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Hish of the Snake Cult: Enchantment and Artifact Interactions Explored
If you’ve ever wanted to tilt the odds with a single, color-splashed declaration on the battlefield, the three-color rarity in a legendary creature hits that sweet spot. This mystery-set snake isn’t just a big body with a flashy name; it’s a strategic pivot for how you think about enchantments and artifacts in your deck. The mana cost of 2BGU is a deliberate invitation to build a board that’s as colorful as a carnival mask 🧙♂️🔥, and the effect set beneath it invites both tribal flavor and practical gameplay that can snowball in surprising ways.
First, a close look at the card’s core text reveals two intertwined threads: a tribal redefinition and a reflexive buff that travels with your snakes. The line Nagas and Serpents you control are Snakes might seem like a quirky quirk, but it’s a deliberate bridge—one you can walk across to connect your broader enchantment and artifact suite. In practice, that means any Snake you own suddenly qualifies as a Snakes-with-benefits engine for other tribal or synergy-based spells. The flavor here isn’t just “these creatures changed type”; it’s “these creatures gained a whole new category of support and threats.” And yes, Wizards’ usual habit of spell-slinging symmetry gets a playful nod here: we’re turning a tribe into a more universal resource for your strategy 🧭💎.
Snakes you control have daunt, deathtouch, and poisonous 2. (A creature with daunt can't be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less. Whenever a creature with poisonous 2 deals combat damage to a player, that player gets two poison counters.)
That Oracle text is a triple-threat gift for enchantment and artifact lovers. Daunt makes your mages with excitement-resistant stat blocks more reliable, since your foes can’t simply throw blockers with modest power in the way. Deathtouch turns any damage into a lethal proposition for blockers—imagine a pair of snakes with deathtouch plowing through a crowded board, especially alongside any buffs or auras that push a creature’s natural toughness or grant extra evasive tricks. And poisonous 2 doesn’t just add a ticking clock on the battlefield; it creates a parallel path toward a different win condition—poison counters—without waiting for a single over-the-top combat step. It’s a design thread that rewards you for multi-layered play: protect, poke, and pressure both hands of your opponent’s plan. ⚔️
Enchantment and Artifact Interactions: Practical Angles
When you’re designing a deck around a card that broadens tribal identity, enchantments and artifacts become the connective tissue. Here are practical angles you can explore, grounded in the card’s flavor and mechanics:
- Global and tribal enchantments: Enchantments that care about snakes, nagas, or serpents—whether they buff your snakes, pump your entire team, or grant protective shields—suddenly gain new life. With all your Nagas and Serpents adopting Snake status, the scope of your global auras expands even if you don’t stack every slot with dedicated snake-specific cards. The result is a more resilient board presence that threatens a variety of forms—combat, poison counters, and even stall—depending on what you curate.
- Artifacts that create or leverage snake-like bodies: Artifacts that generate token snakes, or that tap into board-wide buffs or resources (mana dorks, mana rocks, or color-fixers) become more valuable. The synergy isn’t always about one big combo; it’s about layering: a token snake plus a buff aura plus a removal spell equals pressure that scales with the game’s length. And with the daunt and deathtouch multipliers, even modestly powered artifacts contribute to a tough-to-remove package.
- Equipments and auras that reward multiple creature types: Some enchantments or equipment empower creatures by type or by the number of different creature types you control. Turning snakes into Snakes broadens the target pool for those effects—meaning you can leverage these cards to maximize board impact without fighting over a single creature type’s limited options.
- Interactive combat tricks: The tri-color mana cost invites you to lean into interaction-heavy gameplay: spells or artifacts that untap creatures, grant flash, or alter combat steps align nicely with a board that can present dangerous threats through mid-to-late game stages.
In short, the card acts as a catalytic beacon: it doesn’t just add power and toughness or a static buff—it expands the scope of what your enchantments and artifacts can achieve in concert. The “Snakes you control have” clause is the payoff, giving you a broader audience for your support spells and a wider canvas for your deck’s creativity 🎨.
Deckbuilding Ideas: How to Approach a Snake Cult Enchantment-Artifact Identity
If you’re itching to test this concept in a casual or cube-like environment, here are a few actionable pathways:
- Tri-color mana reliability: Prioritize a mana base that supports B, G, and U without compromising late-game resilience. Duals, fetches, and flexible mana rocks that smooth color access will ensure you can cast the big three-color spells on time and still enable a steady defense.
- Snake-centric synergy: Include a mix of snakes you control, or consider ways to reliably produce them. The more snakes you have on the battlefield, the more you monetize the enabler effect—your board becomes a growing force of nature, not a single monster card doing most of the work.
- Protective and defensive options: Since daunt can be a game-changer, add a few counterspells, thoughts of protection for your key targets, and board-sweeping options that don’t overcommit—preserving your pressure while keeping your threats alive.
- Poison-counter synergy: Embrace the alternate wind condition by pairing with effects that accelerate poison counters or that keep your snakes on the board long enough to push damage through. It’s a stylish, cooler-than-average path to victory that fits the card’s flavor as a cult leader stepping into a broader arena 🧙♂️💎.
The set this card hails from, Mystery Booster 2, is a play-friendly Masters-era edition that invites players to explore unusual combos and playful interactions. The card’s rare status and Marco Dotti’s evocative artwork add to the collector’s charm, illustrating a world where Nagas and Serpents aren’t just threats—they’re a narrative current you can ride as a player who loves flavor with substance. The board presence becomes a living tapestry of type-changing dynamics, mercy interrupts, and a few wicked tricks tucked away in the bottom of your deck.
As you plan your next game night, picture a table where the snakes’ hiss isn’t just a sound effect but a chorus of possibilities—enchantments sing, artifacts hum with mana, and your opponents wonder if they’ve underestimated your “snake cult” plan. The interplay between tribal identity, enchantments, and artifacts gives you a platform where strategy, lore, and a touch of chaos converge into a single, satisfying MTG moment 🧙♂️⚔️🎲.