Pointed Discussion

If you can make it unblockable somehow, then its an awesome card. But by itself, it isn't all that great or powerful.

Shadowmage Infiltrator, man!

original art! Cool stuff!

Always keep a full hand thanks to these!

Completely worthless ability unless you build a deck around it, and the Ophidian deck is and was sub-par. There are much, much better control finishers.

I loved some of the art that came out around Mirage and Visions. This is a great example.

I'm sad M11's Scroll Thief is poised to usurp Ophidian. As of this writing, check out Scroll Thief in the spoilers.

wow zero have remembered how good the forbidian deck was.it's 4 of these and then 4 forbids that's the main part of the deck make it your own from there

Aaron's Random Card Comment of the Day #33, 11/10/10

As a player, I learned a lot about how to win games from the card Ophidian. I was playing in PTQ's at the time the card was printed, although I wasn't very good, and was content playing mid-range creature decks that tried to with stuff like Wildfire Emissary and removal. Ophidian didn't look like a good creature to me.

I purchased a copy of Paul McCabe's 1997 Worlds deck (back when we still printed commemorative World Championship decks) because, well, it looked like a mid-range creature deck with a Wildfire Emissary. The deck had four Ophidians in it, and I wasn't sure why until I played a bunch of games. It felt like I was given private lessons on tempo and card advantage. All you had to do was use your bounce and removal to get your Ophidians through and you'd almost always inevitably win the game.

Since its printing, Ophidian has inspired a handful of other famous cards, most notably Thieving Magpie and Shadowmage Infitrator (the Invitational card of Pro Tour legend Jon Finkel, a long-time Ophidian fan). Note that both of those cards eschewed the tradeoff of damage for the card, which I think is absolutely the correct way to design these cards. Heck, if Ophidian let me damage my opponent instead of giving me a choice, the damage probably wouldn't have mattered in many games, and not because there shouldn't be tension in Magic, but it would have made this very fun card more obviously good.

Like Abyssal Gatekeeper, Ophidian is another slick Weatherlight common that I find kind of baffling that it wasn't reprinted in a core set at some point. I'm glad Jace vs. Chandra got to reprint this little Snake before Magic 2011's Scroll Thief came out, giving the 'Phid' one last chance to shine before it was finally obsoleted.

Or run both this AND Scroll Thief? Yay!

Its funny how cards are made these days you'd get you deal your damage and draw your card as well.

On that note, I've been upgrading my copies of the duel decks, by replacing cards with strictly better alternates.

If this is something you would like to try, I recommend Scroll Thief in this slot.


EDIT: Testing has shown this to be a bad idea. As none of the duel decks represent an ideally strong version of their deck archetype, but rather a perfectly honed metagame. The games I've managed to get Scroll Thief out, the minimal amount of damage it caused did in fact accumulate to enough to directly influence the game's outcome.

There is no point in runnning nit 4 Thiefs if you have 4 Slots reserved, at least if you want your Deck to be optimal. If there are other Considerations going on, disregard my comment.

I kinda liked the tradeoff of damage for the card, but the damages-based ability is always better. As already said, the Scroll Thief fixed it, and it's a pity that the original Ophidian designers didn't choose this way...

However, this is the prototype of my favourite "draw a card each turn" card. Unlike some other card so cheap, this card hasn't any drawback and, like Aaron_Forsythe said, "all you had to do was use your bounce and removal to get your Ophidians through". And since you're supposed to be a control you would do it anyways, so this actually doesn't need an evasion ability. That's probably why Thieving Magpie isn't as famous as this, because it costs {U} more for the flying, that isn't so useful. Shadowmage Infiltrator instead is perfect, but less comboable since requires combat damages.

For me, 4.5/5 (Scroll Thief is 5/5)

Nice card, lousy flavor. Though I suppose it fits something Biblical, the snake offering knowledge to Eve.

@bay_falconer: I didn't even realize what the flavor was until you pointed it out. Now it seems so obvious, I can't believe I didn't think of it on my own!

EDIT: but wtf's up with the heavy use of lace? & why does the snake's head look more like a fish's?

It's a snake! That draws you cards! And... apparently sneaks up to people's heads and turns them into tablecloth?!?

See my comment on Scroll Thief. I think you are looking at this the wrong way. This is a 'fix' that only makes Scroll Thief a dumber card than Ophidian.

I used 2 Scroll Thief AND 2 Ophidians, which fits perfect with my Mistblade Shinobis. This, or Bone Dancer with any ninja is lulz.

Well, it isn't Ohran Viper. It isn't green either, but I think the draw effect might be more appreciated there.

Shadowmage Infiltrator way better