Illusionary Mask
Artifact
: You may choose a creature card in your hand whose mana cost could be paid by some amount of, or all of, the mana you spent on . If you do, you may cast that card face down as a 2/2 creature spell without paying its mana cost. If the creature that spell becomes as it resolves has not been turned face up and would assign or deal damage, be dealt damage, or become tapped, instead it's turned face up and assigns or deals damage, is dealt damage, or becomes tapped. Activate only as a sorcery.
- CMC
- 2
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- C
- Rarity
- rare
- Set
- 30th Anniversary Edition
- Price
- —
- EDHREC rank
- #24450
Illusionary Mask lets you pay any amount of colorless mana to put a creature into play face-down, hiding its identity until it attacks, blocks, or you choose to reveal it — a uniquely disruptive effect that no other card replicates. The catch is a two-mana artifact with notoriously arcane wording that has a genuine combo ceiling, most famously with Crackdown Construct, which becomes arbitrarily large from the zero-cost activations.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | not legal |
| pioneer | not legal |
| standard | not legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | not legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
Illusionary Mask is legal in Commander, Legacy, Vintage, and Oathbreaker, and that's realistically the full scope of where it sees play. In Commander it earns its slot either as a combo piece or as a unique disruption tool that hides your threats until the moment of your choosing. Legacy and Vintage have the raw power level to support it in dedicated builds, but the formats' speed means the setup cost is steep and the card sees only fringe play. Oathbreaker functions similarly to Commander here — Illusionary Mask is a niche inclusion that rewards knowing exactly what you're doing with it.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Crackdown ConstructIllusionary Mask
Infinitely large creature until end of turn
View on Commander Spellbook ↗Price Context
Current price
unknown tier
Current pricing data for Illusionary Mask isn't available in our system, and as an old, reserved-list card with a narrow but devoted audience it can swing significantly depending on supply. Check Scryfall or TCGPlayer for current copies — reserved-list status means no reprints are coming, so the floor is historically resistant to the kind of crash you'd see from a reprint announcement.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.