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Moxonomy

Skittering Monstrosity

Creature — Horror3 generic manaBlack manaBlack mana

A 5/5 for five mana sits right on the historical bend of the curve, but the body comes with a clause that punishes the exact thing black aggro decks want to do most: keep developing the board. The drawback was a recurring design experiment from the era when designers were still mapping how much a clean self-destruct trigger could buy, attaching it here to one of the most natural actions in the game. The tension it resolves is a balance question dressed up as a deckbuilding puzzle: pay nothing extra in mana for an on-curve 5/5, but accept that every subsequent creature spell ends its life. That makes it a creature you want to play late, when your hand is empty and your follow-ups are spells rather than bodies, or one you cast knowing it is a single-shot beater rather than the anchor of a curve. The honest read is that the restriction outpaced the payoff: a 5/5 with no evasion and a sacrifice trigger as its only ability does not earn the friction of holding the rest of your creatures hostage. It survives as a curiosity from a period when a creature that fights its own typeline was considered a fair trade for a body slightly ahead of rate, and it tends to ask more of the player than it gives back.

Skittering Monstrosity (tsr)
TSR · #137uncommon
Pricing
Normal: $0.07
Foil: $0.32
Oracle Text

Rules text

When you cast a creature spell, sacrifice this creature.
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

1 set
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