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Mimic Vat
Artifact
rare
Imprint — Whenever a nontoken creature dies, you may exile that card. If you do, return each other card exiled with this artifact to its owner's graveyard. , : Create a token that's a copy of a card exiled with this artifact. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step.
Semantic Tags
Attacks quickly and deals damage efficiently. Includes haste, double strike, first strike, prowess, and cards that grant these.
Creates copies of creatures, permanents, or spells.
Benefits from creatures or permanents dying — death triggers, blood artist effects.
Exiles cards from graveyards or prevents graveyard interaction. Shuts down recursion, flashback, and graveyard-matters strategies.
Cares about cards in the graveyard, puts cards into the graveyard, or benefits from things dying.
A permanent with a repeatable activated ability that converts excess mana into value.
A card or token on the battlefield. See rule 110, “Permanents.”
Creates creature tokens, Treasure tokens, Food tokens, Clue tokens, or other token types.
Format Legality
Price history
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Printings (7)
| Set | Rarity | TCGplayer | Card Kingdom | Cardmarket |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Commander#115 | rare | · | · | · |
| New Capenna Commander#372 | rare | · | · | · |
| Commander 2020#246 | rare | · | · | · |
| The List#C19-219 | rare | · | · | · |
| Commander 2019#219 | rare | · | · | · |
| Commander 2018#209 | rare | · | · | · |
| Scars of Mirrodin#175 | rare | · | · | · |
Related Concepts
“Imprint” used to be a keyword ability. It is now an ability word and has no rules meaning. All cards printed with the imprint keyword have received errata in the Oracle card reference.
Related Rules
If an ability would produce one or more mana of an undefined type, it produces no mana instead.
Some abilities produce mana based on the type of mana another permanent or permanents “could produce.” The type of mana a permanent could produce at any time includes any type of mana that an ability of that permanent would produce if the ability were to resolve at that time, taking into account any applicable replacement effects in any possible order. Ignore whether any costs of the ability could or could not be paid. If that permanent wouldn’t produce any mana under these conditions, or no type of mana can be defined this way, there’s no type of mana it could produce.
To “tap [a permanent] for mana” is to activate a mana ability of that permanent that includes the {T} symbol in its activation cost. See rule 605, “Mana Abilities.”
An ability that triggers whenever a permanent “is tapped for mana” or is tapped for mana of a specified type triggers whenever such a mana ability resolves and produces mana or the specified type of mana.
A replacement effect that applies if a permanent “is tapped for mana” or tapped for mana of a specific type and/or amount modifies the mana production event while such an ability is resolving and producing mana or the specified type and/or amount of mana.
If an object’s enters-the-battlefield triggered ability or replacement effect refers to X, and the spell that became that object as it resolved had a value of X chosen for any of its costs, the value of X for that ability is the same as the value of X for that spell, although the value of X for that permanent is 0. This is an exception to rule 107.3i.
The tap symbol is {T}. The tap symbol in an activation cost means “Tap this permanent.” A permanent that’s already tapped can’t be tapped again to pay the cost. A creature’s activated ability with the tap symbol in its activation cost can’t be activated unless the creature has been under its controller’s control continuously since their most recent turn began. See rule 302.6.
The untap symbol is {Q}. The untap symbol in an activation cost means “Untap this permanent.” A permanent that’s already untapped can’t be untapped again to pay the cost. A creature’s activated ability with the untap symbol in its activation cost can’t be activated unless the creature has been under its controller’s control continuously since their most recent turn began. See rule 302.6.
Rulings
Any "enters" abilities of the exiled card will trigger when the token is put onto the battlefield. Any "as [this permanent] enters" or "[this permanent] enters with" abilities of the exiled card will also work.
If the exiled card has {X} in its mana cost (such as Protean Hydra), X is considered to be 0.
Exiling the card as the first ability resolves is optional. If you choose not to exile it, or you can't exile it because the card has somehow left the graveyard before the ability resolves, the ability simply doesn't do anything as it resolves. Any card currently exiled by Mimic Vat remains exiled.
If the token isn't exiled when the delayed triggered ability resolves (due to Stifle, perhaps), it remains on the battlefield indefinitely. It continues to have haste.
You may exile a noncreature card with Mimic Vat's first ability. For example, if a nontoken artifact that's become a creature is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, Mimic Vat's first ability triggers and you may exile that card.
The token is exiled at the beginning of the next end step regardless of who controls it at that time, whether the exiled card is still exiled at that time, or whether Mimic Vat is still on the battlefield at that time.
If multiple nontoken creatures are put into their owners' graveyards from the battlefield at the same time, the imprint ability will trigger that many times. You put the triggered abilities on the stack in any order, so you'll determine in which order they resolve. However, since exiling those cards is optional, and choosing to exile a card this way causes the previously exiled cards to return to their owners' graveyards, the order generally doesn't matter: You'll wind up with at most one of those cards exiled, and the rest will be in the appropriate graveyards.
You may activate the second ability even if no card has been exiled with Mimic Vat. If no card has been exiled with Mimic Vat by the time the ability resolves, no token will be created.
The imprint ability will trigger whenever a nontoken creature is put into any graveyard from the battlefield, not just your graveyard.
The token created by the second ability will be a copy of whatever card is exiled with Mimic Vat at the time the ability resolves. This might not be the same card that was exiled with Mimic Vat at the time the ability was activated. It also might not be a creature card.
If Mimic Vat's second ability is activated during a turn's end step, the token will be exiled at the beginning of the following turn's end step.
If the token is a copy of a noncreature card, it will still have haste, though that won't matter unless that token somehow becomes a creature.
If a melded permanent dies and triggers Mimic Vat's triggered ability, both of its component cards are exiled. As Mimic Vat's second ability resolves, its controller chooses one of those cards to make a token copy of.
If the creature that dies is an instant or sorcery card that's been manifested, Mimic Vat may have a nonpermanent card exiled. You can't create a token that's a copy of a nonpermanent card. No token is created in this case.