MTG’s new Doppelgang card doubles up on power and fun

Move over, Clone Legion! MTG has a new way to generate an army of duplicates, and it may well end up as one of the best cards of 2024.

The excellently-named Doppelgang is a new UG (blue and green) card in Magic: The Gathering that allows players to pay an amount of mana of their choice to create an increasing number of copies of an increasing number of creatures.

If players have the mana to spare, Doppelgang can turn just a few beaters into an impossibly imposing force that can close out games in an instant.

Why Doppelgang is so good in MTG

WOTC

Doppelgang is the latest in a powerful subset of MTG options; X-cost spells. When ‘X’ is present in a card’s mana value, the amount of additional mana that a player can pay to cast it is variable, with more mana inevitably leading to a more powerful effect. In decks that have access to an abundance of mana, X-costs can be pumped up to truly ridiculous levels.

Doppelgang’s three ‘X’s means that – as a player sets the value of ‘X’, the mana paid needs to go up in multiples of 3 to have an additional effect. While this is a steep cost to pay, it’s well worth doing to multiply as many of your creatures as you can, as many times as you can.

MTG fans react to Doppelgang

Doppelgang is already going down great with MTG players, many of whom simply can’t resist this style of high-cost, high-reward spell.

In a response to the card’s reveal, Reddit commenter KoyoyomiAragi stated:

“8, 11, 14+ mana is a lot but the reward is pretty high”.

Reddit user chrsjxn also got in on the fun and had this to say:

“This card is going to be absolutely stupid in Commander. And absolutely stupid (but in a different way) everywhere else. I love it.”

Commanders like Rowan, Scion of War, and Zaxara, the Exemplary show the enduring popularity of X-cost cards in MTG, and Doppelgang is an incredible new addition to this particular arsenal. Decks with access to a bunch of mana, creature-focused strategies, and token-generators should all keep an eye out for this new finisher option when Murders at Karlov Manor launches on February 9.

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