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Moxonomy

Spine of Ish Sah

Artifact7 generic mana

Vindicate that never dies. Seven mana for a destroy-any-permanent trigger is an unremarkable rate by itself; the recursion clause is the entire point. Because the artifact returns to its owner's hand whenever it goes to the graveyard from the battlefield, it converts any way of destroying or sacrificing it into a repeatable removal engine: blow it up, recast it, destroy another permanent, repeat. The destroy trigger fires on entry, so the loop is front-loaded; each recast is a fresh Vindicate aimed wherever you need it. And the recursion routes specifically through "put into a graveyard from the battlefield," which ducks the usual answers to a value engine: you cannot punish it by destroying it, because being destroyed is what feeds the loop. The honest exploits are sacrifice or recursion effects that take artifacts (it is a noncreature artifact, so creature-only outlets need to animate it first) paired with a way to cheapen or copy the recast. What pays for the engine is the cost: seven mana, no built-in sacrifice, no way to crack it on its own. The card hands you an infinitely reusable removal spell but makes you supply the outlet that turns it on and the mana to keep recasting it. That tension is why it lives in colorless toolboxes built to grind permanents off the table one at a time, not in any deck trying to win quickly.

Spine of Ish Sah (blc)
BLC · #285rare
Pricing
Normal: $0.30
Foil:
Oracle Text

Rules text

When this artifact enters, destroy target permanent. When this artifact is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand.
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

6 sets
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