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Moxonomy

Debtors' Knell

Enchantment4 generic manaWhite or Black manaWhite or Black manaWhite or Black mana

Reanimation with the limiter peeled off. Most cards in the lineage extract a toll for returning a body: Animate Dead docks toughness and clings to the creature, Necromancy and the sorcery-speed crowd fire exactly once, Sheoldred, the Whispering One only reaches what newly dies. This rations nothing. Every upkeep, no sacrifice, no life cost, no exile clause, no cap on what comes back, the best creature in any graveyard (yours or theirs) walks onto your side and stays. The Orzhov hybrid in the cost is the one concession to flexibility: three of its symbols can each be paid with white or black, so the casting cost bends to whichever half of the manabase is online rather than demanding both colors at once. That leaves the limit somewhere unusual: not on quantity, but on time. The seven mana buys an enchantment that is inert the turn it resolves, which means the only honest window to answer it closes before the next upkeep arrives. Once the trigger is on the stack it resolves on its own; the ability has left its source behind, so destroying the enchantment in response no longer matters. The design statement underneath is simple and a little stark: recursion does not need to be limited by how much it returns once you have made the player wait for it and pay full price up front.

Debtors' Knell (c21)
C21 · #215rare
Pricing
Normal: $0.79
Foil:
Oracle Text

Rules text

(White or Black mana can be paid with either White mana or Black mana.) At the beginning of your upkeep, put target creature card from a graveyard onto the battlefield under your control.
Legalities

Format Status

Standard
N/A
Pioneer
N/A
Modern
Legal
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
N/A
PreDH
Legal
Pauper Commander
N/A
Oathbreaker
Legal
Gladiator
N/A
Penny Dreadful
Legal
Duel Commander
Legal
Future Standard
N/A
COMPETITIVEBRAWL
N/A
TLR
N/A
Printings elsewhere

Other printings

3 sets
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