Skip to content
Moxonomy

Razorkin Needlehead

Creature — Human AssassinRed manaRed mana

Punishment for card advantage is old design, but it usually lands on a static enchantment or an untouchable engine like Underworld Dreams: something that sits back and taxes the opponent's draw step from safety. Stapling that effect to a 2/2 body changes the entire calculus. The clock is now attackable, blockable, and killable, which means every point of damage it deals is a point the opponent is racing to shut off. The wrinkle is that the creature has no concept of a normal draw for the turn: it pings on any draw, so it turns the opponent's own card-advantage engines into a liability and does the most work against exactly the decks that want to durdle and dig. The conditional first strike is timed to matter on offense: during your turn it swings through blockers and survives trades it would otherwise lose, so an opposing fresh two-drop cannot cleanly stop it on your attack step. Note the asymmetry: on the opponent's turn the first strike is gone, so when this creature is blocking it fights at plain 2/2 rates, and that fragility is the price of the aggressive rate. What emerges is a symmetry-breaker for fast red: it accelerates the clock while punishing the control decks that would stabilize by drawing extra cards, and it forces the opponent to decide whether a removal spell is worth spending when the game may already be slipping away. The bet is that a small, exposed body doing this specific job frightens more than a durable enchantment running the same math.

Razorkin Needlehead (dsk)
DSK · #153rare
Pricing
Normal: $5.57
Foil: $7.08
Oracle Text

Rules text

This creature has first strike during your turn. Whenever an opponent draws a card, this creature deals 1 damage to them.
Legalities

Format Status

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

Other printings

2 sets
Quick navigation
move selectesc close