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Moxonomy

Backslide

Instant1 generic manaBlue mana

A targeted answer to one of the trickier rules wrinkles in the morph kit: the card can only point at a creature with a morph ability, but within that restriction it does work nothing else does at this price. Turning a face-up morph creature face down reverts it to its base 2/2 with no abilities, stripping whatever it had unmorphed into until someone pays to turn it face up again. Aimed at an opponent's revealed morph, that is a tempo-positive reset that buys back a turn of investment and demotes a threat to a vanilla body. Aimed at your own, it sets up a second go at the unmorph trigger, since a creature turned face up fires its "as this is turned face up" ability each time it flips. The cycling clause buys insurance against the dead-card scenario: in any game where no morph creature ever surfaces, this shrinks to a one-mana cantrip rather than a stranded answer. That dual identity (a narrow blowout against face-down decks, a replacement draw against everyone else) is the design discipline that lets a hyper-specific interaction spell exist without punishing the games where it never matters. It comes from an effort to build morph into a full strategic axis, where the mechanic needed cards that interacted with face-down status from both directions; Backslide is the cheapest spell policing the morph mirror, and it pays its own way when the mirror never comes.

Backslide (ons)
ONS · #70common
Pricing
Normal: $0.17
Foil: $1.21
Oracle Text

Rules text

Turn target creature with a morph ability face down. Cycling Blue mana (Blue mana, Discard this card: Draw a card.)
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
N/A
Legacy
Legal
Vintage
Legal
Commander
Legal
Pauper
Legal
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
Legal
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
N/A
Penny Dreadful
Legal
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
N/A
TLR
Legal
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