Magic: The Gathering has plenty of cards that make you look twice, but Mirror of Fate might be the king of the "Wait, what does that actually do?" pile. It’s a five-mana artifact from Magic 2010 that basically tells you to set your entire library on fire and replace it with a handful of scraps from the trash.
Most people see that and run.
Honestly, can you blame them? You're paying five mana for an artifact that, when cracked, exiles your entire library. You then get to pick seven face-up exiled cards you own and put them on top. If you don't have seven cards in exile, well, you’re just dead on your next draw step. It sounds like a fast track to losing. But for a specific breed of player, Mirror of Fate is the ultimate "Doomsday" engine for people who think the actual card Doomsday is too mainstream.
Mirror of Fate: Breaking Down the Rules
Let's look at the Oracle text. It costs 5 generic mana to cast. You tap it and sacrifice it to activate the ability. Then the magic—or the disaster—happens.
First, you choose up to seven face-up cards in exile. Note the face-up part. If you’ve used something like Pyxis of Pandemonium or Gonti, Lord of Luxury to exile cards face down, the Mirror can't see them. They're invisible. But standard exile? That’s fair game.
After you choose your seven cards, you exile your library. Then, you put those seven cards on top in any order. You don't even have to show your opponent what order they're in.
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One of the funniest things about this card is how it handles the "all" part. Since the library-exiling happens after you choose the cards from the "old" exile zone, those newly exiled library cards aren't available for the current Mirror activation. You can’t just loop the Mirror with itself in a single go without some serious copy-paste shenanigans.
Why Would Anyone Actually Play This?
The most common reason is Thassa's Oracle. Or Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. Basically, any card that says "You win if you have no cards left."
Mirror of Fate is a self-contained "delete button" for your deck. In a Commander game, if you have a way to draw a card at instant speed, you can crack the Mirror, exile your deck, put a single win-con on top, and just... win. It's a bit clunky at five mana, but in a colorless deck or something like Osgir, the Reconstructor, it’s a terrifyingly efficient way to end the game out of nowhere.
The Infinite Turn Loop
This is where things get really spicy. If you have a way to recur artifacts and an extra turn spell that exiles itself (like Temporal Mastery or Karn's Temporal Sundering), you can create a loop.
- Cast your extra turn spell. It goes to exile.
- Use Mirror of Fate.
- Pick the turn spell and some other junk to put back on top.
- Exile your library (which is mostly empty anyway).
- Take your extra turn, draw the turn spell, and repeat.
It's a "Monoblue Doomsday" pile that keeps you in a permanent state of "I'm about to lose but actually I'm winning." You've basically turned your exile pile into a second, better library.
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Competitive History and the "Jank" Factor
Mirror of Fate has never really been a Tier 1 powerhouse. It’s too slow for Modern and too weird for Legacy. But in the world of EDH (Commander), it’s a cult classic.
You’ll see it pop up in Muldrotha, the Gravetide lists because she can just keep casting it from the graveyard. It also shows up in Zirda, the Dawnwaker decks where the activation cost becomes a single mana.
There’s also a weirdly high-synergy interaction with cards that let you play things from exile. If you’re playing a deck that uses Food Chain or Eternal Scourge, your exile zone is basically just a second hand. Mirror of Fate just lets you curate that hand into a perfect seven-card stack.
Is It Worth Buying?
Right now, the card is dirt cheap. We’re talking under a dollar for a non-foil copy. Even the foils aren't exactly breaking the bank, usually sitting around five or six bucks.
Because it’s a rare from a core set that hasn’t seen a major reprint in ages, it’s the kind of card that could spike the moment some new "exile matters" commander gets printed. It’s a low-risk, high-weirdness investment.
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If you like winning games in ways that make your opponents call for a judge to explain the stack, this is your card. It’s not "good" in a traditional sense. It's an explosive, fragile, and absolutely hilarious puzzle box.
How to Win With Mirror of Fate Today
If you want to actually use this thing without just dying, you need a plan.
- Step 1: Get cards into exile early. Use Delve spells or cards like Relic of Progenitus.
- Step 2: Ensure you have a win-con in exile. This is vital. If Thassa's Oracle is in your graveyard, you're in trouble. Move it to exile first.
- Step 3: Have protection. Five mana is a lot. If someone hits this with a Krosan Grip in response to your activation, you might just exile your library and have nothing to put back.
- Step 4: Stack the deck. When you put those seven cards back, put the win-con on top, followed by protection (like a Counterspell), and then maybe a land or two just in case.
Honestly, the best part of playing Mirror of Fate isn't even winning. It's the look on your opponent's face when you sacrifice your entire deck and tell them you’re perfectly fine.
Next time you're brewing a deck that feels a bit too "solved," throw in a Mirror. It forces you to think three turns ahead about which cards are where, and it turns the exile zone from a graveyard-plus into a tactical resource.
To get started with your own Mirror of Fate combo, look for cards that exile themselves as a cost or effect—like Ugin's Nexus or Beacon of Immortality paired with a discard outlet. You want to build a small, high-quality exile pile before you ever touch the Mirror. Once you have your "perfect seven" in exile, the artifact becomes a one-card win condition that most players won't see coming until the library hits the side of the table.