Illusionary Mask

[bracer028]

how come no one uses this card?

It is far stronger than Aether Vial. So what if you can't flash it in like vial, you can drop 3 creatures out on one turn with this.

[Meekrab]

Mask requires you to pay mana to play the creature, Vial does not.

Doing things for free is >>> paying for them.

This is why friends with benefits are preferable to prostitutes, for instance.

[AriLax]

Mana Vault is banned. Quicksliver Amulet is not. Think about this.

[bracer028]

am i reading something wrong?

it doesn't sound like i need to pay the actual mana.

[JustPAT4]

Illusionary Mask allows you to pay X and put a creature card with CMC X or less onto the battlefield face-down.

Additionally, amount and color type are taken into account when paying X--so in order to put Tarmagoyf into play you must pay at least 2 mana at least 1 of which is green.

[bracer028]

what about stalker?

can i pay 1 black only?

[Nonex]

{X}: You may choose a creature card in your hand whose mana cost could be paid by some amount of, or all of, the mana you spent on {X}. If you do, you may cast that card face down as a 2/2 creature spell without paying its mana cost. If the creature that spell becomes as it resolves has not been turned face up and would assign or deal damage, be dealt damage, or become tapped, instead it's turned face up and assigns or deals damage, is dealt damage, or becomes tapped. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.

This is how Illusionary Mask works right now. I guess its original text doesn't differ that much if we take into account how the game rules were at that moment. Anyway, you must pay at least to drop a Tombstalker - and you are still casting it, so it can be countered as normal.

[bracer028]

this card sucks...then how could this card be possibly banned before

[dahcmai]

The largest problem with Mask is it lost one of it's "Vial like" abilities in the errata from last Oct. You can counter a creature played off it now. Yeah, that hurt. So not only are you paying the normal price in mana for the creature as if you were casting it, you pretty much just are casting it, just face down instead.

The errata did way too much damage to make that card worth playing. The only creatures worth playing off a Mask are Phyrexian Dreadnought and Lord of Tresserhorn and you might as well play Stifle or Trickbind instead. At least those are useful if you don't have the creature.

The reason it was banned before was the uncounterability it had. So you could literally go Swamp, Dark Ritual, Mask, Dreadnought and even if they killed it, they couldn't counter the next few. That was fairly rough to deal with out of a deck that could pack Sinkholes, Unmasks, Duress, and such. That was also a long time ago.

So in the end you have a card that only lets you cheat a Dreadnought into play, but sucks on it's own and does cute tricks with the static ability of morph for a not-so-small chunk of change. Pass. Sadly, it's hanging out at the dead cards bar with Camouflage now.

[kiblast]

The reason it was banned before was the uncounterability it had. So you could literally go Swamp, Dark Ritual, Mask, Dreadnought and even if they killed it, they couldn't counter the next few. That was fairly rough to deal with out of a deck that could pack Sinkholes, Unmasks, Duress, and such. That was also a long time ago.

I thought it was banned because of its unplayability. You could put a Black Knight into play through Mask, then if opponent tried to Stp it, without revealing the card you should have told him that the facedown creature was not a legal target. So basically each game involving Mask should have had a Judge as a third part checking every game situation...pretty awkward if you ask me.

[Tao]

It has also to do with the Vintage history of the format. When Workshop was legal in 1.5 the card was pretty scary. T1 Dreadnaught was a beating.

[sroncor1]

At the time the STP is cast the face down creature is colorless with no abilities other than being a 2/2. As soon as it is targeted and flipped it becomes the black knight. Now the creature has pro white and can no longer be the target of STP. But at the time STP was cast the creature was a legal target. It's best to think of it as if you were to give a creature pro white after a STP was cast. The only difference being that you can not respond to the protection in this case due to it not going on the stack.

[dahcmai]

It was banned due to the fact it was just one scary good card in the format. Kind of like letting Bazaar of Baghdad run rampant in Legacy. Probably not a good idea. Masknought was pretty good during those days and easy do pull off in Legacy even despite the lack of Shops.

[Jason]

At the time the STP is cast the face down creature is colorless with no abilities other than being a 2/2. As soon as it is targeted and flipped it becomes the black knight. Now the creature has pro white and can no longer be the target of STP. But at the time STP was cast the creature was a legal target. It's best to think of it as if you were to give a creature pro white after a STP was cast. The only difference being that you can not respond to the protection in this case due to it not going on the stack.

I thought it only flipped face up if the creature is going to deal damage, receive damage or becomes tapped. Not if it is simply targeted.

Oracle text for Illusionary Mask:
X: You may choose a creature card in your hand whose mana cost could be paid by some amount of, or all of, the mana you spent on X. If you do, you may cast that card face down as a 2/2 creature spell without paying its mana cost. If the creature that spell becomes as it resolves has not been turned face up and would assign or deal damage, be dealt damage, or become tapped, instead it's turned face up and assigns or deals damage, is dealt damage, or becomes tapped. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery.

The bold part implies you can't just turn it face-up whenever you want, right? Thus, a face down Black Knight will still eat a Swords?

[kiblast]

At the time the STP is cast the face down creature is colorless with no abilities other than being a 2/2. As soon as it is targeted and flipped it becomes the black knight. Now the creature has pro white and can no longer be the target of STP. But at the time STP was cast the creature was a legal target. It's best to think of it as if you were to give a creature pro white after a STP was cast. The only difference being that you can not respond to the protection in this case due to it not going on the stack.

I'm not talking about the current oracle wording. I'm talking about how used to work before it was reworded. The creature had all the abilities of itself but was hidden.
Illusionary mask never functioned. It's clearly a design mistake.

If you look here for all the Faq about Mask, you realize how the card was controversial and absurd.

Not that we lost such a great card, I think it has never been good enough in competitive vintage environment. Sure before the reword was casually playable , but now with the current oracle the card functions in a much closer way to how the original designer wanted...so now is basically a binder junk card. 100$ binder junk card, precisely.

[dahcmai]

It works the same as casting a Morph creature with a 0 morph cost. Easy way to remember how it works.

[Star|Scream]

Doing things for free is >>> paying for them.

This is why friends with benefits are preferable to prostitutes, for instance.

this.

[SpoCk0nd0pe]

Since they printed more cards with a turned face up effect, maybe this deserves another look?
A small list of cards Illusionary Mask interacts well with:

Hooded Hydra
Fathom Seer
Skinthinner
Phyrexian Dreadnought
Icefeather Aven
Master of Pearls

Silumgar Assassin and Hidden Dragonslayer from the Dragons of Tarkir spoiler might be worth it too.

Chalice @ 0 still shuts the mask down and those cards might be medcore to outright terrible without the mask. But maybe this is still worth a second look.

[Octopusman]

Since they printed more cards with a turned face up effect, maybe this deserves another look?
A small list of cards Illusionary Mask interacts well with:

Hooded Hydra
Fathom Seer
Skinthinner
Phyrexian Dreadnought
Icefeather Aven
Master of Pearls

Silumgar Assassin and Hidden Dragonslayer from the Dragons of Tarkir spoiler might be worth it too.

Chalice @ 0 still shuts the mask down and those cards might be medcore to outright terrible without the mask. But maybe this is still worth a second look.

I tested fathom seer with mask in stiflenought. It was good. However, not good enough. The redundancy of mask and stifle felt more stable than just stifle.
When it worked, it was great. Sorry I don't have a list for you.
Hunter horror probably better than hydra since it can also be stifled and if just bigger for the same cost off mask.

To avoid being too cute, the only cards I used that worked with mask were dreadnought and fathom seer.

It was fun but have long since sold the masks. As stated years ago, the errata really neutered the card.

[Lord Seth]

If I were trying for Hunted Horror and Dreadnought, I'd rather play with Torpor Orb. Same basic effect of skipping their ETB abilities, but it also turns off the ETB abilities of your opponents, so cards like Snapcaster Mage and Stoneforge Mystic become a whole lot less impressive.