanic keeps your hand equipped with options and increases your deck’s endurance during prolonged battles.

Resource Acceleration: By enabling the potential reuse of powerful creatures, Mortal Combat accelerates your resource curve, bringing a strategic advantage. It aids in maintaining a strong board presence by utilizing the resources that you’ve already invested in earlier turns.

Instant Speed: While Mortal Combat isn’t an instant itself, its success hinges on instant speed interactions in your graveyard. It complements decks that operate on flash mechanics, ensuring that your creatures make an impact at critical moments, thus supporting a dynamic and responsive playstyle.


Card Cons

Discard Requirement: Mortal Combat requires you to have a specific number of creature cards in your graveyard to win the game, which often dictates a strategy centered around discarding or milling creatures. This focus can be challenging to maintain, especially against decks that target or exile graveyard cards, potentially disrupting your path to victory.

Specific Mana Cost: With its Black-Black-Two generic mana cost, Mortal Combat demands a significant commitment to black mana sources. Players running multicolor decks might find it difficult to consistently meet the mana requirements, reducing the card’s overall flexibility and playability.

Comparatively High Mana Cost: At four mana to cast, Mortal Combat enters a range where players begin to expect more immediate or impactful effects on the game state. Considering that the winning condition only checks during your upkeep after casting, it leaves a window for opponents to disrupt your setup, making it a potentially slower option in a fast-paced environment where speed can be crucial.


Reasons to Include Mortal Combat in Your Collection

Versatility: Mortal Combat offers a unique win condition that can seamlessly integrate into decks focusing on creature recursion or graveyard strategies, broadening your deckbuilding options.

Combo Potential: This card thrives in synergy with high creature count decks and self-mill tactics, serving as a cornerstone in combos that can secure a game with its alternative win condition.

Meta-Relevance: In environments where games tend to extend into the late turns, Mortal Combat becomes increasingly potent, often catching opponents off-guard who may not have prepared for such a victory path.


How to beat

Mortal Combat is a unique card in Magic: The Gathering, presenting a tricky challenge for players aiming to outmaneuver it. This card’s victory condition, requiring twenty or more creature cards in your graveyard, encourages a strategy focused on creature-heavy decks and graveyard manipulation. To counter it effectively, it’s crucial to inhibit your opponent’s graveyard from reaching that critical mass.

Graveyard hate cards, such as Tormod’s Crypt or Rest in Peace, are essential when trying to mitigate the threat Mortal Combat poses. These cards can remove entire graveyards, resetting your opponent’s progress toward achieving Mortal Combat’s daunting win condition. Control decks, emphasizing counterspells and removal, can also keep the battlefield clear and disrupt synergy. By maintaining a vigilant stance and being ready to disrupt your opponent’s strategy, you can often dismantle the foundation that Mortal Combat relies upon before it becomes an imminent danger.

It’s important to play strategically and adaptively, considering card choices that can disrupt or dilute the potency of Mortal Combat. Hence, a well-prepared sideboard and a responsive playstyle become your greatest assets when facing this unique card in battle.


BurnMana Recommendations

Mastering MTG involves understanding the nuances of each card and the Mortal Combat card is a perfect example. With its ability to potentially swing the game into your favor by manipulating your graveyard, it can be the ace up your sleeve in prolonged engagements. If you’re intrigued by strategies that revolve around a rich graveyard and are excited to explore this dynamic, be ready for a rewarding experience. Dive deeper into the strategic depths of Mortal Combat and other complex cards. Enhance your gameplay and elevate your strategy; join us for more insights into crafting a victorious deck.


Cards like Mortal Combat

Mortal Combat is a striking card that represents a unique win condition in Magic: The Gathering. While its closest parallel might be Felidar Sovereign, which offers a victory for players with high life totals, Mortal Combat takes the game down a different path. Players must carefully stock their graveyard with creatures to meet its requirement of having twenty or more creatures in the graveyard to claim victory.

On the topic of graveyard strategies, one may consider Thassa’s Oracle, which allows victory based solely on the number of cards in your library. Like Mortal Combat, Thassa’s Oracle requires setup and to strategize around your library’s state, but with the significant difference of not being creature-dependent. Reveillark is another creature-based card, it hinges on the reanimation of power 2 or less creatures from your graveyard providing a different but equally significant advantage during gameplay.

Each card brings a distinct flavor to the table, and Mortal Combat offers an intriguing challenge for players who are willing to build a deck around its graveyard-centric conditions, rewarding strategic play with a potential game-winning payoff.

Felidar Sovereign - MTG Card versions
Thassa's Oracle - MTG Card versions
Reveillark - MTG Card versions
Felidar Sovereign - Resale Promos (PRES)
Thassa's Oracle - Theros Beyond Death Promos (PTHB)
Reveillark - Morningtide (MOR)

Cards similar to Mortal Combat by color, type and mana cost

Cursed Land - MTG Card versions
Pestilence - MTG Card versions
Lich - MTG Card versions
Nether Void - MTG Card versions
Breeding Pit - MTG Card versions
Greed - MTG Card versions
Feast of the Unicorn - MTG Card versions
Koskun Falls - MTG Card versions
Grave Pact - MTG Card versions
Diabolic Servitude - MTG Card versions
Vampiric Embrace - MTG Card versions
Vile Requiem - MTG Card versions
Parasitic Bond - MTG Card versions
Brink of Madness - MTG Card versions
Death Pit Offering - MTG Card versions
Tainted Aether - MTG Card versions
Strands of Night - MTG Card versions
Patriarch's Desire - MTG Card versions
Nefarious Lich - MTG Card versions
Last Laugh - MTG Card versions
Cursed Land - 30th Anniversary Edition (30A)
Pestilence - Mystery Booster (MB1)
Lich - Masters Edition IV (ME4)
Nether Void - Magic Online Promos (PRM)
Breeding Pit - The List (PLST)
Greed - Commander 2021 (C21)
Feast of the Unicorn - Classic Sixth Edition (6ED)
Koskun Falls - Homelands (HML)
Grave Pact - Wilds of Eldraine: Enchanting Tales (WOT)
Diabolic Servitude - Urza's Saga (USG)
Vampiric Embrace - Urza's Saga (USG)
Vile Requiem - The List (PLST)
Parasitic Bond - Urza's Saga (USG)
Brink of Madness - Urza's Legacy (ULG)
Death Pit Offering - Salvat 2005 (PSAL)
Tainted Aether - Seventh Edition (7ED)
Strands of Night - Seventh Edition (7ED)
Patriarch's Desire - Odyssey (ODY)
Nefarious Lich - Odyssey (ODY)
Last Laugh - Torment (TOR)

Where to buy

If you're looking to purchase Mortal Combat MTG card by a specific set like Torment and Tenth 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 Mortal Combat and other MTG cards:

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Printings

The Mortal Combat Magic the Gathering card was released in 2 different sets between 2002-02-04 and 2007-07-13. Illustrated by Mike Ploog.

#ReleaseNameCodeSymbolNumberFrameLayoutBorderArtist
12002-02-04TormentTOR 711997normalblackMike Ploog
22007-07-13Tenth Edition10E 1602003normalblackMike Ploog

Legalities

Magic the Gathering formats where Mortal Combat has restrictions

FormatLegality
CommanderLegal
LegacyLegal
ModernLegal
OathbreakerLegal
PremodernLegal
VintageLegal
DuelLegal
PredhLegal
PennyLegal

Rules and information

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

DateText
2007-07-15 If you don’t have twenty or more creature cards in your graveyard by the time your upkeep starts, the ability won’t trigger that turn.
2007-07-15 Mortal Combat’s ability has an “intervening ‘if’ clause,” so the condition is checked again when the triggered ability resolves. If you don’t still have twenty creature cards in your graveyard, the ability does nothing.

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