Freerunning in MTG: Rules, History, and Best Cards

Last updated on July 17, 2024

Ezio Auditore da Firenze | Illustration by Alexander Gering

]The Universes Beyond crossovers have brought many interesting mechanics to Magic. These mechanics are designed to capture the flavor of whatever property MTG is crossing over with.

Some of them are riffs on old favorites, like all the time traveling cards in the Doctor Who set that worked with suspend and vanishing. Others are more unique, like the mechanic that came with the Beyond boosters : freerunning!

But how does this MTG mechanic work, and what freerunning cards should you eye for your Commander decks? Let’s break it all down!

How Does Freerunning Work?

Hidden Blade | Illustration by LJ Koh

Freerunning is an alternative cost you can pay if an assassin or commander you control dealt combat damage to a player this turn. The freerunning cost is often cheaper than the spell’s regular casting cost, rewarding your combat damage with a cheaper spell.

You can only cast a spell with freerunning during a turn you dealt combat damage with an assassin or commander; dealing it the previous turn doesn’t count.

The damage dealt must be combat damage–that is, damage dealt by an attacking creature in the combat phase. If your commander is Niv-Mizzet, Parun, you can only cast spells for their freerunning cost if the big dragon attacked and dealt combat damage. Pinging your opponent and dealing direct damage doesn’t count.

The History of Freerunning in MTG

Freerunning was introduced in 2024 with the Assassin’s Creed Universes Beyond set. This set introduced 13 cards with the freerunning mechanic.

In the Assassin’s Creed video game series, freerunning is the term for the acrobatic maneuvers the Brotherhood trains its assassins to use—all the flips, leaps, and climbing techniques they employ. The mechanic captures this idea in its cost reduction. It captures the idea that freerunning allows the trained to move faster and more nimbly than the average civilian, who you would need to pay full cost for.

Given that the mechanic has strong ties to the Assassin’s Creed franchise, we won’t likely see it reprinted in regular Magic sets. These might be all the freerunning cards we ever see, especially if the licensing agreements between WotC and Ubisoft require some form of mechanical exclusivity.

Is Freerunning an Alternative Cost?

Yes! Freerunning is an alternative cost that can only be paid under specific circumstances as we’ve seen from the prowl and spectacle mechanics.

Do You Have to Cast a Card for Its Freerunning Cost?

No. Even if you’ve dealt combat damage with an assassin or commander, you can still cast a card for its regular mana cost. Freerunning lets you choose between the regular mana cost or the alternative.

Does Freerunning Change a Card’s Mana Value?

No. Regardless of how much mana you pay for a spell, its mana value and cost remain unchanged.

If I cast Achilles Davenport for its freerunning cost, it would still be considered a 4 mana value spell on the stack and the battlefield. For example, you could still counter it with Disdainful Stroke.

Does Freerunning Work in Legacy?

Yes. Cards from Universes Beyond expansion sets are legal in Legacy, so you can put cards with freerunning into your deck. Since the Legacy format does not have commanders, you can only enable the mechanic by dealing combat damage with assassins.

Freerunning vs. Spectacle

Freerunning and spectacle are very similar mechanics; both give spells an alternative cost contingent on damaging your opponents. The primary difference comes from the requirement. Freerunning requires combat damage dealt by assassins or commanders while spectacle costs only require that an opponent lost life. The latter includes combat damage as well as noncombat damage and life loss from cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel. This makes spectacle substantially easier to enable than freerunning.

Freerunning vs. Prowl

Freerunning and prowl share some similarities as both mechanics care about creatures of a certain type dealing combat damage to enable their alternative cost. The primary difference comes from the requirement. Prowl spells are kindred spells that need a creature that shares a creature type with them to work whereas freerunning cards don’t need to share a type, which opens the new mechanic to more design space. That, plus freerunning getting enabled by non-assassin commanders, makes it significantly more flexible than prowl.

Gallery and List of Freerunning Cards

• Achilles Davenport
• Brotherhood Ambushers
• Chain Assassination
• Distract the Guards
• Eagle Vision
• Escape Detection
• Ezio Auditore da Firenze
• Merciless Harlequin
• Monastery Raid
• Overpowering Attack
• Petty Larceny
• Restart Sequence
• Viewpoint Synchronization

Best Freerunning Cards

Chain Assassination

Chain Assassination interests me. You need to jump through a couple of hoops to reach this black instant‘s full potential, but 2 mana to kill a creature and draw a card is a fantastic rate. It doesn’t care who controlled the creature that died, so I could see this working in aggressively-slanted sacrifice strategies.

Eagle Vision

I wouldn’t play Eagle Vision in decks that can’t routinely enable freerunning, but drawing three cards for with this blue sorcery is an amazing rate.

Escape Detection

Repulse isn’t the strongest card in the world and Escape Detection is harder to cast. But the freerunning cost looks strong. Free spells are good spells and if you bounce a blue creature with a strong ETB, this blue instant could feel like a draw-two.

Monastery Raid

Many decks these days care about impulse draws. A Divination with the alternate mode of drawing a bunch of cards looks pretty powerful. Monastery Raid can help cast-from-exile-decks like Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald set up a big finishing turn.

Restart Sequence

Your average reanimator spell costs 5 mana, so Restart Sequence starts strong. The freerunning cost is an absolute steal for this reanimation effect, so I imagine this black sorcery has a lot of potential.

Overpowering Attack

Overpowering Attack has the most potential out of all the freerunning cards. Five mana is a reasonable rate for an extra combat spell and this costs 2 less some amount of the time. It works well with aggressive extra combat commanders like Otharri, Suns' Glory and Isshin, Two Heavens as One.

Decklist: Freerunning Assassins in Commander

Ezio Auditore da Firenze | Illustration by Fajareka Setiawan

This EDH deck puts the new 5-color commander Ezio Auditore da Firenze in the command zone for a 5-color assassin typal brew. Ezio—at least, this version—will undoubtedly be the premiere freerunning commander, and overall it's among the best commanders from Assassin's Creed and one of the strongest assassin commanders.

This deck keeps a low curve, though we have some big assassins to cheat into play like Thraximundar and Vein Ripper. All the assassins get a boost from typal synergies. Some of these are generally good typal cards like Kindred Discovery, but the archetype has some specific support.

Some of this support comes from the Assassin’s Creed set, like Ezio, Blade of Vengeance and Achilles Davenport, but we also get cards like Etrata, Deadly Fugitive and Mari, the Killing Quill to back our assassins with card advantage.

The deck can even sneak off with some alternative win conditions through cards like Etrata, the Silencer and Ramses, Assassin Lord, as well as Ezio’s activated ability, so your opponents need to stay on their toes—they can never know when you’ll get them.

Wrap Up

Rest in Peace | Illustration by Rimas Valeikis

Freerunning looks like an interesting mechanic. I appreciate that you can enable it with assassins or commanders, which allows more decks to utilize these cards than a narrow typal strategy. I imagine some of the stronger freerunning cards won’t bother with assassins at all.

What do you think of freerunning? Did it capture the flavor of the video game mechanic, or do you wish R&D had taken a different approach? Let me know in the comments below or in the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe and keep freerunning!