Invasion Card Spotlight: Sleeper's Robe

Gary Wise

Sleeper's Robe Enchant Creature Uncommon Enchanted creature can't be blocked except by artifact creatures and/or Black creatures. Whenever enchanted creature deals combat damage to an opponent, you may draw a card. Illus. Alan Pollack 273/350

In the long distant past of Magic: The Gathering tournament play, when Mirage Block Limited was the order of the day, there was a card called Phantom Wings. For , your creature gained flying, and you could sacrifice the Wings to return the creature to your hand. It was generally considered a mediocre card, but it became an automatically playable card when you had an Ophidian in your deck, with the virtually unblockable 'Phid virtually assuring the victory.

Now, imagine that the Wings, instead of being able to save the creature, made it the card-drawing equivalent of an Ophidian. That's what you have with the new Invasion uncommon Sleeper's Robe, a multi-colored monstrosity that is capable of completely dominating a game.

An obvious game breaker, there are some inherent problems with the card that keep it from reaching Processor/Flagship status. First and most important is the multicolored aspect of its casting cost. While definitely an efficient card for its capabilities, Sleeper's Robe requires the use of two colors of mana: blue and black. What this means is that by taking it early in draft, you are virtually forcing yourself to commit to two colors. While Invasion will be gearing us towards playing neighboring colors, you'll find yourself looking at some very tough color choices when you have the Robe and, say, a strong red kill card.

You'll also find yourself facing some difficult situations when playing the blue/black color combination, if history teaches us anything. Not only have anti-flying green cards like Spidersilk Armor been a huge problem for the combo, but also the utter lack of a way to deal with artifacts and enchantments has often left the color combination something to be desired.

The second major problem with the card is the fact it is a creature enchantment. While it avoids the problem of a well timed Disenchant on, say, a Cho Manno's Blessing causing havoc after blockers, the creature in question will die to a blocker if the enchantment is removed before blockers are declared. This means that instead of the desired card advantage the Robe is designed for, you will find yourself at a card disadvantage, leaving you short on resources with which to cope with opposing threats.

The third problem here is the card's comparative uselessness against other black players. Don't misunderstand, it's still playable against them assuming you have evasion creatures (leading to another point, a number of black and blue's creatures are traditionally evasive in nature due to flying, shadow and the like, so the 'Fear' ability is somewhat negligible), but it then becomes a less mana-efficient version of Curiosity.

This all said, the card's positives definitely outweigh the negatives. The sheer potential of drawing a card every turn without having to pay any mana for it inspires players who have seen what kind of havoc this kind of card advantage can wreak. On top of the card drawing, the creature's controller suddenly has a virtually unblockable damage dealing threat that must be coped with.

One of the keys to this card will be playing it at the right time. At a converted casting cost of two, it is possible to attack with your 'Ophidian' on turn two, assuming your opponent has no way to deal with it. While against a White/Green deck (which will assumably have very little creature elimination) this should be game, but against a RB deck, the creature will probably die by turn three. Therefore, it may be more prudent to wait to cast it against such a deck until you can protect your creature, whether through protective cards like Alexi's Cloak, or counter magic. Also, it will usually be best to cast the Robe while your opponent is tapped out before launching an attack with your creature.

One aspect of the card that will probably be ignored is its capacity to throw off your opponent's calculations when racing. If you are going head to head, trying to reduce one another to zero life as quickly as possible (as opposed to trying to win through the obtaining of board control), your opponent might assume they can block certain creatures without evasive abilities and make their defensive decisions based on this information. In this kind of a situation, rendering your creature unblockable will throw off the math, and likely tilt the game's final result in your favor.

Unfortunately, the initial appraisal of the card suggests it will not see much Constructed play. Unlike Curiosity, the damage in question must be in combat, and its status as a creature enchantment begs one's opponent to gain card advantage, which will almost always occur due to the ability of most Constructed decks to cope with creatures, even unblockable ones. The Fear ability seems virtually irrelevant in Constructed, where creature combat just doesn't happen as much.

The existence of Rishadan Port will mean that a fast two color creature deck in Standard will be a virtual impossibility as far as staying competitive goes. That Port will not exist in Invasion Block Constructed means there is hope for this card in that arena, but the likelihood still seems low.

In short, what we have here is a card that, unless drafted very early will have problems finding a deck due to color compatibility. In other words, if you happen to be drafting UB, it may be viable to pass the Robe when opened as, if the pack is strong enough that players won't do much hate drafting, it may come back to you. Don't allow yourself to fall into the trap that multi-color draft cards lay by forcing yourself into those two colors, but allow yourself instead to lean towards that direction, the accomplishment of a UB deck being your reward.

Tomorrow: Dave Price talks about haste, kicker, Skizzik and you.