Hideous brain-like art aside, this was a classic
in its day. Tap a single land to pretty much
tell a creature that no, it doesn't get to
attack you after all. No mana required, so it
can go in any deck, and all it costs you is your
land drop-- not tapping for mana means you could
set yourself back a turn by dropping this over
another land, but it held creatures back so
effectively it would always slow your opponent
down more than you.
Years later, Wizards would release Mystifying
Maze, a card obviously inspired by Maze of Ith,
that cost four mana to activate. That says a lot
about how good they think Maze of Ith would be
by today's standards. I think the real secret to
the Maze's power is that it activates after your
opponent declares attackers, instead of before
like Thundersong Trumpeter or Blinding Mage has
to. That means that you don't have to guess what
your opponent was planning to attack you with,
and in multiplayer you don't have to guess which
one was going to attack you. You can wait and
see what your opponent does and react
accordingly.
It's surprising how many reusable
anti-creature measures have gone on lands over
the years. From the Vault: Realms has no less
than three (!) of them. Maze of Ith was the
original, and after all these years it's still
probably the strongest. Yes, you have to count
it as a spell, which is annoying. Yes, it's the
last card in the world you want to see when you
really need to get your Serra Angel down so she
can block. But it tells pretty much any creature
that it should just stay home and not bother
- even the confusing and arguably overpowered
protection from [color] is no good here,
and isn't that why Umezawa's Jitte got banned
in Modern? I wonder they'll make a functional
reprint (with a name related to minotaurs) if
they ever do an ancient Greek block.
Today's card of the day is Maze of Ith which is
a land that taps to untap and prevent the damage
dealt by and to a target attacking creature.
The exact nature of this preventing damage
without removing from combat is particularly
problematic for Exalted themes and any situation
where a majority of the threat comes from a
single attacker.
The issue with this is that in the formats it is
legal in speed and tempo are crucial, so using a
land drop on something without mana may outweigh
the potential lockdown effect. Despite
that it is an excellent effect in the extended
family of Oblivion Ring or Pacifism that can
change targets every turn if needed at an
effective cost of one mana (by not tapping for
one.)
For the few Limited settings where this would be
legal it is an incredibly efficient card that
can drastically hinder any opponent and force
them to play an entirely different offense in
many cases. In The Dark set a relatively large
number of potential removal exists and may be
played, but other than that small drawback this
can readily be played in any deck. An easy
second or third pick in Booster, where it can
possibly be first without a major rare, and an
automatic inclusion for any Sealed build.
In Multiplayer this is a difficult to remove
card that will potentially make nearly any other
opponent a more viable target while simply
costing one land drop. The impact is
drastic and the potential for political benefit,
especially with any player being attacked on the
turn before your own should not be
underestimated.
Welcome back to the Pojo.com card of the day
section. We begin our week looking at Maze of
Ith, which is coming out this Friday in the From
the Vault Realms boxed set. Maze of Ith is a
land that says tap: untap target attacking
creature. Prevent all damage that would be dealt
to and dealt by that creature this turn.
The Maze of Ith is an amazing card in that it
could either stop a large creature an opponent
has from causing some severe damage, but on the
flip sided it can also save one of your
creatures from an unfortunate death at the hands
of combat trickery.
I never really played with Maze of Ith, but I
know a lot of people in the past talked a lot
about it. There are plenty of ways that you can
exploit the card, but mostly, it’s just a save
card in my opinion. I am glad to see that it was
brought back for the FTV series though. Be sure
to pick yours up this week!
