Hearthstone Player Rates EXPENSIVE Magic Cards w/ CovertGoBlue

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#Hearthstone #Rarran #magicthegathering

[@wynnefox]

I am EXTREMELY disapointed that Covert didn't tell the Chaos Confetti story.

[@pa7764]

was thinking about that one too!

[@RoyShamama-fn1hz]

Facts

[@Flummeryman]

What happened

[@R1DDL3RS]

​@@FlummerymanYou can rip up your Chaos Orb then sprinkle it over the board for a full clear iirc.

[@error00001]

@@Flummeryman urban legend of someone tearing the card up to hit more cards, it probably never happened, but wotc made a Chaos Confetti card that requires you to tear it up

[@juliandacosta6841]

Rarran saying "Powerful nine" every time, and "Fable nine" is hilarious. The Fabled nine actually sounds kind of sick though.

[@PenitusVox]

I loved how he said it enough times that even Covert eventually started to go with it.

[@andrewgreenwood9068]

Fabled 9, the 9 most iconic and storied cards in magic history. What would they be?

[@lesternomo6578]

Fable 9: fury, grief, not dead after all, dauthi voidwalker, ragavan, troll of khazad dum, lightning bolt, thoughtseize, and finally fable of the mirror breaker

[@juliandacosta6841]

@@andrewgreenwood9068 all I'm thinking of is all of the french vanilla cards that people worship. Like stormcrow and colossal dreadmaw

[@evangold4748]

Every time he said powerful 9, I took psychic damage

[@vaspeter2600]

"The effect you just said, opening a pack, is really cool, I'd love to see that in other card games." *Elise the Trailblazer* "Am I a joke to you?"

[@nolimbsjohnny]

lmao

[@seryntheon8195]

"Yes. Even post-buff."

[@chunkitliem3635]

but if they play that offline they would actually need to open a booster pack instead let the system randomly generate some card for them

[@Noobie2k7]

​​@@chunkitliem3635 Like imagine bringing that card to an event. Youd have to buy a booster box every time you showed up lol. The Card store you played at would love you.

[@makingnoises2327]

Booster Tutor most famously, but also Stocking Tiger, Opening Ceremony, Summon The Pack, Myntasha Honored One, and Heroes of Kamigawa all literally have you open a pack of Magic cards

[@Danceofmasks]

In the early days of chaos orb, people stopped stacking their lands together because there was a risk of losing your whole stack of lands. Then some smartasses started making their library into the shape of a shelter and put cards below the overhang, to hide from chaos orb. One crazy dude went so far as to blu-tack his cards onto a whiteboard in a tournament in order to become chaos orb immune. That's the kind of stuff that led to its banning. XD

[@juliandacosta6841]

Yeah i was thinking of just spreading my cards 4 inches apart

[@ThenewWereWolfGod]

what does blu-tack mean?

[@juliandacosta6841]

@@ThenewWereWolfGod stick them to the board

[@ThenewWereWolfGod]

how does that make them chaos orb immune?@@juliandacosta6841

[@aquain1]

@@ThenewWereWolfGod It's a brand of adhesive putty for sticking things to walls and similar surfaces temporarily.

[@SmashPortal]

I'm glad Rarran mentioned Chaos Orb getting damaged, as there's a horror story about a player ripping theirs up before flipping it so it would hit more things.

[@eroslampitella2629]

Always remember that power is a double-edged blade. It calls to you, where you are most desperate; when victory seems worth any sacrifice.

[@portalmasterlp453]

The good old chaos confetti

[@vinpap779]

And then was disqualified because his deck didn't have the minimum 60 cards in it

[@KnownAsKenji]

A story I will tell my grandkids. One of my favorite reactions to the card from semi-experienced MtG players is 'wait what, this isn't an Unglued set joke card?'

[@jaeusa160]

I'm disappointed we weren't shared the urban legend that inspired the gag card Chaos Confetti, as well as said card.

[@porgy29]

I won't try to explain how illusionary Mask works specifically, but I do know it actually ended up seeing play in a combo deck. There are some creatures in magic that don't cost much but have a huge drawback when they enter the battlefield, including a 1 mana 12/12. With the Mask, you can cast them, but since they enter face down, the drawback doesn't trigger. It has never been broken, but it is probably why the price is a little higher

[@Todesnuss]

Tru it's just anti-etb tech.

[@chuckwagon3718]

Phyrexian Dreadnought, Phage the Untouchable...

[@RetroMTG]

@@chuckwagon3718Leveler

[@juliandacosta6841]

Holy shit never thought about that. Eater of days, leveler. Actually nuts. I like the card less now. Also all covert had to do was look up the card on gatherer LOL

[@fernandopires135]

thats so cool!!

[@gregnolte]

I like how Rarran said "powerful nine" so many times that CGB even started saying it.

[@TheyCallMeDio]

CGB's gonna keep saying it on stream now lol

[@iceblue6364]

One of my favorite facts about how Illusionary Mask originally worked is that your opponent can copy your face-down creature with Clone. Then they have a creature in play that they know nothing about. For example if the creature is a Wall, they might go: 'Ok, attack with it.', and you're just like: 'Nope!'.

[@Tharkon]

Wouldn't it just copy the characteristics of the face-down version, which I assume were defined somewhere even then, because it does need to have some characteristics.

[@JonaxII]

​@@TharkonI'm pretty sure that's how it works nowadays since they specified rules for face down creatures when they introduced morph. But back when, originally? People just had to make up on the go, and since the opponent couldn't know what the creature was...

[@Alialun2]

@@Tharkon No, that's not the case. The standardization of face down creatures to be 2/2 with no abilities came a lot later. The Illusionary Mask is a weird one as the creature stayed the same, just face down. If it got blocked and you said "your creature died", your opponent basically had to trust you.

[@LampreyKisses]

I don't have all the errata memorized, but long ago I bought one copy of Illusionary Mask just for the sheer confusion I figured it could cause.

[@m0002856]

Illusionary Mask is a really weird card. I don’t know how it was errata’d because sometimes those errata’s can entirely change the effect of the original card. Based on the wording of this picture of the card, I would assume it works like this: When you summon a creature, you can pay any additional cost (or not). Regardless, the creature goes face down so your opponent doesn’t know what it is. As soon as you use the creature for any reason, it becomes visible again. The point of the card is basically like… if you had a powerful creature card with a very specific mana cost, you could potentially pay a weird mana cost to trick your opponent into not knowing what card it really was. Like something that cost 3 red and 2 black for example. You pay 3 red 2 black and then some additional amount of mana. Your opponent wouldn’t necessarily know which card you summoned. Or you could even try to trick your opponent by paying that mana cost for a different creature card trying to make your opponent think you paid zero mana for the Illusionary Mask effect for your big boss card, but, in reality, you just spent random extra mana tricking them. It’s garbage because it’s basically 2 mana do nothing except give you the option to overpay for a creature if you want.

[@fernandobanda5734]

Without looking it up, I believe the errata is that you can pay any amount of mana but that mana must contain the normal cost, including colors and everything. I believe you have to note the exact mana so you can later prove you didn't cheat. It's one of those old cards barely supported by the current rules.

[@targetbuddy5]

@@fernandobanda5734 The last errata is also from over a decade ago. It's quite possible that this card can be worded much more nicely but frankly, it's probably not on Wizards' radar at this point.

[@nicolivoldkif9096]

​@targetbuddy5 well, it's been on their minds as they brought the concept back with much cleaner rules with Morph.

[@leadpaintchips9461]

The main thing is it's supposed to be a bluff card, where you pay an important creature cost for a less important one, and have your opponent second guess themselves if they want to spend the counterspell/removal on the unknown. It was rubbish for the time, but if it was released alongside one of the meta-defining creatures it would probably have seen more uses.

[@Erimioa]

morph creatures with powerfull effects have mostly a very high morph cost than the actual mana cost. You can play a creature and when you're "forced to turn it up" it triggers the un-morph effect, because of the same wording:"when [this creature] is turned face up". Maybe there are some DFCs where this works too, but that would be highly rare, because most of them "transform". Afaik with the last rule changes about transform with the All Will Be One Set, "face down" is clearified as not the same as "transform". Because of that Tokens and Clones have also a transformed side, before nothing happend because there was no back side of a symbol for a imaginary creature.

[@17jtl]

According to internal documents from the manufacturer (Carta Mundi at the time), there were 1008 copies of each rare Alpha card printed, and 3025 for the Beta ones. There is no officially confirmed information for Unlimited, but it's assumed to be around 16000 copies for each rare. All in all, between the three sets, it's safe to assume there were originally about 20000 copies of each Power 9 card.

[@tomithy_lo]

I can't refute your numbers at all, but the guys at my shop have said "there are 14,000 black lotus in the world" for years. I have no idea how they came across that number though.

[@frankcaggiano8282]

​@@tomithy_loI'd say that's probably a decently accurate number, actually. If there are at least, according to the top, around 17,000 black lotuses, it would be safe to assume that a few thousand of them were played to death or lost to time before people began collecting. I'd say that's very reasonable

[@unknownchipmagnet3510]

I can confirm there is at least one destroyed via using it on a bicycle wheel when I was 11yrs old :(

[@XpVersusVista]

​@@unknownchipmagnet3510 did your bicycle run out of mana or what? 😂

[@cinderheart2720]

For reference on how strong Ancestral Recall is, drawing 3 cards at instant speed is typically 5 mana these days.

[@Danceofmasks]

I played the game as it was originally designed ... and my 40 card deck had 5 contracts from below in it. Yeah, that made ancestral recall look like a p****

[@bcoyne12345]

@@Danceofmasks wait, was there no rule of 4 in the early days?? :O

[@cossin281]

@@bcoyne12345. No, the original deck construction rules were basically sealed but with your entire collection instead of just 6 boosters, 40 cards minimum and as many copies of a card as you had opened.

[@joaquingrazi2267]

​@@bcoyne12345Yeah xd the 4 copy rule came between Beta and Unlimited printings

[@emeth9312]

@@bcoyne12345 used to be that you can have a deck with 15ish mountains and the rest are lightning bolts (1 mana deal 3 to anything), as long as you open with 1-2 mountain it's gg. the 4-of rule was invented pretty early in the game's lifespan, thankfully

[@stephenreed5091]

To the judge- "His chaos orb is in a sleeve so technically its not touching my card"

[@WYKlaure]

Time walk was originally red and said "your opponent looses his next turn". They meant they missed it, but testers thought it was 1R win the game, so it was nerfed into this. Edit (time warp to time walk)

[@duncanfinch27]

It's current version on its own is essentially Temporus, which was unplayable trash at worst and meme combo at best.

[@seandun7083]

*time walk

[@kylarcheng1346]

@@duncanfinch27whether your talking about time walk or time warp, both are very, very, good

[@zachlikeslofi]

“Nerfed” lol

[@juliandacosta6841]

It was reworded but the testers actually understood the card better than the people making the cards

[@ryantannar5301]

I interpret the illusionary mask as saying that you can pay the casting cost of the creature and then also the X cost from 0 to whatever. The idea is that because your opponent doesn't know what mana went to the X and what mana went to the card they cannot guess what it might be

[@sammyj6532]

That makes sense, but I'm also wondering if this would allow you to play creatures at instant speed. It doesn't mention activating only as a sorcery (unless that's covered in errata), and it doesn't tap either.

[@go7912]

yeah that's what I got as well and the fact that it can be 0 is because you can cast creatures for 0 mana under certain circumstances like say a cost reduction card reducing the mana by 2 and you have a 1 mana creature, you cast it for 0 and can choose to pay 0 for the mask

[@joshuahadams]

Pay X to get a creature on loan and pay the full mana cost when it’s flipped? Sounds like what it was trying to go for

[@JustusKlapper]

@@sammyj6532 in the errata version: If you do, you may cast that card face down as a 2/2 creature spell without paying its mana cost. So you still have to cast it as a creature which is usually at sorvery speed. I'm guessing the "2/2 creature spell" means it is like a morph creature and can't be cast at instant even when it has flash.

[@b7a1r3]

Yeah, my thoughts were "I wanna cast a creature that costs 2rr, so I can pay any amount that is 2rr or more." I can see why they thought bluffing a bigger threat than you actually had would be good, but you'd be better off just adding cards to make your deck more consistent so you could just draw the card your bluffing

[@aquamentos]

I would really love if Covert showed you Silver Border cards such as from Unhinged and Unglued, please make it happen :D

[@vinpap779]

Yes! Even if those cards aren't legal, I would love to see Rarran react to the insanity that are Unsets

[@kilroy203]

You mean Unsanity?@@vinpap779

[@Meowvela]

Honestly, I'd throw in some Unstable too. Host and Augment are awesome-weird. Or The Grand Calcutron!

[@Seydaschu]

I mean he mentioned Booster Tutor, I feel he's obligated now!

[@colinouille2786]

FLAVOR JUDGE! FLAVOR JUDGE!

[@LennonMarx420]

Regarding seeing Chaos Orb played IRL, it's a staple in 93/94 Old School. It has a slight errata to prevent the silly counter tactics, but it gets flipped all the time. It's like half the reason to play that format.

[@AreaOfHate]

Video idea - Blue plays builds a magic deck and you build a closest copy of it in hearthstone, and Blue does the same

[@logannyf]

This is a sweet idea!

[@evandroreismoraes7571]

I didn't understand but I like it

[@chadgamer6942]

​@@evandroreismoraes7571basically they both build a deck in their respective games and then try to build a similar deck in eachothers game so example rarran makes aggro paladin and then the other guy makes the closest thing to that

[@evandroreismoraes7571]

@@chadgamer6942 thank you

[@evandroreismoraes7571]

@@chadgamer6942 you deserve your name

[@riversduvall1176]

Rarran hitting the perfect 1$ on Consecrate Land was a success story like no other

[@Awesomesausages]

The bizarre thing about Cyclopean Tomb: it didn't have a printed Mana cost in Alpha (using that art is a little deceptive as such), but it officially costs 4 Mana just to get into play. It's way too slow to be truly toxic: 4 Mana do nothing, then 2 Mana to maybe harrass your opponent a little bit.

[@Kakerate2]

i was wondering! bet people have cast it for free

[@nightbane727]

only real value id see it for is swampwalk via filth or something altho you could ruin someones gaias cradle or something significant like that lol

[@dstreetz91]

Thatt misprint on tomb makes alpha versions worth a premium the same way orcish oriflamme from alpha cost 1R, but later sets have it at 3R. Later printings aren't worth nearly as much as alpha. If it cost zero tomb still wouldn't be broken, but it could be pretty annoying with stuff like ancient tomb + cyclopean tomb hitting the board turn 1 or just land mox. Alpha rares in particular though every single one has some collector for it that will pay for it to try to monopolize the card as alpha rare printrun for each unique rare is

[@cossin281]

I expected CGB to point out that the version of Cyclopean Tomb he showed doesn’t work as printed since it doesn’t have a mana cost and therefore can’t be cast. (The mana cost was supposed to be {4} and has been changed to that in its Oracle text and all later printings)

[@Nianque2]

Back in Alpha, there was no limit of how many copies of a card could be played. So the most powerful decks of all time were something like 20 black lotus, 20 timetwister, 1 lightning bolt. (decks could be 40 cards at that time). Basically, you kept shuffling until you could cast enough lightning bolts to kill someone.

[@ConnorMurphy-ku8hb]

20 channel 20 lotus 20 fireball (actual numbers tweaked to logical values and the namesake of channelfireball afaik)

[@psymar]

​@@ConnorMurphy-ku8hbOr the creator of Magic's favorite deck: 60 plains 40 shahrazad. It is unknown if any games with this deck were ever actually finished.

[@marcelinoquintana5149]

15 black lotus and 25 ancestral recall. Allot of people don't realize that recall can target opponents. Draw most of your deck till u get enough mana and recalls to deck your opponent

[@Ozymandias42]

“These kids today with their collector numbers and their newfangled tap symbol. Twenty Black Lotuses and twenty Plague Rats. Now that’s real Magic.”

[@kristianfagerstrom7011]

that changed very quick though ;-)

[@Arcavi0us]

So about the Raging River being undiscovered good, a very similar situation happened in base set of Pokemon TCG. The metagame for base set was between 3 archetypes consisting of "Haymaker", wigglytuff decks and a mewtwo deck. Stall existed as an archetype but had terrible matchups against those T0 decks. It wasn't until a guy called Hookah combined a bunch of his random bulk cards into a classic deck that the scene discovered Moltres & Lickitung stall, which proceeded to wipe the format 15 years after base set was printed. Dude wasn't even playing 4 copies of the important cards. Nowadays Haymaker is dead as it gets beaten out by multiple options that weren't considered previously and Mewtwo decks have had to change a lot of their cards out to adapt.

[@grit1]

I'm surprised they didn't mention the story (or maybe urban legend at this point, I'm not even certain) about some player ripping chaos orb up and tossing it up confetti style

[@philipmorse-fortier5499]

It might have started as one, but I have witnessed it happen at Grand Prix Charlotte in Dec '05.

[@rajamicitrenti1374]

I'm surprised they didn't mention the story behind Word of Command's art.

[@dmbursty]

Regarding Illusionary Mask - X must pay at _least_ the casting cost of the creature you choose, including the necessary colours. At the time, the primary function was to conceal which creature you were playing. These days, it is primarily used to put creatures into play without trigging their enter the battlefield abilities. Most notably this card has been used with Phyrexian Dreadnought to cheat in a 1 mana 12/12 trample. From the extended rulings, if the amount you paid for X could not be used to cast the creature (e.g. paying 0 for a face down Grizzly Bears,) this would be considered a game rule violation, and appropriate tournament penalties would be applied when the violation is eventually discovered. The full ruling is as follows: If you use the ability to cast a creature card face down, you must keep track of the amount and types of mana you spent on Variable Colorless. If that creature spell is moved from the stack to anywhere other than the battlefield, the resulting creature leaves the battlefield, or the game ends, the face-down card is revealed. If its mana cost couldn't be paid by some amount of, or all of, the mana you spent on Variable Colorless, all applicable penalties for casting a card illegally are assessed.

[@christopherlundgren1700]

Illusionary Mask is one of the few cards in the game where the errata basically makes up a new function for the card, because the original card doesn’t make any sense within the rules of Magic. It has been used competitively in the semi-recent past as a way to play giant creatures with tiny mana costs, but huge drawbacks as they enter the battlefield because it sneaks the creature in face down. The classic card with this is Phyrexian Dreadnaught.

[@petrie911]

Is it really a new function if it works exactly how the printed text says? You can pay some amount of mana for X and then cast a creature face down if the mana you spent could have paid its mana cost. Then it gets turned face up if it does any of the things the card mentions.

[@christopherlundgren1700]

@@petrie911 "The X cost can be any amount of mana, even 0; it serves to hide the true casting cost of the creature, which you still have to spend." What? Nobody understood how this was supposed to work. You can pay 0? There were no creatures in Alpha that cost 0. When did you have to "spend" that mana? When you play it face down? When it's turned face up? What if you don't have the mana when the card is revealed? Etc. The new version makes it clear (well, clear-er) that you can't cheat on the mana, you still have to spend at least an amount that could cast the creature. Also the card says nothing about the creature being a 2/2. It just says it's face down. By the card text it has no characteristics. An old errata made it a 0/1 because a creature can't exist without a power and toughness, but it was later changed to a 2/2 to match the properties of other face down creatures.

[@berserkerciaran7650]

​@@christopherlundgren1700My assumption is that {X} is the additional cost, not the full cost, in the original printing. So it is 0 if you pay {B} to sneak in the aforementioned Dreadnought

[@Bladius_]

​@@christopherlundgren1700 It's a lil confusing at first, but if you read it properly; It simply says it CAN be 0. The second sentence states It "hides the cost", but you still have to pay the cost. Altogether it says "spend any amount, but it must be at least the cost of the creature". You know when to pay it because the "X:" at the start of the ability means it's a cost you have to pay it to use the effect in the first place, and the "The X cost" simply refers back to the "X:" at the start of the effect. I think the better wording would be like "X: put a creature into play from your hand face down that costs X or less. The card is flipped face up when it is tapped, or when it would deal or be dealt damage".

[@AgonalRhythm]

Timetwister is that expensive because its not banned in Commander. Also, good on Rarran for recognizing that Lorcana card "A Whole New World" is basically just MTG's wheel of fortune, which is the non-shuffle draw 7 part of Timetwister. Wheel of Fortune also inspired the cards Professor Oak and Imposter Professor Oak from the Pokemon TCG

[@makingnoises2327]

it also sees play in vintage in certain decks like PO

[@Malao558]

Camouflage is notable for being basically impossible to fit within the modern card text format. If you look at Scryfall or Gatherer, the card is even longer and arguably less comprehensible than the older version.

[@nathanwilkins6107]

Illusionary mask is a cool card. You put a card into play face down by paying at least enough mana to cast the creature card. It flips up when those conditions are met (would take or assign damage or become tapped). It avoids enter the battlefield triggers and it’s most common use is putting Phyrexian Dreadnaught into play without any drawback. (It’s a 1 mana 12/12 that makes you sacrifice 12 power of creatures when it etbs.)

[@OwnRogers25]

I think the most fascinating part of this video is just learning how wild the beginning of Magic was (and really early card games when you think about it). I recall land destruction being common place back then but to think creatures were much weaker before is nuts when creatures matter so much more now. Great video idea and would love to see something like this again!

[@fuminy6175]

For Illusionary Mask, simply put you can pump any extra amount of mana, even 0, to hide the real casting cost of your creature. So you can pay 7 mana for your 2 mana creature if you reaaaaaaaly wanted to.

[@theod4660]

Remind me of a mechanic in Eternal were Stealth units are play hidden and all cost either 3 or 5 mana, and some 3 mana stealth can be played with an additional 2 cost granting them a bonus effect

[@KaimanDororo]

Additionally, you still have to pay the colored mana cost for the card when you cast it with this ability. So if you are casting a Grizzly Bears with this effect, you have to at least pay 1 green mana and 1 mana of any color, then you can overpay as much as you want to hide its real casting cost.

[@Durtaz]

We need more of this stuff. This is so cool to see my two favorite games overlap. MtG has so many cool stories with it and it’s super fun to see Rarran’s reactions to them. Reminds me how much I love these games even beyond the gameplay!

[@seandun7083]

Ancestral recall was actually part of a cycle of cards (one for each color) called the boon cycle which all did 3 of a thing for 1 mana. Blue: Ancestral Recall-draw 3 or force an opponent to Black: Dark Ritual- add 3 black mana Red: Lightning Bolt- deal 3 damage to a creature or player Green: Giant Growth- target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn White: Healing Salve- gain 3 life or prevent 3 damage to a creature or player That's roughly in order of their power, though 2 and 3 could be swapped. White really got the short end of the stick.

[@slinelol]

i'm so salty he didn't mention lighting bolt. typical blue-player bias

[@berserkerciaran7650]

​@@slinelolIt's because Bolt got reprinted after Unlimited

[@slinelol]

@@berserkerciaran7650 I stick with my "blue player bias against burn"

[@Lukemyfather1]

Rarran you forget at 23:25, that elise gave you an ungoro pack that you would shuffle into your deck, so Hearthstone did have something like that !

[@hpeek5362]

The thing about the power 9 is that 5 cards are copies, so it's really like the 5 most powerful cards not the 9 most. Totally get why he guessed so many cards were in it.

[@Obelion_]

the funniest thing about old magic for me is that you only died at the end of the current phase, so you could just do whatever while chilling at -100 life as long as you got back above 0 before the phase ended. the game only checked if you are dead at the end of every phase but you could casually revive yourself no big dead during a phase

[@AStandsForFrench]

this is one of my favorites of all these M:TG videos, it's hilarious. I would love for this to just be a series of CGB traveling through the various sets in order of release(or maybe blocks of sets) picking out the interesting and unique cards to discuss with Rarran.

[@thomassynths]

Illusionary Mask simply requires you pay the exact cost of the creature or a superset cost. So for something like Ornithopter you can pay 0, but you can't pay 0 for a Raging Goblin. For that you have to pay at least one R and any amount of extra mana.

[@shaedeymamlas5496]

You are allowed to overpay

[@thomassynths]

@@la8ballBack in the day it was used with Phyrexian Dreadnought to elide the ETB.

[@xelic1996]

I wonder if eventually we will see Rarran featured in an episode of Command Zone learning commander or a video with the prof. It'd be so cool to see him interact further with the MTG community.

[@maulwurf11011991]

Chaos Orb Story: Plays Chaos Orb > rips up Chaos Orb in 20 little pices > throws the snippets on the table > wipes the opponents board > opponent baffeled > crowed baffeld > judges baffeld > wins game

[@UCanBeatVideoGames]

I've won tournaments playing Illusionary Mask before, but it works differently now than it did in the past. The key interaction was you can play it with Phyrexian Drednought, and it allows you to skip the CIB trigger. In older Magic, the mask put the creature into play, so it got around counterspells (it doesn't work that way now). When you activate it, you must pay the full mana cost for the creature - It doesn’t allow you to cheat costs. You can pay extra mana to disguise what you’re casting, but you don’t have to. The current rules make it work similar to Morph. You play the card face down. Anytime it taps or takes damage it will trigger, and turn over.

[@aofukai9978]

Always loving these types of vids Rarran. Keep it up ❤❤❤

[@theneedlepig]

Regarding the Illusionary Mask: You must fully pay the legal mana cost of the spell and you can optionally pay more to hide the mana cost of the spell. I believe you can technically pay less (or wrong colored) mana, but then the spell is considered illegal when flipped up and you must return it to your hand and potentially suffer a game loss.

[@rickwoods5274]

I don’t know how a judge in 2024 would rule, there is no game rule for what happens if you don’t cover the cost of the creature with the mana you spend on the ability. You just did something you weren’t allowed to do, same as if you just cast the creature and didn’t pay enough for it (but more awkward because you find out later).

[@rickwoods5274]

When you activate Mask, the X cost you pay has to at least cover the mana cost of the creature you hide (that’s the “which you still have to pay” in the original text, and the “could be paid by…” in the oracle text). The answer to “what happens if you just pay 0” is that you can’t do that (unless of course the creature you hide is free). The original “point” of the card is the hiding thing. But what it actually gets any play for is skipping enters-the-battlefield replacements/triggers, like that of Phyrexian Dreadnaught (why yes I would like a 12/12 trample for 1 mana thanks)

[@DioHard]

I LOVE how every card player has his terminoligy, like Rarran names the colours classes: "The black class" it would have never come to my mind since I started with MTG and then went to Hearthstone. Same goes when MTG players call everything creatures, yugioh heads call them monsters and hearthstoners call em minions. So fun!

[@Malao558]

There was a fun practice while Chaos Orb was still legal where people would spread their cards so they were more than one card-length apart so it would be harder to land on multiple things at once. Because Magic has no strict board layout, it was all totally legal, and very funny.

[@CountFab]

Could you print Chaos Orb on a A0 paper sheet to nuke the opponent? Could you flip the card on top of their library to have them discard the card before even drawing it?

[@bcoyne12345]

@@CountFab You have to be able to shuffle all the cards in your deck or you lose the game, so no to the first point, also chaos orb specifies 'in play' so it wouldn't destroy anything in the library unfortunately

[@CosmoFromSpace]

FINALLY MTg content from my favorite goober

[@Obversechaos]

I love all the videos with these two. I don't even care about Hearthstone at all, and I love these videos, so someone who likes both Hearthstone and Magic must more than love these videos. They really are great.

[@Suchtiee666]

Chaos Orb is also a currency item in Path of Exile because Chris Wilson one of the games creators is a huge mtg fan so he put it in the game as an homage.

[@error00001]

white was acutely really good in alpha, it had some of the best creatures with white knight and serra angel and the best removal with wrath and swords

[@ethanhopper2467]

Also Balance, which is probably the single most powerful effect in the game if it actually resolves. It was so good people splashed for it off City of Brass in basically everything

[@Duall8]

Yeah, in addition to Balance as another person mentioned, Armageddon too could be brutal for aggro to close, though I guess in a Moxen format it might prove to be lacking assuming everyone gets access to 4 Moxen. Green I think is considered the worst in Alpha as even though it has mana dorks and Channel, everyone has Moxen to ramp if they want it, and the ramp payoffs are lacking outside of the Channel + Fireball combo. Also, the removal in Alpha is amazing compared to the creatures, which current Standard shows how Green midrange/aggro struggles with that.

[@nekrataali]

@@Duall8 Yeah Mox Emerald was the weakest of the moxen because of mana dorks, who were also just worse than artifact mana. It's not until much, much later in Magic's history that green became one of the stronger colors. Green doesn't start overtaking white until around Tarmogoyf got printed in Future Sight.

[@cinderheart2720]

Google says there's almost 30,000 Black Lotuses out there (across all printings).

[@yoggalo1766]

It’s 30k minus all the damaged ones and all the destroyed ones

[@cinderheart2720]

@@yoggalo1766 I know, and also in packs still unopened. That's the hard cap to how many there can be.

[@seandun7083]

Twiddle was in Alpha to let you untap time vault, but it didn't let you go infinite. For illusory mask, you pay the creature's cost + any amount as you cast it. The "without paying it's mana cost" is just so you don't need to reveal the cost. So you could pay 10 for a 1 drop to bluff it being good, but not 1 for a 10 drop.

[@makeppo]

31:29 You activate the artifact anticipating x amount of mana (probably keeping note of the colors). When the hidden creature is tapped, would deals damage or is dealt damage or (i think) interacts with any object or relevant effect you have to pay the mana to cast it, otherwise it is countered (probably)

[@Arzheu]

old magic cards have the text clarity of new YGO cards

[@thetruth4654]

I want to see Rarran rate the card Balance

[@AzyxA]

I want him to rate Divine Intervention 😂

[@Atztec1]

Sooo after a bit of Research on Illusionary Mask, it got erratad into Pay X, where X is the CMC (Mana Value) of the Card or More (Designed to Fake out an Opponent i guess) to put it into play as a Morph (2/2 without any Effect (ETB (Enter the Battlefield Effects) do not trigger)). If the "Morphed" Card would be dealt Damage or Deals Damage / would be tapped, it's "unmorphed" and assigns it's Attack/Defense Stats into the Combat. It's more or less a Funny Way to Overpay for Cards and try to Fake out your opponent with Say a Shivaan Dragon when it really was a Crap Card. Atleast thats how i understand the Card and after researching it for like 30 minutes im pretty sure, that's how it works. Dont forget that back in the Ruleset we had Manaburn (each Mana you produced by Effects and/or Tapping Lands that wouldnt be used up after a phase would deal 1 Damage to yourself) aswell, so you could get rid of overproduced Mana by overspending for the Effect.

[@mkwilson1394]

Mask + Phyrexian Dreadnought used to be a deck! The PD was a 12/12 for 1 mana and a wildly detrimental enter the battlefield trigger. By using mask, you could dodge the trigger and get the body very cheaply.

[@NailGunZero]

Alpha is simply expensive by virtue of being limited print run.

[@DiabloTommaso]

Nope. Reserved list as well

[@theparagonal]

​@@DiabloTommasoWhat do you think "limited print run" means?

[@DiabloTommaso]

@@theparagonal again it s different. The reserved list was made on pourpouse. So it s not only the set themself been not printed anymorem

[@MrSandman115]

You’d also be owning a piece of cardboard older than most people watching this video. Having said that, a lot of Alpha cards aren’t worth much compared to the heavy hitters.

[@U1TR4F0RCE]

⁠​⁠@@theparagonalAlpha as the name implies was the first print run of Magic cards that are now recognized as tournament legal. With there only being 2.6 million cards printed and it initially being released at a game fair. Early on a lot of the sets were not quite printed to demand as demand was not known so the print run for sets were quite limited.

[@Ogmobot]

The X in Illusionary Mask is different in printed text vs oracle text. In the printed version, you can activate it for X=0, and then cast a face-down Grizzly Bears for its normal cost of 1G. (Or choose a different value of X to hide the fact you're casting a 2-mana spell.) In the oracle version, the X includes the mana cost of the creature. So you could only use it to cast a face-down Grizzly Bears if X contains 1G or more (but you wouldn't have to pay the creature's cost a second time).

[@SleepyJeeves]

On Illusionary Mask: They way it works is simply that you play a creature spell face down by paying at least its cost, and you can adjust its cost with any amount of mana, usually calling all the colors to confuse the opponent. It wasn't played a lot, but one of the ways it used to be played then (I have some Illusionary Masks, I was there, I am that old) was on small creature decks, where you would throw a bunch of low cost high effect creatures for the time, like Hypnotic Specter or WhiteKnight, and make them all cost the same mana, so your opponent would know which creatures you had in your deck, but had to figure out which of the 2-3-4 creatures was the one that was the real threat for his deck. So I summon this for UBB, and this for UBB and this for UBB, etc. Games used to last a very short amount of time with the classic Land-BlackLotus-Channel-Fireball combo, but when Channel got banned and Black Lotus restricted, some people like me attempted to make fringe cards like this one work. As for the Chaos Orb legend, it happened at a Canadian Tournament in 1994, when a guy brought a deck to the tournament including the Chaos Orb, and proceeded in tearing it apart in the final game, and flipping all the small pieces onto the opponent's playing field, hence destroying most of his lands and creatures, and some of his lands in the process, and winning the final bout of the tournament. The ref didn't know what to do, since it was a first, and since all the small pieces turned, they were all considered the "Chaos Orb", and the guy won the tournament, for which the first prize was a black lotus and an unlimited box, so the cost of the Chaos Orb was offset tenfold. I had a college friend who played at that tournament and witnessed it first hand. Right after, an errata was added to Chaos Orb to indicate that it had to still be a card. That was back when the erratas would come in the magic magazine Scrye.

[@thathungryguy2617]

To use illusionary mask, follow these simple steps: 1. Choose a creatuee card in your hand 2. Pay its cost, and any extra you want to pay to hide the exact cost you paid from your opponent 3. Put the creature in play face down 4. Wait for something to happen to it (damage, targeting, tapping, etc), at which point you turn it face up. This is useful because the creature doesn't enter play as itself, so paying 1 mana into the mask lets you put a 12/12 phyrexian dreadnought into play without triggering its detrimental trigger on entry

[@pupsinsbarks]

Ayy, I get to explain Illusory Mask! So basically the idea of this card is that you have to pay the mana cost for the creature you cast when you cast it, just like any other Magic card. The X cost to activate is so you have the option of bluffing what that card is by paying extra mana. So for example, you could pay 4 and play a card face down and your opponent wouldn't know if the creature cost 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4. Paying X = 0 means you play the card for its normal cost. Paying 0 mana overall means you can only play a creature that costs 0, since the total amount of mana you spend has to be at least as much as the creature would cost normally.

[@matheusmterra]

I actually heard a story about chaos orb and I'm not sure if it's an urban legend or not. The story goes like this. There was a big tournament going, sponsored by WotC, very early in MTG history. In one of the decisive games, a player saw he had no way to come back to the board, he had only a Chaos Orb. He called for the judge, whispered something, and the judge nodded and stood beside the table. Then the player with the Chaos Orb proceeded to take the card out of the sleeve, SHREDDED IT TO PIECE, and following the rules he dropped spreading over the board, meaning each shred counted as a Chaos Orb touching something, so he basically carpet-bombed the entire board, everything blew up. The play was so outside the box and so impressive that this player was offered a job as a card designer in MTG. I don't know the guy's name nor if it's a real story or urban legend, but this is at least one of the most amazing mtg urban legends I know.

[@PopcornBunni]

Illusory Mask quick version: Chose a creature with cost Y in your hand. Pay Y+X: Put it onto the battlefield face-down (In modern magic by definition a face-down creature is 2/2 morph). You can only pay 0 total if Y = 0. The card, while not inheritly busted, was part of a powerful combo play with the card Phyrexian Dreadnaught. Dreadnaught is normally a 1-mana card that has a debilitating ETB effect that makes you normally effectively sac your board, including it if you don't have enough power on board already. If you illusory mask it, you avoid the etb effect by just paying 1 to put it out face down and get a 12/12 trample.

[@jordibear]

Word of Command's best (most realistic) lines of play are usually to forcer them to use their removal on their own creatures, or discard/burn spells on themselves. In those cases, it's a guaranteed 1 for 1, and often a 2 for 1 for BB. Board wipes can also be very good if you are behind, and they are just holding a board wipe because they have a more valuable board. You can swap the game state pretty fast. It also uses their mana, so you do deny them whatever else they were planning on playing that turn too! Very good card. My personal Favourite I specify most realistic, because obviously the best lines of play are like, making them cast time stretch targeting you on their upkeep, or some other unlikely scenario.

[@digiholic]

How Illusory Mask works: You pay some amount of mana to activate it. You choose a creature card from your hand that you COULD have cast with that amount of mana (including color), you can put it face down so your opponent cannot know what it is until it actually does something. You can pay MORE than the creature (as a bluff), but you have to put something in that you could afford. Examples: 1. You pay 0 mana. You then choose a creature in your hand who costs 0 or less and put it into play facedown, such as Ornithopter. 2. You pay 1 green mana. You can play Ornithopter as above, or you can play a Llanowar Elf, but you can NOT play a Raging Goblin, since it costs 1 Red mana 3. You pay 15 Black mana. You can play Emrakul, The Aeons Torn, Grieselbrand, or Ornithopter.

[@fanver]

I could be wrong but the way that I understand illusionary mask to work in mtg terms is {x}: cast a creature card from your hand with mana value x or less face down whenever it deals damage, is dealt damage, or is tapped instead turn it face up and it deals damage, is dealt damage, or is tapped face up (basically meaning it acts normally now). some notes is that the errata makes the face down version a 2/2 when it is face down all of its triggered effects like entering the battlefield effects don't get triggered feel free to correct me or to make a more accurate summary this is just as i understand as a player of mtg but certainly no judge

[@bibliophobia.n5485]

For Illusionary Mask: You can play a card face down by paying it's mana cost, and if you wish, pay extra mana as a way of disguising it: EXAMPLE: this could be used to trick an opponent into thinking a 1/1 is a more powerful card or to play minigames about what you just played.

[@JackTR21]

Some Illusionary Mask rulings: While the creature card is face down, it's a 2/2 creature with no name, mana cost, color, creature type, abilities, or expansion symbol. Since it has no mana cost, its mana value is 0. You may not turn a face-down spell face up. You may not turn a face-down permanent face up unless it would have morph while face up or an effect specifically allows you to turn it face up. Illusionary Mask's ability has you turn a face-down creature face up if it would assign damage, deal damage, be dealt damage, or become tapped, but not for any other reason. For example, if you use Illusionary Mask's ability to cast a black creature face down, you can't turn it face up just because it's being targeted by Terror. If you use the ability to cast a creature card face down, you must keep track of the amount and types of mana you spent on Variable Colorless. If that creature spell is moved from the stack to anywhere other than the battlefield, the resulting creature leaves the battlefield, or the game ends, the face-down card is revealed. If its mana cost couldn't be paid by some amount of, or all of, the mana you spent on Variable Colorless, all applicable penalties for casting a card illegally are assessed. Both the amount and types of mana you spend on Variable Colorless are taken into account while you're choosing a creature card from your hand. For example, if you spent BlueBlue on Variable Colorless, you can choose a creature card with mana cost BlueBlue, 1Blue, 2, or White or BlueWhite or Blue, among other possibilities, but not one that costs 2Blue or one that costs Green.

[@Nastyn1nja808]

cant wait for the next video of this as well as CGB plays Commander with Rarran

[@charlieawerbuch5352]

So, for Illusionary Mask, the way it works is you pay any value for X, keeping track of mana symbols and such. Then, you can take any creature from your hand with a maximum value of X, whose mana cost can be covered by the mana you used to pay for X, and play it face down. So, if you pay RUBGW for X, you can cast any creature from your hand with a maximum CMC of 5, and that requires any combination of that mana to cast - so you can cast anything with a cost of W, B, U, R, G, 1W, 2W, 3W, 4W, 1U, 2U and so on and so forth. It's a super convoluted way to give any creature morph well before morph because an actual thing.

[@wraith.ferron]

Illusionary Mask is an insane card. It basically let's you hide the cost of the creature and put it in morphed, and auto-flip it if you would attack, block, or tap it, or if something would affect it. It let's you mindgame your opponent for if they want to respond, or let you cast creatures while skipping EtB effects. Being about to cast something like Phyrexian Dreadnaught with no downside, without needing a Stifle in hand at the same time, and it is reusable.

[@TheRealWormbo]

So, Illusionary Mask: When you use it, you need to pay the creature's actual mana cost plus any additional amount. The creature becomes a 2/2 without any other attributes until one of the conditions for turning it face-up are met. So if you attack (unless it somehow got Vigilance) or it would be involved in a damage exchange, it gets turned face-up. It's similar to a card with Morph, where the morph cost is the card's mana cost + X, except you can't turn it face-up as a special action.

[@leafy470]

These collabs with CGB are really fun! Love the video!!

[@fatpad00]

An important thing about Post Malone's Black Lotus is it is a signed and graded "Artist Proof" An artist proof has the regular card front, but a blank back. They are given to the artist by WotC as part of compensation in a fairly small number. The exact number of Artist Proof Black Lotus is unknown, but its definitley significantly less than even the number of Alpha printings. Add to the exteme scarcity the fact that it is signed by the now-desceased artist Christopher Rush and it is graded. Also consider that Black Lotus isnt *really* played in paper since it it only legal in Vintage. That is why it sold for $800k while the max price for a regular printing is about $600k

[@AzyxA]

So happy they did a video like this about old cards. Mtg card history is great.

[@Zaradrak]

An alternative way to think of Illusionary Mask ability is that it grants all creature spells "morph X where X is the converted mana cost of the creature." and all morphs gain the ability "Flip this card over if it would deal or receive damage or becomes tapped.". If you were to also have actual morph creatures within your deck you would need to track which are true morphs and which are created by Illusionary Mask. An example for activating Illusionary Mask's ability for 0 goes as follows. Player A controls an Illusionary Mask. Player A activates Illusionary Mask's ability paying 0 mana. Player A chooses a creature card from their hand with converted mana cost 0 or less and places it on the board face down. The creature is noted to have power and toughness of 2/2. If the Illusionary Mask creature becomes tapped, is damaged, or deals damage then flip the creature over. The primary use case of the card was to avoid enter the battlefield effects as flip creatures are not considered to have entered the battlefield as new objects. A common use case was cheating a Phyrexian Dreadnaught (1 mana 12/12 with trample) on the battlefield avoiding it's ETB of requiring the caster to sacrifice 12 power worth of creatures otherwise sacrificing the Phyrexian Dreadnaught

[@xBondohx]

The original printing of Time Walk said, "The opponent loses their next turn." When people first started playing the played the card as if it just kills your opponent for two mana.

[@devinsimmering1468]

If I’m getting it right, illusionary mask is used to make your opponent think ur summoning one that costs more then it really does. Then they might use some of their important removal on what they think is a 6 mana card but it’s actually like a 2 mana one. So for that I would tap 2 for the creatures cost and 4 more for the cost of the mask.

[@Gameflyer001]

Ancestral Recall is one of 5 specific 1-mana instants in Magic's history (1 for each colour, and each does 3 of something), but is by far the most powerful and most iconic one. The others include Dark Ritual (black; Pay 1 black mana to add 3 black mana to your mana pool), Giant Growth (green; target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn), Lightning Bolt (red; deals 3 damage to any target), and the white one (which I don't remember what it is, and it isn't very good). Giant Growth and Lightning Bolt see more regular play, while the white one's usage is almost nonexistent today. Dark Ritual is the second-most powerful of the 5, and as such is only legal in a few formats (a couple more than Ancestral Recall).

[@collinbeal]

They were all focused on the number 3 and were meant to show the core identity of each color, so the white one gained you three life.

[@RockerDanM]

If camouflage can ve used to activate mega-morph or other "when card is turned face up" effects you could trigger a bunch of abilities with it that have already been in effect. MKM with its disguise mechanic could allow for some interesting use if the effects get triggered once blockers are declared.

[@humanhaggis]

Illusionary Mask works like this: you pay X+Y mana, where X is the cmc of the creature, and Y is any integer. So you have to pay the base cost, but then can pay however much extra to try and trick your opponent into thinking it's something else.

[@w33b_potato]

I dont know if someone already explained but illusory mask works like this: the amount of mana and the type of mana that you pay when you activate it needs to be able to cover the cost of the creature, for example if you pay 5 mana (lets assume 3 colorless and 2 red) to activate mask you will be able to put a creature that cost at most 5 and has at most 2 red colored mana in the creature casting cost. So basically the X amount you pay for orb needs to be more or equal to the cost of the creature, you will not be able to pay zero to put a creature that costs more than zero

[@michellebrianna4280]

So this is how mask works. Let's say you had a 3 cost creature in hand. You activate the mask, paying 3 OR MORE mana, and put it in play as a face down 2/2 with no text. Whenever the creature would take/recieve damage or become tapped, it would flip face up and become the actual creature first. It is used to trick your opponent (spend 4 mana in total when you activate it to put in a 2 cost creature) or circumvent negative "enters the battlefield" abilities (If the creature says "when X enters the battlefield, lose 5 life" the life wouldn't be lost as it enters without any text.) Hope this helps!

[@jayceh]

Illusory mask: If you have a Wall of Omens, you can cast it face down for any combination of 2 or more mana with at least one W mana Eg: WW yes UG no UW yes 1W yes 3W yes GGWWB yes BBBU no WWUUG yes WBG yes BGUU no This counts as casting, so it can be countered. Otherwise it enters as a 2/2 Then if someone bolts it, it must be flipped, like a morph flipping - doesnt use the stack. Then the bolt would be assigned to the 0/4 wall and it would live. However, neither casting it face down nor turning it up would cause the ETB of draw a card to trigger

[@eugenesesmaiii3278]

Illusory mask just says X must be the cmc of the creature. Which includes zero ofc. And then the moment it meets the criteria it’s flipped. Also you would have to show it at end of game to make sure you didn’t cheat and pay an incorrect casting cost. The same penalty you would get if you drew extra cards. It’s just honor system.

[@streiifi]

HYPE! i love rarran mtg collabs

[@michaelmills8205]

Illusionary Mask and Camoflague serve the same basic function: They conceal your creatures, so that your opponent makes bad attacks & blocks. The idea of concealing information about your creatures is interesting, and it has shown up again with the Morph & Manifest mechanic in the Onslaught and Khans blocks. The problem is that the original wording is insanely confusing and it doesn't actually define things you need to have a functioning game object. So, Illusionary Mask would probably read something like this as a modern card: X: Put a creature card with mana cost of X or less from your hand into play. If that creature would assign, deal, or receive damage, or tap, turn it face up and then complete that game action. (Face down cards are 2/2 colourless creatures that don't have a creature type, colour, mana cost, or name.) The actual wording on Oracle is a bit crazy because it has to actually get the right timing for the turn up as properly defined in the game rules. If you pay 0 mana, you need to put a creature card with a mana cost of 0 or less into play face down. So basically, this would be the kobolds, thopters, or mana cost-less creatures that cascade decks love to cheat out. Also: Oh yeah, white sucked back in the day. Just look at the boons: Ancestral Recall: One U for 3 cards. Dark Ritual: One B for BBB. Giant Growth: One G for +3/+3 to a creature until end of turn. Lightning Bolt: One R for 3 damage to any target. vs: Healing Salve: One W for 3 life or preventing the next 3 damage dealt. Also Also: Twiddle was in Alpha, so Blue got to break all of those mono artifacts, as well as anything that entered the battlefield tapped.

[@wafflehaxxx]

Illusionary Mask lets you pay EXTRA for creature spells (Or the exact amount) and cast it face down as a vanilla 2/2 creature (Which is mentioned nowhere) that flips up if tapped/damaged/deals damage. So its purpose was to hide your creatures from counterspells, removal, etc. Sometimes you just want to pay 5 mana for a Birds of Paradise to bluff it is a Serra Angel you know. Also turns all your creatures into a 2/2 I guess, so that's something.

[@Barraind.Faylestar]

At the time, mask did not make them 2/2's, as they flipped face up before damage resolved amd had no defined p/t. One errata for mask was to make them 0/1 until revealed, and then once morph was a mechanic, it got standardized into a 2/2 until revealed. The power and toughness aspect of mask is currently relevant only for effects that check power and toughness, as the most recent wording of mask is to flip the creature faceup as it's assigning, tapped, or dealt damage. So a 4/5 masked creature dies to a -2/-2 effect, but not a shock.

[@TheSoulDivided]

23:20 The "open a pack, pick a card" effect reminds me a lot of Elise the Trailblazer, from back in Un'Goro

[@zesshou]

How I think Illusionary Mask works: I want to play this creature which has a cost of 1 green and 2 colorless. I tap 2 forests and 2 mountains for Illusionary Mask. 3 mana is played as the casting cost for the creature, the one other mana is a bluff which Illusionary Mask allows me to perform. (X is 1, my opponent doesn't know that) The creature goes face down and won't be turned up until I use it to attack, block, tap, or it gets damage by an opponent through non combat damage. My opponent has no clue what this card could be, all they know is that I paid 2 Red and 2 Green for this card. So it could be any card in the entirety of magic that is Red or Green or BOTH or none that costs at most 4 mana. In reality, I paid 3 mana for this green dude. I paid 1 mana to make my opponent confused. The situation where you would pay 0 for Illusionary Mask would be if you're not bluffing and are paying the exact amount for a summon. Thus you summon a creature, and activate Illusionary Mask for 0 to play it face down.

[@OlivesMushroomsAndFrogs]

Illusionary Mask & How it works: Alrighty so the confusing part about this card is it says you can cast a card for 0 - the card isn’t clear with it but this ‘free cast’ is circumstantial The card allows you to tap & use extra mana when casting a card to ‘trick’ opponents - you’re still forced to pay the mana cost of the creature So regarding the “paying 0” aspect of it - essentially you can only pay zero if the card already is a 0 drop (Hope that makes sense) Also a few interesting rulings with the card -So because cards enter face down, no etb affects occur, neither when turned face up -When cards are faced down, they constitute as 2/2, colorless, and count as having a mana cost of zero, thus cards like Toxic Deluge & Austere Command are very dangerous -It totally works as an automatic morph! Honestly I low-key can see use for this card in morph agro decks

[@Ceractucus]

I was at Origins game convention in San Jose CA in July '94. When someone told me about how a player used Chaos Orb in the MTG tournament. Apparently he tore it into tiny pieces and scattered them everywhere. Destroying the other players entire board, including all land. I believed the story at the time but after hearing it repeated so many times, I have come to see it as an old wive's tale.

[@williamdenooyer3369]

@covertgoblue @Rarran Illusionary Mask is confusing as heck so here is my attempt at an explanation. 1. You activate Mask's ability, paying any amount of mana, and any color(s) of mana, you must keep track of the colors 2. You choose a creature card in your hand. That creature's mana cost MUST be able to be payed with the mana that you spent to activate Mask's ability. Example: if you have a Grizzly Bears, which costs 1G, the mana you spent to activate the ability MUST have contained at least 2 mana, one of which has to be green. You could have paid 5 green mana, 5 blue mana and 1 green mana, 1 green mana and 1 colorless mana, etc. However, if you paid only 2 blue mana into the Mask's ability, you are not allowed to cast the Grizzly Bears. 3. You cast the creature face down, the face down creature is considered to be a colorless creature with bases stats 2/2. 4. If at any point the face down creature deals damage, is dealt damage, or becomes tapped, the creature is turned face up before any of those things happen. This begs the question, why would anyone want to do this? There are two main reasons: first, creature that you choose from your hand is still being cast, so your opponent can still respond to it, like counter it. Hiding the identity of the card makes your opponents' decision making more difficult because they don't know what you're casting, and you can put extra mana into the Mask's ability to further confuse them. Second, some creatures, like Leveler, have negative abilities when the come into play. Illusionary Mask prevents the abilities from happening, because when the creature comes into play, it has no abilities.

[@lowstandards3148]

This video was a sleeper banger holy shit I didn’t expect to enjoy this video as much as I did. For context though. I play both hearthstone and magic. But I only had played with a couple beta cards and didn’t recognize any that weren’t black lotus or the 5 mana generation cards. So learning about them was really fun. And seeing how much weirdness was in the wording added a lot to the video for me. But 10/10 rarran. One of my favorite guests too

[@WhiteBorderMTG]

So the way Illusionary Mask works is that what you pay for X has to at least be able to cast the creature, you can spend more than what the creature costs. It was mostly just a way to get a Phyrexian Dreadnought into play without having to worry about its comes into play ability. Also, there were 3 types of artifacts back in the day: Mono (requiring the artifact to be tapped to use it's effect), Poly (did not require it to be tapped to use it's effect), and Continuous (which did not have an activated ability, however if they were tapped they be "turned off", such as Howling Mine)

[@Veiwer77]

Ah, I remember my first big Magic tournament many many years ago. Never played a game outside my LGS and I had the Illusions of Grandeur Donate deck. Loved it! First game I played my opponent played an Illusionary Mask, snuck a face down phyrexian dreadnought into play and beat me sensless with it. I quit that tournament right after.

[@aradan3913]

the way Illusory mask is writen: You pay for a creature as normal, but you can pay any extra amount (the mask effect) to hide the true cost. If you pay 5, the card you are summoning has to be at most 5 cost (paying 0 from mask effect). You can play this as just a way to hide your creatures (always paying 0 extra), or mindgame if you would have a creature to summon and unspent mana that turn. Notice this is "extra cost" so you have to be able to pay for the creature with the correct colors. The creature cost doesnt become colorless since the mask effect is on top of paying the creature, not in replacement. The reason this could be good is because you are guessing what you are removing, and they could have bait or a combo piece on the board and you would to anwser it or maybe lose the game.

[@therealax6]

This is how Illusionary Mask works (and I'm pausing the video to explain this, so I'm hoping it won't be made redundant by the video itself): When you activate it, you announce some value for X and pay it, and you may put a creature face down. The creature must be castable by the mana you paid, with perhaps some left over: for instance, if you announce X = 3 and pay with 1 green and 2 colorless, you can put down a creature that costs 3, or one that costs 1G, but not one that costs 3G or 1GG. While it's face down, the card you put down has the usual face-down characteristics you see in most effects: it's a colorless 2/2 creature with no creature types and no abilities. Illusionary Mask also creates a replacement effect: if the creature would be tapped, deal damage, be dealt damage, or assign damage, instead the creature is turned face up before doing that. This is a replacement effect, meaning that it happens immediately as the event happens and with no chance to respond to it: if you want to tap it to pay a cost, for instance, the creature is _immediately_ flipped face up as you pay that cost. Note that you CANNOT flip it face up just because you want to. (However, if the creature has morph, you can pay the morph cost to flip it.) But the creature will almost always flip if you attack with it (because it will become tapped, or if it somehow gains vigilance, it will later assign combat damage), so that's a way to get it flipped.

[@batosai3317]

Illusory mask is a very top-down design. So a designer said "I want a way to play a creature, but my opponent doesn't know what it is until they engage with it." In it's most basic use/reading that's what it does, and that whole messy word salad is to achieve that effect. It costs X to activate the mask's effect, which must be equal to or higher than the cost of the creature you are playing. You can pay exactly what it is worth, or bluff that it is a stronger card by paying too much for it. When that creature takes/deals damage or is tapped, it is turned face up with no other effect because now that creature is no longer hidden from your opponent. At least half of the confusion comes from the fact that the card's rules text also explains what the purpose of the card is. The section "even 0; it serves to hide the true casting cost of the creature" should not be understood to be rules text, it is explaining why you would over-pay using this effect. However it provides the context for the surrounding rules text "The X cost can be any amount of mana [that includes the casting cost of the creature], which you still have to spend [in the activation of this ability]". It adds a fun bluffing game to your game of magic. But it also adds a completely different way you need to learn to interpret rules text, and a bunch of exploits to play powerful creatures that were introduced later.

[@cephalopodwizard]

I'm proud of you Rarran, you nailed that final price.