by Elton Gahr

Created on: November 06, 2009

Although game types like two headed giant and other team games are a large and very entertaining part of magic the gathering it is uncommon to see wizards of the coast put out a card that is explicitly designed for multiplayer. That is to say that there are many cards that are far better in multiplayer but they don't say that. And so it is actually refreshing to see a card which has the idea of multiplayer written on it.

Imperial mask is a rare enchantment from the future sight expansion set of magic the gathering. It costs one white and four colorless to put into play and reads "When Imperial Mask enters the battlefield, if it's not a token, each of your teammates puts a token that's a copy of Imperial Mask onto the battlefield.

You can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control."

That this is a bit awkwardly worded helps to prove the point that this is something uncommon for magic the gathering cards but it was not just a whim of the creators of the card to toss in something for multiplayer, it addresses a real problem in multiplayer which is that if you are able to defend yourself the opponent will simply pick on your teammate and while this is a very valid strategy it is one that can be frustrating.

The second question is how valuable is this card actually to play and sadly the answer is not as valuable as you may think. The problem is that there are far spells that target a specific player than you might think. There are direct damage spells, but the truth is that they are typically used against creatures more than players and being forced to kill your creatures is not a major problem. This leaves discard, which is dangerous early in the game but by the time you have this out the major value of discard is over. There are of course others but in truth the modern deck really prefers to target your permanents with its spells and kill you with its creatures and this card does nothing to effect that most common of strategies so outside of the sideboard this card has a very limited use and on the sideboard it is largely to expensive to really be used. So if you're playing two headed giant this could be worth playing otherwise it might be good trade fodder.

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