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Moxonomy

Plaguecrafter's Familiar

Creature — Rat1 generic manaBlack mana

Perpetual keyword-granting arrived with the digital-only rules engine, and this Rat is a small, honest use of it: it borrows nothing from the board except a moment of setup, then leaves a permanent mark on a card that has not been cast yet. That reach is the design wrinkle. Most enters-the-battlefield effects operate on things already in play or already on the stack; this one reaches back into your hand and rewrites a creature card while it is still uncast, so the deathtouch is waiting the instant the follow-up resolves rather than being layered on afterward. The change is durable in a way normal buffs are not: perpetual effects follow the card through shuffles, bounces, and re-draws, so a creature marked here keeps its deathtouch even after it dies and returns to hand or gets reshuffled. Against that durability, the grant only fires once, on entry, aimed at a single card in hand; there is no chaining it onto later draws unless you can rebuy the Rat itself. The body is a 1/1 with deathtouch, a fine early trade that gates ground attackers on its own, and the real payoff is turning one future beater into something that kills anything it touches. It is a low-ceiling, high-consistency piece of the perpetual toolbox, built to compound a small permanent edge rather than land one big swing.

Plaguecrafter's Familiar (j21)
J21 · #18common
Oracle Text

Rules text

Deathtouch When Plaguecrafter's Familiar enters the battlefield, choose a creature card in your hand. It perpetually gains deathtouch.
Legalities

Format Status

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