Aethermage's Touch - A Magic the Gathering Card Review

by Phoenix Desertsong

Originally printed in Dissension,  Aethermage’s Touch  is a very curious instant. The very fact that it is an instant, however, is what makes it fairly valuable. At any point, you may pay 2UW (2, blue, white) to cast this card and reveal the top four cards of your deck. You may choose a creature card from among those four and put it onto the battlefield. At the beginning of your end step, you return that creature to its owner’s hand. Any other cards are put to the bottom of the deck in any order.

What’s especially good about this card is that you can play it during an opponent’s end step and be able to attack with it during your turn, all the while getting any enter the battlefield abilities. Combined with other cards, it can actually set off some interesting combos. In any case, that creature goes back to your hand at the end of your next end step, so you still get to keep it as long as it doesn’t die or isn’t exiled before then.

Aethermage’s Touch can allow you to toss an otherwise much more expensive creature onto the battlefield. If you find ways to reuse this card or its effect, it can be pretty valuable. The best way to abuse  Aethermage’s Touch is to be able to “blink” the creature that is summoned with its effect, meaning to remove it from play and have it return to play at the end step with a card like  Conjurer’s Closet  or the effect of  Venser, the Sojourner  or  Nephalia Smuggler. 

The card actually saw a bit of play during Ravnica Block constructed when Momentary Blink was in Standard, which doesn’t even wait until the End Step. So if you summon the right creature with Aethermage’s Touch, it can provide a ton of value if combined with “blink” cards. Used correctly, it’s a sweet little combo trick, but not quite as sweet in Commander as it was in its Standard heyday.

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