Some cards in Magic: the Gathering give you access to your sideboard, even though those sideboard cards aren’t technically inside the game. Karn, the Great Creator, is a planeswalker with a version of this ability that lets you add artifacts from your sideboard directly to your hand. This is insanely powerful and is why players use Karn in a variety of formats. Now, Karn, the Great Creator, is rising in price.
Karn, the Great Creator
As you can see in the graph below, Karn, the Great Creator, recently jumped from about $10.00 to $16.00. Karn’s price oscillated a lot since its release. At one point, it was as cheap as $6.00, but its consistent use across Magic formats should keep prices high.
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Why Did Karn, the Great Creator Rise in Price?
Nearly every Magic format uses Karn, including Pioneer, Modern, and Commander. It’s even a force to reckon with in Legacy and Vintage. Karn, the Great Creator, has become a multi-format staple and this explains its upwards price movement.
A more recent deck that uses Karn and exploded in popularity, is Mono-Green Ramp in Pioneer. This deck produces enough mana to easily cast Karn and the card you find out of your sideboard in the same turn.
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What Does Karn’s Typical Wishboard Look Like?
Access cards from one’s sideboard is commonly referred to as “wishing” in MTG, named after the card
Burning Wish
Burning Wish
You may reveal a sorcery card you own from outside the game and put it into your hand. Exile Burning Wish.
. Because of this, the sideboards in such decks are nicknamed “wishboards”.
Karn’s wishboard consists of a variety of artifacts, fit for a multitude of situations. But depending on the format, Karn uses different artifacts.
Pioneer
I always include a Treasure Vault or
Darksteel Citadel
Darksteel Citadel
Indestructible
{T}: Add {C}.
in my Karn wishboard because you never know when you need an extra land.
Tormad’s Crypt is useful as it is zero mana, meaning you can cast it on the same turn you cast Karn, the Great Creator, to immediately exile an opponent’s graveyard.
And Grafdigger’s Cage is useful for fighting off certain graveyard strategies using
Prized Amalgam
Prized Amalgam
Whenever a creature enters, if it entered from your graveyard or you cast it from your graveyard, return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped at the beginning of the next end step.
or
Silversmote Ghoul
Silversmote Ghoul
At the beginning of your end step, if you gained 3 or more life this turn, return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield tapped.
{1}{B}, Sacrifice this creature: Draw a card.
, and it even prevents
Collected Company
Collected Company
Look at the top six cards of your library. Put up to two creature cards with mana value 3 or less from among them onto the battlefield. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
from working.
Skysovereign, Consul Flagship, is a rather difficult card for opponents to deal with and it blasts away opposing creatures and planeswalkers turn after turn.
Pithing Needle can stop any planeswalker from activating its abilities. But it also hits popular cards in Pioneer such as
Reflection of Kiki-Jiki
Reflection of Kiki-Jiki
(As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter.)
I — Create a 2/2 red Goblin Shaman creature token with "Whenever this token attacks, create a Treasure token."
II — You may discard up to two cards. If you do, draw that many cards.
III — Exile this Saga, then return it to the battlefield transformed under your control.
.
And Golos, Tireless Pilgrim, can be used to find specific, powerful lands such as
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
{T}: Add {C}.
{2}, {T}: Choose a color. Add an amount of mana of that color equal to your devotion to that color. (Your devotion to a color is the number of mana symbols of that color in the mana costs of permanents you control.)
, as seen in Pioneer’s Mono-Green Ramp deck.
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Modern
A lot of the Karn’s wish board from Pioneer translates over to Modern too. But because Modern has a larger card pool, Karn has access to a few more toys to wish for.
Engineered Explosives is like a miniature board wipe, perfect for taking out tokens or one-mana permanents.
Wurmcoil Engine is good at stopping aggressive decks in their tracks. It’s difficult to kill and can gain big chunks of life at a time.
And Torpor Orb renders many of Modern’s most popular creatures useless, such as
Solitude
Solitude
Flash
Lifelink
When this creature enters, exile up to one other target creature. That creature's controller gains life equal to its power.
Evoke—Exile a white card from your hand.
and
Fury
Fury
Double strike
When this creature enters, it deals 4 damage divided as you choose among any number of target creatures and/or planeswalkers.
Evoke—Exile a red card from your hand.
.
Relic of Progenitus is a flexible form of graveyard hate, as you can make your opponent exile one card at a time, or you can exile all graveyards at once and draw a card.
Ensnaring Bridge is an excellent way to stave off an opponent’s creatures, protecting Karn and your life total in the process.
And Trinisphere taxes opponents who aim to play tons of low-costed spells in a turn, such as Storm decks.
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