Image courtesy of Scryfall.com
Templating Tricks in a Saga-Driven World
Spellcraft in Magic: The Gathering is as much about how a card’s text is written as it is about what it does on the battlefield 🧙♂️. When you sit down with The Many Deeds of Belzenlok, a black rarity from Mystery Booster 2, you’re not just assembling a deck—you’re solving a puzzle of language. The card’s templating leans into a familiar but sometimes slippery mechanic: copying the effects of other Sagas’ chapters. It’s a beautiful showcase of how templating can guide understanding while inviting players to test the limits of rules interactions 🔥💎.
Templating in MTG is the craft of using consistent phrasing to convey complex ideas quickly. Standardized chunks like “I — [effect], II — [effect], III — [effect]” appear across Saga cards, building a shared mental model for players. This predictability helps veterans read a new Saga and instantly grok what’s coming—often without rereading every word. But this same pattern can trip newcomers who aren’t yet fluent in how a Saga’s chapters resolve across turns. The Many Deeds of Belzenlok deliberately leans into that duality: it mirrors other Sagas so you can recognize the pattern, and at the same time it stretches that pattern by introducing a meta-layer—copying the chapter abilities of other Saga cards exiled from the graveyard 🧙♂️.
What the card does, in plain terms
- I — Exile up to one target Saga card from a graveyard. Copy its chapter I ability.
- II — Exile up to one target Saga card from a graveyard. Copy its chapter II ability.
- III — Exile up to one target Saga card from a graveyard. Copy its chapter III ability.
That structure demonstrates both the power and the risk of templating. The card is a two-mana color-black enchantment—rare and from a Masters-set lineage (Mystery Booster 2). Its design invites you to lean on graveyard recursion and to plan ahead for multiple exiles and copies, not just a single spell-and-saga interaction. The text whispers: you’ll trade tempo for recursion, but every echo of a chapter can magnify your late-game inevitability ⚔️🎲.
How templating shapes strategic understanding
First, templating creates a cognitive shortcut. If you’ve played with Sagas before, you know to expect chapter-based rewards and-of-penalties. The Many Deeds of Belzenlok injects a meta-layer: you’re not copying a single saga’s effect, you’re inviting the copy-paste nature of saga design to occur across graves and libraries. That’s a mental model shift that makes players ask: which Sagas are in my graveyard, and which chapter abilities am I trying to repeat or amplify? The templating nudges you toward looking for strong, memorable chapter effects you can clone—think of chapters that spawn blockers, card draw, or game-ending effects. The ability to copy three separate chapters, one per turn, also creates a tempo-narrative where the board state can swing dramatically as soon as you start exiling and duplicating 🔥💎.
Second, the card highlights the importance of timing and target selection. “Exile up to one target Saga card from a graveyard” is a flexible directive. You’re not forced to exile something every turn; you’re choosing targets to maximize the value of the copied chapter. This is where templating becomes a teachable moment: the same template yields different results depending on the player’s deckbuilding and the battlefield’s state. The decision trees are rich—do you exile a Saga that has already resolved its most potent chapter, or do you shore up a looming threat in the graveyard? The ability to choose “up to one” adds a layer of upgrade/downgrade choice that makes players think in terms of risk management rather than a mere spell cast. It’s templating in action, teaching players to anticipate multiple outcomes from a single pattern 🧙♂️.
Practical gameplay angles for Belzenlok
- Graveyard setup: The card rewards you for having a diverse pool of Sagas already in exile or anticipation, since you’ll copy their chapters later. This encourages a deck that curates a small Saga library and a method to fetch them when needed 🧭.
- Chorus of copies: Each chapter you copy can amplify an already strong effect. Thoughtful sequencing lets you squeeze out extra value over multiple turns, turning a modest start into late-game inevitability ⚔️.
- Resource economy: Exiling from a graveyard isn’t free—plan your plays so that the sacrificed Sagas and the copied abilities give you a net gain in card quality or battlefield control. The templated copy mechanism rewards thoughtful investment rather than a one-shot payoff 🎨.
- Commander consideration: This card sits in the “not legal for Commander” column, but its templating elegance informs how commanders and other long-term strategies can leverage consistent chapter-based patterns in a broader MTG context. Even if you don’t play it in Commander, the design philosophy is instructive for any long-game build 🧙♂️.
Lore, art, and the collector’s eye
The Many Deeds of Belzenlok travels beyond raw mechanics into the lore-laden corners of Innistrad. Belzenlok is a demon lord whose lair is stuffed with schemes and secrets—a perfect canvas for a card that collects “many deeds” and makes them echo back through time via copied chapters. The art by Maru Ferreira captures that ominous, ink-black aura with a sense of malevolent calculation. In Mystery Booster 2, a set celebrated for its playful but potent reprints, this rare stands out not just for power but for the storytelling thread it weaves through the Saga ecosystem. For collectors, the mb2 print runs are a reminder that reprints can carry new life in different play environments, even when the card mechanics themselves feel both familiar and thrillingly strange 🧙♂️🎨.
From a price perspective, the card sits in a comfortable spot for entry into more niche Sagas collectors, with price points around the low tens of cents, making it accessible for budget builds and curious onlookers alike. The edition’s non-foil finish and master-set lineage emphasize gameplay ideas over flash value, inviting players to appreciate the templating craft rather than chase rare book-ends ⚖️💎.
Design takeaways for future templating work
- Consistency invites comprehension: Using a uniform chapter template across Sagas helps players quickly parse new cards and integrate them into existing strategies.
- Empower multiple outcomes: Allowing “up to” targets and copying repeated chapters can create dynamic, branching plays that reward careful planning.
- Blend lore with rules: A templated design isn’t just about text—it's a narrative tool that deepens immersion when the card’s flavor aligns with its mechanics.
For fans who adore the quiet thrill of recognizing a familiar pattern and then watching it echo into the future, The Many Deeds of Belzenlok is a study in templating at its best. It invites you to read the board like a spellbook, to plan for exiled chapters, and to relish the cascade of copied effects that can turn the tide when the saga finally concludes its third chapter 🔥🎲.
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