Animate
An animate effect or spell is one that turns a non-creature into a creature, most of the times for a certain amount of time. The mechanic was first introduced in Alpha with Animate Artifact, Animate Dead and Mishra's Factory.[1]
Examples
Animated Artifacts
Self-animating
- Chimeric Staff, and other Chimeric artifacts
- Darksteel Brute
- Ensouled Scimitar
- Fountain of Ichor
- Glint Hawk Idol
- Gruul War Plow
- Guardian Idol
- Haunted Plate Mail
- Jade Idol
- Jade Statue
- Keyrune megacycle from Return to Ravnica block
- Mirage Mirror
- Mirror of the Forebears
- Monument cycle from Dragons of Tarkir
- Slumbering Tora
- Totem cycle from Time Spiral
- Vehicles
- Xanthic Statue
Animate others
- Animate Artifact
- Animating Faerie
- Ensoul Artifact
- Karn's Touch
- Karn, Silver Golem
- Karn, the Great Creator
- Lifecraft Awakening
- March of the Machines
- Skilled Animator
- Sydri, Galvanic Genius
- Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
- Tezzeret, Cruel Machinist
- Tezzeret the Schemer
- Tezzeret the Seeker
- Titania's Song
- Toymaker
- Xenic Poltergeist
Animated creature cards in the graveyard
This category is thin due to the inability of the rules engine to handle such effects - simple under game actions, but messy in order to preserve the rules of card types. Effects of this type are unlikely to be printed going forward.
Animated Enchantments
Self-animating
- Halcyon Glaze
- Lurking Jackals
- Still Life
- Testament of Faith
- Sleeping enchantments like the Hidden, Opal and Veiled creatures of Urza's Saga (Hidden Gibbons, Opal Acrolith, Veiled Crocodile etc.)
Animate others
Animated Instants and Sorceries
Animated Lands
Land is the most popular card type to be animated. Green, as the color connected most closely to lands and creatures, is the color most likely to turn lands into creatures — usually still keeping them lands. The mechanic is secondary in red and tertiary in all other colors.[2]
- Animate Land
- Awakener Druid
- Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi
- Genju of the Cedars
- Genju of the Falls
- Genju of the Fens
- Genju of the Fields
- Genju of the Realm
- Genju of the Spires
- Hunting Wilds
- Jolrael, Empress of Beasts
- Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
- Lifespark Spellbomb
- Quirion Druid
- Rude Awakening
- Soilshaper
- Vivify
If a land is self-animating it is called a manland.
Animated Planeswalkers
- Gideon Jura, and all Gideon-typed planeswalker cards.
- Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker ; Sarkhan The Masterless can animate all planeswalkers of his controller.
- Oko, the Trickster
Animated Library
Variants
- Wakestone Gargoyle and Warmonger's Chariot allows creatures with defender to attack; thus Animate Wall and Rolling Stones only allows Wall to attack.
- Licids and Bronzehide Lion turn themselves into enchantments; Enchantmentize, One With the Stars and Soul Sculptor turn other creatures into enchantments.
"Artifact-ize"
There are spells or effects that turn non-artifacts into artifacts.
- Argent Mutation
- Ashnod's Transmogrant
- Liquimetal Coating
- Memnarch
- Mycosynth Lattice
- Myr Landshaper
- Neurok Transmuter
- Phyrexian Metamorph
- Silverskin Armor
- Thran Forge
- Transmogrifying Licid
- Xathrid Gorgon
References
- ↑ Magic Arcana (June 17, 2004). "The animating principle". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (June 5, 2017). "Mechanical Color Pie 2017". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.
- ↑ Mark Rosewater (November 27, 2017). "Unstable Scraps, Part 1". magicthegathering.com. Wizards of the Coast.