As of right now, there are 30,368 cards in all of Magic: The Gathering. Even considering the game’s 32-year lifespan, that’s an impressive figure. It’s also a daunting one: with so many cards, it’s pretty much impossible for anyone to keep track of everything the game has to offer. As a result, many powerful older cards often slip through the collective cracks. This week, MTG players have dug one such card, Defense of the Heart, up from obscurity.
This is a remarkably powerful tutor effect from way back in 1999’s Urza’s Legacy, but was recently reprinted in Wilds of Eldraine. It’s also woefully underplayed for a tutor effect, considering how negligible its key drawback is in Commander. The card does see far more play than forgotten MTG gems Word of Command, Debt of Loyalty, and Memory Jar, but, regardless, players have recently rediscovered its huge potential. On social media this week, Defense of the Heart has been enjoying a well-deserved spell in the spotlight.
Defense Of The Heart MTG
- Mana Value: 3G
- Type: Enchantment
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: At the beginning of your upkeep, if an opponent controls three or more creatures, sacrifice this enchantment, search your library for up to two creature cards, put those cards onto the battlefield, then shuffle.
Defense of the Heart is one of those MTG cards that was designed without Commander in mind, and is incredible there as a result. There are a ton of well-known examples in this category, like Rhystic Study. Heck, a lot of the current Game Changers list is made up of cards like this.
In summary, Defense of the Heart is a four-mana enchantment that lets you tutor two creatures from your deck into play on your upkeep. The drawback here is that an opponent needs at least three creatures in play before you can do so, and Defense of the Heart needs to survive a turn cycle at minimum before going off. In a traditional 1v1 game, this is a big deal. Your opponent is unlikely to go up to three creatures once this is in play, and if they already have three, then spending your turn on a four-mana do-nothing enchantment isn’t a great move. Removing an enchantment, or countering a spell, isn’t difficult in a prepared format, either.
In Commander, however, this dynamic totally changes. With three opponents, it’s much more likely that someone will have three creatures out to trigger this. It’s also less likely that you’ll get rushed down just for playing it. Defense is definitely a scary card, but your opponents will also have the rest of the table to worry about, so it has a better chance of going unopposed.
With its main hurdle out of the way, Defense of the Heart becomes pretty ridiculous. Tutoring any two creatures, with no restrictions, is huge. The fact that it’s an enchantment is also a nice bonus. Most tutors are instants or sorceries, and therefore one-and-done affairs. It’s easy to recur enchantments, however, and thus tutor multiple times with this one.
A Lost Treasure Unearthed
“Yes, 4 mana to tutor for two creatures with no restrictions right onto the battlefield. It’s really good in Commander, there’s usually someone who has 3 creatures out in a hurry.”
TheeRandyC, via r/mtg
Despite its seemingly obvious power level in MTG Commander, Defense of the Heart doesn’t see a ton of play there. According to EDHRec, only 2.68% of eligible decks run the card. Compare this to the other green creature tutors in the format and this becomes clear. Worldly Tutor shows up in 12.68% of decks, for example, and that’s despite being a Game Changer. Defense of the Heart isn’t on the list so far, and it’s also relatively cheap at just $13.
The big obstacle to playability here is, more than likely, the card’s obscurity. Defense of the Heart is an old card, and its recent reprints have all been in Secret Lair drops or Bonus Sheets. Players can’t run a card in their deck if they don’t know about it, after all, and that’s been tricky for Defense of the Heart for a while.
This week, however, buzz around the card has picked up massively. In a thread on r/mtg, Otakusss shared a picture of the card, asking “Is it as strong as I think?” Since it started yesterday, the thread has received over 630 comments, with many players chiming in with variants of “yes, absolutely.”
Many have extolled the card’s virtues in the Commander format, and how it can easily end games through sheer value alone once its effect resolves. Grab an Avenger of Zendikar and Craterhoof Behemoth, for example, and you can easily run over a player or two. A lot of commenters were confused as to why the card remains as obscure as it does. As Massive-Question-550 put it: “Yes it’s an insanely powerful card and I don’t really understand why it’s so cheap.”
Welcome To Combo Town
It’s not just regular MTG Commander players that have been talking up Defense of the Heart this week. Over on r/CompetitiveEDH, Beautiful-Salt7885 started a thread to discuss the card’s potential as a game-ending combo machine.
Turns out, it’s pretty easy to win the game if you can cheat any two creatures into play. Tooth and Nail, probably the closest direct parallel to this effect, is balanced by being ludicrously expensive to cast. Defense doesn’t have this problem.
It’s not hard at all to pull this off early on in a game, and grab a combo for the win. Thassa’s Oracle and Spellseeker is probably the best option, since you can stack the triggers, grab Demonic Consultation or Tainted Pact, then cast the tutored spell before Thoracle resolves to win. Since these are cards that see play in a lot of decks already, they make sense as targets here.
There are plenty of other powerful combos with Defense, too. Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker pops off with any number of creatures, from Zealous Conscripts to Hazel’s Brewmaster. You can grab the classic Rosie Cotton/Scurry Oak combo, or you can even tutor into another combo by grabbing Protean Hulk and a sacrifice outlet like Viscera Seer.
Fun as these combos are, they’re a little slow for cEDH, bizarrely. Keeping Defense around for a full turn cycle is tricky in that format, too. That doesn’t take away from the card’s power in regular Commander, mind you. This is a true old-school hidden gem, and one you should consider for your next green deck.
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