Hello there (there there there)! Today I'll be reviewing another rarely used, aged mechanic from Magic's history (history history history). Can you guess what it is (is is is)?

Allow me to introduce the mechanic by showcasing a card with the ability: Herald of Serra.

I'm not talking about Vigilance (i.e., "Attacking does not cause Herald of Serra to tap"). I'm certainly not talking about Flying. Of course, the keyword I want to spotlight in this week's article is none other than Echo (echo echo echo)!

How Does Echo Work?

There's a little bit of nuance to the Echo keyword ability, but once you understand the premise, it is relatively straightforward. Essentially, Echo is a triggered ability that states, "At the beginning of your upkeep, if this permanent came under your control since the beginning of your last upkeep, sacrifice it unless you pay the Echo cost." Ninety-nine percent of the time, this means that the upkeep after you cast the card, you pay the Echo cost. It gets a little tricky if someone blinks or steals control of a card with Echo, but otherwise that's basically it.

When the keyword was first launched in Urza's Saga, cards were printed with Echo but no mentioned Echo cost. That's because originally, the Echo ability meant you always paid the casting cost of the card again. That's why Echo made sense as the name of the ability. Later on, when Wizards of the Coast explored Echo's design space a little further, they discovered the degrees of freedom asymmetric Echo costs provided. Urza's Saga block Echo cards have since been errata'd to explicitly state that their Echo cost is equal to their mana cost.

Paying for echo is always optional. When the triggered ability resolves at the beginning of your upkeep, the controller of the permanent decides whether they want to pay the Echo cost or sacrifice the permanent.

That's basically Echo in a nutshell! It's a fairly easy-to-understand mechanic. However, we don't see the keyword used very often, and Mark Rosewater has gone on record to state that Echo is an 8 on the Storm Scale, meaning the return of Echo to a Standard-legal set is unlikely, but possible if the stars align.

What's the Point of Echo?

Good question! I understand mechanically what Wizards of the Coast was trying to do with Echo. They wanted to create a suite of cards with more aggressive casting costs, and they needed a downside to provide sufficient balance. (Yes, Herald of Serra being a 3/4 Flying Vigilance creature for four mana was considered aggressive back in Urza's Saga).

The problem with Echo is rather flavorless in nature. How do you explain paying a second cost for summoning a creature the turn after it enters under your control? It doesn't make much sense, especially when examining the kinds of cards that were printed with Echo in the past. Mark Rosewater has gone as far to state, "The problem is the return of echo is unlikely as it's not a very popular mechanic. In general, players don't like downside mechanics unless they're especially flavorful, and echo is about as unflavorful as it gets."

Rosewater wrote this in an article about possible Future Sight reprints, and he was specifically referring to Deepcavern Imp, a creative creature card with "Discard a card" as the Echo cost. I thought the idea novel, and opened up design space for Echo even further by leveraging non-mana costs. Rosewater was right that the card was not destined for a Standard set reprint, but it did see reprints in both Modern Masters and Time Spiral Remastered.

Mechanically, this is a really cool design space. Flavor-wise, however, this kind of effect doesn't fit. Thus, while Echo has come back multiple times over the years and in multiple iterations, there still hasn't been a good place to bring the awkward, potentially unpopular mechanic back to Standard.

Noteworthy Echo Cards

Despite the lack of flavor Echo cards reputedly bring, there are a handful of cards with the keyword that have impacted Magic gameplay and deckbuilding over the years. Let's look at some of the headliners.

Karmic Guide

Arguably the most popular and powerful card with Echo of all time, Karmic Guide pushes the boundaries of gameplay by being a creature that reanimates another creature when it comes into play. Across Magic's 30+ year history, we've seen a multitude of ways to seek out Karmic Guide and sneak it into play on the cheap, which enables a reanimation of another creature right off the bat.

The result being Karmic Guide enabling all sorts of broken, infinite combos in Commander. This resource lists 92(!!) combos that leverage Karmic Guide, ranging from infinite tokens to infinite damage to infinite mana of any color. For example, Phyrexian Altar, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and Karmic Guide simultaneously on the battlefield means you can generate infinite mana, infinite tokens with haste, infinite enters triggers, and infinite death triggers instantaneously. Players can use their imaginations to ideate how to best take advantage of such a board state!

Funnily enough, Karmic Guide is so popular and powerful because it's a creature that Reanimates another creature. Echo has nothing to do with these combos--just a happy accident as far as the keyword is concerned.

Deranged Hermit

Deranged Hermit is another creature whose popularity has nothing to do with its Echo cost. Instead, Deranged Hermit is widely sought after and played for one simple reason: Squirrels!

For whatever reason, casual players have fallen in love with Squirrels and Deranged Hermit being a Squirrel Lord makes it quite popular! You'll find the Elf most often in a Chatterfang, Squirrel General Commander deck. When Deranged Hermit enters, you instantly get four 2/2 Squirrel creatures thanks to the bottom line of the card's rules text. If you can blink or re-buy Deranged Hermit in any way, you get four more tokens.

Add in something like Doubling Season, and you can see how the deck can become overwhelming in a hurry.

Stingscourger

What do you get when you cross a Goblin creature with Man-o'-War, and sprinkle a little Echo on top? The answer is Stingscourger, a color-pie bending Magic card that allows you to bounce a creature in Red for just two mana! Stingscourger does the bouncing that Man-o'-War does for one mana less despite being in a color not typically known for its bounce effects.

How is this enabled? It's thanks to Stingscourger's awkward 3R Echo cost! If you want to keep the Goblin Warrior around on subsequent turns, you have to pay an egregious 4 mana or else sacrifice it! I don't really understand the flavor here: a Goblin Warrior enters, scares an opponent's creature away, but then demands greater payment to stick around or else it dies? This is the flavor problem Mark Rosewater was talking about before...mechanically, Stingscourger is cleverly designed. Flavor wise, however, it makes no sense.

Honorable Mention: Thick-Skinned Goblin

There's currently only one card that interacts with Echo costs as a whole, and that's Thick-Skinned Goblin. This ugly, unassuming 2/1 creature grants its controller the ability to pay 0 rather than pay the echo cost for any permanents they control!

After reviewing some of the Echo costs of the cards I mentioned above, you can see how powerful this effect can become. Now instead of paying for an aggressively costed permanent a second time, you can simply pay 0 and ignore the major drawback. Suddenly Stingscourger now is straight-up better than Man-o'-War because it's a two mana 2/2 that bounces a creature, end of story. Uktabi Drake becomes a one mana 2/1 Flying, Haste creature with no drawback. Timbermare becomes a four mana 5/5 Haste creature that taps all other creatures when it comes into play.

You get the point. If you're thinking of building an Echo deck to relive a classic mechanic, you'll definitely want to include Thick-Skinned Goblin.

Wrapping It Up

Echo is one of my favorite classic mechanics from a gameplay standpoint. Placing the keyword on a card invites Wizards of the Coast to create aggressively costed cards with potential drawbacks along different vectors. You can pay more mana, discard cards, or allow your opponents to draw cards (see: Shah of Naar Isle) with Echo.

Cards that provide some sort of enter effect are especially interesting; they give you optionality to keep them around by paying the Echo cost, or you can simply let them die and extract value from their other ability. Then you have creatures like Mogg War Marshal, which give you a benefit upon entering and upon dying, providing yet another interesting decision point during the game.

Unfortunately, the benefits of Echo end there. Echo's lack of flavor means it's unlikely to appear in a Standard set anytime soon. I think it's difficult for Wizards of the Coast to explain why some creatures or artifacts have an Echo cost and others don't. This disconnect makes it rather uninspiring from a flavor standpoint. Combining lack of flavor with a drawback ability, and you have an equation that equals "unpopular."

Despite this, I'm glad Echo exists and that Wizards of the Coast continues to innovate with the mechanic in special sets. Echo has appeared as recently as in Modern Horizons 2, and this gives me hope that we'll see Echo on new cards again in the future.

It's almost guaranteed we'll see Echo again in some shape or form, and it will feel like an echo of the past.