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Ancient Spider

Creature — Spider2 generic manaGreen manaWhite mana

First strike on a defensive body is the wrinkle that makes this more than a fog machine. Most defensive bodies in green and white soak up an attack and die in the exchange; this body deals its damage in the first-strike step, so a flier with two or fewer toughness that runs into the 2/5 dies before it ever reaches the normal combat damage step. The reach is what puts that math to use, letting a flightless creature pick fights with the air and win the small ones outright rather than merely surviving them. Spiders have always been green's answer to evasion: the grounded blocker that nonetheless catches what flies. First strike upgrades that role from absorbing damage to dealing it on a clean trade, the kind of policing presence that asks an attacker to commit a second body or a real beater before swinging in. It does not blank a 3/3 flier or a fat ground attacker; with only 2 power it kills the cheap evasive creatures and stalls everything else behind a five-toughness front that gets the first hit in. The Selesnya pairing is the natural home for the idea, marrying green's reach to white's habit of building efficient defenders that outlast aggression, and the combination lands somewhere between a tax on attacking and a quiet airspace patrol.

Ancient Spider (pls)
PLS · #96rare
Pricing
Normal: $0.37
Foil: $8.99
Oracle Text

Rules text

First strike; reach (This creature can block creatures with flying.)
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
N/A
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
N/A
Brawl
N/A
Historic
N/A
Alchemy
N/A
Timeless
N/A
Standard Brawl
N/A
More formats
Old School
N/A
Premodern
Legal
PreDH
Legal
Pauper Commander
N/A
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
N/A
Penny Dreadful
N/A
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
N/A
TLR
N/A
Printings elsewhere

Other printings

1 set
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