Dogsnail Engine MTG Card
Key Takeaways
- Offers card advantage and can decisively shift the tide of the game through strategic library sifting.
- Demands a discard for activation, which might backfire in critical gameplay moments.
- Despite its high mana cost, it remains a versatile and meta-relevant addition to many decks.
Text of card
Whenever you crank Dogsnail Engine, target player gains life equal to the greatest power among creatures you control.
Card Pros
Card Advantage: The Dogsnail Engine offers a consistent stream of card advantage by allowing you to sift through your library for key cards, keeping your hand filled with options.
Resource Acceleration: This artifact provides a steady boost in resources, enabling you to ramp up your mana and play high-cost cards sooner than your opponent expects, giving you a significant edge in progression.
Instant Speed: The ability to activate the Dogsnail Engine at instant speed grants you the flexibility to respond to your opponent’s actions on the fly, making for dynamic and strategic gameplay.
Card Cons
Discard Requirement: The Dogsnail Engine card demands players to discard another card from their hand as part of its activation cost. This can be a considerable setback, especially in tight gameplay situations where holding onto key cards is crucial for maintaining strategic advantage.
Specific Mana Cost: To harness the power of Dogsnail Engine, a precise combination of mana types is necessary. This specificity may not always align with a player’s deck setup, potentially creating a hurdle in seamlessly integrating this card into a variety of strategies.
Comparatively High Mana Cost: The investment to get Dogsnail Engine onto the battlefield is substantial when evaluated against other cards that could be occupying that slot in a player’s deck. As such, the mana allocation for Dogsnail Engine might detract from deploying other creatures or spells that could provide immediate effects or greater versatility at lower mana costs.
Reasons to Include Dogsnail Engine in Your Collection
Versatility: Dogsnail Engine can be a dynamic addition across a spectrum of strategies, adept at fueling both aggressive and control decks with its unique abilities.
Combo Potential: This card opens avenues for synergetic plays, working well with cards that capitalize on tapping and untapping mechanics or benefit from its artifact type.
Meta-Relevance: Given its adaptability, Dogsnail Engine might find its place in a shifting meta, offering a counterbalance to prevalent archetypes or enhancing your existing deck’s resilience.
How to beat
Confronting the unique mechanics of the Dogsnail Engine in your MTG match can be a puzzling enterprise. As a card that cleverly combines artifact synergies and incremental advantages over time, understanding its strategic depth is key. While it grants players the ability to fuse cards for enhanced effects, adept players can leverage several tactics to mitigate its impact.
Counterspells and artifact removal are two straightforward methods to combat this engine before it stabilizes on the board. Direct disruption, such as Naturalize or Disenchant, can easily dismantle the Dogsnail Engine, stripping your opponent of their carefully laid plans. Discard-based strategies also place pressure on your adversary, potentially discarding the Dogsnail Engine before it’s even played.
Taking a broader strategy, focus on accelerating your pace, forcing the Dogsnail Engine player to react instead of building their layered combos. Attack their resources and keep the board clear to prevent them from establishing a commanding presence. In the grand scheme, while the Dogsnail Engine presents a formidable force when left unchecked, a calculated approach using removal or tempo can ensure that it never fully cranks into gear.
Cards like Dogsnail Engine
Dogsnail Engine offers a unique blend of tactics to MTG players, presenting an intriguing alternative within the spectrum of artifact cards. Its functionality resembles that of Sculpting Steel, in that they both can mimic other artifacts on the battlefield. While Sculpting Steel directly copies any artifact, Dogsnail Engine requires certain conditions to be met but has the added benefit of generating card draw over time.
Another card to consider in relation is Mirage Mirror, which is known for its versatility. Similar to Dogsnail Engine, it can become a copy of another artifact, creature, enchantment, or even land, but only until end of turn. This adaptability comes without the slow buildup of resources that Dogsnail Engine potentially provides. Conversely, the Mimic Vat also deserves mention. Though not a direct copy mechanism, it creates token copies of creatures that hit the graveyard, which can be tactically advantageous compared to the inherent predictability of Dogsnail Engine’s effect.
Evaluating their unique features, Dogsnail Engine finds its niche among Magic: The Gathering artifact cards, with a potentially rewarding investment for those willing to fulfill its copying conditions for consistent asset production.
Cards similar to Dogsnail Engine by color, type and mana cost
Where to buy
If you're looking to purchase Dogsnail Engine MTG card by a specific set like Unstable, 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 Dogsnail Engine and other MTG cards:
- eBay
- TCG Player
- Card Kingdom
- Card Market
- Star City Games
- CoolStuffInc
- MTG Mint Card
- Hareruya
- Troll and Toad
- ABU Games
- Card Hoarder Magic Online
- MTGO Traders Magic Online
See Magic products
Rules and information
The reference guide for Magic: The Gathering Dogsnail Engine card rulings provides official rulings, any errata issued, as well as a record of all the functional modifications that have occurred.
| Date | Text |
|---|---|
| 2018-01-19 | Any Contraption that’s on the battlefield and wasn’t assembled immediately heads to the scrapyard. However, if it’s a not an actual Contraption card (like Copy Artifact isn’t), it goes to your graveyard as normal. Non-Contraption cards can’t be in the scrapyard. |
| 2018-01-19 | At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control any Contraptions, move the CRANK! counter to the next sprocket. You may then crank any number of Contraptions on that sprocket, causing their abilities to trigger. Cranking a Contraption is always optional. |
| 2018-01-19 | Contraptions are artifacts. Anything that interacts with artifacts will interact with Contraptions. |
| 2018-01-19 | Contraptions aren’t put into your main deck. They go into a separate deck called the Contraption deck. |
| 2018-01-19 | If a Contraption would leave the battlefield and go to any zone other than exile, it instead goes to the scrapyard, the Contraption deck’s version of the graveyard. Things that affect the graveyard do not affect the scrapyard. You can exile Contraptions just fine. |
| 2018-01-19 | If you crank multiple Contraptions, their abilities can be put onto the stack in any order. The ability put onto the stack will resolve first. |
| 2018-01-19 | If you or a permanent you control are instructed to assemble a Contraption, reveal the top card of your Contraption deck. Put it onto the battlefield on one of the three sprockets. |
| 2018-01-19 | If you or a permanent you control assembles a Contraption and your Contraption deck is empty, nothing happens. You don’t lose the game. |
| 2018-01-19 | In Constructed formats, a Contraption deck must have at least fifteen different Contraption cards and no more than one of each. |
| 2018-01-19 | In Limited formats, a Contraption deck may include any number of Contraption cards in your card pool. You don’t have to include every Contraption card you draft or open in sealed deck. In those formats, your Contraption deck may include duplicates. |
| 2018-01-19 | In silver-bordered games using Contraptions, you have three sprockets, illustrated on the back of Contraption cards. At the start of the game, put a CRANK! counter on sprocket 3. |
| 2018-01-19 | While Contraptions you control are on the battlefield, the Contraption deck is not, even if you are using it to signify the three sprockets. |
