For most players, being mana screwed is no fun but if you can spare 2 mana and play the Ankh of Mishra, you can somewhat give your opponent a taste of your own medicine.  The Ankh will do 2 points of damage each time any player puts a new land into play.  Be warned though: this ability can easily backfire on you as well unless you’re playing a white deck with plenty of ways to regain life or prevent damage or don’t have too many spells that require a ton of mana to cast.

Watch the Ankh of Mishra in Action

In this particular game, I had a pretty bad mana draw, but I managed to get the Ankh out early on.  My opponent had the fortune of drawing plenty of land but unfortunately, the Ankh did 2 points of damage to her each time she played a new land.  This managed to soften her up a bit while I fought like heck using whatever I could cast from the 2-3 lands I could play and eventually won.

The Final Verdict

The effectiveness of this artifact is highly situational because even if you can get by without playing too many lands, your opponent might have a deck that isn’t completely dependent on lands for mana either.  So I’d recommend putting this in your sideboard and whipping it out if it can inflict a ton of harm on your particular opponent.  To learn more about the Ankh of Mishra, please click through to Amazon via the button below!