Magic’s rarity symbol is one of the game’s sneakiest deceptions. Players, particularly new players, often get caught up on it, but it’s not an indicator of a card’s playability. Plenty of rares and mythics become bulk, and plenty of commons dominate formats. Unable to Scream is a perfect example of this MTG dynamic in action. It’s a new common from Duskmourn, and it’s already seeing play in Standard, Pioneer, Modern, and Legacy. As good as the set’s rares and mythics are, none of them have achieved that quite yet.
Unable To Scream MTG
- Mana Value: U
- Rarity: Common
- Card Text: Enchant creature. Enchanted creature loses all abilities and is a Toy artifact creature with base power and toughness 0/2 in addition to its other types. As long as enchanted creature is face down, it can’t be turned face up.
Unable to Scream is an MTG card you could easily gloss over during preview season. It’s artwork isn’t particularly flashy, and it is just a common after all. Once you read the card and consider its implications, however, the fact that it’s doing so well doesn’t seem so surprising.
For just one mana, Unable to Scream turns one of your opponent’s creatures into a 0/2 Toy. It also, crucially, strips it of all abilities. This achieves a number of things simultaneously. First of all, it gets rid of problematic, high-stat minions. Doesn’t matter if it’s a 5/5 or a 20/20, Unable to Scream can bring it down to the stats of a mediocre one drop.
Second, it gets rid of the creature’s utility. Removing all abilities can deal with annoying passives like Sheoldred’s, or activated abilities such as those on mana dorks. It also removes dies/leaves triggers, so your opponent won’t get the value they planned out of the enchanted creature. In the age of creatures with a novel’s worth of text, a card that can erase them all so cheaply is a godsend.
The final line about locking a creature face-down is mostly flavor text, but it could well play a role yet. Between Disguise and Manifest Dread, Standard has a lot of face-down support right now. If a deck relying on such synergies was to emerge, Unable to Scream could swoop in to deal with it.
What makes the card so good is that it doesn’t need such a scenario to be useful, however. Between the stat reduction and the ability elimination, it essentially serves as a full removal spell in blue. As we’ll get into later, that’s not something you see every day.
A Screaming Success
So Unable to Scream is a great MTG card, that much is clear. But where is it seeing play? Pretty much everywhere, it turns out.
Standard, naturally, is seeing its fair share of the card already. Both Dimir Midrange and Azorius Control, two of the biggest decks in the current meta, are running the card. These decks are all about answering threats, and Unable to Scream is one of the most efficient on-color options for doing so. It’s a great answer to format menace Sheoldred, and big hitters such as Atraxa and Vaultborn Tyrant, too.
In Pioneer, the card has found a solid home in Azorius Spirits. It’s a great fit for the deck for two reasons. Firstly, because pretty much everything in Spirits flies, so the 0/2 blocker it leaves behind is irrelevant. Second, because it’s an enchantment, and therefore discounts Geistlight Snare. The deck usually relies on the likes of Curious Obsession to get the spell down to just one, but this is a far better option.
In Modern, Mono-Blue Belcher lists are loving Unable to Scream. Since it’s a pure combo deck that doesn’t care about combat, leaving a 0/2 behind isn’t really a downside. Being just one mana makes it capable of holding off early game aggression while you find your pieces, which is all Belcher really needs.
Even in Legacy, decks are trying this card out. Both Doomsday and Merfolk lists are trialing the card, the former as a stall piece and the latter as a tempo tool. The numbers aren’t quite as high here as in other formats, but the fact that a new common is seeing play in Legacy at all is pretty impressive.
Even in Commander, this is a great way of dealing with an opposing Commander without sending it back to the Command Zone. This makes getting it back even more difficult than normal for your opponent.
The Best Reblueval Spell?
What’s the secret behind all of this success? A lot of it comes down to the fact that Unable to Scream is one of the best blue removal spells MTG has ever seen. Blue isn’t typically a color that gets removal, at least not in the traditional sense. Usually blue removal comes in one of two forms: bounce, or substitution.
Bounce is by far the most common. These are cards like Into the Flood Maw or Sink into Stupor; cards that return opposing creatures to the hand, forcing your opponent to replay them again later. These cards typically trade tempo for lasting impact. They’re cheap enough to slot into early turns, but they only delay the problem rather than solving it.
Substitution effects are more rare. These are things like Pongify and Rapid Hybridization; cards that remove an opposing creature completely, but leave something behind in its place. Technically, Oko’s infamous Elk ability would fall under this category. These kinds of effects are very popular in Commander, where two extra opponents can help absorb the damage from the extra creature you grant them.
Unable to Scream combines the best of both worlds. It’s as cheap as a bounce spell, and actually removes the threat in question like a substitution spell. Sure your opponent can use enchantment removal to free their creature, but you’re probably pretty happy with that as a result anyway.
Does this make Unable to Scream the best blue removal spell in the game? It’s definitely up there. Its multi-format success is surely testament to that. If it weren’t for Sink into Stupor, which gets a lot of points for also being a land, I’d be very tempted to grant Unable to Scream the title.
